Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Children of the Pebble ❯ Shelter from the Storm ( Chapter 1 )

Children of the Pebble

By “Clinesterton Beademung”, with all of love.

 

Disclaimer: “Trigun” © its respective creators and owners. I do this for fun, not profit. So there.

 

Comments and criticism welcome.

clinesterton_beademung—at—hotmail—dot—com

 

Chapter One - Shelter From the Storm

“Meter's running, miss.”

No razor wire fence ringed the property. No steely-eyed guards carried heavy weapons and walked the outer walls. No moat full of stakes barred the way to the front door.

It's only a house, Meryl thought.

“Miss?”

The nearest pay phone was half an ile away at the post and telegraph office. Fatigue turned a half-ile into ten. She'd have a long walk to call another cab if she changed her mind.

A short honk jarred Meryl from her reverie. Through her flush of anger it occurred to her that her driver must have something better to do besides cool his heels on her dee-dime. There was no sense in going broke just standing here, exhausted and sweating like a hard-ridden thomas. Meryl lowered her luggage to the sidewalk. At the driver's door she fished through a cloak pocket for her cash. She handed over a ten double dollar bill.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, sir.” Her money vanished into the driver's vest pocket.

“Most folks like to get where they're going.” He made a check mark on a clipboard. “Good afternoon to you.” The taxi's tires squealed as it turned in the cul-de-sac and disappeared into the neighborhood maze.

Cul-de-sac. Dead end. How appropriate.

The home her parents had built was a two story suburban manor of pink adobe surrounded by raked gray gravel. Pale curtains shrouded the façade's four windows, two on the first floor, two on the second. An evaporative cooler hummed on the flat roof. The red flagstone path she'd helped Father build when she was thirteen led to a narrow clay-tiled portico over the white screen door. The walk to the post office didn't seem all that long by comparison.

A ribbon of concrete passed the side of the house and led to an open garage. A sky blue convertible, low and sleek, shared the edifice with a late-model utility jeep the color of every year and every environment it had ever endured.

Meryl sniffed the air and smelled only dust. If Mother was home, she wasn't cooking.

Cave moist air washed over her when Meryl opened the front door. She let the cooler pressure shut it behind her. Sepia sunlight slanted through the air without impediment from dust. Detritus of any kind had long abandoned all hope of finding a home in Mother's house.

Meryl set down her pink suitcase and the used shopping bag that held her derringer boxes. She removed her cloak and hung it on the coat rack, a scaffold of curved wood stained dark as a Ship's Luxury-ration chocolate. An arch to her left opened onto the study. A basket filled with balls of yarn reposed on the corner of a small couch. In the living room two thickly padded chairs faced a matching sofa over a coffee table that rested on a coarse-woven rug. Beyond the dining room another arch led to the kitchen. Maybe there were banana chips in the pantry under the stairs.

Meryl unlaced and removed her boots. Her stockings slipped a little on the varnished synthetic cedar floor. The pantry door opened.

“Hello,” said a woman dressed in jeans and a pale blue oversized shirt. Her blond hair was tied into a severe bun. “May I help you?”

“It's me, Mother. It's Meryl.”

“Meryl?” Sky blue eyes peered at her above a nose and mouth Meryl had seen in her locker mirror every office workday. “Of course. Meryl.” Mother grinned and spread her hands in a gesture of welcome and embarrassment. “Welcome home, darling.”

Meryl copied the motion, reflected Mother's awkward smile with her own.

“I'm sorry if I startled you. I should've knocked.”

“Don't be silly. I'm very glad to see you.” Mother's hands hovered over Meryl's body as if she were sealed in invisible glass. “Please sit, won't you? Let me get you something to drink. How about a nice glass of water?”

“I can get it, Mother.”

“It's no trouble, you must be exhausted.”

“I'm all right, really.”

“Nonsense. Now sit and rest.” Mother disappeared into the kitchen. Meryl sat on the sofa, back braced and straight despite her fatigue.

Mother returned and handed Meryl a brimming glass. Plant water was flat to her taste but she was thirsty. Meryl moved to set the empty glass on the coffee table, and in a motion fast and practiced Mother removed a sandstone coaster from its holder and slipped it under the glass.

“Thank you, Mother.” Her mother's eyes were fixed on the glass. What was she doing, waiting for it to sing and dance? “Mother?”

“Hm? You're quite welcome, darling.”

“How have you been? It's been a long time.”

“I've kept busy. Taking care of your father is a full-time job.”

“He's not sick, is he?” Meryl listened for his footsteps on the stairs but heard only her own heart.

“He's in September on business this week. He'll be back in a few days.”

Meryl relaxed but the pain in her back did not subside. If her shoulders touched the couch's back she'd be asleep before she knew it. The phone hung on the wall near the kitchen arch.

Meryl stood and yawned. The half-ile walk to the telegraph office would do her good.

“You're leaving?” Mother stood with her. “But you've only just arrived.”

“I'm sorry, Mother.”  Meryl lifted her cloak from the rack.  “I don't want to impose.”  Mother shook her head. 

“Don't be silly, Meryl.  Why don't I draw you a bath?  I haven't started dinner yet, but I'm sure you can find a snack.”

“Mother, please.”

“Are you sure?  Please, Meryl, please let me draw you a bath.  I still have some of those bath beads you like so much.  Please, stay.”

And they're probably right where I left them and they probably smell like formaldehyde by now.  “I can start my own bath, Mother.  Please don't trouble—”

“No trouble at all, darling.”  Mother bounced on light steps up the stairs. 

“—yourself.”  No use in resisting. There never was. Then again, a bath, a home cooked meal and a night's sleep in her old bed sounded better than a cup of thin soup and a flophouse cot.

In the kitchen she poked through the refrigerator's contents.  She hadn't seen many of these electric iceboxes outside the Cities, a luxury a big city girl like herself missed and appreciated.  She grabbed a block of cheddar cheese, found a paring knife and a plate.  The knife slid through the delicacy easily.

A rumbling sound from the ceiling made poor harmony with her empty stomach.  The tub was deep and would take time to fill. 

“Ouch!” Blood welled from the thin cut on her finger and glistened in the muted northern light of the window over the sink.

Haven't had much luck with knives lately, have I?  Meryl rinsed the wound and the knife.  In a drawer she found a paper napkin and held it to the cut.  It wasn't serious but the blood spread with the water from her wet hand. 

“Mother?”  Meryl peered through the doorway.  The third step from the bottom creaked when stepped on, but no one was at the foot of the stairs.

When the bleeding stopped, Meryl poured another glass of water and carried it and her plate to the breakfast table in its nook near the back door.  When she was finished Meryl washed her dishes and put the cheese back.

That sound again. “Mother, is that you?”

In the living room, the trailing sun cast a bleak beam onto the bare wall.  Empty nails glittered like old forlorn stars.  Faded rectangles marked the spots where pictures once hung. At the coat rack she stopped and listened.  The low rumble of running bathwater continued.  The tub should've been full by now.  Mother was wasting water, if nothing else.

“Mother, are you all right?”  The third step creaked distress as she climbed the stairs.

The door to her old bedroom was open.  Nothing had been changed, nothing at all.  Bed, dresser, bookcase—

Desk.  Photographs of her, arranged in concentric semicircles like the seats at the Whiterock Amphitheater, covered the desktop. 

Meryl sank into the chair.  She fingered two melted, ruined candle stubs standing lightless watch over the assembly of Meryl surrogates.  From days long past her younger selves, photograph frozen and memory mute, told the tale of her life. 

From her eighth year, a Sunday afternoon learning to ride a thomas from her grandmother, ponytail like Grandma's draped over her shoulder, smiling at a strong wisp of grace who could be Meryl in forty or fifty years, hair gray and shining as her eyes.

From a Christmas morning she'd received from Grandma her first pair of derringers, held in their open cases by a smug fifteen-year-old Meryl, flash caught in hand-burnished nickel plate, Grandma subdued yet resolute, caught in the frame over her shoulder in a picture Father had not wanted to take.

From a candid moment when things were last good, a picnic at Saint Teresa's, Mother holding her from behind and kissing her cheek.  Grandma couldn't be there, she wasn't feeling well but Mother had kept telling her not to worry until they'd heard from the doctor, the third they'd consulted.

And from a black and white past, Meryl as young as she'd ever been, when things were best of all, sitting on a proud and happy father's shoulders, pointing at the world from its very top and she could see so far away, so very far.

The sound that had brought Meryl upstairs came from the bathroom, down the hall.  Steam rolled over her face when she opened the door.  Mother knelt in the middle of the floor, holding a picture frame to her breast.  Hot water streamed from the faucet.  A rubber stopper rested on the bathtub's rim.  Meryl pressed both hands to her mouth too late to keep a gasp from escaping it.  She knelt and extended a tentative hand to Mother's wet cheek.

“Mother, what were you thinking? Didn't you call Bernardelli? Didn't they tell you anything?”

Mother's face changed, twisted, contorted.  Her hand rose, fell through the invisible glass, fell through the weight of seven years across Meryl's face.

Meryl endured it with closed eyes and trembling lips, with sore hands clenched on aching knees.  Her teeth had cut the inside of her cheek.  Blood, sour and salty, trickled into her mouth.  Mother reached out to touch her.  Meryl flinched. 

“I'm sorry,” Mother said in a thready voice.  “I don't know why I did that, what I was thinking, thinking pure nonsense I suppose, but…”  Mother set the picture aside.  “You're alive.  Dear God, you're alive.”

“Don't be silly, Mother,” Meryl said through clenched teeth.  “Of course I'm alive.” Meryl pushed herself to her feet. “Are you hungry? I'll start dinner.”

 

---

 

Vash peeled back the foil wrapping of the ration bar, bit off the end, and chewed. Stale.

The shelter that protected him and his brother was little more than a metal footlocker. A battery powered fluorescent tube in the door above him cast a sputtering, reluctant illumination. Intended to be an emergency air lock in the event of decompression, the shelter offered a perfect hermetic seal against the wind and heat. Terrific for storing supplies, it made a lousy sanctuary from the sandstorms that had swallowed the rest of the rent and shredded Ship.

Vash tapped the oxygen gauge next to the light. The needle wiggled, steadied. He'd have two more hours before the reserve kicked in. After that, typhoon or no typhoon, he'd have to bail out. He hoped the provisions he'd been forced to leave outside would endure the brunt of the storm with little damage.

“You'd think a typhoon would give another typhoon a break, but no,” he said, and nibbled another fragment of the ration bar. With effort he could imagine it tasted like dry leaves.

I've never eaten meat, Vash said in the silent voice of the mind. Not once have I ever taken a bite of a sentient creature's flesh. But two or three grain fed thomas fillets, five or six baked potatoes sweating real synthesized butter and sour cream and a dozen or two ice cold bottles of Kuroneko would hit the spot right about now. And six dozen doughnuts for dessert. Then I'd be ready for some real food.

He kicked Knives in the leg.

I should starve you for three weeks and make you watch me eat, you cruel sonofabitch, Vash said.

The sac delivering fluids and nutrients through the needle in Knives's arm was empty. Vash replaced it, cursing the close quarters. One more and Knives would be good to go for a while longer.

You should've killed him when you had the chance. None of this would've happened. It takes strength and courage to take life. You're weak. You're weak and a coward. That's right, a coward. Next time put the bullet through your own head.

For the millionth time doubt whispered its insidious refrain in Vash's thoughts. The doc had discussed this possibility from the beginning of their plan to contain Knives. He knew Doc only wanted to test Vash's resolve, probe the chinks in his moral armor with arguments sharpened by centuries of philosophical and theological contemplation. The testing had paid off. When the time had come and the decision had offered itself he made his choice with perfect clarity.

I did what I had to do, Vash said to his doubt. It's all I can do.

Living with the aftermath was the hard part. The doubt slinked away, unconvinced. Bloodthirsty fool. Didn't Knives have any idea what the humans would do to him if they ever found out what he'd done?

Vash kicked the steel wall. Whose moronic idea was it anyway to entrust the future of humankind to five people, strangers to each other from the moment their maintenance shift began, three of whom were mentally and emotionally unstable?

Stupid humans.

What's this? Knives said. Does the keeper deign to address the animal under his tender loving care? Are you finally seeing things my way?

Don't flatter yourself, Vash said. I've never denied the dark side of humanity.

I do flatter myself. I was the one who showed it to you.

Vash withdrew the needle from Knives's arm and replaced the medkit in its compartment in the wall behind him. The needle on the oxygen gauge was touching the red line. He cracked the seal and pushed open the door. Heat like that from an open incinerator pressed down from a deep desert sky full of stars. Vash climbed out of the shelter and dug the sand away from the sled and supplies. Everything was present and intact except for a full packet of ration bars the typhoon had carried off.

Pitying the storm, Vash lifted Knives out of the shelter and strapped him onto the travois.

Author's Afterword

Next chapter: Meryl's father gets home. Vash plays Virgil to Knives's Dante. Angst and nightmares and fear, oh my. Stay tuned.