“There are others, Howard, many others. You never let me tell you about them all, but one day you will wonder. On this device, I’ve marked their locations to the best of my knowledge, but nothing is set in stone. Men came from the other coast by small plane, and others came from beyond the border to our south. By now, even the youngest of them would be nearing their mid to late teens. Your brothers and sisters are out there, Howard.”
Howard shook his head. “No, father, don’t do this.” He clenched his fists, remembering the bitter end of so many of their arguments. He could see his father’s reasoning now. He could see the subtle nudges, the attempts to get him to leave, to propel him out of the tomb, but he couldn’t leave his father. He couldn’t break that history.
“When I am gone, there will be nothing left to hold you here, son. I know you don’t want to leave your old man, but I beg that you do. Remember what I said of history. Don’t let it be a shackle. Let it motivate but not stagnate. You are not alone, though it may seem that way now. You are not alone. There are many like you out there.”
Howard felt Jennifer slip her arm around his waist. She kissed his tear-stained cheeks. He did not push her away as he had many nights prior. He welcomed her touch.
“I can’t say I’ve been the best father, but I’d like to think I’ve done a good job, given the circumstances.” Doc Danielson laughed. “I’d like to think we all did. Who knows? Maybe somewhere down the line, when you and your generation have righted the ship and made something new, you’ll make your own music. After all, we’ve been too quiet as a species for far too long. I love you, son.”
Howard waited for what seemed like ages for his father’s voice to return. The specter of Doc Danielson was gone, replaced by a ghostly song of his generation.
Howard shook, trembling as the weight of it smashed into him, but he did not fold. He’d made his peace, though that did little to lift the shock. He flipped through the device, searching for more files, for anything left by his father, but it was all music and nothing else. He couldn’t even find the recording that had just played, as if it happened only in his mind.
“Do you think we’ll have our own music one day?”
“You heard?”
“Yes,” Jennifer said, hugging him tight.
Howard stood stone silent. He thought about his father’s words, about the world that was left behind, and about what might come. He kissed the top of Jennifer’s head. Already he felt a closeness to this woman who, at one point, held a weapon on him. He could hear his father lurking in the back of his mind, like a bum rousing a trashcan for morsels, and his father spoke about human responses, about the science behind interactions. Howard ignored him.
“I think yes, at some point, we’ll have to. It’s in us always. Before all of this, and even way before that, down through the ages, we’ve been given to sound. We tap our fingers on things, clap, sing, and we can’t help it. It’s expression, like the fading murals of L.A and the withered photos of old. We can’t help it. So, yeah, I think we will, though I don’t know what it will sound like.”
“It will be beautiful and sad and about remembrance.” Jennifer’s eyes were wet with the orange light of dawn. The hills to the east rose like black steam crowned with fire. The stretch of broken homes rolled on endlessly, separated by long black gashes where the earth had grown weary of the weight upon it.
Howard handed her a dried strip of opossum. The tangy, tough meat made his belly squirm. After surviving on the fresh vegetables from the rooftop gardens for so long, it was not a welcome meal. He could think only of what the nasty looking beast had been eating, and it did not sit well with him.
The hills were alive with Creepers, a great majority of them trapped within the collapsed homes, now their tombs, until someone insane enough came along to remove them.
He reflected on the brutal agony of clearing the city. The years stretched out behind him. What for? he thought. For this? It was all preparation, he realized then. His father’s roundabout way of showing him what needed to be done if they were to ever move forward.
“What’s your plan?” he asked.
Her face welcomed the light. He fell into her eyes. Her black hair was like some anti-halo capturing all the light of her porcelain skin. Years of pent up sexual feelings overwhelmed him, but he fought to keep them under control. He wanted her, but did she feel the same? Or was it the desperation of their situation?
“You, Howard—” she spit out a fatty piece of opossum— “are my plan.” Her eyes flashed, along with her wicked grin.
He knew what she wanted, or at least suspected it, but now there it was. “Jennifer, you know what we’re heading towards. You’ve fought against them. I’ve seen the army, glimpses yes, but I’ve seen the enormity of it. The callous ferocity.” Howard gulped down more nasty meat, thinking of how much he sounded like his father after years of trying to do just the opposite.
“I know, but we can use their weapon against them. You can use their weapon against them,” she said, slamming her fist into her palm. “I know where we stashed some gear along the route. From what you describe, they’re making for the last outpost on the line. They’re going for the train, or the weapons, or both. It’s there we take them.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“You controlled that man, moved his body with your mind. Whatever happened to you made that possible.”
“But it was one man,” Howard said, doubting his own abilities. He’d never attempted to move them like that before.
“You cleared millions. Did you control them as you did it?”
“Yes, but I was a distraction while the killing blows fell. I wasn’t marching them along, and I wasn’t turning them on anyone. The emotional strain from one in that state is more than enough to bring me to my knees. I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking.”
“You said you could help.”
Howard bit his lip. “I did.” The vigor he felt on the roof had long since faded and the reality of merely surviving had sunk in.
The earth moved beneath them, a little quake, and the wind began to howl. A series of gruff shouts echoed from the hill across the way.
Howard dropped low.
“That was no coyote,” he whispered.
Jennifer joined him, rolling to her gear and quickly peering through her scope.
Howard followed suit. They were tucked into the shadow of a ruined townhome. The angry earth had split it in two decades ago. A massive bunch of weeds turned trees grew from the middle, shooting into the sky, stirring in the wind, as if the earth put finger to lip and shushed them.
Voices followed the shouts in a series of hoots and clicks. Howard searched through his scope, running it along the ruined sprawl.
Techno cultists.
He drew a sharp breath.
“I see them,” Jennifer said. “Too many to shoot. It’s the whole tribe. Look.” She flicked her rifle.
Howard followed her direction and saw them. The children, the women tending to them, and the cattle. The men had long dirty hair woven through with wire and rusted chunks of metal. The women wore long leather gowns, their arms covered in angry scars of geometric patterns—gears, wheels, symbols of machinery. All of them were armed. Some with crude bows, and others with long, fire-hardened spears.
The main unit of the tribe moved along the road in their direction. A few of the scouts fanned out across the suburban sprawl, disappearing between the ruined homes.
“They’re coming this way.”
“I see that.”
“What do we do?” Howard wanted to run.
“We ghost, and quick.”
“What?” Howard asked, but she was already gone.
He grabbed what was left of their camp and tossed it into his bag. He searched about frantically for Jennifer but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Ffft, idiot, over here.” Her pale face leaned out from the inside of the house. “Get in here and keep quiet.”
Howard navigated the crumbled façade with ease, moving like he did in the ruin of Los Angeles, quick feet, quick eyes, but beneath the confidence of his movements his heart pounded in his chest. He could hear all of their voices, the cries of babies, the shouts of the men as they disposed of the Creepers in their path. He could see the ferocity of their strikes through those rotten eyes . . . the darkness, cold and complete.
He peered at them through the glazed eyes of an old man half crushed by his home. Dirty feet passed along the road, followed by hooves. A pair of feet broke off from the group and someone stood over the Creeper. He could see only the dire silhouette of the corded body. The long hair created a weathered shroud about the man’s shoulders, and then a spear tore through the Creeper’s eye socket, finding brain.
Howard searched for another vantage point, but the Creepers were all entombed by their homes. All their voices begged, repeated, relived their own ends. He felt ill.
Something crashed just outside the house.
Jennifer steadied him with a touch as she nodded towards the front of the home. A figure moved behind the tall weeds then stopped.
Howard could see the man cock his head. He could see the long spear and the rusted bolts hanging from it. The cultist listened to the wind, sniffed, stared at the house. His knotty hair, packed full of broken technology, hung like a long cable past his waist. Howard stared right back. He wanted to scream.
The man continued to stare but he didn’t stay put. He moved closer to their position, unblinking, conscious of each piece of rusted metal about his body. He crouched low, holding the spear across the tops of his knees. Again he cocked his head and sniffed the air.
Howard’s finger trembled over the trigger. His palms were slick with sweat and the stock slipped ever so slightly in his hand. He was sure the man could see them. He was maybe twenty feet away with only scrub brush between them. He thought of the thunder dome, of all the mythos involved with the techno cults, and it boggled his mind. As crazy as his upbringing was, he couldn’t imagine one where he’d revert like these people had. But were Howard and Jennifer any different? They were after the same things. Were any of them really different?
“We can go back north,” the man said. He did not move.
“I told you, gran said true, Bessil. I told you she say that,” another voice said. A second man, armed with a bow, knelt beside the other.
“Big movements up there, yeah,” the man said, shaking his long hair, rattling the bits of rusted metal. “Kaseveck say so. Say they move many bodies, dead bodies. Even three tribes not big enough to take them.”
“I don’t want run. It is our home,” Bessil said, slamming his spear in the dirt.
Howard felt like he was going to slip, like he was going to make some noise. He forgot how to breath. All he knew was the beating of his heart and the pain in his muscles. The rifle weighed a million pounds in his hands. He kept locking eyes with the man, which made it worse. Could he really see them?
“We livin’ say it true. No run. We livin’ see another day. They got the big booms. They got the old tech, the cause see, and we got the earth. They fade soon like gran said. They fade and we keep growing like the trees,” the other man said, waving his bow about.
The muzzle wavered in Howard’s grip. He couldn’t keep it steady. He couldn’t keep still. He was on the verge of passing out. Sweat stung his eyes.
“Maybe.” Bessil stood slowly.
Howard watched the one called Bessil nod in his direction then turn away, directing his companion towards the rest of the tribe. There was no mistaking the gesture. Howard looked into those eyes and found a silent understanding, a truce without words. He allowed himself a breath as the cultists walked from the house.
“We have to move,” Jennifer whispered. She took point and exited the split. Each step was a careful ballet, avoiding every potential crunch beneath heel.
Howard could still hear the men talking about their dilemma. Somewhere ahead, a whole world of hurt was about terrible business. Howard wondered how many other groups were displaced by the army? How many gritty survivors were headed for safer ground? What were they thinking, heading into the storm? Who else would they encounter? He pushed the nagging thoughts away.
Jennifer crouched on the roof of a building that had fallen into the earth. She leaned into the wind, looked back with her eyes wide, her rifle rising.
“Unclean!”
Howard spun at the sound of that grating voice. The man with the bow had it up and taut, aiming right at him. He tried to get his rifle up, but mid-swing the one called Bessil knocked the bow upward as his fellow cultist let loose the arrow.
Jennifer screamed as the arrow caught her high in the shoulder. She fired as she fell, scattering the cultists and the birds.
“No,” Bessil hissed. “They already dead. Gran say no bloodshed.”
Howard tried to find a target, but the techno cultists were long gone. Their words were not lost on him. He ran to Jennifer.
“Fuck, it went through, it went through. I can feel it,” she said, reaching over her shoulder. Blood soaked through her shirt and ran down the shaft of the crude arrow. It appeared to be a mix of rusted metal and fire-hardened wood.
“Don’t move.” Howard dropped the rifle.
“Fuck that. They’ll be back. They eat people, Howard. We gotta move.”
“They won’t be back.” He pushed her down. “Lie still.” Howard ripped open her shirt, cutting a line to the arrow to free the area. Bright red blood pooled in the hollow of her neck. He started digging in his pack for bandages and what little medical supplies he’d brought from the city.
“Get this fucking thing out of me,” Jennifer cried. Her chest heaved, sending sweat and blood between her breasts.
“I will, but not yet.” Howard laid out what he had, and it wasn’t much. He expected cuts, but not this.
“What do you mean not yet?”
“I mean not until I’m ready. This is going to take patience. I can’t just rip the damn thing out.”
“Rip it the fuck out or I will,” she screamed. “Do it now!”
Howard looked into her terrified eyes. Behind all her tough words, she was a basket case. He pulled out a bundle of leaves and began to chew them. He spit the pale green paste back into the tin he’d taken the leaves from. “Are you ready?” He broke the tip from the arrow—a cracked and rusted spark plug—then he tossed it away.
“Do it.”
Howard gripped the shaft and took a deep breath. He twisted and then he pulled as hard as he could.
Jennifer screamed.
Howard began to panic at the sight of all that blood on her pale skin. There was so much blood. He kept applying pressure and adding more bandages, but they kept turning red.
CHAPTER 12
Bobby closed Hoss’s eyes. He’d watched Baylor put a bullet in the skull of his long time friend just minutes before. Now the Mad Conductor was at the helm, screaming some song from the past as the train hurtled down the tracks. Bobby closed the door and went to the roof.
He kept hearing Price’s voice over and over. The implications weighed heavy on him. Were they all okay? Did they know? Bobby punched the metal plate next to him, welcoming the raw pain in his knuckles. Everything had turned so fast. They were together again, things were as normal as they were going to get, and the wretched world split them apart.
Maybe Ol’ Randy was right, maybe this was all part of God’s plan. If so, the God he never saw or heard was a total asshole. It wasn’t fair. He’d been through enough. He’d bled enough, sacrificed enough, lost enough. It was his turn to live, to enjoy what little humanity and love he could. But it wasn’t in the cards, as Paul used to say.
Bryan’s legs hung from the fence. Ropes of intestines and blood melted the freshly fallen snow. Bryan was there and then he wasn’t . . . obliterated, wiped from the world. Price’s voice echoed in his mind. He rode the swell of anger and doubt and worry, punching the plate until his hand went num
b. He laid his rifle across his lap and opened the bolt, counted his shells, slipped into the cadence, reassuring himself they were okay. It was all he could do to salvage what little sanity he had left. He reloaded the rifle and racked the bolt, setting the safety as he peered along the horizon through the scope.
Signs of a large battle were scattered everywhere: smoking ruins of wagons, parts of bodies, animal and human, and long angry scorch marks marred the sand. Vultures swooped down, already digging into the morsels. Several Creepers popped into his mind. He saw the field of battle through their eyes.
The Creepers (Book 2): From the Past Page 11