The Road North
Page 42
The weapon spent Kyle dropped the rifle and pulled his revolver from its holster, eager to finish the job, but The Seeker was already moving. Cradling his wounded arm, he turned and ran towards the back wall away from Kyle. The scavenger held him in his sites for the briefest of moments, but just then the blue light died away again. Kyle swore and then fired into the darkness anyway, the shot ricocheting away. He took a few halting steps forward contemplating following the man when Coal called out to him in a strangled voice.
“Tnto…fckig…ru..run.”
Kyle dropped down, trying to pull his friend to his feet. He heard something then in the darkness, the sound of movement, undoubtedly caused by The Seeker and Kyle fired again at random.
“Come on, come on let’s move!” Kyle shouted.
Coal fought his way to his feet, and the two men turned and together stumbled back towards the opening in the wall. Just before they stepped through Kyle glanced down and seeing Coal’s hunting knife, he bent down and scooped the blade up. They made their way through the gap and into the darkness of the equipment bay beyond, heading straight for the light of their burning torch. To Kyle’s surprise, as they moved across the massive space they didn’t find anything, the bay appeared to be completely empty. No shelves or workbenches blocked their path. No empty crates or rusting equipment scattered the floor. It seemed, much like the offices, that the place had been completely stripped clean. As they moved more and more of Coal’s sense began to return, and the first thing he heard was Kyle’s voice.
“Coal, you are a fucking asshole! Not only did you leave me and Miles strung out as bait, again, but you’re noise maker almost blew my fucking head off!”
Coal tried to laugh, but it came out as a strained and painful thing.
“But..It…di..diddn’t,” he managed.
“Yeah, but no thanks to you!”
Ahead of them, Coal could now see a figure standing in the door of the office way. It took is muddled mind a moment to realize it was Miles. The old man was standing, barely and using the burning spear as a walking staff again.
“What is it? What happened?” he shouted.
“Miles, we’re fucking leaving!”
“What? Why? Is he dead? We haven’t even had a chance to look around!”
“He’s shot, but I doubt very much that he’s dead.”
In the light of the torch, Kyle could see the old man’s face held bewildered look as if trying to decide which was more important, fleeing for his life or searching the place that he had sacrificed so much to reach.
“There is nothing here Miles. The equipment bays are all empty, this place has been stripped, just like the offices.”
“Wh...what?” Miles stammered.
“It’s not…completely …empty,” Coal managed, “We f…found…a blue light.”
The old man’s face went white, and he suddenly looked around at the darkness as if he expected another giant steel monster to appear at any moment.
“We have to go Miles. There’s nothing here for us.”
A look of despair fell across the old man’s face, and he nodded weakly in reply. Without another word, the trio turned and stumbled towards the door they had first entered. A quick slash with Coals knife cut the improvised lock holding the door shut and they stumbled out into the darkness. They went only a few feet when Coal, pulled his arm free of Kyle’s shoulder.
“I can, I can walk now. I think,” he said.
“But walk to wear?” Miles grumbled.
“Someplace to lay low and rest, at least until the sun…”
They were halfway across the parking lot when Kyle heard a faint pop from somewhere in the distance, causing Kyle to stop mid-sentence. Suddenly, the world was bathed in a strange and shifting half-light. The trio stopped and looking upward they found a white light burning in the sky above them, many times brighter than the sun and drifting gently towards the earth.
“Is it them? Are they here?” Miles asked.
Staring up at the strange light, Coal shook his head. “I don’t think its aliens. In fact, I think that’s a flare, I…”
The sound of a gunshot cut through the darkness and Coal’s head whipped back in a spray of blood. Kyle watched as his friend’s body crumpled to the ground. He opened his mouth to shout and was reaching out towards Coal, when a second shot smashed into Kyle’s midsection. The scavenger immediately dropped to the ground clutching at his stomach and screamed as his entire midsection felt like it was on fire. Then the sound of Miles shouting cut through the pain and Kyle rolled over again. In the shifting light of the flare, he could see movement now, men were moving towards them through the darkness, men with guns. As the burning flare slowly descended Kyle realized there was another light in the sky as well, one that he recognized. This one was low on the horizon and approaching from the east, sailing towards them like a comet and burning a bright blue. But it seemed Kyle wasn’t the only one to see the alien machine closing in on them, because just then a voice shouted out of the darkness.
“Contact, three minutes out! Move it!”
Kyle opened his mouth to shout out his own warning to Miles, but at that moment someone kicked him in the side, causing him to double over in pain again. When he looked back up a man stood over him in the darkness, then the butt of a rifle smashed into his face, and everything went black.
Epilogue
Kyle startled awake, and the first thing he realized was that he was zip-tied to a steel chair. He blinked twice in confusion and then tried to pull both of his arms free, only to have his efforts cut short by a stabbing pain in his stomach. Looking down for the first time Kyle realized his revolver and shoulder holster were missing, along with his belt and boots.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
Kyle’s head whipped around, and to his left he found Coal strapped into a chair next to him.
“Jesus Coal! I thought you were dead!”
The bounty-hunter turned his head to look at Kyle and gave him a half grin. The right side of Coal’s head had been shaved to the skin and now boasted a six inch freshly stitched gash.
“To be honest Tonto, with this fucking headache, I kinda wish I was dead.”
Kyle grinned at his friend and then turned to look at the rest of the room. The walls were unpainted corrugated steel, and right away Kyle recognized that they were being held inside a shipping container. The only furniture in the space, other than the chair to which they were strapped, was a folding table a few feet away with a chair behind it. The only light in the room came from an oil lamp burning on the table.
“Any idea where we are?” he asked.
“Nope. They must have doped me with something pretty good when they stitched me up though. I can remember bits and pieces but not a lick of it makes any sense. Then I woke up here about an hour ago, same as you.”
Kyle was nodding now, pieces starting to fall into place.
“I’ll give you one guess who they are.”
“Well, since they haven’t eaten us yet, I’m guessing it’s not the Masters,” Coal replied.
“Yeah, I’m fairly certain we left those bastards behind us in Phoenix.”
“Not all of them.”
“What?” Kyle asked.
“Our buddy with the spear, the Masters sent him. He called himself The Seeker.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me!”
“I’m not shitting you,” Coal replied. “So, that only leaves one possibility.”
“Protectorate,” Kyle said with a nod. “But why would they keep us alive? Why stitch you up? And where in the hell is Miles?”
“Well, seeing how we're both strapped down to chairs, I’m guessing whatever it is, it’s not going to be something that we’ll enjoy.”
Kyle shook his head, “Coal, we can’t tell these people anything. I don’t know who they are or what they could want from us, but we have to think of the town and everybody back home.”
Coal nodded a
nd then looking at Kyle asked, “I hear you, and you’re right, but why are you telling me this? I mean between the two of us, who do you honestly think is going to break first under torture?”
Kyle stared at his friend for a few seconds and then replied, “Fuck you Coal.”
The bounty hunter began to laugh, and after moment Kyle joined him, both of them were still laughing when the door of the container opened.
The End