LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation

by Bryan James

  I looked around.

  “Where is your, uh, better half?”

  He nodded to toward the tree line and smirked.

  “Watering her foot. We’re trying to get ready to go. Been here fuckin’ ‘round with you long enough.”

  Looking around, I again took in the small clearing surrounded by thick trees. Many had fallen around the small area, creating a somewhat secluded and partitioned area back from the river.

  “Where are we exactly?” I asked, worried that I might have made my way back to the southern bank.

  “North bank, about two miles west of Concrete, Washington. You came ashore in a pretty unique place—about two hundred feet that direction,” he pointed with the flask. “We’re in an area that runs parallel along the river, that’s got rock walls about four hundred feet back to the north, and only two narrow strips of land that access this strip—and you can’t see this fire from neither of those strips. We got the river on the other side. Even if those shits could see us from the other side of the river, we might as well be on the other side of the moon. The damn thing’s been rushing through this canyon gettin’ wider and angrier all night. You was damn lucky to get out of there alive—even if you heal up quick, I reckon a good drownin’ would put you down.”

  I reckon it would, at that. Such sage advice from my newest friend.

  We both stared into the fading night in silence, until my curiosity got the best of me.

  “Mind if I ask you what you and your wife are doing out here? Seems like you know your way around, but we haven’t seen many people since we left Seattle. Not live ones, at least.”

  He squinted briefly, then turned to spit into the darkness under the trees.

  “No, don’t believe you would have. Been some unrest in these parts lately. Folks moving around the area killin’ other people. Just shootin’ ‘em dead. No robbery, nothing like that. We’ve seen the bodies and a couple of our folk in our group heard them coming through their towns. Lots of folk have tried to avoid populated areas, taking to the trees or to other safer places. We used to live on a farm about thirty miles north of here. Took a crack at fortifying it and making ourselves invisible to those things, but a month ago we went out hunting and came back to find a couple humvees and some folk looked like soldiers outside our doors. Didn’t much take to them showing up uninvited, so we hung back and watched. They broke in, looked around some, and then left. Didn’t steal nothin’ but were thorough about lookin’ around. That was enough for us. Realized that we needed to be off the grid somewhere safer if folk were going from house to house looking to kill people.”

  He spat again, wiping a small line of spittle from his beard with his left hand. An owl hooted in the distance, and I absently poked the fire with a stick, drawing a line in the fallen ash as I did so.

  “So you’ve been alone out here since then?”

  A rustling in the trees pulled both of our heads around until Rhi’s form moved out of the woods.

  “Tell you what,” she said, adjusting the thick belt around her waist and moving quickly to gather her things into her large pack. “Thing I miss most about the old world? Toilet paper.”

  I smiled as Ethan moved to help her pack their few items away carefully.

  “We haven’t been alone for about three weeks,” Rhi answered my question as she straightened, pulling the straps of a smaller pack tight on her narrow shoulders.

  “We have a small group. Been holed up in an abandoned hydroelectric plant a little north of Concrete for the last few weeks. Damn good hideout too, if you excuse the pun. Power. Running water. Thick concrete walls, steel doors, fencing around the perimeter. But when the first quake hit, it knocked all the turbines offline, and the alarm system was activated. Drew in those things from miles around. We managed to get the alarm to shut off, but by the time we did, there were hundreds of them crawling around the woods and the road outside. Without power, we got no clean water and no light. Worst of all, though, is that the quake knocked down the fencing, and knocked those nice thick steel doors out of alignment. We can’t lock the doors anymore. So if those things discovered we were in there, we’d be toast. Ethan and I decided we were the closest to death of everyone on account of our advanced years, so we volunteered to hunt around for a better shelter.”

  “How’d the search go?”

  Ethan shook his head and Rhi sighed.

  “Nothing out there better than what we had, and not a lick of much good for more than catching our breath. But we can’t stay there. It’s a death trap without those doors in place and if there were another quake … well, the whole damn thing might just disappear into the river. We were on our way back to try to pull folks out and start north—at least we could try our house again, see if there was any evidence of anyone coming by.” She paused, looking at Ethan meaningfully. “We know it’s a risk, since we have men and boys in our group, but …”

  “Oh stop it, you crazy bat. You know those is just rumors.”

  I had missed something.

  “Rumors, are they? How many of those bodies we found are women? How many? Three, maybe four? Out of fifty? And they’re always with a man. Never alone!”

  “Sorry, but …”

  Rhi rounded on me in her sudden irritation.

  “The people out there that Ethan was tellin’ you about? The killers? They only kill men. They take women and they kill men. That’s what we’ve seen, and some of our group heard ‘em when they came through their town. Screams and such.” She glanced at her husband. “This one doesn’t believe it. Says it don’t make much sense. I keep telling his stubborn ass that none of this” she gestured around, to the ash, to the trees, to the world, “makes much sense, but it’s still the order of the day.”

  “I saw something too,” I said softly, thinking aloud. Realizing I had spoken I looked up at both of them, trying to lever myself to my feet on my sore leg. Wincing, I pulled myself to my full height.

  “South of the river. Small cabin. No evidence of theft, they didn’t even take the gun. Just a dead man near his wood pile. Looked like someone had just murdered him. Is that the kind of evidence you’re talking about?”

  She nodded excitedly, as Ethan shook his head and turned away.

  “Y’all are being ridiculous. I seen some crazy shit in my day, including in ‘Nam. I seen men take ears as trophies, rape entire villages of people, and burn towns to the ground. I definitely ain’t sayin’ it’s not possible. But it makes no sense. What’s the point? Humans are already the minority round here—probably round the world by now—why make a point of killin’ the stronger members of the species.”

  Rhi glared at him for the last comment, waiting until he averted his eyes.

  “You ever tried child birth, you self-centered idjit? Let me try pushing a watermelon out your ass and see who you think’s the strongest.” She spit at his foot and grimaced. “Besides, if they’re so strong, why are they the ones dying?”

  She made a good point.

  “Do you have any idea where this group might be now?” I asked, thinking immediately about Kate and Ky.

  She shook her head.

  “No, they move around.” She thought for a moment, then added. “But Susan said she and her family made it out of Hamilton five days ago, and they heard shooting and explosions before they left. Coulda been that group.”

  “Where’s Hamilton?”

  “About five miles west of here on this side of the river. But that’s just a guess. Like I said, they move around. Could be in Seattle or Vancouver right now too. No telling.”

  Vancouver.

  The word snapped me out of my daze.

  I had to get back to them. Even if they were somewhat protected by their gender, this group sounded insane. And sooner or later Kate would cross the wrong person if they were forcing conscription. She wasn’t about to let them keep her away from her mission to find her daughter.

  Staring at the fire, I realized I had no idea how to get back to where I had left Ka
te and Ky. I had seen this town on the map several times when plotting our journey north—drawn by the unusual name to be sure—but I had no concept of whether I could find my way back. Clearly going by river wasn’t an option. Even if there were boats left—doubtful to be sure—I was positive that, alone, I couldn’t fight the tidal surge that was still pushing seawater inland as the west coast moved slowly under the ocean. I also knew that the mountains and foothills were a maze of rock in the best of times. After the recent quakes, going through those passes on foot would be deadly.

  “Listen, I need to get back to my friends. I appreciate the help, and if there’s anything I can do…”

  Rhi interrupted quickly.

  “Actually, there is something,” she said, sparing a glance for Ethan, who looked less convinced.

  She kept on.

  “Our group. They’re in trouble. When we left, we managed to get out from the dam through a small entrance near the water’s edge. But that was before the last quake. That entrance is probably gone now, and …”

  “We don’t know that, Rhi,” said Ethan, annoyed.

  She ignored him.

  “…we might have to fight our way to the main entrance to get them out safely. And if that entrance is no good, we might have to go out a different exit that’s covered in those things. There are only a few of us, and we’ve got little ones to think of. Despite what my ex-Marine husband would have you believe, we couldn’t possibly hope to get them out of there by ourselves.”

  I shook my head, looking down at the ash gathered around my boots, considering it briefly before looking up again.

  “I’m sorry, but I …”

  “There are children. Small, helpless children. If you don’t help us, they will die. I’m sure of it.”

  I locked eyes with the formidable woman, seeing the steel in her spine. And the sorrow. She knew as well as I did that many people weren’t swayed by such appeals anymore. Death was just a part of life. It was expected. It was horrid. And it was unavoidable. Saving others was passé, and it brought death closer to you.

  Little did she know that she was talking to the last true American action hero.

  Also known as the last true sucker.

  I ran a hand through my hair, shaking my head and groaning as I broke eye contact.

  “How far?”

  “Close. Maybe three hours on foot, then through town and up the ravine to the dam. We can come at it from the woods and you can see what we’re dealing with before making a play.”

  “Okay, but on one condition.”

  She narrowed her eyes and her hand, perhaps unconsciously, strayed to her hip where her pistol rode like a coiled snake.

  “Name it.”

  “I need your help finding my way back to my friends. We do your people quick, find them somewhere safe to stay for a couple days, then back to the river. I need to find their trail.”

  Next to her, Ethan guffawed, beginning to reject the concept out of hand, but she held up a hand.

  “Don’t silence me, devil-woman,” he yelled over her raised hand. “I ain’t signing up to go on no wild goose chase with this asshole. We just met him, and here you are trying to convince people there’s some crazy ass group out here huntin’ man-hide, but you’re signing me up to take him on a walk-about in the open? I won’t do it.”

  She turned on him and pushed him against a nearby tree, eyes blazing.

  “You gonna leave those kids to die? Little Margaret, and Eli, and Dave? The baby? You gonna leave them to be eaten? You aren’t gonna be the one to help them. You can barely piss right, you old codger. You can’t run. You can barely see straight. You gonna get them out safely? We need his help. This is the deal.”

  He glared at her, eyes bright with anger. But he didn’t speak.

  He knew that she was right.

  Without pulling her eyes away from her husband, who she still held forcefully against the tree, she spoke plainly over her shoulder.

  “You got a deal. I hope your leg is done mendin’—we’re leaving in five.”

  ***

  “He just cuts ‘em himself, with his eye lasers.” Ethan’s voice was annoyed but serious and committed.

  “But that’s just it,” I said, wincing in pain as we moved carefully over a massive collection of deadfall and debris. “When he fights other Kryptonians, their eye lasers don’t hurt him. So how could his own eye lasers—the same ones that his enemies use, if they are all in fact drawing their power from the yellow sun of Earth—cut his hair and nails?”

  Romeo ranged forward and turned with a single wag of his tail, standing on a large rock near the water’s edge. The spit of land that we were on narrowed as it reached the entrance of only twenty feet or so of land.

  “I reckon … That is, well…” His face lit up with an idea. “Maybe his hair don’t grow? Maybe he just … stays all smooth?”

  I shook my head.

  “Nope. In one of the older movies, he gets despondent and depressed, sick in the head. Lets himself go. He has several scenes where he’s got a five o’clock shadow. If we stick with the movies as a pretty accurate portrayal of the character, his hair grows. Plus, if his hair didn’t grow, he’d be totally bald, right? It never would have grown to what it is now.”

  Ethan kicked a rock absently into the water as he spat.

  “Maybe …”

  “You two Einsteins wanna cut down on the chatter?” Rhi whispered harshly as we approached the narrow cut. To our left, a large cliff tapered down into the water from where the rock gently approached the river; to our right, the rising river had almost eliminated the narrow pass between mountain and running water. Had we waited several more hours, the strip of land might not have existed any more.

  “Just something to think about,” I said to Ethan with an air of superiority.

  He didn’t know that Ky had schooled me on this logic only hours before.

  He glared at me absently, as if continuing to consider the puzzle.

  I looked up at the rising sun, wondering at how long this task would take. And whether I could rely on the ash to continue to spew into the air above the mountains, blocking the sun and allowing me to move in the daylight. From the orange glow to the east and to the south—indicating at least two of the dormant volcanos in the region had lost their tops—I wagered that the gloom was destined to be a semi-permanent affair. Squinting, I sped up to stay with the group.

  “This is where we get back to the real world,” said Rhi, scanning a thickly wooded area with multiple trees near the river, half-submerged by the rising water. To the left, the hills rose steeply into a forest. Half a mile from where we stood, another low bridge had collapsed into the raging river, spars of metal and concrete whipping water to either side in white caps of froth.

  “We go east for a mile, then follow the smaller roads into town.”

  I brought up the picture of the map in my head and thought for a moment.

  “Can we cut in from the woods? Do you know any trails we could use to come at the town from the west instead of using the main roads? Those things—they take the path of least resistance if they can. We have less likelihood of hitting a group of them if we stay in the trees.”

  Ethan nodded once.

  “Sure. I used to fish down here with my brother. But it’s gonna cost us time. Maybe a few extra hours. And that’s not accountin’ for downed trees and rocks and the like.”

  I nodded, staring at the rising sun, which appeared as pale ball hanging behind a mist of ash. It was almost completely white behind the thick clouds of smoke and char.

  “I gotcha. But better we stay alive than quick. Besides, I can’t exactly sprint yet anyway. Best to be careful. If I’m gonna help my friends, I’ve gotta be alive to do it.”

  Ethan, nodded and pointed to the left.

  “This way, then. We’ll catch a woodsman’s trail in about five hundred feet.”

  He started off as I caught Rhi staring at me.

  “It’s not nice t
o stare,” I threw out.

  “You look awfully familiar to me now that I see you in daylight. Have we met?”

  I chuckled briefly, shaking my head.

  “I … used to be on television,” I deferred, not wanting to get into the details. I had left this piece of my biography out of my story before, since it was so damned unbelievable. And technically it was true—my movies had been syndicated on television.

  “Anything I would know?” she asked, her eyes brightening somewhat.

  I glanced at the river to our right, rising as we spoke, then back to the ash-filled sky—a sky that would cause the entire continent to plunge into a deep, dark winter. I thought of my friends. Of all the death around us. Of Kate’s daughter.

  “Nothing that matters one bit,” I said honestly.

  Ahead of us, Ethan’s surprised yell brought our heads forward.

  He stood near the water’s edge, his carbine pulled forward and trained professionally toward several fallen trees near the ragged coast.

  We moved quickly as he backed up, and I squinted over the distance to try to define the threat.

  That’s when one of the logs moved.

  A single shot rang out, and the creature dropped down. But nearly a dozen more were gathered there, pale as palominos and naked as the day they were born. Writhing and struggling to move toward the food they senses was near, they were all weighed down by their bloated and water-logged flesh. Massive bags of fat and bloated tissue dragged their turbid limbs down, giving them the appearance of overly ripe fruits being jostled in a small basket.

  Victims of the flooding—and some other ignominious death before that, no doubt—they had been pushed together by the current and bleached by the sun and the pallor of death, until they looked like a collection of six foot long birch logs.

  I drew within fifty feet, and watched as Ethan moved slowly, back to the woods, rifle trained on the stomach-turning threats. But it was clear that these creature posed no current danger. They were too bloated to move, the clumsiness of death only compounded by the awkwardness of the massive bloat afflicting their limbs.

  “Ethan, watch your six!” Rhi shouted, as he began to near the tree-line. I cursed, pulling my rifle up and struggling forward. The pile of corpses now a distant memory, I watched as nearly a dozen more—these much more mobile and eager—emerged from the green cover of the thick foliage.