A Girl Called Badger (Valley of the Sleeping Birds) (32 page)

“I knocked. Why didn’t you answer?”

Joanie looked at him like he’d turned into a goat. “You know what’s going on, Jack. If you were a woman, would you open the door?”

“I see your point. Where’s Colleen?”

His daughter leaned out of the kitchen. “Here, Dad.”

“All right, let’s go.”

Joanie spread her hands. “The last broadcast said to stay inside.”

“I know. Because of the virus. They’re not telling you about the nukes. All the bases have gone to DEFCON 2. Before you ask, that’s one fingersnap from nuclear war.”

“Somehow I want to blame you for this, Jack.”

“This is above and beyond even my extreme ability for screwing up. Can we go?”

“What about Mom and Dad?” she asked.

Jack sighed. “I heard the messages from your mother. They’ve got the virus. Even if we find them, it could spread to us. Is that what you want?”

Joanie shook her head. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I have to drive east for something then we’ll check the hospital, okay?”

Joanie grabbed a few items and followed Jack and Colleen out the door. The HUGO was gone and a pair of men in ripped jeans and sweatshirts walked across the street a block away.

Jack pushed the two women back. A burst of automatic fire snapped across the doorway like supersonic wasps.

Jack pulled off the K12’s square eyepiece. A half-meter cable linked back to the rectangular optic system. He clipped the eyepiece onto his sleeve and pointed the assault rifle around the corner.

Three men in hooded shirts and dark clothing ran toward the camera. In their hands were old surplus M4s. Jack toggled the launcher and fired.

The grenade hit the first hood and burst into a cloud of shrapnel. Jack counted two bodies on the sidewalk and snapped the viewfinder back onto the K12.

The HUGO roared around a corner and stopped nearby. Across the street a pair of civvies burst out of an apartment door. One fired a wild shot with his pistol. Jack fired a series of three-round bursts and the civvies scrambled back inside. Jack kept the crosshairs aimed that direction and waved Joanie to the HUGO.

“Get in!”

“I can’t leave my car!”

“Oh for the love of ... just give me the keys.”

Joanie and Colleen slid into the HUGO. Jack fired another burst and ran to the passenger door.

“I’m taking the minivan,” he yelled to Padre. “Just follow me.”

Padre nodded. “Got it.”

A shot whizzed past his head. The two pistoleers had run out and now hid behind an ancient Camaro with two flat tires. Jack fired a grenade on half-second air-burst. It exploded behind the car in a woolen ball of glass and smoke.

He drove the minivan to the highway and took the east-bound ramp with Padre right behind. Jack gunned maximum RPMs from the old Chinese death trap. He avoided another checkpoint near the airport by driving north and taking a short and bouncing route overland to 94 and the plains.

Schriever cut a square stamp from the dry plains and was fenced like a white-collar prison. A chain-link gate and metal bars blocked the main entrance.

Jack left his rifle in the minivan and walked to the guard post. A soupy, acid smell trickled through the filter of his mask. Two MPs were curled in the fetal position on the floor, stiff and silent. Black bloodstains covered the chin and blue uniform shirt of the one closest to Jack. He stepped around the bodies and searched for a gate switch. After a few seconds he found it and heard the metal barricade grind across the asphalt.

Jack drove slowly, like the first car in a funeral. Vehicles were stopped carelessly in the streets and parking lots. Nothing moved. Bodies slumped sideways inside in the cars or rested heads on the steering wheels. A white, unmarked schoolbus rested nose-first against a building. Scores of uniformed bodies lay in a ghastly siesta on the bright green of the parade ground.

He followed signs through the base and stopped the mini-van next to the 4th SES building.

“Back in a minute,” he said to Padre.

Jack walked inside the building with the K12 and wondered how he was going to find this stupid sequencer if nobody was around. He followed a stairwell down to a steel security door labeled “Restricted.” A keypad and display were built into the nearby wall.

He pressed a worn red button. “Anyone there?”

A moment later the screen crackled to life. A wild-eyed young man with a shaved military haircut stepped into view.

“Who’s out there? We’re under quarantine.”

“I’m from Altmann,” said Jack. “I’ve got orders to get equipment.”

“Hold them up.”

Jack held the paper in front of the display camera.

“Show me your ID.“

Jack still had his unit card and pulled it from his wallet.

The man on the display sighed. “All right. Put your gun on the floor and stand back. Try anything and I’ll shoot.”

Locks clicked inside the metal door and it whirred open. Inside the large engineering lab were four men and two women in civilian clothes.

The young man from the camera stood nearby. The 10mm Taurus in his hand pointed at the floor.

“What’s going on outside?”

“Son, what’s your name?” asked Jack.

“Dan.”

“Okay, Dan. Here’s the good news and the bad news. You probably know the bad news. Some kind of virus has spread through the country. Lots of people are dead. The good news is we’re at DEFCON 2. And soon, DEFCON 1.”

“How is that good news?”

“Because we’ll be dead too and all our problems will be over. Now, I don’t have time for tea and polite conversation. I need to get that equipment back to Altmann. You’re the first people I’ve seen alive here so you’re welcome to come back with me. The virus hasn’t reached Altmann and they have medical staff and nuclear shelters.”

The technicians packed a few instruments in foam-lined metal suitcases, including the sequencer. Jack carried it upstairs and secured it inside the armored supply cabinet at the rear of the HUGO. Dan and four of the lab technicians squeezed into the mini-van and one went to the HUGO.

“What about those roadblocks and traffic going west?” asked Padre.

“The problem will be getting out west on 24,” said Jack. “If anything happens and we get separated, just do what I said before and follow the map screen.”

Colleen touched his arm. “Dad, why can’t I ride with you?”

“We’re going downtown to check on your grandparents. It’s safer in the HUGO.”

They left the base and drove toward the setting sun. Jack headed straight for the first checkpoint on the eastern border. It was a roadblock of three HUGOs and a tank.

Jack glanced back at his passengers. “They’ll let us through. Might have to wait a bit. Anyone got a smoke?”

One of the men opened the crimson cellophane on a pack of Chunghwa and handed one forward.

“Something’s wrong,” said Dan.

The soldiers had abruptly piled into their trucks and the battletank was turning in place.

“I wonder why–”

Jack rolled down his window and heard the low, mournful howl of air raid sirens.

“There’s your answer. Hold your purses, boys!”

He crossed into the opposing lane and blew past the tank with Padre right behind. The old six-cylinder roared and wind rattled the side windows. They crossed the city and made it to the foothills below the mountains when the first one hit. A white-hot bulb from God’s camera in the north, probably the Academy. The second flash was closer and the shockwave ripped the wheel out of Jack’s hands. The minivan spun down an embankment and rolled in a shower of glass and metal. It stopped at last, surrounded by a cloud of orange dust. Jack felt pin-points of shattered windshield in his face and grit in his mouth. He tried to move his arms and legs but couldn’t feel them.

A man’s voice whispered from somewhere in the minivan.

“Bury me not ... on the lone prairie ...”

Jack tried to turn his head but pain jabbed through his neck. A hand covered in blood lay on his lap and Jack and wondered if it was his. A hot pressure spread through his chest.

“You’ve failed, old man,” said the hoarse voice. His voice.

Jack’s eyes were wet. He couldn’t pretend it was because of the dust and he couldn’t wipe the tears away.

SPLASHDOWN

SIXTEEN

S
ounds came hollow and distant to Wilson and reminded him of bathtime, of leaning his head back and letting the water fill his ears. Air roared through his lungs with a sleepy comfort. A perfect solitude.

But it became less. His father’s voice spoke on the surface of the water, loud but gentle.

DON’T GIVE UP

Wilson lifted his head and water poured from his ears. Memories floated through his hot, delirious mind like snowflakes around a lantern. His father. His mother. Kira.

He kept his eyes shut and concentrated––the falling snow spun into a ball of ice. The cold helped to control his breathing and the pain, but his lungs burned for air.

Something stretched his arms and scraped his legs across rough ground.

Time passed or stopped. Never existed.

He grew tired of the cold and wanted to sink into the bath of sleep. Wilson saw his father lean over him as the water began to steam.

It pulled Wilson lower. It began to pour into his mouth.

STOP

It covered his head.

ICE

The water cooled abruptly and Wilson broke the surface with a gasp.

ICE WILSON

Bits of ice grew around him and Wilson spun in circles. He cried out in fear. His father shook his head and slapped him, hard.

Wilson opened his eyes to a sky full of stars. He was cold and felt like a soggy scrap of bread. The air smelled of rotting meat and his mouth was full of grit. He slid his right hand over a stickiness on his belly and groaned in pain.

“Boss, this one’s still alive,” rasped a man’s voice.

“Not for long,” said another.

Soft earth landed on his legs. Wilson felt the scar along the inside of his left forearm and pressed four long and one short. Nothing happened and more earth showered over him. He frantically pressed the code again. His legs and arms abruptly jerked out of control and he lost consciousness.

i guess I’m dead

NO

who’s that

ME

i don’t believe this

BELIEVE IT

i thought death would be peaceful

WHY

that’s what everyone says

EVERYONE IS DEAD

how about me

WHAT ABOUT YOU

am I dead or not

ONE OF THOSE

i hope my mind is playing tricks on me

NOT A TRICK

god you are annoying

NOT GOD

am I dead or alive

YES

i’ll stop talking to you I swear

FUNNY

not in the least

KNOW ANY JOKES

what

JOKES

i don’t believe this

I LIKE JOKES

write that on a piece of paper stick it to your head and shoot a hole through it

I KNOW A JOKE

here’s a thought I don’t want to hear it

WHAT DOES A DOG BECOME AFTER IT IS SIX YEARS OLD

i don’t know

SEVEN YEARS OLD

that’s not funny

WHAT DID THE DOG SAY TO THE CANDLE

don’t care

ARE YOU GOING OUT TONIGHT

SNOW COVERED THE FOREST and whipped through the air. Wilson stood in the middle of a frozen lake and covered his eyes from the stinging particles. Ice boomed under his feet and he fell into the freezing water. His fingers scraped long trails of blood across the ice as he tried to hold on. A huge metal hook speared his right hand and he cried out. A rope tied to the hook pulled him out of the water and across the ice.

The hook changed to a black dog. With yellow teeth it held Wilson’s hand and pulled him slowly across the hard ground. He watched tiny clouds creep across the night sky. The leaves of blackberry bushes blocked out the sky and he barely felt the thorns. Something began to kick dirt and leaves over him. He closed his eyes and the dirt became a shower of ice.

HE LAY IN A DEEP bank of snow. The cold dulled the pinpoints of pain moving over his body. A shadow crossed the blue sky and his father stood above him.

Wilson opened his cracked lips.

“Why?”

“Man is born unto trouble as surely as sparks fly upward,” said his father.

“Did I ... am I dead?”

“To live means to die.”

“But why? Why this way?"

“The way it is, is the way it must be. But you will lay a path for the future, if you see the path that has gone before.”

“I can’t ... I need help ...”

His father spread his hands. “I can fight for you, but will you fight for me?”

“Yes.”

“The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen,” said his father, over and over.

Wilson felt his body freeze solid from the inside out.

A FEATHER TOUCHED HIS lips and he blew it away. Needles jabbed into his ribs with each breath. More pain and strange sounds gradually appeared. An angry man shouted in the distance. A killdeer trilled as it flew nearby.

Wilson squinted at the light that filtered through the green blackberry stems.  He tested his arms and legs and disturbed a blanket of dirt and dead leaves. Next to him, the black dog startled from a nap and moved away a few steps. The ugly, yellow-eyed creature scratched the patchy fur at its neck with a back leg.

Wilson wondered what was happening inside the lumpy head. He guessed the dog or someone else had dragged him into the thicket. Was it to finish him off later? Or had a long-dead tribal taught him this trick? Wilson thought it was probably an over-eager hunting dog abandoned because of the mange. Founder knows why it had picked Wilson for a new master.

Wilson’s hands brushed through the leaves and grit on his body. He was completely naked. In the center of his belly he touched a new, round scab.

Parched and hungry, he looked around the thicket. A trail of broken stems marked where the black dog had dragged him from the field. Near the dog a faint path led deeper into the thorns. Wilson turned on his belly and crawled.