Ben started. “An undertaker ‘operation’? What, like a death factory?”
“Sort of.”
“They dumped their bodies in the river?”
“Not bodies. Ashes. The cremation chambers emptied into the septic system.” Patrick and Ben both stuck their tongues out in disgust.
“We grew up drinking human body ash water?” Ben asked.
“Oh, that’s the least of it. You don’t even want to know what I found in La Crosse.”
“How old are they?” Patrick asked.
“Who?”
“The factories, how old are they?”
“I don’t know. I guess judging by the looks, I’d say the ironworks and the undertakers have been there the longest, the other two seemed relatively newer. Why?”
“If you were finding middle-aged survivors in New York, whatever was pumping our salvation into the river must have been doing it when they were small, decades ago. Have you seen any small children on your travels? Not newborns, but say, three- or four-year-olds?”
“Yeah, I have,” she said. She began to see a few more pieces of the puzzle start to drift together. “So...the source of immunity has been dumping steadily for at least the last several decades...”
“...Which rules out any older factories that went out of operation before M-Day,” Patrick finished. “Given what we have to go on, it looks like either the ironworks or the undertakers are responsible for immunizing us all.”
“So we’re smelted people drinkers,” Ben groaned, slumping back in his chair. Lindsay did the same.
“I wonder what chemicals they use to prepare bodies for cremation,” Patrick mused, stroking his chin. “Who would’ve thought? Cannibalism might have saved our lives.”
4.
Bloom stared out the window at the cold, empty fields, his view curtly blunted by the fog. At sunset, the sickly yellow hue became flushed with bright pink. It was like passing through cotton candy. The train whipped through the smog, sending it swirling off over the stubbly, hard ground as they raced past. The Illinois landscape was a cruel beauty. He gripped the curtain and slid it shut.
Bloom spent less and less time in the engine these days. More often than not, there wasn’t much point. Horace only handed over the controls when he needed to sleep or shit. He could be a real prick like that. Bloom spent most of his time in the Business Class car, surrounded by the same six or seven Red Caps, his personal coterie.
The Business car suited him fine. He was actually starting to prefer it over the engine. The seats were comfortable, the company was better, and the bar was only a few steps away. He swirled the whiskey in his glass. The clink of the ice cubes soothed him, helped him focus on the upcoming job. By his estimation, they had just over an hour until the Bloomington/Normal station. The job would probably take another two hours, and, hell, by the time they loaded the cargo into the secure car? It’d be after midnight before it was all said and done, so Bloom would need to moderate his drinking. But a couple glasses never hurt anyone. “Who’s our contact in Bloomington?” he asked the Red Cap across the aisle.
The lackey had his cap pulled low over his eyes and his legs slung over the armrest, dangling out into the aisle. He grinned his perpetual grin, his sharp teeth flashing in the watery orange interior light. “Man named Simms,” he said in his thick Southern drawl. “Bradley Simms.”
“Simms,” Bloom repeated, slowly and thoughtfully. He sipped from his glass, letting the warm, smoky alcohol evaporate on his tongue. “Have we done business with him before?”
Calico shook his head. “Nope. Horace found him. He don’t know him, though. Just got connected up with him someways.”
This wasn’t surprising to Bloom, though he wasn’t exactly happy to hear it. Horace liked to act on every tip he got, if he thought the train could benefit. Greedy fucker. Except he wasn’t the one doing the acting; he left that for Bloom and his men. It was far easier to send others into the darkness than to lead the way yourself. “We’ll need the cavalry, then. Bulaski, you stay here and keep an eye on things. The rest of you will come along. I want everyone fully armed. Let Horace’s Caps handle the cargo. I want each of you stepping out of here with weapons in hand.” The Red Caps nodded. Bloom nodded back, surveying them all with his calm, expressionless eyes. “Head back to the cargo hold. Make sure we’re all set. Calico, you stay here. The rest of you, get moving.” The Red Caps stood and obediently filed out of the car. Bloom shifted his gaze to the man stretched lazily across the seats in the back. “We’ve got some things to discuss,” he said. Calico flashed his teeth from under the brim of his cap.
•
It was full dark by the time they reached the first station. Patrick had dozed off, but the sudden, jerking halt of the train shook him awake. “Mm? Pizza?” he asked, rubbing his sleepy eyes. He looked around and remembered where he was. “Mm. No pizza,” he said sadly. He stretched his arms back over his head and yawned hugely. He cracked his neck with a few quick flicks of his head. Through his slowly focusing eyes, he saw Ben standing at a window a few rows down. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Station stop,” said Lindsay from the other end of the car.
“Horace is talking to a sad looking guy with a beard,” Ben explained. He could do without the sadness, but he secretly yearned for a beard of such wonderful proportions.
“That’s Bloom,” Lindsay said, “the Assistant Conductor.”
Patrick joined them on the other side. He peered down through the windows and gasped. “Campfires!” He pressed his hands and face against the glass. Six low fires burned brightly against the inky darkness. It had been ages since he’d seen a controlled fire! “Ben! Quick! Grab some chili and meet me outside! Bring ghost stories!” He tripped over his own feet scrambling out of the seats and sprawled into the aisle. “Ow,” he whined.
“Pat, you might not want to go out there.”
“Of course I want to go out there! They have fires! You know I love a good fire, Ben. You know that.”
“Yeah, but look who’s sitting around those fires.”
Patrick glowered. He had a strong foreboding that Ben was about to ruin fires for him in a big way. He edged his way back over a pair of seats to a window and looked more closely down at the flames. He gasped again. “Oh my God,” he breathed. “Hippies.”
“Lots of hippies,” Ben corrected.
Patrick turned from the disgusting sight and slumped back against the glass. “Why did it have to be hippies?” he mourned.
Lindsay rolled her eyes. “They’re not hippies. They’re just really dirty college students.” She grabbed her notebook and hustled past Patrick. “Really dirty college students who are gonna spill their guts to me.” She disappeared down the metal stairs.
Ben started. “College students? Oh God, it’s even worse than I thought.” He looked over at Patrick. “What do you think?”
Patrick weighed his options. On the one hand, he hated both hippies and smug college students, especially the dirty ones. They smelled like sweat, patchouli, and constant disappointment. On the other hand, he really loved fires, possibly more than he hated hippies and college students, and he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t eaten since the Snack Pack that morning. His distaste for opinionated young gadabouts was a matter of preference, but his need for hot chili was bordering on survival necessity. He begrudgingly kowtowed to Rule Number 1: Survive. “I guess we go out there,” he said miserably, “’cause I don’t think they’re gonna let us start a fire in the train. But I tell thee this, Benjamin Judith Fogelvee. I am taking my machete, and if I hear one of them, just one of them, complain about the one percent, so help me, I will butcher those hippies like it was Mercenary Christmas.” Mercenary Christmas was the title of the video game he and Ben had developed a few years earlier. Neither of them was a video game developer; thus
far, it was a “concept only” piece.
“Fine. But remember, this is your idea. If they dreadlock my hair and make me play Hacky Sack, I’m holding you responsible, and I will personally urinate in your food.” Ben crossed his arms. He’d done it before. He’d do it again.
“You don’t have any hair to dreadlock,” Patrick pointed out.
Ben scowled. “Don’t you play dumb with me, Patrick Deen,” he warned. “Don’t you dare.”
They each grabbed a can of chili from Ben’s pack. Ben armed himself with the bat. He gave it a few practice swings, preparing himself, just in case. Patrick swiped the can opener from his own bag and slung the machete over his back. On his way toward the exit, he glanced back out the window and did a quick headcount of all the dirty hippies mellowing around the fires. “Holy Lord, they outnumber the Red Caps.” He ran back to his bag and pulled out the hammer and the baton and tossed the knife to Ben. “Can’t be too careful,” he said. Then they lowered themselves from the train car and ventured forth among the unclean.
•
There was something coldly beautiful about an abandoned college campus. The silent stately architecture, the ghostly statues, the open Quad, littered with trash and debris but largely unmarked by human tread. When full of hormonal teenagers, a university was a ludicrous place, a hovel of fornication and desperation. Institutions of higher learning ought to be revered as hallowed bethels. Instead, they became little more than expansive toilets for lazy, drug-addled children of privilege. It was precisely this saturation of immoral self-indulgence that drove Bloom from formal education so many years ago. University life had deteriorated the university, but now, with scores of college students scoured from the earth, academic institutions had regained some aspect of their stolen grandeur. One could actually learn in this place, Bloom thought, striding purposefully across the Illinois State University campus. But then again, what was there left to learn?
They crossed the Quad, Calico at the point, Bloom’s remaining six Red Caps fanned out behind him, weapons brandished. They formed a well-armed wedge around Bloom and Horace’s Red Caps, Louis and Stevens, who struggled with a rolling cart tied down with piles of books. The wheels kept rolling off the paved path, into the soft earth. The ground was still slick with the stubborn coating of melted bodies, even after all these years.
“That’s DeGarmo, straight ahead,” said one of Bloom’s lot, a promising new recruit named Hammock.
“Yes. The sign was a dead giveaway,” said Bloom dryly.
Promising, but not quite there.
DeGarmo Hall loomed above them, an unassuming block of a building. Four brick pillars served as the building’s four corners, supporting what had once been solid walls of glass. Most of the panes had been shattered, and DeGarmo looked more like an oversized pavilion than an academic building. A fire flickered inside, throwing long shadows that pricked at the Quad. Calico gave the signal to halt, and the party stopped and listened. The only sound was the occasional pop of the fire. Calico turned to Bloom.
“How ya wanna handle this, boss?” he grinned.
“Hammock and Ryan, you stay outside, guard the entrance. Louis, Stevens, keep the books out here until we give you the okay. The rest of us go in, staggered. Understand?” There were nods all around. “The man we’re meeting is named Bradley Simms. It should be a straight transaction, but we don’t know anything about him. Be on your guard.” Bloom pulled his sabre from the scabbard at his waist. The long, curved blade glowed orange with firelight. “Let’s go.”
They stepped cautiously into the building. Blackened metal bookshelves littered the ground, covering piles of charred, paperless spines and mounds of ashes. They crunched over the burned rubble toward the fire that crackled in the center of the room. A solitary man sat before it, the flames reflecting brightly off his round glasses. He had thinning brown hair but a boyish face, despite, or perhaps because of, the uneven stubble that sprouted under his cheeks. He wore what appeared to be pressed corduroy pants and a white collared shirt under a dark quarter-zip sweater. He turned and stood at the sound of their approach.
“Mister Bloom, I presume?” he asked, his enunciation crisp, his tone mellow.
“Simms?” Bloom asked.
“Professor Simms, yes. Please, have a seat, join me.” He indicated a circular clearing around the fire.
“We’ll stand,” Calico said, his sharp teeth flashing in the firelight. He tapped his bludgeon against his thigh, to the tune of “Camptown Races,” if Bloom wasn’t mistaken.
“If you’d rather. You brought my books?”
“They’re outside,” said Bloom. “And you have our weapons?”
“Of course. Could I see the books, then?”
Bloom didn’t take the man to be much of a threat. He was skinny, and he didn’t appear to be armed. Which was ironic, given the number of weapons he was trading for the books. “Are you alone?”
“Blissfully so,” Simms mused. “There’s a small group of janitors who sometimes hole up in the recreation building, but if you didn’t pass anyone on the Quad, then I’m the only one for several hundred yards. As requested,” he added sharply. “Which is more than I can say for you and your armed guard.”
“Hold up your end of the deal, and it won’t matter how many we are,” Bloom said simply.
Simms seemed to be growing uneasy. “Show me the books, please.” Bloom turned and signaled toward the door. He sent Hammock back to clear a path through the fallen bookshelves. Metal scraped metal as he heaved the twisted wrecks out of the way. Louis and Stevens struggled with the wheels to get them to move through the piles of ash.
“What happened to this place?” Bloom asked as his men fought with the cart.
“Yeah,” said Calico with a leer. “You like books so much, you shouldn’t burn ‘em,”
Simms glowered. “The library was sacked by students after M-Day. Ungrateful Philistines. They took some sort of perverse pleasure in destroying the books they’d been required to read during their time here. This library once held more than half a million books. Less than 30 survived the fire intact.”
“And you sleep in the ashes.” Calico smiled under his cap.
Simms turned his sharp eyes on Bloom’s second-in-command. “I do not. But it seemed a fitting place to make the exchange.”
“A fitting place would have smooth floors,” Bloom said as Louis and Stevens rolled the cart to a stop behind him, sucking air.
Simms seemed not to hear him. He rubbed his hands together as he stepped forward to examine the books. He ran his finger down the spines of each stack. “Kraszewski...Judson...Updike...Dumas...Spinoza...” he read, his voice now calm. “An eclectic collection, at least.” Bloom raised his eyes to Calico.
“Weapons,” Calico said.
“Yes, of course, of course,” Simms mumbled, leafing through a small hardcover. “Right over there. Under that shelf,” he directed with a nod. Calico crossed to a bookshelf lying flat on its face. With a surprisingly graceful strength, he tossed the metal structure off to the side, revealing a small arsenal. Bloom sheathed his sabre and stepped in to examine the weapons. They were old, some probably even older than this great state of Illinois. There were heavy wooden clubs worn in at the grip, spears fitted with hand-cut arrowheads, and over a dozen hatchets and tomahawks with chipped blades.
“This is everything?”
“It’s all that’s left of the museum’s collection. I trust they’re up to your high standards,” Simms said.
“If they’re good enough for Indians, they’re good enough for us,” Calico said, picking up a tomahawk. He chopped it through the air. “It’ll do,” he grinned.
Bloom nodded at his Red Caps. “Load them.”
They loosed the knots and unpacked the stacks of books from the cart, tossing them carelessly in a heap despite Sim
ms’ loud and angry protestations. Then they gathered up the weapons, tossed them onto the platform, and tied them down.
“Let me ask you a question,” Calico said. He lifted the brim of his cap, and even in the darkness, Bloom could see the grave distinction between his crystal blue left eye and his dark brown right. So could Simms; he blanched when he saw the unnerving discoloration. Calico showed his teeth and flipped the tomahawk in his hand. “Why you givin’ up these weapons? These days, most people would kill for a blade like this,” he said.
Simms lifted his chin in a show of calm superiority, despite his sudden pallor. “The sharpest weapon in the world is no match for a sharp mind,” he answered, hugging a book to his chest with one hand and tapping his forehead with the other.
“Oh, I don’t know if that’s true,” said Bloom. In one fluid motion, he slid the sabre from the scabbard and slashed it through the air. A thin red line appeared across Simms’ neck. His eyes widened in shock. The cut split open, and a thick spray of blood burst from his throat, black and steaming in the cold night. His lips worked soundlessly. Blood gushed as he crumpled to his knees. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he collapsed face-first into a pile of ashes.
“Jesus, Bloom,” Louis cried, “what did you do?”
Bloom stepped forward and wiped the blade clean on Simms’ sweater. “I didn’t have a choice. He attacked me.” He slid the blade back into the scabbard and turned to face Horace’s Red Caps. “Then his men attacked you.”
Calico moved like lightning. He leapt into the air, ramped off a fallen bookshelf, and brought the tomahawk down on the crown of Louis’ head. It split the cap and buried deep into his skull with a soft thunk. In the same motion, he whirled around to the cart and slipped a heavy club from beneath the ropes. He spun back, club held high, and brought it down hard into Stevens’ cheekbone. The Red Cap screamed in pain and crumpled to the ground, legs thrashing, hands covering the gushing would on his face. Calico stood over him, grinning, and took the club in both hands. He raised it high over his head, then smashed it down on Stevens’ face, again and again. After the third swing, Stevens stopped screaming. Calico pounded the man’s broken hands into his own sinus cavity, gore and chunks of bone shooting through the air and sticking to the wooden club. With a final blow, he caved in Steven’s forehead, sending brain matter squelching out of the eye sockets. Calico stood up tall, covered in blood, breathing heavily and smiling. “Weapons win,” he said with a wink.
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