“Yeah?”
“My real name’s September. That means we’re both named after time. Isn’t that funny?”
“I suppose, yeah.” He thought. “Though that means I come around more often than you do. Every week.”
“What does that even mean, talking about a person?”
“No idea.”
He laughed, and she surprised herself by laughing too.
~~~
“First light” had been a lost cause, of course. They’d slept away from view of the outside and missed the morning light by two hours or more. They huddled together for a measly breakfast and Emmie gave Alva the chance to feed.
“I think somebody might be outside,” Delcena said, quietly. Words of vertigo.
Thursday stood in one careful silent movement, leaning heavily on his hands until his trembling thighs and calves finally took his weight.
“Look through a windowpane first, not the garage,” Emmie said, cold in her throat. “Easier to duck, if you have to.”
He nodded and walked around the corner and out of sight, down the hall. And then he was back. “It’s a child,” he said.
Her brow furrowed. “Anyone else?”
“Not that I saw.”
“Let me see.”
The kid was naked, aside from a pair of very clumsy leather slippers which were wrapped tight around the ankle and a lower garment going to her knees that couldn’t have been much more than a bag. The girl was beet-red from sun exposure, and twisted with scoliosis where the filthy skirt hung.
“She might have parents here,” Thursday whispered.
“Yes, but what kind of parents?”
Might be feral, or live with people who hurt her.
“Get Alva and Delcena in the car,” she said. “Be ready to push off. Straight line of escape, all right?”
“Sure.”
“What’s that look about?”
“Just... just watch out. I’ve seen something like this before. If something looks off, hoof it.”
Emmie went around the long way, down the hallway and through a smaller room which may have once been a kitchen, out into the sunlight through an exit which may have once been a door.
She rounded the building carefully, checking about for anybody else. She could hear the child’s voice in the air, singing a song to herself without much in the way of words or for that matter consonants as she beat something metal against something metal:
“Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuuuuuh...”
It was a balancing act she wasn’t sure she knew how to manage—to avoid startling the child while staying out of sight to any other onlookers who might be there.
When the girl saw Emmie she froze.
Emmie held up her hands, crossed the street carefully to where the girl stood, and tried to smile. Like I’m approaching a damn animal. “Hey there,” she said. “What have you got there?” She pointed to the pipe in the child’s hand.
The girl looked at the pipe with a sort of concern, and then back to Emmie.
“Are you here with anybody? Got anybody looking after you? Do you need—”
The girl shrieked, or tried to. The sound was ragged and nothing came out of that throat louder or more defined than a sick bark. Her panic was so apparent that for a moment Emmie worried the girl would throw herself at her, but instead she ran away, up a half-set of concrete stairs and across the platform of a large apartment complex, windows boarded. She ran the pipe across the slats of the railing and brayed, now strong, over the staccato clanging.
A face peeked out from one of the doorways, then retreated.
Run.
As she turned she saw the blur of shapes coming after her.
No, not to the garage—back the way she came. Leave the others a path.
“Push it!” She barreled into that ruined doorway and down the hall. “Get on!” Figures pushed in after her, just missing her turn into the garage, fanning out to the rooms on the side to look for her.
There was Delcena, with her weight against the back of the SUV as Thursday pushed from the side, fumbling with his right hand pushing down the clutch.
Dammit, September!
“Get in, both of you!” She threw herself against the hatch as Delcena squirmed in through the front passenger window.
Emmie gave the vehicle all her weight and it eased forward, but no more than a few inches. The ground stabbed at the ball of her wounded foot as she strained through her thin foot-wrappings.
A shout in the room, some territorial outrage. Then the sound of an impact behind her and a chilling scream.
At last the SUV did more than inch, was moving in earnest, fast enough for a rolling start. She gave the car a last agonied push and dove onto the hatch just as Thursday popped the clutch and the engine came to life. Raising herself to the roof-rack and grasping she saw Delcena retreat from the passenger window and then re-emerge, another piece of concrete firehouse rubble in her hands. This she threw with an adrenal shout.
Behind Emmie a bearded creature howled through a mouthful of blood, a large bloody gash run through his cheek. The man spat a gob of crimson onto the ground beside him as he sidestepped Delcena’s second throw and crossed over to the back driver’s side, grappling at Emmie with grime-slicked hands.
Pulling herself up to the roof of the accelerating car she flailed but both hands took her by the ankle. She kicked at his head with her free foot but he was wary and quick and he threw his head back, shielding his oozing jaw with one arm as his feet thrummed wildly against the old asphalt. The man nearly lost his grip as Thursday swerved and set off back down their Road, shifting up to second with a jerk.
Her fingers were numb where they clenched the roof-rack, her arms ready to give out, right leg hanging useless as she struggled to kick him away by his chest.
The man was close to dragging on the ground now, at which point he’d either let go or pull Emmie down with him. One of the man’s compatriots emerged from the firehouse garage, and in her own full run raised a dark-wood crossbow and fired a wild shot in their general direction. Emmie heard it thwip by. The man turned and shouted back at her in protest, jaw clearly broken...
Thinking quickly, Emmie swung her free leg up as hard as she could in a loose whipping kick, unfocused. But she met him under the chin with a sick crack and he cried in agony, and this time her now blood-soaked foot-wrappings came away free. Her knees collided painfully with the hatch as she heaved herself roofward.
“Go!”
She pulled herself to the front of the roof-rack and with her last depleted burst of muscle swung around to the passenger’s-side window. Thursday shifted straight up to fourth and floored the gas, which failed to have the explosive effect he was hoping for as the car shuddered into more of an automotive trot. As she swung herself back inside (nearly kicking Thursday in the face), she caught a glimpse of—
“Bicycles,” Thursday laughed through giddy nerves. “They’re coming at us with bicycles.”
Even awash with a man’s blood and with his scream fresh in her ears, she look back and smiled in weary triumph at the sight: three resident bandits, pedaling in frustration toward them on too-big, overpatched tires which wobbled like settling coins. One stood and pedaled with all of his might, then fell sidelong across the bars like a stag in mid-charge as his chain slipped from the derailleur gears. The others had no hope of catching up.
Emmie laughed despite herself. Here were the dangers of the old 89—murderers, robbers, and gibbering bandit types, yes, but a deprived sort. Vultures, maybe, more than predatory hunters. She hadn’t even considered that they might be so pathetic—
Somewhere a shrill engine came to grinding, reluctant life and another bicycle appeared, astride this a hefty woman who had belted off the end of her rough dress at each knee. As she throttled the engine fitted clumsily beneath the handlebars it shook the frame of her reluctant mount until the thing was a blur. Another rider joined her and giving the gaunt young man a nod, she pointed and with hand-sign give h
im a directive. She looked well-fed; his ribs and shoulder blades jutted.
They approached on each side. These engines were haphazard and motley and looked on the edge of failing and what fuel powered them was anyone’s guess, but she somehow knew that they had run down many others.
Delcena screeched and scrabbled by her feet for another chunk of concrete.
“No!” Emmie said. “Get back, cover yourself under the seats.”
“I hit that guy,” Delcena pleaded, and behind the bravery was guilt. “I can do it.”
But she ducked as the passenger window shattered into the both of them with a deafening pop that froze her mid-breath.
A gun?, she could only think, however unlikely the thought. “Watch out!”
Through what portion of the side-rear window which was still glass and not alien effluvium, Emmie saw Shoulder Blades piloting his bicycle one-handed as he loaded another quarrel into the crossbow tucked awkwardly under his chin. Some of the darts wrapped around his chest looked familiar, others had round nubs lining their shafts.
She shrieked as he fired again and threw herself to the side, out of its path.
The dart protruded from the dashboard. The nub just behind the tip was a tiny metal cylinder packed tight with something, and it was fastened hard to the shaft. But the back nub jittered freely across the shaft with the motion of the car, and Emmie knew that something awful would happen when the two sides met hard enough.
“They’ve got some sort of... black powder!”
“What?”
“A bomb, an explosive!” Emmie pointed. “Now!”
Thursday only repeated his half-question. He couldn’t see.
She grabbed the wheel instead.
A weak thud as the SUV made contact with the merest part of the bike. But it was enough: the preoccupied bandit had been reloading a second time. He fell back with a squawk and rolled painfully through the tiny bits of brush and gravel which made up the road’s soft shoulder. Another loud pop sounded as a part of him burst—that was the only way to describe it—and she caught a glimpse of the raider’s cratered collarbone as he flew, the back half of a little bomb-dart protruding from his lower neck where his carotid spat a fountain through the clear air.
“And what in the fuck was that?” Thursday shouted.
“Later!” Emmie gripped the bolt by the center of its shaft and carefully worked it free, then threw it out the obliterated passenger-side window. She braced but it made no sound.
A dud? Thank God. Or just a life-saving fluke.
Something else had cracked the front windshield, Emmie dimly noticed, in three directions radiating out from a jagged hole. “I don’t hear the engine anymore.” Had the other driver backed off to help her fallen brother-in-ambush?
Thursday looked back. “I see the other bike! I see it, it’s down. I think we’re—”
A crash against the rear windshield, muffled with a sound like cracking ice, repeating. The discharge coating the window buckled slightly but held hard. For one very brief moment Emmie was grateful for it.
An uncoated corner of the windshield had been smashed in—no more than a few inches, but enough to accommodate the woman’s grasping fingers, somehow bony but strong and meaty all at once, like talons. Alva looked on indifferently.
Emmie pulled Delcena behind her and threw herself to the back, pushing at the hand which grabbed at her. It took the skin around her collarbone in such a tight grip she shouted in pain and caught herself biting by instinct at the weather-beaten flesh. The woman shouted in indignation and pushed Emmie away, reaching for a latch or release and finding nothing, retreating.
“Move!”
Delcena threw Emmie to the side and she was on the phantom arm, wrapping grey cloth tight around the wrist and pulling down with all her might. Her foot-wraps.
“Do something!” Delcena shouted and then screamed as their assailant wrenched at her scalp, taking ahold of too much hair even to tear any free. The arm was being wrenched and cut against the glass but not so much as it should have been; the softer discharge over the windows had braced the glass-edge and made the hole smoother.
Emmie took Thursday’s tire-iron from the floor and brought it down on the protruding wrist. A sharp cry sounded. Delcena ducked and lay flat as she was released, bawling and covering her head as Emmie struck both-handed with the socket-end of the iron, two, three, four times. The last blow brought a cracking of bone and a sick groan from the other end of the glass. Emmie pushed at the invading arm with all her might, and this time there was no resistance. The back end of the car buckled as they lost passenger-weight, and Emmie carefully peered through the break in the rear windshield to see the woman laying quivering and pained behind them, on the road leading out of what none of them knew as Panguitch, Utah.
“Shh... are you all right?” Emmie cradled Delcena for the first time, gently rubbing the top of her head. “That will feel better soon, I promise.”
“Why are they like that?”
“It’s what they’ve been through, what they know. Makes them hard.”
“How do they live with each other?”
Poor, sweet kid.
“I suppose they manage, in their own way.”
Thursday didn’t have to be told to keep on as fast as he could manage, though with several more minutes of driving they saw no hint of any motor behind them.
“They had a few crossbows,” Emmie told Thursday later, quietly, from the center-front seat, while Delcena slept in the softer passenger seat. “But probably not many of those bikes with the motors, or they’d have brought more out. Probably don’t risk that equipment unless they have a real prize in their sights.”
“So does it get better, or worse, the further we get in? Seemed like they weren’t expecting visitors back there, but they were ready for them.”
“Shit—imagine if we hadn’t had the car, or they’d seen us settle in.”
“They’d have run us down.”
“No question.” Emmie carefully pried a tiny piece of broken glass from the fold of her seat and dropped it out onto the road. “But who makes it thirty, forty miles down the road? Only other... well, other people like them? What sort of fracas do you think they’re prepared for?”
Whatever the alternate scenario she played out in her head, things didn’t end well. If they’d been caught asleep and unawares with that crossbow. If they’d been seconds slower getting out. If Delcena had been a bit less accurate with the concrete she’d been throwing.
And us, what? Robbed and killed, or...
Or?
She could think of words like eaten, and worse. Brutal ritualism enacted without so much as malice, and all the worse for it. Prolonged and casual tortures.
The road-noise roaring in from the new rents in their car mirrored that in her mind. By her side she could see that Delcena wasn’t sleeping at all. Her eyes were open. There, curled and retreated and distant, she looked very much like Alva.
~~~
Riders came by in the night in the direction they were going. Emmie had taken the wheel and at the first sound of engines she let off the pedal to cut their noise and began to coast. Delcena muttered to herself, most likely a prayer. She seemed to have returned to herself.
But the others followed a road with a different woof and warp. Emmie could see them a half-dozen strong passing by a hundred meters or more to the right, one or two hollering and crying blood-oaths under the moon. They passed by, leaving Emmie and hers unnoticed.
“How did—” Emmie looked at the ground before her. What she had thought was weathered asphalt which had mostly yielded to long-dried mud and crack-dwelling foliage was nothing man-made at all; just an unusually flat stretch of natural land. The wild women and men of the wastes—they were driving on man’s construction.
“We’re not on the road at all,” Emmie said, mostly to herself. “At some point we must have veered off.”
“Watched all the same,” Delcena said smugly, and put her legs u
p on the dash.
~~~
Miles later the engine began knocking. Soon after it coughed consumptively from the tailpipe. And finally it gave one last, percussive shake, died, and would not start again.
“This happen before?” Thursday squatted beside the car, supporting his weight against it as he squinted at its undercarriage without comprehension.
“Only had it for a matter of weeks, so no. Think we’ve still got fuel, though. I took a couple gallons from that automotive graveyard back there. Didn’t look like what we’d been putting in before, but it seemed to do the trick—”
“Wait.” Thursday stood with labor. “Tell me that again.”
“We have fuel, I’m telling you.”
“You misunderstand. September, I may not have seen a working engine before but I had books.”
She winced internally and regretted having told him her full name. “So did I.”
“I mean mechanical books. You say only two gallons of fuel? And you’ve been mixing the fuel in the back with old gas? Look, I’m no expert, but we shouldn’t have been mobile at all. Much less going for a full day with no problems.”
He checked the solar panel to be sure it was unattached, peered unconfidently at the car’s innards beneath the hood, whiffed the fuel in the tank with a frown. Books or not, she doubted he had any idea what he was doing.
“Hold on,” Thursday said when he was finished, “let’s wait fifteen minutes or so. I want to try something.”
A little while later, the engine started without incident, and after a mere few minutes came to the same ignominious stop it had done before.
“September,” Thursday said again, eyes hard on hers. “Just what kind of car is this?”
She stared forward. She wondered what he might suspect, what she might give away if she tried to answer.
After a few minutes more, they managed to start the car again and to get it far offroad. They each drank a few capfuls of water and sat the four of them in the car’s paltry shade, which covered them only to the knee.
This was it, she thought. Their best hope would be to take some circuitous route, avoid being caught. Because on the road, limping forward by degrees until the engine finally died entirely, they would be overrun. The dehydration that awaited them offroad would be a better death.
The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist's Guide to Utah's Deserts Page 4