Children Of The Mountain (Book 2): The Devil You Know (38 page)

We close the door to the chapel behind us and head back up to Front Street. The sound of Jax pounding on the armory door echoes up from the depths of the pedestrian tunnel.

The kid’s sitting by the corridor to the blast door, where we left him. He rubs his eyes, like he’s just been woken from a deep slumber, and squints up at the arc lights, like maybe they’re too bright. For a second I think I catch a flash of silver, but when he looks at me I see the pupils there are dark, human.

I tell Mags I have one more thing to attend to, so she takes him by the hand and leads him out to the tunnel. I head over to the command building and make my way inside. It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for and then I’m back out on Eden’s narrow streets. Quartermaster’s still lying on the dusty concrete where Truck shot him. I look down at him for a long moment. Then I step around him and leave the cavern for the last time.

The scanner room’s in ruins. Hicks was as good as his word; there’s little left of the machine that’s recognizable. Its polished metal skin is twisted and charred, like a giant can that someone’s stuck in the fire without remembering to stick a hole in first.

I walk through the showers and into the locker room. I have to pick my way over the remains of the barricade to get out. Mags is already kneeling by the open blast door, going through the soldiers’ backpacks for what we’ll need. I figure she’s got that covered so I head out into the tunnel.

Angus and Hamish are propped up against the wall outside, their arms cable-tied to the brace wire above their heads. I pull out the knife I took from Weasel. Their eyes widen and as I kneel down I detect a sharp odor. During the course of the evening’s entertainment I think one or other of them has had an accident in their overalls. I sigh. To think I used to let these clowns intimidate me.

I hold my hands up.

‘I don’t mean to hurt either of you. I’m just going to use this to cut your restraints. But before I do I need you to listen.’

I remind myself to take it slow. The message I have for them isn’t complicated but I’m dealing with a pair of intellects rivaled only by the plastic that’s currently binding their wrists.

‘Those soldiers you saw earlier, they’ve killed Quartermaster. You can go back inside and have a look if you don’t believe me. Kane’s in the chapel with them right now. We’ve tied them up but I doubt it’ll take them long to get free. Before that happens Mags and I intend to be on the other side of the portal, and we mean to blow it behind us, like we did last time.’

I pause to let this sink in.

‘Now it seems to me that you’ve got a couple of choices. You can go back in there and rescue Kane and afterwards take your chances with the soldiers. Or you can leave now with us.’

They look at each other. It seems like Angus is custodian of the family brain cell today. He turns back to me and his face gets as close to thoughtful as I suspect it ever does.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Mount Weather.’ I get a blank expression for that. ‘The bunker where the rest of the Juvies are.’

‘And we can go there with you?’

I shake my head.

‘’Fraid not. I’m going to draw you a map of the route Peck and the other Guardians have taken. If you stick to it you should be able to find them.’

Hamish looks at me.

‘You want us to go get Peck?’

I nod.

‘I do. And when you find him you need to give him a message. You need to tell him the soldiers you met earlier have Kane and they mean to bring him to a place called The Greenbrier.’ I see the worried look on Angus’s face. ‘Don’t worry I’ll write it all down; all you have to do is show it to him. But you need to tell Peck if he wants to save Kane he’ll have to hurry. I don’t think the person they’re bringing him to see is a fan of the President’s work.’

Angus comes to a decision quicker than I gave him credit for. He looks up to his wrists and I cut him free. While I’m working on Hamish Mags appears at the blast door. She holds up an olive colored metal orb, just like the ones from the crate I found under the floorboards in the hallway outside Marv’s room when we first escaped from Eden.

‘They brought loads of them. Should be plenty.’

I stand up and put the knife away.

‘Alright, let’s get out of here.’

*

H
EAVY CLOUDS HANG LOW
on the horizon, threatening the dawn that’s reluctantly taking shape to the east.

Behind us the farmhouse burns. The flames have already made their way up into the roof; thick black smoke coils up from the rafters, smudging the morning sky. Whatever Marv had stashed under the floorboards went up like the Fourth of July, but we don’t stay to watch. Peck has a day’s start on us.

We make our way down to the turnpike, picking our way between the gnarled trunks. There hasn’t been a fresh fall and the snow’s settled. Good tracking skiff, Marv would have called it. But we’ve barely made it a hundred yards before Hamish has his first yard sale. Angus is faring a little better but I can already hear him breathing hard behind me.

I stop when we get down to the road and wait while Mags and the kid continue on. Angus trudges up to me a few minutes later, his face beet red. He bends down, his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. Hamish is still coming down the slope. He’s already covered head to toe in gray powder but from the way he’s driving his snowshoes I suspect he has at least one more tumble in him before he joins us on the ’pike.

When Angus gets his wind back I hand him a piece of paper. On one side there’s the message I want them to give to Peck, on the other a simple map. We didn’t meet anyone on the way up, which means he must have taken the Catoctin Mountain Highway, the route Marv and I followed when we first went to Mount Weather. Angus looks at the paper and then back up at me.

‘It’s not hard. You just stick on this road ’till you hit a town called Shiloah. A little ways beyond it there’s a big highway. Turn right when you get to it. If you hike sunup to sundown you should be on it maybe a couple of days before you need to start looking for the first sign. Don’t worry too much about the names. I’ve written down all the numbers you need to look for.’

Angus looks dubiously at the map and then the road.

‘Can’t we come with you?’

I shake my head. Benjamin’s way through Ely’s shorter, but it’s a harder hike. And we need to travel fast now if we have any chance of getting to Mount Weather ahead of Peck.

Angus looks crestfallen. His brow furrows; I can see him searching for something to say that might convince me. Eventually he raises one arm and points down the road at the kid.

‘We won’t hold you up no more than that.’

I look at Johnny. The snowshoes are way too big for him; I’ll definitely have to find him another pair. There’s no getting around how short his legs are, either. Whatever way you cut it he’s going to struggle when the drifts get deep. I turn back to Angus.

‘Yeah, but him I can carry.’

Angus stares forlornly down the ’pike.

‘You’ll be okay. Just keep an eye on the skies and remember to get off the road before it turns dark.’

There’s nothing else to say so I shift the straps on my backpack and set off after Mags and the kid. When I reach the first bend I look over my shoulder. Hamish has joined Angus now. They’re both standing in the middle of the road where I left them, staring down at the map.

I catch up with Mags. The going’s not bad along this stretch and we can walk side by side. The kid marches on ahead. The snow might have settled but I suspect it’ll not be long before he tires of breaking trail.

‘You think they’ll be alright?’

I turn to look at her.

‘Yeah. The way’s easy and they have most of the soldier’s supplies. There shouldn’t be any more storms. I can’t see them catching Peck and the others though.’

‘Guess that’s up to us then.’

I nod.

‘You think it’ll work?’

‘Without weapons Hicks’ll have no choice but to return to The Greenbrier. And all Peck cares about is Kane. I reckon as soon as he finds out the soldiers have him he’ll forget about Mount Weather and strike out after them with the Guardians. While they’re working things out between them we can be gone.’ I pause. ‘As long as Peck believes us.’

‘He will. We have something of Kane’s, and the soldiers’ dog tags.’

I look over at her.

‘That was clever, taking his glasses. I wish I’d thought of it.’

‘Don’t feel bad. I thought we’d got that straight. You’re the tall one. I’m the smart one. Remember?’

She stops and lifts the goggles onto her forehead. I’ve given her a fresh cotton mask to replace the one she was wearing on the way up. She pulls it down and smiles at me.

‘Frostbite check?’

We’ve barely come a quarter of a mile so there’s really no need. But I reckon if I ever turn that invitation down you can take Hicks’ pistol and shoot me where I stand.

She tilts her head back and closes her eyes. Her skin’s already losing its gray pallor and the shadows under her eyes are fading; I can already see the faint smattering of freckles that run along her cheekbones underneath those long, dark eyelashes. I pull down my mask so that I can kiss her and a moment later I feel her arms slip around my waist. The rifle slides off her shoulder but she ignores it and for the next few moments at least the cold is forgotten. Eventually she pushes me away and slings the rifle back onto her shoulder. She pulls the mask up and sets off again.

I stand in the middle of the road for a moment, watching her walk away. Sometimes I worry that the feelings I have for her will be our undoing. That the world we live in now is too dark and gray and cold to abide them. That it will keep trying until it finds a way to do us harm.

I pull my mask back up. Underneath my thermals the dog tags shift against my skin. I told her we should each wear a set because that’s what Marv and I used to do, when we went out, with the crucifixes. She said she wanted Truck’s and the kid asked for Weasel’s so I ended up with Private Kavanagh’s. I already checked hers this morning, while she slept. Now I reach for the chain and pull out the ones I’m wearing, holding them up to the scant morning light. They’re as they were when I slid them in last night, but I reckon it’s still too soon to show.

Mags said Gilbey told her that the virus was far more resilient than Kane had ever given it credit for; that it would do anything to ensure its survival. Not even what Kane did to the skies could stop it.

I watch as she marches off towards the kid who’s waiting for us further up the turnpike. She says she feels better than ever. She looks it. She’s still way too thin but her appetite’s back. She devoured one of the MREs for breakfast and then started work on mine.

I tell myself the field the scanner created had to be stronger than whatever Kane’s missiles did, way up in the skies, and even though she didn’t get the time in there she was supposed to, what she did get was enough.

But the truth is I don’t know. I don’t understand how any of it works. I can’t tell you why the scanner brought Mags and the kid back, when all the others out there in the dark places just got their circuits fried. Perhaps it has something to do with the medicine she was taking. Or maybe once you’re gone so far there’s just no coming back and they hadn’t yet crossed that line.

I hope that’s it.

I’m not so sure, though.

The newspaper reports I used to collect said it was like the virus meant to hotwire the person it had infected, that it wanted to replace their internal wiring with its own. Except that the virus’s circuits were way faster, and our bodies had never been designed for that kind of speed. All I can think of is how high she jumped in that moment when she appeared out of the pedestrian tunnel; how quickly she closed the gap to Hicks after she had dealt with Truck. I’ve seen how fast Hicks is and she got the drop on him, like she wasn’t even trying.

And that’s what worries me.

I take one last look at the dog tags and drop them back inside my thermals. The wind’s already chilled the metal. It feels cold as it comes to rest against my skin.

***

I hope you enjoyed the latest
Children of the Mountain
adventure.

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