False Gods

by W. Glenn Duncan Jr.

  “Nothin’ there boss-man,” he said with a low breath. I joined him at the doorway and peered through the opening to look inside. The room was small, containing two metal framed beds and a set of small steel shelves. The beds were neatly made and small, ordered piles of clothes rested on the shelves.

  “Next one?” I whispered.

  He nodded in my green glare.

  He covered me as I jumped into the next room, swinging to cover the space on the near wall in case anyone was hiding there. Identical to the first room, from the standard furniture down to the lack of occupants.

  We leap-frogged down the hallway, checking each room. They were all the same and all empty with no indication of who had been there or where they were now.

  The last two doorways at the end of the long hallway led to simple bathrooms. Three shower heads sprouted from one long wall, with a sink and two lidless toilets on the opposite side. Rusty water dripped from one of the single faucets and stained the sink beneath.

  “What d’ya reckon this place is?” Cowboy said, his voice a little louder. We were alone.

  “Living quarters, I’d say. For the faithful, I guess. Why here and not in the huts, I don’t know. Let’s check the other door.”

  “I got tools in the truck at’ll bust that lock open. Coupla flashlights, too.”

  “Sounds good.”

  As we shuffled back to the truck, I hoped that Mimi could tell who we were and wouldn’t let loose with a burst from the Uzi.

  “Where’d you boys get to?” she stage-whispered as we got closer, and my heart started beating again.

  “Found ourselves a buncha mysterious empty rooms,” Cowboy said.

  He opened the rear tray and Mimi jumped down. Cowboy threw me a flashlight and handed one to Mimi. He hefted a pry-bar in one hand and followed me back to the alcove and the other door.

  I put an ear to the cold metal.

  Nothing.

  Cowboy eased the pry bar between the door and frame and pulled. Metal screeched and groaned, absurdly loud in the enclosed space. It took him three more hefty pulls before the frame distorted enough to release the door catch.

  This time, Mimi was first through the door staying low and right. I went left and high into an identical hallway. We stood and listened.

  Still nothing.

  Where’d everyone go?

  Mimi walked to the first door, stuck her head around the door frame and jerked it back. She looked back at me, sighed and lowered her Uzi.

  “Aw shit, Rafferty. This ain’t right.”

  Mimi’s light sliced across the dirty linoleum floor of the small room.

  Same size and construction as the ones we’d already seen.

  Quiet, dark and still.

  Same small shelving units with piles of clothes.

  Same metal frame beds.

  When it came to the bodies lying on the blankets, with blood crusting their lips and noses however, this room was terribly different.

  “What’s going on, Rafferty?” Mimi whispered, despite the absence of anyone alive to hear us. Cowboy and I were squatting in the hallway near the first room. Mimi was standing so we could all talk, eye to eye.

  I shook my head.

  “Damned if I know,” I said. If you’d asked me what we were going to find behind those doors, the scenes that greeted us would not have been anywhere in my guesses.

  We’d swept the length of the second hallway and checked each room along the way.

  Twenty-eight rooms.

  Thirteen bodies.

  A mix of men, women, children.

  All wearing simple, cloth robes.

  All dead.

  In some rooms, only a single body. In others, groups lay together, still and silent.

  All were lying on their backs, hands on their chests, as though they’d lain down for a long night’s slumber. Two of the larger men had been shot in the back of the head. I guessed that was the reason for their faces looking like strawberry pulp and the gory spray patterns on the wall. We couldn’t know for certain because they were lying peacefully like all the others and I wasn’t about to mess with them.

  The saddest sight of all was the cot with a young woman, bloody around the mouth and nose like the others, with a young child, still as marble, tucked under each arm. They had turned and nestled into her chest, almost like they were looking to breastfeed, with their mother clutching them as their just-begun lives had left them.

  I’d reached down and checked for pulses on the kids. I knew it was hopeless, but I couldn’t not check. Their small frames were as devoid of movement as the rest.

  The only upside, and I felt sick thinking this, was Kimberly was nowhere to be seen.

  “I seen some fucked up things, boss-man,” Cowboy said, “but in all my born-put-togethers I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this.”

  “What now?” Mimi asked.

  “We find Kimberly, before she joins her fellow church members,” I said.

  “And get the hell out of Dodge?”

  “Not before I have a chance to send Dariell to meet his God face to face.”

  Cowboy smiled thinly on the edge of the light.

  Chapter 36

  We picked our way down the tunnel in the idling Sierra once again.

  Cowboy steered the truck wearing the night vision goggles and I took over duty on the night-scoped Winchester. We came to a second alcove about fifty yards later and replayed our search squad moves.

  The sights that met the stabbing beams of our flashlights were eerily repetitive.

  Twin hallways and dormitories, built and furnished the same. Empty rooms, but many, too many, rooms containing an assortment of bodies. A couple of men with missing faces, and everyone else with blood-crusted mouths and noses. Needle-less syringes discarded on the floor beside the cots.

  Hands folded on chests. Resting in peace.

  Still.

  Silent.

  Dead.

  I didn’t, couldn’t, count the bodies.

  Still no Kimberly.

  “Let’s go and—”

  “Shh,” hissed Mimi.

  I settled my grip tighter on the rifle and took a knee, aiming past Mimi and back down the hallway.

  What had we missed?

  Mimi’s flashlight must have been illuminating my face. She looked my way, saw my arched eyebrow and leaned close to whisper, “I heard … Cover me.”

  Without waiting for a response, she raised her Uzi and tiptoed down the hallway. She stopped outside a doorway about halfway down and bent her head, listening hard. I snatched a glance at Cowboy and he shrugged.

  Mimi skipped past the doorway and stopped again two further down, bending her head again. As I was about to take step towards her, she wheeled back towards us and disappeared into the darkness of the doorway. I was into motion then and pounding towards the doorway, Cowboy on my heels, almost there when her voice wound around the door frame.

  “Hey,” Mimi cooed from inside the room.

  I reached the doorway about then, striding past and slamming my back into the wall alongside, Cowboy taking up the same position on the other side of the doorway.

  “Everythin’ alright, honey?” he called.

  “Hang on,” Mimi said from the darkness. “It’s okay. You’re safe. Come on.”

  I waited there with Cowboy for about ten years before we heard Mimi’s voice again.

  “Come on in, boys. Best if you take it slow, and lower your guns. This feller’s been through a nightmare already.”

  I stepped into the room, with a casualness that I did not feel, found Mimi sitting on the floor.

  I hadn’t expected to see that, but neither had I been ready to see her holding a blond-haired boy, face smeared with blood and vomit, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and very much alive.

  He couldn’t have been more than four or five years old and unlike the three people lying on the cot behind him, he was going to see his next birthday.

  I’d make sure
of that.

  Mimi kept him on her lap and facing away from the death scene behind him. She rocked him and clucked soothing sounds in his ear.

  “The little guy was hidin’ underneath his Momma,” she said. “Smart kid. Not sure how he pulled it off. Lookin’ at his face and T-shirt, I guess he, or whoever, made himself throw up whatever it was they gave to him.” I could only nod. “And everyone else,” she said and then bent her head to whisper in the young boy’s ear again.

  “This changes things a mite,” Cowboy said.

  I nodded.

  We could rabbit now, taking the boy with us, and make sure that one person survived the night, but that wasn’t enough for me. Not only did I want to find Kimberly and get as many people as I could out of this shit-hole, more than ever I wanted to see someone pay for the devastation we’d seen.

  What to do with the kid?

  “Can he stay here?” I said to the top of Mimi’s head, “while we go get this done?”

  “Hell, Rafferty,” Cowboy said. “That’s cold.”

  I nodded. “I know, but we can’t drag him into the middle of whatever it is we’re walking into. No point him surviving now, to get shot later.”

  “Meems could stay with him, while we take care of the rest of it.”

  “That might work. You got backpacks in the truck?” Cowboy nodded. “I can throw a bunch of ammo, the Colt and the Ithaca in that to make up for just being the two of us.”

  “Yep. You could have the semi-auto too, and I’ll take the Winchester, the Ruger and a buncha speed-loaders and—”

  “Shhhh.”

  Cowboy and I looked up.

  “He’s asleep,” Mimi said. “Let him stay that way for a while.” Mimi face shone with tears. “And if you two think you’re gonna leave me baby-sitting while you go save the world, you’ve got another thing comin’.”

  She stood up, cradling the boy to her chest, leaving her Uzi on the floor. He whimpered and snuggled tighter.

  “After seein’ this, Rafferty, there ain’t no way I’m gonna sit by and let this monster get away.”

  She walked to the door.

  “Let’s send him to the hell he deserves.”

  Cowboy popped the clutch and started the truck moving down the tunnel again.

  We had waited in the hallway lost in our own thoughts while Mimi built a blanket nest for the boy in the empty dormitory. She’d left some beef jerky and candy for him in case he woke up, made sure he wouldn’t be seen by a casual glance from the doorway and closed the door, as lovingly as if she’d been putting her own child to bed after a big day of playing Cowboys and Indians in the backyard.

  Back in the truck, she fussed in the rear tray, unzipping bags and assembling weapons. I could feel her cold fury wafting into the front seat.

  “Got a powerful feeling of wantin’ to put the hurt on someone, boss-man,” Cowboy said.

  I nodded and we rolled down the tunnel in deathly silence.

  About the same time I woke up that the glow in the distance had become a distinct light, Cowboy cleared his throat.

  “We may have an impediment to our progress,” he said.

  “Huh?” Mimi said from the back seat.

  He braked the truck to a halt, tore off the night-vision goggles and flicked on the parking lights. They lit up a solid timber gate spanning the width and height of the tunnel, just ten feet in front of the truck’s nose.

  “They done gone and closed the front door after all.”

  “You know, Cowboy,” I said. “I’m getting sick and tired of this creeping around bullshit down here in the catacombs.” I saw his face break into a grin in the reflected light. “What say we raise a little hell and see who complains about the noise?”

  “’bout time. Was beginnin’ to think you’d gone soft.”

  He backed the truck up, turned on the headlights and stabbed a switch on the dashboard. The spotlight rack above the cab burst into life and scorched the interior of the tunnel with light. I swapped out the night vision scope on the Winchester for a standard one. Cowboy grabbed first gear and revved the engine. Four hundred and fifty four cubic inches bellowed through the tunnel, like a demon roaring from the pit of hell.

  “Hang on,” he said. “This might hurt a bit.”

  As he popped the clutch and the truck leaped forward I thought I heard him say something else.

  “But it shore is gonna be fun.”

  Chapter 37

  The Sierra slammed into the timber with an angry growl and an ear-splitting crash.

  Wooden boards exploded outward.

  As my head was thrown forward I saw the sheet metal of the hood crumple and twist. Cowboy kept his boot on the gas as the truck bucked and swayed and muscled its way over the remains of the gate.

  The rear end gave a final lurch, the truck shot forward and the mouth of the tunnel disappeared behind us. Cowboy braked and the truck slid to a stop, dust rising into the night.

  I had the Winchester poked out my window looking for movement. Cowboy mirrored my actions with his Blackhawk. Mimi snapped her head left and right in the back seat vigilant for threats from both directions.

  The truck growled like a wounded animal, low and insistent over the stillness.

  Yellow lights glowed from their positions atop the scattered poles. On our right the large industrial shed sat with the sliding door half open. No lights inside.

  I looked over Cowboy’s shoulder to check out the opposite side of the bowl. Four dung-coloured concrete buildings marched straight into the collapsed side of the crater.

  The other end of the dormitory blocks.

  A couple of smaller sheds and two rusty steel tanks on blocks squatted here, too. Pipes ran between the tanks, sheds and half-underground dormitories.

  I couldn’t see the square hut, which I expected was the temple that Lucy described. It was hidden behind the church, the largest building in the bowl. Lights glowed in the windows, and I thought I could hear faint singing over the whining engine.

  To the left, and behind the church, the small dirty-white huts sat silent and still. To the right, a series of tumble-down fences bracketed the animal pens.

  I twisted in the seat and trained the rifle on the barrack huts beyond the pens, figuring someone to be interested in our dramatic entrance. I swung the sights back and forth between the two hut doors I could see and focused on my peripheral vision.

  Everything froze for several seconds.

  Silent and surreal.

  My heart pounded.

  “Nobody thought to put out the welcome-wagon?” Cowboy said.

  He sounded disappointed.

  Then the night turned to shit.

  The first shots came from behind one corner of the industrial shed.

  I saw movement in the shadows, a muzzle flash and was halfway through yelling “We got action,” when one of the windows above the rear tray exploded. Another bullet pinged off the bodywork somewhere low and in front of me.

  “That’s not very neighborly,” Cowboy growled and stomped on the gas, swinging the truck to the left and away from the fire.

  As the truck lurched into motion, the chug of automatic weapons rolled across the compound from the far side of the church.

  Crossfire.

  “Three right,” Cowboy called.

  Mimi called back, “I see ’em,” as calmly as ordering coffee, and then the Uzi started to rattle as she fired through the rear opening.

  I leaned out my window and drew a bead on a rifle-carrying man breaking from the corner of an animal pen. My first shot went high and right. I dialed the next one in better and saw a puff of red mist explode from his chest before he fell backwards.

  Bullets spattered against both sides of the truck’s bodywork with metallic pings. Two of the windows on Cowboy’s side exploded.

  An enormous roar shook the inside of the truck, hurting my ears, and the windscreen spiderwebbed in front of me. Cowboy fired the Ruger again and the windscreen erupted, showering us in ti
ny glass cubes.

  “’At’s better,” he said.

  I poked the rifle out over the hood and let off two shots at the figures lurking behind a corner of the nearest dormitory building. Both shots missed, but it stopped them from firing and sent them both into motion.

  Mimi kept firing her tight, controlled bursts while shell casings pattered on the gun bags like summer rain.

  Cowboy’s Blackhawk boomed again and one of the running men crumpled on his left side. I lined up the other and shot him in the neck as he lunged for cover behind a nearby pickup truck.

  “How you doin’ back there, honey?” Cowboy said as he kept the throttle down and speared the truck towards the gap between the shed and the rusty tank.

  “Two up, two down,” she replied. “I can see more of ’em out there, though. Comin’ out from behind the buildings.”

  “Keep ’em honest,” Cowboy said.

  “On it.”

  I reached down into the footwell and pulled up the Ithaca. Swapped it for the rifle.

  Cowboy squirted the truck into the shadows alongside the tank, slewing it sideways at the last moment. I was out and running before he got it stopped.

  I hurdled the ground level pipes and jumped behind the shed, as a fist-sized piece of concrete exploded near my head.

  I heard Cowboy fire three shots behind me.

  I’d worked my way around the corner and was about half way along the boardwalk linking the dormitory buildings when a man came around the corner of the nearest one at a full run. I stopped, my feet skidding on the dusty wood. He was about ten feet away and closing. He had an M16 in his hands and, unfortunately for him, it was pointed down.

  I shot him in the chest. He spun to the left and went down, falling on his gun.

  I ran forward and pulled the rifle from under his body. I liked the old Ithaca, don’t get me wrong, and at close range I wouldn’t want anything else, but the compound was spread out, automatic fire was going to be handy in the next little while and, let’s face it, the guy leaking blood into the Texas desert didn’t need it anymore.

  I threw the sling over my shoulder and jammed my back up against the nearest wall. The sound of footsteps from my left made me look back to where I’d come from. I brought the shotgun up as Cowboy came running around the corner. He slid against the wall, next to me.