Children Of The Mountain (Book 2): The Devil You Know (37 page)

‘Hey Sarge, come on out willya? Huckleberry’s here lookin’ for ya.’

*

T
HERE’S A PAUSE
and then Hicks appears at the end of the corridor that leads to the blast door. He squints up at the arc lights then takes a moment to look around the cavern, like I’m not even there.

‘So this is Eden. Yep, I can see why you left.’

He turns his gaze to me.

‘You let them in.’

I don’t need him to answer. A half-memory’s already floating to the surface, something that even now I might dismiss as little more than a fragment of a mostly-forgotten dream. The last thing I heard on Weasel’s radio as I fell asleep by the fire in the
Pikeside Bowl.
It was Hicks’ voice, not Truck’s. He must have had a radio too. There was never any need for Truck to track us. As long as we were with Hicks they knew where we were all along.

‘You’ve been playing us, getting us to lead you here.’

He takes a step out onto Front Street. His hands are held clear of the pistol on his hip but his parka’s unzipped and his gloves are off. I suddenly realize I’ve got the rifle pointed in the wrong direction; he’s far more dangerous than either Truck or Weasel. I swing the barrel around so it’s leveled at his chest. He doesn’t seem to care.

‘Now, son, you might want to take a moment to consider where’d you’d be if it weren’t for me. Doc was all for sticking you in a cage right away, with the girl. She’s a smart woman, the Doc, but she’s never been much for the bigger picture. Maybe if she were she wouldn’t have been so quick to come up with something like the virus. Only one use for an abomination like that.’

He shakes his head ruefully and takes another step towards me.

‘But what’s done is done. All that matters now is cleaning up the mess as best we can. And for that Doc needs warm bodies, and lots of them. And I needed you to bring me to them.’

Warm bodies, and lots of them
.

And that’s when it hits me, the thing that was bothering me when he first took me into the bunker to find Mags. All the empty cages. The crates stacked against the back wall in the storage room. With all that’s happened since I haven’t thought on it, but now I see. There were never enough live infected. Hicks flat out told me when I asked him how many they’d managed to capture.

‘It wasn’t just Mags. All the other survivors that found their way to The Greenbrier. Gilbey used them for her experiments too.’

Hicks shakes his head, like he’s disappointed in me.

‘Survivors? Son, the state most of them were in when we found them they wouldn’t have lasted the month. It’s like Doc says: it’s all just a question of timing. But you’re right on one score: this place was always the prize.’

He looks around the cavern again.

‘Except there’s no one else here is there? Wasn’t just you and the girl who fled; you got them all out, didn’t you? Probably stashed them someplace nearby and then went looking for somewhere with a little more distance from that fella.’ He inclines his head in the direction of the tunnel, where Boots has just taken Kane.

‘It’s Mount Weather isn’t it?’ He raises a hand as if to dismiss the question. ‘S’alright, you don’t need to say. Has to be. That story you fed me out in Lynch needs a little more work by the way. I’ve been to Culpeper. It doesn’t even have a tunnel.’

He takes another step in my direction. There’s not much more than twenty feet between us now.

‘There’s still a way out of this for you, though. You and the girl. Where is she by the way?’

I guess he must see the look on my face as he mentions Mags.

‘Aw hell, you’ve already put her through haven’t you? I thought you’d have the sense to test it first.’ He nods in the direction of Johnny. ‘I mean son, what’d you think would happen?’

I shake my head, like I don’t want to hear it.

‘She just didn’t get enough time in there. We’re going to put her through again.’

‘Wouldn’t do no good. Besides, what’d you think that explosion was?’

I stare at him in disbelief.

‘Why would you do that?’

But he just sighs, like he’s weary of explaining how stuff works to me.

‘Haven’t you been listening to a thing I’ve been telling you? There weren’t enough bullets in the world to stop those things, back when we still had people to shoot them. There certainly aren’t enough scanners. What’re you going to do, son? Drag every last one of them in here and wait while they go through individually?’

I hadn’t given it any thought; there was only ever one person I cared about curing. But that’s still no reason to destroy it. And then I remember the storage room in the bunker. The only crate on the shelves other than the kid’s had said Amanda Gilbey on the side.

‘Dr. Gilbey has a daughter that’s infected. She’s doing all this to try and save her.’

He smiles at me.

‘Well, you’re finally getting it. If the scanner had’ve saved your girl there’s a chance it might have worked on Amanda, and I couldn’t risk that. I told you: the Doc’s our only hope now. I can’t have her losing focus.’

‘But you didn’t even wait to see if it would work. You could have put yourself through first.’

He shakes his head again and when he looks back at me the smile’s gone.

‘Son, the things I’ve done I don’t deserve a cure. I’ll get what’s coming to me, and that pretty soon. But there are things that need taking care of first.’ He looks around the cavern one more time then returns his gaze to me.

‘So this is how it’s going to be. Jax is going to find the girl then you and she and those two we found in the tunnel and Kane and whoever else is still hiding out in here are coming back with us. But first we’ll take a visit to Mount Weather. I have a deal for you, though. You give me whatever codes you might have and when we get there, if they work, I’ll let you go. You have my word on that. You can head on down south. Do whatever you want with what little time we’ve all got left. I swear I won’t say a word. Your friends’ll never even know it was you who sold ’em out.’

‘But you’ll infect them with the virus, put them in cages like you did to Mags?’

‘Aw hell, kid, pay attention. If Doc doesn’t find a cure for the virus they’re done for anyway. We all are. You just gotta think about yourself now. Do you want to wind up in one of those cages? And that’s not even the worst of it. You haven’t seen what Doc does to them in that other room.’

But I’m not even listening to him anymore. I raise the rifle. The cold metal presses against my cheek.

‘You’re going to help me with Mags and Johnny and then you’re going to let us walk right out of here. And you’re going to forget you ever even heard of Mount Weather.’

Hicks shakes his head. He shifts his reaching arm a fraction. The parka falls back, exposing the pistol.

‘You’re overplaying your hand here kid. None of that’s going to happen. You think maybe because you got lucky with that MRE you can hit me? You’ll get maybe one shot, assuming you don’t freeze up of course. Took you three to hit that carton, remember? And it wasn’t shooting back at you.’

I reach up with my thumb. The rifle’s already off safe but I snick it forward one more notch, to its final position.

‘You’re a lot closer than that carton, Hicks. And I’ve got thirty shots actually. All I have to do is hold the trigger down, right? Like that rookie down on the line in Atlanta? I may not hit you with the first few. But I doubt I’ll miss with all of them.’

Hicks’ expression doesn’t change but for the first time I think Truck looks a little nervous. The smile disappears from his face. His eyes shift to Hicks and then back to me again. He takes a step back towards the pedestrian tunnel.

Hicks squints at me for a long moment, like he’s reassessing the situation.

‘Fair enough, if that’s the way you want it. Corporal, the kid’ll empty that clip in a little over a second. If I don’t get him first you take him down. Understand?’

Out of the corner of my eye I see Truck draw his sidearm.

‘And then you find the girl and bring her back to the Doc. She might still have use for her. Kane will tell you how to get into Mount Weather. I don’t care much for how you get that information from him.’

‘Sure thing, Sarge.’

My heart sinks. He’s right of course. Kane has the same codes Marv gave me, and I’ve no doubt he’ll hand them over once Truck goes to work on him. He’ll take the Juvies back to The Greenbrier, whether or not I shoot Hicks. Mags will either die in the armory or she’ll end up in that other room he was talking about. I’m not sure which would be worse.

And then from the depths of the pedestrian tunnel I hear a sound like something very large pounding metal. Hicks must hear it too.

‘Looks like Jax has found your girl. Last chance, kid.’

The pounding continues, echoing up from the darkness. Hicks turns his head a fraction but his one good eye never leaves me.

‘Private, go down there and see what that idiot’s up to.’

Weasel drops the catchpole and starts off into the tunnel.

For long seconds there’s nothing but the sound of Jax pounding on the armory door. And then without warning something bursts out of the darkness. It’s moving too quickly and at first all I see is a blur as whatever it is hits the light. Then I catch a single snapshot of Mags, barefoot, suspended in the air as she swings whatever it is she’s holding. And in that moment I’m back on the bus we took to the White House on the Last Day. But instead of an old hardback copy of Black Beauty it’s the gray metal stock of a rifle that arcs downwards towards its target. There’s a dense crunch as it connects and a large wad of tobacco sails out of Truck’s mouth along with something that might be a tooth. She doesn’t wait for him to land; by the time he hits the concrete she’s already closed the distance to Hicks. She comes to a stop with the barrel inches from the back of his head.

‘What was that switch you were talking about, Gabe?’

I don’t answer her. I suspect I’m wearing the same slack-jawed expression Truck is right now. She glances over at me.

‘Never mind. I don’t think I’m going to need all of my bullets.’

*

I
KEEP THE GUN TRAINED
on the soldiers while Mags binds their wrists. She works her way quickly along the pew. None of them resist. Hicks just looks bored; the only time he shows interest is when I take his pistol. I earn a look that tells me the cable ties probably won’t be holding him for long.

Truck’s still out of it. A long strand of something brown drips from the corner of his mouth, searching for a place to settle on his fatigues. Even in the chapel’s gloomy interior I can see his cheek’s swelling up nicely, and there’s a nasty bruise spreading along his jaw. When he finally comes to I suspect it’s going to hurt something mean. It’ll be a while before he thinks of tucking a wad of Grizzly there.

Weasel’s already back with us. He’s got a bruise just like Truck’s to go with the one across his nose, but he’s traded his front teeth for it. I think it makes him look better, although I doubt he agrees. He stares at me with barely concealed contempt while Mags slips a cable tie around his wrists. He cusses at her as she ratchets it tight. The general gist is that it’s cutting off the circulation but there’s a lot of extra words in there it’d be easy to take offense to. When she’s done she picks up the baton and zaps him in the neck with it. He yelps but after that he stays quiet and goes back to glowering at me while she moves on to Boots.

The Viking’s the only one not present and accounted for, but he’ll do just fine where he is. Mags came around just in time; she was headed back to the cavern when she heard him making his way along the tunnel towards her. She retraced her steps and hid in the darkness beyond the armory. Even for someone with Jax’s limited faculties the open door was too much of a temptation. She waited for him to wander in and then locked it behind him. Once Hicks gets free he’ll get the code out of Kane, but by then I mean us to be gone.

Mags finishes up with Boots and crosses the aisle to tend to the President. He’s been quiet since we dragged him in from the tunnel, but now as he sees her approaching he raises his hands and backs himself up along the pew. I suspect it’s not so much what’s in her hand as the dark shadows under her eyes and the way her cheeks are sunken in. She holds the baton up and flicks the switch on the grip. Blue light arcs between the prongs; he lowers his arms and slides them behind his back. When she’s done I see her reach inside his jacket and slip something into her pocket. Whatever she’s taken, he doesn’t fuss over it. He just stares wistfully up at single piece of framed needlework that hangs, yellowing, from the bare metal wall. I don’t need to read it to know what it says.
Ora et Labora
. I’m not sure about
labora
but I suspect his days of praying may be just about to start.

Mags comes over to stand next to me.

‘All done?’

‘Almost.’ She reaches over and pulls the dog tags from Boot’s, Truck’s and Weasel’s necks and slips them into her pocket next to whatever she took from Kane.

‘Let’s get out of here.’

As we reach the door I hear Hicks’ drawl from behind me.

‘Be seein’ you real soon, kid.’

I stop.

I told Mags we should shoot them, every last one. I told her it’d be the smart thing. We wouldn’t have to worry about Dr. Gilbey and without Kane I wonder if Peck would be so interested in finding us. But Mags said that wasn’t how we were going to go about things, and she has more cause to want it than I do, so I agreed.

But now as I hear Hicks’s words I know he’s one more thing we’ll never be rid of. I slide his pistol out of my pocket. The cylinder clicks around as I thumb the hammer back. Mags reaches out and puts a hand over it.

‘I got this.’

She walks back down the aisle and stands in front of him.

‘No, you won’t, not if you’re smart. But I worry you’re not, Sergeant, so pay attention now. You needn’t bother with Mount Weather; by the time you get there we’ll be long gone. And there’s something else you might want to consider before you set off looking elsewhere for us. Gilbey’s not the only one with the virus. We have trays and trays of it. Ask him if you don’t believe us.’ She points across the aisle at Kane. ‘If I so much as suspect you’re taking an interest in us we’ll pay The Greenbrier another visit, and this time we won’t come empty-handed. We have the code for the bunker. Remember that.’