Howard felt ill. “What kind of world,
Father,” he shouted into the rain.
“I told you I wept for you then and I do
so now,” Doc Danielson said from behind him. Howard turned as his father
stepped into the light with tears streaming down his face, holding a long metal
club out to his side.
Howard jumped up. “You shouldn't be out.
You're not well. It's miles from home. This is far even for me.”
“All valid points, son, but it's also
good to get out. Besides, I've never really had the chance to truly appreciate
what you've done to the city.”
Howard's heart fell as he watched his
father cough. The man that gave him life, his rock, his untouchable hero,
looked so brittle and frail.
“What we've done, Father. Making the
world safe one block at a time, right?” Howard tried to remain optimistic. The
emotions swirling like a tempest inside of him were on the very edge. He needed
release. His hand tensed on the hammer. The Creepers increased their attempts
to reach him. He closed his eyes.
“What do you see, son?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you feel?”
“Their hunger.”
“What do their imprints tell you?”
“Nothing. They are too old.” Howard
drifted in that ocean of emptiness he felt whenever a Creeper was within range.
He stood on the edge of a great cliff overlooking the black space between
galaxies. That unimaginable space—a void waiting to be filled. He could not
fill it. He could only hope to ease their suffering by releasing them from the
grip of the disease.
“The one in the middle was not one of
them,” his father said sadly.
“But I can sense it,” Howard said, his
eyes still closed. A cold, imaginary wind nipped at his mind.
“I meant before they nailed him to that
thing. What else does your blood tell you?”
“Nothing but emptiness.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. We've been over this already,
Father. Many times.”
“Never stop asking questions, son, ever.
Never stop learning. If you remember anything I've taught you, remember that.
There are still so many unanswered questions about what happened, what is
happening within you. I won't be around forever. You must learn.” Doc Danielson
coughed again. Bits of thick pinkish mucus flecked his gray beard.
“Don't say that.” Howard squeezed his
eyes shut tight. The cough was getting worse. Terror gripped him then. He let
go of the void, tensed, and drove his hammer through the brittle skull to his
left. Somewhere inside, what was left of the infectious connection broke
instantly. The burden lessened.
But the burden of losing the man who
gave him life threatened to overtake all. What would he do? Alone, with not
even the dead to keep him company? He was terrified.
He stepped around the crucifix and broke
another connection. He felt his father’s presence beside him now, ragged breath
and all. A death rattle. He'd heard it before, when old Lars took to the gun
five years earlier. The old man couldn't bear a slow death and he chose to
depart one morning, leaving this life on a clear blue day without a word. The
only sound was the single gunshot echoing through an empty Los Angeles.
The man turned Creeper against his will
was like the others—skin and bones. He'd been bound with wire and nailed into
chunks of concrete that were carefully placed at the feet and hands inside a
rusted cage of discarded metal. The implementation was crude, but the message
of the shrine was clear: the world had changed.
“Let me, son,” his father said.
He watched as his father drew the club
back, muscles straining, bones showing under weathered skin. Not much different
from the Creepers. No, not much different at all. What was he going to do? His
father brought the club down, smashing through the monitor, finding brain,
closing the connection. Howard felt it break, almost like a yawn within him.
He watched his father remove a pair of
bolt cutters from his pack.
“What are you doing, Father?”
“We can't leave them like this.” Doc
Danielson began cutting through the wires, grunting and coughing from the
effort.
“We can come back tomorrow and finish
the work. They won't mind. I'd like to think they'd understand.”
“There is still plenty of light left in
the day. They deserve better. Remember that. You all deserve better. Don't
forget each other. It's one of the reasons we've come to this place in our
violent history. Don't forget, son. The world is bigger than you.”
He watched his father fight through a
fit of coughs while gently removing the crucified body. He didn't know what to
say, but inside he was beyond distraught.
Howard and his father worked through the
remainder of the day, sweating and aching from the strenuous task. They were
ever respectful of the dead. They spoke not a word to each other while they
worked. They were too busy dwelling within the prisons of their own minds.
Howard
kept looking, kept checking his father, watching for signs of the end. What
would he do? He couldn't help but be paranoid. He had a terrible feeling this
would be the last day of his father's life.
Bobby’s hair whipped in the wind as he
stared at the mouth of the beast. He remembered vividly the Creeper that found
its end there. Bobby had heard it talk directly to him, but in the many encounters
since then he’d never come close to achieving such clarity. There were images
of things but nothing like the language before the crack of his rifle. Steam
drifted past his face, warm then cool, as the machinery cracked and clattered
along the tracks.
Somewhere behind, Dotsero faded into the
darkness. He hadn’t been able to sleep. Not anything more than a few hours a
night if he were lucky. He spent most of those nights atop the train, watching
the stars go about the universe’s business. Worlds away. With the power of his
mind, he could imagine them far removed from the horrors he’d seen, the horrors
he’d committed, but he could not change his part in things. This was his life.
And what a life it turned out to be.
Images from the dead flickered along
with his grand thoughts. They held for mere moments then drifted away, like
sand scattered by the wind, as the train moved him out of effective range.
There were always more though, always more. The closer they came to the cities
the heavier the influx of monitors in his mind. Bobby did not try to gather
them. He let them spark and fade. The sheer enormity of the numbers overwhelmed
him. How long would it take to remove them all? He couldn’t do it alone. He
didn’t even know if he could do it at all. He’d mastered a few thousand, but
tens of thousands, millions? He couldn’t comprehend how such numbers would
burden his mind. The presence of so many could kill him.
“Knew I’d find you up here, kid,” Baylor
said.
“Mr. Baylor,” Bobby said through a yawn
as he made room for Baylor beside him. His legs were nowhere near as long, nor
were his dirty blue jeans as flashy as Baylor’s black and white checkered
pants.
“I thought we talked about that Mr.
Baylor shit?”
“I thought we talked about kid?”
Baylor laughed. “Fair enough. About a
mile back, we crossed into Utah. Going to be a lot less green around for
awhile. A lot less Creepers too. Not too many out this way, but once we get
near Salt Lake they’ll be heavy. Last time out, we had to plow through and clean
them off later. The beast stunk for weeks.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem this time.”
Bobby smiled.
“What’s been eating you, kid?”
Bryan’s legs dangled from the fence. The
heat from his brother’s insides were frighteningly real, even in memory. Ecky’s
last breath. Ol’ Randy’s life fading before his eyes. So much death.
“Everything,” he whispered.
“Let it go, kid. Don’t hang on to it.
Never did anybody any good.”
“What did you let go, Mr. Baylor?”
“Everything.”
Bobby let that sink in. He didn’t know
much about the man before that fateful day on the tracks. The dark-skinned man
remained an enigma. Sometimes lashing out, and at other times completely calm
and father-like. The Mad Conductor indeed, but Bobby trusted him with his life,
with his family’s life. That’s the kind of truth Baylor embodied. You didn’t
question it. He was crazy, but genuine, and you sure as shit didn’t fuck with
him. Bobby watched the man’s moon slice eyes dart about.
“Things didn’t turn out like I thought,
but do they ever?”
Bobby shook his head. He was a father
now. They most certainly did not.
“I ever tell you about Dante?” Baylor
leaned back, staring into the sky.
“No.”
Baylor shook his head, laughing and
sighing in one long drawn out breath. “Stupid mother fucker.”
“I thought you said you let everything
go?”
“Just because I say it doesn’t mean I
listened to my own advice. And just because you let it go doesn’t mean you
forget it. You remember, shit. Yeah, you remember. You remember it always, but
you don’t let it hold sway over your emotions. You don’t cry over it anymore.
You’ve shed those tears already. You don’t get angry over it. You’ve settled
that shit already. You don’t forget, but you don’t hold on. Let it be.” Baylor
scratched his chin, searching the moonlit sky for the words.
Bobby took the words to heart. Bryan’s
legs. His brothers. He still harbored too much hate to let them go. What if he
wasn’t strong enough? The nightmares were already too much, and the glimpses
that assailed him during waking hours were beginning to increase. Maybe it was
the isolation of the train. On the open road with Pathos One, he’d been able to
keep busy, but there were only so many times he could clean his rifle aboard
the beast.
“Philly, I think it was Philly. Maybe
two, three years after it all went to shit. Still a lot of people around. You
know, regular people. You’d see them scuttling along like a bunch of hermit
crabs. All kinds of useless shit in shopping carts, on their backs, and none of
it would help them. I remember their eyes. Those animal eyes.
“Darting. Always like a bunch of scared
animals, clutching possessions close to their chest. TVs and shit. Fucking
idiots. Even after a few years passed, they still thought shit was going back
to normal. I’ll never forget those eyes. They were always the same when you
passed on the road. At first I thought it was because I was black, but then I
got the same treatment from my own. It wasn’t race. It was purely predatory. It
was stature. Posture. The way I carry myself. Stand tall. Intimidate. Puff up
your chest. Basic shit they teach you in the military. Like those Jesus freaks
taught you. Be more than you know you are and people will believe it.
“Poor fucks were just scared of me
pretending to be big and bad. Thought I was getting ready to pounce on them
like they’d been pounced on ten times before.” Baylor pulled a gnarled root
from his pocket, broke it in two, and offered half to Bobby.
“Don’t eat it. Chew it. Sweet stuff
here,” Baylor said as he set the root in his mouth. “I can remember each of
those dirty faces. The kids and their ratty dolls. Like victims of a napalming
from those old Nam photos. Walking. Always walking, hugging the main highways
for familiarity, for safety in numbers. Fucking fools didn’t know shit and I
bet not a single one of them are alive anymore.
“They were lucky I wasn’t one of the
crazies. Bunch of savages would scour the roads like it was the wild fucking
west, raping, kidnapping, stealing, killing. Survival’s a dirty fucking game.
An ugly one, but it never had to be. I can’t even understand how such people
exist or why they exist. But it’s because of those people I got a chance to
known Dante.
“I’m pretty sure it was Philly,” Baylor
said again, waving the root about and spitting off the side of the train. The
track bent slightly to the right. The train shifted with a long screech that
echoed for miles around. “Everyone was moving here and there and nobody had any
direction. But I did. Had me a nice set of clothes and canned food and I was
armed to the teeth, heading down south to open ground. The cities and ’burbs
were too jam packed.
“Was a night like tonight. Clear and
crisp. The moon had the road lit for miles. I could see the shadows like
something out of an old silent film. Strange silhouettes shuffling along. I
stayed just off the road in the tree line, moving fast, just trying to get
clear. I heard them long before I saw them. Screaming. Just insane screaming
and cursing.”
Bobby remembered the wild woman and her
terrible voice. Ecky’s face as his mouth bubbled with blood. He bit down on the
root, wishing the memory would fade, but the ghosts refused to be cast away.
“I could see these lights, torches way
ahead. There were so many. I’d heard about such gangs from others during my
trek south. People I talked to were lucky. They were able to hide. Cannibals,
psychos, degraded humanity, call them what you will. I don’t know if any
language left on this planet can adequately describe those animals. I thought I
put up a tough front, but nothing compared to that gang. People were snatching
up their kids and bolting.
“The gang knew and they continued the
slow march down the road. Every once in a while, a few torches would break from
the mass and you’d hear shots and screams, mostly screams. They were the approaching
storm and they left nothing but desolation in their wake. At least, they did
until Dante. He couldn’t have been any taller than you. A little wiry Italian
Jew from somewhere in Jersey. Maybe a buck fifty in a pair of cement shoes. I
didn’t even hear him that night.
“I’m standing there watching the torches
and hearing the horror and this voice. This fucking voice says from behind me,
‘They’re at it again. Not on my watch. Been tracking them since Monmouth. What
they did to that girl and her mother. Hey, buddy, you in?’
“I had my hand on the trigger, but I
didn’t even know where this guy was. Just a voice in the dark. The torches are
getting closer. The screams are getting louder. At this point, I’m ready to
move farther from the road until they pass. My conscience wants me to make a
bee-line for them, but rationality trumps it. ‘I can’t,’ I tell the trees,
because I still have no clue where this guy is. ‘Sure you can. You’re just
afraid. Afraid to do something. Afraid to be the first. I’ll make it easy. You
don’t have to be because I already am.’
“Kid, it was crazy. He was as close as
you are now, but I couldn’t see him. He kept jabbering on, egging me on. Then
he tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Boo,’ he said with this wicked laugh. ‘I’ve been
watching you for a few days, guy. You don’t think like the sheep. More like a
wolf, like me. Maybe a wolf ain’t the right word. Shepherd may be better—a
watcher. There are a few like us out here, keeping to ourselves. We keep doing
that, won’t be anyone left to watch soon. Damn nutjobs going to ruin what
little hope we got left.’ Kid you’d think the way he was going on he’d be armed
like me. No. Crazy little guy had nothing but a bloodstained baseball bat.
“He stood there, sizing me up. I almost
shot him then just to shut him up and give myself a chance to get away. But
then I heard this scream. This terrified little scream, and of everything I let
go I kept that one. It’s what made me save Jamie and Sophie all those years
ago. It’s what made me give you a chance. It’s always been there. I know what I
said before about letting go but that scream is the one exception.
“It belonged to a little girl, and it
set something off inside of me. ‘Knew you were a good guy. Name’s Dante,
friend, Dante Chaggreddino. Not that that means anything anymore. How’s about
you say we go down there and set things straight?’
“Most of the torch bearers were kids
themselves, but they were already lost. Their eyes dead, just like the
Creepers. There’s no coming back from a stare like that. Vacant souls armed
with knives, and clubs, and guns, and a wanton disregard for human life. Before
I even had a chance to start popping shots, Dante bowls right into the fray and
starts cracking skulls. He dipped in, dropped a few, and ducked out. The gang was
so amped up on blood, rape, and adrenaline they had no idea what was going on,
and by the time they did it was already too late. We worked through them for
what seemed like hours.
“I couldn’t go into my pack to reload,
so I started swinging my rifle by the barrel. I broke the fucking stock. I lost
track of Dante, but I heard his voice and that fucking laugh of his. I remember
finding the girl huddled behind a car. I tried to tell her it was okay now, but
she was so scared, so little, before I could grab her she was off into the
darkness. I don’t know what happened to her, but I hope that she made it. I
hope the evils of the world are nothing to her now.”
Bobby waited for Baylor to continue, but
when he didn’t he asked, “What happened to Dante?”
Baylor plucked the root from his mouth
and turned to face Bobby. From behind the clouds, the moon cut patterns on his
face. His eyes were wide and wet. “I failed him. I . . . I was supposed to keep
watch while he slept. Supposed to watch for the Creepers, but I was so tired,
Bobby. My hands. . . the blood and screams were too much. That night sucked it
out of me. I had the perimeter checked, but we weren’t in the most ideal spot.
We were just too damn tired from making a difference in this fucked up world.”
Tossing the root over the side, Baylor
said, “I woke to his screams. They were already tearing him apart. I put him
down and ran. I’ve put so much distance between myself and that night. A lot of
miles. A lot of differences. I can’t hold the emotions and neither should you.
I’ll never forget Dante. But all I need is the name to remind me. I don’t need
the guilt, or doubt, or any of that shit to comes bubbling up. Maybe Jamie’s
right, and I’m full of shit and I’ve buried it all too deep. I’d like to think
not. And I hope you listen, kid. I hope you don’t let what they did, what they
took from you, bury you in burdens that can never be lifted.”