EarthBlood

by neetha Napew

  "Get your head down," snapped Nanci Simms, who was kneeling near the bow with Paul and Jeanne. The two younger girls were huddled together by the mast. Dazedly Mac noticed that they were both crying.

  He crouched down. Somewhere, far off to his right, he heard the noise of a rifle being fired, and a long splinter of white wood peeled itself off the rail of the vessel a couple of feet behind him.

  He wanted to ask if everybody was all right, but the words seized up in his throat.

  Then he spotted Pamela lying on her back, her head in Jeanne's lap, Paul holding her hands in his. Nanci was sitting cross-legged on the deck, looking down at the teenage girl with an expressionless face. To the right, Jeff Thomas had flattened himself behind one of the raised hatch covers. Mac was conscious of a lot of blood, all over his daughter's chest, running onto the deck, puddling there.

  "She's done for, Mac," said Nanci.

  "Can't be."

  Jeanne was saying something, but he couldn't hear it. He knelt down and looked into his daughter's eyes. She was still alive, but the blood was pumping from the gaping wound. Her lips moved as though she was trying to speak.

  "What? What is it, honey?"

  "Sorry, Dad…"

  Mac watched her die. Saw the spark of life extinguished from the eyes. Saw them turn into dull mirrors, his own anxious, distraught face distorted and reflected in them. For a moment Pamela's body seemed to tense, then it relaxed into the unmistakable finality of death.

  "Oh, Jesus, Pam," he whispered. "No, not you, too. Jesus, but I love you. I love you."

  There was another rifle shot, but no clue to where the bullet had gone.

  "Stay here," said Nanci Simms.

  Mac hardly heard her. One arm had gone around Jeanne, and the other was brushing a wet tendril of bloodied hair from his daughter's forehead.

  "What?" He swallowed, realizing that no sound had come from his dry lips. He half turned and saw that Nanci had vanished from his side. "Where did…?"

  "Over the side, Dad," said Paul, his white hands still holding his dead sister's fingers.

  SHE LANDED EASILY, despite the drop from the rail. The snow had thickened, though it was melting wherever it touched the wet, muddy earth. The gunman was up on the bridge. She was sure of that. It was the best vantage point, and that's where she'd have placed herself if she'd been given the take-out mission.

  The Port Royale machine pistol was slung across her shoulders, the survivor of the matched pair of Heckler & Koch P-111s holstered at her hip. Nanci knew she'd move faster with both hands free.

  She kept close to the water's edge, certain that the snow was thick enough to make her invisible. Before it had started, she'd already noted the lie of the land, seeing a steep-sided ravine running to the left of the creek that would bring her up and under the highway.

  Three more shots were fired, the sounds louder each time, as she neared the bridge. Despite the gradient and the slippery dirt, the sixty-year-old woman was hardly panting as she reached the looming shadow of the metal-and-concrete structure.

  Now, beneath it, she could see that the bridge had been badly damaged by the recent quakes.

  Iron had buckled and great chunks of the stone had cracked and fallen away into the stream below. Water was trickling through a gaping split in the actual bed of the blacktop, leaving a rusty stain on the fissured concrete.

  Nanci carried on, slower, more cautious, until she had worked her way up to a level even with the ribboned road. Here she was able to look directly across to the ocean side. There was a figure lying there, using one of the rectangular drainage holes as a shooting point. As Nanci watched, she saw the rifle at the shoulder and heard the crack of the shot. Much louder.

  The killer wore a dark blue rain poncho and had a rucksack at the elbow. Spare ammo was laid neatly out in clips on a square of oilcloth.

  Nanci drew the 9 mm automatic and picked her way off the slick hillside onto the highway, moving through the drifting snow like a cat, silent as eternity.

  Normally she would have simply put a bullet through the back of the shooter's skull. Quick and totally safe.

  But she was curious.

  The killing shot that had taken the life of Pamela McGill had been a good one, fired downhill, through misty rain.

  The snow fell in feathery clumps, only revealing the outline of the beached ship for a couple of seconds at a time. Nanci looked down, along the line of the rifle barrel, past the scope sight, seeing that nobody was now visible on the deck. The body of Pamela McGill had been dragged away, leaving only a dark smudge on the wet timbers.

  There were patches of snow settling on the crumbled blacktop, reminding Nanci of the road signs: Bridge Freezes Before Highway. It was true.

  She edged closer until she was less than eight feet away from the killer and pointed the automatic right between the shoulders.

  In pulps and vids, the hero always managed to find something witty to say to the villain. Nanci knew that trying to be a smart-ass could be a sure way of getting yourself killed.

  "Keep very still," she said in a normal conversational voice. "Very still."

  The hooded figure started as though someone had applied electrodes to fingers and toes. The barrel of the rifle jerked a few inches to the right, then held motionless.

  "Good," said Nanci. "Lay the pretty rifle down and then, real slow, take the hood off and roll onto your back. Your hands come up with anything but air in them and you're dead. Now do it."

  "I know you." The man's voice was deep, with a hint of the northern plains to it.

  "Move first. Talk later."

  "It's Nanci Simms. By God! If they'd told me you were involved, I'd have been one too many mornings and a thousand miles away. They didn't tell me."

  "Wouldn't, would they?"

  "That bitch, Margaret Tabor. Done for Flagg and now she's done for me."

  Now Nanci knew him. The voice brought back a damburst of memories. A tall, slender young man from… from where?

  "Spearfish," she said.

  "Right."

  "You're Burnette. Xavier Burnette."

  The rifle was laid in the slush, and the hands came up and tugged the dark hood back off the head, revealing a white, stubbled skull. Very slowly the man roiled over, blinking as the snow fell in his face.

  "Keep the hands at your sides," said Nanci.

  The slicker was partly open, and she could see the tiny badge glittering in the poor light. A golden arrow piercing the heart of a silver sun.

  "Old times, Nanci." Something like a smile tugged at the corners of the narrow mouth.

  "Not worth forgetting."

  The white colonial house on the edge of Rehoboth, sixty miles or so southwest of Petersburg, in rural Virginia. Special Forces training. Thirty years ago. Longer. Xavier had been a young man, and she had allowed him to seduce her. It was strictly forbidden by their gray-suited overlords. It had taken more ingenuity and energy to keep their affair going than it had in the classes in destabilization in Southeast Asia and bridge blowing and silent killing.

  "Just a job, Nanci."

  "I don't have the time. It was a fair shot to take out the girl. Real big threat. Girl of eighteen."

  He shook his head. "A job. Like I said."

  "Heard the gun. Knew it was someone good." She looked at the rifle. "Nice," she said. "Krieghoff Ulm-Primus. Double rifle, over and under. Similar to the Teck, but it's got detachable side-locks. Three seventy-five?" Burnette nodded. "Kersten action, double underlugs. Walnut stock. Shit, you know the specs as well as me. But even a nice piece like that can't see to fire through a buzzard, can it?"

  "I've done all right so far. Two notches carved. It'll please Ms. Tabor." He corrected himself, looking into the barrel of the Heckler & Koch. "Would've pleased her."

  "The rowboat. How many?" Burnette started to move his hands, and she gestured with the pistol. "No."

  "Sorry, Nanci. Four. Older man. Clumsy boy. Young woman and a kid. I checked the kid out."


  "You always were one for the easy meat, Xavier. What about the others?" He didn't answer for a moment. "Come on, you know that this can be quick and easy or it can be really rather slow and devilish painful."

  "Not lost the touch, have we, Nanci?"

  "I haven't. You have. That's why I'm standing here and you're lying down there. Quickly."

  "They had a bastard arsenal. Kept me ducking. And it was snowing then."

  "When?"

  He shrugged. "Three… four hours ago. Figure they headed north. My job wasn't to follow."

  "Two girls, Xavier. Get you a gold watch from the Hunters of the Sun."

  He pulled a face. There was a whining note slipping into his voice. "Work. Find a good place. Watch for a rowboat and a sailing ship. Take out as many as you can. Others like me, strung along the coast. I got lucky."

  "You got unlucky, Xavier."

  "Guess that's right. Any point my asking you to let it lie for the sake of old times, Nanci? Please. I'm saying please. You used to like it when I begged."

  "Indeed. But that was then and this is now."

  The snow was easing, and she could see, across the parapet of the bridge, that someone was sticking their head over the rail of the ship way below her. She tutted disapprovingly. Burnette, with that scope-sighted Krieghoff, was good enough to take the top off anyone's skull at that range.

  "Please. I could be useful to Zelig."

  "Coldcocking backstabber. What would he want with that, Xavier? An old man. A careless old man."

  She leveled the gun between his pleading, watery blue eyes. He opened his mouth, trembling. "Remember me in your prayers, Nanci."

  The 9 mm bullet rocked Burnette's head on the snow-veiled pavement. His legs kicked once, and then he was still.

  A half-remembered rhyme came to her as she holstered the Heckler & Koch, stooping to pick up the rifle and add it to the Port Royale over her shoulders. "I'll remember you in my prayers, Xavier, and you think of me when it's kissing time, beneath the stairs."

  Nanci spit in the upturned face and started the slow, slippery climb back down the hill through the drifting snow to rejoin the others on the beach.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "Least there's no shortage of stuff to burn," said Jim Hilton, carrying in a huge pile of broken fencing. He dumped it in the corner of the derelict beach hut a mile and a half north of their landing place.

  "Even that'll be used up in the end." Carrie was on her knees, blowing at the glowing heart of their small fire. "No more trees. No more wood."

  Heather had stripped down to her underwear and was sitting with a sleeping bag around her, shivering like an aspen in a thunderstorm. She was waiting for the flames to catch so that she could start to get warm and dry her soaking clothes.

  Sly Romero was cradling his crudely carved wooden doll, which he called "Steve," after his father. He kept it tucked into his shirt most of the time. Now he was talking to it in a sibilant, audible whisper.

  "Cold and wet, Steve. And well as that, hungry. Snow falling a lot. Me remember Steve said it was devil picking chickens. Been on boat since last time me spoke to you, Steve. Felt sick...." His voice started to rise. "Scared and sick. Now we got fire… well, soon get fire. Soon."

  Jim watched as the tiny flames grew and the wood began to crackle. Through the open doorway of the hut he could see out into the afternoon murk, with snow blowing by. December 21. Four days away from Christmas.

  As though she'd been reading her father's mind, Heather caught his eye. "It's not going to be the usual kind of Christmas, is it, Dad?"

  "Hardly."

  "Least we got us some yule logs on an open fire, or whatever the song says." Carrie straightened, her face red and smudged with smoke from her efforts to get the wood burning. The branches, some of them dried pine, were beginning to spit out sparks, making Sly jump and look up from his monologue.

  "Little guns," he said, face brightening.

  "All we need now is some chestnuts," said Jim.

  "And a buttered turkey," suggested Heather.

  "Decorations." Carrie wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Silver and tinsel and shining glass globes that make your face look all distorted."

  Sly shuffled closer to Heather. "Me like Christmas. Alison didn't give big prezzies. Said me didn't need them. Steve used to give goodies. Remember that."

  Jim had heard about Alison Romero, Steve's disaffected wife, from Kyle. Heard about the way she'd tried to hang on to Sly, though it didn't seem as though she had an awful lot of love for the intensely lovable teenager. He wondered for a moment whether the woman had stayed up in Colorado.

  "Old movies on TV," said Heather, trying to sustain the memories.

  "Relatives on the phone," offered Carrie. "I can still remember talking to Mom an' Dad, the time before they died. Christ, it's only a couple of years ago. They were talking about the vacation they planned for their silver wedding. Revisiting some places from other trips. Yellowstone where…where they met that jackknifing semi… Glacier. Montana. Took me there. Many glaciers. The walk around the lake." She was staring blankly down into the glowing flames, remembering. "Big dining room. Waiters and waitresses singing. The Grinnell hike. Grizzlies somewhere around." She laughed. "Mom insisted on wearing a dozen of those bells around her neck to warn the bears that she was coming. Said it would be just her luck to get eaten by a deaf grizzly."

  Jim leaned back, his hand falling onto the cold butt of the Ruger Blackhawk Hunter. The sensation jerked him back from the worlds of Christmases past into the world of Earthblood present. And its menaces.

  "Think we should post a guard, Carrie?" he said.

  She turned slowly to him, her eyes not seeming to focus properly for several seconds. "Sorry, Jim. I was still walking those clean mountains with Mom and Dad." She shuddered. "Wow, nostalgia's a good country to visit now and again, but I don't want to take out permanent residency there. Guard? Sure. Yeah, I guess we should've done that already. The smoke from this fire could bring anyone for miles."

  "Wind's from the east." Jim looked out. "Take the scent out to sea. And the snow'll muffle it. But we can't be too careful around here now after the shooting."

  In his heart, he'd realized that they hadn't actually been very careful at all.

  As they had stumbled along north, the flooded land behind them, his main desire had been shelter and warmth. Now they had both of those. But the person with the hunting rifle was still likely within a mile or so of them.

  "Can I keep watch, Dad?"

  "Dry out first. No going to see Doc Fenway if you get a chill out here."

  "I'll go," said Carrie. She stood up, running fingers through her tousled hair.

  "Best we don't stay here too long." Jim also stood up and walked to peer from the doorway. The snow had eased, and there was only a gray drizzle.

  It seemed as though they'd finally gotten away from the main area of quake devastation, and the hut looked out over an expanse of about a hundred paces of leaden mud and slime green boulders. Down to the sullen rolling breakers of the Pacific.

  "Think he'll come after us?" Carrie was at his shoulder, very close to him.

  "Maybe not the gunman. But I just have the feeling that he wasn't a casual local trying to discourage outlanders from coming calling."

  "Think he was put there by the Hunters of the Sun? They knew we stole the boat and knew that we'd be heading toward the north? Come on, Jim."

  "Maybe you're right. Paranoia does real good business these days."

  "We pressing on?"

  He turned. "To Aurora? Of course. What other kind of choice do we have?"

  "None, I guess."

  Heather was huddled closer to the fire. The flames were bright gold and crimson, and Sly was staring into their heart as though he could see pictures wonderful beyond imagining. Neither of the young people was paying any attention to the conversation between Carrie and Jim.

  "You don't seem sure, Carrie."

  "Just that
we keep running. Running through all the death. Seeing killing. Losing friends, close friends." Her voice was trembling on the edge of tears. "Killing other people. Being shot at when you don't expect it."

  "Think it's better to get shot at when you do expect it?" he said, trying to lighten her depression and failing.

  "Not funny, Jim. Not some fucking space-mess joke! I'm getting real tired."

  "So am I. Think I'm not?"

  "Then couldn't we stop awhile? For the winter. Find us a cabin in the hills inland. Must be plenty of them unwrecked if we search hard enough. We can hunt food. See out the dark days and then, if we want, look for Aurora in the spring."

  He sighed and put his hand on her shoulder. "Sure. Sure, we could do that, Carrie. But what's the point? Folks alone in this new world are totally alone. No chance of ever taking a single step forward."

  "That bad, is it?"

  "I think so. We might make it to join up with old Zelig and whatever kind of outfit he's got up there. Wherever 'there' is. The more I know about these Hunters of the Sun, the less I like them. And the more I think we have to make the right choice."

  "Cross the line on the sand that Travis drew with his sword at the Alamo," she said, part bitter, part smiling.

  "Something like that. Hit a lick for what's right."

  Carrie took his hand from her shoulder, pulled it to her mouth and pressed her lips to his palm. "Most of me knows that you're right. Just that I sort of forget it now and again, Are we staying here for the night?"

  "I'd rather move on, but if the snows come again and we get trapped out in the open…"

  "Night by the fire. Could be worse, Jim."

  "Could be," he said, kissing her on the cheek.

  SHE HAD TAKEN the first watch, with Jim picking it up after about three hours.

  It was dusk, with the snow once again starting to fall steadily.

  There was a temptation to sit down in the doorway with the heat of the fire at his back and look out onto the late afternoon. The light was fading quickly as the shrouded sun vanished far over the Pacific.

  But Jim knew that he'd already been careless enough for one day.