by Jerry Ahern
“There isn’t very much meat, Momma, and Michael and I always saved it for special occasions, I was thinking I’d make a roast when Daddy and Paul and Natalia got back with Michael—like a special occasion. It’ll be the first time the whole family—“ “The whole family,” her mother repeated. “Yes, just the six of us. A father and mother who collectively aren’t ten years older than their children’s ages combined. The four of us, plus Paul and good old Natalia, the KGB
major. Paul’s very nice. I’m surprised at the friendship between Paul and your father. Your father never really made friends. He raised you to mate with Paul.” “I know that—but that’s not why I feel the way I do, and if Paul feels the same way, that isn’t why for him either.”
“You’re probably right. And he raised Michael for Natalia—that’s obvious.”
“He was trying to—“
“Did your father ever ask me?”
“The potatoes will burn.”
“No, they won’t, I’ve been doing this a hell of a lot longer than you have. He never asked me. I took the sleep expecting to wake up at the same ion time everyone else awakened. Not to wake up twenty years after my children did, not to find them already grown just so Natalia and Paul wouldn’t be forced to marry or whatever it is people can do when there are only six people alive on earth.” She cut off the burner and began shifting the potatoes into a serving bowl, then took a potholder and checked the oven for the meat. “Your father never cheated on me—never once. I’m sure of that. But he cheated me, cheated me more than he ever could have if he’d cheated on me.”
“But we—“
Sarah turned around, her eyes staring, harder than Annie had ever seen them. “If you marry Paul Rubenstein, if you and Paul have children—how would you feel closing your eyes and seeing them as children, then opening your eyes the next instant of consciousness and seeing them fully grown, missing all the years in the middle. How would you feel? Who told you what to expect when you were growing up—from your body, I mean? Who taught you everything you didn’t teach yourself?”
“Well, Daddy did, but—“
Sarah Rourke whispered, “You finish dinner— I’m not hungry.”
“But…”
Annie watched her mother walk away, to the bedroom, but Sarah Rourke didn’t look back.
It wasn’t as Annie had planned it—it wasn’t that way at all.
Chapter Thirty
John Rourke dismounted the Harley. By taking a route through the mountains that he and Paul Rubenstein had learned of by accident in the weeks following the Night of The War, he had saved two days of travel. Natalia dismounted as well. All about them were telltale signs of a camp. A fragmentary motorcycle tread.
Burned wood from a fire, and signs of a fire being meticulously put out.
“He’s been here, all right,” Paul volunteered.
Rourke looked at the younger man, but only nodded. Rourke studied the partial tread print, looking up from it, ahead, then taking off in a long-strided jog, his eyes scanning the ground through the dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses, a cigar, unlit, clamped between his teeth in the left corner of his mouth.
Another tire impression—he stopped running, dropping to his knees to examine it. “Natalia, bring up my bike. Paul, cut an arc of about one hundred eighty degrees about a hundred yards ahead of me—ninety degrees on each side of where I’m at now.”
“Tracks—right.”
Rourke stood to his full height, taking the Zippo in his right hand, flipping it in his hand, not opening it, not really intending to light the cigar as yet. He glanced skyward, then confirmed the time with his watch. Three hours of daylight remained. If he could second guess Michael’s route as he had earlier, they might be able to cut through the mountains again in such a way as to intercept Michael’s next campsite before total darkness. He was trying to cut the gap of time between them. Rourke felt a smile cross his lips—he realized, chronologically less than a decade older than his son, that he’d already done that.
“Ready.”
He looked at Natalia, then looked away as he mounted the machine.
Chapter Thirty-One
He had lost count of the hours, and realized he had lost count of the days. The cattle prods they had used—his body ached as he moved. He had been away from the Retreat—how many days?
He shook his head to clear it, dismissing the question until a later time.
Cautiously, before assessing his surroundings, he felt under his shirt beside his left hipbone. The revolver—it was still there. As he sat upright, his back screaming at him with the pain, he felt inside his left sock—the A.G. Russell knife was still there.
Michael Rourke looked up, unable to keep the smile that he felt coming from etching across his face. He was alive. He was armed. He assessed his surroundings as, with difficulty, he stood. An ordinary-seeming room, but there were no windows. A door—it seemed made of metal. He approached it, about to touch it to confirm—but he stepped back. With their pen-chant for electricity, he was uncertain. He looked upward—there seemed to be no observation cameras in evidence, no microphones. Perhaps the room—almost a khaki color for walls, ceiling and the linoleum-covered floor—was just that, a room. Nothing more.
Perhaps too they expected him to walk out of it. He licked his lips, reaching down to his sock, removing the Sting IA. Gently, he tossed the all-steel knife against the door. It clattered to the floor. There was no evidence of electricity. He picked up the knife, stepping back from the door again.
He threw the knife—gently, again—this time the knife bouncing against the doorknob, sparks of electricity sputtering into the air. Michael Rourke stepped back.
After a long moment, he picked up his knife. Quickly, he resheathed it, concealing it, then dropped to the floor. He began to unlace his right combat boot. His father had told him the story of the last seconds before fire had engulfed the planet, of the climb to the top of the mountain which held the Retreat, of using the double magazine pouch like a heavy leather glove to insulate his hand. The boot off now, Michael placed his right hand inside it, flexing the leather so he could grip with it.
He thought suddenly of Madison. If they had killed her, he would kill them—it was very simple, very logical. He remembered, as they had lain together after discovering each other, she had asked him what the white flakes which fell from the sky had been and he had explained the crys-talline structures which when examined were never at all like any other. He had explained that some had theorized that perhaps as they fell, the flakes may indeed have fallen into certain patterns and that the infinite variety came about from the constant melting and refreezing they underwent as they passed through different temperature layers, or fell upon the warm ground to partially melt and then refreeze. She had stopped him, laughing, telling him that she thought they made his hair and his eyebrows look pretty. What did one call them, she had asked. Snow, he had told her. And she had repeated the word several times.
He approached the doorknob—he’d free her somehow, he told himself.
But as he reached for the doorknob, the knob sparked, then turned.
Michael Rourke drew back, ready to go for his gun. One of the men in a three-piece business suit stepped into the doorway from the corridor which Michael could partially see beyond him.
“You are to come with us. The Ministers wish to see you. We can use the electric sticks again if you resist.”
Smiling, he dropped to the floor. “Just let me get my boot on, guys.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
They had traveled for most of the night, gotten six hours of rest and then moved on before daylight. More of the shortcuts through the mountains and John Rourke estimated they had saved perhaps as much as two days of travel time compared to Michael’s route. He was exploring. They were searching, a more single-minded pursuit, Rourke had told Paul Rubenstein.
Natalia beside him now, Paul on foot moving through the woods beyond the clearing, looking for signs, Jo
hn Rourke stood, staring at the remains of a fire. It was not one of Michael’s fires. Littered around the clearing, most prominently near, the fire, were human bones.
Natalia, her voice low, whisperlike, said, “Can-nibals.” “Michael parked his bike and moved through the clearing on foot—he went right to them.”
“Human beings, John—he was looking for more of his own kind. That’s why he left the Retreat. But there was no sign of him returning to the bike.” “He headed after them/’ Rourke added som-berly.
He looked at her, Natalia’s eyes looking into his. “What would you have done?” He laughed a little. “Gone after them—just like Michael—under the circumstances.”
“You told me you taught him to be very good with a gun. And Annie—she said he practiced regularly.”
“Yeah, but all he took with him was one assault rifle and those two single-actions he liked. And two knives. That means, in a firefight, just one viable weapon. Those handguns are super for what they were built for—hunting, backup in the game fields, silhouette shooting. Not for combat. And anyway, he’s on his own.”
“They’ve been on their own for fifteen years. Annie told us Michael would leave the Retreat sometimes to go off exploring.”
“Never this long. And anyway—he’s not just some guy. He’s my son. I’m worried. Cannibals,” and he dropped into a crouch beside an almost neatly stacked pile of human ribs, the bones spotless.
“John—oh, shit—John!”
Rourke was up, running, Natalia ahead of him, both of the Metalife Custom L-Frames which bore the American Eagle symbols on the barrel flats coming into her hands, Rourke snatching the Python from the full flap holster at his hip. He slowed his run, Natalia stopped already beside Paul Rubenstein, Paul’s hands shaking, the sling for the MP-40 subgun rattling. Rourke walked over to stand between them. In the bushes was a human head, the smell of the rotting tissue strong. The eyebrows were reddish tinged; the scalp and the skin above the middle of the forehead had been peeled away. “Cannibals?”
Rourke looked at Rubenstein. “Yeah,” he almost whispered.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Michael Rourke glanced at his Rolex—the date had changed, ever closer to Christmas and the time set for the Awakening. He had been imconscious from the electrical shocks overnight. They—the three men in the business suits—had let him stop in a bathroom. He had urinated and defecated, and washed his face and hands, noticing the stubble on his cheeks as he studied his face momentarily in the mirror. He looked identical to the sleeping visage of his father in the cryogenic chamber.
His three business-suited guards with their high-powered cattle prods walked with him as he moved down the corridor now, a large, double-doored room at one end. Was it the armory Madison had spoken of? he wondered. He made a mental note to investigate it.
The corridor made a left bend and at the far end where the corridor stopped there were two ornate wooden doors, like something one might expect forming the doorway of a conference room.
“You will go inside and await the Ministers,” the one who had spoken earlier told him, opening the right hand door. Michael noticed the door handle. It looked to be made of gold and ornately figured. “What about you guys?” Michael asked.
“The Ministers will see you.” The man held open the door. Michael walked through. The room was lit with conventional-looking ceiling fixtures, but bulbs rather than the fluorescent tubes which would have been more in keeping with the room, he thought.
A long, expensive-looking conference table dominated the center of the room, space to sit perhaps two dozen people: mentally, subcon-sciously, he began counting the chairs—twenty-eight, one larger chair at each end. At the far end, before the larger of the two largest chairs, were two candles, but neither candle was lit. He was alone in the room as far as he could ascertain. He looked to the walls on each side of the room, and then to the wall on the far side of the room. Murals, crudely painted, very stylized, at once modern, primitive and yet almost juvenile, filled the walls. His mouth was suddenly dry. It was the Night of The War, cities burning, missiles raining down from the skies. He had seen none of this where they had taken shelter that night in the barn opposite their house. But he had heard the stories around the campfires of the Resistance, remem-bered the stories his father had told of overflying the cities that night as they were systematically turned to ashes. Both flanking walls depicted this horror and he looked away from it, to a horror that had been worse, one he had seen, did remember, could never forget. It was the last sunrise, the holocaust, the end of the world, the sky aflame, lightning bolts crackling through the skies, ball lightning rolling across the ground, bodies on fire—death.
“These have meaning to you, young man?”
He turned around. The conference room doors closed. There were seven men, all in immaculately tailored business suits and red fabric bedroom slippers, their ages varying from younger than his own to what he judged might be late seventies. The same voice—the oldest one of them was slightly bent, balding to the point where a wispy fringe of white crowned the sides of his head, the light from the overhead bulbs gleaming dully off his head. “You remember this from stories?” “I saw this—with my own eyes—the holocaust, when the skies caught fire.”
“Heresy,” one of the others murmured.
“But I—I am very old, and I saw none of this.”
“It’s a long story—but we utilized a special scientific process, for cryogenic sleep.”
“What is this cryo—this—“
“Cryogenic sleep.”
“We?”
“My father and mother, my sister, our two friends. The six of us. We’d thought we were the only people left alive.”
“You wear shoes of leather, boy.”
Michael Rourke looked at his feet, and then at their own. “They were made five centuries ago but well-cared for.”
The old one who had done all of the speaking except for the word “heresy” laughed.
“Five-hundred-year-old shoes on a five-hundred-year-old man who looks to be perhaps thirty years old—
“I turn thirty next month—but what I say is true. Who are you?” Michael asked.
“I am the man who will decide your fate, along with my six associates.”
Michael Rourke licked his lips. “What is the Place?”
“It is our home.” The old one smiled, almost laughing.
“Who are Them?”
“Outcasts, young man—they are outcasts.”
“From where?”
“From the Place, outcasts sent from the Place over the course of the last several decades.”
“Where is Madison?”
“She who was Madison fifteen, until it was decided she would be one who goes?”
“Yes—the one you call Madison fifteen.”
“She was called that, but she is called nothing now.” Michael started for the old one, but the man raised his hands, palms outward and he smiled. “For the moment, this girl is quite safe and quite well. You will see her again, I assure you.”
“I came here in peace. I saved Madison from the ones you call Them. I forced her to bring me here. I search for people of my own kind. Do you have aircraft?” “Machines which fly? Of course not.”
“Someone does—there was a crash. I couldn’t find the wreckage. But the pilot—I found his parachute. And he was being killed by Them. That’s how I came to rescue Madison. I only came for knowledge—not for violence. Believe that.” “You came with the guns. This one is called a handgun,I think?”
“Yes—a handgun.”
“And the other one—it is called?”
“An automatic rifle.” He said nothing of his knowledge of the arsenal which he had gained from Madison.
“We have many such implements, but they are never used. They are dusted, they are given oil—“ “Where do you get oil from?”
“Peanuts which we grow. We distill an oil to a specific formula given to us over the ages.”
“Why do you keep guns if you don’t have a use for them?” “They were used by our progenitors and have religious value to us and this is why we preserve them. But we do not need to make shoot with them.” “To make shoot,” Michael repeated. “Right.” He wished he smoked like his father had. “Listen —I came in peace. Give me my guns, give me the girl—I’ll leave with her.”
“Your guns have been added to ours. There they shall remain.”
“Fine—gimme the girl, then. You keep the guns.” “We will not give you the girl and allow you to leave, as you say, because then you might tell others of this place.”
“There are no others,” Michael told him. “Except the cannibals. No others. Whoever came in that plane, I don’t know where he came from, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell him about you—if you let us go in peace.” “Have you no curiosity, young man—about us? We have about you. Tell us your story and we shall tell you ours.”
“I’d love to, but maybe some other time. I’ll bring Madison back to visit or something.”
The old one laughed. “A sense of humor—my goodness. How refreshing.”
“Thanks. Now—“
“No. We shall recount our story. We have never before had the chance,” and the old man started from the doors and crossed near Michael. Michael felt the temptation to reach out and throttle the man, use him as a wedge to get past the others and find Madison and escape. The old man just looked at him. “If you attack me, it will gain you nothing. It is nearly time that I become one who goes. Harming me, or the threat of harming me will not gain your freedom from here. But you must be curious.”
“All right, I’m curious—tell me.”
The old man smiled and Michael noticed that a cataract partially covered his left eye. “Do you have doctors?” Michael asked as the old man shuffled toward the head of the table, “We have healers but an attempt to prolong the time before one goes is forbidden.”