Deep Trek

by neetha Napew

  HE WENT UP the narrow staircase to check out the sleeping arrangements. Mercy's own room was neat, with a dimity nightgown laid over the end of the double bed. Two guest rooms each had single beds. And then in the attic, two small rooms had been knocked through into one.

  He'd thought it was over, but now he realized they hadn't known all.

  "Oh, Christ," he breathed, understanding now the old woman's runic comments about not allowing them to take her pupils away from her.

  The attic had been turned into a classroom, complete with seven mummified little corpses leaning crookedly in three rows of tiny desks, facing a blackboard. On it, in the same old-fashioned and elegant hand, was chalked a single sentence.

  "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

  Jim closed the door very quietly and went back down the stairs to tell the others.

  Chapter Thirty- Three

  Nanci Simms had found the ideal position for her ambush on a bank overlooking the blacktop, behind a fringe of dead huckleberries, with a forest of sturdy redwoods at her back. She could take out the driver and anyone in the cab of the lumbering Phantasm RV as they drew level with her. There were metal guards on both sides of the highway, so it wouldn't topple over the cliff. By the time the driver of the jeep towing the fuel tank realized what was happening, she'd have killed him with a second burst of fire from the stubby machine pistol.

  The leading vehicle was less than two hundred yards away, moving little faster than walking speed. The sunlight reflected off the shield made it impossible to see who was driving. But that wasn't a problem for Nanci Simms.

  It wasn't likely to be anyone she knew.

  As she crouched and waited, it crossed Nanci's mind that most people that she'd ever known well had died… and most of them she'd killed herself.

  The noise of the RV was deafening. For a moment she thought that she caught the sound of movement behind her, among the sun-dappled shadows beneath the sweeping branches. She turned and stared but couldn't spot anything moving.

  The Phantasm was around a hundred yards away, then fifty, moving even more slowly as it neared the crest of the rise. Then the range was down to thirty yards. She brought the gun up to her shoulder, ready to open fire as the woods seemed to be trembling with the roaring of the engine.

  One of Nanci's many attributes was peripheral vision over twenty percent better than what used to be the national average. Out of the corner of her right eye she caught the faintest flicker of movement and started to spin around.

  The trio of dogs were less than twenty feet away, charging at her, bellies down, hunting in a menacing silence. There was a moment to place them as some mix of German shepherd and rottweiler, then she pulled the trigger.

  The burst of lead from the Port Royale ripped the animals apart, slaughtering all three of them instantly. But the center dog was already in midair, committed to its leap for the woman's throat, fangs bared.

  It struck Nanci on the chest, knocking the gun from her hands and sending her staggering backward. Tripping over an exposed root of one of the redwoods, she slithered through the brittle fronds of the huckleberries, rolling down the slope, pushing away the snarling corpse, dust blinding her.

  The rotting stump of a dead aspen brought Nanci to a sudden, jolting stop, hitting her under the ribs, driving all the breath from her body.

  She was aware through the breathless pain that the Phantasm had stopped and that one of the doors had opened. Boots stopped close to her, and there was a mutter of voices, but the idling engine was way too loud for her to hear the words. Farther off came the faint echo of someone running.

  Then the click of a gun's hammer being cocked.

  So, she thought. This is how it ends. A sunlit road in the country.

  Could be worse ways to go.

  JEFF HAD BEGUN running back down the narrow, twisting road as soon as he heard the sound of the Port Royale spitting out its full-auto load of death. His own .38 was ready in his hand, though his time with Nanci Simms made him certain that his own contribution wasn't likely to be needed.

  When he sprinted over the crown of the next steep hill, he found himself staring down onto a bizarre and totally inexplicable tableau.

  There was a dead or dying animal, thrashing and squealing on the edge of the pavement, so smeared in blood it was impossible to tell what it might once have been. A pig or a small deer, was Jeff's blind guess.

  The cream-and-brown Phantasm had stopped, its exhaust smoking a little, the driver's door swinging open. Behind it, just visible, was the jeep, with a tall, bearded man getting out, holding a pump-action shotgun.

  Lying still in the dirt, her khaki suit covered in dust, was the unmistakable figure of Nanci Simms, the machine pistol glittering in the sunlight a couple of feet away from her outstretched hand.

  But the person dominating the scene was a heavily built, muscular man with grizzled hair. He was holding a shotgun, barrel pointing down toward Nanci.

  The man started to turn toward Jeff as he heard the sound of the pounding boots on the tarmac.

  Something about him brought Jeff to a dead halt. He stared for a second, then started to yell at the top of his lungs.

  "Mac! Holy shit, Mac! It's me. Don't shoot, Mac, it's me. It's me!"

  Nanci, fighting for breath, was beginning to recover a little. She was aware of the shouts and the voice of the man who held the 16-gauge Brazzi scattergun aimed at her. She noticed the tone of surprise, tinged with something that remarkably resembled disgust.

  "Well, I'll go to the top of our stairs, folks. If it's not Jeff Thomas."

  JEANNE MCGILL had copied out the original note from Jim Hilton and she showed it to Jeff and Nanci as they all sat together in the living area of the Phantasm. Introductions had been made, and everyone was sharing mugs of instant decaf and a plate of chocolate-chip cookies.

  Mac was watching Jeff while he read the note, sitting on the sofa with Nanci Simms at his side.

  There was something about the ex-journalist that had always gotten on Henderson McGill's nerves. An arrogance that was somehow underlaid with a strange subservience, as though he was equally ready to hit out at you or be hit himself and didn't care all that much which it was.

  Nanci had recovered from the shock of the attack by the dogs and had used the RV facilities to wash and clean herself, helped by Jeanne and Pamela. Mac was equally uneasy about their new companion. Retired schoolteacher from Fort Worth, she'd said. Though she didn't flaunt herself, he knew enough about bodybuilding and weight training to recognize someone who was in terrific shape despite admitting to being around the middle fifties.

  But company was company. And Nanci certainly looked like someone who would handle herself well in any emergency, and life after Earthblood was one emergency after another.

  Jeff laid down the piece of paper, half closing his eyes as he did his arithmetic. "How many of the old Aquila left, then? Only five? Is that right?"

  Mac nodded. "Looks like it. You and me. Jim and Carrie and Kyle Lynch." Jeff whistled. "High mortality."

  "Not so high as throughout the country," said Nanci. "My guess is that there's a lot less than one left alive from every five hundred."

  Paul McGill nodded, carefully putting down his empty mug on a shelf. "From what we've seen driving from New England, Miss Simms, it could be even worse than that."

  "Difficult to tell, though." Pamela McGill looked at her father. "We supposed there's quite a few taken to the back country and just plain vanished."

  Mac glanced toward his first wife. "Any chance of a refill, Jeanne? Thanks. Yeah, Pamela, there could be dozens within a hundred yards as you drive by."

  Nanci Simms leaned back, wincing as she felt the bruising under her ribs. "Whoa, that bastard dog nearly did me some serious damage. Like they used to say about the Apaches, Mac… if you could see them then they were there. And if you couldn't see them, then they were really there."

  "How about this place—" Jeff consulted the note ag
ain. "—Eureka? We going there?" As he waited for Mac to reply, he added, "You were heading south?"

  "That's the way out from Muir Woods that's open. Then we cut back and head north."

  "We got some good maps." Jocelyn and Sukie had been shy of the two strangers, hiding out in the kitchen, peering around the edge of the door. Now the older of the girls was confident enough to show Nanci and Jeff a big Rand McNally atlas.

  "We also got them state by state," said Pamela. "And some hiking-scale ones."

  "Got them for this area of Northern California?" asked Nanci. "Though I reckon I know these parts fairly well. Used to hike and backpack a lot when I was younger. I fear I'm past all that now."

  Mac was watching Jeff Thomas as she said this and he caught the cynical grin, quickly masked, that flitted across the badly scarred face.

  "You know Eureka?" asked Jeanne. "Sounds like an exciting sort of a name."

  Nanci smiled. "Only time I was there it was cold and wet and a fog in off the water. Maybe I was unlucky." She studied the copy of the note again. "What does he mean about this boy, Sly, not being too bright. Do I detect a subtext there, Mac?"

  "Sort of. Lad's got Down's syndrome. Steve coped well, but it never sat right with his ex-wife. What was her name? Alice? No. Alison, that was it. Took to drink over the boy. Broke their marriage."

  Nanci tutted her disapproval. "Might be that this Sly doesn't see all of the things that we do. Then again, I'll bet you that he sees some things that we don't."

  Mac saw his own ex-wife and his children nod at what the older woman had said. It showed her wisdom and made it easier for her to be accepted into their group. But he was more cynical. From what he knew, it was obvious that Jeff and Nanci had already met Sly Romero. So she'd know all about him. But the others hadn't noticed the trick.

  He decided that Nanci Simms merited some careful watching.

  Jeff had taken the note. "Three hundred miles up the coast. That going to be the best route?"

  Paul McGill answered him. "We spent some time on the maps, Jeff. There are other possibilities, cutting inland. But if Jim Hilton's going to try that way, then we might as well do the same. We got a couple of days less than him."

  "December 18," said Nanci. "Shouldn't be that hard. You got fuel?"

  "Enough for that," said Pamela. "But not a whole lot to get us farther."

  "Cross that bridge when we reach it." She looked at Jeanne. "Any more coffee?"

  THE FOUR-BY-FOUR went out in front, Nanci at the wheel. Mac drove the Phantasm carefully along the treacherously narrow and winding roads, with Paul bringing up the rear towing the fuel truck, Pamela at his side. Jeanne and the two youngest children were in the rear of the RV.

  They'd barely started, just past the turnoff to Bolinas, when they saw the sign.

  Nanci braked, holding her hand out of the window in the agreed signal for them to stop. Everyone got down, staring at the weather-stained billboard.

  It had originally advertised Acme Coyote Traps. The slogan beneath the picture of a ravenous animal slavering over the mangled corpse of a sheep said Get Your Retaliation In First. Do It To Him With An Acme Coyote Trap.

  But that wasn't what had caught Nanci's eye.

  It had been the painted graffiti on the billboard, done so crudely that it would have been passed by without a second glance by anyone driving Highway 1.

  A daubed block of maroon, the color streaked, gobbets running down, puddled in the dirt. The paint formed a rough circle with a series of small silver-white blobs.

  "It's the space-mission flag," said Henderson McGill. "By God, but it is. A circle of silver stars on a background of maroon. Who put it there and what does…?"

  The recent bad weather had damaged the big billboard, leaving some of the advertisement hanging in ragged strips and making it difficult to read the message that had been scrawled in the same red paint.

  "North is right. On the way to AR."

  And underneath that was a rough zigzag. like the mark of Zorro.

  "Zelig," breathed Jeff Thomas. "Aurora really does exist, then."

  "Oh, yeah," agreed Nanci. "Never doubted it. Nor do the Hunters of the Sun."

  "The who?" asked Jeanne McGill.

  "Long story, my dear. Let's get our convoy back into gear and then, perhaps tonight, around a bright camp fire, I'll tell you what there is to be known." Nanci turned and strode toward the four-by-four, Jeff trailing obediently after her.

  As he climbed into the Phantasm, Mac wondered quite how this retired teacher from Texas came to know quite so much about General Zelig.

  But that could wait on the back burner.

  The three vehicles began to move north again through the December sunshine.