by North, Geoff
CRYERS
Geoff North
Copyright © 2014 Geoff North
www.geoffnorth.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Other Books by Geoff North:
Live it Again
The Last Playground
Table of Contents
Part One: Thawed
Part Two: Level E
Part Three: Dream
Part Four: Rites
Part Five: Return to Big Hole
Excerpt from Children of Extinction
Part One:
Thawed
Chapter 1
1976
2,655 meters underground
253 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg, Manitoba
Lothair Eichberg was done running. He had just celebrated his seventieth birthday—with his son, his son’s wife, and his two grandchildren—the week before in Chicago, and he was tired. ABZE, the cryogenics corporation—short for Absolute Zero—had burrowed its latest installation, in 1974, beneath the ground of a small Canadian town called Dauphin. It was an ideal location for the specialized services ABZE provided. The terrain was flat and the ground was stable, consisting of kilometers thick bedrock. There was little seismic activity, and the region—known mostly for farming—was desolate, due to its cold, long winters.
Lothair hated the cold, and that was ironic, considering his ten-billion dollar empire was built on it. But he longed for the desolation. He wasn’t a young man anymore. Since 1945, Lothair had been fleeing from the past. His first move to Argentina had been the longest stay anywhere. He had met his wife there, and they had raised three children in the South American country. It was where he had built his initial fortune—developing and distributing a powerful cocaine-based drug that eventually found its way onto the streets in cities north of Mexico.
But the past eventually caught up with Lothair. The hunters had found him, and in 1957, the Eichberg family slipped out of Argentina and headed for Cuba. The country had been good to him for the short time that he was there. His drugs made millions in Havana—especially to the greedy Americans exploiting the country’s resources and generous nature. Fidel’s revolution in ’59 saw the Eichberg family running again. Communism was bad for the drug trade, and Lothair needed the capital to build on his new venture with research in the field of cryogenics. The Eichbergs ended up in California, and Lothair—his name had changed twice already since the Reich days—had settled in a country rich with opportunity and new ideas.
And ideas didn’t get much newer than selling life after death. Some people wanted to live forever, and those with almost limitless amounts of money were always the first in line. Lothair figured it was due to vanity, or, perhaps, a fear that their hard-earned cash would be squandered away by those that didn’t deserve it. Lothair could appreciate their concerns, and he could provide them with an alternative. There was an old saying—you can’t take it with you—that Lothair had liked to tell his early customers. But now you can, he would always finish.
He had used that line to seal the deal with his first two-hundred clients; each paying one-and-a-half million for the service of having their bodies frozen at the time of death. There was no guarantee they would be revived—ABZE Corp wasn’t in the business of curing cancer and heart disease—but there was a chance other companies might someday find the cures that these vain, self-centered millionaires so desperately craved.
Lothair called it ‘eternal peace of mind.’ People would pay any amount for that. Even for just the idea of it.
ABZE drilled into the ground of southern California and planted its first dozen clients. The decision to build cryogenic facilities deep underground was costly but deemed necessary by the corporation’s paying customers. In the event mankind obliterated itself to smithereens with hydrogen bombs, those already frozen wanted assurance they wouldn’t be atomized along with the rest of humanity. And during the height of the Cold War, no one could blame them. It was just more eternal peace of mind.
Lothair and his family had moved east and north, and the business grew. Additional installations were buried throughout the states of Oregon, Colorado, Ohio, Idaho, Illinois, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The land had grown colder, the ground harder and more stable. The population had thinned, but Lothair never felt safe. The cursed hunters were always closing in. His vast wealth had shielded him—for the most part—from extradition and other legal forms of capture, but Lothair always feared some hateful Jew sympathizer would attack him on a more personal level—drive a blade into his back, or slit his throat open—during those times when his security wasn’t around to help.
The Canadian facility should’ve been their safest move, but the hunters wouldn’t be denied. They followed, and Lothair—now an old man and riddled with cancer—was about to meet his maker. Whether it was from a malignant brain tumor, or an avenging survivor, mattered little at this point. Lothair Eichberg would be dead in two weeks if he didn’t take the matter into his own hands.
His beloved Estay had died the year before. She had chosen to be buried in a coffin instead of a cylinder, much to Lothair’s dismay. She had believed in an afterlife; he believed life merely continued for as long as the individual decided.
His children and grandchildren couldn’t be prosecuted for the experiments he’d conducted during the war. The time was right to move on. After all these years, Lothair still couldn’t understand why his research into the effects of freezing human children was such a horrific crime. They would’ve died anyway—either shot through the brain or gassed—so why not take advantage of live test subjects? It was such a fascinating field of science.
He had wrapped up some final loose ends a few days before at ABZE’s head offices in Chicago. Albert, the son he’d left in charge, hugged his frail body and told him the company was in good hands. He had said goodbye to his remaining family, and fled one last time—north.
Lothair lay naked in the cool, steel cylinder, and thought of all those children slowly freezing to death under his orders. He couldn’t help giggling nervously. The sound was muffled. His final order was to have himself frozen. How ironic was that? Some had said freezing was one of the most painless ways to go. Lothair wouldn’t experience the sensation. He would fall asleep, suddenly, in the next thirty seconds. He wouldn’t hear the gas. He wouldn’t feel the cold seeping into his tired, old bones. Not like the three-hundred-eleven children back in Nazi Germany. They weren’t gassed beforehand, or given drugs, to put them to sleep.
No. Freezing to death wasn’t a pleasant way to go—especially when you went at such a young age, without your parents. Without anyone. All alone.
Lothair’s tired eyes closed. Thoughts of the children he’d put to death for the good of science, over thirty years before, were his last.
He still couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.
Chapter 2
It had taken more than a coronal mass ejection to bring the greatest civilization on Earth to its knees, but it was enough to knock out the power grids. It had rendered those thousands of satellites—the ones that helped us turn left and right, and gave us high definition pornography twenty-four-seven—into orbiting hunks of uselessness. Mankind’s numbers were cut in half.
Religious crazies set up in major cities left cold and black. They used the chemical weapons, taking out another quarter of the population.
When enough power had finally been restored, humanity’s hardiest unlocked the codes and unleashed the bombs. White fire burned color from the sky, and mushroom clouds blanketed the heavens, putting the stars to sleep for a hundred years.
&nb
sp; A handful of survivors remained.
New life forms evolved at an accelerated rate in the planet-wide cesspool of chemical poison and radioactive fallout.
A thousand years later...
The boy knew two things for sure. The first, today was his sixteenth birthday. Cobe knew this for sure because his ma had taught him how the calendar worked years before and he kept track of those things in his head real good. Not many other folks knew much about numbers and how they planned their lives. The more you learned, the more dangerous life became. The writing of letters, and the use of numbers on paper, was forbidden. Paper was scarce as hell. Books were rarer still. If you got caught writing letters and numbers in the dirt, you got a beating. It wasn’t a soft beating either—bones got broke and fingers got crushed. If you got caught with a book, the punishment was worse. Cobe’s pa had taught Cobe’s ma how to read letters and numbers. His name was Elward, and everyone in town knew he was a worthless drunk. How Elward had learned about letters and numbers was anyone’s guess. But he had shared the forbidden knowledge with Cobe’s ma before Cobe was born, and made her swear never to tell another living soul. Freeda was true to her word—almost. She didn’t think family counted. She believed such knowledge should be handed down.
She’d taught her firstborn during those evenings when her husband was out and too piss-drunk to catch her. She’d taught him about the calendar and how it worked with months, weeks, and days. Cobe didn’t dwell on hours and minutes. The sun came up and the sun went down. It got warm and it got cold. Tracking things day by day with seconds seemed like a pointless thing to do.
Today was Cobe’s sixteenth birthday. He didn’t need his ma to remind him. She’d been planted in the ground seven days earlier.
He shook his little brother by the arm. “I know you’re not sleeping. Get up.”
The second thing Cobe knew for sure was that their pa was going to join their ma today.
Willem moved his arm—his only arm—quickly beneath the filthy blanket. “Don’t wanna go. Don’t wanna see Daddy dangle from no rope.”
“We don’t got no choice…and quit calling him Daddy. You’re twelve, and that’s too old to be talking like a little kid. Call him Dad, or Pa, or Old Man. He’s gonna die this morning, Willem, and we gotta watch.”
A wild patch of brown hair appeared, followed by a pale face streaked with dirt. Willem’s blue eyes met his brother’s—they were filled with water. “Who says?’”
Cobe watched the tears spill over and run down his brother’s face. It took a little of the grime away but not much. “We just got to.” He pulled the blanket away and helped the boy sit up. “Ma shouldn’t have said the things she said, and Dad shouldn’t have got drunk and shot his mouth off either.”
“I’ll be next, you know. What with my one arm and all. They’re gonna string me up right after.” He threw himself at Cobe and hugged him. The imbalance of being held by one arm almost knocked the older boy over. “Or worse, they’ll cut me.”
“They ain’t gonna come after you. They ain’t after little kids missing arms and legs. They only want to punish the grownups that speak about shit we ain’t supposed to know.”
Willem continued, blocking out his brother’s words. “And after me, they’re gonna come for you. You’re too skinny and your skin’s too white.”
Cobe didn’t know how to comfort him any further. For a twelve-year-old, he was awfully smart. He could only hug him harder.
“It’s what them fuckers been planning all along,” Willem whispered into his chest. “They want all of us gone—the whole gawdamn family.”
“Don’t swear.”
“You swear.”
“Guess I can get away with it ‘cause I’m the man of the family…or will be soon. Maybe that’s what you gotta do when you’re a man. Maybe that’s the way you gotta act to get by.”
“Didn’t help Daddy much and he swore a lot.”
Cobe almost laughed. He bit his bottom lip instead, and swallowed his guilt. “We have to watch. It’s expected.”
“I’m scared. I’m scared, and I don’t wanna be left alone.”
“I won’t leave you…I have a plan.” He looked conspiratorially about the single room of their home. The window was covered with a blanket that was filthier than the one he and his brother shared on cold nights. Beneath it was the bed of moldy straw where their parents used to sleep. Cobe glanced at the doorway where the door no longer stood. At least their father had built the opening away from the wind. He whispered into the top of Willem’s head. “As soon as Dad’s done swinging, we’re leaving Burn.”
Willem pushed away from his brother. His tears had dried but the terror in his eyes was still there. “Are you crazy? What about the howlers and the rollers? Where would we go? There ain’t nothin’ outside town to run away to. We’d die out there for sure.”
“We’re already dead here.” It hurt telling the truth only seconds after lying to the boy. “A few more days...a week or two. You’re right, Willem. They’re coming for all of us. I’d rather take my chances outside of town.”
Willem moaned. It was a deep sound that started in his chest and escaped through his nostrils.
Cobe shook him. “It’s what we have to do, and we have to do it right after Dad’s done hanging. The folks in town will be gathered together and busy celebrating. We can slip out the west-side of Burn and be miles away before nightfall.”
Willem considered the plan. “Lots of bad things come out after dark.”
Cobe waited for his decision.
The boy wiped snot away from his face with the back of his hand. He still looked terrified, but there was something else. Not hope exactly—just a will to keep on living.
Chapter 3
The fat man tugged at an oily piece of rope strung about his pants for the hundredth time that morning and worked his way through the crowd. People slapped at his balding head, knocking the greasy strands of comb-over across one bulbous ear. He swept it back into place and the pants slipped halfway down his buttocks. Use one hand for the belt, and one hand for the hair. It wasn’t a monumental task, but for a fellow like Trot, it was asking a lot. He stumbled and bumped, and the people kicked at his bare shins, and jabbed at his kidneys and backside with sticks and clubs.
Finally Trot made it to the center of Burn, to the giant, black tree devoid of leaves, with peeling bark the texture of shale. Elward was already halfway up the ladder placed against the trunk. Trot watched as the man used one hand along the rungs; the other gripped the noose slung loosely about his neck. The remainder of the rope was coiled around Elward’s arm like a snake. When death by hanging was pronounced, it was the sentenced criminal’s final—and only—honor to see the job done on their own. It was better than the cutting. That punishment was meted out to only the most depraved of lawbreakers. Trot studied the man’s hands. He can climb and hold the rope at the same time. Why does he have to die when a braindumb like me gets to live?
It wasn’t a question he would ask out loud. With the blood-thirsty crowd jostling around him, Trot was likely to get an answer that could lead to a double hanging. He spotted the lawman up in his tower against the rising sun. Lawson tipped his hat at him and winked. His ol’ ten gallon, Trot thought. That’s what he called it. Trot had once asked if he could try it on, but the lawman hadn’t allowed it. He hadn’t said no, but the dead, beady-eyed glare that Trot received had been more than enough to ensure he would never ask again. Trot was slow, but he wasn’t stupid.
An old woman grabbed Trot by the ear and twisted. “Get outta the way, you fat idiot!” She yanked and Trot yelped. The few greasy hair strands fell back over onto the woman’s hand and she released him. “Run yerself a bath and scrub somma that shit off.”
A man beside her laughed—the old woman’s husband perhaps; Trot wasn’t sure. “There ain’t enough water in town to get that dumb bastard clean.”
More laughter from more people squeezed around the tree. Elward had finished his climb. H
e took his hand from the top rung and reached out for the lowest hanging branch. He dropped the rope and pulled himself along the sturdy limb with both hands. The laughter stopped and all watched as the condemned man worked his way out, eighteen feet above the ground. The toes on his feet curled up, and his legs flailed instinctively, looking for something solid. Elward stopped and twisted one foot around the opposite ankle. His body stopped swaying and he tightened his grip on the branch.
“All the way!” somebody in the crowd yelled. “All the way to the end and not an inch short.”
Elward shut his eyes and took a few quick breaths. He started out again. Someone rushed into the empty circle—a child with less hair than Trot—and stepped on the loose end of rope now dragging along the ground below Elward. The rope went tight as Elward reached for more branch. His fingers slipped but caught in time. The crowd erupted into fresh laughter and the old woman swatted the boy away. “Off with you, brat. We all didn’t come out this early in the morning to see ‘im drop so soon.”
Trot was still looking at the lawman. He could stop this. He had the power. Lawson was no longer watching just him. His gray eyes were taking it all in. The crowd. The tree. The condemned. Up in his wooden tower—another twenty feet, or more, above the struggling Elward—the lawman saw everything. He would sit up there for hours, day after depressing day, watching the town and flatlands encircling Burn. When he wasn’t in his law office with the twisted cages that held bad people before they swung or bled, Lawson, the lawman, sat in his tower and watched.
Trot was terrified of the big man but fascinated at the same. He was old and smart and strong. He was everything Trot was not. But there was something between them—the lawman had actually spoken to Trot more than once. And it hadn’t been to kick him out of the way or make fun of his appearance and silly walk. Once he had even asked Trot how he was, as if he was a normal citizen. He wouldn’t call it respect—Trot had no clue what that was—but the man had given him the time of day, and for that, Trot revered the ground the man walked on.