by Jim Stein
“The only ridge this long and tall runs along the west side of the grazing pastures. If we follow it, we’ll eventually hit the lake and can turn east onto the lower pastures.”
“For all we know the damned desert changes topography,” Manny shot back. “If it swallows hundred-foot trees, what good is following a ridgeline?”
“Hey there, Ralphy. What’s the matter?” Quinn crept over, her hand extended to our agitated imp.
Ralph stood with a foot on each fender and slapped the tank with his knees like a jockey urging my ATV onward—which definitely was not happening since I’d switched off the engine. Quinn patted his back. He sank down onto his butt and gazed out at the adjacent dune.
“Nothing bad out there,” Vance walked to the edge before climbing back on his ATV. “We need to get going. It’s already cooling off.”
“I don’t think he’s worried about danger.” Quinn turned the handlebars all the way left. When she let go, Ralph reached up and pulled them back. “How about this?” She turned the bars right, and once again the imp deliberately brought them back to center.
“Ralph, can you find the farm, the place you came through?” As soon as the words left my mouth, Ralph was up on his feet playing jockey.
I started the engine and looked around the wagging imp butt at my fuel gauge. Hopefully half a tank would get us somewhere safe before dark.
“Let Ed take lead.” Quinn hurried back to Manny’s machine. “Ralph has a bead on the farm.”
Pete looked like he might argue, but waved us forward. I pulled out and headed downhill. Halfway up the opposite slope, Ralph tugged on my right sleeve until I veered off at a thirty degree angle. I drove on, following our imp’s random course corrections and getting slapped with his cordlike tail whenever he hunkered down to urge more speed from his steed.
“These turns are random,” I complained as we veered off to parallel the ridge of yet another dune. “You better not be playing a game.”
“I don’t think he is.” Dwain’s head poked out from under my right bicep. “More than just sand shifts out here. I can’t track the changes, but the landscape is fluid. Either he can adjust for it or doesn’t notice.”
“Farm ho!” Pete yelled as we turned uphill and topped the rise.
Wood fence posts stuck out of the sand ahead. Two parallel lines ran into the distance like runway markers with each subsequent post sticking further out of the sand. The fence ran straight and ended in the gathering gloom in front of Pete’s home.
The old farmhouse was just as I remembered, with white board siding and a wide porch circling the front. An older stone section sprouted from the left and tapered off into a barn, while rectangular additions bumped out under a complex roofline to our right.
“Nice job.” I rubbed Ralph’s head making his bat ears flop and slipped him the candy bar I’d been saving for dinner.
“It’s all boarded up,” Manny said.
We parked on the crushed stone drive. Much like the cemetery, a no-sand-zone ringed the house and main barn. The knee-high brown grass hadn’t been cut in a very long time. Beyond the structures, the dunes roiled and shifted as if searching for a way in. Pete and I clumped up the stairs.
“Looks like some windows blew out and they shuttered the rest,” Pete knocked on the heavy wood door. “Ma? Pa?”
Baskets nailed to the doorframe held desiccated wildflowers. In spite of the scorching days, the delicate petals retained a blush of color above burnt brown stems. Pete’s second knock echoed within. Something shifted inside, a slow drag-thump that drew closer. I stepped back to get some maneuvering room. A final thump shook the door, the knob turned, and Pete’s sister rushed out to wrap her brother in a bear hug.
“You found us!” Melissa’s sandy-blond hair, height, and square face mirrored her brother’s, although in a much more feminine way.
“Good to see you too, Sis.” Pete returned the fierce hug before holding her out at arm’s length. “Everyone okay?”
“They’re in the barn working on the pumps. Most of the wells dried up, but Pa cross-plumbed the system to keep some flowing. Ma and I are pulling dinner together.” Melissa bowed her head. “We lost a few, including Norm. Anyone trying to find a way out just sort of disappears.”
Every farmhand was a relative. The Eastons weren’t a big clan, but their sturdy farmer genes made them resistant to the C-12 virus without the involvement of an ancient Native American deity. The last time I’d seen Cousin Norm, I’d treated him pretty badly thanks to the magic playing havoc with my emotions.
Melissa’s rumpled overalls, wild hair, and weary expression screamed that things on the farm were no picnic. Wood slats were duct-taped to either side of her lower right leg. A dirty-white plaster cast covered her foot but left the toes exposed—the source of the thumping.
“What happened to your leg?” I asked.
“Crashed my ATV thanks to a tumbleweed with an attitude.”
Melissa turned and wrapped me in a hug. A lean muscular woman in a flowered dress materialized in the darkened foyer and cleared her throat. Mrs. Easton smiled as I hastily released her daughter. My face grew hot when I caught Quinn’s smirk.
“Come in before the sun sets.” Pete’s mom was all business, even as she studied Dwain. Ralph pulled his disappearing act and was nowhere in sight. “Bring in any food you have too. The things in the night are hungry. I’ll set extra places at the table.”
By the time we brought in our gear and pulled the vehicles into the barn, Mrs. Easton had dinner laid out. The kitchen was organized chaos as men and women dished up plates of food. Half of them headed back to the barn, and we wedged ourselves around the ancient dining table on stools and crates.
“What’s happening in town?” Mr. Easton asked after everyone got settled. Like all of the family, he was sturdy Nordic stock, an older image of Pete with gray lightening his once-blond hair.
We took turns telling how the desert overtook town and our eventual evacuation. Crestfallen expressions met our description of recent events, but resolute nods greeted the news that we’d managed to get most everyone out of town.
“Bugs and monsters got some, and it’s unclear how many are lost in the desert,” I said with a grimace for their own casualties. “It took Deputy Vance here a week to cross town. Something is distorting things out there.”
“I agree,” Mr. Easton said. “Everyone gets disoriented. Trees, landmarks, and even buildings are simply gone, but it’s more than just that. We’ve ridden out in a straight line far enough to be absolutely positive to hit the freeway, but all we find is more desert. And there are always plenty of creatures.”
“Are they what got Norm and the others?” Pete asked, his mouth a thin line.
Pete’s dad shook his head and scanned the room as if looking for words. When he finally spoke, his deep voice was heavy and slow.
“Not all of them. The critters were nastier early on. They ate or attacked everything. Cows and pigs never stood a chance. The chickens faired best, funny seeing those roosters back down giant scorpions.”
He paused, seeming unwilling to continue. I glanced at the fried chicken leg on my plate and felt a stab of guilt.
“Norm and Bethany rode out early on, before we knew the sand was screwing with us. It was a routine supply run in the pickup. Four-wheel drive handled the sand fine. We loaded them up with crops and actually waved them out the gate. Stupid…we didn’t know.” He took a moment, shook himself, and continued. “After that, we only ventured out in groups. Damned radios don’t work, so everyone stayed in line of sight. But rifles only work on some of the monsters. It’s relatively safe back here at the house, but the sand’s creeping closer by the day.”
We talked into the night. Obviously, we’d all go out together, but the farm only had three ATVs and the sand had grown too deep for the trucks. Manny pulled Dwain off to the side and came back reasonably confident the two of them could keep us heading west until we cleared the desert. I still was
n’t certain what the road manager’s deal was and said as much to Dwain later after we’d bedded down in a corner.
“He sees things in a way you can’t,” Dwain replied. “Says he feels the sand bunching up before it changes our path. I don’t get any warning, but can tell when it shifts. Between us, I think we can outmaneuver it.”
“Still leaves the transportation issue.” Pete crawled on his elbows to our corner of the parlor, trailing a blanket like a cape-wearing alligator. “No way can we stuff twenty people on six four-wheelers—three really, since ours are already full. Bertha, our old tractor, has big spade wheels that can handle anything, but it’s a one-seater. With the right parts, we could rig the trucks with tracks and skids—turn them into giant snowmobiles.”
“Don’t suppose you have that kind of stuff lying around?”
“Nope, but I’ll grab a couple of the guys and see what I can dig up in the morning.”
Pete was a wizard with mechanical systems, but I suspected manufacturing parts from thin air was beyond even his skills. The longer we waited, the farther the desert would spread. Mr. Conti might have to move base camp before we found our way out, which would make linking back up difficult.
The braided rug sure beat hard ground, yet I still slept fitfully. Rather than true dreams, talking serpents, arguing spirits, and glowing gold eyes chased me through vanilla nightmares that had me running in molasses.
I awoke sweaty and tired. Pete and Quinn were nowhere to be found. The rest of us helped ourselves to delicious fresh-baked muffins and breads. Mrs. Easton must have been up before dawn. The wonderful aroma filling the house pulled tension from the air. I was bolting down a blueberry-filled scone when the back door slammed open. Quinn hurried in looking grimy and tired.
“Didn’t you sleep?” I asked.
“A little.” She ducked her head and grabbed a thick slice of buttered bread. “Pete’s mom needed help hauling in flour, so I gave her a hand then made the rounds to talk to the morning watch. Ed, they’ve been dealing with a lot of crazy shit here.
“Not just the insects and tumblers. Groups of shamblers come through almost every night. Big, hairy things on two legs that groan and shuffle past. They haven’t bothered the farm yet, but out on some of their excursions…”
“What?” I asked when she trailed off and shoved bread into her mouth.
“Two men were lost to them.” She swallowed hard. “Went down shooting. The shamblers opened their arms, pulled their fur wide, and swallowed the men. I don’t know. Maybe they were just wearing fur coats. But it freaked the Eastons out, and their people were gone.”
“We’ll have to keep clear of those.”
“There’s more.” Quinn bit her lower lip and grabbed my arm. “You have to see this to believe it.”
She dragged me though the back door, across the porch, and out behind the stone barn. The dry grass gave way to a flat stretch of sand. Something shimmered in the distance, a column of green light surrounding what looked like a tornado paused in mid spin.
I looked back at the house to get my bearings. A line extending from the porch out past the backside of the barn would have led up to the new soybean field. The lack of outbuildings made it difficult to judge distance, but I’d spent a lot of time over that way.
“That’s where I flattened the boulder for Pete.”
“Bet you had to use the Earth element,” Quinn said.
“Yeah, a lot of it.”
The boulder had been massive and pushed me to my limit several days running. The sheer mass of the rock prevented me from simply melting it away. That was back before the band’s tour, before I knew a force twisted and used Earth magic to destroy the veil between worlds.
“I can feel the wrongness from here,” she said. “Like the moment you walk into the wrong store or mistakenly climb into a car you thought was yours. I bet you could walk right through that thing into the third world Koko told you about.”
“Maybe, but we’ve got other things to worry about, like getting the Eastons and ourselves back to base camp. We just don’t have time to make multiple runs on the ATVs.”
I stared out at the glowing column, and a cold hand clenched my heart. I’d done that—without knowing, without meaning to. Gods, if my spell had simply ripped through the veil, Pete and I would have been swallowed on the spot. The frozen funnel definitely extended beyond the flattened boulder. I squinted across the blowing sand. Was it wider than a minute ago?
“That thing’s making my skin crawl. Let’s find Pete and figure a way out of here.”
We scoured the house then headed for the barn. Melissa and a handful of the others worked on a huge metal cart while Mr. Easton managed a team sealing cracks in the stone foundation and layering plastic over the plank walls.
“What’re they doing?” I asked.
“Making us sand-proof.” Melissa wiped the hair out of her eyes, pulled a tire leaning against the wall upright, and rolled it to a scraggly long-faced man at the rear axle. “Keeps everyone busy, but I don’t fancy being trapped under a sea of sand any more than I like the idea of it flooding in.”
“So what’s this contraption?” Quinn banged the wagon’s tailgate, which sat a good four feet off the ground. Heads turned at the resounding echo and someone inside the vee-shaped interior cursed.
“Big-ass harvester wagon. Pete and I figure it’s big enough to hold the whole crew once we get the axles freed up and new rubber on her. We’ll have her ready in another couple of hours. Won’t win any beauty contests, but who cares as long as we can ride her out?”
“Yeah, but—” I broke off and walked the length of the massive cart. It perched high over two axles, with the upper lip ten feet overhead. Sloped metal sides formed a vee-shaped keel along the thirty-foot length. There was no doubt the thing could haul a boatload of people. Leaning against the slanted sides and the lack of suspension would make it uncomfortable as hell, but that wasn’t what had me puzzled. “There’s no engine. It’s just a big wagon on wheels.”
“Big brother’s working his own project.” She pointed her wrench at the towering wooden doors at the back of the barn. “With a little luck—”
An explosive growl drowned out her words, sounding like a jet airplane with a bad cough. Dust and bits of chaff rained down from the rafters high overhead. I dusted the falling gunk out of my hair as three explosions sounded in rapid succession—after which the engine roar settled down to a more regular cadence.
A man and woman hurried over and slid the doors open. Spare parts, engine pieces, and dissected mechanical components lined the walls of the shop area beyond. A grating clunk lowered the engine’s pitch, and a behemoth of a tractor chugged through the doorway with Pete proudly perched high in the glass-enclosed driver’s seat.
The dingy grey battleship-of-a-tractor coughed and spit its way into the barn proper. Two front tires nestled close together with barely a hand’s-breadth between, while the rear sat wide apart and rose high over my head. The rubber was old and cracked with treads like stubby paddles.
“Meet Big Bertha!” Pete shouted.
Making the wagon ready and getting the tractor to run smoother took the bulk of the morning, but by noon the farmers had formed a bucket brigade to pass supplies from the house to the jury-rigged vehicle.
“How fast can she go?” I eyed the high sides of the harvester as Pete used a hand pump to top off the fuel tank.
“On a flat straightaway, probably close to twenty, but towing will slow us down and turns will be dicey. Stay down around fifteen miles per hour if you don’t want us all to have bleeding kidneys.”
“Should be fifteen miles to the bridge, triple that once we hit the roadways.” I squinted at the sun blazing in its too-blue sky. So not a normal Philly fall. “We’re talking at least three to four hours—assuming we get off the sand quick.”
Our odd procession pulled out just past noon. A guard with binoculars and long rifle clung to the ribs at each corner of the trailer. Melissa’
s team had spot welded benches inside, so the others could sit.
ATVs zipped ahead and behind the tractor like jet fighter escorts. Long holsters jutted up to the left of the driver on each of the three farm vehicles. The Eastons certainly didn’t lack for firepower.
“Slow going,” Quinn slipped a hand to my thigh and squeezed as she pressed against my back.
“I hope they know what they’re doing up there.”
We’d been on the move less than an hour, but turns were frequent, and only the sun off my left shoulder told me we still headed generally westward. A constant stream of discussion drifted back from Manny and Dwain, usually punctuated by a curse from the former before another course adjustment.
With Dwain and Manny leading, I got Quinn back. Ralph perched between the handlebars, looking excited and jittery, so I figured he’d just pounded a bunch of sugar. The imp had simply popped into existence there between my arms and damned near gave me a heart attack. He wasn’t visible to the farmers, but glances from Pete and Dwain told me our own folks could see the little guy.
“Incoming, two o’clock!” The front right guard’s yell was followed by a call from the left.
“And ten o’clock!”
Manny saw the dark shapes vectoring toward us and looped back before I could relay the warning. There wasn’t time to simply outrun them. We’d rehearsed our defensive maneuver after leaving the farm, but there wasn’t much to it. Manny, Vance, and I rode back to take up positions on either side of the tractor. The Eastons formed a ring beyond us with guns drawn, and rifles from inside the wagon were trained on the shamblers.
Each group was small, resolving into four or five individuals, but they came on fast. Mr. Easton’s ATV was in front of mine. He fired a warning shot over the group coming in from the left. The crack of his rifle actually brought all the shamblers up short. They turned to face one another as if in discussion. They were taller than I expected—every bit of seven feet—shaggy as Melissa had described, and wore no clothing.
Their light brown pelts darker than the pervasive sand hung about each like Spanish moss. Long arms bore hooked claws like a sloth’s. My hope that they’d learned respect for guns vanished as they turned toward us.