Black Creek

by Dan Kemp

  "I see," she said. "Anyway, he said he knew where my girlfriend was, that she was safe. So he led us here. This is her." Jess produced the photo and slid it across the table to him. He glanced at it without expression and pushed it back.

  "We don't answer questions about who is or isn't inside, with outsiders anyway."

  "So how do we get inside?"

  "An interview. But not this one, one with the boss. The rules are simple: we welcome any and all who can contribute. Able-bodied workers, scientists, engineers, cooks, teachers. That kind of thing. He's away though. Was supposed to get back any time now. So you'll have to wait until tomorrow."

  "Is there any other way?"

  "No," he said. "You can stay here overnight, or go back outside and come back then."

  "Please," Jess said. "I need to see her. It's been two years. Two years not knowing if she was alive or dead, or worse. I just need to see her. Please." Tears were welling at the corners of her eyes. Kristof's face softened.

  "I can't," he said. "Believe me I would, if it were up to me. But it's not."

  "Then just tell me if she's here. Please." He stared at her for a moment, then nodded his head slightly. The dam burst, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Meredith put a hand on her shoulder.

  "Just wait until tomorrow, okay?” Kristof said. “It's safe here."

  "Alright," Jess said, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

  "Tell me, what did you do before?"

  "I was a detective. In Pittsburgh."

  "That's excellent. We've been talking about setting up a police force. What about you, Meredith?"

  "I was just a college student," she said meekly.

  "No job, nothing else?" She shook her head. "What did you study?"

  "Education," she said.

  Kristof seemed to contemplate it. "I don't know, hard to say. We don't really have kids here, and you weren't a qualified teacher anyway. We definitely need you, Jess. Maybe you can cut a deal when you talk to Dorian."

  "Dorian?"

  "Yeah, Dorian Black, the billionaire. You know him?"

  Oh, I know him. "Only by name."

  The light overhead suddenly went off, and they were left in the dark.

  "Oh, what the hell are they doing?" came Kristof's voice, though she couldn’t see him. A low, dull rumble followed, traveling down the length of the wall as well as through the earth below them. After a moment, it passed. The door opened and sunlight flooded in. She now saw that it was Kristof who had opened it.

  "Wait, I can help you!" she called after him, but the door swung shut. When she tried the handle though, it wasn't locked.

  It was quiet on the streets outside. The men who had stood watch atop the wall were gone, the gates shut. Jess could see from here the sheer size of the place. There was no sense in searching randomly from house to house. She could see smoke rising into the air in the distance off to her left.

  Two dozen armed men and women were gathered on the wall at the other edge of town. No one paid Jess and Meredith any notice as they climbed the ladder and slid into the crowd. Sliding her way to the front, she could see what had happened.

  There was another set of gates beneath them. Away from that ran a small fenced-in pathway which led to another, smaller, walled compound. She couldn't see into it, but heavy black smoke was billowing upward from the buildings there.

  "They knocked out our power," someone was saying. "We can't open the gates." Worried murmuring spread through the crowd.

  Some people were approaching below, a dozen men and women in crimson rags. Two men and a woman at their front, iron chains dangling from their wrists glinting in the sun. All were armed.

  "The Church. Goddamn cunts." Kristof's voice, from nearby.

  "We have destroyed your generators." It was the woman in chains who shouted up to them.

  "Fuck you," Kristof replied.

  "Come down and we'll talk about it. Or are you trapped?"

  "The workers at the power house. What did you do with them?"

  She shrugged. "Some are dead, some aren't. But if you stay in there, you won't be able to save them."

  "Lisa," Kristof muttered to himself, but the significance of the name was lost on Jess.

  There was the roar of a motorcycle engine now, first far away and steadily approaching. It seemed as though everyone on both sides was uncertain what to make of this. The Church members were outnumbered and on low ground, but the people on the wall were packed too tightly to make any effective attack, and even if they did, they still couldn’t open the gates. So both groups simply stood and watched as the motorcycle came near.

  It stopped just outside the chain link fence, its driver a tall man in leather gear and a sawed-off shotgun slung over his back.

  "It's Dorian," Kristof said. "He's back."

  Dorian

  Dorian had been on the road for three days.

  He'd left in the early morning, a duffel bag and a shotgun slung over the back of his motorcycle and a revolver at his hip. "I'll be back in four days at the latest," he had said to Kristof, though he'd not mentioned where he intended to go. Dorian himself hadn't known exactly where he was going.

  What he did have was a map, and on it was a pattern. A pattern of sightings of his friend over the past year, mostly in northern Virginia. Once he got to that general area, he figured it didn't matter where he went. He knew James well. If someone was in trouble, he'd be there. So Dorian might just have to make some trouble.

  Doing so had turned out to be harder than he expected. Though the countryside around Black Creek was fairly barren these days, this area made it look like a bustling metropolis. The relatively flat grasslands were now marshes and swamps stretching as far as he could see. Low-lying roads were flooded at best, and many were impassable. He traveled along the raised roads as much as he could.

  At first Dorian had traveled east, but he ran into the ocean about fifty miles sooner than he expected. Cruising along the low country road, the ocean had appeared so suddenly he nearly drove straight into the waves.

  Having barely stopped in time, Dorian sat for a while atop his idling motorcycle. The waves lapped peacefully at his feet, and gulls cawed overhead. As far as he could see, there was no one else in sight. After a while, he rode off.

  He could only assume massive flooding and a subsequent sea level change had a lot to do with the state of this area. So he made his way southwest, and after half a day or so the land began to dry out. On this, the morning of the third day, he saw the first sign of human life since he'd left Black Creek.

  Five RVs were parked in a circle just off the side of the road. Dorian stopped his motorcycle nearby, but a guard on the roof of one vehicle watched him warily. After a few minutes the man fired a warning shot which pinged off the asphalt a few yards away, so Dorian drove on.

  The highway took him past a residential area. If anyone was left alive there, he didn't see any sign of them. Half the houses were leveled or burned, and those that still stood had their windows and doors smashed. Looted, he was sure.

  Something about this place, so thoroughly abandoned, struck him. Of course, the collapse of civilization as they'd known it was nothing surprising to him at this point. Still, to be alone on the road like this for days at a time was surreal.

  He heard a shriek somewhere far above. Craning his neck back Dorian could see two pteranodons flying side by side, their massive wings flapping almost lazily as they went. They didn't seem to take notice of him, but in any case he kept one hand on his shotgun until they had gone out of sight.

  Dorian rode for another hour, simply watching the empty landscape roll by, before he saw the truck. At first it was a just smudge of yellow on the horizon ahead, but as he gained ground he saw that it was an old rental truck. It was chugging along at a slow pace, smoke beginning to emanate from its engine compartment. When he was about a quarter mile behind it, the truck began to sputter and slow, before finally coasting to a stop in the middle of the road.


  Three men had climbed out of the cab by the time he arrived. Two were leaning over the engine, and another was watching him as he approached. He dropped the kickstand on his bike a few carlengths away and dismounted.

  "Trouble?" he asked, walking toward them. The other two men had joined the first one in staring him down. They wore regular clothes, jeans and t-shirts. Each had a pistol holstered at his hip, he noticed. The first man had his hand resting on his gun.

  "Hope not," he said. "Just a mechanical problem. Appreciate you stopping, but we can handle it."

  "Ah, I know my way around an engine pretty well. Sure you don't want me to take a look?" Dorian said.

  The men glanced at each other. They were nervous, that was obvious enough. "Sure," one finally said.

  Dorian started toward the front of the truck, but stopped when he heard banging from inside the cargo area. The pounding of a fist on the thin metal, and muffled yells.

  Dorian smiled. "What's in the truck, boys?"

  Two of them exchanged another look, and the third moved to draw his gun. Dorian moved first, sliding his revolver free and putting two shots in the man’s chest. The man hit the ground before the other two even realized what happened. He turned his aim to the next man, but his next shot hit the road as both of them scrambled to get behind the truck.

  A bullet whizzed past his ear just as Dorian jumped back against the side of the truck. He turned and ran back toward his motorcycle, staying close to the truck where he couldn't be seen. The engine started with a growl and he grabbed his shotgun.

  Ahead, he could see one of the men peeking around the front of the truck. With a twist of the throttle the bike sped forward, and he leapt off just before it would have carried him past the two men. The bike kept rolling, eventually falling on its side and grinding to a stop. A volley of gunfire followed it.

  Dorian ran forward, shotgun in hand, and fired a blast as he stepped out from behind the truck. It caught one man full in the chest and clipped the other at his shoulder. Both men went down, one silent and the other moaning in pain. As he approached, the last one living made for his gun, which had fallen next to him. Dorian stomped on his hand and the man howled again. Dorian kicked the pistol away across the road.

  "Where are the keys?" Dorian asked, but the man didn't answer, preferring to keep moaning and writhing on the ground. He felt in the dead man's pockets and found nothing, then found them in the living man's right pocket.

  Dorian pulled his motorcycle back upright and left the shotgun there, drawing his revolver instead. "Don't go anywhere," he said to the man, then shot him in the knee. The lock on the sliding cargo door opened with a clunk, and Dorian heaved the heavy door open. Inside, a dozen children were huddled together at the back of the hold, each peeking out at him fearfully. Most looked to be between eight and ten.

  "God fucking damnit." Dorian slid the door shut again.

  "Where were you taking them?" Dorian pressed the heel of his boot into the man's wounded knee. He shrieked.

  "Fuck y—" the man started, and Dorian shot him in the other knee.

  "I'm not sure where you got the impression that I'm fucking around." Dorian aimed the gun at his head.

  "Alright, alright!" he yelled. "We have a camp outside of Elkton, like ten miles from here."

  "How many of you are there?"

  "Enough."

  "Yeah, we'll see. Let's go." Dorian motioned toward the cab of the truck.

  "I can't fucking walk."

  "Then crawl. Look, I'll even get the door for you." Dorian opened the passenger side door and gestured inside with his gun. The man just stared at him.

  "Either get in, or die here and now. Your choice." Dorian went back to his bike and wheeled it off the road, tucking it away among some shrubs. He took his shotgun and duffel bag and threw both in the back of the cab.

  The man was halfway into the passenger door, holding himself up by his hands and unable to stand up. He held his hand out to Dorian as he sat in the driver's seat. Dorian pulled it, dumping the man unceremoniously on the floor. When Dorian hit the gas, the passenger door swung shut and hit the man's leg once again.

  They drove in silence for a few minutes. "Hey," Dorian finally said. The man didn't reply. "Hey, dickhead," he said again, slapping him in the back of his head.

  "What?"

  "Is anybody else left around here? Regular people, not you."

  "Only in the cities. Harrisonburg, Charlottesville around here, and further south. D.C. is under water."

  "Yeah, I saw. You hear about anybody killing dinosaurs? Any of your dipshit friends get killed by a man with green eyes and magic powers?"

  The man actually laughed. "Yeah. Everybody around here has. You looking for him, tough guy? I wouldn't try your luck."

  "You know where he is?" Dorian asked.

  "No, and I don't want to know."

  A camp came into view just ahead, a small circle of camper vehicles and flimsy shacks on the side of the road. "Is this it?"

  "How should I know? I can't see." The man was still on the floor.

  "Pull yourself up. You've still got arms, for the moment." The man did, grunting and panting.

  "Yeah, that's it," he finally said, just barely peeking over the dash.

  Dorian parked behind one of the campers, quickly reaching inside his bag and reloading his two guns. A man was approaching now, having come around from the other side of the RV. He stopped at the driver's side as Dorian rolled down the window.

  "Howdy," Dorian said with a smile.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  Dorian shot him in the head, then turned and finally put the man in the passenger's seat out of his misery. He slipped another two rounds into his revolver before leaving the truck, tucking the gun back at his waist and advancing with the shotgun in hand.

  No one else was in sight, so he kicked in the door of the first camper he got to. This one was empty, but through the windows he could see several armed men in the camp between the RVs. They had their guns raised, each looking around fearfully. They had no idea where he was.

  Morons.

  He burst through the opposite door of the RV, firing a warning blast with the shotgun and catching them off guard. "Drop 'em!" he yelled. They whirled around to see him, but at that moment the earth shook, and everyone froze. Another boom and tremble, then another, that unmistakable sound.

  "Motherfucker," Dorian said.

  The air was rent by a terrible roar. Dorian slipped back inside the RV just as the Tyrannosaurus smashed through a camper across the circle. The men scrambled in every direction, firing futile shots over their shoulders. One man didn't get far, and went down beneath the dinosaur's massive foot. It slammed its head against another RV and knocked it over on its side, then it turned its attention to the one Dorian was hiding in now. Briefly, it almost seemed as if the beast met Dorian's eyes.

  Dorian ran, cursing, out the back door just before the dinosaur crashed through it, flattening the vehicle beneath its feet. He turned as he ran, but the T-rex couldn’t match his turn and careened into the truck. As it crashed down onto its side, Dorian could hear the muffled shouts of the children inside.

  For some reason Dorian stopped at that sound, though he knew he couldn’t go back. The creature also hesitated, torn between two apparent targets for a few seconds. Then, its mind made up, it started its charge toward Dorian, and he started to run once again.

  The sky grew suddenly very dark with gathering clouds, and there was a loud crash as a bolt of lightning tore down from above. His pursuer roared and staggered under the impact. A fountain of flame appeared next, curling over the body of the dinosaur and burning its flesh. It was then that Dorian saw him. The man was unrecognizable from this distance, but who else could it be?

  James darted and danced about his massive opponent, avoiding its attacks and lashing back with spouts of fire and frost. Finally, he leapt out of the way of its snapping jaws before countering with two shots from his handgun straigh
t into the creature’s eye. The dinosaur reared back and teetered, then it fell forward to the ground, motionless.

  "Dorian?" he asked after.

  It was James, alright. There were those strange green eyes, and that was his face beneath an overgrowth of hair and beard. He looked as surprised to see him as Dorian was.

  Dorian grabbed him by the shoulders and hugged him. "Where the fuck have you been?"

  James gestured around him vaguely. "Here."