Eden’s Twilight

by James Axler

  “Pass,” the droid said.

  Feeling a rush of excitement in her stomach, Mildred used her mirror for a quick glance. Incredibly the spider had moved aside, clearing the way for the UCV to enter inside the redoubt.

  “Millie, which of us looks the most like military personnel?” J.B. asked.

  “None of us,” she replied. “We’re wearing bits and pieces of uniforms, but nobody is carrying an M-16 assault rifle, and that was the standard weapon.”

  Jak jerked a thumb. “What about U.S. Army Fifty?”

  A short while later, J.B. walked into view from behind the UCV. His munitions bag was replaced by Mildred’s med kit with M*A*S*H on the side. His beloved fedora had been left behind, and he was hauling the .50-caliber machine gun across his shoulders.

  Forcing his face to remain neutral, it seemed like a thousand miles instead of a hundred feet to reach the entrance of the redoubt. As he walked past Ryan and Krysty, the Armorer gave a subtle cough, then stepped over the threshold and proceeded down the concrete tunnel. The spider watched his every move until the man walked around a corner and went out of sight.

  Only a few minutes later J.B. reappeared carrying a plastic bucket that slopped out fuel with every step. Casually strolling to the armored vehicle, he poured the contents into the pull-out funnel of the fuel tank, then climbed inside the UCV.

  “Here we go,” Mildred muttered softly, trying the big diesel. The engine groaned but would not start. “Damn it, we need to prime the lines!”

  “Got two,” Jak stated. “Only the one ran dry.”

  “Here goes nothing…” Switching engines, Mildred tried again and the war wag started with a roar of power.

  Shifting into gear, she rolled to the blast door and paused, giving Ryan and Krysty enough time to scamper through the aft doors, while J.B. quickly ran out to tap in the code to close the blast doors. Once they were safely inside, Mildred started forward again at an easy 25 mph. Speeding could be a violation of a safety regulation.

  The tunnel was large enough to admit the passage of an Abrams battle tank, so the UCV moved along easily. The ceiling was lined with bright fluorescent tube, which kept snagging the radio antenna, so Mildred slowed their progress to prevent any breakage. The physician knew that any deviation from standard military protocol could invoke the spider’s wrath.

  “Ease to a crawl,” Ryan commanded, watching the spider disappear behind the first turn. “But leave that engine running.”

  “Whatever you’re gonna do, make it fast,” J.B. advised, checking the fuel gauge. The needle was on empty, the half gallon of juice not even registering.

  “Check.” As the vehicle slowed to barely creep along, Ryan stepped down and walked to the first turn. He couldn’t hear anything over the rumble of the UCV, so he pulled out his panga and slid it past the edge, trying to angle the shiny metal for a surreptitious look. The spider was right back where they had originally found it, standing guard in front of the closed blast doors.

  Accepting their good luck, Ryan moved silently backward until clear, then broke into a trot to catch the others. The last time they had been here, the garage had been full of disassembled vehicles, scavenged by coldhearts to make a nuking-big war wag. Then the idiots aced one another over control of the machine, giving it to the companions when they arrived via the mat-trans unit.

  Just for a moment, Ryan debated whether they should go down to the fifth level and jump to another redoubt. But the allure of finding an intact predark city was too strong. He was in for a full magazine, the whole thirty. Case closed.

  However, as he went around the last turn, Ryan could see that it was just as well he had scrapped the idea. The redoubt had been cleaned. All of the old military wags were gone, the garage was now scrupulously clean, everything polished, shiny bright and empty as a mutie’s pockets. Damn! Somehow one of the walls had been breached, letting in looters.

  “All right, people, the spider is standing guard at the exit, but let’s move fast in case that thing decides we’re not who it thinks we are,” Ryan said. “Doc, stand guard. J.B., get that Fifty working. Mildred and Jak, refuel the wag. Krysty and I will do a fast recce of the lower levels to see if there is anything useable.”

  Nobody bothered to reply, they just started working.

  Heading for the elevator, Ryan pressed the button to summon the elevator, while Krysty eased open the door to the stairwell. If there was anybody below, they’d hear the elevator and go to investigate, giving the two companions a clear path down the stairs.

  “Galley?” Krysty whispered as they passed the second floor and headed for the third. Her stomach felt like a rad pit, hot, vast and steamingly empty. The few forkfuls of beef stew she’d had for breakfast only served to sharpen her hunger, not diminish it.

  “Armory,” Ryan stated. “If that spider gets itchy, we’ll need something big to scratch with.”

  Reaching the sixth level, they paused at the door to listen for any conversation from the other side. But there was only a deep silence. Proceeding through the door, the pair started down a long corridor, the walls lined with doors. Most of them were ajar, showing small bedrooms. But there were no sheets, blankets or pillows, just the bare frames of the bunkbeds, nothing more.

  At the far end of the corridor was a large metal door, hinges visible on both sides, which made absolutely no sense. But the companions knew better. It was merely a diversion to hinder thieves from knowing which side to blow open. In spite of the fact that the predark military seemed to go crazy near the end, a lot of what they built and planned worked perfectly. Sometimes it seemed that Mildred was right, genius was just a beat away from madness.

  Going to the door, Ryan tapped an access code onto the keypad. There came the low growl of electric motors buried inside the walls, and the door smoothly opened to reveal only darkness.

  Stepping over the threshold, Ryan and Krysty waited for the systems to respond to their presence and turn on the lights. As the fluorescent tubes strobed into life, the two companions inhaled sharply—and began backstepping out of the room.

  The armory was full of sec hunter droids, rows upon rows of them, dozens, perhaps hundreds, along with a score of the small cryo units, their control-panel lights twinkling merrily.

  As they began moving out of the room, Krysty reached out to touch Ryan’s arm. He turned and scowled. Over in the corner was a plastic pallet stacked with military backpacks, supplies for the soldiers who occupied the redoubt. Every pack had an M-16 rapidfire, bedroll, canteen and sheathed knife hanging from the straps. A couple of them also had satellite uplink radios, and a few sported the fat plastic tube of a light antitank rocket.

  With their hearts pounding, the pair eased closer to grab whatever they could, then moved back into the corridor to work the keypad again. Waiting to be attacked for the theft, Ryan and Krysty didn’t exhale until the door silently closed and locked firmly.

  “Fireblast, that looked like some kind of staging area!” Ryan muttered, slowly easing his grip on the Steyr. “Not a recce force, but a fragging army!”

  “This…this must be where that convoy came from that we found in the National Guard base!” Krysty whispered, her hair flexing and twisting. “Lover, we have got to get out of here fast. We could barely stop one droid. If all of these activate—”

  “We’ll never reach the outside alive,” Ryan stated grimly. “Agreed. Frag the galley. We’re gone.”

  As swiftly and silently as possible, they returned to the garage level and burst out the door at a good clip.

  Doc was at the entrance to the tunnel, the LeMat held in a hand. J.B. was putting a box of spare parts into the rear of the wag, Mildred was holding a fuel hose to the UCV, and Jak were nowhere to be seen.

  Just then, there was a crackle of bright light from the roof, and Jak rose into view wearing protective goggles and gloves, holding a welding torch.

  “Done!” the teenager announced, turning off the torch. “Solid as rock!”

 
; “Glad to hear it!” Mildred replied, removing the hose from the armored vehicle. “It always makes me nervous to pump fuel when you’re welding something.”

  “Not blown up yet.” The teen smiled, removing the goggles.

  “Told you it was safe, Millie,” J.B. said, dusting off his hands. Then he saw Ryan and Krysty hurrying over with the backpacks. “Hey, back already? What’d you find?”

  “Trouble,” Ryan stated as he and Krysty dumped the packs into the vehicle. Then they briefly explained.

  “Hundreds?” J.B. echoed. He turned to climb into the driver’s seat and start the engines. “Okay, time to haul ass!”

  Everybody scrambled into jumpseats, and the UCV was rolling before the rear doors were closed. Pausing briefly to take on Doc, the war wag speedily maneuvered through the zigzagging tunnel, then was forced to pause when the spider came into sight. Impatiently, J.B. sat with his hands on the controls, ready to ram the droid against the blast doors if it turned hostile. But apparently the machine had enough memory to recognize the urban combat vehicle, and simply stepped aside to allow them passage.

  Moving fast, Mildred hopped down to work the keypad, and once the blast doors were open, J.B. engaged both engines and tromped on the gas pedal. With a roar, the UCV raced out of the tunnel and across the grasslands, the Armorer pushing the war wag to its top speed, trying to get as far away as possible.

  “Next time we jump, and see colors for Ohio redoubt,” Jak declared, “just jump again. This place trouble!”

  “Agreed, my young friend,” Doc said, breathing a sigh of relief as the spider disappeared behind the blast doors, and closed them. “If the Alaskan redoubt is our cornucopia, the horn of plenty, then this wretched place is Pandora’s Box.”

  “All right then, Bullfinch,” Mildred chided. “In this new mythology, what is Cascade? Shangri-la?”

  “It’s Salvation,” Doc whispered, the word almost lost in the rumble of the war wag wheels.

  Chapter Eleven

  The man came out of the shadows and into the porchlight. “Mayor,” he said as a greeting.

  Laying down her knife and fork, Henrietta Spencer waved the deputy onto the wooden porch. “Come on up, Ted,” she said with a tolerant smile. “I’m just finishing dinner. There’s plenty of fried chicken and cornbread if you’d like some.”

  “No, thanks, Your Honor, I ate before my shift,” the man said, stepping onto the porch and respectfully removing his hat.

  In the corner, an electric bug-zapper crackled occasionally, and from inside the house came the soft melodious music of Hank Williams singing about home and a lost love.

  Wiping her mouth clean on a napkin, Mayor Spencer politely gestured toward a pitcher covered with condensation. “Fair enough, how about some iced tea?”

  “Well, now, that’s different.” Deputy Ted Ellison grinned and took a chair. Pouring himself a glass, the man raised it, then paused. “Ah, Madam Mayor, this isn’t—”

  “No, Ted, it is not Long Island Iced Tea.” She chuckled. “I obey the edict about no drinking alcohol before a Harvest the same as everybody else. It’s just plain iced tea mixed with sugar and lemon and a sprig of mint.”

  Smiling his thanks, the man took a small sip, savoring the delicious flavor of the rare treat. The town stores were low on tea bags. As well as coffee, sugar, powdered milk, lemons, flour, toothpaste, toilet paper and just about everything else but ammunition and weaponry. The sheriff’s department of Cascade had been preparing for a fight since Zero Day, and so they were very well stocked in everything from crossbows to antitank rockets. Food was the only real problem.

  As the deputy sheriff, the man knew about the forbidden food hidden under the high-school gymnasium. Food that was never to be mentioned or joked about in any way. Food that the good people of Cascade would never even know about when there was no other choice but to feed it to them mixed in with the chicken and the pork. He had been in the dark bunkers and smelled the rich, smoky air, and seen the hanging rows of…food. And had gotten drunk, and been sick, and gotten over it, like every other deputy, sheriff and mayor in the history of the town. The food had never been used, thank sweet Jesus for that! But it was there, hidden among them like a cancer, waiting silently in the dark. A cancer that would save Cascade someday. Save them and damn them forever at the same time.

  The man shook his head, dispelling the dark thoughts. Thank God, we’re a long way from eating long pig, and…and when the Harvest comes in we’ll be fine again for years and years! Just fine. Completely fine. Oh God, let there be enough food this time…

  “Well, out with it, Ted. You didn’t come here just to mooch a drink,” Henrietta said, rocking back in her chair. From the man’s somber expression, she could guess what he had been thinking about. It was the reason there was so much fried chicken left on the table. Whenever food got low, her thoughts also turned to the high school.

  “No, ma’am, I didn’t,” the deputy agreed, laying aside the cool glass tumbler. The ice cubes tinkled softly. The music of civilization.

  “Any chance you’re here for a Harvest Time kiss?” the woman chuckled, leaning forward to set her boots on the floorboards. “It’s tradition, I can’t refuse you. Hell, son, a strapping big boy like you, I wouldn’t refuse you anytime!”

  “And if I thought you actually meant that, I’d give you a Harvest Kiss right here on the dining table that would last all night long,” the deputy said with a chuckle, his face and mood lightening. “But I’m here to tell you that a pigeon arrived from Sheriff MacIntyre. The convoy is on the way.”

  “Well, hallelujah,” the mayor said without much emotion. “Sure took him long enough. I was starting to think he had gone native…or worse.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” the deputy admitted. “The pigeon is marked number five, which means the first four never made it back here alive.”

  “Really? Shit, how close is the convoy?”

  “Week, maybe less.”

  The woman frowned. “Damnation, son, we better get on the ball! Is everything ready at Bluestone?”

  “Damn near. There’s some minor trouble, but they swear the grid will be up and running when the time comes.”

  “Do they now?” Henrietta grimaced. “Well, get your ass up there and make sure. If that grid falls, we are shit out of luck. And check with Tripwire, just in case.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the deputy said in a businesslike manner. Touching two fingers to his hat in salute, he sauntered off into the night.

  Pushing herself out of the chair, the mayor dropped her napkin over the plate of food to keep away the bluebottles, and walked over to the carved wooden railing of the porch. Listening to the eternal song of the cicadas in the grass, she looked long and hard at the distant moon, then turned to gaze lovingly at Cascade.

  The mountain town spread before her like a diorama in a big city museum: twinkling streetlights, smoke wafting from chimneys, a man on a bicycle riding along Main Street. Lights were flickering in the VFW Hall, and she tried to recall what movie they were showing, but failed. However, it was almost always a Western before a Harvest. The First Families had started that tradition, and it stayed fast. The public library had possessed a good collection of classic films when Zero Day arrived, and while the 16 mm films were a little faded, and spliced in spots, they were the marvel of the ages to townsfolk. Now, the chief librarian himself had owned a rather vast stock of adult movies, but those were reserved for smokers or bachelor parties. Private stock, not for public viewing.

  Breathing in the cool mountain air, Henrietta let it out slowly. Life had not changed very much in Cascade in the past hundred years. She knew that for a fact. As the mayor, it was part of her duties to read the private journals and personal diaries of the First Families, to learn what life had been in the before times so that she had a goal to reach, and maintain. However, she always seemed to read and reread the Last Days, when the whole world ended and nobody in Cascade knew a damn thing about the nuclear war for over twent
y-four hours…

  THE SNOW LAY HEAVY on the ground, a thick white blanket of pristine cleanliness. The plows had been hard at work since dawn, and all of the main roads through Cascade Falls were clear, sprinkled with a good coating of sand and salt.

  There had been distant flashes of light the previous day that everybody assumed was just heat lightning. However, at exactly the same time, broadcast TV, cable television and radio went off the air. A few minutes later, every cell phone died and every Internet connection was cut. The local radio station still worked fine, as well as the landline phones and CB radios. Everybody was uneasy, but nobody was frightened, just more curious than anything. This was all just a weird coincidence, sure, it had to be, because the only other explanation was beyond unthinkable.

  It was late in the afternoon when a car came speeding over the Huckleberry River Bridge and raced into the town. It was a fancy European sports car, the one where nobody was exactly sure how to properly pronounce the name, or which end was the front. It was packed as solid as a piñata with luggage, a bird cage, blankets, canned goods and just about everything else a person could think of. Crouching behind the wheel was a pale man in an expensive suit. He was unshaved, and so pale that the folks he passed on the road almost thought he was an albino.

  The sports car screeched to a halt at the Swifty Mart, and he scrambled out to fill the tank with gas, then stumbled inside to grab some oil and candy bars. Behind the counter, Mary-Lou Buckerson accepted his credit card for the purchases, which seemed to startle him immensely. Sure, the wireless modem was down, but that had happened before after a thunderstorm, and Mary-Lou simply wrote out the slip by hand. Excited by that for some reason, the man bought extra cans of fuel that he strapped to the outside of the compact car, and then drove across the street and tried to bribe Ed Swanson in the gun store to sell him a handgun without the three-day waiting period. Ed refused, the stranger drove off and everybody breathed a sigh of relief. But the expression on the driver’s face stayed with the townsfolk. Scared. The rich man had been scared to death.