by Jim Heskett
Coyle snatched the shoulder strap and pulled it to him, struggling to get his hand on the grip as Anders scrambled backward on his hands. Coyle’s vision was blurry and his head pounded. He could feel blood leaking from his ear.
Before Anders could get to his feet, Coyle found the trigger.
He shot Anders in the shoulder, and the force tossed the man back a couple feet, where he slumped against the wall. He moaned but didn’t stand up.
Coyle got to his feet, slowly, achingly, and it took him several seconds to get his bearings. He knew some bones were broken, but not how many. His ribs, for sure. His breaths came in snatches that yanked on his chest like a vice grip.
But, with the rifle pointed at Anders, he crossed the few short feet between them.
“LaVey is dead?” he said, and his voice sounded far away, like listening through a door.
Anders looked up at him, dazed, his hands gripping the open wound in his shoulder.
“Answer the question.”
Anders tried to push himself up on his hands, but he couldn’t do it. He nodded.
“Then this is for my son,” Coyle said, and put a bullet in Anders’ head.
EPILOGUE
Coyle pushed the shovel into the dry earth, first with the power of his shoulders, then by tapping his foot on the back of the blade. He didn’t know much about farming, but he knew he’d seen better soil before. He didn’t know what kind of crop they expected to yield from such dry and rocky land. Maybe they could make progress with one of those giant machines that turned up the earth, but a shovel was hardly getting the job done.
He paused to wipe the sweat from his brow and admire how the sun cresting above the mountains cast a yellow hue across their green peaks. Maybe it wasn’t Switzerland, but there was enough beauty here that a man could stare forever. And so far, peace of mind, which was worth more than all the beauty in the world.
Footsteps came shuffling through the dirt behind him, and an old impulse made him grip the shovel. But he knew better than to swing it without checking first.
“Hey Coyle.”
Coyle smiled at Quentin, one of the camp’s council members. Before they’d met, Coyle had forgotten that such vibrant and confident people still existed in the world.
“Hey Quentin. Looks like it’s going to be a nice day.”
Quentin lifted a hand to block out the sun and peered at the mountains around them. “Sure beats the view from the wall in Chicago.” He reached into his back pocket and withdrew a small envelope, then passed it to Coyle. “Farrah came back from market today. Found us some better seeds.”
Coyle opened the package and poked around inside. Looked healthy, with only a few of the seeds squished and unusable. “These look good. I can work with this.”
“We’re glad you’re here, Coyle.”
Coyle felt a tinge of guilt. He knew Quentin had been friends with Logan, and probably wished that his young friend were here instead. But Coyle couldn’t do anything about that now.
“Hey,” Quentin said, “I was going to ask you: Farrah’s going to call a meeting of the council tonight, and she asked me to ask you if you’d like to join us.”
Coyle stuffed the seeds into his pocket. “You want me to join the council?”
“As an observer at first, sure, then maybe with a more active role in a few weeks. You’ve done really well here, and the group seems to like you. You’ve shown that you know what you’re doing, and you’re not afraid to take initiative. I can’t say that about everyone who lives here.”
“I can do that. Be happy to sit in on the council tonight and help out any way you need me to.”
Quentin smiled and put a hand on Coyle’s shoulder, then gave it a good squeeze. The rising sun hit Quentin’s blue eyes, lighting them up, reminding Coyle of someone else he knew long ago with the same colored eyes.
Quentin left him there, and Coyle looked out over the rutted soil, deliberating how far he would need to spread the seeds to cover the whole field.
PART IV
INFINITY
PROLOGUE
The man in the wheelchair raised the goblet to the light of the lantern and tilted it, swishing the dark red contents within. The goblet was brushed silver and encrusted with a ring of opals. Opals were from Australia, although the man had never been. Sometimes he lamented the fact that he would likely never go.
He sipped the liquid from the goblet. Salty, bitter, a little sweet in the aftertaste. It thickened as it reached the back of his throat, heavy and textured like a dark beer or a milkshake.
They called him Leader, ever since the mistress had been caught and executed. He’d never wanted the title, but accepted it and pretended that it was his destiny to fulfill the role. He wore the confident face in public and spoke with conviction when he made decisions for the entire group, then would spend sleepless nights debating the merits of the edicts he’d proclaimed.
He nestled the goblet between his dormant legs and rolled the wheelchair from his desk to the window, casting a look out on the rubble of Newark. This temporary home did not suit him; all these windows let in too much light during the day and interrupted his concentration.
Soon, he would be back in Red Bank, in his real home.
He needed to reestablish communications with his flock. Every day the little twos and threes existed out there on their own, isolated as islands, they ran the risk of losing faith or being crushed under the wheel of humanity.
It was time for them all to come home, and then fulfill the manifest destiny so the rest of this country could be burned to the ground.
Since the mistress’ death, the Infinity had become aimless. That had to stop. They would scour the earth, and those who would prove not worthy of joining would be cleansed in their fires.
1
While Dave stood at the “bar” and nursed a drink that was supposedly whiskey, his girlfriend Isabelle sat at a table across the room with two men she was trying to hustle. She tossed Dave a wink, and he shook his head as a reply. This situation was not going to end well.
The piece of homemade furniture they were calling the bar had been constructed of plywood and installed in the smaller mess hall at Fort Lee, because the camp leaders thought it might boost morale to have something from the old world. A place to meet and greet and forget troubles after long days working inside the tall walls of the fort.
But it was just a rickety bar and a set of cafeteria tables. Wasn’t fooling anyone.
The bartender shuffled along the plywood and pointed at Dave’s glass. “Get you another?”
“You got anything good hidden away? Some Jack Daniels, at least?”
The bartender looked at him sideways. “Come on, Dave. You know what we have back here.”
“Alright then, I’ll have some more of that.”
The bartender lifted a bottle of not-Jack Daniels and poured Dave another glass. Dave himself occasionally took some turns behind the bar, not that he had any experience, but ever since the last of the militia members had left for New York, the remaining citizens had to do everything. Tend the bar. Patrol the walls. Clean the streets. Exile the unruly.
Across the room, Isabelle shuffled a deck of cards and placed three in front of the two men. She turned them face up. A queen of spades, a three of clubs, and a five of hearts. Each of the men had a collection of 9mm rounds on the table to pit against Isabelle’s pile.
Dave had heard that before he and Isabelle had arrived, the militia tried to institute a currency system using poker chips backed up by antibiotics. Obviously, that hadn’t lasted.
“All you have to do is follow the lady, guys,” she said. Then she flipped the cards face down and swirled them around the table.
Dave wanted to groan because Isabelle had tried three-card monte several times in DC, and it always failed, but he couldn’t run the risk that these guys would see his disapproval and connect him to her. They were newcomers to the camp, and they might be rubes, or they might not. He and Isabelle
sure could use the bullets, though.
“Where is she?” Isabelle said, moving her hands faster and faster. One of the men, a swarthy-looking fellow wearing suspenders, jerked his head in circular waves trying to follow the cards. The other one, skinny and bald but with a flaming red goatee, kept his face still. He was studying Isabelle more than he was watching the cards.
That was the guy they had to worry about. Dave could see it, and he had to hope Isabelle would too.
She lifted her hands, then nodded at the swarthy man. “Have any idea?”
He hesitated, rolled his tongue over his front teeth, then pointed at the middle card. She flipped it over. Queen.
“Look at you, with your beginner’s luck,” she said, and then she slid three bullets from her own pile across the table. “Go again?”
The bartender leaned close to Dave. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen these two before.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dave said. “But she’s been practicing.”
“If something happens, just take it outside, please? And don’t get caught fighting.”
Dave sighed. Isabelle had two strikes already.
Isabelle resumed the card-swirling, starting slowly and then speeding up. She chatted with them as a distraction, but both men kept silent. They thought they were smart, but the small talk would throw them anyway.
She stopped, then pointed at the man with the red goatee. “What do you think? You know where the lady is?”
Without taking his eyes off her, he pointed to the card on the left. She shook her head and flipped it over. Three of clubs.
“This one isn’t so lucky, it seems,” she said. “That’ll cost you three rounds, or we could go double-or-nothing for one more turn.”
The man darkened, and Dave could hear the air whistling in and out of the guy’s nose from across the room.
“Bullshit,” the man said.
Dave set his glass on the bar and took a step toward the table. He hadn’t expected it to go bad so quickly.
“You think I’m an idiot?” the man said. “You think I’ve never heard of three-card monte before?”
Isabelle adopted a look of pure shock. “I have no idea what you mean. We’re playing a card game between friends here, and you’re getting upset.”
Red Goatee sneered. “This isn’t a game; this is a hustle. I’ve known the whole time.”
“If that’s true, then why did you sit down with me?”
“Because you got nice tits,” the man said.
Dave cleared his throat and rolled up his sleeves.
The man with the suspenders jerked his head toward Dave, then snatched his remaining bullets off the table.
Isabelle reached forward, attempting to grab Red Goatee’s bullets, but he was prepared. He threw a punch, a lumbering, arcing hook with his gangly arm.
She leaned back out of his reach, then hopped up, spun, and snatched the metal folding chair into her hands. She swung it, cracking the man across the jaw.
The force sent him spinning, and he tumbled into the table behind him. Suspenders backed away with his hands out in front of him, but Red Goatee got to his feet, cursing. Dave broke out into a run to close the distance.
As Red Goatee swore and bared his teeth, everything halted when the bartender cocked a shotgun. They all turned to gawk at him. Dumb looks plastered on the newcomer’s faces.
“Jesus, Isabelle,” the bartender said. “Can’t you keep the peace around here for more than a day or two at a time?”
Isabelle shrugged.
The man with the red goatee spat blood and wiped his mouth. “You’re dead, bitch.”
Before she could respond, the door to the mess hall swung open. Through the entrance emerged Sutter, one of the recent camp inductees from the influx of New Yorkers.
Sutter was bruised and bloodied. Panting and wide-eyed. “Dave, Isabelle, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. They’re coming.”
2
Two hours before he raced through the Fort Lee camp to find Dave and Isabelle, Sutter paused to rest in the dilapidated remains of an old diner in Richmond, Virginia. He’d found no food, but the diner’s windows were intact and the restaurant offered him shade from the sun.
And it also had those classic, art deco style booths with the sparkly and sheer fabric on the cushions. Something about that reminded him of being a kid, even though he’d been born long after art deco had come and gone. Distant memories of traveling to greasy spoon diners in Jersey with his parents, long before he was an adult, long before he was a cop.
Long before everything happened.
So Sutter sat in the booth, ran his aching hands over the shiny cushions, and accepted the failure of his most recent sojourn to Washington. One more attempt to find Ian Rappaport, and one more dismal failure. The former Vice President didn’t want to be found.
With both Five Suns founder LaVey and Chicago boss Chalmers dead, why wouldn’t Rappaport make himself known? Now was the time. Now he could come out of hiding and lead the country. But no, Rappaport wanted to remain a coward. He wanted to leave the rest of them to their ruin.
If Sutter didn’t think the Rappaport name carried so much weight, he’d say to hell with the old man, but he couldn’t do that.
Sutter opened his pack and unwrapped the last of his granola bars, then worked up some spit so he could soften the stale piece of “food” into something palatable. Good thing he was close to home.
Home.
Hard to think of Fort Lee that way. Back when he was squatting at the half-destroyed Marriott in New York, he thought that building would be the last ruin he’d ever have to occupy. But then the Infinity happened, and everything changed. He’d only barely managed to find his friend Zach to escape the city alive.
Sutter pawed at the mini jukebox at the edge of the table, but pressing the button didn’t make the song pages flip. Must have needed electricity. Among the selection on the visible page was Rapture by Blondie and other 1980s hits. How long had it been since he’d heard a song on a jukebox? Shit, he’d even listen to that terrible Blondie song just to have a bit of normal life injected into his current situation.
He quit playing with the jukebox when he heard a sound, at first far away, then growing louder. Motorcycles. At least two of them, maybe more. Hearing vehicles wasn’t that unusual, but they were the first he’d heard in Richmond. As far as he knew, this was a ghost town.
Sutter left the booth and crept to the front of the diner so he could sneak a look outside. Low and quiet. His car was parked out back and was junky enough that no one would assume it was operational.
The motorcycles revved, then slowed. There were three of them, big black Harley Davidson bikes ridden by two men and a woman, all of them wrapped in black leather from head to toe. Pants, jackets, bandannas.
Sutter felt his heart lurch. Maybe it was them, but not necessarily. Anyone could ride a Harley these days, and anyone could wear leather. Maybe random bikers coming down from Maryland or Pennsylvania.
But no, he knew who it was.
The three bikers pulled into parking spots next to a small playground across the street from the diner. The woman hopped off her motorcycle and started examining the exhaust pipe as the two men sat on their bikes and passed a water bottle back and forth between them. All of them wore dark sunglasses and scarves. No exposed skin.
One of the men lit up a cigarette while the other left his bike and walked over to a children’s swing, then sat in it. The woman took off a backpack and rifled through it. As she did, she slipped off her leather jacket and laid it across the bike. Sutter got a good look at the woman’s arms. Burn marks up and down her flesh.
Infinity. They were here, in Virginia.
Sutter slipped back from the door and crept behind the diner’s counter. He reached to the back of his waistband and groaned when he realized he’d left his pistol in the car. Stupid, stupid.
Staying low, he moved along the counter and
eased open the door to the diner’s kitchen. He tried to get his breathing under control as he hunted for the back door.
What were they doing here? If the Infinity were sweeping south, that was not what he’d call good news. They’d find the camp for sure. Hell, those idiots who’d founded it had plastered signs all over the state inviting people to come live there.
He pressed open the back door and leaned out to make sure no one was in the alley. Just a clear, calm, quiet day in Richmond. He walked to the car and popped the trunk, then lifted his pistol, checked the clip, and chambered a round. Safety off.
He listened for sounds from across the street, and then out of the corner of his eye, spotted a ladder up against the back of the diner. From the trunk, he snatched his binoculars, then he crossed the dirt parking lot and tested the ladder before trusting it with his feet.
Rung by rung, he climbed the ladder until he'd reached the roof of the diner. It was only one story tall, covered with gravel. A few blankets in one corner and some empty tin cans of food.
Keeping close to the rooftop, he crept forward until he could see the three Infinity members on the other side of the street. Sutter hid behind the diner’s wooden sign, peering around the edge. As long as he was hidden, he had an advantage. Not by much though, considering the fight would be three against one.
One man was still at the playground, on the swing, occupying himself by sipping from a flask. The woman and the other man were standing under the shade of a bus stop next to the playground, and she was holding up something they were both looking at. The woman took out a pen or a marker and was drawing on it.
A map.
Sutter lifted the binoculars and squinted to bring them into focus. He couldn’t make out the images on the map. They were only thirty miles north of Fort Lee, but that didn’t mean they were for sure going in that direction.