The man continued to stare but he didn’t
stay put. He moved closer to their position, unblinking, conscious of each piece
of rusted metal about his body. He crouched low, holding the spear across the
tops of his knees. Again he cocked his head and sniffed the air.
Howard’s finger trembled over the
trigger. His palms were slick with sweat and the stock slipped ever so slightly
in his hand. He was sure the man could see them. He was maybe twenty feet away
with only scrub brush between them. He thought of the thunder dome, of all the
mythos involved with the techno cults, and it boggled his mind. As crazy as his
upbringing was, he couldn’t imagine one where he’d revert like these people
had. But were Howard and Jennifer any different? They were after the same
things. Were any of them really different?
“We can go back north,” the man said. He
did not move.
“I told you, gran said true, Bessil. I
told you she say that,” another voice said. A second man, armed with a bow,
knelt beside the other.
“Big movements up there, yeah,” the man
said, shaking his long hair, rattling the bits of rusted metal. “Kaseveck say
so. Say they move many bodies, dead bodies. Even three tribes not big enough to
take them.”
“I don’t want run. It is our home,”
Bessil said, slamming his spear in the dirt.
Howard felt like he was going to slip,
like he was going to make some noise. He forgot how to breath. All he knew was
the beating of his heart and the pain in his muscles. The rifle weighed a
million pounds in his hands. He kept locking eyes with the man, which made it
worse. Could he really see them?
“We livin’ say it true. No run. We
livin’ see another day. They got the big booms. They got the old tech, the
cause see, and we got the earth. They fade soon like gran said. They fade and
we keep growing like the trees,” the other man said, waving his bow about.
The muzzle wavered in Howard’s grip. He
couldn’t keep it steady. He couldn’t keep still. He was on the verge of passing
out. Sweat stung his eyes.
“Maybe.” Bessil stood slowly.
Howard watched the one called Bessil nod
in his direction then turn away, directing his companion towards the rest of
the tribe. There was no mistaking the gesture. Howard looked into those eyes
and found a silent understanding, a truce without words. He allowed himself a
breath as the cultists walked from the house.
“We have to move,” Jennifer whispered.
She took point and exited the split. Each step was a careful ballet, avoiding
every potential crunch beneath heel.
Howard could still hear the men talking
about their dilemma. Somewhere ahead, a whole world of hurt was about terrible
business. Howard wondered how many other groups were displaced by the army? How
many gritty survivors were headed for safer ground? What were they thinking,
heading into the storm? Who else would they encounter? He pushed the nagging
thoughts away.
Jennifer crouched on the roof of a building
that had fallen into the earth. She leaned into the wind, looked back with her
eyes wide, her rifle rising.
“Unclean!”
Howard spun at the sound of that grating
voice. The man with the bow had it up and taut, aiming right at him. He tried
to get his rifle up, but mid-swing the one called Bessil knocked the bow upward
as his fellow cultist let loose the arrow.
Jennifer screamed as the arrow caught
her high in the shoulder. She fired as she fell, scattering the cultists and
the birds.
“No,” Bessil hissed. “They already dead.
Gran say no bloodshed.”
Howard tried to find a target, but the
techno cultists were long gone. Their words were not lost on him. He ran to
Jennifer.
“Fuck, it went through, it went through.
I can feel it,” she said, reaching over her shoulder. Blood soaked through her
shirt and ran down the shaft of the crude arrow. It appeared to be a mix of
rusted metal and fire-hardened wood.
“Don’t move.” Howard dropped the rifle.
“Fuck that. They’ll be back. They eat
people, Howard. We gotta move.”
“They won’t be back.” He pushed her
down. “Lie still.” Howard ripped open her shirt, cutting a line to the arrow to
free the area. Bright red blood pooled in the hollow of her neck. He started
digging in his pack for bandages and what little medical supplies he’d brought
from the city.
“Get this fucking thing out of me,”
Jennifer cried. Her chest heaved, sending sweat and blood between her breasts.
“I will, but not yet.” Howard laid out
what he had, and it wasn’t much. He expected cuts, but not this.
“What do you mean not yet?”
“I mean not until I’m ready. This is
going to take patience. I can’t just rip the damn thing out.”
“Rip it the fuck out or I will,” she
screamed. “Do it now!”
Howard looked into her terrified eyes.
Behind all her tough words, she was a basket case. He pulled out a bundle of
leaves and began to chew them. He spit the pale green paste back into the tin
he’d taken the leaves from. “Are you ready?” He broke the tip from the arrow—a
cracked and rusted spark plug—then he tossed it away.
“Do it.”
Howard gripped the shaft and took a deep
breath. He twisted and then he pulled as hard as he could.
Jennifer screamed.
Howard began to panic at the sight of
all that blood on her pale skin. There was so much blood. He kept applying
pressure and adding more bandages, but they kept turning red.
Bobby closed Hoss’s eyes. He’d watched
Baylor put a bullet in the skull of his long time friend just minutes before.
Now the Mad Conductor was at the helm, screaming some song from the past as the
train hurtled down the tracks. Bobby closed the door and went to the roof.
He kept hearing Price’s voice over and
over. The implications weighed heavy on him. Were they all okay? Did they know?
Bobby punched the metal plate next to him, welcoming the raw pain in his
knuckles. Everything had turned so fast. They were together again, things were
as normal as they were going to get, and the wretched world split them apart.
Maybe Ol’ Randy was right, maybe this
was all part of God’s plan. If so, the God he never saw or heard was a total
asshole. It wasn’t fair. He’d been through enough. He’d bled enough, sacrificed
enough, lost enough. It was his turn to live, to enjoy what little humanity and
love he could. But it wasn’t in the cards, as Paul used to say.
Bryan’s legs hung from the fence. Ropes
of intestines and blood melted the freshly fallen snow. Bryan was there and
then he wasn’t . . . obliterated, wiped from the world. Price’s voice echoed in
his mind. He rode the swell of anger and doubt and worry, punching the plate
until his hand went numb. He laid his rifle across his lap and opened the bolt,
counted his shells, slipped into the cadence, reassuring himself they were
okay. It was all he could do to salvage what little sanity he had left. He
reloaded the rifle and racked the bolt, setting the safety as he peered along
the horizon through the scope.
Signs of a large battle were scattered
everywhere: smoking ruins of wagons, parts of bodies, animal and human, and
long angry scorch marks marred the sand. Vultures swooped down, already digging
into the morsels. Several Creepers popped into his mind. He saw the field of
battle through their eyes.
There were no pits this time, but there
weren’t that many dead either, nor Creepers for that matter. As he studied the
field, he caught a lone rider heading towards the tracks.
“Mr. Baylor!”
“I see the fucker.” The train lurched
ahead as Baylor dumped more coals on the fire.
The rider rode through the aftermath and
stopped on the tracks. He turned his horse to face the train and sat tall and
proud on the saddle. He was an old man, balding, with patches of white hair
clinging to his pink scalp. There was a pistol on his hip and a long rifle in
the holster on his saddle. He raised neither.
“Are you seeing this shit, kid?” Baylor
howled from below.
“Yeah!” Bobby squinted, blinked to make
sure.
“He’ll make a good hood ornament!”
“Maybe we should stop!”
“Forget that!”
“No, I’m serious! Look around. There are
none left! Think for a second! Hoss, Price, the rest of your men, they all
turned too quickly,” Bobby said, recalling the sudden shift. And as he did, the
answers dawned on him. Coupled with the lack of bodies on the field, it all
fell into place. “They’re building an army as they destroy! Look!”
The train screeched, slowed to a crawl.
Bobby heard the metal clang as Baylor climbed up through the beast’s mouth to
stand beside him.
“For what? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Baylor rubbed the soot and sweat from his face. “Fuck, kid, this is—”
“Insane. We ask the old man in our way.
If he flinches during the exchange, he dies. If anything, he dies. He’s alone,
that’s for sure. No other riders hiding out there, too flat, too open, and no
storm or plateau to mask them.” Bobby laid down and peered around one of the
barriers. He caught Baylor’s nod as the man jumped below once more.
“This is crazy, kid. Fucking crazy. Not
even enough of us left to be running into shit like this.”
Bobby agreed. He kept his rifle trained
on the lone rider. From the Settlement, to the wild people, to the cultists,
all the way to the army they were approaching, it was the living against the
living. The Creepers were merely in the way, or a way to land the bigger punch.
But if it turned out to be true, that this army was comprised of the dead, did
it mean that Bobby had a sibling on the other side? Ol’ Randy’s notebook and
the Doctor’s words…
The possibility of other children left
things wide open, though, in the end, they were the enemy. They’d killed
unprovoked. What did that say of him? After all, he’d used the very same
weapon. Just because he deemed himself justified in the application of the
weapon, did that make him any different?
Bobby fell into the art of breathing. He
watched the old man sit smugly on his horse. Bobby planted the crosshair firmly
on his chest.
The train crawled painfully slow through
the scarred landscape. The buzzards fed by the hundreds if not thousands. There
were other opportunists as well. Bobby tried to read the Creepers, but they
weren’t giving much of anything. They were too old, left to wander the desert
until they succumbed to the elements.
* * * * *
Baylor eased the train ahead farther,
farther, until he finally stopped it inches from the unfazed man. The beast
huffed steam in thick jets. The man’s horse snorted and the wind stirred, but
all else was quiet. Baylor climbed to the top of the beast and stared down at
the man.
“The purveyor of supplies, the man I’ve
been hearing about for years as far as Mexico, the train man. What is it they
call you again?”
Baylor rested his hand on his pistol.
“The Mad Conductor. That’s it. You got
another name too, but I seem to have forgotten it. You were wise to stop. Looks
like the boys gave you hell but you proved the victor. Nicely done. She might
be right about you after all. Mighty fine tool you have beneath you.”
“Your boys are wandering the desert like
Moses and them, about a couple hundred miles back. They don’t need to worry
about dying of thirst either.”
“Now why’d you go and do something
offensive like that?”
Baylor drew his pistol and cocked the
hammer. “You attacked me unprovoked. I want to know why.”
The old man laughed. “You think death
scares me? I’ve been through the same shit as you. Those of us left are all in
the same boat. I been at this since the fall, and now we’re finally starting to
put things to rights. Save your bullet for a more worthy target, Mr. Conductor.
You see down those tracks, where the earth starts to get green again? You’ll
find the most amazing thing the world’s seen since the great Roman Empire. A
standing army that will turn the tide once and for all. An army and a woman who
will set things straight, but you have to be strong.”
“That so? I’ve seen a lot of strong
people come and go in my days. I seen some thought they couldn’t be touched,
some who were reckless, and others thought themselves too crazy to die. All of
them were strong. Were. It doesn’t make a difference. Death is all.”
“The man of many hats. You smack of
preacher. Bet you were a preacher in your former life, before we all started
doing the dance. Weren’t ya?”
“I don’t pray.”
“Don’t have to pray to be a preacher.”
The old man pulled a pouch from his saddle bag and began to roll a cigarette.
“Thought we almost lost these for good. Smells of Virginia, the Carolinas.
Sweet south eastern tobacco.”
Baylor’s hand tensed on the pistol.
“In fact, I think I owe you a little
thanks, even a measure of praise for keeping old habits alive, Mr. Conductor.
This part of your crop, is it not?” The man offered up the cigarette as if it
were the sacrament of old.
“Lot of folks growing things round that
way. Hard to tell.”
“I think it’s yours.” The man flicked a
lighter and began to puff. The wind pulled and stretched the smoke into thin
wisps. With the cigarette dangling from the corner of his cruddy mouth, he
said, “And this.” He shook the lighter. “I’m amazed it still works. Sucker has
to be at least twenty-two years old. Fella thought it wise to seal these up
long ago. Bet he’s dead now.”
“I’m going to ask one more time. Why was
I attacked unprovoked?”
The man laughed again. “Shit, Mr.
Conductor, your little trade runs are provocation enough. You see, this land is
not free to roam without paying a price. Now the currency can be a lot of
things: resources, weapons, women, food, a lot of things, or it can be your
life, your pledge of service, your part, if you will, in what’s to come. We
need men like you. Good men. Strong men. We need people that know more than
killing. Are you up for such a job?”
“Been doing fine on my own. Answer the
question!”
“You weren’t attacked. You were
challenged. Think of it like dipping a toe into cold water. It was just a test,
Mr. Conductor. Back there—” the man pointed with the cigarette— “back there
she’s waiting in all her glory. You let me aboard and we ride to them on
peaceful terms and you become one of us. You help build something new,
something that will last, or you can become one of them.” The man’s hand moved
in a flash, drawing the pistol and firing. A Creeper thirty yards out fell
over.
Baylor’s hand shook. He was fast, but
not that fast. He never even had a chance to register the movement.
“Which is it?” The man smiled as he
holstered his weapon.
“I got another option, asshole. We ride
up on your people with your rotting corpse dancing on one of these spikes.”
“Mr. Conductor, I thought you better
than to stoop to bragging like som—” The man’s chest exploded out of his back.
A fist-sized hole appeared where his heart used to be. The cigarette clung to
his dry lips as he fell from the saddle.
“Let me know when he turns.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Bobby said, racking
the bolt.
Baylor took the ladder down without
another word.
* * * * *
Bobby stared out at the sun as it neared
the horizon. A wavy orange haze spread over the field, an illusion of fire. He
jumped down. The horse stared at him, snorted, rocked back and forth, its
hooves clopping on the rough hewn track. Its caramel and black coat bent to the
contours of its powerful body.
He held out his shaking hand. The horse
licked his empty palm and snorted again, angrily thumping the tracks with its
front hooves. He stroked its side as he rummaged in the saddle bags. He found a
rough cube of salt and offered it up. The horse took it gladly. Bobby patted its
flank. A row of ratty looking scalps hung from the saddle. He began to rifle
through the rest of the bags, keeping his eye on the finely polished lever
action rifle that rested in the holster on the opposite side. He found a box of
bloody bullets in multiple calibers, dried meat, bottles of water, tobacco, and
a tattered book with the cover long since torn off.
Bobby slipped the book into his
waistband. He untied one of the bags and dropped the bullets inside. He slipped
the Remington over his shoulder and pulled the lever action rifle from the
holster, then stared at the gun in awe. It was very similar to the one he
learned to shoot with, but it was a higher caliber. The brass shone in the late
afternoon light like molten metal. Opening it up, he counted the rounds, and
was shocked to find them covered in dried blood that flaked off at his touch.
It didn’t make sense to put such a dirty round through such a pristine weapon.
He laid the old iron sights on the
silhouette of a Creeper on the horizon. It had been some time since he fired
without the aid of a scope. He fired. The Creeper became one with the earth,
and a monitor winked out.
Bobby stood over the dead man, waiting
for him to return. He pulled the man’s pistol to remove the rounds and found
another set of blood covered bullets. The bullets in the dead rider’s bandolier
were equally bloody.
“What’s going on?” Baylor asked from the
train.
Bobby held a bullet up before his eye.
“I know how they are making their army.”