Moriah

  When she had finished, Riley stood and fixed her pants. She was about to head back the way she’d come, towards Kevin and what was left of the street. Before she did, she turned and considered the wall of green behind her. Riley found herself face to face with a mighty horned head. It was turned slightly in her direction, munching on plants, one wrinkle-hooded eye regarding her disinterestedly. She gasped before it registered in her mind that she was in no true danger.

  Riley watched the ungulate as it browsed, stripping leaves off branches. When it had denuded a final branch, it backed up and trundled off.

  Kevin came running when Riley called. Before he could ask, she told him. “I just saw a rhinoceros. A rhinoceros. Where’d that come from?”

  “Probably escaped from a zoo.”

  “I’ve never seen one in real life.”

  “Like running into a dinosaur, huh?” Kevin pushed through the vegetation where the rhino had fed. “Yeah. Here we go.”

  Riley parted the branches and followed him. The rhinoceros had its back to them, wallowing in the river. Kevin wasn’t looking at the rhino. His attention was captivated by a flat bottomed skiff washed up on the shore nearest them. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he told Riley.

  * * *

  The snores accompanying Moriarity’s mid-day nap, echoing through the cavern, ended suddenly as he opened an unseeing eye. The .45 was in his hand on his lap. Someone was outside his cave. He could feel the other’s presence. Moriarity donned his welding helmet, masking his wrinkled face. He retrieved his caduceus, which served double duty as a talisman to ward off evil and as a cane. Padding to the mouth of his cave barefoot, he supported himself on the staff. He kept the pistol close in against his side, the business end of the .45 aimed outside towards the world and its inhabitants.

  “I know you’re out there.” He called to whatever was there.

  “And I know you’re in there,” it called back.

  “I know why you’re here.”

  “And I know where you’re going.”

  The voice had answered from a different position. Whoever he was—and judging from the voice, it was a he—he was moving around out there.

  “Oh yeah?” Moriarity asked from the safety of his cave, “And where’s that?”

  “Let me ask you a question…” When the query arrived, the voice had shifted again. “How long you been out here by yourself in this cave?”

  “They told me you’d be by.”

  “Yeah. I figured they knew I was on their trail. What surprised me is they led me here to you.”

  It felt to Moriarity like the middle of the day, the way the sun fell on his face in the cave. “Why does that surprise you?”

  “You can’t see, can you?”

  “I can see fine enough.” The old man circled the pistol in the air, his attempt to menace. “Aren’t you going to ask me where they’re going?”

  “Why? So you won’t tell me?”

  “That’s right.” Moriarity took a step closer to the mouth of his cave, confident.

  “The same way I know where you’re going, I know where they’re going.”

  “I don’t like your attitude, mister-whoever-you-are. I want you off this property. Posthaste. Which means now.”

  “Don’t need to get so testy about it.” The voice moved off, fading. “My curiosity is satisfied. I’ll be on my way.”

  “You best be.” Believing the other to be retreating, Moriarity grew bold and stepped forward, out of the cave. “I wield terrible magic.”

  The voice, when it answered, was behind him, nearer than it should have been. “I wield this.”

  The first blow knocked the welding helmet off the old man and put him down.

  “And I know where you’re going.”

  “Where would that be?” Moriarity asked from his hands and knees, his head swimming, still defiant.

  “To sleep.” The man stood above him. “Now go to sleep.”

  The second blow rendered him insensate.

  When Moriarity came to, the sun was warm on his bare feet. He lifted his aching head from the ground and listened.

  “You out there?”

  When no one answered, he knew he was alone. Alive. He couldn’t believe it. Alive. The old man sat up and felt around the earth about him, finding his staff, finding his pistol. He checked the handgun by feel and memory. All was as it should be. The man had clobbered him over the head and left him there with his gun loaded and his staff intact.

  For whatever reason, Moriarity had been spared. His head ached and he suspected it would for some time. Should have stayed down the first time, he reprimanded himself. Could have had his melon split open. Moriarity got to his feet unsteadily, bracing himself on the caduceus. Had to find his welding helmet.

  Just Before Dawn

  It took little discussion for Kevin to convince them to continue to the coast on the river. Their quads would have sputtered out empty long before they’d reached their destination, leaving them to complete their trek on foot. With Dee’s splinted leg and shot foot and Bruce growing feverish, that wasn’t an option. Though he was sweating profusely, Bruce persisted in downplaying his physical state, insisting all was well.

  They clambered aboard the skiff with their guns and packs, weighing the boat down in the water. They had taken boards from the town and used these as oars when necessary, the river’s current taking them downstream. Bruce sat at the bow, the barrel of the M40A3 sniper rifle resting on the portside gunwale. Riley was next to him, their backs resting against the backpacks they’d propped against the bench seat. Dee and Kevin sat towards the stern of the small boat, Kevin with a plank of wood—a makeshift oar—directly behind Bruce because Bruce was not rowing. Dee’s FN-FAL jutted out over the transom, above the water.

  The river had carved its channel from the earth for some two million years. Catfish, shad and bass darted beneath them. Occasionally a sunken kayak or canoe poked out of the water they moved through. Aside from a skeleton in the river, they saw no sign of the living or the dead. The sun was warm, the air was cool, and Riley found herself nodding off.

  When she opened her eyes, Dee’s oilskin Drover covered her and Bruce like a blanket. She sat up, straightening her legs. Turning, she thanked Dee, who smiled. The river had changed, empting into an estuary. The water was slower moving and brackish, wide enough that details from either shore were difficult to make out. The sun had begun its descent.

  They saw the dilapidated span long before they floated under it. A series of highways connected to either end of the bridge, wishbone interchanges no car had travelled in many years. More than three kilometers in length, the eighty-meter main span under which they passed looked intact. Twenty meters above them, sea birds rested amid the structural steel plate girders and thousands of X crossframes. The birds remained in place, noting their passage, unperturbed.

  Some distance after the bridge they put ashore for the evening.

  “Bruce. You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be all right,” he told Riley. He was sweating but he was standing.

  She handed him more antibiotics. “Take these, okay?”

  He took what she gave him and swallowed the pills, chasing them down with a long draught from his canteen.

  * * *

  The following morning they woke to a visitor.

  “How long has it been standing there?” Dee asked Kevin, who was on watch.

  “The last hour or so. It wandered over, been standing there ever since.”

  The zombie stood in place on the border of their camp. Its pants, reduced to rags, hung off its bony hips, low slung. A blackened, cruddy shirt covered its torso. Flies circled and alighted upon its sallow frame. It stared at them with blank eyes set back in darkened sockets, its low moans barely audible.

  “Why hasn’t it attacked?” Dee questioned its inactivity.

  “Maybe it’s shy.”

  “What do you think it’s thinking?”

  “It doesn’t think
like we do.” Bruce had sat up, soaked in sweat. “Why didn’t anyone wake me up for my watch?”

  “Hard to believe they were human once.” Dee slipped into his coat.

  “They were,” confirmed Kevin.

  “Not any more.” Bruce drank from his canteen, emptying it. “Why didn’t anyone wake me, I asked.”

  “Bruce, look at you.” Kevin never took his eyes off the zombie, holding the dosimeter out in its direction.

  “Let’s wake Riley.” Dee patted the Colt he wore. “Don’t want to scare her.”

  Bruce peeled back the bandage on his shoulder, under his shirt, eyeing his wound. “It could smell us a mile off.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Kevin. “I’m not ripe.”

  * * *

  After Dee had set a pot to boil, he roused Riley. She saw the thing on the periphery of their camp and immediately asked how long it’d been there.

  “About an hour or so now,” Kevin repeated for her benefit. “I didn’t want to alarm any of you guys,” he spoke to them all, “and I still don’t, but listen—Bruce was right—we are being followed.”

  The others looked expectantly at him.

  “Here.” Kevin handed Dee the single lens field glasses. “Over that way.” Dee glassed the scene, harrumphed, and went to hand the minocular to Bruce, who had not gotten up off the ground yet and waved it away. Dee passed the tool to Riley. She scanned the horizon to their northwest, the sky there dark enough with the retreating night that a campfire showed clearly. She thought she saw one figure seated next to its flame. It was hard to tell, because even with the magnifying lens the distance between their two camps was great.

  “Who do you think it is?” Riley asked the men. “Burning Man?”

  “It’s one of those mutants.” Bruce hadn’t even looked.

  “Couldn’t be those people who were following you, Riley,” Dee agreed. “They’re all dead.”

  “Riley, the little red head,” Kevin tried to make out what details he could through the minocular, “you saw her dead?”

  “Well, no, that bomb pretty much...”

  “She’s dead, Kev.” Bruce coughed.

  The zombie loitering outside their camp lowed plaintively.

  “Could be anybody out here.” Kevin lowered the minocular. “Whoever they are—whatever they are—they’re not trying to hide themselves any longer.”

  “No they are not.” Dee furrowed his brow.

  “We could walk over there,” said Riley.

  “And?”

  “See who they are,” she told Dee. “See what they want. Kill them.”

  “We could wait here,” Kevin built on her suggestion. “Ambush them.”

  “I think we should keep going,” Dee said, the water in the kettle simmering. “If we ever want to catch up to the others. We’re already three days behind them. Taking this river was great, but it took us south of where we need to be.”

  Bruce still hadn’t risen. “Hope the hermit is okay.”

  “Come on, Kevin,” Riley said. “You and I will go. It’ll take us most of the morning to get there, but whoever it is, they’ll be on the move soon.”

  “Riley—”

  “Dee. You or Bruce are in no condition—”

  “Riley.”

  “—it’s got to be me and Kevin.”

  “No, Riley, listen to me for a minute, okay? We have to assume that whoever that is back there, he’s dangerous. Very dangerous. Think: how’d he survive the battle with Tris and the bomb?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t at the battle,” Riley countered. “Maybe he hid. Maybe he’s not as tough as we’re afraid he is. We do think he was hiding, right? That he heard every word we said on that riverbank?”

  “Think, Riley. How has he managed to follow us as far as he has? And why is he showing himself now?”

  “Who cares why—”

  “We have to care why. Think, I said. We split up. You and Kevin head back there. It makes it easier for him—for it. Then me and Bruce, what have we got? We’re left alone here, and—it’s like you said yourself a minute ago—look at us.”

  “I like Riley’s idea, go back there and kill whoever it is,” acknowledged Kevin. “But Riley, Dee is right. We have to stick together.”

  “What do we do? Wait for him to attack us first?”

  “That thing wants to provoke a confrontation,” Kevin smacked his hands together like he was squashing a fly, “we give it to him.”

  “Whoever he is, he’s smart.” Dee peered through the minocular. “He waited all this time before letting us see him. He wants us to see him. He’s got a fire going. Believe me, Riley, if I could, I’d walk back there with you and Kevin—”

  “Hey,” Bruce griped, “what about me?”

  “—and we’d take care of business. But something’s not right here.” Dee lowered the field glasses. “Yeah, something’s not right about this.”

  The zombie groaned, bringing their attention back to it.

  “Hey!” Dee hailed the dead thing. “Hey, you!”

  It moaned back at him.

  “I think it’s talking to you, Bruce,” said Kevin. “Yeah. It’s like,” he lowered his voice, drawing out his words, “Bruuuuuu-sssssss, where’s myyyyy coooooough-fee?” Bruce managed a weak smile.

  The water in the kettle started to warble, a low, shrill sound that gave to a whistle, like a wind picking up steam. Dee handed the minocular to Riley and limped from the fire, towards the zombie, half-hopping on his injured foot and leg. His lower limb was splinted straight with a length of PVC piping they’d found along the way. The undead watched him come, cocking its head inquisitively at the man.

  It whined and parted its jaws, revealing a mouthful of broken and jagged teeth.

  Dee fired his revolver once and the zombie went down. He limped back to the others, holstering the Python in its belly band, the kettle whistling sharply. Back at the fire, he donned an oven mitt and removed the kettle from the flame, the whistle trailing off.

  “Get over here, Bruce. Let’s clean out that shoulder.”

  * * *

  The mouth of the river widened as it flowed out into the sound. They resorted to their improvised oars to a greater degree than previously, steering their small vessel near enough to shore to keep land in sight. The fish here lived out in the sea but migrated up the river to spawn.

  By mid-morning they spied a pier projecting into the water. They glassed the scene with the minocular. A boat not much larger than their own puttered out into the open water of the sound, away from them, its outboard motor inaudible to them from this distance. Wispy vapors touched the sky from beyond the trees fronting the pier. Smoke.

  “That’s what we need,” Kevin remarked of the vessel.

  “I’m not feeling so hot…” Bruce finally admitted, and he didn’t look it either. “…so let me make sure I have this right. We’re further south than where we need to be, right? Because we took the river?”

  Dee told him that he was correct.

  “Are we still serious about this Africa bullshit?”

  No one answered him.

  “Okay, good. I thought it was just me.”

  “We need to find someone who can help us help you, Bruce.”

  “If we can get to New Harmony,” Riley reminded them all, “that won’t be a problem.”

  “So we need that boat,” explained Kevin. “It’ll get us where we need to go a lot faster than this thing.”

  “You think they’re just going to give us their boat?”

  “Let’s go talk to them,” Dee suggested.

  None of them particularly liked the idea. There were four of them, and although it appeared there was only one man on the boat, there was no telling how many people there were where the smoke emanated from. Riley knew that if the men she travelled with were a different kind of people, they would have all waited at the pier, hidden, letting the boat come back and taking it from its pilot, forcefully if need be. Instead they beached their own small sk
iff and went ashore.

  They proceeded guardedly and, from necessity, slowly. There were no signs of life at the pier, a wooden dock that overhung the water beneath by half a meter. A few barrels of diesel fuel were stacked where the wooden structure met the beach. A short strip of sand gave to trees where a clear path had been trampled through the underbrush. They moved through the trees together, Kevin supporting Dee, Riley with an eye on Bruce—“I got it”—the wind rustling the branches about them.

  A short distance later they looked out from the trees onto the remains of a society. A dilapidated strip mall faced a simple house across a distance of twenty meters. The strip mall was barely recognizable. Like many of the abandoned structures they had passed along the way, this one was largely given to corrosion and disrepair. Parts of its walls had come down and the last two stores had collapsed into heaps of building materials.

  The house looked better kept, solid save where one part of its roof had been boarded over. Further in the distance, a water tower stood against the sky.

  Three children played in what had been the street between the house and the strip mall. The lush grasses had long before retaken the territory, but someone had cleared a space for the kids. They kicked a ball back and forth between the weeds and the wild grasses; a girl no more than eleven, another girl younger than the first, and a boy younger than both .

  The older of the girls saw them first: Riley supporting Dee, Kevin helping Bruce stay on his feet, crossing from the trees. She grabbed her sister’s arm and ran with her and the boy to the house, calling for someone inside. A young man came out of the house, armed with a rifle.

  “This guy tries anything,” Dee had one arm over Riley, his other hand helping to balance himself as he hopped forward, “you guys take him out.”