"Perhaps if we ride farther south, I'll win my wager." Bray grinned.
"You still think you'll find the edge of the earth." Kirby was amused.
"If I do, you owe me my horses back."
As they got farther down the hill, which was situated on the city's western edge, they got a better view of the city. Bray chose an indirect path, hoping to avoid the obvious roads, and to locate any threats before they were upon them. Overgrown grass sprouted around the towers. The buildings were tall, looming, and spaced at even distances. Weeds snaked and climbed around them, poking from the dark recesses where windows had been. The city seemed as dead as it had when they'd first seen it from the top of the hill.
They aimed their horses through an overgrown path between two edifices on the edge of the city's middle, keeping their Tech Magic guns drawn, even though there was nothing at which to aim them. Through the buildings, Bray saw a pockmarked road that might have belonged in any other city. Small trees and bushes jutted out wherever the stone had cracked, devouring a place that had probably once been grand, but had now fallen to ruins, like so many others.
"It is strangely quiet," Bray said.
"Perhaps there are fewer demons this far south," Kirby suggested. "Though I am not sure why."
A few scared birds took flight as they approached. A nervous squirrel skittered away through some weeds. Riding out from between two tall, looming monoliths, they entered the street. Bray looked up and down the empty road. A few flattened bushes next to a building spoke of a deer's resting place. Demon footprints imprinted the mud in various places, but none seemed fresh. Bray smelled no foul odors, and he saw no boot prints.
Turning left, they rode through several debris-strewn streets, filled with metal that would've been worth more than a few meals in Brighton. Rats scuttled through the overgrowth; chipmunks ducked back into holes. For a while as they rode through the city, the towers looked the same—tall, with an equal number of windows on each floor, constructed of the same type of Ancient stone, like houses stacked on top of one another. As they kept going, they found roads with shorter, plain buildings. A crumbled bridge ran overhead of one road, slanted sideways, as if it might pitch to the ground, with plants growing from gaping crevices.
"You've never explained how they made bridges like that," William said to Kirby as he pointed at it, and they trotted underneath.
"Perhaps I can explain it to you tonight, around the fire," Kirby offered.
"I'd like that," William said.
They passed cautiously below, looking at the mounds of dirt hanging from the bridge's underside.
After clearing it, William pointed to a building a hundred feet past it. "That building looks different."
Bray followed his gaze. A large structure about the height of several Brighton homes sat at the road's edge. A half-circle of Ancient stone curved over the entrance, with ornate, weathered carvings etched into the beams. Bray studied the designs at the front of the building, but time had worn away most of their features. The building's ceiling, which sloped back from the entrance, was mostly solid, but had a few obvious holes, and probably more that he couldn't see. Through the building's gaping entrance, he saw some more of the same, strange trees.
He saw no signs of life.
"I'm going to check it out," William said, riding ahead.
"Wait," Bray called.
William looked back at Bray to argue. "We haven't seen evidence of anyone traveling here in a while. No fresh demon tracks, or scat. I know how to take care of myself. I'll be fine."
Bray hesitated. It was hard for Bray to accept that William wasn't the same, scared boy he had encountered in the woods outside Brighton all that time ago. He yearned for independence, like most kids his age.
"Be careful," Bray said.
"I always am," William assured him as he trotted off.
Bray and Kirby watched him go.
"I'm worried about him," Bray said, as they followed slowly behind.
"He's certainly proven himself," Kirby said. "But I'm worried, too, about his condition. I've been watching him closely. Most of my people in New Hope showed signs of deterioration: warts on their back, their knees, or their spine, like the ones I have. But none of us had warts on our faces."
"He's progressing more quickly than others," agreed Bray, with a solemn nod.
"He reminds me of Jingo, the man we met outside of Brighton all those months ago."
"You mean the smart demon?"
"Yes," Kirby said. "We met him on separate occasions. I met him with the group I was with, and you met him in the Ancient City."
"I remember. I almost killed him, before I killed William's mother," Bray said, looking away before the memory could sting him again. "I'll never forget that day."
Kirby nodded gravely. Returning to her original point, she said, "Jingo kept his faculties, even though the spore afflicted him. In fact, he was smarter than anyone I've met, before or since." She stared off into the towers as if she'd given the matter a lot of thought. And why wouldn't she have? Kirby was infected, too. She had as much to lose as William.
"Do you believe Jingo was really three hundred years old?" Bray asked.
"I believe he was telling the truth. He was extremely intelligent. But William is, too." Kirby lowered her head, clearly thinking about her own fate. "I have long ago accepted that the spore will turn my mind to madness—whether it is a year from now, or several. I do not share William's intelligence, or his gift at speaking with demons. Perhaps his special gifts—and his appearance—mean there is hope for him."
Breaking from what often became a morbid mood, with no good answers, Bray asked, "Is that another of those tunnels you told us about?"
He pointed past the building where William had entered, toward a wide, weed-filled depression that ran in a straight line underneath another bridge and continued as far as the eye could see. A few trees grew diagonally from that pocked, hole-ridden crevice.
"Yes," she answered. "Part of the place they called a subway, collapsed, like most of the ones we've seen. It extends throughout the city, most likely."
Bray nodded as they rode their horse over to the building where William had tied his. He still had trouble picturing the objects Kirby had described, which she called subway cars, carrying people from one place to another at speeds far faster than horses. He couldn't fathom why people would build some of those structures underground, where nasty things might live.
"I don't know if I would travel in one of those tunnels, if I lived in the days of the Ancients," he said, not for the first time. "I'll take a horse—and the warm sun on my face—over a device like that, any day." Bray smiled.
"If the cities were as crowded as the stories tell us, you wouldn't travel as quickly."
Bray looked at the place where William had entered. "I wonder what significance this building had?"
"It was probably the train station, where people went inside," Kirby explained. "Sometimes they entered above ground before descending to the devices below that ran in the tunnels. They say these underground devices carried more people than you can imagine. So many people lived in cities that they needed them to get from one place to another. At least, that is what our stories say."
"Did the devices carry them to different cities?"
"I don't think so." Kirby frowned as she thought on it. "The underground tunnels always seemed to loop back to one another. That part was always confusing to us."
"Perhaps it was too much effort to build them that far." Bray shrugged.
"It is possible."
Bray halted their steed and he and Kirby dismounted. He tied it next to William's and adjusted the bag on his back. "In any case, I don't think we'll have the answer anytime soon."
A shout interrupted them.
Bray's heart hammered as he recognized the voice.
William.
Chapter 2: Bray
Bray spun and aimed his rifle backward, suspecting a trap, but he saw nothing excep
t the quiet, ruined city. The horses adjusted nervously as the shout came again, from deep in the building.
Neither Bray nor Kirby hesitated any longer.
They darted through the building's wide threshold on foot, sending a few rats skittering. The enormous, damp room was filled with trees and weeds. Sunlight speared through parts of the broken roof, creating alternating bands of light and shadow. Bray scanned the edges of the wide room for threats. Along the walls, he saw the frames of a few dilapidated rooms, now decayed and open, but he couldn't see everything, and he couldn't see William. He kicked some dried demon feces as he ran. He inhaled the air for the noxious odor that usually alerted him to nearby demons, ready to chew their flesh.
"William?" he called.
William answered, sounding as if he was in some distant place.
They kept moving through the large room, weaving through some more trees, crossing a distance of a hundred feet before they reached the room's end, which stopped abruptly at a steep ledge. Rotted, broken stairs descended perpendicularly, away from the center of an overlook high enough to break a leg, or worse. The building extended much farther back than Bray realized. He looked over the edge, as if he might find a crumpled, wounded boy somewhere at the bottom. Perhaps the cry had been a plea for help. All he saw were more trees, brush, and scraps of jagged metal on the lower level of the building.
Much more space lay beyond the stairs.
Beneath the room they'd traveled, there seemed to be rooms Bray couldn't see, but past the bottom of the perpendicular staircase, going farther back, Bray saw a walkway leading left and right, constructed of Ancient stone. Beyond the walkway was a recessed area—a place where the strange devices called subway trains must have whipped from one place to the next. In the middle was a raised platform, beyond which was another steep area. On either side of the recessed areas, far off to the left and right, were dark tunnels, home to who knew what kinds of creatures. Portions of the ceiling that had once contained glass were broken, allowing some light to seep through.
But there were still too many shadows. And the tunnels—those were dark.
The cry came again—louder, and clearly from the lower floor.
Bray and Kirby descended the stairs carefully, avoiding divots large enough to catch a boot and hold onto it, or trip them and pitch them off the edge. Bray got a better look at the lower level. In a few spots in the recessed areas and the platform, the ceiling had caved completely, leaving mounds of rubble.
Reaching the floor, Bray scanned the walkway left and right.
"William!" he called again.
Another, indecipherable shout echoed to his left.
They followed the source of the voice, crunching over debris, animal scat, and wilted weeds. To their right, the first recessed area where the devices ran was a ten-foot drop, filled with debris. To their left, a solid wall with no doorways presumably hid rooms underneath the large one they'd traveled upstairs. They had gone thirty feet when Bray saw a single doorway on the left-hand wall. Something moved inside a small room, speared with a few rays of diagonal sunlight.
Surprise hit Bray as he got close enough to see William, his hood pulled mostly over his face, aiming his long gun at a person. At the end of the gun's long tube was a skinny, dirty man with torn clothing.
Bray and Kirby crossed the threshold, holding their guns.
"What's wrong, William?"
"I stumbled on him," William said shakily, recovering from what must have been a surprise encounter. "He's unarmed. Or at least, I think he is. I kept him here while I shouted for you."
The strange man's face was covered with so much grime that Bray could see only the whites of his eyes. Tattered clothes hung from his scrawny frame. The man's eyes darted from Bray, to Kirby, to William. They kept their guns pointed as he held up his hands weakly.
"Who are you?" the man asked in a thin, ragged voice.
"Travelers, passing through," Bray said vaguely.
"Please don't use the weapons on me." The man's eyes were full of fear as he studied the guns. He clearly spoke their language, and he understood the danger of Tech Magic. But Bray didn't trust him.
"Are you with others?" Bray asked.
"The rest are dead."
Bray glanced around the small room, and over his shoulder, expecting to find more raggedy corpses. "The rest?"
"I didn't see anyone else," William confirmed.
Hearing William speak again, the man returned his attention to him. He dragged a hand over his dirt-stained eyes, as if he might clear an unsettling delusion. "I've never seen a talking Plagued One."
"Plagued One?" Bray asked.
"He has the lumps." The man pointed at William's face. "He's infected."
"He's infected, yes. But he's no demon," Kirby assured him. "His name is William. He won't harm you, any more than Bray or I, unless you force us to. I am Kirby."
The man quaked in fear.
"What is your name?" Bray asked.
"Cullen."
"What are you doing here, Cullen?"
"Hiding." Cullen's lips trembled as he spoke the words. He looked around. "From them."
Bray and Kirby scanned the small, battered room again, as if they hadn't noticed someone the first time. The room was empty.
"The Plagued Ones, you mean," Bray said.
"Not them. The ones who dragged my brothers away. The ones who killed them."
A fear stabbed Bray's gut. "Men?"
"If that's what you call them," Cullen said, looking as if he might scurry past them and into the tunnels, if he didn't have guns pointed at his face.
"Are they still around?"
Cullen swallowed, more fright in his voice. "I'm not sure. But you won't get far, if they see you. You won't leave the city."
"We saw no one outside," William said.
Bray frowned. No rational man would lurk in tunnels in such filth. The man was clearly on the brink of starvation; perhaps he was delusional, too. Whatever the case, Bray didn't like the feeling he was getting.
"We should get back outside," he told Kirby and William quietly. "I don't like leaving the horses alone."
"Horses?" Cullen picked up on the word.
"You know what they are?" Kirby asked.
"I've heard rumors of people riding them, but I've never gotten close enough to try." A hope burned in Cullen's eyes. "If you have horses, perhaps you can outrun them and escape. And you have those metal weapons to protect you. You have to take me with you."
Bray traded an apprehensive glance with Kirby.
"I can help you," Cullen promised.
"It looks as if you need more help than us," Kirby said. "When did you eat last?" She appraised Cullen's scrawny, filthy figure.
Cullen's eyes looked far away. "I'm not sure. I find whatever I can. I mostly keep to the shadows, looking for puddles, or wounded rodents. The rainwater in the tunnels keeps me alive. Sometimes it makes me sick." His eyes darted around the corners of the room. "Please consider my offer. I do not want to die here." Cullen looked as if he was a man chucked in a foaming, spitting river, looking for a hand to pull him out. "I only wish to leave this city. I can show you a way out. After that, we can part ways. I will not follow you."
Bray traded a deciding look with Kirby.
Delusional or not, the man was clearly on the road closing in on death. "We will take you as far as outside to talk, but that is all we can promise," Bray said. "If you try anything, we will kill you."
Cullen nodded. "I understand." He sucked in a pained breath as he stood on brittle bones that looked as if they might snap.
"Walk ahead of us," Bray reinforced, already second-guessing his decision to take this man anywhere. The man must be delusional.
They fell in line behind Cullen, keeping their guns aimed as they stepped out from the room onto the walkway next to the tracks. Bray saw nothing suspicious, and he certainly didn't smell anything as they returned through the alternating bands of light. Soon they returned to t
he area filled with debris, with the steep staircase in the center, leading perpendicularly up to the looming upper floor that recessed farther back to the entrance where they'd come in.
Cullen paused, trembling.
Bray inspected the upper floor. The height looked even more considerable from down below. Jagged pieces of stone stuck out from overhead at all angles. Beams of light illuminated the silhouettes of many trees, and even more shadows on the upper floor. Any one of them could be an attacker, lying in wait.
Hearing nothing, Bray told Cullen, "Walk."
Cullen gave them a nervous look, but he ascended first. Bray went up the steps after him, followed by William and Kirby. Cullen's breath came in ragged gasps. More sunlight hit Bray's face as he peered through some of the trees on the higher level, catching the first glimpse of daylight at the building's front entrance, but he couldn't see the horses yet. A small animal he couldn't observe clicked as it wound through the brush on the floor above them.
Cullen seized with fear.
"What is it?" Bray whispered.
"That noise," Cullen said, pointing a bony finger.
"A squirrel, running away," Bray guessed.
Cullen hissed, "It's not a squirrel. It's them."
"Who?"
"The Clickers."
Cold fear prickled Bray's nerves as another click echoed through the building from somewhere above them. A second later, another, louder click answered. A shadow darted from one tree to the next on the upper floor. A horse whinnied. An arrow whistled by Bray's face, hitting the stairs nearby.
William cried out.
Bray thrust his gun up as several man-sized shadows emerged from around the trees, pointing bows. In a spear of daylight, Bray saw a man's face, a mouth open to reveal sharpened, jagged teeth. He recalled those strange, monstrous men he'd seen with his father, on the fringes of the campfire all those years ago, up north. He'd thought his eyes tricked him.
They must not have.
Something much worse than death was waiting for all of them.
"They're coming!" cried Cullen. "Run!"
The Ruins Book 3 Page 2