by James Sperl
“Now then,” the man said, “why don't you tell me what you're doing here.” He passed his eyes over each person. “You don't look like the garden variety scavenger. So who are you?”
Clarissa took the initiative.
“Please. My friends and I aren't violent, and we're not looking to take anything from you. What Andrew said is true. We don't want trouble. We're just looking for someone.”
The man squinted. “Looking for someone?”
“Yes. A Mr. Kaplinksy. The address in the phone book, and, well, the mailbox at the end of the driveway, says he lives here. Is...is that you?”
The man remained silent for a long time before he finally confirmed, “I'm Kaplinsky.”
The group exhaled collectively. Frowns of bewilderment immediately followed it.
This is Kaplinsky?
“What do you want from me?” he said.
“Well...” Clarissa began. She turned to Andrew and the others as if in doubt of their reason for being there. “We spoke to a young farming couple at Orion—you know, the trading outpost?”
“If you say so.”
“The, uh, woman there said she knew you from before. The Sound, I mean. She said you used to come to her and her husband's booth at the farmer's market all the time.”
Kaplinsky adjusted his grip on the rifle stock. “I don't know anyone at Orion, or whatever you call it, but even if I did, why would they send you to see me?”
“Because they thought you could help us,” Andrew said sternly. “A few months back we received a radio sig—”
“Help?” Kaplinsky exploded into unrestrained laughter. He cackled uproariously, a manly, deep-throated sort of laugh, which wildly juxtaposed what the ears heard and what the eyes saw. “Help who? You? What in the name of all that's left in this world could I help you—” He shook off the unfinished portion of his sentence. “Never mind. It doesn't matter. There is no help. For any of us. All we have now is ourselves to look after. Now I'd like you to get in your vehicles, turn around, and get off my property.”
Jon exhaled in frustration. It may have been pie-in-the-sky dreaming, but the optimistic part of him thought they would roll up to Kaplinsky's door, be invited in for a cup of tea—or whatever scientists drank—and sent on their way armed with Rosenstein's location. The situation couldn't have been more opposite.
“Look, Mr. Kaplinsky,” he said, stepping forward. Kaplinsky pivoted the rifle toward him. “All we want is information. That's it. If you would be so kind as to tell us what you know, we'll be on our way and leave you be.”
“Well, I don't know anything that could help any of you,” Kaplinsky grumbled. “I'm not sure why those people sent you up here, but I've got nothing to say.” He scratched his leg, which caused a run to bloom in the stocking. “Goddammit! Now look at what you all made me do! You know how hard it is to find a good pair of stockings nowadays?” He glanced at everyone. Jon thought he might actually expect an answer. “Aw, hell, you probably don't, but trust me, it isn't easy.”
The group stood speechless. Eyes sought each other out in absolute befuddlement.
“Now, please leave.”
“Please,” Clarissa said, her hands pressed together pleadingly. “We're just looking for someplace, and Corrine thought you might be able to point us in the right direction.”
Jon saw it. He was fairly sure everyone else caught it as well. At the mention of “Corrine,” the man's head had twitched in recognition, and his eyes had narrowed. Clarissa seized upon the opportunity.
“You remember Corrine, don't you?” she said. “They have a little girl? Julia? Likes to draw? Now that I think about it...” Clarissa stepped closer to Kaplinsky, who had suddenly become so engaged he made no attempt to order her back. “...I think you were in one of her drawings. In fact, I'm almost sure of it.” Kaplinsky slowly lowered the barrel of his rifle.
“It was a picture of her and her parent's booth at the market. She had drawn baskets of vegetables and fruits. She and her mom were behind the counter. A man bought a bag of apples from them. I don't remember what he was wearing, but I remember he had a beard. It was long and gray, just like yours. And he was smiling.” She took another step forward. “I think she drew you.”
Kaplinsky dropped the butt of the rifle to the ground. His eyes searched space as if trying to recall a time he had made himself forget.
“You saw Julia?” he said.
“I did. She's a beautiful little girl, and she seems to be doing well, all things considered.” Clarissa's eyes flitted to Andrew, who urged her on with an imperceptible nod: It's working. Keep going! “Still likes to draw too.”
Kaplinsky softened. “She did love those crayons.” He sighed a melancholic breath. “She used to draw me every time I came. Said I reminded her of Santa Clause.” He glanced at everyone, his tenor having shifted radically. “Could you imagine this face donning the fat man's suit? Ah, but what a precious child. She gave me every picture she ever drew of me. All but one.” He looked at Clarissa. “That one you described? She told me that particular day she wanted to keep it. I asked her why, and she said she didn't know. She just liked how happy she'd made me look in it.” His eyes drifted to the ground before darting back up. “Where'd you say she was now?”
“Orion,” Clarissa replied. “It's a trading post about thirty minutes or so west once you hit the eighty.”
Kaplinsky nodded. “I'm encouraged to hear that attempts to reestablish society haven't fallen by the wayside. I even hear Las Vegas and Denver still have a power grid. I'm sure there are others.” He shook his head rapidly, as if for clarity. “What'd you say you wanted from me? You wanted to know where something was?”
“That's right,” Andrew said. “Corrine thought you might be able to help us.”
“I don't know why she would think that. I mostly stay to myself up here. Hardly ever leave. I don't have a radio, a phone, not that either would do much good now. The only bits of information I get regarding the outside world are from Jerry down the hill.” Kaplinsky leaned in as if divulging a secret. “He deals quite a bit in the black market, so I get most of my supplies and news from him.”
“Actually,” Rachel said, chiming in, “the place we're looking for is someplace you might know about from before the Sound. A place called Rosenstein Biotechnologies.”
Kaplinsky's face went slack. He examined the group of people standing before him with fresh eyes.
“Rosenstein.”
“Yeah,” added Evan. “We know it's in a city called Ashland, but, like, we don't know which Ashland. There're over twenty!”
Kaplinsky twitched, the name not only familiar but personally meaningful to him.
Jon searched his face.
“Do you know what that place is?” he said. “Clarissa and I heard a radio broadcast telling people to go there.”
Kaplinsky wrinkled a brow. “Why?”
“We were hoping you could tell us,” said Clarissa. “The man on the broadcast said that the people at Rosenstein might know what's happening. That they might know why people are disappearing. The person in the message said that anyone who heard it should come to Ashland, but we lost the transmission before we could learn which one. Can you help us?”
Kaplinsky looked at the ground pensively, an internal debate taking place. Startling everyone, he swung his rifle over his shoulder and started for the porch. The group parted and allowed him to pass between them, clueless to his actions.
Kaplinsky trudged up the porch steps and retrieved a key from the top of the door casing. He slipped it into the lock and pushed open the door, but rather than go inside, he stepped back and gestured into the house with an outstretched arm.
“You should all probably come inside,” he said.
Heads turned in surprise to look at one another. Did they hear right? Had he just invited them into his home?
Jon crossed to the bottom of the stairs.
“Does this mean you can help us? Do you know where Rosenstein i
s?”
Kaplinsky inhaled. He contemplated the question for a long moment before he answered.
“Of course I know where Rosenstein is,” he said. “I used to work for them.”
CHAPTER 37
Arlin dumped a can of chicken stew into a dented pot. It sizzled upon impact. Too hot! he thought and scrambled to twist down the propane heat beneath it.
He gave the stew a quick, absent stir. It was all he could manage; the TV across the room commanded his attention. And why shouldn't it? Watching a video of a hot blond getting rammed from behind was infinitely more interesting than watching food heat up.
Arlin still couldn't believe his luck. He knew his mama loved him—the weekly stints at Orion's Belt she bought for him more than proved that; so what if she liked to watch sometimes—but the girl she delivered up earlier today was such an unexpected gift, all she was missing was a bow.
He hadn't experienced a woman that untainted in some time. And so tight. Arlin knew women, and Blondie hadn't fucked anyone for a while. Combine her celibacy with her fear—fear always made the girly parts clench up—and it was like he was banging a sixteen-year-old virgin.
Arlin adjusted the heat again, gave the pot a once-around stir then crossed the room to stare at the TV. The blond's face was right in the camera. She cried silently and moaned between thrusts, as Arlin gave her his best from behind. Her face filled the screen and continuously morphed among expressions that ranged from pain to shame to revulsion to suppressed pleasure. Whoring herself out for pills may not have been her preferred method of payment, but Arlin knew a part of her enjoyed it. They all did.
It was the plight of the addicted. How far did you go to hold that high? At least Blondie seemed like she understood the cost of her demons, unlike some of the other girls. She paid her fee for services in full, even if she did just sort of lay there like a dead fish most of the time. But where her enthusiasm faltered, her ever-emotive face more than made up for it. The truth was in the eyes. Arlin wondered if she would've had the same visceral reactions if she knew he recorded her.
The door to the trailer ripped opened, causing Arlin to stumble back as he turned. His mama's right-hand man stood in the doorway.
“Jesus Christ, Clint!” Arlin said, “Don't nobody teach you how to knock? You coulda got your head blown off.”
Clint glanced from Arlin to the TV. “Yeah, I don't think so. Natty wanted me to tell you Inferno's here.”
Arlin straightened. “Inferno's here? Now?”
“On his way as we speak.”
“But, uh...” Arlin checked a wall clock, as he crossed to his stew and killed the heat. “...I thought he was coming later today.”
Clint shrugged. “Must've had a change of plans.”
With that, Clint peeled away, leaving the door ajar. Sunlight spilled into the dingy trailer and highlighted just how filthy it was. Suddenly, Arlin felt overcome with the need to straighten.
He raced around the small space, clearing off seats and tables. He hurled whatever he had scooped up into the back room; nobody ever went back there. When he returned, the copious light from the doorway had diminished. An ominous silhouette filled the opening.
The person who stepped into the trailer was an incalculable savage called Mr. Stitch. He was Inferno's top man and was always the first to clear a meet spot. Silent and observant, his pomade-slicked and side-parted hair belied the beast that resided behind his bespectacled eyes. Tall and not particularly muscular, what he lacked in physicality he made up for in sheer will and unrepentant brutality. Rumor had it when Inferno needed to reassert his position among regional drug networks, he called upon Mr. Stitch to handle all the grisly details. Scarier than what he did to his victims was the more unnerving rumor that he enjoyed it.
Sauntering in behind him was Inferno's number two, a young woman Arlin had only ever heard called Ludi. Apparently, she had changed her name to Ludi after some French actress named Ludivine Sagnier, who Ludi thought was not only the pinnacle of modern French sexiness but also someone whom she resembled.
Arlin had never heard of Ludivine Sagnier, but if she looked half as hot as the Ludi who glared at him menacingly from the entrance, that French girl was probably a looker too. Ludi was Inferno's secret assassin, or so Arlin had heard. Whereas Mr. Stitch approached his job with detached utilitarianism, Ludi used her feminine wiles to coax information from someone before she dispatched them.
It wouldn't have been hard for her. Her unvarnished beauty and athletic curves were impossible to ignore. Arlin had sampled quite a few contenders during his time at Orion—some were so-so, some were downright astounding—but all of them had possessed the unappealing trait of looking haggard and road-worn. It was an unfortunate side effect of the new, post-civilized age. Looks took a distant second to the cost of survival. Not Ludi, though. Her allure and sexuality disarmed him with their purity.
She always pulled back her luscious strawberry-blond hair from her pale face, which was unblemished as a baby's ass. Her striking beryl-blue eyes popped beneath model-perfect brows thanks to gobs of jet black eyeliner. She wore dual silver nose rings—one hoop on each nostril—and accented those with a couple of dozen silver earrings, all of which punched a trail along the contour of her left ear. By all accounts, she was a post-apocalyptic stunner.
Mr. Stitch crossed to the farthest point of the cabin and leaned against the sink just as casual as you please. He pulled an eight-inch knife from his belt and dug under his finger nails with the tip.
Ludi entered and stepped to the side, never once taking her eyes of Arlin, who became flush with panic when he remembered the video of him fucking the blond girl still played on the TV behind him. He swallowed nervously when he recognized that she saw it, but he couldn't do anything about it now.
Inferno was at his doorstep.
Arlin inhaled a steady breath and geared himself up for the meeting.
Inferno creeped him the hell out. It wasn't so much what he looked like—though his appearance was shocking—as it was the person he had become. Before the Sound, when things like cell phones and Internet worked, Arlin had conducted his business with Inferno without ever having to step into a room with him. Sure, there were initial meetings to broker deals, but those were usually one-time gigs. Once things were in place, it was just a matter of exchanging cash for product, something for which Arlin wasn't required to participate. He had underlings for that.
But once technology went the way of the dinosaur, face-to-faces became necessary again. Those he couldn't entrust to his lackeys. Those he had to do himself. Before the Sound, his first meeting with Inferno had been unremarkable yet worthwhile. The guy had good—extraordinary, actually—product and was in the primordial stages of extending his network eastward. For Arlin, it was a no-brainer: in-demand product plus eager, reliable supplier equaled max greenbacks. He became one of Inferno's first East Coast distributors.
After the world stalled, though, something happened. Inferno became somebody else, and the somebody he was before could no longer be mentioned. His reputation preceded him and for a good reason. He became steeped in legend in record time, both for the quality of his merch—and the medieval methods he used to contend with those who unwisely tried to go up against him—and his mythical transformation.
Arlin had heard stories of flash assemblies, gatherings held on the fly and advertised only via word-of-mouth. People flocked to wherever Inferno was, anxious to catch a glimpse of the man who had defied death and rose to supply a frightened populace with the means to sidestep an otherworldly fate.
His latest, Road Rage, cemented him as a player of the highest order. No one could replicate it, which in turn meant no one could compete. His prestige among the chemically dependent reached heights known only by birds, and when people mentioned his name, they did it with the utmost reverence—and no small amount of fear. When his infamy failed to make the case that he was someone with whom no one should trifle, his appearance more than rounded out the
sale.
Inferno's attire was always a colorless affair. Black denim jeans, black logger boots, and a black hooded sweatshirt were his go-to apparel. The black poncho, Arlin noted, was a recent addition that further promoted his desired image as a wasteland heavy to the next level. But it was the sugar skull ski mask that knocked it home.
Designed in a Dia De Los Muertos styling that was both horrific and gorgeous, the bone-white image over black neoprene was an homage to death—it was also his calling card. To see it—i.e., him—meant to know fear. Inferno was the embodiment of the Grim Reaper for the post-Sound age, a modern day bogeyman whose notoriety had taken on a life of its own. Stories of his ascension from hyper dealer to notorious, nationwide drug lord circulated like a virus.
He designed and produced his own supply, which by all accounts—Arlin's included—was some of the most potent stuff to have hit the streets in eons, and that included what had circulated in the pre-Sound era. Inferno had a devoted network of buyers, but more than that, he had a committed legion of followers, who would kill or die for him in cult-like allegiance. His rise to power derived from the legend of his becoming. In his previous life, he had been someone else, someone normal like Arlin, but battles were fought and lost, and out of their fire rose Inferno, a mythological Phoenix from the ashes.
Some say he transformed that day into the human-like creature he was now, but Arlin thought differently. A person doesn't suddenly change who they are because they look different. To him, a man is who he is. It was just a matter of whether he wanted his outsides to match his insides. As far as he was concerned, Inferno was the only person he ever met whose external to internal ratio was in perfect balance.
Inferno stepped inside the trailer. “Arlin,” he said without a trace of pleasantry.
“Hey, Inferno,” Arlin replied through an uncomfortable grimace. He hated Inferno's grandiose name almost as much as he hated the sound of his voice. Hoarse and grating, it was like he had swallowed a cupful of minced razor blades and followed it with a hydrochloric acid chaser. It was all Arlin could do to get through a conversation with him.