Blood Runners: Box Set

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  With the aid of the glove, Longman was able to manipulate sections of the map, to zoom down and pan out and essentially fly across streets and parcels of real property.

  With the aid of his technicians, he’d worked feverishly to download the information found inside Caleb’s safe-room. Maps were laid over maps; information sorted, juxtaposed, and cross-referenced. There were a handful of areas ringed in yellow with X’s over them, and then one area blinking in red that he focused on. This was it, he thought; clear proofs. This was the location where a red, double-locked clanker box was hidden that contained numbers and signals and cryptonyms marked SIOP ESI for a weapon he would rely on if things went bad. He knew of the box (one of several) from the time he served back on base, but had spent years trying to track it down.

  The box was the key to a device constructed by higher minds in the times before the downfall. There were once thousands of these devices in the possession of certain select countries. Some of the devices were placed inside railcars, others gently fitted inside long-distance planes, and more stashed in bunkers built deep into the bedrock, primarily in the Midwest. If events dictated, Longman would most definitely bend a knee before this device, this deity of mutually assured destruction. A nuclear god that would help “put flies on eyeballs,” as his boss back at the base was fond of saying.

  He was familiar with it and knew that it was fickle, and like all the other gods of old (including those in his holy book), sometimes demanded blood sacrifice. He switched off the tablet and leaned back in his chair and smoked a heavy pipe laden with a mixture of drugs and waited to hear word of the boy and girl. The two little crows. It ate at him that he didn’t know how the two knew about the tunnel and what other secrets Caleb had unearthed.

  He took a long pull from his pipe and slid a very special handgun out of a drawer. It was called a LeMat, a combination pistol and twenty-gauge shotgun that weighed four pounds, carried nine rounds, and was designed for a war hundreds of years before. He’d looted it from a weapons museum years ago and had not yet had an opportunity to use it. He knew that the day that he would fire the pistol was coming. He would stay awake until it did. He never needed sleep. There was too much to do, too many loose ends. He tugged on his pipe and stroked the gun and inserted a cartridge into it, secure in the knowledge that no matter what happened, this was not the end, but merely the beginning. An excuse to extend his reach beyond the wall. A possible pretext for war.

  36

  The four gas-masked figures hoisted Marisol up and Elias was powerless to stop them. He ran full-bore after them, the figures climbing up a trail, plowing through the tall grass. The braying of the Thresher echoed all around and Elias was certain they’d be overrun at any moment.

  “Put her down,” one of the figures said.

  Elias stared from a distance, helpless, watching two of the figures bend over Marisol, whispering to themselves, while the other two kept watch, flame-throwers at the ready.

  One of the figures placed his hand on Marisol’s wound and pressed in while the other figure ripped off a section of cloth from his own shirt and fashioned a tourniquet. The tourniquet was looped around and tied tightly and the figure that did this slid off his gas mask to reveal a man in his middle years, with striking features and piercing eyes, and a mane of black hair that nearly swept to his shoulders. He glanced at Elias and then leaned down to Marisol.

  “You’re going to make it,” the man said to her. “Hey. You hear me? We’re going to get you help.”

  Elias’s spirits lifted for a moment and he was about to call out to the man, but before he could do that they’d helped Marisol up again and were running.

  Elias followed them up onto a rise, a summit which afforded an excellent view of the surrounding lands. Glancing back, he saw the lights from the wall and New Chicago and a shiver danced up and down his spine. Wheeling around, he watched the figures carry Marisol down a decline and into the grass on the other side. Elias squinted and under a few daggers of moonlight he saw two things: the glimmer of water from the Great Lakes and a boat!

  Elias smiled, hopeful. God Almighty, they’ve got a boat, he thought to himself. He sucked in a breath and ran down through the grass and after the figures.

  37

  Each agonizing step caused waves of pain to flood Marisol's body, but she pushed on, brushing aside the helping hands of the others, doing her best to keep up with Elias. There was no questioning his ability to run, he’d escaped her and the other Apes after all.

  But this wasn't normal. Her breaths were coming in quick bursts, and she felt the sensation of the earth convulsing beneath her feet, even though she knew it wasn’t. She stumbled, catching herself, holding her ribs where the pain of breathing told her she was at least still alive.

  Wait, no, not pain of breathing, she realized as her fingers touched liquid. Her hand, she saw as she pulled it back in front of her eyes, was dark and shiny, sticky with her blood. For a moment she could almost feel the bullet, still burning, still boring through her flesh.

  Thinking back to the flight from the wall, it all became clear. It was one of Longman’s men. He’d fired his gun and, even though she’d ducked, something had slammed into her chest and stolen her breath. It must have been the shock from when they’d escaped the Thresher, that’s what had masked the pain. But now that she knew what had happened, agony gripped her body like a vice. Her limbs shook, her voice quivered and she did the only thing she could think to do: she called out for Elias.

  Elias wasn't sure he'd heard anything at all, but when he glanced back, he noticed Marisol wasn't directly behind him as she’d been only a few moments earlier. She’d told the others that she was fine, that she could make it on her own, even though he suspected that was a lie.

  Indeed, she was fifty feet back now, staring at him with wide, terrified eyes, blood dripping from her hand. Her face was the color of chalk. She wobbled, struggling to maintain her balance. Elias doubled back, arriving just in time to catch her.

  "We have to keep moving," he said, turning to see the others hadn't stopped, one arm wrapped around her as he looked at the wound. “The bastards shot you, Marisol.”

  “Is it bad?” she asked.

  “I’m not an expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure it’s never good when you’re shot.”

  He felt a spasm pass through her body and her eyes rolled back for a second. “We’ve gotta keep moving,” he whispered.

  She tripped and he hefted her up, one arm around her with her arm over his shoulders, and together they pushed on.

  The blood spritzed like a pin-holed pipe, misting Elias’s hands as he helped carry her over a path that ran through the middle of the alligator grass.

  He could barely make out the faces of those ahead as they turned now, finally waiting for them to catch up. They were all oversized and presumably male but hard to tell under their gas masks. Judging by their looks and the flamethrowers and other guns in their hands, they could handle anything unlucky enough to spring upon them in the gloom. They didn’t stop, spinning instead, making for the coast.

  Soon they were all running again, with muttered curses from the group ahead every time they looked back at Elias and Marisol. Elias was surprised the others hadn’t abandoned him and Marisol yet.

  They passed rusted out cars, buildings with crumbling walls, ivy spidering over it all.

  Pipes had burst from the ground, exposing underground plumbing, and the stench of old socks and moldy bread mixed with the cool night air.

  As the moonlight escaped from behind a cloud, the procession stopped at a clearing near the edge of a spit of land. It rose over an estuary that curled out into one of the Great Lakes.

  Several forms emerged from the shadows here, taking in the new arrivals with caution. Elias held Marisol close, eyeing each of them individually, refusing to show fright in his expression. First he took in an older, bullet-faced white man, then two younger girls with epicene features and sad eyes, and finally a striking
woman with an excellent nose and high cheekbones who wore a vest studded with pockets that appeared to be overflowing with little tools and gadgets.

  "Jessup," the woman said, stepping forward cautiously, hand on a gun at her side. "What is this?"

  The big man in the lead, the muscle-quilted one with a chaotic mane of thick, oiled hair, fully removed and tossed aside his gas mask, glaring at the two as his flamethrower fell to his side.

  “We found ‘em back a ways," he said. "They were alone out there, cornered by the Serks. Looked like they were running from that wall." He motioned toward the wall, still tall and imposing from this far away, its spikes and concertina-like folds sparkling where the wall-mounted spotlights shone.

  “Jesus, Jessup,” the woman said as she moved to Marisol's side and helped Elias support her. "She's bleeding."

  Taking the young woman from Elias, she gave Jessup a reproachful look.

  “Brought her as fast as I could," Jessup said.

  The woman glared at him. “Dammit, this wound needed immediate pressure. What have I been telling you?”

  “I’m doing the best I can here, Liza. Don’t grief me. I’m not a friggin’ nurse and none of us noticed 'til now!”

  The woman, Liza, scowled, then said to Elias, “Down. PUT HER DOWN!”

  Together, they lowered Marisol to the ground. A single bubble of blood oozed from the corner of her mouth, and she groaned, eyes turning up in her head. Elias thought, for an instant, that this could be her last breath.

  The other men removed their masks and, as Elias glanced around, he noted the various ages and ethnicities: a black man, a heavily-inked Hispanic, a few off the assembly-line whites (including one who was pale and drawn), all peering down at Marisol’s seemingly lifeless body.

  Hands were on him and he spun to see the large man, Jessup, frisking him.

  “Hey, watch it,” Elias said, defensively.

  “Carrying anything I should know about?" Jessup asked, continuing to pat Elias down. "If you are and you don’t tell me, I’ll snatch the light from your eyes, kid.”

  Elias shook his head. Jessup clenched his shoulder and repositioned him so that Elias was staring into Jessup’s fiery mug.

  “Who the hell are you?” Jessup hissed, nearly spitting the words out.

  Elias didn’t back down an inch. He stood his ground and returned Jessup’s icy look. “Who’s asking?”

  “Last chance,” Jessup said. “What’s your name?”

  “Elias.”

  “What’s your girl’s name?’

  “She’s not my girl.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Elias glared. “What’s it matter?”

  “Kinda like to know who it is I’m most likely about to dirt nap.”

  The hair bristled on Elias’s neck as he made a quick read of the situation. His hand instinctively slid down to where he normally kept a thin, shanking blade, but there was nothing there.

  Jessup held up the blade and smiled darkly. “Looking for this?”

  “Marisol,” Elias muttered in reply, betraying nothing in reference to the blade, “that’s her name.”

  Jessup deposited the shank in a hip pocket. “You two thought, what? That you’d go out for a stroll in the tall grass where those butchers live?”

  “Thresher,” Elias said.

  “What?”

  “The ones back there. With the white eyes. They’re called ‘Thresher.’”

  “Pet names are a dime a dozen. We call ‘em ‘Serks’ on account of how they’re like the Berserkers that used to be around back in the olden times, although none of it explains why you were out here.”

  “They chased us.”

  “Who?”

  “The ones from inside the wall.”

  “Why?” Jessup asked.

  “That is strictly need to know, mister.”

  “I’m the one holding all the cards, Elias. I need to know.”

  Before Elias could respond, he heard Marisol groan and swiveled to see Liza on her haunches over Marisol.

  Liza swung swiftly into action. She dropped to the ground and stooped over Marisol. She grabbed a plastic box with snap handles from a rucksack and threw it open. Elias could see the inside was filled with trays containing dozens of pills and tapes and things wrapped in plastic and paper. She removed several of the small tools from her vest and went to work.

  Liza’s hands and eyes were a blur as she simultaneously examined the exit wound and did a quick assessment, checking for cyanosis (a bluish hue) in the young girl’s mouth, face, gums. She’d been an LPN, a licensed practical nurse before (a semester shy of becoming a registered nurse when the world ended), working for nine years on a med-surg floor of an inner city hospital. She was intimately familiar with gunshot wounds, and all manner of disturbances to the flesh caused by bullet and blade. Seeing the girl lying in the weeds, her life dripping away, brought back a rush of bad memories.

  Removing a small stethoscope from a rubber pouch, Liza measured Marisol’s asymmetric chest movements, then placed two fingers on various points of her body to study her rapid pulse, decreased blood pressure, and distended neck veins. If this was back in the hospital, Liza would be clamoring to call a code, because Marisol was slipping. Liza gestured to Jessup who slid a knife under a tiny butane torch to sterilize it and then handed it to her as she slit a portion of Marisol’s outer garments and applied pressure to the wound.

  Liza pulled out a bottle of amber disinfectant which she used to douse the wound. She peered into the black and red hole and inched the tip of the knife in until it nicked a harder object lodged inside. Luck upon luck. The bullet had been slowed by the girl’s body-armor, then apparently had jackhammered into a nubbin of bone and come to a stop. Not a very deep wound and probably not life threatening, but that was always a subjective call at the outset.

  Twisting the knife, she delicately pried loose the slug, then dressed the wound carefully with non-porous surgical dressing which she affixed with horizontal bandings of tape. The dressing instantly splotched red, but Liza kept pressure on the wound and re-dressed it twice. Finally, the blood flow subsided. Liza breathed a sigh of relief.

  Marisol lay on her back, nostrils flaring with quick breaths as she anticipated what was to come. She glanced over at Elias, who stood with his jaw hanging open as he watched Liza prepare to work on Marisol.

  Liza picked up a knife and Elias twitched, but did nothing to stop her.

  Marisol closed her eyes, trusting for no reason other than hope that she would open her eyes again soon, and still be alive. But, she convinced herself, if they wanted her dead, they would have snuffed her out some time ago.

  So she simply lay there in the soupy soil out beyond the grasslands. For everyone there are instances where an outcome feels preordained, that no matter how something transpires, the ending will be a good one. This was not one of those times. She danced in and out of consciousness, every electron in her body seeming to simultaneously fire. Her vision was woozy, but she was cognizant of the woman working over her with the red-splotched hands, prying for the metal that was fighting to take her life.

  It was all unbelievably painful, the rush of heat pulsing through every inch of flesh, the sensation of Liza’s fingers and that blade jiggering inside her like a crab probing her innards.

  Images flared white with the pain of it all. A series of fractured vignettes from the days before the Unraveling. Crawling into bed with her parents during a terrifying storm when she was younger. Tagging along after her brother and his friends, her parents, their friends. Never wanting to be alone.

  The images changed and suddenly she was back with her father and brother as they left to fight on that fateful last day. Her mother was there too, kissing her cheek, and then the visage of her mother melted away to reveal her once again, stepping out from behind a black veil, her face bone-white, wand-like fingers gesturing for Marisol to come closer. To join her in the nothingness. She cooed at Marisol, whispering her n
ame, telling her that if she stepped over they would be together in the darkness forever. She felt warm and clammy all at once (the “heat of life” as her father used to say), and then her heart galloped under her outerwear, and it came to her with all the speed, force, and subtlety of an axe to the forehead. She sensed that she was losing the fight.

  So this was what dying felt like.

  38

  As Farrow drifted in and out of consciousness, he remembered the gut-wrenching days in Ohio, many years back, after he’d found his wife murdered and his little girl missing. How long ago had it happened? He couldn’t remember precisely, all he knew was that it had been eight or nine months after the world had ended.

  He recalled that instead of sinking into depression, he’d hardened his heart and become a whirlwind of death and devastation, hunting down the gangs that had taken so much from him.

  He remembered tracking the killers by gang sign and graffiti. When he found them, he mowed them all down. Every single one. He cut them down in rows, sewing confusion with a pistol and then dropping them at a distance with an old M-14 rifle. He followed the remnants of the gang back to what passed for their headquarters and did things to the rest of them that he was not proud of and would no longer even think about.

  Farrow remembered searching for his daughter, driving through Ohio and into southern Illinois. When he could find no trace of her, he wandered across the wasteland, falling in line with soul-clobbered stands of survivors on some occasions, going solo on others. Eventually he found his way to a government encampment that had been established for survivors.

  War was the coin of the realm in the FEMA camps. Even rumors of war. Farrow heard strange stories of survival and conspiracies, including one that centered on a mighty train that allegedly continued to run supplies between Canada and Mexico, a powerful, armored locomotive manned by Marines..