Path of the Horseman

by Amy Braun

  “So let me get this straight,” Jerry said when I took a breather. In another, better life, he’d been a mythology teacher. Demons interested him, though I didn’t think he was stupid or brave enough to attempt summoning one. “The demons are the ones creating the Soulless?”

  I nodded. “I’ve seen it happen.” Not a lie. “People get desperate, reach the end of their rope, can’t take the pain or terror, whatever. So they call up a demon and give up their soul. The demon makes them Soulless, giving them extra strength and speed, and a nasty craving for red liquid.”

  “But the demon gets something else, don’t they?” Maddy prodded. “I mean, they’re always out for the best deal. What does the soul give them?”

  “Power,” I answered. “The more souls a demon collects, the stronger they become. They can make bigger fires, increase their physical skills, fuck with minds better. Souls are steroids for demons without the nasty side effects.”

  Maddy cringed, not liking what I was saying any more than I was telling her. Instead of asking more questions, she leaned back and ran her hands through her honey blonde hair. Josh shuffled to be closer to her, watching me over her shoulder.

  “How do you kill them?”

  I shrugged. “Same as you kill anything else, but it’s harder to do. There aren’t many of them out here that I know of, but all of them are going to be working for the same boss.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “He goes by the name Ciaran,” muttered Simon. I glanced at him sitting in the seat behind me. He was still holding his ribs and looking miserable. “He controls things behind the scene, letting his walking pit-bulls do the dirty work. But Ciaran is more powerful and dangerous than Vance, because Ciaran creates almost all of the Soulless.”

  Josh’s eyes narrowed with mistrust. “You two certainly know a lot about these demons and how they work.”

  Simon stared at the military man without emotion. Then he got up from his seat and walked to the back of the bus to sit alone. I rubbed my forehead. It was sticky from all the blood on it.

  “Be grateful that we do,” I grumbled. “You little campers are stronger and tougher with us.”

  Josh’s steel blue eyes flashed angrily. He didn’t want me near his flock, but there was no point in denying the truth. Demons put their lives in a whole new ballpark of danger. Josh could hate it to the very core of his being, but he was going to have to man up and deal with my brother and me. The world was diseased and overrun with monsters, and I helped make it that way.

  Build a bridge, get over it, then burn it.

  When it was clear that no one was going to ask me more about demons, I stood up from my seat and walked toward the back where Simon was sitting. It was a bit of a rickety walk since we were driving on an uneven patch of road, but it was better than traveling on foot. I sat in the seat opposite of Simon, leaning back and trying to look like we were about to have a casual conversation. Appearances mattered now more than ever.

  “How’s your side?” I asked.

  Simon didn’t reply, because we both knew it was fine. I sat there in silence, not sure what to say to make up for all the ways I’d wronged him.

  “I had a good life there, Avery,” he finally said. I glanced at him, but of course he wasn’t looking at me. “It wasn’t much, but it was a life. You should have let me live it.”

  Hearing him say that hurt. My brothers and I never exactly got along, but I liked to think that Simon and I were close. Well, as close as two of our apocalyptic kind could be.

  “If I’d left you there, Ciaran would have found you and killed you.”

  “Maybe,” admitted my brother. “But I would have lasted longer there than I will out here.”

  “Stop it,” I snapped, controlling the volume of my voice so the humans wouldn’t hear us. “Acting suicidal and depressed is Logan’s thing, not yours.”

  Simon didn’t say anything to that. I didn’t find it comforting. He lifted his dark eyes in the direction of the humans.

  “We can’t save them, Avery. Being around us is only going to get them killed faster.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yeah I do. You know how?”

  He turned his head to look at me. I hadn’t seen him this exhausted since he came to the same conclusion I did during the Tribulation. He said the same thing we’d both thought so long ago.

  “We weren’t made to save the world. We were made to destroy it.”

  I got up from my seat and walked away. I couldn’t be around him right now. Not only would he shoot down anything I say, but he’d crushed all my hope in a single blow. I might not have had much to begin with, but finding the humans had given me something I thought was lost when I saw the ruins of all that I’d made. I thought I could pull a piece of the old world out of the ashes, dust it off, and keep it safe.

  This was what I got for being optimistic.

  When Maddy came over to sit beside me a few minutes later, I should have pushed her away. She was pretty much a beacon for sunshine and rainbows and excitable puppies. But she didn’t take a seat on the opposite side of the bus. She literally sat down beside me, so close our shoulders were almost touching. The girl was either insane, or truly believed that there was good in everyone.

  I didn’t know which was worse.

  “Simon will forgive you,” she told me after a moment.

  “You just met him,” I replied. “You don’t know how his mind works.”

  “No, but I know how families work. Good ones stick together and fight, take some time to brood, then forgive each other and move on.”

  “My family doesn’t work that way.”

  “I haven’t met your parents or your other brothers, so you’re right about that, but you traveled all the way from Boulder City to a resort in the middle of nowhere to find Simon. He let us stay in his hideout because you asked him.”

  “I threatened him.”

  “Let me finish.”

  I glanced at Maddy. Her pure blue eyes were intense, and shut me up.

  “He helped us escape. You fought together. You saved his life. Nobody forgets those kinds of things. Yeah, he’s about as chipper as a mortician at a funeral right now, but he’ll get over it. Give him space.”

  I watched her face. I was covered in blood and probably reeked to high Heaven. I was a new, dangerous stranger who knew things she never imagined. But she hadn’t backed up an inch. She didn’t look scared or disgusted. Maddy sat there and looked at me like I was another Average Survivor Joe.

  “You know this haven could be a death trap, right?” I asked. “There could be nothing there at all. You could be hanging onto this hope of yours for nothing.”

  “I know,” she answered, surprising me. “But if the Valley of Fire isn’t the home I want it to be, guess what that means?”

  I shrugged. She confused the hell out of me.

  “That somewhere else is.”

  Forget confusion. I was full on lost.

  “We have no communication with the rest of the world, but we know it’s out there. We’ve traveled for months and haven’t found more than bones. But we’re alive. We saved people. We have a purpose. Hope nowadays is the most breakable thing in existence, but not having it will get us killed. I know that there’s a place out there were we can start over. It might not be in the Valley of Fire, and we might not find it for another ten years, but I know it’s out there. I can feel it. And if I have to hold down every person I know and force-feed them that hope, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

  She had conviction. I wouldn’t argue that. I just wished it wasn’t a lie; that there was a way for me to tell her there weren’t any safe havens anymore. My brothers and I had destroyed them all.

  But the intensity of the hope in Maddy’s eyes made me keep my mouth shut. I could tell her I carpet-bombed the planet before eating all the babies, and she still wouldn’t let go of her beliefs. Though she would beat me to a pulp for being a napalm-loving baby-eater.
/>   “You like the definition of tough love, don’t you?”

  Maddy grinned and did her lopsided shrug. It was nice to see it back in earnest. “Someone has to do it.”

  Funny, I thought, holding onto the mask of my smile. Someone told me the same thing before I killed half the world.

  Chapter 8

  Ricardo was a good driver. He kept the bus chugging away until the very last drop of gasoline sputtered out of the tank. We ended up in the small town of Whitney, Nevada around nightfall. We could have cut through Vegas, but big cities were magnets for Plagued and Soulless. Vegas was one of the places that had been pitifully easy to obliterate. So many people packed in so little space with the worst hiding spots possible. The Plague spread like wildfire there, and it got so bad that Simon didn’t even have to drop by. Kade however… Kade loved breaking Vegas. He was a hurricane when he went into the city to torch it.

  Logan had been forced to follow him. I’d never seen my oldest brother so angry.

  The Rust Bus died around Tropicana, one mile from the nearest gas station. We all had to get out and push the yellow turd to the pumps. After nearly an hour of huffing and puffing and shoving, we got the stupid thing to the gas station, which was right beside a Wal-Mart.

  Pushing a bus for about an hour, bad. Finding a supermarket that might still be stocked with useful things, good.

  “Gwen, Jerry, Laurel, you stay here with Ricardo,” said Josh. “Theo, Maddy, and the new guys will come with me. We’re going to check out the Wal-Mart and see if there are any supplies we can take. Meet us in an hour. If the place is secure, we’ll stay there for the night.”

  Everyone was looking forward to having something to do. Even me. Simon was still sulking, but the smile Maddy offered me when she passed lifted my mood. At least it did until Josh put his hand on my chest and kept me from following her. I flicked my eyes to his hand, then to his face.

  “Mind taking your hand off me, Sarge? You gave me some orders, I believe.”

  Josh took his hand back, but didn’t get out of my way. Instead, he made a show of himself by putting his right hand on the top of his rifle. He was itching for a reason to use it on me. Good thing I wasn’t that stupid or that arrogant. Usually.

  “Stay away from her,” warned Josh.

  No point in asking who he meant. Even though I was staring down Josh, I could still see Maddy’s honey blonde hair swishing against her leather jacket.

  “She might trust you, but she’s a good person. She sees the best in people.”

  “And let me guess, you see the worst?”

  “No,” Josh said. “But I know what monsters look like.”

  That caught me a little off guard. There was no way Josh could know exactly what I was. If he did, I’d be doubling as Swiss cheese right now.

  “Relax, Sarge. The pig-blood getup is temporary,” I said, sweeping my hand up and down my nasty clothes. “And as far as Maddy goes, I’m pretty sure she can take care of herself.”

  I stepped forward to get past him. Josh shifted and put himself in front of me again.

  “There is nothing I won’t do to keep these people safe,” Josh growled. “Nothing. You might have the others fooled, but I’m not. There’s something wrong with you. If I find out that something is a threat to this group, I’m going to cut you loose in a very permanent way.”

  I had to thank Josh for this warning. Proclaiming that he was on to me would only make me more cautious. While I didn’t doubt that he’d carry out his threat if he needed to, I wasn’t worried now. I knew who was most likely to stab me in the back. Most monsters don’t get that kind of luck.

  “Thanks for the heads up. I promise not to piss in your coffee. Can I go now?”

  Josh scowled, but didn’t stop me when I stepped around him and walked toward through the Wal-Mart parking lot, a graveyard of abandoned sedans and minivans. My heart pounded quicker than I wanted it to, my hands itching for the hilt of a blade as my mind prepared for a bullet in the spine.

  But nothing happened, and it didn’t comfort me as much as I hoped.

  ***

  The Wal-Mart had tons of supplies. Too bad most of it was useless. The fresh food sections of the store smelled like rotten meat, sour fruit, and molding vegetables. The dairy section was covered in dried puddles of melted butter, cracked egg yolks, and spilled milk. The lights overhead were broken or burnt out, which made reading expiry dates hard to see on the few boxes and cans of food that I did find. Most of the non-perishable food items had been cleared out. Clothes had been pulled off their hangers, most in heaps on the floor. I was able to find some new pants, shirts, and underwear, and I was lucky when I found that the back room for the employees had showers with working water. It was about as comfortable as taking an ice bath in Antarctica, but I finally washed off the blood and stink clinging to my body. You take what you can get in the apocalypse.

  After taking quick shower and throwing on a fresh black shirt and dark blue jeans, I left the staff area and wandered around the rest of the store. The baby section was missing food and diapers. A lot of the pet section was missing food as well. The electronic area was missing batteries and radios, while the crafting area was empty of scissors. The aisles for furniture, books, and toys were left untouched. The hunting and gun part of the store was nearly cleared out. Simon was taking any arrows and bowstrings he could find, and Josh was staring at the gun wall. I decided to skip that part of the store. Simon could take care of himself, but I was pretty sure Josh’s threat extended to me and me alone.

  I felt so lucky.

  The hour passed by quickly, and while no hungry dead people attacked us, we didn’t find much that was useful. There was practically no water left, and only a couple purifiers. Most of the handheld lighters were low on fuel, which we didn’t find much of either. The little bits of food we scrounged up had to be eaten that night, and even then they were months past expiration.

  Commander Josh decreed that we sleep in the store for the night, then get back on the bus and finish the trip to the Valley of Fire. It was a smart move, considering the supposed haven would be a graveyard if we were lucky, or the worst trap imaginable if we weren’t. I had no idea if he bought into his dream girl’s hope, Josh clearly cared about his people enough to let them have one more night of relative peace and quiet.

  After we cleared the aisles and met up again, we huddled in the bedding section of the store. There were tons of left behind blankets and pillows, and we dispersed them so we could sleep on something soft instead of a cold, hard floor. It was my turn for watch. Josh didn’t like it, but he was fully human, filled with food, and relaxed. Even with all his hardcore military training, he didn’t make it more than ten minutes.

  I was sitting across from Maddy, resting my back against a cushioned pillow wall. She was sleeping with her face sinking into a soft, white pillow. A sleeping bag was open and draped over her waist. She looked comfortable, but then she started turning. I watched her toss and turn, knowing it wasn’t where she was sleeping that was making her uncomfortable. It was whatever she was dreaming about.

  Maddy’s face was pinched and nervous when she turned back to me. I wasn’t sure what to do. I couldn’t use my powers to get into her mind and take away her nightmares. I could play around with anyone’s brain, but I didn’t want to do that to Maddy.

  I went through my implanted memories, digging deep until I found images of humans comforting their loved ones. I crawled over to Maddy and grabbed the edges of the sleeping bag. She flinched and I nearly stopped what I was doing, but she didn’t wake. I folded the corner of the sleeping bag so it cocooned her up to her shoulders. Maddy tensed and whimpered, grabbing the covers and pulling them higher to her chin.