He felt a profound sorrow. He felt those thoughts. The last gasps. The loop of feedback imprints left on the human brain. It always sounded like they were talking directly to him, but his father was adamant that what he heard were nothing more than leftovers. Recordings left in the brain. Howard never wanted to believe his father, and even to this day he still had reservations. The voices were too intense, too real to be discounted as such.
The others felt nothing but fury. Their world had ended because of the Creepers, but ending them did not ease the torment. It never did. Howard felt their human emotions just as he felt the throes of the Creepers, but he could not use his gift to help them beyond making easy targets of the dead. They smashed head after head in, cursing as they went, carving a path through the enemies that held them in check for so many years. They tore through them, through the day, and then it happened.
Howard could still feel it. The wobble at first, then the terror as the world lifted beneath his feet, rising up and down and up before slamming him down again. The metal of the great buildings groaned like an enormous god that had awoken from a long slumber. He could see the glass giants twist. Strange reflections of the sunlight fell like golden tears before the windows shattered, showering them, shredding them. One of their group, Tim Panders, was cut in two. Creepers littered the weeded streets, parts of them twitching reflexively.
He recalled the Creeper he’d landed next to. Thin yellow face, a mouthful of broken teeth, tongue poking through a hole in its cheek. Its thick eyes darted back and forth but its body was gone. All that remained was the torn base of its neck. It kept biting, biting nothing. In Howard’s mind, he heard it growl, but he knew it was impossible. There were no lungs left to create it, but that sound was so ingrained in him, he couldn’t help but hear it. He wanted to put the thing out of its misery, but he never got the chance.
The world opened up before him, taking the head and a large chunk of the city street with it. Dust shot into the sky, blocked out the sun, and the roars filled Los Angeles. The death throes of a once great city. Buildings cracked in half, sliding into the darkness below in explosions of decayed infrastructure. The earth moved, reminding him there was always more to fear in the unpredictability of nature. Without man to keep pace with her, nature sought fit to wipe the blemishes of progress from her face, using the Creepers as her brush and time as her ink.
Howard walked towards that massive crater now. He could see his father’s tomb clearly, which would have been impossible years before. There were only a handful of large buildings left and most of them were rusted, wind torn skeletons. Crumbling concrete fell from the slightest touch, echoing around them.
“You get used to it after a time.” Howard kept his tone even, but his mind plotted.
Jennifer flinched at each crunch of rock, each strained metal groan. She was jittery, unsure. As she should be, Howard thought.
“What’s happening?”
“Movements beneath the earth at our feet, shifting plates, the execution of time. Things collapse, are reborn. Cycles, always in cycles. Just as we were born after, as he was born before,” Howard said, pointing at the now gray-skinned man. He could read the infection on the man’s face. “Your friend might not be around long enough to tell you what you want to know.”
“What do you know?”
“As the son of a doctor, I know a lot. I know that right now his blood is in the process of becoming toxic to his system. I know that he doesn’t have long to live, and we don’t have the supplies necessary to save him. I know that once he dies—” Howard spun and pointed at the man— “he will turn, and at that point he’ll be a liability. Unless, of course, we ensure that doesn’t happen.”
“Get moving,” she said, pointing ahead with her weapon.
“Suit yourself.” Howard shuffled forward, exaggerating his way around a small fissure in the ground. The rusted hull of a gutted bus poked out like a dead hand rising from the grave. Eerie scraping and screeching rose from below.
Jennifer flinched again.
“It’s the rats. Don’t worry. They usually wait until nightfall to come up. Nothing a bullet or two can’t handle, if you see them before they see you.” He watched the confidence drain from her. She was so out of her element. Exposed.
“Up ahead, we need to be careful. You might want to put both rifles on your back.”
“Right.”
“Suit yourself.” Howard led them around the corner.
What looked to be another dilapidated city street opened onto a huge black pit that stretched for miles. Suddenly the groan of the buildings was replaced by a rush of water, ebbing and flowing, crashing against things unseen below. The jagged tip of what was once a shining example of man’s ability pierced through the darkness and into the sky. Massive birds perched upon it in the sun. The wind swept past them, salty, inviting.
“Madre.” The man coughed.
“Nature always claims her prize.”
It was beautiful, it was tragic, and it was dangerous. Howard rarely ventured to this side because of the delicate nature of the earth. It could give way at any second. One wrong step could set off a chain reaction. He started around the left side, staying inches from the lip. “We have to—” He leaped into the darkness. The sound of crashing waves swallowed his fake scream.
He timed the fall just right, his feet catching on the exposed façade of a crumbled building. He swung down into a pitch black window, landing on the wall, and he allowed himself one look back. The bright sky seemed so far away from down here, but he was only thirty feet from the lip. The darkness was beyond deep. Even coming down here to scare his father as a boy, with the aid of powered lights, it was as if the world had been erased. Solid ground and then an endless, light-swallowing darkness. A timeless tomb. All through the crooked hallways, the skeletons of Los Angeles found their final resting place. He could even sense some Creepers, but they were better left to their fates. He pushed them out of his mind.
With the roar of the ocean at his back, he traced his famous route through the new underground and came up a block behind Jennifer. He could hear her shouting for him over the edge.
Howard slipped into a weeded alley that looked more at home in the jungles of Brazil than Los Angeles. The building to his left was open to the elements. A large crack ran vertically from the alley all the way to the roof, and it allowed access to an exposed staircase. Howard took the steps carefully. He never trusted them, but they would get him to the roof.
The salty air cooled the sweat on his forehead. His breath came in quick gasps. It had been some time since he’d run like that. He crawled on his belly through the dandelions. He could see Jennifer pacing before the fissure. From his vantage point, he could see the sea spill into the darkness. The view was not pleasant. It made him feel uneasy because soon the building he was on, and the rest of the tombs, would pass into the cool blue waters. He had to get out. It was now or never.
“Welcome to my city, Jennifer, my home. Isn’t she beautiful?” Howard’s voice echoed through the empty city. “She’s yours now. I cleaned her and everything. I’ve been trapped here most of my life. She is all I know, and now I have a chance to be rid of her, and you come along. You’re like so many of the others my father dealt with over the years. But I believe behind all that grit, all those terrified responses, I believe there’s a wrong that needs right.”
“Come out!”
Howard laughed. The run through the tombs had invigorated him. He felt the importance of what he was about to do, and for once it did not scare him. His father had tried to prepare him for this day, but the truth of it was he had to do it himself. The razor thin edge of decision stretched out before him and he hit it at a run.
“You have two choices, Jennifer. Let me help or—” Howard bounced up— “kill me now! I’m right here!” He stood, waving his hands and smiling in her direction.
Jennifer spun to find him, but she did not raise the rifle. The man lay crumpled at her feet in a fet
al shiver.
“Don’t you see? There is nothing left here for anyone! I can help you. I already have. You’d be dead if it weren’t for me. Truth be told, I never killed a man until yesterday. You’ve made me a murderer, but I can make you the victor.”
“You’re nothing but a lunatic with a death wish.”
Howard felt the man exit life the instant of his last heartbeat. A flicker of light in his thoughts, and then he sensed all those imprints: cattle cars being pulled by horses, human hands groping through the bars, Creepers marching beside them, men speaking many languages, shouting. He felt queasy from the rush, but he let the sensation pass and gained control of his prize. He made the man rise slowly, quietly.
“Look behind you, Jennifer!” Howard mimicked a low moan and the newly born Creeper obeyed.
Jennifer’s shot was wild, catching the Creeper in the shoulder. She readied another round.
“Don’t you see! I can help you!” Howard made the Creeper drop to its knees and bow its head, one good arm out wide in a mock bow. “It’s up to you!”
Howard’s heart beat wildly. He had played his hand. He let his secret be know, much to the dismay of his dearly departed father. But he would not resign himself to the life his father suffered through. He remembered the garden of stone from the song, remembered his father’s words always.
Jennifer pressed the muzzle of the rifle against the Creeper’s head and fired. Wet brains and skull splattered on the ground as the body fell into the dark waters below.
“I know where they are!” Howard shouted, as he recalled the images that had flooded his mind.
* * * * *
Howard set their camp near the edge of the city under a crumbling concrete overpass. The coyotes howled the coming of the night, and the Santa Anna winds whistled through the bones of yesterday.
“No fire,” Howard warned. “Not this far out.”
“How did you do it?”
“I just did. It’s not magic. Just something I was born with.” Howard rummaged in his pack for some dried fruit. He’d brought enough for himself for a few days, but they’d need to hunt, and that was never a sure thing. He knew of quite a few water sources that would keep them going for awhile, but the food was always a gamble.
“I’ve never seen anything like that. I’ve seen them use the Creepers, but not like that,” Jennifer said, staring at the moon as the wind pulled clouds across its face.
“Who’s they?”
“Manuel’s boys. Slavers, I guess you could say. Come up from Mexico.”
“So that’s what they were speaking. I’d never heard another language before. Father mentioned them, but the people we’ve dealt with over the years spoke English. Some bastardized versions of it, but English.”
“They’re not all Mexicans. Just some of them. There are Americans with them too. Word is they went south when it all went down. They went out into the rural areas, worked deals with the men there. They traffic in humans, taking women and killing most of the men. We don’t know why. We’d only caught wind of them recently.” She moved closer to Howard.
He found the moon in the wetness of her eyes.
“We’ve been beating back the dead for a long time, Howard. Killing and moving and killing and moving. We reorganized some of the old installations across the more rugged states, but it was never enough. Most of the supplies were gone, but we managed to find several caches, and we had cattle and land and people to tend to them. We were taking back our world. Then we got word people were being taken along the trade route. Vanished. It was bits and pieces, words spoke over fires before parting. We sent squads to check it out, but they found nothing. The fuckers were gone, and all winter long nothing. Almost a year passed, but Post didn’t forget. Come spring, we set out ahead of the Mad Conductor on the trade route.
“That’s where they hit us. We’d never encountered anything like it. We fought wild people before, even slightly coordinated ones, but these bastards were an army. Men on horseback, supply wagons, and the Creepers, thousands of them, some in big carts and others clustered together in tight groups. They, they were using men, dangling men from ropes like fucking carrots before the donkey. The Creepers staggered after the prize endlessly. A marching army without need of water or sleep. The perfect soldiers, unafraid of sacrifice, unafraid of anything. But we didn’t know. We didn’t see them until it was too late.”
The images from Manuel’s last gasp flittered through Howard’s mind. The cages, the Creepers. Paired with Jennifer’s words, it started to make sense, and the implications were dire.
“They are north of us. Oregon I think. Manuel offered up images in death. You can’t do anything against them, even with me and my gift. What could we accomplish against all that?”
“I can’t leave my family to that. I won’t. You don’t know what they do to the women, to life.”
“Father always said there were men who sought only to oppress, to take, and he said to do nothing against them is the most cowardly act. I’d like to think he didn’t raise a coward. But we need a plan.”
“I have one.” She smiled.
CHAPTER 8
The desert gave way to deep greens, rolling hills, but the change of scenery did not change the depth of failure he felt. He had failed them all. A chill gripped the air as Post tried to tighten his beaten body to conserve warmth, but the wind crept in unabated through the cold steel bars. The night was deep and black beyond the confines of his prison. Here and there, lanterns hung from the other wagons, swaying back and forth with each plodding movement. The long march west.
Creepers moaned. The man hanging from the crane quit his screaming hours ago, but every now and then Post could hear a whimper. The stench of them was overwhelming, even to a First War veteran of his caliber. Every so often, the darkness was punctuated by the screams of women. Post shuddered every time, then the anger took over, but he had failed them. It was too late. He should be dead. He’d taken so many of them with him, but they left him alive. He should be dead.
The wide wagon was some kind of converted cattle car stripped of its base and bolted onto a very rudimentary series of axles. A team of men and horses guided it through the night. There were other men in the wagon with him, but most were broken beyond measure. Post had no idea how long some of them had been in the moving prison. Every other day or so, men would come by with buckets of foul smelling water and charred meat. Post didn’t have to guess what the meal consisted of for he’d seen them cooking the dead as they dragged him from the field of battle.
He’d failed them.
He stared into his hands, the hands that had been a part of so much good, so much restoration, and now they trembled. He pressed his head against the bars and a wad of warm spit splashed on his forehead.
“Hey now, soldier boy, don’t look so glum. We still got much in store for you. Ain’t that right, Miss Moya?”
“Very right. You fought bravely, soldier, but your cause died with the old world. You’re in virgin territory now, and all those petulant games, all those honors, all that service, means nothing now. Your nation is a nation no longer. Your people do not exist as one.”
Post gripped the bars in a fury.
“Soldier boy’s about to bite through that steel. Look at that anger. He’ll do well next round. I got ten scalps on him. Shit, twenty.”
“Enough, Keaton. See that column is disciplined,” Miss Moya said calmly, but there was nothing calm in the inflection. Her words carried the power of confidence.
Post heard the hooves first, then a low light traced the outlines of a slender figure on the back of massive black steed. Long reddish-brown hair draped her slender shoulders. She held a small lantern and the reins in one hand, while she pulled the waist length locks back over her shoulder with the other. She wore a crude leather vest that had seen the light of many days. It was weathered and cracked, blemished beyond repair, but as she came closer, Post realized it wasn’t animal leather at all. It was human flesh. A ring of scal
ps bounced on her hip as her horse snorted twin jets of steam, frothy lips casting spittle before it. The tiny woman did not look out of place. She rode the animal with the same confidence she carried in her words. Her eyes were deep and dark. Her lips thin and cold.
“You’re not half bad looking when the light hits you just right, soldier.” She directed the horse right up to the bars, leaned in, lantern in hand, to inspect her spoils.
“You’ve lost sight of your humanity,” Post said, turning away from the light. He could not stomach a human that would eat another, no matter how dire the circumstance.
She laughed as she hooked the lantern onto a long post attached to her saddle. It drifted from side to side with each hollow clop. Miss Moya opened her hands wide. Long, weathered fingers, swollen knuckles, tightly defined wrists—the hands of a fighter. She drew a long blade from the saddle bags, tracing the blade with her fingertips, and said, “You misunderstand me, soldier. I feel we’ve gotten off on terrible terms. I, like you, am fighting for what I believe in. I believe if you allow yourself to be vanquished, you deserve it. I have no pity for those that won’t stand. Which is why I spared you.”
The Creepers (Book 2): From the Past Page 7