by Ryder Stacy
Two of the Glowers walked over to him again, stopping about eight feet away. They never came closer than that, apparently afraid that their energy flow might damage their human guests.
“COME—IT IS TIME,” the voice spoke clearly to him, this time at the lower level, so it didn’t hurt his brain. “CAN YOU CARRY KIM?”
“Yes, I think so,” Langford said, feeling quite nauseous, but slightly stronger than yesterday.
“DRINK THIS—IT GIVES STRENGTH,” the voice said, as the two Glowers pulsed like flickering blue neon lights before him. One of them placed a small gourd near him and backed off. Langford lifted it to his lips and without hesitation drank it. If he didn’t trust them now—he might as well forget it all, anyway. There was nothing to lose. The liquid tasted sweet, fiery, like a liquor made of honey, and it instantly filled him with a supportive strength. He tried to lift Kim and discovered to his surprise that she felt light.
“THIS WAY.” The Glowers walked just ahead of him, down a gangplank that led off the side of the desert ship. They walked directly to the main geodesic dome, which, as the president got closer, he could see was pulsing itself. The very walls of the thing seemed to be breathing. The surface of the structure parted as he came up to it, and he walked in, his daughter unconscious in his arms.
“WE MUST BEGIN THE DECONTAMINATION OF YOUR BODIES IMMEDIATELY,” said a new voice, different from the others. This one seemed even stronger, somehow, than the others he had heard, with a presence that made his heart and bones feel the telepathic words. In the center of the dome, which had no decorations, no furniture, just a complex geometric painting on the floor, sat a Glower, throbbing brilliantly in a blue-green color. He sat cross-legged at the very center of the painting, where all the lines of the swirling mosaic of circles and pentagrams and shapes Langford had never even seen joined together. A soft white light illuminated the interior from the apex of the dome, from some sort of giant crystal that Langford could feel the heat of, ninety feet below.
“I AM THE TURQUOISE SPECTRUM,” the voice said into his mind. “THE HEALING SPECTRUM. I/WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU, TO KEEP YOU IN THIS LIFE. YOU MUST HELP US. MUST LISTEN TO WHAT WE SAY. MUST SEND YOUR STRONGEST ENERGIES OUT. MUST GIVE ALL—ALL THAT YOU ARE. THERE WILL BE NO SECOND CHANCE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND MY THOUGHTS?”
“Yes, I—,” Langford began to say, but then thought the words, directing them at the seated pulsating creature before him. Already he was feeling less terrified of their appearance. They had a—strange kind of beauty, if one didn’t judge them or compare them to humans. But they did take getting used to. This one rippled with turquoise waves, while beneath the crackling surface every one of its organs was a different color—it was like looking into the guts of a living rainbow—a rainbow with tendons and veins and kidneys and a heart—all moving, all shifting in a constantly changing harmony.
“PLACE THE GIRL HERE,” the Turquoise Spectrum telepathed, pointing with a purple glowing finger at an octagonal shape about ten feet in front of it. Langford put Kim carefully down on the strangely soft floor. “NOW LIE DOWN NEXT TO HER. WE HAVEN’T MUCH TIME. TIME IS IN FLUX NOW—THERE ARE MANY POSSIBILITIES. RELAX, RELAX, RELAX.” The words fell onto Langford like comforting fingers, stroking, soothing. He scarcely noticed the twenty other Glowers who silently entered the dome and seated themselves around the edge of the floor drawing. The minds all joined—became one. Powerful mental switches were being thrown, gates of consciousness being opened one after another.
“DO NOT FEAR. DO NOT FEAR. FEAR IS THE DESTROYER. LOVE IS THE HEALER. WE WILL HELP YOU.”
Langford felt himself surrendering to the soothing words, and then suddenly there was a fear, a fear that rushed up from his deepest psyche. Mistrust, hate, suspicion. The darker emotions—they did not wish to cooperate.
“Why? Why should I cooperate? Why do you help us?” he yelled out the words, blood from his rotting gums oozing from his mouth.
“WE HELP SO THAT YOU WILL FIT AGAIN INTO THE PLANS FOR PEACE—HARMONY—IN THIS BRANCH OF THE INFINITE MULTIDIMENSIONAL, MULTITIME UNIVERSE. YOU HAVE A PART THAT IS NOT YET OVER IN THIS TIME JUNCTURE. WE KNOW THIS FROM OUR—OUR—,” the voice seemed to have trouble for a second, relaying the concept, “OUR STUDIES. WE HELP BECAUSE THAT IS THE LIFE PATH. THE DEATH PATH IS VERY STRONG NOW—THE BALANCE IS PRECARIOUS.” There was silence in his mind for a moment as Langford tried to trust them. Tried to believe—in a world where everything was trying to destroy everything else.
“TOUCH OUR MINDS, LANGFORD,” the voice began again. “WE WILL OPEN OUR BEING TO YOU. DO NOT BE AFRAID—YOU CAN SEE WHAT IS IN OUR HEARTS.” He was suddenly thrust into the collective consciousness of the dome full of Glowers. It was so powerful, too much to handle—like being thrust into a computer’s circuitry, with a billion billion bits of information moving at once. But he could feel their truth. Their honesty. There was no lying here—they didn’t know how.
“I will trust,” he said wearily, letting his head fall back on giving floor. “I will trust.”
Twenty
Within two days, Rockson, though still weak, felt strong enough to stand and walk. He and Mountain Man Ed loaded up with all the supplies they could carry, and the mountain man could carry a lot. He slung four different moosekiller rifles around his shoulders, put on a pack filled with strips of meat, bacon, bread, coffee, and other essentials—nearly a hundred pounds, worth—onto his back. This in addition to his traveling pack with fur coat, first aid, spare knives, powder, and nearly two hundred loads of shot for his mini-cannons—this nearly another hundred pounds. He walked through the door and slapped his hands against his vast chest.
“Ah, the sun feels good, Rock, no huh?” he said as he breathed in the cool morning air, still tipped with the sweet edge of dew. The hunting dogs, a mix of Labrador and Newfoundland, rose sleepily to their feet to go hunting with their master.
“No, my friends, you stay,” Mt. Ed said. “Left food, much food and water in back. You find.” He scratched their floppy ears, petted each one, and then headed off. Rock came close behind, carrying much less. He felt lucky to be able to walk, although each step seemed to give him strength, as if he was drawing up energy from the earth itself. He was the Rock, the Doomsday Warrior—more than a man. His destiny lay with the destiny of the planet itself. Maybe later death would catch up with him—but not today. His will was stronger than that of the Taker, the Great Darkness.
The two men started down a wide, stomped-down trail that had been created by years of the big mountain dweller’s going out to check his traps or take a stroll in the evening air. The dogs started after them, jumping and bumping into one another.
“No, back,” Mt. Ed roared at them so loudly that the dogs slunk away, their heads lowered, tails between their legs. They walked back to the cabin and began rolling over one another, quickly forgetting that their master was gone. “Come Rock, quick down the trail before they come running after. Too dangerous where we go.”
They walked for about an hour through fields and woods until reaching the site of the hill with the immense boulder Rock had hidden behind when the bombs went off. It was still there, but it was now covered with a gray sheen.
“Here is where I found you, Rock, curled up like a little baby.” The oversized trapper laughed again and slapped Rockson on the back with a blow that nearly knocked him over. Rock still felt weak from the after-effects of the radiation, and his balance kept swirling around him. They walked on another few hundred yards until they were high enough up on the ridge to see the valley floor below where the convention cabin had once stood. There was now a huge circle where the trees had been burnt away to ashes—and the cabin, too—a square of black dust where it had stood. The Reds must be clapping their hands with glee. Set for another hundred years of easy rule. Not quite. He was still alive. And they would pay—in blood.
They headed up the mountainside—the trees on the lower and middle portion, closest to the blast site, were pretty chewed up. Most had n
o leaves and their bark had turned sickly yellow, with sap oozing down the sides. As they got higher, the trees seemed to have withstood it a little better. Here, some of the leaves still grew, although they were already taking on strange configurations. Near the very top they found five human figures in various poses, burnt into solid sculptures of molten black ash. A fireball must have ridden along the slope and just passed through them like the hand of hell itself. It was hard to tell just who they were—or even what sex—now they were just charcoal. One stood nearly upright, as if about to leap over the top of the ridge to safety. The other four lay on the ground, their arms over their faces, their legs raised, as if trying to kick the coming death storm away. Rock knew they weren’t any of his team—he would feel it.
They marched over the peak and down the other side. From the top they could see off onto a misty plain that looked as if it stretched off to the ends of the earth. They found more bodies as they made their descent—these too blasted into impenetrable blackness. Only this time the blast had knocked them apart as well as baking them. Dark charcoal hands and arms lay strewn around a clearing—here a head as featureless as an ocean-smoothed rock, there indecipherable parts lying together in puzzlelike patterns. About a hundred feet further down the slope Rock found an assortment of weapons—pistols and rifles, even a Liberator. He picked it up and checked the firing mechanisms—it worked. After poking around he came up with a satchel full of fifty-round banana clips and slammed one in, firing off a burst of shots. At least he had a weapon again, he’d felt naked without one. He picked up a .45 and a dozen clips near it and slammed the pistol into his belt. The owners were dead—he’d use their guns to avenge them.
They reached the bottom of the mountain and headed down what quickly turned into a real road.
“It’s the trader’s route,” Mt. Ed said, his blunderbusses swinging around his tree-sized body like branches in the wind. “There’s a small town up ahead—not a town really, jus’ a dang store—but it’s what passes for a town around these parts. Maybe folks there seen something of yo’ friends and the president.” They walked for a good two miles along the dirt road, rutted from the wooden wheels of oxcarts and coaches. The first life they saw were two young boys playing in a field that ran along the roadside. They were flying some sort of kite, made out of a dark material. As Rock walked closer, he could see that it was a Red Army uniform, sewn together at the sleeves and cut into a triangular shape. The boys laughed as they pulled the string, making the flying kite whip and dance at their command.
“Learn young,” the mountain man said, as they moved on. Ahead Rock could see smoke rising in little winding spirals from many chimneys. They turned a bend and there was the “store”—a twisted, half-rotted oak-planked square some twenty-five feet on each side, set in the middle of a lot of sand. The store must have been around before the Great War, so faded did its curving timbers look, so ancient and petrified the black nails that poked out like spikes from every corner. The two travelers walked over to the ramshackle hut and the mountain man kicked aside a bunch of empty gallon plastic jugs that lined the entrance.
“Jehoseph, you in there, you damned fool?” Mt. Ed yelled out with a roar that threatened to buckle the entire decrepit structure. From within came the sounds of numerous things toppling over, many of them breaking, followed closely by a skinny little man hardly larger than a dwarf.
“Who let you outta the can?” the ornery storekeeper squeaked up at his first customer of the day, who towered nearly three feet over him.
“Don’t be spittin’ all over your chin now, Jehoseph,” Mt. Ed said with a snort. “I come for some whiskey and to find out some information.”
“What in blazes would a coonhead like yourself be wantin’ to know?” the high voice cracked back.
“Not me, you danged fool—for my friend here—Mr. Rockson. Ted Rockson. Maybe you heard of him?”
The storekeeper seemed suddenly struck by lightning. His eyes lit up and grew wide as saucers as he looked up and down the rough-hewn face and body of the Doomsday Warrior.
“Ted Rockson, I-I-I’ve heard of you. I—I—mean everyone has. You’re really h-h-him?”
“Yeah,” Rockson smirked, “I guess I am.”
“Well, let me shake your hand, Mr. Rockson. Good Lord, I cain’t hardly believe it. Come in, come in gentlemen,” he said, with as broad a smile as he could stretch out on such a greedy little mouth. “Come in and and let me give you some of the house’s best. And, of course, it’s on me,” he said, turning around and flashing his cavity-riddled molars at Rock.
“Glenda, Glenda,” he screamed, as the three men walked back into the place on creaking bent planks that shifted as their feet moved.
“What the hell you want?” a cranky voice shrilled out from the back.
“Rustle up some grub—the best—the fresh venison steaks—and some pie and—”
“You don’t have to go to all this trouble, “Rock protested.
“Trouble? What trouble?” Mt. Ed roared. “He’s lucky I let someone as dumb as him even meet someone of your high breedin’, Rock.”
“I want to ask you something,” Rock said, after they had each taken a slug of the thick and throat-scorching homebrew that the storekeeper brought back in a large jug. “There was a big convention back there on the other side of the mountain—at the old Resort Ranch.”
“I know all about that,” Jehoseph said matter-of-factly.
“And the Reds blew it up with neutron bombs about a week ago.”
“I know all ’bout that too,” he replied in a drawn-out drawl, “You couldn’t much miss it now, could you, with two big mushroom clouds going sky high. Rising, rising they was, must have gone a mile up till the winds took ’em away. Thank the Lord off in the other direction.”
Rock leaned forward with excitement. “Did you see anyone pass by here? I’m looking for a man and a younger woman.”
“The man—he’s got sorta longish silver hair. And the girl—blond hair and—”
“Yes, yes, it’s them.” Rock leaped to his feet and grabbed the miniscule shopman by the shoulders.
The small man screamed out in pain. “My shoulders—you’re breakin’—”
“I’m sorry,” Rock said, letting go instantly. “I’ve been going crazy worrying about them. Tell me, what did you see?”
Jehoseph took another big swig from the jug. Then another. “You swear, swear you ain’t gonna think I’m crazy now—or anything like that, are you?” He looked around to make sure his wife wasn’t listening.
“Glenda, stay in the kitchen,” he screamed in a high, nasal voice. “There’s man-talk out here.” He looked back at Rock and Mt. Ed and then took a breath. “Well, see, I went out that night looking for survivors after the cloud was gone. So I see most everyone’s dead. There’s a few still movin’ and groanin’ but they was all burnt up. Then I see this man and his daughter I guess you was talkin’ bout. Well, they’re out by the swamp, and I’m just starting to head over to ’em, see if I can help, and there’s this—this—blue glow coming in from out of the plains. And they come ridin’ in.”
“They?” Rock asked.
“The Glowers, the damned Glowers,” the storekeeper said, his lips tightening as he remembered the visitation. “There was these three big—big—I don’t know what the hell they was—some kind of wagon or something, only with these huge sheets catchin’ the wind. And on each of these things there was these ugly, ugly people—glowing like lightning bolts—spittin’ out electricity. And you could see inside ’em, too.” He paused for a second and took another huge gulp. “It was creepy, I swear to tell you. Seeing all them organs pumping and blue blood spurtin’ around inside ’em. So they come right up to these two friends of yours, and scoop ’em up on these boats, and then they just took off. I swear I ain’t makin’ a word up,” he finished, as the two men looked at him incredulously. He crossed himself three times and then a fourth and took another swig, not taking his mouth from the jug
until his eyes were bursting with veins.
“He lies a lot,” Mt. Ed said to Rockson. “But I never heard one this bad.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Rock said, taking his own big slug of the foul whiskey. What the hell was going on, Rock wondered as the brew hit his stomach with a soothing fire. Why would the Glowers have gone after them? And if they had wanted to hurt them, why didn’t they just kill them?