by Ryder Stacy
“And who might I thank for saving my life?” Rock asked, looking up at the bearded oak tree of a man.
“If you be askin’ what be my name, folks round here just call me Mountain Man Ed—Mt. Ed for short. I growed up in these here mountains my whole life. Guess I feel more mountain than man anyway. And who might you be?” he asked. “I been takin’ care of you like you some sick pup or something. Didn’t even know if you’d live or die.”
“Ted Rockson’s the name my folks gave me,” Rock said, easing himself up a little on the bed so he could see the room he was in. He lay on a long cot that was nothing more than two long oak poles with animal hides stretched between them. The log cabin they were in couldn’t have been more than twenty by twenty feet, but it looked as if the builder had stuffed every last thing he’d ever found or stumbled across inside. The place was chaos, with knives, pots, and pans, big blunderbuss rifles lying haphazardly against walls and around the floor. The walls—logs piled one atop another, had never really been fine-finished, so a constant stream of air and sunlight filtered through a thousand small openings and cracks. By the front door sat three big hunting dogs, their fur black and sleek as a panther’s, their tongues hanging far out of their wide open mouths as they rested in the morning sun. Flies and mosquitos as big as grapes buzzed and flew through the curtains of sunshine, searching for morsels of food that they knew lay everywhere around the cabin.
“Rockson—the Ultimate American?” Mt. Ed asked, his face freezing in astonishment. “Damn, even I heard of you. And I ain’t heard of nothing back here in these woods. So I been coddlin’ the goddamn Rockson. Ain’t that a kick in the pants.” Rock tried once again to rise, but fell back onto the pelts with a thud. He felt incredibly weak, as if his blood were thin as water. He must have been at death’s very door, and knocking loud. It was probably his mutant genes that had been able to absorb the high dose of radiation the N-bombs spat out. He couldn’t bear to think about the possible deaths of Kim and her father. Somehow they had survived. He knew it, could feel it in his guts. He would know if they were dead. As for the rest of his team, somehow Rock felt they were alive, too. They were too tough to kill. In his deepest heart, he felt sure. But he silently prayed that it was so.
Mountain Man Ed brought over some steaming food to Rockson.
“Here, eat! You gotta get your strength back. You were smokin’ when I found you.” He let out another beam-buckling laugh. “Looked like you was a dang steak getting read to sizzle. I dragged you back here and soaked you in these here herbs the Indians taught me about—roots and stuff. You just been layin’ there for let’s see, six days since I brought you here.”
“Six days?” Rock asked, incredulous. It felt as if he had been out for minutes, at most.
“Had to force water and food down your damned throat. You didn’t say nothin’ I could understand—just the word ‘Kim’ or something.”
“Kim!” Rock repeated her name. Damn, damn, he had to get up and search for her. She could be hurt but still alive. He struggled to rise once again, but his arms gave out. It was as if his nervous system had been put on overload and sparks just shot wildly from synapse to synapse within his irradiated musculature, unable to carry out their commands.
“You’ll be up soon enough. Just the fact you survived—now that’s amazin’, I swear. But damn, friend, you just woke up but ten minutes ago. In a day or two you can head out and search for this Kim.”
“It’s more than that,” Rock said, looking up at the man who had saved him and obviously spent a lot of time doing it. He told Mountain Man Ed the entire story of the convention—how the country had just been in the process of being reformed and a president had been elected and then . . .
Big Ed’s face grew still as Rock told it all, his bearded jaw dropping open as if he were about to swallow a coconut. “You mean them damn Russkies killed the president of the United States?”
“I hope to God not,” Rock said. “But they sure as hell did in most of the delegates. He and his daughter were running to get over the peak behind the big log cabin—Vulture Peak, I think they call it. Were you there? Did you see any bodies? If they got to the other side they might have made it—did you?” Rock was growing more and more excited as he spoke, trying to literally imagine the two alive.
“I wasn’t up that way. Just found you along my regular trail. Saw lots of bodies around that side of the mountain, though. Fried to a damned crisp, too—like pieces of charcoal too long in the fire. They was hard, but they’d break apart if you touched ’em.” The big man shuddered, recalling the horror of the rows of bodies, some still standing, frozen into black sculptures of death. Rock prayed that his men had made it—they were fast, and there’d been enough time.
“So the Russkies did that,” Mt. Ed. said, shaking his head. “Killed our whole damn Congress and president and generals all at once. I’ll tell you something, Mr. Rockson, I spent my whole life up here in these mountains, just like my daddy done, and his pa before him. And I don’t like the Russkies, but I ain’t never had no run-ins with ’em neither. They ain’t come up this way—till now. But now they bothered me, messed up my neighborhood dropping their fool bombs on these here peaceful huntin’ grounds. I’m mad, Mr. Rockson—and when I’m mad—I’m mad.” He stood up and punched a ham-sized fist against the wall of the log cabin. The entire structure vibrated as the thick branch he hit bent several inches out and then snapped back again. The dogs barked sharply outside and jumped up, nervously looking around.
“Tomorrow, Rockson, we go lookin’ for your friends—for the president, and any damn Reds we find better hide ’cause I’m gonna start killin’ me some.” He walked to the far side of the cabin and began picking up rifle after huge rifle he had thrown around the floor. Big blunderbusses, nearly six feet long, with muzzles that could have shot small cannonballs. He began cleaning them and then loading them up—pouring round after round of lead in a small smelting pan he had rigged up above a hearth and bellows. He pumped the bellows hard and the fire instantly roared to life, filling the cabin with heat and smoke.
“I think I’m gonna make me a whole load of lead. We got a lot of huntin’ to do.”
Nineteen
The neutron blast hit Kim and President Langford just as they began heading down the far side of the mountain. They had shot up the slope and had just reached the peak when they turned and saw the falling steel balls dangling beneath the two parachutes. They got to the summit and ran the fifteen yards across, literally jumping down the other side. In midair the very tip of the blast caught them, throwing them head over heels down the far slope. The deadly neutron rays singed them, burning their clothes, blistering their flesh. Once they had fallen even a few feet the thick iron ore mountain protected them from more radiation—but the damage had been done.
President Langford came to about a hundred yards downhill wrapped around the foot of a tall pine burnt at the very top. He looked anxiously around and spotted Kim about twenty yards away. He half dragged himself over, his mind and body feeling as if they had been through a meat grinder. She looked up at him and spoke, barely audible.
“Dad, are you—are we—”
“Shh baby,” he said, stroking her singed hair. “We’ll be okay.” But he knew he was lying. The amount of radiation they’d absorbed—their skin blistered in white bubbles all over their bodies, nausea already setting in, meant certain death. Their weakness would increase, boils would appear on the dry mouths and gums. In a day or two their hair would start falling out, then their teeth. Then worse things would occur. Langford continued softly stroking his daughter’s hair, tears forming in his eyes. He didn’t mind death himself, but to see Kim like this, her face bright red and bubbling—that she would have to suffer and die this way . . . he had never wanted to kill the Russians as much as at that moment. Every one on the whole damned planet—extermination, and then pour salt over the U.S.S.R so nothing would grow for a million years.
She moaned softly in pain
, her lips beginning to swell up, her eyelids puffing out. He felt a wave of bile churn up from the depths of his stomach and turned quickly away, releasing a torrent of dark liquid. Jesus, they must have absorbed a lot even just in that one second. And things had been going so damn well—but for one stinking Red spy. So many good people dead—the newly formed government destroyed—and Kim. She wasn’t making any sounds now, her chest was hardly, rising.
“No, don’t let her go!” Langford cried out, lifting her head onto his lap, calling out to her. Water, she needed water. Her lips were so dry. He gently lifted her, careful to avoid scraping her skin, which looked as if it might just peel off, so blistered was it now. The president carried his daughter down the hill, moving very slowly so as not to lose his balance. It seemed an eternity, but somehow they made it to the bottom and a stream. He set her down beside the rushing water and splashed some on her face. Somehow it seemed that the water would help her—pure, clean, bubbling up from the earth—it would heal her. His mind was growing foggy, confused. He took little handfuls of the cold, clear liquid and dripped it into her lips. The droplets bounced off her puffed lips—she didn’t move.
Suddenly from out of the dust cloud created by the atomic blast, which continued to spin violently around the side of the mountain—a whirring sound, very smooth, but with a feeling of tremendous power behind it. President Langford looked up with a startled glance. Could the Reds be sending in tanks to finish them off—or worse—to capture them? Although there wasn’t much they could do to either of them now, he thought with a bitter laugh. He strained his eyes as the sound grew louder. Good God—it couldn’t be. Three immense vehicles in the shape of the sailing ships of centuries earlier, crackling with a throbbing blue electricity, came rushing from the brown and pink radioactive dust storm. Each craft was nearly a hundred feet long, with sloping sides and a bow. And riding atop these incredible ships were mutations of a kind Langford had never before seen—their organs all throbbing on the outsides of their bodies and their flesh glowing with the same almost blinding blue energy that surrounded the ships. Glowers—they had to be! So the damn things really existed. Langford watched in paralyzed fascination. Beneath each of the ships was an immense metallic ball, a good ten feet in diameter, which seemed to serve as some sort of gyro, keeping the big ships balanced. The ball rolled as the ships shot forward with a smooth, majestic grace. They seemed to be riding on some sort of cushion of air as dust shot up from underneath them and out the sides, leaving a trail of swirling sand behind. But how were they propelled, Langford wondered, still too awestruct to be scared. He saw the lead craft lean to the wind, and he looked up—there, above them, were gigantic, filmy, almost translucent sails, billowing forward, filled with the expanding windcloud from the atomic explosion.
Suddenly, as if snapping from a daze, the president realized that the bizarre vessels were coming straight at him, now only several hundred yards away. He picked up Kim in his arms, barely able to stand with the load, and began hobbling off back up the mountain. He had barely gone twenty feet, feeling as if it were miles, when he looked over his shoulder—they were almost on them. He could see about ten of the throbbing, hideous creatures at the bow of the lead ship, pointing right at him. He rushed forward, stumbling, his heart pounding in utter terror.
But it was hopeless. He felt the huge ship draw alongside and then long mechanical arms reach down and pluck them up as effortlessly as if they were insects. They were set down on the deck of the pulsating craft and gently released. Two of the Glowers came over to Langford, stopping about ten feet away. He quickly put Kim down on the luminous deck and pulled his dagger from his waist-sheath. The president turned to the seven-foot mutations, barely able to look at their electric faces.
“DO NOT BE AFRAID!” a voice said, though they were not speaking. “WE WILL NOT HARM YOU.” It was as if the voice was appearing in the center of his brain, instead of through his ears. They had—telepathy. What the hell was going on? The vehicle turned sharply and rejoined its sister ships, which had already started making long, wide circles, heading back in the direction they had come. A group of Glowers on the bow seemed to shift their bodies, and the ship responded instantly, heading back into the still rising maelstrom of high-rad dust created by the N-bombs. It picked up speed, the high, nearly invisible sails filling out, and the ship shot out onto an open prairie to the west in tight V-formation.
The two Glowers near Langford didn’t move, but stood looking straight at him. Their faces and bodies were hideous—so different from the human form—with the brains exposed and writhing, the muscles of the mouth and jaw all on the outside, and the huge, hypnotically pulsing eyes, sitting outside the sockets, hanging by veins and tendrils that fed back inside.
“FRIENDSHIP. FRIENDSHIP.” The words went through his skull with the force of a bomb blast. He threw his hands to his head, trying to keep out the deafening sound, his dagger clattering to the warm deck below.
“WE ARE SORRY,” the voices went on, this time at a much lower power. “WE ARE NOT USED TO TALKING WITH HUMANS—JUST EACH OTHER. WE MUST ADJUST.” Langford dropped his hands from his ears and looked at them. He tried to calm himself. He mustn’t judge them by their surface—they seemed—kind. He could feel it, feel the warmth emanate from the telepathic communication.
“What—what?” He began, finding it hard to speak, as his own lips were swelling now. He looked down at Kim, who lay stone still.
“THERE IS NO NEED TO TALK,” the voice went on. “WE CAN HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS—JUST FOCUS THEM AT US.
“Why have you taken us prisoner?” President Langford asked with his mind.
“NOT PRISONER—FRIENDS. WE ARE THE PEOPLE—YOU CALL US THE GLOWERS. YOU ARE BOTH GRIEVOUSLY WOUNDED—YOU AND KIM, FROM THE GAMMA RADIATION. YOU WILL DIE—UNLESS YOU COOPERATE WITH US. WE CAN HELP YOU . . . PERHAPS SAVE YOU. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
Langford nodded his head and then said “Yes,” with his mind. Hearing their thoughts had a dreamlike quality to it. It was as if he was hearing his own thoughts—since they just appeared suddenly in the center of his consciousness. It was confusing—since he had to differentiate between their minds and his.
“YES—THAT IS CORRECT—DIFFERENTIATION,” the voice said. “WHEN YOU THINK—SEND IT OUT. BUT WHEN YOU LISTEN, OPEN YOUR MIND, DO NOT BE AFRAID. WE HAVE COME A LONG WAY TO GET YOU.”
“How do you know us—our names? Why— Why—”
“WE KNOW MANY THINGS—THINGS BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION,” the voice said. The two Glowers were now joined by several others. They stood together, five of them, only inches apart, and their glows seemed to pulse in unison, growing brighter and then dimming every few seconds. The voice changed subtly, as the others joined in—yet still one voice, one thought. The ship was now moving at a good ninety miles an hour, whipping over the desert terrain as startled rabbits and snakes raced out of the way. The immense sails were now full to capacity, stretching like a gossamer membrane high on the towering mast. The ship they were in had taken the lead, with the sister ships just behind and long each side. There was no sensation of motion, just the cool wind in his face.
“WE HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING YOU, LANGFORD, FOR A LONG TIME. WE KNOW YOU—KNOW YOUR HEART—YOU ARE A GOOD MAN. WE CAN READ WHAT IS INSIDE A MAN—THAT IS OUR KNOWLEDGE. WE HAVE WATCHED FOR MANY YEARS—NOW WE MUST ACT. THERE ARE TIMES WHEN TO JUST OBSERVE—IS AN EVIL. WE HAVE MADE OUR CHOICE—WE WILL HELP YOU.”
“How? How can you help us?” Langford said, suddenly bursting into tears at the overwhelming emotions of the last few hours. He dropped to his knees and again stroked Kim’s long blond hair, burnt and charred at the tips. “She is almost dead—I am almost dead.” He threw his hands over his face at the hopelessness of the situation and let his radioactive tears fall onto his daughter’s swollen, burnt face.
“TAKE FAITH, LANGFORD,” the voice said with a soothing calmness. “NOTHING IS SET, NOTHING IS FINAL—NOT EVEN DEATH. WE TAKE YOU NOW TO OUR PLACE, WHERE WE WILL TRY TO ABSORB T
HE RADIATION THAT HAS INFECTED YOUR BODIES. WE CANNOT TOUCH YOU WITH OUR OWN PHYSICALITY, BUT WITH OUR MINDS AND OUR COLLECTIVE POWER. REST. REST, LANGFORD, AND BE AT PEACE, FOR WE ARE WITH YOU. REACH OUT TO YOUR DAUGHTER WITH YOUR MIND AND TOUCH HER—GIVE HER STRENGTH—SHE IS IN GREAT PAIN.”
The Glowers pulled back from him to attend to the sails and the ship. Langford thought as hard as he could into Kim’s mind—that he was there, that she would live. The gentle rocking of the desert sailship and his own infinite weariness put him quickly to sleep, his hand reaching out to touch Kim’s shoulder and the bubbled flesh covering it.
The three energy-craft tore on through the afternoon and into the night never stopping, never wavering for a second. Orders were shot back and forth telepathically about adjusting the sails so as to catch the winds and the electromagnetic energies of the coming night. The sun disappeared suddenly as if swallowed, and night dropped a hazy purple-black curtain over the skies above the unknown lands of the Far West. The heavens lit up with streaks of vibrant purples and oranges and blues as the aurora borealis began its electric dance of kaleidoscopic colors. The Glowers joined together at the bow of each craft and gazed skyward, melding with the energy, becoming part of it, as their own bodies became streaked with the rippling colors of the aurora. They merged—in harmony with the earth, with the sky, with one another. They took in the pure, undiluted forces of the universe, took them into their physicality and their hearts and drew their sustenance from them.
As the morning sun once again dragged itself from the infinite canyons of night, a sickly orange ball barely shining through the now pink-clouded sky, the great desert sailships slowed to a mere thirty knots and then pulled up short, dropping their sails to the deck. Langford woke with a start at the noise of decceleration and got to his feet, still sick to his stomach, his mouth filled with a liquidy blood as the radiation continued its virulent work. The ships were on their sides now, slowly tilting over to about a sixty degree angle. Below, other Glowers were resting long beams of a nearly translucent material against the sides of the craft so they didn’t roll completely over. The president could see a town in the dim morning light—a town unlike any he had ever encountered, and he had traveled throughout the country. They were on a barren plain that stretched as far as the eye could see, with not a cactus or living thing in sight. To the right of the ship were perfectly constructed geodesic domes, about thirty of them, laid out in concentric circles. Each was about thirty feet in diameter, except for the central dome, which stood towering above them, a good ninety feet high. They were made of a smooth, plastic-looking material, seamless, nailless, with a reddish coloration, almost flesh-toned. Veins of blue covered them like a web, pulsing very dimly, as if alive, circulating energy constantly around the perfect geometric shapes. Glowers walked slowly among the constructions, entering and leaving through some sort of doorway that Langford couldn’t make out. No one moved quickly, but rather each step seemed deliberate, focused, as if they were feeling every movement and reflecting on it before moving again. Langford swore he could hear them sending thoughts to one another—a cacophany of emotion and information moving at the speed of light—but it was so dim and distant, like listening to a phone wire and hearing the conversations buzzing through.