He tried to pinpoint its origin, but the
buildings made it impossible. He almost started yelling. Then he got a hold of
himself. He went to the gun-cabinet. He took the hunting rifle and some
ammunition. With shaking hands, he grabbed his pack and slipped the device into
one of the zippered pockets.
The woman screamed again.
He entered the stairwell. Descending the
steps with trepidation, he found his way without stumbling, even in the thick
darkness, by memory alone. He’d traveled up and down these steps since he could
walk. Almost twenty-two years. He avoided the cracks and gaps on the tenth
floor, edged himself along the wall. The air was thick with mold down here.
Water plopped and sloshed below. He nudged several lumbering rats out of his
way with his boot as he reached the landing.
The door was rusted and jammed. He used
all of his weight to open it. The hinges held then groaned, screaming a protest
of their own, as if he’d cracked open the tomb of a fallen king. A strong
breeze swept over him, moaning through the stairwell. Howard waited for what
seemed like an eternity. The woman’s scream came again, as did the howling of
the coyotes. He wasn’t the only one interested in this new intruder.
Even in the darkness, Howard took no
chances. He stayed low and listened. It sounded like the screams were coming
from the east. They seemed to carry on the wind. He kept the rifle close, but
it felt strange in his hands. The only thing he’d ever shot with it was the
occasional coyote. He didn’t even like target practice. But even his father
would agree that the implement of death was necessary to a degree.
His father. He looked back at the
rounded building, a tomb in the dark. A tomb in the light. A thing of the past.
There was nothing there for him. He turned away. He sensed something off before
he reached the next intersection. Howard hunkered down behind what was left of
an old food truck. Weeds rustled in the breeze, poking through its broken
windows.
The woman wasn’t alone. There were gruff
male voices saying something in a language he could not understand. A dryness
crept into the back of his throat.
Slowly, Howard moved to the building on
his right. He worked his way up the sidewalk, avoiding debris and scrub brush,
hoping he didn’t fall into one of the many chasms that now called greater Los
Angeles home. Up ahead, a flickering orange light pushed the darkness back.
Howard could see her now, bloodied and bruised, tears cutting the dirt on her
face.
The scene was not what he expected.
The woman was dressed in dark clothing
with leaves and branches woven into it. Her hair was black as night, and the
blade in her hand nearly as long as her slender but toned arms. She held one of
the men by the collar, screaming in his face.
“Where?” she screamed. “Where?” She held
the machete against the man’s face, allowing him to glimpse his eyes in the
reflection.
“Que?” the man asked, stumbling over the
word. He shook with terror.
The woman gave him every reason to as
she severed his arm. She kicked his bloodied body aside, letting him writhe in
pain. She stalked over to the other man, holding her machete high she asked
again, “Where?”
The man looked out of place in blue
jeans and a red and white plaid shirt. His sharp-pointed boots scuffed along
the crumbling asphalt as he tried in vain to get away.
“Where are they? I know you took them.
That much I got from the rest of your men. Where?”
The man began to sputter, but Howard
could not make out any words.
The woman didn’t give him a second
chance to answer. She hacked the machete across the man’s throat. The man’s
head bent back as a splash of blood splattered at her feet. The woman spit on
the man and then returned to the other. She pulled him up by the back of the
hair, laying the blade across his throat.
Howard wanted nothing more than to slip
back into the night unnoticed. But there was nothing left for him there. He
looked at the woman, at the rage in her eyes. Her lips trembled, brow knotted,
and she raised the machete. Howard set the rifle against his shoulder and
fired.
“It’s the same song every night. Same
time. It’s on a loop,” Jamie said, tapping her fingers along with the upbeat
tempo. “I don’t recognize the song, but it’s strange, don’t you think?”
It had been so long since Bobby last
heard music. He didn’t know what to think. He remembered listening to a man
named Cash that Ol’ Randy really liked, but something about that man’s voice
always scared him, as if Cash were about to walk out of the speakers and judge
him harshly.
“It’s
Radio Nowhere
, Springsteen,”
Baylor said.
Bobby watched a heavy shelf of terror
weigh Baylor’s face down. Wrinkles ran dark lines into the V of that glistening
brow. Those eyes were no longer wide and crazy. They were tight and sad.
“Baylor, what does it mean?” Jamie
asked, wringing her hands, bits of caked flour falling to the floor with each
twist.
“It means Wyoming Blue was compromised,”
Price said from the shadow of the door. The mountain of a man moved into the
car in a hunched walk, his neck bent at an angle to keep his head from bumping
the ceiling. “It means what I thought, after we fought the crazies dressed as
soldiers. It means my brother is dead and so are a lot of other strong men and
women.”
Bobby tried to move to make room for the
man. He may as well have climbed on the roof. He could feel the heat of the
engine room burning its way out of Price’s golden skin. He could smell the
dragon’s breath—that rich coal smoke.
“How can you be sure, Price? There’s a
chance, right? There’s always a chance,” Jamie said, playing the optimistic
matron.
“Someone’s alive, or they were when they
triggered the repeater. It will loop every night at midnight, and it will
continue until the solar gives out or something breaks in the relays,” Price
said.
“If that’s the case, why haven’t we been
picking it up on the CB in the head of the beast? That fucker has been silent,
just the way I like it, for a very, very long time. Since we started this whole
thing. Since the last time either of us saw your brother and his platoon,”
Baylor said, the worry abundantly clear on his face.
“If those wild people didn’t get the
uniforms from your brother’s men then where did they get them from?” Bobby
said. The open grave of memory had him tossing the barefoot soldier into the
trunk with Ecky.
“I don’t know, Bobby. There are a lot of
abandoned bases out there.”
“None of that matters,” Baylor yelled.
“Who’s in the head of the beast?”
“Hoss is tending our girl for now.
Parker and Cleave are on the perch.”
“Kid, grab your rifle. Jamie, get
everyone up and ready. I want all eyes open and fingers on triggers.” Baylor
drew his revolver and snapped open the drum. He added a shell from his pocket
and flicked the drum closed. “This isn’t good. This is bad, bad shit.”
“But we passed out of Colorado a while back,
Baylor,” Jamie said.
“The relays stretch the length of the
railroad from the east all the way to the end of the line. They stretch into
the areas where we haven’t laid track yet. My brother, Baylor, and myself set
it up as an early warning system. If either of our groups were in the area and
shit was bad, we’d trigger the signal to warn the others. But the signal
doesn’t cover the whole area. There are markers between the relays that work as
a bootleg GPS. I picked it up days ago, but I didn’t want to believe it,
couldn’t believe it.”
“Whatever got them is close to us,”
Bobby said as he got up. “I’ll meet you on the roof, Mr. Baylor.”
“But it could be behind us, Baylor,”
Jamie pleaded.
“Yeah, we have to go back that way,
don’t we?”
“I thought maybe they took some loses,
Baylor, you know? I didn’t hear the signal. I knew that meant my bro was okay.
It meant they were still out there clearing the dead and dealing with the
fucking mock-native techno cult assholes. But this is different. This is for sure.
What took them out?”
“I don’t know, but I aim to empty
everything we got in its direction.”
* * * * *
Bobby slipped into the sleeper car
quieter than a flea’s whisper. He grabbed his rifle from the rack by the door,
careful not to wake Sophie and Randal. He’d leave that task for Jamie.
“What’s wrong?” Sophie said from the
bunk. The moonlight threw odd shadows on her pale face. Randal rooted at a
snowy slice of breast amidst the thick blankets.
“I don’t know yet. Baylor thinks we’ll
have trouble.” Bobby didn’t want to worry her.
“How long has it been since you slept?”
Her red curls bounced with the swaying of the train.
“I had a few hours,” Bobby lied.
“Not this night. You can’t keep this up,
Bobby. I need you. Randal needs you.”
Bobby went to her. He cradled her soft
face in his weathered hands. He kissed her blood red lips, smelled the
sweetness of her hair—an old perfume of Jamie’s. Something on the verge of
being forgotten, a relic from the world that was. He held his breath, held her,
and listened to Randal coo in her arms. He kissed the boy, but did not let them
go. He didn’t want it to end. The peace. The calm they spread over him. They
were all that mattered. The entirety of his world in his arms. He’d do anything
to protect them.
The demons of the past shrunk back to
their dark holes, but he could hear their ragged breathing and smell their
fetid breath. He kept his mind on the dangers of the present, on the very real
threat to his family, and left the demons to brood for the time being. He didn’t
doubt they’d come calling soon enough, but the thought of something happening
to the only people that mattered angered him beyond measure.
“I have to go. Keep Randal close, keep
your gun closer. When Jamie comes, be ready to move.” Bobby kissed her and the
baby one more time before breaking the embrace.
“Bobby,” Sophie called after him.
He stopped at the door, turning back to
glimpse her ghostly skin waver like an apparition in the shadows.
“Come back to us. Promise me you’ll come
back to us.”
Bobby chambered a round and nodded to
her.
* * * * *
“What are you thinking, Baylor?” Price
said from beside him. It was rare for the burly man to be anywhere but in the
mouth of the beast while it was in motion.
“Nothing’s out here. No Creepers really,
no people, no resources. That signal started in Colorado. That signal is still
playing and we haven’t seen dick of a sign. Whatever happened was dragged out,
otherwise the signal would be isolated. It’s obviously not. That tells me some
of them are alive and triggering them as they go.” Baylor knelt behind one of
the heavy iron plates for cover. He wasn’t taking any chances.
“Or whoever took them out is drawing us
in. It’s not like we’re a mystery at this point to anybody along the route.”
“That crossed my mind too. There are too
many possibilities and I don’t like that. Colorado I can get. There are people
there, plenty of resources to be had. Hell it’s one of our busiest trading
spots, but there is nothing out here. Salt Lake is a death trap and the rest .
. . well look at it.” Baylor waved his revolver.
“My bro wouldn’t risk the men,
’specially on foot out here, unless he had good reason.”
Baylor admired that the big man didn’t
bother to crouch. Price stood atop the train, taunting any that would dare harm
him to take a shot.
The sun crept up from the rusty
mountains, spilling golden light upon the valley, gilding the tips of the
beast’s spikes. A bloody red mixed with the quickly retreating cloak of night
saturated the land in the color of bruises.
Baylor pulled Price down. He held the
giant man so close he could practically taste the burning coals. He looked into
those dark eyes, those selflessly loyal eyes. He knew what he was about to ask,
and he would not ask it of any of the other men, and most certainly not of
Bobby. None of them would do it. None of them could do it. He couldn’t do it
himself, but Price would.
“Go to the rear and ready for the return
trip.” Baylor held the giant by his collar.
“Boss, I. . .” Price shook his head.
“You can and you will. Ready her and be
ready. Jamie is already bringing a group back there. She doesn’t know what I’m
asking you and I’d rather she not find out. You get the return trip ready. And
then you wait down there. If things go wrong, you break the bitch in half and
get the girls and that baby out of here. You don’t look back.”
“Baylor, over a decade I’ve been running
this route with you and we’ve never broken her.”
“We never had reason to, Price, but fuck
reason. We have an obligation to humanity to break her if need be. I can fend
for myself.”
“But you won’t be able to get back.”
Price’s eyes trembled. His massive hands shook. He looked as if he were about
to weep.
“If it comes to that, I’ll find a way.
It’ll be easier to do knowing you’re back in the hills with our ticket out of
hell. Besides, I’ll have the kid with me.” Baylor looked away as he said the
words.
“You’d do that to him?”
“He’d want me to.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not fucking sure about anything,
but if we all die then nothing matters, does it? This is bigger than us now,
and it’s bigger than trying to establish a semblance of civilization. Like I
said . . . obligations. Goddamn responsibility.”
Price clapped Baylor on the shoulder.
“You find my bro if he’s alive. You tell that fuck he owes me a bottle. Skunked
or not, that little fuck owes me.”
“Deal.” Baylor watched the giant of a
man navigate the swaying roof. The sunlight made the sooty sweat glisten like
diamonds on his neck. He was sure that in another time Price would be right at
home moving mountains with those massive hands. He knew he’d made the right
choice, the only logical choice. What the hell was he thinking? This wasn’t
like him. He’d rather have Price in the head of the beast and going full steam
ahead, and fuck what fate had waiting for them. But the kid changed all that,
and now there was a reason to his madness.
He wondered if the doctor from the
notebook had imagined this precarious future, and just how narrow a chance the
human race had.
* * * * *
Bobby climbed the rungs two at a time.
The reassuring weight of the rifle settled his nerves. The wind and smoke
slapped him boldly across the face. He loved that smell. He loved the implied
freedom it represented. As he reached the top, he caught sight of the edge of
Baylor’s crouched frame. His garish clothes were highlighted by the rising sun,
a blazing fireball ready to scorch the sands and lift the chill. Bobby stopped
to take it all in. The light of all life, a god-like eye that watched them
suffer. It watched them, indifferent to their struggles, but it watched them
nonetheless.
Bobby kept low, careful to avoid the
angled shield barriers. He dropped into a crouch next to Baylor. The landscape
rolled out before them red-orange, with heavy black shadows elongated by the
sun’s low angle. The lack of sleep hit him hard then. His eyes felt heavy, his
body equally as heavy, like a reoccurring dream. He’d been here before, over
and over. The lack of sleep, this place his only retreat, a successive series
of escapes that did little to prepare him for what might come.
“Kid, you with the living?” Baylor poked
Bobby with the barrel of his revolver.
“I’m okay. Just didn’t realize how tired
I was.” Bobby dug his fingernails into his palms until it hurt, and then he dug
them in harder, until the bite was enough to wrangle his attention. He laid the
rifle over the barrier and sighted the length of track that snaked into the
distance like a tapering brushstroke. He accounted for the motion of the train
and adjusted the focus. There was nothing out there but baked rock.