“Right. Is it time to leave?”
“Yes.” Baudoin smiled and nodded, but the gesture was slow, hesitant and joyless.
They handed over the dishes from breakfast, gathered their bags and began the trek down to the Humvee.
They gathered at the heavily armored vehicle and stowed their gear inside. Before they climbed in themselves, Fallon turned to Baudoin. “Have you seen Ira?”
“No, not since he left the main chamber.”
They shared a look. Baudoin climbed up on top of the Hummer and peeled back the cover on the roof storage rack. He rummaged around gently to make sure that Ira hadn’t stowed away. Not finding anything he re-secured everything and jumped down.
“He’ll show back up later, he is just off sulking somewhere,” Fallon said. “Let’s go.”
They all took their positions inside the truck, this time with Lucas riding in the front with Jackson to help pick the best way through the terrain ahead.
They moved slowly southward, shifting direction here and there to accommodate the sudden and massive shifts in terrain. Lucas was trying to guide them towards the main road that lead to Helheim and after about an hour they found it.
Mostly still intact the fourteen freeway was overrun with weeds to the point it was hard to actually see the road surface itself. There were the rusted and melted husks of cars, trucks and buses everywhere, where wildfires had swept through the area unchecked for decades.
Because of the clutter of detritus on the road itself it was almost easier to ride parallel to it where ever possible, but there were large stretches where they had no choice but to traverse the roadway, the hillside was too sheer on one side and dropped off on the other with lethal steepness.
In some places large boulders had broken free and fallen into the road and they had to try to either go around or over the obstacle if enough debris had built up to form a natural ramp.
Sometimes there was nothing to do but push their way through with brute diesel strength, forcing the wreckages of smaller vehicles off the road to tumble and fall, twisted and mangled into the gullies and ravines alongside.
They got to a large intersection where overlapping and interconnecting roads had once been raised high above each other but now lay shattered and stacked street on top of street with vehicles smashed flat in between.
It was slow going, but by lunchtime they made it to the area that one hundred years before had been called Burbank.
For the last ten or fifteen miles they could tell that they had been driving through area that had been heavily populated and developed. There were windowless, roofless buildings here and there and colossal piles of debris in others. Large sections had been burned to the ground probably decades ago and nature had reclaimed the land, sewing the seeds of huge plants with small yellow petaled flowers.
They came to a bridge that was still mostly intact where one road crossed over the top of another. At some point in antiquity a series of cars had collided into each other, a colossal accident stretching from one side of the road to the other
“We should leave the truck here now,” said Lucas. “Driving it any closer will draw attention and bring the Valagoths down upon us anyway.”
“How much farther is it?” Robert asked.
“I do not know how much closer you want to get but it should be safe here for a while, there are some small mountains a few miles from here, they should give you a high enough vantage point to see everything you need to see”
Getting out, they laid out the map and tried to get their bearings, if they could orient themselves properly they shouldn’t have too much trouble finding their way back o the Humvee.
“Okay… it looks like we’re about… here.” Jackson said pointing to the general area of Burbank on the map.
“The place I know of is somewhere here.” Lucas leaned in and pointed to the greenery of Griffith Park.
“Okay well let’s make sure everything is secure and head out.” Said Robert.
They folded back up the map and grabbed their bags and guns. Closing the doors and walking the perimeter of the Humvee Jackson made sure that all of the compartments were closed and locked.
When he got to one of the larger rear compartments it looked slightly open, he tried to push it gently shut but there was a high pitched grunt and the door pushed back.
He pulled open the door and Ira fell out.
XVI
It was obvious that Ira was fighting his urge to use words to vent his pain. When he tumbled out of the storage compartment he landed on his back and shoulder, his thick mat of dreadlocks saved his head from any injury but might have tweaked his neck in the process.
He rolled and spasmed on the floor like a fish out of water, gasping and sucking in air, he was only able to get halfway to his feet by the time Fallon got to him and helped him abruptly the rest of the way up. She shoved him angrily against the side of the Hummer, ringing his proverbial bell for a second time.
“You were told you could not to come,” she said holding him against the truck with one fist and pointing a threatening finger at his face with the other.
The young boy tried to swallow his pain and crinkled up his face in anger. He beat a fist against his chest and pointed southward towards Helheim, almost immediately regretting it as he clutched his arm to himself and had to breathe through his teeth.
“No! You stupid boy – ”
Lucas stepped forward and placed a hand on Fallon’s arm. She stopped and turned to look at him, after a second she released Ira and took a few steps away.
Calmly Lucas knelt down in front of the boy and looked up into his face, looking into each eye in turn and gently turning the boys neck to check for injuries.
“Are you okay?” he asked his voice as placid as his actions.
Ira clenched his jaw and repeated the gesture of hitting his fist against his chest and pointing south. He didn’t grimace like he did before but his chin quivered slightly and there were tears in his eyes.
“I know that you are brave little one, no one questions that. No one. But you are too young, you are not ready”
The boy looked away in anger.
“Do you question me?” Lucas said letting a fire into his voice.
Ira’s head snapped back startled to meet Lucas’s gaze, his head slowly dropped and he looked at the ground between them. The tremor from his chin moved to his lip and tears slipped down his cheeks as he shook his head firmly.
“Good. Then I want you to do as I tell you and stay here. Guard the truck, there may be raiders about even here”
Ira nodded with out looking up.
Getting to his feet Lucas hugged the boy then stepped away. Fallon strode back over to Ira and whispered in his ear so that no one else could hear, then gently grabbing his neck she kissed his cheek.
He stayed like that studying the ground while the rest of them finished checking the truck. With everything secure they left, leaving Ira alone in the shadows of the overpass watching them go and looking very, very small.
The hike went slowly, the farther they went the more they noticed that the only life here seemed to be the weeds. In the bunker they had all learned in history classes that the entire L.A basin was once desert until the settlers came and landscaped the area with water brought down from the mountains.
Now without the maintenance of man everything had broken down, the roads had split with roots and vines had overtaken buildings and walls before dying off in drought.
Weeds were the only thing that grew now, the flowers and trees were long dead and what nourishment could be leached from the arid ground was hoarded by the thorny more hardy plants that had originally called this place home.
The area wasn’t completely dead, even the harshest of environments fostered life of some kind, there were bugs and where there were bugs there were lizards and small birds, some rodents too and where there were those things there were owls and hawks to eat them.
The raptors, the killers of the w
orld always found a way to follow their nature and survive, even the un-dead ones. Many of the places near major cities still had ghouls walking around in the ruins.
They moved slowly because it was better to be cautious, Lucas explained. He talked to pass the time as they walked.
“Many of them are old now so they move slowly but if they can grab you and bite they are still lethal. Most of them their eyes can no longer see properly, the soft tissue of ears and noses are gone too so they can’t smell or hear. They sense movement more than anything, high contrasts in light and darkness like fire at night”
Robert thought about the ghouls coming from miles around drawn by their signal fire.
“The fresh ones are the worst. The newly bitten can take hours or days to die and come back but when they do they still retain something of who they were. Their brains and muscles are still fresh, they can run and jump and climb. They move with rage, faster then you would ever think.”
Listening to this, Tommy started to evaluate the dead hollow buildings they passed more closely in case a ghoul should suddenly sprint from the shadows of an overgrown doorway.
“Depending on how and where they die they can stay that way for days or weeks, very dangerous. After a while they start to break down, their muscles stiffen and over the years they slow down more and more until they can do little more than walk. You’ve seen them, their hair and nails still grow for months, they shrivel and dry eventually turning to leather and bone.”
“Like the Mummies of Egypt and Asia,” Jackson offered to the conversation. “Without the walking and eating people part,” he added belatedly.
That broke the somber mood a little and they all relaxed slightly, laughing and smiling as they swept the area around them for attack.
Between Lucas, Baudoin and Fallon they hadn’t been to Helheim more than a half dozen times and none of them in recent years but the road to it hadn’t changed much. As they approached the northern edge of Griffith Park they took a short break to consult the map and try to find the quickest path up to the observatory that used to stand on one of the peaks on the other side.
“This way,” Lucas said finally and they started to make the final leg of their journey through the mountains. Leaving the devastated buildings behind there were fewer places to hide so they dropped their guard a little, none of them looked back, only forward so none of them saw the little figure behind them, running silently from one piece of cover to another.
XVII
“Have you ever killed any of them?” Tommy asked Lucas as they walked.
“The Carrion? Yes, but we do not consider it to be killing them, the virus has already done that. If we ever have to we will end their suffering.”
“What was it like?”
“It was… hard. Even if they have no control any more, they were still people once. There is nothing to do but to do it and send them on their way.”
“To Heaven?” Tommy said sadly.
“Perhaps.”
“You don’t believe in Heaven?”
“I believe that there may be a place like what you call Heaven, but that is just one possibility for our destination. None of us will know where we are going until we get there and that is a one-way door.”
“Huh, right. What about you Baudoin, is that what your people believe?” He asked slowing down and taking a drink from his canteen. Before Baudoin could answer Fallon pushed by him and answered in his place.
“When you die you rot, and if you are lucky you don’t do it while you still walk.”
Tommy stopped and watched her as she moved quickly on ahead. “What did I say?”
“She does not like to talk about death, it reminds her of her mother”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know. What happened?”
“That, is not my story to tell,” Baudoin said simply.
It took about an hour to reach the peak where the observatory looked out over what remained of the city. They approached slowly and swept the area for any movement but found none.
The observatory had once been mostly white but had suffered at the hands of many vandals over the years and stood through several wildfires, now it was layered in paint and soot.
Ramirez stood and looked with sadness at the colossal stone obelisk in front of the abused building. He had read about this place when he was a child, he hadn’t thought of it in years and had even forgotten the name but standing here there was no mistaking it.
Growing up he had wondered about the night sky and the stars, an interest he shared with his abeulo, his mother’s father Carlos. For his ninth birthday his grandfather had made him a screen for one of the lights in his family’s room. It had tiny stars cut in it so he could turn out all the other lights and it would cast crude constellations on the walls and ceiling.
They spent that night together as a family all laying in a circle with their heads together and the light in the middle of the room. They talked for hours about the stars, pointing at the constellations and trying to remember their names. That was the last birthday he spent with his grandfather, he had died before that Christmas.
It looked some people had tried to smash the statue, there were divots and gouges everywhere. Several of the six men sculpted around its base were missing fingers and in the case of Isaac Newton his entire head. He stared up into what was left of Hipparchus’ face and whispered a prayer for his abeulo.
They wandered about the complex, moving from one observation deck to another. None of the public telescopes still worked, some were missing all together and the lenses were smashed on the ones that did remain.
Robert pulled a pair of binoculars from his bag and scanned the city below them.
It looked like most of the larger buildings still stood, one of them, the tallest had smoke billowing from the top. He handed over the binoculars to Tommy and dug through his bag again for the camera.
“Lucas, what is that place?”
“That is the heart of darkness. It is the citadel, the throne of the Valagoths power. Where the ruling king lives.”
Looking through the lens of the high powered camera he could make out more of the detail of the cylindrical sky scraper. He snapped several pictures making sure to overlap them so that they could stitch together a larger picture of the whole scene when they got back to the bunker.
As he snapped the final pictures of the glowing red top of the tower he was suddenly reminded of the all-seeing eye in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ books by Tolkien and it sent a shiver through him.
“Okay I guess I’ve seen enough. There is no one here that can help us.”
“Never ‘ave truer words been spoke.” said a voice he didn’t recognize.
Robert spun around to see who had spoken and was confronted by a dozen men and women he didn’t know. They all held weapons of various sorts, mostly blunt objects or jagged rusty blades but there were guns too, a wooden stocked rifle with a curved magazine, a large revolver that looked straight out of the old west and most disturbing a shotgun aimed at his face.
The others hadn’t had any more warning than him and stood perfectly still around him, he made a quick mental count and everyone was there, no surprise rescues from anyone.
“Is this all of them Ferret?” the one holding the shotgun asked cocking his head to the side.
From behind him leaned a small child, Robert couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl but it had shoulder length blond hair blue eyes and smudged coating of dirt across every visible inch of skin. Ferret - whatever its gender, nodded. “Yup, them’s all I saw.”
“Very good, that’s how I like it – no susprises,” he grinned revealing rotten teeth. He wasn’t very tall, about the same height as Tommy - Robert guessed, and like the rest of his gang he wore several layers of torn and dirty clothing. His hair was dark and long but only in a rim around the back of his head, the top was naturally and prematurely bald.
“Nicey, Nice. Howsabout we play a game?” He asked rhetorically. “I say we play the ‘Do
as I say’ game and I say… evrybody dat don’t wanna be dead raise yer arms up ova yer ‘eads”
Everyone glanced at each other for a second and slowly complied.
“Oh, Nice” he said with a grin “An now I say… evrybody dat don wan to get all sticky and bloody better not move.” His smile clipped almost completely off of his face. “Okay pat ‘um!” he said to his people.
Three of them came forward to take the group’s weapons, leaving plenty to watch for any trouble. As well as taking the guns they grabbed everyone’s bags and took them back behind the line of their own group.
Robert hadn’t quite gotten the camera put away and they snatched it from his hand by the long dangling neck strap.
“Okay, now we got that outta tha way – hoo the hell are ya?”
Nobody spoke.
“Oh come now, come come. I knows ya speak, I ‘eard ya. Now hoo are ya? Ya ain’t Valagoth, even they ain’t got the nicey-nice cloves like you”
Robert tried to look at the others to see if anyone looked like they might be about to try something.
“Okay Lemme try this difrent like… seein as none of ya’s got hats and none ya gonna tawk, I guess ya don’t need heads! So, on the counta’ free we’ll just start taken ‘um off. One –”
“We – we’re from a place a long way from here,” Robert interrupted.
“Alright well that don’t tell me hoo ya are. I know you ain’t Ostragoth or Valagoth. Thervingi? Greuthungs? Ay? Which one of the clans are ya ah?”
“We are not a part of any clan”
“Not part… not part of a clan? That’s… that’s nonsensical that”
“We are outsiders, we come from outside of the city”
“Outside of tha city? But there ain’t nothin’ outside of tha city, ‘cept for Ruin rats and Deadheads and you’re neither of them either”
“No sir, we’re not but we do come from far outside the city. We just came to look, I’m very sorry if we insulted you in some way, or if we are trespassing. We would gladly leave- ”
Long Live The Dead Page 9