The Mountain (Ch. 1)

The Mountain looked as it always did. That is, it looked totally different today than it did yesterday and the day before that. Sure, it was the same patchwork mess, but something about it had changed, something had shifted. 

 

Nonetheless, Tyler climbed around it, heavy duty gloves that came up to his elbows on as he did so. His boots came up almost to his knees, and his jeans were tucked into the boots. Where his jeans were torn, duct tape covered the holes. Duct tape on both sides. He’d learned the hard way only doing one side ended badly, specifically with a missing patch of hair. He’d been a dumb little kid. Then again, most people were rather dumb at that time in their life. 

 

He thought of his sister and how she was about that age. She had a small collection of stuffed animals--bunnies, dogs, cats, an elephant, and a zebra--that adorned her bed and he’d glued various shiny things to her wall trying to please her. Today he had a hunk of quartz in her pocket he’d wash up and give to her. He’d found a metal star, but it had been mostly rusted, same with the license plate with the bucking horse on it he’d figured she might’ve liked. 

 

He sighed to himself and looked into his basket. He had a dozen Curtain shirts of various sizes with various stains and rips, a heavily stained onesie, an empty and dirty plastic jug, a glass beer bottle, and a wind-up watch with a broken face. He figured Doc maybe could do something with the last thing, and the other things might be useful. Donna could give the clothes a good wash and sew up the tears. The jug and the beer bottle were useful. 

 

It was difficult to find useful things. He looked around at his feet. There was a striped couch cushion rotting and smelling of cat piss, a ripped up gardening hose, filth and muck, a decomposing wicker basket, and a broken wooden chair. He walked over the cushion to get to the chair and he took the three legs already broken off, then used the hammer at his belt to get the rest of the wood. He left the seat and rusty nails behind. 

 

“Ty, you got anything?”

 

He looked over to see Natasha. Golden skin with scars and callouses on the hands and feet, sun-highlighted brown hair that fell wavy and tangled to her mid back, brown eyes with amber flecks. Bushy eyebrows, high cheekbones, and a large mouth with a sharp tongue inside. Today she wore a butcher’s apron over a red heather Curtain t-shirt and corduroy pants. She was squinting at him, even under the brim of her sunhat. 

 

“Some clothes, a plastic container, a glass container, a wind-up watch, and some wood,” he responded.

 

“Closures for those containers?”

 

“Negative.”

 

“Does the watch work?”

 

“Unknown.”

 

“Do you ever get bored of wearing the same clothes?”

 

He paused. “What?”

 

“You always wear those mud-stained jeans of yours and that red-checkered shirt. You have some of the worst sweat stains on that shirt by the way.”

 

“They’re my work clothes.”

 

“I’ve never seen you wear anything else.”

 

“You’ve seen me in a blue shirt once.”

 

Natasha cocked her head and brushed her hair out of her face. “I suppose so.”

 

“What have you found?”

 

“Uh, not much. Plastic baby doll pieces, an old pickle jar with a closure, and a kitchen knife blade.”

 

Baby doll pieces? 

 

What use could they have? “Just the blade?”

 

“No, it came with a rotting wood handle, but I slipped it out. Only a couple of rust spots!”

 

“Good work.” 

 

He nodded in approval. He yawned and his stomach rumbled. 

 

“Is it break time yet?” he asked.

 

“No. Slow your roll. Have you drank all your water yet?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then it’s not break time. Why do you ask me every day when it’s break time? You always finish your water right before break time because your body’s smarter than your mind. Also, the sun moves in the sky. Watch it. Or the length of shadows. Whatever.”

 

“Thanks, Natasha.”

 

“Don’t mention it, dumbass.”

 

He smiled, and then he turned back to the work at hand. He walked around the side of the Mountain and he looked up at the top. A sun-beaten red-and-white plastic chair sat at the top like some godforsaken throne and he’d always wanted to snatch it. He’d never risked climbing that high. The Mountain was too prone to shifts to make it worth it. So instead he stayed in the sludge and rat crap that congealed at the bottom and picked around. 

 

He shook his head and then he caught sight of a metal gleam. It looked like the end of a baseball bat. He reached in and grabbed it. Some paper trash fluttered down as he pulled the baseball bat and he felt sort of like King Arthur. Unfortunately, the baseball bat ended in a rust-chewed jagged edge. He shrugged. Maybe it could be useful. He wasn’t about to carry it with him, though. He’d ask at break time if it was worth it. He leaned it back against the Mountain and looked at the paper trash. Popcorn bags. Laminated book pages or whatever. What looked to be a book minus its cover, yellowed and even browning like the inside of an overripe pear, wrapped in plastic wrap. He couldn’t make out many words, but the words he could make out he didn’t understand. He picked it up, anyway, and put it in the basket. Doc always said to grab books if they found them, even if they were in pretty bad shape. He then grabbed the laminated book pages or whatever, too, just in case. It looked like it was written in some odd language that involved a lot of percentages, but whatever. Maybe Doc would figure it out.

 

“Oh, damn it,” Natasha said. 

 

He froze. “Are you okay, Natie?” 

 

“We’ve got a live one, Ty.”

 

He sighed. Of course. He looked ahead, at the rows and rows of rust-bucket cars and SUVs and thought about his life before now. He remembered watching brightly colored blobs dance and sing on TV, his mother cutting up spaghetti, and his dad yelling and shouting about stuff that made no sense. He remembered Natie, the next door neighbor’s girl, and how she’d dressed up as an angel for that one Halloween and how the rest of the time she liked to pretend to be a dog. 

 

“I’m coming,” he said.

 

“I can take care of it,” she grumbled, words barely reaching his ears.

 

He knew she didn’t like taking care of it, so he walked back over to her. He put her sunhat over her face and then drew his pistol. 

 

He looked at the live one. It looked to be an old homeless man, a man with dead white eyes and froth at his mouth.

 

“Rabies?” Tyler pondered.

 

“Probably,” Natasha said, voice muffled by the hat. “We just killed the last dog around here a week ago, and it was infected.”

 

“Poor bastard,” Ty commented. 

 

He aimed and fired. A hole opened in the old man’s head and he went down like a sack of cabbages.

 

Natasha winced at his side. He rubbed her arm with his free hand as he put the pistol back in his belt, right by the hammer.

 

“We should go back and explain that shot before a rescue party comes.”

 

“Shouldn’t we bury him?” she asked.

 

“Natie, you know they’ll burn him eventually. Come on.”

 

“All right, dumbass.” She paused. “There’s nothing wrong with a little sentiment.”

 

“Everybody knows that, Natie.” 

 

He pulled at her arm, and she followed.