by Jim LaVigne
Clearing the St. Alferd’s compound proper, thanks to a neat hole Teresa had evidently clipped in the chain links, they simply pelted away into the night. Cass took the first shift at carrying Mr. Lampert and toted the Old Man in her arms like a new bride for the first long leg, maybe a couple of miles. Teresa kept them away from anything that seemed like a road and instead directed the little band into dense undergrowth and dark ravines. And all the time, seemingly just behind them or just off to one side, there was a constant din from their angry pursuers as the cannibals combed out on motorcycles and on foot in an obviously organized effort to recover their human livestock.
Just at the point where Justin was sure he’d collapse, Teresa called a halt in a thick stand of some thorny bushes. As he and the others lay on the ground panting (except for Lampert, who just grunted a little), she peered through the bushes for a time before finally turning back to the group.
“How did you managed to free us?” he asked her, trying to catch his breath. “How did you bend the bars?”
“Old car jack,” said Teresa. “An’ a good bolt-snipper. Piece’a pie.”
“And what happened to Greg?” he asked. “At the end, there.”
“Who?” said Teresa. “Oh, that four-eye greep back at the camp? Yeah, he got blasted. One’a them St. Alferd cannibos got him with a scat gun, right inna head. Boom! Dead.”
“Oh God,” said Justin miserably, scrubbing his stubbled face. “I was afraid of that. The poor man.”
“Hey, shit flies,” Teresa shrugged. “Happen alla time. One day yer fine, jus’ bompin’ along, and then: Blammo! Yer dead as road kill. Ain’t mean nothin’.”
“Not to you, perhaps,” said Justin, trying to keep the scorn from his voice. “But to the rest of us… well, let’s say it’s a loss that we will keenly feel.”
Teresa simply shrugged, her lovely face unreadable in the dark.
“And what about my other colleagues?” asked Justin. “My friends, I mean.”
“What about ‘em?”
“Can we, I don’t know,” struggled Justin, “can’t we go back for them?”
Teresa gave a rude snort. “Not fuckin’ likely! And anyhow, what’s with all that “we” shit? I the one’s did all the rescuin’ back there! Not for me, you all be carved up like cluckers by now!”
Justin sighed deeply and hung his head as a fresh wave of despair washed over him. So that was that. Dr. Poole and all of the rest of the CDC crew, plus all of the gear and vehicles, were gone. They were as gone as any of the others who’d fallen along the way, sacrificed to their hopeless mission, and now he and the other survivors were left with no transport, no supplies, no idea where they were and only the vaguest notion of where they should go. He could now number his possessions with fingers, as they consisted entirely of what he was wearing: a pair of boots, a pair of socks, some underwear, a pair of chinos and a light blue button-down shirt. And that was it. No med-kit, no gun, no survival gear, not even a knife. In short, they were, as Mr. Lampert would say, good and fucked. Sighing again, all but overloaded, he fell onto his back and stared up at the impersonal, starlit sky.
“Yer sad, hey?” asked Teresa softly, kneeling down next to him.
“Yes,” said Justin. “I am. Very sad.”
“Cuzza yer friends?”
“Yes. They’re good people. Good friends, good colleagues.”
Teresa was silent for a moment. Then: “I lost some good friends, too.”
“Oh?” said Justin tiredly. “Well, I’m sorry for your loss. I suppose that all of us have shared that experience, what with the Plague and all.”
“True that,” she said sadly. “Me, it was my BMF, Clanky. He was a good dude. Mech-head, ya know? Fix anything. Ran the juice line to my place. He got runned over an’ greased by a Wildfist dump truck, out on route twelve. Last spring. Yeh, I miss ol’ Clanky.”
Justin said nothing and stared at the stars. After a long pause, Teresa stood up and jerked her head.
“C’mon, Case,” she said. “We still gotta long way to go before sun-time.”
“But to where?” asked Justin. “Where are we going?”
“Same place we was goin’,” she said. “Baron Zero’s.”
Five minutes and a few sips of brackish bottled water later, they were back on their feet and stumbling through the dark. At least it was Erin’s turn to carry Mr. Lampert.
Chapter Fourteen
Krillo-loaf is our favorite now!
Tastes like meat but it’s not a cow!
Krillo-loaf in five tasty ways!
Oh, Krillo-loaf is here to stay!
—ad jingle for Titan Agrofood product, circa 2048
Bright sunlight, dappled by the leaves overhead, burned into his eyes when he woke up and when he tried to move, even to roll over onto his side, he found that he was so stiff and sore that he wasn’t all that certain that he’d ever move again. Groaning, he fell back, shut his eyes again, and tried to go back to sleep, but other parts of his body—the ones that needed food and water and to go to the bathroom—were not at all amenable and so he groaned again and began to work on getting himself up off of the ground.
“S’amatter, hey?” came Teresa’s voice from above him, mixed with the calls of birds and the rustle of leaves. “Ya ain’t sick, hey? Or didja break somethin’ maybe?”
“No, nothing like that,” said Justin painfully, flexing an arm. “I’m just very sore. From all of the… exertion last night.”
“Oh, that,” said Teresa disdainfully. “Aw, you be a’right. Jus’ gotta get up and move aroun’. You see.”
“If you say so,” Justin groaned yet again. For a while he concentrated on simply moving each pain-shot limb. Gradually the worst of the pangs and muscle spasms passed and he opened his eyes and looked around.
They were in a small forest, one of many that dotted the otherwise rolling, grass-hilled landscape hereabouts, and the sky above was cloudless and as blue as a robin’s egg. Maybe a hundred yards away, the remains of an asphalt road, half-hidden in weeds and grass, could be seen, and from somewhere not far away came the gurgle of a stream. It was a very pretty little spot, all in all, and the weather was as mild and pleasant as any he’d ever felt, but the crush of fears and uncertainty in his jumbled thoughts and the pain in his body left him all but unable to notice. At the moment, it was just another anonymous spot in the middle of a threatening and impersonal nowhere.
The others, Teresa excepted, were all lying on the ground, side by side, and still asleep. Teresa was standing nearby, next to a big tree, peering intently at something with a pair of trinocs. His trinocs, he reminded himself. Trying not to grunt or moan, he rolled to his side, then to his knees, and finally struggled to his feet. It wasn’t much worse than being beaten with a baseball bat. Tottering only slightly, he walked over to Teresa.
“What are you looking at?” he asked, squelching the urge to add “with my trinoculars”.
“Couple things,” said Teresa. “One, we got someone on our trail.”
“What?” said Justin. “But I thought you said we lost the Brothers?”
“We did. Them cannibo greeps stay close to they base. Real close. But this ain’t one’a them. Don’ know who it is, but Brothers use bikes and burners. This one on his feets.”
“Oh. So what will you do about it?”
She shrugged. “Keep my eye open. An’ if I gets the chance, double back an’, you know, take care of it.”
“I see,” said Justin. “But you said a ‘couple of things’. What else?”
“That,” she said, and pointed in the opposite direction.
Following the gesture, he saw with some surprise that there was a large building of some kind—maybe a factory—not two hundred yards away. Of course, abandoned buildings of all sorts were not uncommon sights, even out here in the country, but almost all were burned out, burned down, looted and wrecked by someone or, left to the forces of nature, simply falling down all on their own. Such structures had be
come largely just a part of the landscape. This place, though, this seeming factory, was, aside from the ubiquitous overgrowth of weeds and trees, apparently fully intact; the roof was still there, there were no signs of there having been a fire, and the doors and windows were unbroken and closed.
Like most survivors, Justin had developed an eye for abandoned buildings and the potential goodies they might hold. A food store of any kind was always the best, of course, even if much of the canned stock was starting to burst from the presence of tiny bug parts and bacteria in the food, but a hardware store was almost as good, and a sporting goods store was a sort of bonanza. Storage facilities—places like U-Store-It—were prime targets for pilfering as well, but Justin personally disliked them; it was just too sad to dig through some poor dead person’s personal, often family-oriented things. Baby clothes, family photo albums, holiday decorations, and the like. But any building in this sort of state, apparently unmolested, was a potential source of resources and not to be overlooked.
“Interesting,” said Justin, squinting in the sun. “Can you read what that sign says? The one out front?”
Teresa slowly lowered the trinocs and looked at him.
“You tryin’ fer funny?” she said, a hard, angry cast to her flawless features. “Ya think that a goof, hey?”
He’d forgotten; she couldn’t read.
“No, no!” he said at once, genuinely sorry. “I… I just forgot. Truly, I meant nothing by it!”
She glared at him for another moment before handing over the trinocs.
“Look for yerself,” she said sullenly,”Mr. Edu-micated Whitecoat.”
“Teresa, I swear,” Justin said, “I meant no offense. I simply did not remember that you haven’t yet learned to read. Honestly.”
“Whatever. Jus’ gimme back them trinocs when yer done.”
Making a mental note to watch what he said to Teresa from now on when it came to her lack of schooling, Justin raised the trinocs and focused in on the factory sign, but the painted letters on it were half effaced and the ones that remained were partly covered in dirt and grime.
“Well? What’s it say?” Teresa said impatiently.
“I can’t tell,” said Justin, squinting at the sign. “It’s partly obscured.”
“What that mean? Ob-skewered?”
“It means,” said Justin, switching off the trinocs and dutifully handing them over, “that it’s been erased. Wiped out. Only part of the letters are still there.”
“Huh,” said Teresa, frowning. “So you can’t read it?”
“Well, I can see that it says “Kram-something and sons,” then “CA Incorporated”, but that’s it. Anyway, it looks like a factory of some kind to me, and in pretty good condition.”
“Yeah,” said Teresa. “Some kinda place that make things, right?”
“Exactly. But what did they make? Should we go and have a look? After all, there might be things we could use in there.”
“Mebbe,” she shrugged. “And mebbe more’n that. Like, one time, I knew this girl, name’a Jilly? Well, she come across somethin’ jus’ like this one time. Big building, out in the country, hey? And it looks like no one usin’ it. Nobody aroun’, no sign o’ life at all, jus’ like this here. So anyhows, Jilly figure why not, right? Go have a gleep. Turn out, they a whole nest’a rattlers in there. Ga-jillions of ‘em. So? Ya never know what might be in somethin’ like that.”
“Yes, I see,” Justin said. “But what happened to Jilly?”
“Oh, she got bit an’ cacked,” said Teresa laconically. “Ugly, too. All bloat over and shit? Blech!”
“The poor girl,” said Justin sadly, wondering just how many of Teresa’s friends had met such ends. “But still, we could at least have a look.”
“We will,” she said. “Once them others wakes up. But I just sayin’, ya never know.”
“Yes, we should be careful,” said Justin. “But, um… right now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to, uh… answer the call of nature. Is there somewhere specific I should go?”
Teresa shook her head. “Talk normal!” she said. “I don’t know what the fuck you sayin’ sometime. Call’a nature?”
Justin sighed and gave up. “I need to shit,” he said tersely, thinking: Is that plain enough? “Is there a hole or something? A designated latrine?”
Teresa snorted. “Out here?” she laughed. “Dream again, doopy! Jus’ go over there somewhere, away from here.”
Having seen to this little necessity, Justin walked down a slight slope to the nearby stream bank and washed up a bit in the cool, brownish water before heading back to their makeshift camp. When he got there, he saw that the others, roused from sleep, were all up and seeing to breakfast. Since this consisted of some hard, crusty bread and warm stream water, it didn’t take too long.
“So what’s the plan, Dr. Kaes?” said Cass, after some listless small talk. “What are we going to do?”
Justin winced a little and looked slowly over at Teresa, who was standing there, arms crossed and smiling at him.
“Yeah,” she said wryly. “Whatcha gonna do now? What the plan, hey?”
“Um, well,” Justin said weakly, “that all kind of depends, doesn’t it? You seem determined to head for this Baron Zero’s place. Is that right?”
Teresa nodded. “Yeh. That’s my plan, anyhows. And that means it yer plan, too. Get me? As in you and me. I don’ care what them others do.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Justin, looking back to Cass, Swails, and Mr. Lampert. “So you see, it would seem that we have little choice in the matter. Without Teresa, we’d be lost out here. We need her help. And, what’s more, she tells me that this Zero person used to be a scientist of some kind. Maybe he can help!”
Cass and Miss Swails, looking as ragged and tired as he felt, crossly gave Teresa some hard looks, obviously none too happy with the situation but unable to mount any effective protest, while Mr. Lampert just grinned and nodded.
“Helluva plan, there, Doc,” he said. “Good job.”
Justin scowled miserably. “These are, I’m afraid, the conditions which prevail. And we are forced to deal with them as best we can. Now, if everyone’s had something to eat and drink, there’s an abandoned factory of some kind nearby that we’re going to investigate. You two stay here with Mr. Lampert and then we’ll continue on our way.”
“Yeah, great,” said Erin Swails hopelessly, “and then we’re off to see the Wizard.”
Once they’d crept through the tall grass to within fifty yards or so, they could see that the factory was deserted; there were no tire tracks, footprints, or other signs of human or even animal activity. The doors, from the regular-sized on up to the big loading docks, were all locked tight and the windows were almost all intact. They circled the edifice, looming like a small mountain on the grassy plain, kicking up grasshoppers and butterflies and then, arriving back at the front, paused to eye up the best way of forcing entry. Justin was staring up at the factory’s windows when he tripped over something in the knee-high grass. Stooping down, he pulled out an embossed sign, maybe three feet by two, which read “Kramer & Sons Candy Canes, Inc.”
Justin dropped the sign back into the grass and, despite himself, let out a coarse laugh.
“Wouldn’t you just know it,” he said, shaking his head. “Of all the crazy things…”
“What it say?” asked Teresa, peering down at the sign.
“This,” he said, waving at the building, “is a candy cane factory! Not a food warehouse or an outlet clothing store or an autocar plant. Not an arms depot or a medical clinic or… or anything that might be of any conceivable use to us. No, these good people, back in happier days, made candy canes.”
“What that? Some kinda stick made outta candy, heh?”
“Yes, exactly. Little red-and-white striped sticks of peppermint candy with a hook on one end so you could hang it on a Christmas tree.”
“Huh,” said Teresa dubiously. “Well, whatever. It candy, right? Ya can e
at it, hey?”
“Oh, I guess so,” said Justin. “It’s just that out of all the manufacturing concerns in all of America, why did this one have to turn out to be, of all things, a candy cane factory?”
“Like I said,” she shrugged, “ya never know. Now let’s bust in there and see if they’s any candy left!”
Moving quickly and efficiently, she took a foot-long pry bar from her messenger’s bag and went over to a side door, applied the bar to a crack and, in no time, had jerked and pulled it open. Putting away the pry bar, she switched back to her shotgun and, waving him to follow, slowly advanced into the building.
It was dark and the air was warm and close inside, and from the instant Justin crossed the threshold, the scent of peppermint filled his nostrils. There were various large, open areas, most filled by huge automated machines and assembly lines, and a few smaller office-type spaces, all liberally coated in dust and shrouded in thick spider webs. They walked slowly and warily around the place until, near the back, they found what they were looking for, the absolute mother lode of candy canes. Stacked in boxes with the company name and logo emblazoned jauntily on the sides, ready to be shipped, were literally millions of the things. Teresa gave a sort of happy shout and immediately tore into the packages.
“Hey, these’re good!” she said, chomping. “Sorta minty, like you say. Real sugary, too!”
“I’m glad you like them,” said Justin wanly, sitting nearby, “but they’re really not very good for you.”
“Why not?” she asked, stopping to glare at the candy. “It ain’t like poison, hey?”
“No, nothing like that. They’re just not very nutritious. There are not a lot of good things in there, as far as food is concerned.”
Teresa shrugged and grinned. “Well I like ‘em,” she said, stuffing another into her mouth. “Real nice an’ sweet.”