by B. V. Larson
He hesitated, and for a moment, I thought I saw a tiny tremble at his mouth. It must have been the dim light, however; the Preacher never wavered.
“There is something else out there,” he said at last. “Something is sending these things to us.”
He paused, and then said, “Watch your back.”
Seven
Visiting the Preacher had not made me any less nervous. I moved quietly, with all the woods craft a dozen years of deer hunting in these hills with my dad had taught me. My saber never left my hand, and even though my throat tickled horribly, I never coughed. I avoided dry patches that might cause my boots to crunch unduly.
In any case, the hike down to Redmoor was relatively uneventful. Along the way I paused to eat some sardines and hard biscuits the Preacher had provided me. I took the opportunity to examine the Preacher’s map as I chewed.
I spent a bit of time running my fingers along the map lines and calculating distances. I marked a tiny blue box where my cabin was with a pen. The natural route from there to town didn’t cross any of the colored lines the Preacher had added, nor did our usual route out to SR 446. But on the way from my cabin to the Preacher’s there was indeed a thready blue pencil line in the vicinity. Had I crossed it on the way there this morning? My mix of following the logging road and weaving through the woods might or might not have caused me to cross that vague line scratched on an old map. It wasn’t like a street map. It only showed major roadways.
Perhaps that is where I had picked up the lost ones, the Krenzer girls. I shuddered. How close had I come, perhaps a dozen times, to walking into that line and—shifting into something? If the Preacher’s map was correctly done, it was vital information. Everyone should have a copy.
There was another line, blue pencil or felt tip, I think this time, placed between me and town. It took an extra half-mile, but I gave it a wide berth. One thing the map did is give me an extra sense of confidence as I arrived in town. It felt good to think you might have in your hands a way to prevent your random demise. It might all be a comforting illusion, like a newspaper horoscope, but it felt good, regardless.
A heavy red line, definitely felt tip this time, cut a pie-wedge out of Redmoor, leaving the northern third of town including the downtown business district almost inaccessible. I nodded to myself, no wonder we had abandoned the town. Thinking it over, I realized that that third of town had been the first to go—mad. The police and fire stations were in that area. There were no police or firefighters left alive in our town now. They had died out like the wooly mammoths. I shook my head and wondered if elsewhere in the world people were mapping out madness and death just like this. The cities must be living hells.
When I arrived in Redmoor, it was a ghost town. There were no lights, no sounds, and no traffic. Even the stoplights had stopped blinking weeks ago, their emergency batteries having long since run out of juice. Redmoor had never been a big town. We had an optimistic population estimate of three thousand one hundred and sixteen printed on the sign. Someone had crossed out all the digits except for the final sixteen. I wondered how long it would be before we had to cross out the one as well. In the hot months the summer people who kept cabins up here and only spent their vacation time each year along the lake always inflated the population. We had two motels, a single gas station combined with a Stop-n-Go convenience store, three churches—all Protestant flavors, of course, and an elementary school. Once you reached age twelve, you had to ride the school bus down to Newton to get your education. All that was ancient history now.
I chose to visit the closest target first, the Captain’s place. Captain James Ryerson was, as far as I knew, the only surviving inhabitant of Redmoor proper who had never fled this entire summer or fall. He had simply refused and had holed up in his place at the southern edge of town. His house backed up right against the woods. His parents had left it to him, and he’d never moved away. A veteran of the Gulf Wars, he had come back after a few decades in the service to the town in which he was born. The town was much the same as it had been in his youth, but he had changed. He had become one of those funny, survivalist-type vets, one of the ones who never really got over their war. He had all the telltale signs: He wore fatigues often, always at least a tattered service cap. His cinderblock house was full of guns and supplies, too. People always said he had a fully automatic weapon in there. Quite illegal of course, but the local police knew him, had grown up with him, so they didn’t bother him about it.
He had been in the Special Forces, everyone knew that, but no one was sure which service it had been. If you asked him about it, he wouldn’t tell you. I had once confronted him and ticked off all the ones I knew of, Delta, the Seals, the Green Berets, etc.
“They called me a Captain,” he said, with a grim smile, and that was all anyone could get out of him.
One bright, sunny day last summer the meter guy had grown claws. Wearing orange coveralls and a flesh-covered head in the vague shape of a pumpkin, he had killed my dad and a lot of other people. The meter guy had finished up his route on the Captain’s front lawn. The dozen or so slugs into his misshapen skull had proven, once and for all, that the Captain really did own the only fully automatic rifle in Redmoor. And I will always like him for it using it that day.
I sheathed my saber and took off my hat so it would be easy to recognize my face as I approached his place. One simply did not approach this man’s place looking armed and dangerous. He had always been paranoid, and since the world had recently gone mad, his outlook had not improved. The gate of iron bars had only a latch on it, no lock, but I didn’t barge in. Instead, I tugged on the cord that hung down on one side of the gate. I heard a bell tinkling somewhere.
While I waited, I looked through the iron bars and past the tall cinderblock walls into the yard. There were big humps in the earth that could only be buried bodies. There were a lot of them. If I thought about it, and I tried not to, I could detect a strange unpleasant odor coming from his emergency cemetery. Such things seemed commonplace now. Perhaps they would be a curbside fashion statement someday, these front yard gravesites.
I waited ten seconds, and then jerked the cord again.
“Gannon?” asked a harsh whisper off to my left.
Startled, I turned my face up and squinted at the top of the wall. The Captain was up there, sitting on the top of his bricks. He had a rifle aimed at my head.
“There you are,” I said with all the cheer I could muster. “Fixing up the top of your wall, are you?” I chuckled falsely. It was a stupid thing to say and I felt stupid saying it, but it was the first thing that came to mind. I had always gotten along with the Captain better than most. The key, I found, was to accept everything he did as completely normal, and everything that he said as completely reasonable. That way, nothing you said ever set him off and you could deal with him. It was like feeding a strange pit-bull.
“Always approach a man from the left,” he said. “The left is a blind spot for most targets.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding. He studied me further and I kept my smile pasted in place. He had been strange before recent events, and now I wondered how far a-field his mind might have wandered after a month or two of burying deformed, murderous neighbors in his front yard.
“Good to see you, Gannon,” he said, lowering his weapon finally. He dropped down inside his wall and came around to let me in.
“You still move with as much stealth as ever, Captain.”
He clanged the gates shut behind us and turned to inspect me. He was about fifty, but still in excellent shape. He was shorter than I, but stockier. His hair was reddish-gray and as unkempt as his beard, which was red shot through with silver. His eyes were the kind of yellowy-brown that looks like a dusky orange.
“Show me your hands,” he demanded.
Surprised, but not too surprised, I showed him my hands.
“Now your feet.”
“What?”
“Shoes, socks—off,” he demanded.
He didn’t answer and now was inspecting my ears. After a long moment he seemed satisfied. He smiled finally, and looked at me like the friend I thought I was.
A more normal person would have invited me in for a can of cola, but not the Captain.
“The Preacher sent you?” he said.
“Yes, he gave me a new kind of map.”
“I’ve got a copy, a great piece of intelligence if confirmed.”
“Um, yes. I guess I’m supposed to confirm it and find ways around these lines. He also talked about there being at least three kinds of changelings.”
“Right, that’s why I checked your extremities.”
“Huh?” I asked, recognizing a new piece of data.
“I’ve gotten a few of the lurking kind, the ones that can talk,” he said, indicating the humps of earth surrounding us. “They have deformities sometimes, a foot or an ear…”
I nodded and thought I was glad I didn’t have a clubfoot or anything. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had ever made a mistake in identifying one of them. Another thought chained off in my mind: was a true madman any better than a monster? I figured the madman probably was better. He might someday come to his senses.
“I’ve come to tell you something, James,” I said, risking using his first name. “The Preacher and the others mean to build a compound in town, at the old medical center. We’ll build a big fortress out of it, like this place you have here, but on a grander scale. And we need you there with us.”
He stopped scanning for intruders and our eyes really met for the first time. I could see in his face he saw this as a call to duty, and he was troubled by it.
“You remember what happened before, at the school?”
“Yeah, I know. We plan to do it right this time. We want to make a real fortress out of the medical center.
He eyed me doubtfully. “I’ve lived through a lot. Staying in this place on my own has seen me through for years.”
I nodded. “That sounds like a ‘No’.”
He dropped his gaze. I think I had shamed him a bit, and for the first time since I’d met him as a kid, he seemed unsure of himself.
He reached into his pocket then, and pulled out a black, heavy pistol. It had the distinctive shape of a Colt .45. He handed it to me.
“I want you to have this weapon. You like to fight in close, Gannon, and I respect that, I really do. I mean, every soldier has to find his own path to battle in an asymmetric struggle like this. But I know there are times when a bit of range and firepower are extremely useful. Take it from a pro.”
“Yeah, if it goes off,” I said.
He nodded. “That’s got to be the worst thing about this whole business. Unreliable weaponry.”
I half-snorted. Thousands dead, and the worst thing was that your gun might not work. I guess that explained the Captain’s thinking.
I took the weapon and hefted it. After a moment, I nodded. He handed me a box of rounds to go with it. The gun and the bullets each weighed down a coat pocket. The weight of guns and ammo was another reason why I didn’t often carry them. I’d found that just running for it worked really well sometimes. Still, I could have used this weapon earlier today to great effect.
“Thanks,” I told him. I turned to go, and decided to try one more time.
“Ryerson,” I said, eyeing him now, man to man. “You are already in your own prison here. All we’re asking is for you to come join us in our new prison. We need you too, to do your magic, we need your know-how. The people of Redmoor, what’s left of them, need you and me.”
He looked at me a moment, then went back to scanning the horizon like a hunted animal. I wondered right then if he was really the bravest man or the biggest coward in town. Probably a bit of both, but the guy sure knew how to stay alive.
“Okay,” he said finally. “If you guys get it built, and you confirm where the changelings are made, I’ll move into your camp.”
I nodded and left. Behind me, I felt his eyes on my back for a long time.
Eight
I got back to the cabin with only an hour or so to spare before dark. I could have stayed in town or gone to set up camp at the medical center with the rest of them, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about Monika and Vance. I’d already left them alone all day long. Vance moved fast, who knew how things had gone?
When I got there, the Durango was in the driveway, and I felt somewhat relieved. In these new times without phones or any other form of instant communication, sometimes your timing was off and you missed each other. Vance opened the door and poked his head out.
“`Bout time you showed,” he said and waved.
Inside, it took me a moment to realize that Monika wasn’t there. My frown amused Vance.
“Sorry, lover-boy, the Doctor kept her down at the medical center. They really are building it up as a fortress. They’ve got a watch post on the roof and everything. I suppose you heard about it?”
I nodded bitterly, realizing I had chosen the wrong path. I had missed my chance to see her without Vance hanging around.
“Eric Foti is there, with his kids, and Carlene Mitts and that goofy Nick Hackler and the Hentons and the Dagens too. Even old Brigman is there. Remember good old Mr. Brigman from back in school? We both had him for Algebra. He said he had been away for summer vacation, but then his family called him back home and when he got here everyone on his block was already dead and now he’s stuck with us in this one-flea town full of monsters,” said Vance. “Poor bastard.”
“At least he’s alive. That’s about all any of us have got.”
I looked outside. In the distance, I could see the sun would soon set out over the west shore of the lake. I came to a sudden decision.
“Let’s pack up and go join them.”
“Huh? Now? It’s getting late for that, bud.”
“Let’s just do it. We’ve got a hole in our roof and some kind of smart hoofed monster out there. With this map,” I said, handing him the map. “We know what to avoid. We’ll be safer in town with the rest of them as long as we keep everyone away from these lines.”
Vance pondered the map for a moment. “I’ve heard about these, they were running them off on the color copier at the center. I didn’t get my hands on one yet. What do you think of them?”
“I think they might be our salvation.”
We packed quickly, if you can even call it packing. Really, we threw things in the back of the Durango as fast as we could. We thought about taking the generator, I’m sure they could use it down there, but it would take too much work. We decided to leave it until later. We started down the hill with less than a half-hour until dark.
I took the wheel and we rolled out spitting gravel.
Vance kept checking the dying sunlight nervously. “I’m saving one round in here for you in case we buy the farm,” he told me darkly.
“We’ll be okay.”
“Has that girl got such a hold on you already?”
“I don’t know.”
Vance laughed and went back to scanning the road. His rifle poked out the window. The trees flashed by as we negotiated the potholes and sharp turns.
“Well, I like her too,” said Vance seriously after a bit. “I mean, it’s not like there are a lot of choice females running around here.”
I nodded and sighed. It was only natural. “Yeah. We’re twenty-somethings stuck out in the woods without women. “
“So,” he said, delicately. “I guess it’s a free-for-all? The best man wins?”
“I guess,” I said accepting the idea unhappily. “In the end, the girl always makes the choice anyway.”
“At least when she’s a babe,” laughed Vance. He sounded way too happy with our arrangement. He had always been the more confident of the two of us with girls. He probably thought he had
it in the bag. I set my jaw, determined to give him a run for his money if we all lived that long.
When we had driven about two-thirds of the way, I saw something in the woods off to my left, toward the distant lakeshore. It was bluish, and it shimmered, or glowed in the trees. Without any ceremony, I killed the Durango’s engine. We rolled to a stop and I pulled it over to the side.
“Gas?” asked Vance.
I pointed into the woods. “Something’s out there.”
“No kidding? There’s always something out there. Let’s get rolling.”
I shook my head. “This something is glowing.”
Vance looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “That is all the more freaking reason to crank that ignition.”
“Look,” I said, turning to him. “I’m going to go check it out. This is pretty close to where that shift line is on the map. Right where the Preacher said it was. He wanted me to check this one out.”
“Okay, so we just checked it out,” said Vance slowly, sounding like someone who was trying to talk a stubborn, rather thick-brained child out of something foolish. “The line is right where he said it would be. You saw a glowing critter, you have confirmed it. Now, we can go back and tell him he was right, something really is out here, hallelujah.”
“All right,” I said and turned on the ignition. It didn’t start, the Durango was dead.
“Oh, come on,” complained Vance. “Are you faking?”
“No, I think we should check this thing out now, though.”
“The engine won’t start? Let me try.” Vance climbed across and got into the driver seat. I got out of the way and stood outside in the road.
He worked at it and cursed.
“Come on, you are going to wreck the starter or something,” I told him.
After six or seven more grinding tries, he gave up. He glared at me in defeat.
“We need to check it out,” I said earnestly. “We need to learn from it. We can’t just run from everything forever.”