The Creepers (28 page)

“I can only do what I can do. Couldn’t you
just have shot him?" Deliah stitched the stump with care. She knew in her
heart she was no Lyda. Before the world fell apart the most action her fingers
had seen were the Sunday hairdos of well to do women with bad style. She wasn’t
cut out for this. The stress was too much for her heavy frame, and being a
diabetic didn’t help. Her vision was already going awry, letting her know that
her sugars were off.

“Waste not, want not, Deliah. Bullets
are precious and only, truly, belong in the dead." The Pastor rapped his
knuckles across the Good Book.

“Amen to that." Deliah snipped the
thread and covered Ol’ Randy with a thick blanket. “Well if an infection
doesn’t set in he should make it, but I can’t make any promises." She
wiped the old man’s blood from her wrinkled face. The blue of her eyes had
dulled from years of torment. She knew she wasn’t long for this world but by
the grace of God she kept on, and would continue to do so.

“Oh . . . he’ll make it. He’s a strong
one made from the good Georgia stock. Take more than a lost limb to kill him.”

“It’s not the only thing killing him.”

The Pastor sighed loudly. “What has he
done to himself?”

“Well, I can’t say
he’s
done it
to himself, but I think he has cancer, at least, if what I can see in his blood
is telling the truth. She might’ve taught me day in and day out, and I spent
years studying her books and notes, but I am no Lyda, rest her soul,” Deliah
said with a resigned sob.

“No . . . Deliah, you are not
."
The
Pastor squeezed Ol’ Randy’s shoulder and said, “Now don’t you go dying on me,
you hear? There’s still much to know and I’ll have that information." He
turned to Deliah, who had the stung look of a child whose parent had struck
them for talking back. “Keep a close watch on him. I’ll see your meals are
brought promptly. Now I must go pray.”

Deliah’s hurt at the Pastor’s words had
her sobbing in her hands. She didn’t notice that the Pastor
borrowed
a
scalpel from the draw.

Indeed, he had much to discuss with the
Lord.

“Baylor, I’m telling you now this kid is
trouble. I don’t like it, and I don’t like him,” Hoss spat, “gives me the
heebie-jeebies. Why’d he go up there anyway? We had that bastard pegged in the
grill for what—six, seven states? And some stray we pick up ruins it . . . and
to top it all off—”

“Just a kid, can’t be a day over fifteen
or sixteen. Right around Sophie’s age,” Jamie said as she put her arm around
her daughter. The girl seemed to shrink from the touch, as if she were trying to
wish herself into non-existence. In actuality, it wasn’t entirely certain that
the red-headed, green-eyed girl was Jamie’s child to begin with. No one aboard
the train actually witnessed the girl’s birth. They had only Jamie’s word to go
on, and she was the resident liar, a spinner of tales that were sometimes
larger in scope than her ample bust. The pale-skinned, lanky girl looked
nothing like her
mother,
which only added to the controversy.

“Ripe for the picking,” Hoss said,
rubbing his hands together and eyeing Sophie like she was a piece of meat.

“You letch! You keep your hands to
yourself or I’ll cut them off!" Jamie hugged the girl closer. “It was
bastards like you . . . caused her to be quiet." The girl had never
uttered a word aboard the train. Even Baylor attempted to make her laugh, to
open up, but she simply looked at him with her dull stare.

“Enough!” Baylor shouted, demanding all
of their attention. Even the hooded stranger, tucked into the corner of the Mad
Conductor’s car, took notice. “And if you so much as look at that girl again,
Hoss, I’ll feed your little prick to first Creeper to stumble across the
tracks. I’ll even stop this fucking heap to hand it to the fucking thing.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“Damn right you are. First things first.
He killed your fun, Hoss, did you have to lay him out for it?" Baylor
shook the sweat from his bald head.

“He was armed,” Hoss protested.

“Uh-huh, and did he use them against any
of us? No, he pointed one at you at my request. Kid proved he wasn’t about to
start blasting us. We were too busy screwing around with that hopeless bastard
anyway . . . kid could’ve picked us off before we knew what was going on, with
either one of those guns, but he didn’t. Which is why I allowed him aboard.
That, and he mentioned the Jesus freaks." Baylor began to pace the car,
using the tables for balance as the train rocked to and fro.

The Mad Conductor looked to the boy
slumped across the bench. He winced at the knot Hoss left on his face. Usually
by now he’d be flying off the handle in anger, or laughter, or a bit of both,
but he was quite the opposite. His entire mood, his entire life changed when
his eyes graced that terrible handwriting. The scrawl looked as if some caveman
with a kindergartner’s giant pencil had penned it slumped over a desk too small
for its large frame. But the words. . . .

“Do you realize what this means?” Baylor
questioned, shaking the notebook at them.

“I say we toss him overboard and let the
universe decide if he passes or fails. I want no part in this,” Hoss said
adamantly.

“That’s just lovely, Hoss, because last
time I checked,” Baylor stared at him crazy-eyed, “you were the equivalent of a
retarded deckhand that the captain keeps around out of pity. So, shut the fuck
up, okay?”

“Poor boy,” Jamie rocked Sophie back and
forth for comfort and added, “if he’s here, what happened to the others. You
said he mentioned that Russian fella’ . . . what I want to know is why he’s out
here by himself.”

“Doesn’t make sense. The Jesus freaks are
like clockwork every year. They send a group, we trade what we got, and then
they slip back into the mountains. I still don’t know where their setup is, but
it’s weird. This kid showed up about fifty miles ahead of the usual rendezvous.
I don’t like it and this,” Baylor slammed the notebook down, “I really don’t
like. I mean it’s amazing if it’s true. People back east would love to see
him.”

“I would advise against that,” the
hooded stranger said. For the first time since Baylor began to talk the
stranger stood up and walked closer to the group. “I think you should allow him
to make his own decision. He seems capable of doing so.”

Baylor turned on the man in a fury.
“Passenger, just because I agreed to take you west,” Baylor stifled the
stranger’s question with a raised hand, “just because I believe your cause to
be noble . . . stupid, crazy-insane, but noble, doesn’t mean you have a say on
my train and in this matter. You said you would help us lay track for your
passage, and that is all the say you have aboard my train. Now, as I told the
illustrious Hoss, kindly, shut the fuck up.”

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Conductor, but
I thought it prudent to mention leaving it up to him to decide because he’s
been awake this whole time." The stranger bowed and returned to his seat.

Though he didn’t see it, Baylor could
sense a wry smile under that hood.

“So you know,” Bobby said. He sat up,
rubbing at his swollen face. Judging from the tenderness of it the ugly man had
hit him with a good one he wouldn’t soon forget. He watched their shocked faces
as they stared at him like a freak, like the Folks all over again. But where
there used to be worry was now, he clenched his fists, only seething anger.
Would he be forever doomed to be branded as such? He didn’t like the prospects
of living out the remainder of his days under constant threat of scrutiny. He
had to change their perception of him if he was going to survive.

The dingy red carpet, soot-smothered
from years of use, ran the length of the car and even up the walls. Geometric
patterns of gold and beige added a sense that the car was much bigger than it
actually was, and that made Bobby a little unsteady, as if he stepped into a
vast, dark cavern with only a torch that reached a few feet in front of him.
Tables and booths were bolted to the floor along the center aisle and frilly
lamps swung back and forth from gaudy chains on the ceiling. Sloppy yellow
light bent and swished around like tea being stirred in front of a sunny
window.

They were all waiting for him to speak,
to say . . .
something,
anything that would help them make sense of what
lived inside of him. He didn’t have that answer for them. He only knew what
they knew, and nothing more.

Baylor stood statue still, riding the
bumps of the car as if it weren’t moving at all, and Bobby could see in his
face that the Mad Conductor wanted to ask him a million questions all at once.
But Bobby had to play this right. Ecky always told him not to play all his
cards at once, but to spread them out over the course of the game. He intended
to do just the opposite. He was tired of wandering. He had to shock them with a
little flare. First he had to be someone he’d never been before, he had to be
the loudmouth, he had to be Paul.

“First things first,” he locked Baylor
in a hard stare, “my friend lost his life trying to save this train, and me,
from a bunch of savages." Bobby didn’t stop and wait for a response he
went into the whole story . . . in every minute detail. He told them of his
brothers and how they were murdered for nothing. He left himself wide open to
them. Either they were going to offer him something, perhaps a place on the
train, or they’d offer to toss him back to the wilds. He would be ready for any
outcome. Ecky died to get him here, and he was going to do his best to see it
through. Though, he did leave out the voices of the dead. These strangers
didn’t need to know that detail, not yet, at least.

Baylor, at some point during Bobby’s
story, slumped onto the bench. He sat with his head in his hands. The others, too,
would not face Bobby. They stared at the darkened windows, at their hands, all
of them except the young girl. Her green eyes seemed to sympathize with him.
She looked as if she wanted to say something, a reassuring word or two, but she
remained stuck in a wide-eyed stare.

“That’s heavy, kid, I don’t know what .
. . what . . . the hell to say,” Baylor stammered. He rarely found himself at a
loss for words, but the circumstances were off the map. “Thanks is a good place
to start. Shit, he was sure they were headed for us?”

“That means they took out Wyoming Blue,
Baylor,” Hoss’s voice cracked. A dower of worry sagged the corners of his face.

“We don’t know that for certain."
Baylor began to chew on the collar of his flamboyant coat.

“World gets shittier and shittier by the
day. I’ve had enough for t’day. C’mon, Sophie, let’s go eat a bit of dinner,”
Jamie pointed at them, “the rest of you should do the same." She jabbed
her finger at Bobby saying, “You most of all. Those terrible people . . . skin
and bones . . . skin and bones—that poor man,” she trailed off as she lead
Sophie out of the car and towards the kitchen.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be back with ten
platefuls. That one will have you fat before the Utah border,” Hoss said with a
laugh. “For what it’s worth, kid, sorry about the face.”

“You hit like a girl.”

“Bwahahaha!” Baylor cried, “Fucking kid
is crazy. I love it." He stuck out his hand and said, “Anyone risks their
ass for me earns a spot on this ride, but we never stop until we reach the end,
and even then we don’t stop, but enough of that for now. It’s been a long day.”

Bobby shook the Mad Conductor’s hand and
did his best to hide his wince at the steely grip. Baylor’s hand seemed made of
metal, and it felt as if the very steam engine of the train powered that shake.

* * * * *

After a meal of cornbread, and something
called a hamburger, Bobby returned to the cramped cabin and his pack, weapons
included. He lifted the thin shade on the window to reveal the wall of night
beyond. Every so often a break in the tree line would reveal a flash of
starlight and then the unending blackness would swallow him anew. Closing the
shade he returned to the bunk and rubbed his temples. Several times during his
meal snatches of undead voices flickered in his mind, but even though the train
was moving slow, they never lasted more than a few seconds like a weak radio
signal on a lonely stretch of highway. Instead of a crackle he felt nails in
his brain and rumbles in his gut.

Life had changed in such a short span of
time for him that it didn’t seem real, as if he were riding a train through the
dark space of a dream. Less than a year ago he’d been a boy struggling to fit
in with those that didn’t want him, or understand him, now though, he’d been
forced to become a man, fighting for survival in a world he’d been kept from
for so many winters. The Folks had told him about it; about the savage nature
and all the dangers, but they were not quite
right
in their
explanations. Bobby was quite certain that a majority of the Folks actually
thrived on their isolation, that they had prayed for such a separation from the
world, and they perceived that fate handed it to them on silver platter.

But where did he fit in to that dinner
party? He hadn’t asked for this, and he certainly didn’t ask to hear
them
.
Why then, had he been thrown into the midst of it?