But others only hastened the change. A shot that killed but did not destroy. In a matter of hours, or even minutes, they would come back. In a few days they would begin the process of change and they would find their way to the dead.
The ones behind him knew not to kill for the sake of killing. Not to destroy those they needed. There were plenty that were not needed. Those could be killed and consumed. Thousands upon thousands of the weak, the elderly, the ones he did not wish to make a part of his army. Those he left to them to do as they wished. But they knew the penalty for taking one that was his: Death. Permanent death. And after a taste of forever, thinking once again about death was inconceivable. That would keep the majority of them in line. The few that did step out he would take care of personally.
He watched as the barrel of a rifle slipped through a ragged hole in the sheet steel. He looked around at his silent army once more and then thrust his head back, face staring up at the moon, and screamed into the darkening night: As a mass they all ran at the line of buses.
Roux hit the bus and quickly scrambled up the side, climbing over the shoulders of others. The gunshots were hard and steady, and dozens fell as the shooters found their mark. He reached the top along with hundreds of others and the roads into the park lay open before them. Lightly guarded, there were few left who could guard. The metal of the bus roof that surrounded him began to dimple as he paused, as if some unseen magic was causing the holes to suddenly appear. Roux launched himself through the air, came down, and ran straight at a man who stood firing over the tops of the buses. Spraying those that reached the top with bullets.
He saw him far too late, tried to turn, but he reached him and hit him hard, driving him to the ground. He straddled him, jerked him upward by the vest he wore and bit deeply into his throat. His mouth seemed to widen as he fastened his teeth on his throat, across his throat, and then bit deeply. His arteries went in a spray of red and he tossed him lifeless back to the ground and made his feet once more.
Two of his fingers flew away as a bullet hit his raised hand, he screamed and tackled the shooter to the ground, ripping his head completely from his body as he was still falling. He was up quickly and running into the darkness of the park, the others close behind him. The shooting all but behind them now.
The park fires were low and smokey, most had gone out. The sick far outnumbered the well now, and the sickness continued to take them. Most lay dead, rising, or waiting to die. The few who could still fight went down fast.
They entered the Sheep Meadow and the dying covered the ground. Some had come back already. Slow, ragged, on the cusp of change. Roux slowed and those that had stayed with him walked their way through the dead and dying along with him.
Around him, screams rent the air as his soldiers took those that fought, and gave them the gift they were reluctant to take. Their own waste had killed them. The lake water had become fouled and poisoned, yet they had continued to drink from it: Even when it had begun to kill them they had not stopped.
The reservoir had been worse. Hiding its contamination better, and more had succumbed from that. In the end the sickness had fed upon itself just as the dead who rose had fed on the living and the sick. Within an hour the park belonged to Roux. The occasional scream rent the air, but they were becoming less. The dead and dying were scattered across the entire park now. The entrances and exits were wide open, the dead could come and go as they pleased. The breathers too, if they were foolish enough.
He continued on his way alone, his army spread out within the park, feeding, waiting on his call.
The north end of the park was his destination and he walked the abandoned pathways and roads, finally finding East Drive and making his way along the darkened blacktop.
In the distance there was a glow over the tops of the trees, and the tops of the buildings. He could pick out individual streetlights farther away. Harlem. And Harlem would be a harder nut to crack.
The breathers in Harlem had closed it off entirely. Abandoned cars blocked the streets. There were shooters everywhere. The dead or dying were dealt with immediately. There was no mercy, no second guessing, dead was dead and dead bought more dead with it. They understood it on their own terms. They could not see it as it truly was. A gift. He had hoped he could get them to see it, but he was sure they would not see it until death introduced it to them. He could smell that fact. It came to him on the wind that blew across the tree tops and dropped down to the cracked pavement where he walked.
He reached the shadows at the edge of the trees and peered out at the split where Lenox Avenue veered away. Quiet, deserted, but not far away he could hear the noise that accompanied the breathers. The smell of fire and smoke hung on the air, igniting a fear within him that he could not suppress. He took the sweeping right hand road and walked quietly along in the shadows to the park entrance. He left the road and entered the treeline, following it towards West 110th Street. He stopped within the trees and looked out at Lenox Avenue where it crossed 110th and headed into Harlem.
On the park side there were buses that closed off the entrance and marched away into the darkness. The buses were empty.
On the other side of West 110th a nearly identical line of buses marched away. The space in between was littered with corpses, burned out cars, skeletal remains still resting in the rusted hulks. Beyond the second row of buses the street lights marched away into Harlem. He could smell the river, whether the Hudson or The East he did not know. The lights and the noise of the breathers drew his attention back to the buses. He scaled a nearby tree and looked over the tops of the buses into the projects and the city beyond.
The streets inside the closed off area were clear for as far as he could see. Some places had been devastated, buildings down, but gangs of people worked there still, clearing the damaged buildings, or what was left. Small trucks patrolled the streets. Machine gun toting men in the back, riding in the open air. Everything he had hoped to see was not there. There was no disorganization of any kind at all. Whoever was in charge in Harlem had the electricity on and the peace kept. No rioting. No bodies littered the streets: If there had been abandoned vehicles they had been cleared. People strolled the streets under the lights, looking as though the world had never changed at all, or had maybe even changed for the better.
Roux watched from his perch in the tree for a few minutes longer and then dropped to the ground. He found the shadows at the edges of the road once more and began his walk back down into the park.
FIVE
The Nation: October 15th
To Conner it seemed as though the pounding went on and on.
”Baby... Baby.” Katie from beside him.
“Yeah... Yeah. I'm,” he cocked his head to the sound. The door rattled again as someone pounded on it once more. He swung his feet to the floor and started for the door. “Yeah... Yeah! I'm coming... I'm coming,”
“Baby,” Katie called. “Pants.” His jeans hit his lower legs as he began to turn back toward her. One hand shot downward and caught them before they hit the floor: As he pulled them on his eyes met Katie's own. She shrugged, but her eyes held worry. Good news didn't come pounding on your door in the middle of the night.
Conner opened the door to Adam and Aaron.
“Hey... Sorry, Conner,” Adam said. Aaron looked grim.
“It's all good... What... What is it? I mean what's wrong?”
Billy Jingo stepped out of the shadows of the front porch, Pearl with him.
“Something I remembered,” Pearl said quietly. “Something important.”
“Better get Katie too,” Amy said from the thicker shadows.
“Jesus, is everybody here?” Conner asked.
“Yeah... We're all here,” James answered. “Better get Katie up too.” James stepped into the light. His face was drawn and haggard. “We might just have something for them bastards,” He said quietly. He looked behind him into the darkness.
“What bastards,” Katie asked as she suddenly ap
peared beside Conner. Her hand slipped into his. “What bastards, James.”
'The dead... The dead, Katie.... Pearl thinks... Pearl saw something,” James finished. He looked around once more at the completeness of the darkness. “The barn... We'll be at the barn.”
“Right behind you,” Conner said to his back.
“It's not bad news,” Aaron told him. “Jesus... Jesus, I think it might be good news, Conner.” He began to follow as Conner closed the door and then he and Amy walked with them down to the barn.
~
The lights in the barn seemed excessively bright after the darkness of the valley. People probably were getting used to real darkness all over the world, Conner though. There had always been a glow from cities, some sort of electric light somewhere, but now there was none at all. What had seemed like darkness had only been an illusion.
Everyone appeared half dressed, still hoping for a state of sleep. Conner himself had pulled on the jeans, zipped them up and shoved his feet into his boots. He wore only a cotton t-shirt and the night was cold. Katie handed him a lightweight jacket and he slipped it on. Amy wore a thick robe, bob was dressed, but his feet were clad in slippers. He turned his eyes to the thin young woman at Billy's side. “You have the floor,” Conner told her, unsure what he was about to hear.
Pearl lifted her eyes from the floor. “I know a few things, but I just didn't know if I could trust it. And I don't know if it is any use to you.” She looked at Billy.
“Just tell them,” Billy said softly.
She nodded, lowered her head as if composing her thoughts, and then spoke.
“So Billy is telling me that he came from Watertown a long while back. I hadn't known that, but then he begins to tell me about the place, and I realize he really has been there, same as I have been.” Her eyes rose to their own. “I was there when it all happened. I was living there before it happened. I worked off downtown... A mission there.”
“We met some people from there,” Katie said.
“Not long after,” Conner agreed.
“Far north,” Katie said. “Up by Canada.”
Pearl nodded and her eyes became shiny as she did. She caught her breath, as it seemed to run out on her words. “I... I was there when the first quake came... They took me with them or I might have died with the rest of them. The ones that had come at me might have killed me.” Her eyes overflowed as she finished.
“Well... Take it slowly, girl,” Katie told her. “Take it slowly.”
Pearl drew a deep breath and began. “I was on my way to work. It was just before the big quake. The power was still on...”
The Nation: October 15th
Dawn came cold and gray, barely coloring the valley. Thick, heavy gray clouds filled the skies, and a dense gray-white fog covered the floor of the valley. The whole world seemed to be made of shades of gray, Katie thought.
She sat just under the overhang in a small canvas backed chair with two cups of coffee and waited for Conner to come off post. She had seen George Dell leave on his way to relieve Conner, so it should be only a few minutes, she thought.
The meeting in the barn had lasted into early morning. Not sunrise, but near to it. They had all left in silence, walking back through the darkness, lost in their own thoughts. Conner had left to relieve Dustin who had covered his post and Katie had given up the pretense of returning to sleep and made her way to the cave where she had found hot coffee and a few others gathered talking in low voices. The conversation had faltered when Katie had come in, blowing on her hands. It was actually cold out this morning.
The lag in conversation didn't surprise her anymore. It had been going on since they had become big enough that not every one knew everyone. But she and the other council members were known, and invariably conversation stopped or skipped a few beats when one of them walked into a room. She supposed it was a sign of society rebuilding itself. Groups forming, differing opinions being expressed. It was the way of the world. She had believed not long ago that it was a way whose time had passed, but society seemed like just another organism that found ways around the roadblocks to achieve its purpose was: Whatever that might be. She had simply smiled, poured herself some coffee and carried it out to the stone ledge and waited for the sunrise.
There were four posts. The first was on top of the mountain where you could see for miles in any direction. Post two was about a quarter mile away in the valley that lead up to the notch, situated on a ridge that kept the post well hidden, but allowed line of sight for the whole valley.
The third post was at the end of their valley where it bent into the El to the right. The valley wall fractured there, and soared several hundred feet straight up toward the ridge. There was a small cave high up on that wall. It appeared inaccessible from the valley floor, but was actually accessed through a small opening at ground level, and a set of carved stone steps that wound upward through the rock to the small cave and beyond. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old: Worn down in the center, but after cleaning the fallen rock that had accumulated over the years, easily accessible and climbed.
The fourth post was on the other side of the mountain, halfway down the valley, where yet another of the small caves sat high in a rock face; accessible by the same type of stone steps carved into the rock. Worn smooth, polished by the thousands of feet that had climbed them.
Conner had the second post. The first and the second post had been made from the steel cabs of two trucks. The frames, cabs, wiring, had all been used. Even the engines had found a home in a project. Nothing was wasted. It had taken the better part of a week to winch the cabs into place and cement them there, but they had made them work. A little camouflage and you would never have suspected they were there.
The doors were operational and painted a flat gray-black to blend in to the surrounding rock. Both had been set back under ledges so that the glass would not reflect the sunlight or the moonlight. Shrubs and vegetation had been transplanted around both, so that even close up they could not be seen. They were dry, warm and allowed a level of comfort that the people that had once inhabited this valley had probably not enjoyed.
They had two more cabs, one that was earmarked for the El in the second valley, and the other at the end of the high meadow. But, Katie thought as she sipped at her second cup of coffee, it appeared as though the weather might be turning. It had been growing colder day by day, but this morning it felt cold enough to snow, and the sunrise didn't seem to be doing much to change that.
Katie liked the way the cold air made her feel more alive, awake. She supposed that by the end of winter she'd be tired of that though. Just looking forward to the heat of summer once more.
Katie shifted, waiting, sipping at her coffee and replaying the story Pearl had told in the barn just a few hours before. It made sense. Beyond making sense it answered questions. Beyond that it was downright scary and it had forced their hand too. It was one thing to suspect that the base under the northern New York city might be involved in what had happened, and yet another to find it absolutely had been.
They had planned a small trip for supplies, probably just nearby cities, before the snow fell. They had even touched on it at the council meetings, both the public and the private meeting. The real business being some collection of supplies, but the focus more on weapons. The public business being a small supply trip to test the trucks and the team before winter set in and grounded them all, the private business had been a scouting trip to Watertown to see if there was any truth to what they suspected. All of that was now out the window: If what Pearl said was true then there was no time to lose at all. The sooner that the OutRunners set out for Watertown the better.
She shifted again, trying for a better position. She felt more than a little uncomfortable. Not long ago she would have been siting at the edge of the ledge, her feet dangling off the edge. But it was too hard to get back on her feet as it was, let alone get her feet back over the ledge and under her without fearing going right over the
edge. One of the fun facts they didn't tell you about being pregnant, your whole center of gravity changed faster than you could adapt. So the chair was the solution. It was a lot easier to get up from, and safer too. She peeked over the edge at the valley floor beneath the cave. It was still bathed in blackness, but the gray was starting to creep into the corners, bringing definition as it came.
She heard the scrape of Conner's shoes on the stone ledge and met his eyes as he came around the corner.
“Baby, it's cold out here,” he said.
She held up his cup of coffee. “That's why I got this for you, Honey. Careful, it's really hot,” she told him as she handed the cup to him.
“Where we going?” he asked, as he held the cup with one hand and helped her to her feet with the other.
“You promised to help with pulling wire today, remember?”
He nodded.
“I'm going to sit with Lilly today. Steve and Jess both think it'll be today,” Katie told him.
He nodded and then sipped at the coffee. “Hm... Good... “ His eyes met hers once again. “You get any sleep at all?” he asked.
“That's why they make coffee... No... I didn't, but I'll be fine... Lilly came up just a little while ago... Two hours or so since she started having heavy pain,” she said.
“Oh,” Conner said, surprise in his voice. “I hadn't realized she was that close.”
It was Katie's turn to nod. “The pain isn't regular yet, but they are coming closer. She's really big and she's a small woman, but they think she will be okay.”
“The pain gets regular?” Conner asked. He winced, his eyes narrowing and pained.
“Yep. That's when they have to kick the men out because you want to kill them all,” Katie said.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 117