Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: The Official Movie Novelization

56

Malcolm drove slowly through the worst-hit parts of Pacific Heights, seeing house after house with leaning rooflines and spills of brick where their chimneys had been. Everything was overgrown with eucalyptus, wisteria, periwinkle… all of the invasive species that grew fast and didn’t care what other plants were around. There were also fruit trees and what looked like gardens gone wild, just as in the other abandoned areas of the city. Entire blocks had burned to the ground, too, in the aftermath of the earthquake. Those charred remains were almost completely obscured by overgrowth.

He was waiting for a signal from Caesar, who was watching out the side window in the back of the truck. The ape had levered himself onto his side, and he grunted with pain each time the truck bounced on the neighborhood’s ruined roads.

Even if they saw the house, Malcolm thought, they might never know it. It might have burned, or it might be so completely overgrown that Caesar wouldn’t recognize it. He was beginning to worry they would just drive around Pacific Heights until Caesar died of blood loss and shock. What would they do then?

Caesar pounded his fist on the window. Malcolm braked the truck to a halt—not too fast, for fear of jolting something loose inside Caesar.

“What? Is this it?”

Sinking back to the floor of the truck, Caesar nodded.

They got out of the truck and looked up and down the street. Humans clearly hadn’t been here in a long time, but there was no telling whether the trees hid a bunch of gun-toting apes. Malcolm popped the back of the truck open, and reached in to help Caesar out.

Before getting out Caesar paused, looking at one of the houses with an expression Malcolm almost wanted to call… nostalgic?

The Victorian must have been a real beauty ten years before, like all of the houses in this part of town. This one had been designed with great care, and despite its age, it was in surprisingly good condition—it had to have been renovated. One of those renovations had finished the attic, which had a beautiful round window facing the street.

They got Caesar up the stone stairs and onto the porch, and Malcolm rattled the knob. The door was jammed, so he kicked it open, and they helped Caesar inside. The interior was dim, thanks to the vines that had crept up the walls and covered the windows. The plants had worked their way through the siding and into the interior, too. The walls were water-stained, and everything was covered in dust.

“Here,” Ellie said, brushing off a sofa. They eased Caesar down, and he lay back on the sofa, his eyes wide as he took in every detail of the house.

“Caesar, you okay?” Malcolm asked.

Caesar didn’t answer.

“Think it’s safe to stay here?” Ellie asked.

“Safe as anywhere else,” Malcolm said. The only real danger he could see was of an ape patrol finding the truck, but there was no reason for them to patrol up here.

Alexander, looking around the room, paused by a piano along the wall.

“Look,” he said. Malcolm and Ellie joined him and he pointed out a photo on the piano. In it, a young man and a chimpanzee posed against the unmistakable background of the redwoods at Muir Woods. Malcolm turned to Caesar.

“You used to live here?”

Caesar nodded. He was still looking around the house, and now Malcolm knew for certain that the expression on Caesar’s face, out in the truck, had indeed been nostalgia. Amazing, he thought. He’s about to die, maybe, and what he decides to do is go home.

Ellie was watching him with deep concern. She drew Malcolm with her into the kitchen, where she started opening drawers, looking for anything she might be able to use to treat Caesar’s wound. Alexander followed them in, and hovered in the doorway.

“He doesn’t look good,” she said quietly.

“We can’t let him die,” Malcolm responded. “He’s the only one who can stop this. The only one they’ll listen to.” If they would even listen to him at this point, Malcolm thought. From the look of things on the bridge, events had taken on a momentum of their own. It might well be too late for the truth to matter.

Ellie stopped searching the kitchen.

“What if he doesn’t make it? What do we do then?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “We have to help him. What do you need?”

“I was hoping to get into that hospital. I have a small kit back at my place, but that’s—”

“I’ll go,” Malcolm said.

She looked at him, and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. Going out into the city, by himself, with apes shooting at humans, heading down into the teeth of the battle to find medical supplies that might or might not be there… The outcome was, to put it mildly, far from certain. Ellie didn’t like it, but she nodded. It was the only thing they could do. Malcolm turned to Alexander.

“Listen, pal,” he said. “I need you to—”

“I know,” Alexander said. “I’ll stay here and help Ellie. We’ll be okay.”

What a kid, Malcolm thought. Everything in his life turns upside down again, just when he’s getting his feet under him… and here he is reassuring me. It struck him then that once he walked out of this house, he might never see his son again. Or Ellie.

“I love you,” he said.

Alexander nodded. “I love you too.”

They embraced, and Malcolm thought God he’s getting big. Dad thoughts—they came all the time now, while he was watching his kid grow up. He looked over at Ellie, and he could see that she was scared, but like Alexander she was trying not to show it.

All she said was, “Be careful, okay?”

Koba waited until Grey came to the mayor’s office and reported that all the humans they’d found had been rounded up in one location. Together they went to the place Grey had chosen. It was a good place, a tunnel bored through a hill, with a fence across its mouth. Grey said they had blocked the other end of the tunnel, and on this end the fence was already there.

A gift from the humans, Koba thought. He knew they kept their sick apart. Probably they had put them here when the sickness came to the city. Now the humans were the sickness, and Koba was keeping them apart.

The area near the tunnel was covered in old signs and painted pictures. Many of them featured apes, or creatures that were part ape and part monster. Yes, Koba thought. He wanted the humans to think of the apes as monsters. Let them fear the apes while they lived. Let them understand what fear truly was.

He approached the fence. On the other side of it, hundreds of humans were pressed together. He could not see how many, because the crowd extended back into the darkness inside the tunnel. Koba climbed up on a car so they could all see him. The apes guarding the fence parted to clear the view.

“Humans,” Koba said, his message simple. “You will serve apes… or die.”

The apes hooted and stamped, waving their guns. Inside the fence, the humans looked to one another, scared and silent. They would want to know what it meant to serve apes, but Koba would not tell them yet. Let them live with their fear, inside a cage. Let them feel what it had been like for apes…

Until Caesar had freed them.

Koba pushed the thought away. Caesar had led when apes needed him. Now apes needed Koba. He turned his attention to his assembled troop.

“More humans out there,” he said. “Find them!”

Immediately the apes started to move out.

Blue Eyes moved with the mass of apes around him, and they began to break up into search parties. A gap opened up, and across the space outside the fence he saw a bus with a pair of armed apes standing at each door. He looked more closely and saw the hulking shape of a gorilla inside. Luca. Other apes, too. Rocket was there, staring out the window, emptied by the death of his son. Maurice was pressed in the back of the bus, and in the midst of Blue Eyes’ shock, the orangutan looked up.

He started to sign, keeping his hands tight against his belly so only Maurice would see.

I will—

But Maurice shook his head. He raised his hands and Blue Eyes saw they were bound together. Struggling with the bonds, Maurice signed back.

Protect yourself. Suddenly Blue Eyes realized eyes were upon him. He moved out with one of the search parties, not caring which one.

Apes together strong, he thought. Koba had led them for only a day, and already the old ways were dying. As he moved he started to ask himself whether he was Koba’s follower, or Caesar’s son. He knew he could not be both.