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Jordi de Manuel is a teacher and award-winning speculative fiction author writing in Catalan. Check out his interview with Anna Maria Villalonga, translated by Sara Martín, in the upcoming November issue of Small Planet.

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Marlowe

by Jordi de Manuel

translated from the Catalan by Sara Martín

I look through one of the cracks letting light and air seep in. I estimate that in one hour it will be noon; inside, I lose track of time, and I am barely able to count the nights. The building, the skyscraper where we live, allows us to hide. Forty-two floors, one hundred and twenty meters, separate us from the crossroads. The space where we find ourselves is quite comfortable: thirty square meters. An attic with a mat, boarded up windows, a ceiling with black panels, a cement floor, a few water drums, a notebook and a pen, a carafe with permethrin and a box with cans of food. We have provisions left for two weeks, three at most. We also have weapons: a hunting shotgun, a small axe, a sharp dagger and a mallet.

“I don’t see anyone on the street,” I whisper.

Marlowe looks at me with his small, restless eyes, growls and nods.

From the crack, I watch the streets. Two days ago, I saw a group pass by: five men and two women. They were walking stealthily along the facades of the buildings. They were afraid, like us. Surely, they were looking for water and food to survive a few more days. Here no one can discover us, nor can they climb up. The elevators are unusable—there is no power, and I also loosened the cables—and between the thirty-seventh and fortieth floors, the staircase is destroyed. In fact, I blew it up with an explosive charge and then demolished what was left with a sledgehammer, so that no one could get on it. I fixed two ropes with a carabiner and a harness, in case I have to go down one day. Also to be able to go back up. I know that when our provisions run out, I will have to do it.

I approach the small mirror that hangs on one of the walls. My hair, greasy, reaches my shoulders and my beard has grown a lot, too much. We must have been here for about sixteen weeks. I know this from the four full moons… that’s as many as Marlowe and I have counted. He always feels anxious about the full moon. It must be because of his ancestors, who feared wolves. Now there’s no reason to be afraid of any wolf, just fear the survivors and, of course, the mite.

“What do you think we will run out of first, water or food?” I ask.

Marlowe looks at me and turns his eyes to the eight-litre drums.

We only have two left still full.

“Yes, I also think we’ll run out of water sooner. We should ration it further.”

Marlowe shakes his head.

“Okay, I’ll go down when we have a litre left.”

I know he thinks I should go down sooner.

I look at the bucket where I’m defecate—Marlowe has his, too. I emptied them last night. I don’t want to throw the excrements down the stairwell because that would betray our presence. I empty them on the forty-first floor. In fact, I pour them into the elevator shaft.

Urine, on the other hand, is deposited in empty carafes and stored. I’ve heard that people buried under the rubble caused by an earthquake have survived by drinking urine. You never know. I also devised a system to collect rainwater, but it hasn’t rained in the city for months.

I look again through the crack, and I see a human-like figure wandering on one of the sidewalks, the one in the low buildings. I take the binoculars. It’s an assistance robot, lost, with no one to assist. It must be one of the latest generation, which has an autonomy of six months, otherwise it would have been weeks ago part of the urban scrap that accumulates in the streets. I tell Marlowe, but he doesn’t listen to me; he listens to me less and less. The android turns around one of the streets until it disappears from the field of vision. The vegetation has begun to invade the street furniture, it seems unbelievable how life makes its way, even without rain; it must be because of the night dew and the crumbling public fountains, from which rivulets that moisten the asphalt still flow.

It all happened suddenly, just a few months ago. Sudden deaths began to occur in the city, without distinction of age or sex. It took weeks to discover that it was a parasite, the mite Sarcoptes myocardis, which originally infested pigs and could parasitize humans and other domestic animals. The mite penetrates through the natural orifices of the body and through small wounds. It travels through the blood to the heart and causes death a few days after penetrating the body. The first symptom is an intense itching between the fingers. After thousands of deaths, the authorities decreed drastic measures. Everyone in the city had to leave their homes and go out into the street to avoid the parasite that had invaded every corner of the flats. People continued to die on the street and new conflicts arose: getting water and food, fighting to survive. Kill to live.

I don’t know if there are any survivors in our building. I doubt it because we haven’t heard any noise for weeks, any sign of life; but if they hide like us, it’s just normal that we haven’t heard them. In the first few days, shortly after we arrived, the firefighters came and emptied a few flats and took everything away to burn. They also emptied our flat. They took everything down to the beaches and set it on fire. It was then that I decided that we had to flee and hide with food and water. On the street we wouldn’t have survived, the mite or the people would have killed us.

***

We only have a drum left with just over two litres of water. I question Marlowe, who with his eyes tells me that I have to go downstairs.

“If I don’t come back, you won’t survive many days…” I warn him, raising a finger.

Marlowe shakes his head, slowly. He knows me, he knows that I will return, I will not abandon him.

I’ve decided to leave just before dawn, when few survivors wander the streets. I’m wearing dark, cryptic clothes, and it’s going to be hard for them to see me. I take my backpack, put my dagger, the axe and a small bottle full of water in it. Also, a large, sturdy bag, folded, to carry the food I find. A jar with permethrin and a few pairs of latex gloves. Finally, I put on my sneakers, which I haven’t worn for months. I tie two empty drums around my waist, I hang the shotgun on my shoulder, and I put a few cartridges in the pockets of the windbreaker.

“See you soon, Marlowe,” he looks at me and says goodbye, raising his head.

I open the locked door and as I leave the flat a cold air slaps my face. I smell the fetid smell that rises through the elevator shaft. The silence overwhelms me; I only perceive my footsteps and the intermittent howl of the wind as it passes through the broken windows. The forty-second floor is empty; on the other floors there is neither a single drop of water, nor a gram of food, only desolate walls. I almost step on the corpse of a mummified cat in one of the corridors. I’m sure that the mite is stalking me from the floors, in the cat’s corpse and maybe in a blanket, in a piece of clothing, in a book that the firefighters didn’t take away to burn. I go down the stairs to the fortieth floor. All the doors are smashed, and I enter the flat where I keep the ladder ropes. Next to the ropes there is a small gas cylinder for cooking. At the moment I don’t need it, I’ll take it to the attic when I get back. I don’t want to carry any unnecessary weight. I take one of the ropes, which is anchored to the wall at one end. I tighten the fastening and put on the safety harness; it’s only a seven-meter drop, but for a few seconds I’ll have to walk suspended through the open stairwell, more than a hundred meters of emptiness. I close the carabiner and push myself with my legs; I had rappelled down vertical walls years ago and I haven’t forgotten how to do it. In two jumps and less than three seconds I land on the thirty-seventh floor. I take off my harness and hide it under the rubble of the staircase.

I’ll take the fire staircase. Until two months ago, a family lived on the twentieth floor, but I saw them leave the building, perhaps driven by hunger. I go down slowly, trying not to make a noise, not even a false step.

When I get to the ground floor, it’s still dark. I put on my gloves. Outside the building, I feel an inexplicable sense of insecurity. Everything seems hostile to me.

There is a supermarket two blocks away. I walk, sheltered by the darkness, with my back almost glued to the walls. In the sky, violet bands begin to be seen, in a few minutes the sun will rise. I turn for a moment and see the imposing façade of the skyscraper. I look up and think that Marlowe must have gotten up, he must be watching me. I would move my hand to greet him, but I repress myself: if anyone sees me, they will betray our hiding place.

The supermarket’s large entrance window is broken, shattered into a thousand shards. I cross it carefully. Every time I step on a piece of glass, I cause a disquieting echo. All the shelves are empty; some spilled on the floor with the contents scattered. I walk dodging all the products I don’t need. Where the food and drinks should be there is nothing, all the groceries have been looted. Under a shelf I see packets of salt that the looters have ignored. I put one in my backpack; salt can be useful. When I leave the supermarket, the sun has already risen, and the first rays of light lick the street. I look both ways. From here I can see much better how the vegetation has progressed. Despite the extreme aridity, plants colonize the urban landscape: shrubs grow in the tree beds, grasses and weeds thrive on the cracked asphalt and between the cracks in the façades. We need water to survive. Without food we will still be able to hold out for a few more days, without water, we won’t. I look at the vegetation. I see that there is a place where the plants have grown more abundantly. I go there. The ground is damp; I bend down and touch it with my fingertips. I get up and see a tiny stream born on a broken sidewalk. I pry it open with the axe blade and manage to tear up a piece of stone. There is a cracked pipe through which water flows at low pressure. If I widen the crack, more will come out. I uncover the drums and with the tip of the dagger I pierce the pipe until I get more water out. Five minutes later I’ve managed to fill the two drums: sixteen litres. It’s not much, but it will help us to survive a few more days. I lean on the broken pipe and quench my thirst.  I put the broken stone back in it, as if I were hiding a treasure.

There is too much light and that makes me vulnerable, and even more so if I have to move around with a drum full of water in each hand. I decide to go back to the skyscraper and hide the water in some corner of the entrance to continue looking for food.

***

One hour later, I’m still empty-handed. I’ve moved about five hundred meters away from the building, I’ve searched for places where I thought I could find food. I should have brought the sledgehammer to break down any promising door. On the ground floor, inside a wooden box, I’ve found a can with legumes and a carton of milk.

Not far away there is the rotting corpse of a man; probably he died infested by the mite before all the food was finished. I think of the first unmistakable symptoms: the itching between the fingers.

All my loot: chickpeas and milk. Food for two or three days. While I put it in my backpack I hear some voices. I huddle behind the box; I get into a small metal locker. I can’t breathe. It’s two young men; they stop and look at the corpse. I see them through the vents in the locker door. They are thin, emaciated, surely they are looking for food. I listen to how they argue about whether to flee or continue looking. One of them is armed with a rifle. If they approach the locker, I am lost, I hold the axe handle tightly, but their fear of the mite overcomes them and they walk away. Three minutes later I come out of my hiding place and walk towards the skyscraper. I do it with long steps, close to the walls to go unnoticed. From time to time, I stop to check that no one is following me. It’s too risky to wander through the streets in broad daylight. When I get to the building I’m drenched in sweat, caused by anguish. I take the two drums of water and start the ascent. It’s thirty-seven floors. When I reach the place where the staircase stops, on the thirty-seventh floor. I tie the drums to one of the ropes, make them go up and tie a knot in the rope. Then I go up with the other rope. I’m on the fortieth floor. I take a deep breath. I feel safe again.

When I reach the attic, I come face to face with Marlowe.

I can feel the anxiety in his eyes. I put my head down.

“I managed to fill the two drums, but I only got that for food,” I tell him as I take out the packet of salt and show him the can of pulses and the milk carton.

“I don’t know if you can drink milk…” He shakes his head. He’s disappointed. “Two gunmen were about to discover me,” he nods. “I guess you’ve seen them from up here.”

Marlowe retreats to his corner. He lays down, scratches the cement floor as if he were drawing a picture, as if he wanted to tell me something.

I leave the sledgehammer, the dagger, the rifle and the small axe in a corner.

***

At night, I think of my brother. I wish he was still alive. The last time we saw each other was at the technofarm where he worked. He advised me to hide. He had introduced me to Marlowe, a biotechnological prodigy, according to him. He suggested that I take him away, so that I would have someone to talk to.

He and I immediately got along.

I turn to the mat and see him sleeping on the cement. His breathing is strong, synchronous, without snoring. I know that soon I will have to make a decision. I know that he knows it, too.

***

It’s been five days since we ran out of food. Yesterday, at dawn, I went back to the street. I could fill two drums of water, but I couldn’t get any food. A group of six people, two men, three women and a child, saw me. Luckily, they ignored me.

Marlowe is weak, he spends the day lying down and growls from time to time. When we look at each other, I think he knows what I’m going to have to do. I see it in his eyes. It will happen when he sleeps, I wouldn’t be able to do this to him awake. I wouldn’t be able to hold his gaze.

He must have weighed more than a hundred kilos. When I met him, on the technofarm, he weighed not even thirty. Under normal conditions he should now weigh two hundred kilos, but we have been very hungry these months. My brother told me that he was part of a genetically modified shipment destined for heart transplants. My brother was convinced that the embryonic cells implanted in Marlowe had not only originated human heart tissue; they had also differentiated into brain tissue. His behaviour and his learning were typical of a human being.

***

We’ve reached the limit; we haven’t eaten for ten days. I’ve gone out two more times, but I don’t have any strength left. If I go out, I won’t come back and I would last nothing on the street. I’ve seen groups of armed people ready to kill.

I haven’t been able to fall asleep thinking about how I would do it. I’ve been sleeping for days with the sledgehammer and the flashlight, but when I see Marlowe next to me, I pull back. Today there is a full moon and threads of light trickle in through the cracks in the attic. I get up, take the heavy sledgehammer with both hands, close my eyes and open them again. It has to be a single blow, hard, without hesitation. Hunger is killing me. I raise the sledgehammer, my arms tremble, in an instant the shared moments pass through my head, his gaze, the oscillation of his ears, his sighs, his curled tail, his pinkish skin, his eyes and the movements of his muzzle. When I don’t think I’ll be able to do it, I fling the hammer hard against Marlowe’s skull. I feel the bones shatter and I hear the noise, it’s all over. It’s lasted less than a second.

I get dizzy, the mallet falls off my hands. I fall kneeling next to Marlowe’s body. I don’t dare touch him. I lie down next to him.

“Marlowe! Marlowe…” It’s all that comes out. I would like to cry, but I can’t.

I wake up before dawn. Hunger pierces my belly. I know what I have to do, I’ve gone over it mentally many times. I’m going to tear it up with the axe and I’m going to cut off the most tender parts with the dagger. I have to use everything, including the blood. I’ve got the gas stove here and I’m going to cook the lean meat and fry the fat and blood. With the salt I’ve been bringing from the supermarket I’m going to salt the leftover meat. I have to preserve everything; you can’t do anything wrong. Marlowe’s sacrifice should help me survive a few more weeks. Maybe then everything will have been fixed and order will be restored.

***

It’s been five days since I started eating Marlowe. I ration meals so that it lasts as long as possible. The brain is the only thing I won’t eat; it would be eating a human organ. I calculate that I’ll have food for forty more days. I try not to move too much to minimize caloric expenditure. In less than a week I’ll run out of water, but whenever I’ve gone out, I’ve gotten it. Suddenly I hear a shot. Two. I jump up and look through the crack. I see two young individuals, with rifles, shooting at the group of two men, three women and a child I had seen days before. I clench my fists helplessly, and as I do so I feel an intense itch between my fingers. I look around in terror and see the symbols that Marlowe had drawn on the cement with his hoof, as if he wanted to warn me of danger. I look at the details: it is the representation of an oval-shaped animal with eight legs: a mite.