“That,” Pathos Two said, pointing at the
boy’s lips.
She did, but she couldn’t make it out.
* * * * *
Bobby was alone in all that darkness.
Completely alone, and then another joined him. A tiny ember somewhere far on
the other side of forever. He knew the presence instantly.
Brother.
Bobby felt his body, stiff and sore and
weak, but alive, veins filled with lightning—a buzzing that began to piece him
back together. His mind fired, left the darkness like a bullet from his rifle,
propelled by the presence of the other. He reached out and found understanding.
Not in words, not in images, but in being. The cold fell away and his eyes
flashed open.
Strange faces argued over his physical
body while monitors began to snap and pop back into existence in his mind. He
flexed his fingers. He sent a response out to bridge the gap, to reach his
brother, and he felt an answer, an invigorating answer that gave him strength.
He pushed his enemies away. He rolled to
his feet, swaying on the moving platform. The dead wailed below him.
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” the
red-haired woman said.
Their leader. He went for the Auto
Stryker, but found only an empty sheath. She reached for him. He jumped back,
heels on the edge platform.
“Brother!” Bobby screamed.
“He’s not okay. He’s lost too much
blood.”
“It’s okay. You are with us now. You are
where you belong,” she said, reaching for him again.
“No,” Bobby said defiantly. He stepped
back over the open air. The woman’s hand flashed out, but missed. He fell into
the waiting arms of the Creepers. The woman’s shocked face hung in disbelief
for a second and then she was replaced by the rotting faces of those closest to
him.
Arms broke from the impact of his body,
but the Creepers obeyed. They caught him and laid him gently on the ground.
Then they hid him among them, towered over him, shielding him from the eyes of
his enemies. The stench of the Creepers was thick around him. Maggots squished
beneath his feet as he ducked under rotting legs, ropey innards, flaps of skin,
and dingy clothes.
He looked beyond the monitors to his
brother, to the place in his mind where he almost died. A glowing figure waited
there. He couldn’t make out any features, only suggestions of a figure, but
that didn’t matter. The absolute truth of what he felt did.
The glowing, burning figure stood before
his mind’s eye.
“Brother
,” the figure
said.
Baylor stared at the mottled bruise
across Post’s jaw. The proud soldier’s mouth had been offset, making his face
look like a puzzle with missing pieces. His lips weren’t in the right place.
The once broad face seemed now like a hastily thrown together structure, unsure
of what it was supposed to be.
“Baylor,” Post rasped.
“Ain’t this a special moment,” Keaton
chimed in. He spat into the firebox.
Baylor watched Post draw a massive
revolver from under the front of his shirt. Before his injured friend could
even get it out, Keaton had its twin aimed at Post’s broken face. Then to
Baylor’s horror, Post winked at the one-armed man and flipped the revolver
around and handed it to him.
Keaton laughed. “She won’t be much good
to me anymore, soldier boy. There might be hope for you yet. Keep her and care
for her. She’s seen me through all kinds of shit. Perhaps she can do the same
for you.” Keaton nodded. “Besides, you automatic boys lost the art of the draw
long ago. You pull on me you . . . well, it’s simple really.”
“My brother?” Post managed.
Baylor stood motionless. The beast
chugged along, hissing and groaning like the mad old woman she was. “Dead.”
Baylor hammered the gears home then turned to the firebox and left handed a
shovelful of coal into its waiting maw.
“How?” Post’s voice sounded like rocks
smashing together, but his emotions seeped through the abrasiveness.
“How the fuck you think?” Baylor shook
his head. The beast belched steam, wailed in anger, as if it read the Mad
Conductor’s mind. “They killed him. Killed my friends. Took the hope. Now
you’re running with them.”
Post stared at him on the verge of
collapse, but there was something else behind those eyes. The wounded soldier
gave Baylor the slightest of nods.
Keaton whistled loudly. “What do we got
here?”
Baylor grabbed the emergency brake and
threw all his weight at it. The pain in his broken arm stole the breath from
his lungs. The beast stuttered, brakes squealing in protest. Baylor angled his
feet just right, which kept him upright while his passengers went flying past.
The dead were everywhere.
“Son of a bitch,” Keaton said, rubbing
his head.
The other side of the green hill had
been replaced by thousands of wandering Creepers. Baylor could see rotting
heads floating in the river off to his right, pale hands groping as they
twirled in the black water. The moans carried on just as loud as the sudden
blares from the army’s horns. Several men on horseback rode alongside the beast
and opened fire on the horde. Their efforts knocked a few down but drew the rest
towards the beast.
More and more of Moya’s troops began to
line the hilltop. Most of them didn’t even have minor protection, let alone the
cage of the beast. Baylor shook his head. After years of keeping himself alive,
after years of keeping others alive, such wanton disregard bordered on
blasphemy. They charged into the dead as if they weren’t a threat. No matter
how many he’d killed over the decades, he never let his guard down around them.
Even with Bobby, even with what the boy was able to do. Baylor knew better.
He’d seen too many die, let too many die…
Bobby,
Baylor thought, gripping the
controls until his knuckles were about to burst. The Mad Conductor cackled from
every hidden corner of his mind at once. He’d lost Bobby. He was sure this
time. They knew. They pretended like everything was normal, but they knew. He
could see it in Keaton’s eyes. Whatever Post was trying to silently communicate
with that stare wouldn’t be enough.
“Buncha of fucking pussies,” Keaton said
over his shoulder as he emptied the minds of three Creepers. He found another
and took careful aim. The dead woman’s face exploded out the back of her head.
“Go on. Start her back up, Mr. Conductor. Cut us a path through them. The boys
clean up real good.”
Baylor grabbed the gear then slammed it
home and the beast responded with a great roar. The metal spikes caught a pair
of Creepers mid-chest as their legs disappeared beneath the churning gears.
“That’s more li—”
A pair of Moya’s soldiers evaporated in
a fireball. The edges of the explosion licked at the beast’s protective cage.
Body parts and dirt rained down. Baylor cringed from the heat. He went to grab
the brake again, but another explosion ripped the beast from the tracks. Baylor
inhaled fire, and his clothes burned as he was lifted from his feet. The sounds
of metal giving way mixed with men screaming in pain and the moans of the
Creepers.
* * * * *
Howard reached out with his mind. He
felt every pain his brother had ever endured. He felt the beatings, the loss.
The imprints were far stronger than any he’d ever felt before, as if the very
cells of the infection were relaying Bobby’s essence to him. It all happened in
a flash. One gigantic wave of knowledge. His eyes brimmed with tears. This was
far beyond anything his father had ever dared to imagine. The culmination of
the immunity triggers had released something beyond measure. Howard projected
his own image in Bobby’s direction.
Bobby. The name echoed in his thoughts.
Though he’d never spoken it aloud, he screamed it. And Bobby screamed back,
Brother!
Their minds met, extending their range,
bridging the gap between them and their armies. Thousands of dead viewpoints
swirled around them. Howard could feel each mutated cell in his body tingle
with raw energy. A great warmth that soothed his ragged mind.
Through the eyes of the dead, Howard
watched the army crest the hill. He watched as they attacked. He triggered one
of the detonators and then another.
Suddenly images of a smiling black man
flitted through his mind. Waves of love washed over him as he absorbed Bobby’s
thoughts, and he understood what his brother wanted. In response, Howard began
to direct the Creepers away from the train. He only hoped it was enough as the
fireball lingered over the strange vehicle.
* * * * *
Bobby peppered his brother’s mind with
images of the pen, images of the men atop it. Then he began to stack the
Creepers, but as he did, monitors began to wink off in rapid succession.
It wasn’t Howard’s doing. His brother
was there, but elsewhere, for he could feel him moving through his own set of
Creepers, projecting thoughts and orders.
The red-haired woman’s fist crashed
through a rotting face. Bobby jumped to another pair of dead eyes. The dead lay
at her feet. She stood there, unafraid of the Creepers, her fists dripping with
blood. Bobby sent more her way as shots rang out from above.
She worked through them in rapid
succession, crushing brittle bones with her powerful hands. She moved faster
than Bobby could react with his mind, and she was coming for him.
Bobby crawled to the edge of the pen.
The hanging man screamed above him, dangling dangerously close to the Creepers.
Bobby climbed onto rotting shoulders and ordered another Creeper atop the
first. The ladder in place, he began to leap. The pressure from his efforts
proved too much for the sagging, maggot-riddled flesh, and his booted feet went
right through an old man’s back and out his chest. Black lungs plopped to the
damp earth to be trampled by the rotting feet of his fellow Creepers.
Bobby braced himself on the bony
shoulders and heaved, freeing his feet. He heard the woman shouting something
behind him, but he did not look back. She was close. He could feel her eyes on
his back. He tensed and leaped. His fingers caught the leather straps that held
the man in place. He swung over the Creepers’ outstretched arms, hearing every
one of their voices. They kept calling him. Voices from the past. A collection
from a now dead history.
The sunburned man stared at him in
disbelief. Bobby stepped on his face as he took hold of the chain that kept the
man from falling into the pit. He climbed hand over hand, ignoring the man’s
screams.
He ordered every Creeper in the pen into
the right corner. Their sudden change of direction buckled the wagons. Wood
beams cracked like gunshots as the Creepers’ impact made itself known. The
right side of the pen rippled, collapsing in waves that sent splinters forth
like arrows. Men tumbled from the top, screaming.
Bobby let the Creepers feast while he climbed.
He wrapped his arms around the crane and shimmied towards the left side of the
pen. The right wall was partially collapsed and he kept the Creepers moving in
that direction, using the crush of their bodies to try and knock it free. Bobby
dropped onto the unsteady platform and released the lock on the crane. The
sunburned man was swallowed by a swarm of Creepers without a sound, his silence
a bitter thank you.
A lone man with long black hair leaned
over the railing and opened fire on the Creepers. He moved from one to the
next, never missing a shot. His exactness proved to be his downfall as Bobby
ran up behind him, grabbed the rifle stock, and kicked him over the railing.
Bobby dropped the magazine from the weapon to check the ammo.
Ten shots.
He slapped the magazine in and sighted
the tattooed woman. His first shot caught her in the chest and his second
splattered her brains across the fat man’s face. Bobby aimed at the man, but
the tattooed woman’s body did the job for him. Her body caught the fat man in
the knees as the platform lurched, sending them both over the side.
The rail splintered before him. He
dropped flat. Another series of shots ripped the wooden railing inches from his
head. It took him a second to find the shooter. The man was shooting wildly up
from the side of the opposite platform. Bobby rolled and popped up, snapping
off two rounds that caught the man low in his belly. The man tried to raise his
rifle, but Bobby’s third shot punched a hole through his face.
The pen snapped back like a rubber band
as the right side gave way completely. Bobby teetered on the edge of the
platform as it rolled violently from the shock. He reached for the railing but
missed. He bounced off the wood and began to tumble. Bobby caught an exposed beam,
using the rifle as a brace. He hung above a whinnying horse as it struggled
against the restraints holding it in place. Bobby dropped down next to it. The
pen groaned then trembled as another part of the wall collapsed.
The Creepers rushed through the gap into
the open field. Bobby kept them moving, but even as he did, more and more
monitors flicked off. Somewhere behind them, the red-haired woman was on a
rampage. He tried to focus, to find her so he could end it once and for all,
but a series of explosions forced him to break the connection.
* * * * *
Moya drove her fist into the temple of a
bald man in a torn pair of coveralls. His slick brains coated her arms like
jelly. She pushed his limp corpse aside and continued her rampage. She ran
behind them, picking them off when she could, but her focus was not rattled.
Her blood was up now and she would not be denied, even as things started to go
horribly wrong around her.
Her army met the flood head on, but
before they could corral the Creepers, another wave came from over the hill.
Explosions tore through her ranks, sending men and beasts into oblivion in
bright orange clouds of death. Her forces did not panic. They continued the
fight, moving around the edge of the now-free Creepers. They worked through the
ranks with clubs and guns, anything they could use to crush skulls. Wagon
wheels churned the green grass into a slop of earth and blood.
Moya skirted the battle, doubling back
around the destroyed pen. She pressed a hand over her heart as she felt the
infection in her blood. There was nothing to fear, not since…
Josh was with her. Her little savior. He
was always with her, a part of her, coursing through her veins. He’d fed her
hunger long ago, as was her right as a mother. His little body gave up its
secret, and while one part of him was lost forever, his gift was not. He lived
on inside her now, protecting her from infection, protecting her from them.
Though he could not do it for everyone, in death he was able to save her from
it. She held no shame about what she’d done. It was natural. The cycle of
things in this apocalypse.