"I had Sunshine flown in from Cyprus," said Mo. "She holds two in the front, plus eight more in the back. She is mine resistant up to eight-kilo-TNT equivalent under the hood or fourteen-kilo equivalent under the wheels. Double-skinned armor hull throughout the cabin. And she is automatic transmission, which is nice."
He delivered this last with one of his trademark smiles, and now Buck and Aaron joined him. The three grinned like fools. Christopher felt his own face splitting in a grin, as well. Even though he knew little about cars, he felt something primal wanting to join in the glee.
What is it about guys and cars?
Mo gestured to Sunshine. "Our chariot, as they say, awaits."
44
Buck wanted to drive. No surprise there.
The big surprise was that Aaron was pushing to drive, too.
"I think not, my friends," said Mo. "You should travel in the back. Sunshine is harder to handle than you would think."
"I can drive just about anything with wheels and quite a few things without 'em," said Aaron. He kept glancing at the car/tank.
"I am quite sure, e kare. But I would like you riding 'shotgun.' I know your prowess with a weapon. Besides," he added. "I promised Amulek he would get to drive Sunshine should the need ever arise."
Aaron laughed at that. "Teens, eh?"
"Just so."
"He have to bring her back with a full tank of gas?"
"Why do you think he is putting the gas cans in back?"
Aaron nodded, then climbed up the side of the vehicle and pulled open the passenger door. He disappeared inside. The thing didn't rock on its springs in the slightest. Christopher suspected the Marauder could haul around most of Fort Knox without its wheel wells settling even the tiniest bit.
Buck and Maggie walked their tethered lock-step to the back of the vehicle. Christopher followed. Amulek had finished loading gas cans – nearly a dozen, taking up a large chunk of space in the rear of the vehicle.
Christopher knew what gas could do under the right circumstances. He didn't like sitting this close to so much of it.
But he supposed he liked the idea of running out of gas in the middle of zombie-infested territory even less.
Sometimes there are no good choices. Just bad and worse.
There was no way into the Marauder through the rear, so Amulek directed them to a side door. He helped Buck and Maggie into the vehicle, then he moved around to the other side – Christopher guessed to help his grandfather in.
It was just him and Theresa. He bowed. "After you," he said.
"Shouldn't you go first?" she said.
"Why, since your penis is bigger than mine?"
She scrunched her face. "You want to think about that insult?"
He did. "Can I try again?"
"You might want to."
"How about… why should I go first? Because so's your mother?"
"Better. Not much, but a little."
He actually thought he saw a little bit of a smile. Not much, but something.
She got in first. He put his hands on her waist to help her up the small ladder that led to the side door. "Watch it," she ground through gritted teeth, half twisting.
That was a mistake. One of his hands slipped to her butt.
Both of them froze.
"You have two seconds to move that hand before it becomes a stump."
He counted. At one and three-quarters he moved his hand. "Your fault," he said.
"How is it my fault?"
"You moved. Musta been the huge penis shifting your center of gravity."
He couldn't see her face, but he suspected she all-the-way smiled this time.
He got into Sunshine. Smiling a bit himself.
45
The engine started. It wasn't a hum, wasn't a roar. It was a sustained burst, a throaty growl that brought to mind Sally in the snow leopard's less charming moments.
Christopher was surprised how much that thought depressed him. He missed the big cat.
He had expected the back to have some kind of bench seating, like you would find in an SUV. Instead, there were seats anchored to the sides of the Marauder, facing inward. They were clearly designed for utility rather than comfort, with canvas fabric held to rigid metal frames. He expected them to feel like bricks wrapped in a concrete sock, but when he settled into his, he found it surprisingly soft. The canvas had just enough give to mold itself to him, just enough firmness to make him feel supported.
Probably one of Mo's aftermarket upgrades.
That was when he realized: Mo hadn't gotten in the car.
Amulek was in the front, flipping switches and turning knobs and generally looking like he belonged in a Marine recruiting video by way of New Zealand. Aaron sat beside him, a handgun cradled in his lap, watching the teen as he went through his pre-flight checklist.
Maggie and Buck were sitting across the cargo space, in seats next to each other. Buck had Hope over his shoulder, looking like a doting grandfather or uncle on the way home from Disneyland with an exhausted child. Maggie had little Lizzy laying on her back across her knees.
Theresa sat on the same side as Christopher. With two empty seats between them. Probably still angry at him for grabbing her butt, no matter how accidental it had been.
But where's Mo?
The answer came as he saw something move. It was the big hunter, walking through the splash of the Marauder's headlights in the secret portion of the garage. He ambled around to Aaron's side. Thumped on the door with his elbow. Christopher guessed the windows on this thing probably didn't roll down.
Christopher popped the door open a few inches. Leaned out.
Low voices.
Aaron made a sound of surprise. Irritation. He looked at Amulek. Then said something that sounded dismayed. Angry?
Mo responded each time in calm, low tones.
Finally, Aaron leaned back in. The door shut.
Aaron looked at Amulek. The teen didn't look back. Just put the car in gear and reversed out of the garage.
And that was when Christopher finally realized they were leaving Mo behind.
46
The others realized it a moment later. They were already out of the garage, bumping down the small path between the crops that had brought them this far.
"Where's Mo?" asked Maggie.
"What about Mo?" Buck asked at the same moment.
"Not comin'." Aaron didn't look back. Just looked out the side window, then back out the front. Scanning restless eyes across a landscape that seemed quiet after days of relentlessly trying to murder them.
"Not comin'?" Buck's mimicry of the cowboy's drawl was actually pretty astounding, all things considered. Christopher wondered if he could do a good Nicholson impression. "What do you mean, 'not comin'?" He has to come! What's he gonna do, just sit there and wait to die?"
Aaron didn't answer. He looked at Amulek. The teen kept driving, face forward, barely bouncing at all as the Marauder jounced its way over ruts and creases in the dirt.
"We can't," said Maggie in a small voice.
"He said he just wanted to sit there a spell," said Aaron.
"That's a death sentence and you know it," Buck spat.
"Yeah," said Aaron after a moment. "I do. But we all know we're doing something a might more important than one person's comfort, or even one person's life. And he knows it, too."
"That doesn't mean he should commit suicide," said Christopher.
"No, it doesn't," agreed Aaron. He looked at Amulek, as though gauging how much to say. As though wondering how much the teen could handle. Amulek continued with face directly forward. "But it does mean we're going to have our hands full. We've got two little girls who are unconscious, and we don't know if they'll come out of that – or what they'll be like if they do. I'm wounded, Theresa's banged up. Everyone's tired."
"And what? So we abandon the weak?" Buck growled. Christopher wondered if the big man was going to throw himself at the cowboy. That wouldn't end well – mos
tly for Buck, but probably not for any of the rest of them, either, given that they were in an attack vehicle cruising at a decent speed over an unpaved road in the dead of night.
"We didn't abandon him," said Aaron. He spun around to look at Buck and the others. His face was rigid, emotionless. "Man's a warrior. He decided that what we're doing was more important than us making sure someone was there to wipe his nose whenever he needed it."
"No," said Buck. "We go back. We get –"
The Marauder slammed to a halt. Stopped so hard and fast that everyone in the cargo area slammed forward into each other. Buck and Maggie and the two little girls tumbled together into a heap, while Christopher suddenly found himself holding onto Theresa.
Amulek had his machete out. And the point of it hovered in the air only a few centimeters away from Buck's nose.
"I don't think the kid wants us to go back," said Aaron.
"But…." Buck looked lost. Frightened. Alone. "But he gave me cookies."
It was the kind of nonsense that only someone else who had lived through the Change would understand. That only someone rescued and given safety and comfort – shelter and food (and, in Buck's case, even some lemon cookies, doled out by Mo when they first arrived in the bunker) – during the moments directly after the universe ended would understand.
No one spoke. Finally, Christopher heard himself speaking. It was almost like listening to someone else. "I know he did, Clucky. He gave us all cookies." He looked at Amulek. The teen had tears streaming down his cheeks, though his expression was carved of solid granite. "Maybe we'll go back for him after all this is over, okay?"
"Promise?" Buck's voice was pitiful. Childlike. Years sloughed away in terror.
"Promise."
It was a lie. They all knew it. But lies were the only thing there was to cling to sometimes, and sometimes that was enough.
"Promise."
Amulek put the Marauder back into gear.
They rode into the night.
47
No one spoke.
No one made a sound.
Just driving, driving, driving. A few times as he glanced out the windows, Christopher thought he saw that glow in the night again, but each time he tried to focus on it, it dissipated and he could never be sure if it was reality or simply his mind reaching out for something – anything – in the otherwise featureless darkness all around them.
The bouncing evened out quickly as they went from the middle of the farm to a level path between fields, then to a paved road. Christopher wondered if there would be any cars to avoid, any vehicles crashed on whatever road this was when the Change occurred. Then he realized it didn't matter: the Marauder could probably just go up and over them as easily as a normal car might go up and over speedbumps.
But there was nothing. Just the sustained drone of the engine. The whine of pavement below the wheels.
The silence was terrible. Because it was so full of the shouts of those they had lost. Not just Mo, but Dorcas, Derek, Ken. Everyone who had been a part of the group, then left behind – to die or to be Changed.
The silence infected Christopher, and he could tell it was working a dark kind of spell on everyone else, as well. Hard to feel chipper under these circumstances, true... but there was a difference between struggling under difficulty and just wallowing in defeat.
He stretched out a foot. Touched Buck's toe with his own.
"Stop touching me," he said.
Buck drew away, just far enough that it was a stretch for Christopher to reach across and prod the big man's foot with his own a second time. "Stop touching me," he repeated. Then turned to Maggie. "Mom, he won't stop touching me."
"What the hell are you doing, Christopher?" growled Buck.
"You keep going on my side of the battle tank," said Christopher. He leaned forward, toward Aaron. "Are we there yet?" He touched Buck's foot with his own again. "Stop touching me." He poked Aaron's arm. "I have to go to the bathroom."
He went to kick Buck again, but this time the big man kicked him. Buck's toe left what would undoubtedly be a large bruise on Christopher's shin. He grimaced. Pointed at Maggie. "Did you see that? Did you see him touch me?"
"You did it first!" roared Buck. Incredibly, he didn't seem to sense the irony of the moment. He turned to Maggie. "He touched me first. All I did was get him back."
"But he hit me harder!"
"I did not!"
"You did, too!"
Theresa laughed. "Stop it, both of you! Or we'll turn this Apocalypse around!"
Christopher laughed at that, too. A moment later, so did Maggie. Aaron.
Even Amulek's shoulders shook, just a bit, as he drove.
Buck didn't laugh. He grumbled. Which was as good as a laugh in Sourpussland.
Then Aaron's laugh died away. He shifted in his seat, and held his handgun at the ready.
"What is it?" said Christopher. But even before Aaron told him he knew. He saw the buildings looming in front of them. Not many, but they were out of the fields. They were in a small city – not much more than a town, really.
What would they find here?
"We're in Crow City," said Aaron. "Look sharp."
48
4:15.
As Christopher watched, the numbers on the dashboard clock jumped: 4:16.
Then he looked away, back out the windows. It was still at least an hour and a half before dawn, and aside from that strange sometime-glow on the horizon, and the splashes of light from the Marauder's headlights, there was no trace of illumination. If it weren't for the looming buildings on either side of them, it would have felt like they stumbled through a time machine into a different era. An epoch that so far predated humanity that its technology was not even a cosmic dream.
But the buildings were there. And they were so dark, so frightening.
Christopher had been born in Idaho. Had spent his early childhood here. But most of his youth and young adulthood had been spent in large cities as his parents sent him from boarding school to boarding school. Even during school holidays, His Emmincence the Governor was quick to ship him off to different big city tourist spots – anything to get a kid out of his hair.
So Christopher was used to bright lights. Movement. Sound.
This… this was wrong. Worse than it had been in the fields. Out there at least he got the sense that silence and dark nights were somewhat normal states. Here, the dark buildings they passed between seemed like unhallowed tombs, the dark windows like eye sockets rotted to nothing in the skulls of the dead.
They passed a general store – he knew that's what it was because it had a big red sign that looked the color of blood in the backwash of the Marauder's lights that said "General Store" in what Christopher guessed was Olde Tyme Font No. 5.
Windows normally stretched across the front of the store, but they had been shattered – by what he couldn't tell.
A red streak that definitely was not a quaintly inviting sign stained much of the white clapboard siding of the store. He looked away.
He saw Maggie. She was looking down. Her body held in a strange position he didn't understand. Then he realized that Buck had a hand on her shoulder. The big man's face – illuminated by a series of red LED lights that spread an arterial glow through the interior of the Marauder – looked drawn. A thin drizzle of blood ran down his chin, and Christopher realized his friend had bitten his lip.
He saw that Buck was looking past him, through the window at his back. Christopher spun in his seat.
Opposite the general store, there was another building – "Post Office" in Olde Tyme Font No. 9 – built circa Pony Express. Maybe before then.
Like the general store, the post office was a simple white clapboard affair. No windows on the front of this structure, though. Just two doors. Both had been blown off their hinges, the explosion that caused it blackening the white paint around the jambs in a curiously beautiful star pattern.
Two children sat beside the door. A boy and a girl. Neither
more than ten years old. Holding hands. They could have been resting, waiting for their mother to come get them in the morning, if it weren't for the fact that the girl's head was half missing, and the boy's throat had sprayed its way across the side of the building.
The gun that had done it was in the boy's hand. He had killed the girl – his sister? – then himself.
Christopher didn't know what was worse: the act itself or the fact that it had been done by children forced to age rapidly by a world beyond their understanding. Childhood, maturity, death – all in a matter of days.
He hoped the little girl hadn't known it was coming. Hoped the little boy had told her to close her eyes. And that she'd trusted him enough to do it in the final moment before he destroyed her head – and so also mangled the receptors that would have demanded she serve the creatures' whim, alive or dead.
God, are we even worth saving?
But he knew that the boy had acted to save the girl, to the best of his ability. Had seen a world where the nightmares had come to the waking plane. And if dreams come for us when awake, where can we go but an eternal sleep?
No, he hadn't acted to harm his sister. He had tried to save her.
Christopher looked away from the tableau. Looked at Lizzy and Hope. Still asleep – or what passed for sleep right now, locked partly away from the transmissions that kept them going, kept them growing.
Could I kill them? To give them peace?
He hoped it wouldn't come to that.
The Marauder moved past general store and post office.
The night swallowed the dead children behind them.
Reckoning.2015.010.21 Page 8