Page 37 of Homebound
She felt no pain in her foot. Hell, she could feel no feet under her as she flew into the darkness, heading for the City center and its perceived safety, passing more of the small clusters of people, of aliens, or together, fighting or talking or she didn’t know what. All she knew was that the Perali was giving chase. She heard his footsteps and his hacking, evil laughter, reminiscent of Number 34 only much, much more sinister. In her mind’s eye, the poor bitten man twitched and dropped on the ground, over and over on repeat.
Just as abruptly as the adrenaline had inundated her, it drained. And Gemma couldn’t run anymore. She couldn’t even walk. She dropped to the ground like a rock. Crawling, she wedged her body into a crevice in a stone wall surrounding a tall building and curbed her ragged breath. Closing her eyes, she tried to pray but words wouldn’t come. Her mind went blank like a newborn baby’s. She knew nothing around her, she existed in no particular place and time. She simply was, crammed into the crevice, cold, hurting, and afraid.
She had no idea how long she’d spent in her hiding place, stuck into the hard rock like a cork into the bottle neck. Eventually, her cramped muscles screamed for release reminding her that she was still very much alive. And hungry - her stomach turned and squeezed, demanding sustenance.
Cautiously, she peeked out.
No one was near.
The darkness became very still and quiet, and the absence of people on the street could only mean that it had grown too late. The curfew had started.
She got out with great difficulty and stretched her sore muscles. Her clothes were damp and the air felt colder.
She started toward home hoping a sweeper wasn’t going to patrol this street just yet.
But her luck had held rotten all evening.
She’d heard it before she saw it, a clanging, chuffing metal contraption resembling a dwarf grain holder made out of cast iron and mounted on small rubber-less wheels, with antennas and blinking lights. The City released a slew of them onto the streets every night to enforce the curfew. They rolled along the scheduled routes sending out “feelers,” the tentacles of energy that reached far and wide detecting movement and body heat. Once detected, the sweeper pulled the violators toward its metal body and kept them prisoners with the electric force field until the militant patrol came and released them after charging them with a fine.
Gemma’s body tingled from a feeler hitting her. She instinctively resisted the pull and the punishing zap made her yelp.
Resigned, she made her way to the sweeper, now a prisoner for the night. Approaching the home base, she peered into the darkness with apprehension. She’d heard that sometimes a group of violators could get quite eclectic. Rabid dogs got pulled in. Crazy people. Criminals. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing, for example, her Perali attacker among this evening’s catch.
Only one person was silhouetted next to the sweeper, and on approach, Gemma saw it was a young girl shivering in her threadbare sweater.
“Hi,” Gemma greeted her.
“Hi,” the girl responded shyly, teeth chattering.
“Been here a while?”
The girl nodded and rubbed her arms. “My brother and I got separated in a street fight, and I got lost. And then this.”
Gemma smiled. “Looks like both of us have had a crappy night.”
“So it does,” the girl said with mature understanding.
Upon closer inspection, she wasn’t that young. Maybe around nineteen or twenty but very thin and with a fragile appearance of someone who grew up malnourished. She looked like a typical migrant from West Plains - clothes shabby, hair unwashed, destitute. Gemma wondered if she had a roof over her head at night.
“Have you been in the City long?” Gemma asked.
“No, just a few months,” the girl admitted, a little embarrassed. “I know we’re not welcome here. I wish we could stay at home in the Plains. But we don’t have a home anymore. They burned it.”
“I am sorry.” Gemma knew the pain of losing a home and of feeling unwelcome. “Did aliens burn it?”
“Yes. I hate aliens. They are very bad for people.”
“You mean, Perali?”
“Others, too, but especially Perali. There are so many of them here in the City, I hadn’t realized…”
They lapsed into silence and trailed after the sweeper.
Unable to hold herself upright any longer, Gemma put her hand against the metal side of the robot for support. It moved along very slowly, the only saving grace for her ailing ankle. Noticing her injury, the girl sidled closer.
“Lean on me.” Reading Gemma’s startled expression, she smiled endearingly revealing small, widely spaced teeth. “That’s alright, go on. You don’t look very heavy.”
“I am heavier than I look,” Gemma said dubiously.
