by C J Paget
Finding the demon was easy; all she had to do was go in the opposite direction from everyone else. They made way for her, some spooked, others merely annoyed. No one was crying or screaming though, which meant no one was dead.
The foreman waited at the entrance to the mess hall, Jaana beside him. The blonde woman waved at Lil with a crutch.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Lil kissed her on the cheek.
“Someone had to keep it busy ‘til you got here.” Her laugh was throaty, pain-filled. “Even hobbling, I’m faster than fatty here.”
The foreman grunted as they laughed.
Lil peeked through the window: rows and rows of empty tables, their chairs pushed out at haphazard angles. Meals had been abandoned half-eaten as the second shift filed out to safety.
“How’d it get in this far?”
The foreman’s mouth twisted. “Someone asleep at their post. He’s off the watch.”
“Where is it?” said Lil, craning. “I don’t see anyth—”
A pale, waxy face filled the window, its black eyes slashed by golden slits. The demon smiled as Lil stared, revealing a row of pointed teeth. Its claws came up to tap the glass. The fingers were long, extra-jointed.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap.
Its grin widened. Two rows of teeth.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap.
“It’s got my heartbeat.”
“Yeah,” said Jaana. “Creepy bastard. You going to be okay?”
Lil tore her gaze away from the demon’s and forced a grin. “Don’t have much choice, do I?” She turned to the foreman. “Get her out of here. Do I have a clear shot to the surface?”
He nodded, jaw set, eyes tight. He didn’t like sending runners out if they weren’t fresh. Lil loved him for it, but sometimes there was no choice. “Get him on the closest path and come straight back.”
Lil shook her head. “Closest path’s weakening. He might stray off, end up back here.”
“He might not.”
“Boss—”
“Fast as you can, Lil. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that shoulder.” He gave Jaana a gentle push to get her going, ignoring Lil’s scowl. “Two minutes and we’ll be clear.”
* * * * *
Lil counted it off, stretching sore muscles as the seconds passed. She leaned against the crack in the door so the demon would have her scent and be less likely to go haring off after other prey in the camp. When time was up, she readjusted her pack and undid the latch.
Then she turned and ran.
The demon had been pushing experimentally against the door, growling when it held. Now he crowed when it swung open, and shambled out after her.
At first she jogged along, gauging his pace. Some demons shuffled like reluctant horses, stopping every few steps to sniff for new scents. Those were the easy jobs; you could walk them to the paths. Other times, a demon might maintain a breakneck pace for hours on end, requiring two or three runners to leapfrog ahead to relieve their exhausted sisters. Don’t let him be one of those. There’s no one to take my place.
This one kept to a fast walk, his footfalls echoing off the crumbling concrete. Now and then he’d pause, cocking his head at his echo, and keen down a corridor. There were people down those, waiting for the all-clear.
Halfway up he stopped by the doors that led to the classrooms. This time when he keened, a sound came back: a crying girl. He took half a step forward, grinning, his long fingers flexing.
“Hey!” Lil danced closer. “Those aren’t for you.”
The demon glanced at her, then back down the darkened hallway. Rectangles of fluorescent light spilled out from two or three classrooms, but no moving shadows betrayed the people shut up inside. Three years ago, someone had panicked and bolted as a demon passed. Five children died before the runner even got close.
The demon paused, uncertain. The crying had stopped. Lil hoped the child had been soothed and wasn’t sitting with someone’s hand clamped over her mouth.
The door rattled as the demon shook it.
“No you don’t.” This corridor hadn’t been repaired since the last portal-quake, the debris swept to the sides and forgotten. Lil picked up a chunk of concrete. Her arm whipped back, then forward, her shoulder screaming in protest. She howled along with it as the fist-sized projectile flew from her hand.
It hit the demon square in the hip, hard enough to make him grunt. The children forgotten, he snarled and came after her.
“That’s right, keep coming.” Lil spun and took off again, rubbing her shoulder. The demon chattered at her in his language. He sounded pissed. Good. Let’s hope that stings all the way to the road.
After a while, the corridor widened and the floor sloped upward. They passed several supply carts that had been abandoned when the alarm went out.
They’d left the doors wide open; weak grey daylight replaced the washed-out glow of the fluorescents. Lil took a few steps outside, scanning the work yard.
A salvage truck sat vacant. The tarp covering its bed flapped in the wind. She could see barrels and boxes underneath, filled with food and fuel. They’d be sorted as soon as she drew her demon far enough away.
The rest of the yard was quiet. Corrugated metal huts sat in neat rows, blinds drawn, doors firmly latched. The air smelled of engine oil, dust, and coffee. The alarms must have sounded just as the evening shift was beginning.
Lil let the demon close the distance as he gained the top of the ramp. Scents dissipated faster in the open. When they were a hundred yards out, it would be safe to widen the gap between them. Until then she needed to keep him close, keep him chasing.
His nostrils flared. His gold-slitted eyes blinked rapidly, adjusting to the fading daylight. Lil strolled towards him warily. “Come on, now,” she coaxed. “Show me what you can do.”
One long-fingered hand snaked out, its ragged claws scraping Lil’s cheek. Hissing in pain, she leapt away and put ten paces between the demon and herself.
For a long moment he stood perfectly still, waiting until Lil’s breathing slowed. Making sure I watch. He licked his nails one by one, like a cat grooming its paws. Two rows of sharp teeth leered when she sucked in a breath. No matter how many runs I’ve been on, they find new ways to be creepy.
So many runs had also taught her that sometimes you had to answer like with like. Lil wiped blood from her cheek and flicked her hand at the ground. Only two drops hit the pavement; the scratch was shallow.
The demon cocked his head, curious.
Lil winked before she turned and ran.
He cackled as he loped after her.
* * * * *
The first part of any run was the easiest. For five miles in all directions, the roads received constant maintenance. Any damage that occurred after a portal-quake was promptly repaired—not only for the salvage trucks, but also to give the runners a safe start.
Beyond the five mile mark, things broke down. The roads became unpredictable. Patching and repair depended on whether a scavenging crew had the time or materials available. More often than not, they didn’t. Husks of dead trucks littered the roadside, stripped of all their useful parts.
The further out you ran, the deeper the desolation set in. Runners talked about it sometimes, when they were all in camp and someone had swiped a bottle of moonshine from the foreman’s private stash. “Swiped” was said with a wink—funny how he forgot to lock his liquor cabinet when the five of them were home safe.
They’d seen pictures of how things used to be. The way cities used to rise up and up, the buildings kissing the skies. Farms stretched over hundreds of acres, the land sprawling with green. Nain dreamed of having a vineyard, of walking among rows of grapevines and tasting the sun on her tongue.
The thought of Nain brought Lil back. Dead or run away, the foreman had said, but it wasn’t the latter: Nain equated running away with abandoning your family. Even if she’d changed her view, there was nowhere to run to. Which meant Nain’s last demon had probably killed her.
>
The demon chattered, high and sharp. Without breaking stride, Lil pulled a mirror from her pocket and checked to be sure he was keeping his distance. Nothing should distract him out here—the scavenger crews were to the south today, and she’d headed northwest.
He was still there, matching her pace. He caught her eye in the glass and gave her a grin full of teeth, stark white against the heavy dusklight. Lil rolled her eyes and kept running.
You learned some lessons early: carrying a mirror meant you didn’t have to run backwards. If you went ass-over-teakettle because you weren’t watching in front of you, a demon would be on you in a heartbeat.
Night fell as they ran, the sky turning black-violet as the miles churned beneath her feet. The time between full dark and moonrise was Lil’s least favorite. It didn’t matter how many times she’d run this path before—portal-quakes changed the landscape between runs, and starlight wasn’t always enough to see by.
Flashlights were no use: They destroyed your night vision. Plus, they were in short supply. Better to leave them for the camp’s use, for the nights when the gasoline ran low and they shut off the generators to conserve. Those occasions came more often these days, though the foreman assured them it was just a dry spell, that they’d find a new supply soon enough.
The runners knew he was lying, but they kept his secrets. The same way he let them pretend the forces weren’t weakening on the portal roads.
Hundreds of years ago, when the first portals had opened—before the portal-quakes drove civilization below ground but after the armies had learned you couldn’t blow them up—the demons had come through in droves. Packs of them seethed and yammered their way across the land. Demons like the one Lil was leading were common, but others were bigger, uglier. Some were as tall as buildings and just as solid.
Even though they were creatures right out of a nightmare, they rarely strayed from the paths. Portals always came in pairs: the demons came through one and went straight to the other. They were content—no, impelled—to stay on the portal roads.
Unless they were attacked.
Whatever force kept them on the portal roads, it wasn’t enough to hold them if one of their own was injured. Killing the demons was not only damned hard to do, it also tended to piss off their friends.
Whole cities were lost where demons retaliated, until the humans finally decided it was safest to let them pass unmolested, like travelers along some strange inter-dimensional highway.
Hundreds of years of portals and portal-quakes left the planet a desiccated husk. Lil looked up at the stars, wondering if anyone out there knew there were still survivors down here. She wondered if the descendants of the people who’d left in their rocketships might someday come back and take them away to somewhere new.
She doubted it. More likely they’d died before they’d even left the solar system. For all she knew, the camp and the occasional pockets of solitaries were it for the human race.
Behind her, the demon’s footsteps stopped.
Lil spun and darted right. If he’d decided to pounce, she had no intention of being in his path. But when she turned, he was a safe distance back.
He cocked his head and jabbered, pointing behind her with those long, jointed fingers.
“Unh-uh. I’m not falling for that.” She took a cautious step backward, sliding her foot to test for uneven ground. One step. Two. Three.
The demon didn’t follow.
Another step. His hand remained in the air. He’d gone still as stone.
She bent, questing for a good-sized rock to hurl. Her shoulder twinged in anticipation.
Her fingers curled around something soft.
Night had leeched all color from the fabric, but her mind filled it in: dark, wine-red. The yarn was fuzzy on her skin as she wound it around her wrist. Nain’s scarf.
A few years gone, Hang had learned to knit. She wanted practice, she’d said, so she could make booties and blankets for her herd of future children. She’d started with scarves so they’d have something to keep them warm on long, cold runs. Lil’s was blue as the summer sky; Jaana’s was sunflower-yellow; somber Hale’s was a tangle of greens and browns; and Nain’s…
Lil lifted the scarf to her nose, inhaling her scent.
They were all home: Lil, Hale, Nain, Jaana and Hang. The scavengers had been out nearly a month—so long the camp had written them off for dead—but they’d come trundling back that morning, a new truck in tow. In its bed were fifty cases of wine.
The foreman took charge. He shared out a cup or two for everyone during the biggest party the camp had ever seen. Even some of the children were allowed a few sips: Who knew if they’d ever taste it again?
But for his girls, his runners, the foreman saved a whole bottle each. Hang crinkled her nose and set hers aside after a cautious sip from Hale’s glass. Jaana and Lil drank theirs too fast and spent the night giggling. Hale drank slowly, thoughtfully, the way she did everything.
It was Nain who loved it best, savoring each sip, letting it play over her tongue as she talked about what she tasted.
Hang had given her unopened bottle to Nain. Some nights, Nain took it from her shelf and turned it over in her hands, her eyes faraway, and Lil knew she was dreaming of vineyards she’d never see.
Lil glared at the demon. “Is this what you saw?” She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. Nain would never leave her scarf behind.
He stabbed his finger into the air again, still pointing behind her.
Lil stood and turned partway, keeping the demon in view as she glanced along the path. The moon peeked over the horizon, bathing the world in pale light.
Ahead, two sets of footprints veered off the path and out along the rocky ground.
“I don’t know where she was going, but we’re going straight to the portal. No detours.” Lil wrapped the scarf around her neck as she spoke, even though the night was warm. I’m sorry, Nain.
The demon shrugged and lowered his arm.
This time when Lil started moving, he followed.
A few paces on she saw something that pulled her up short. The demon stopped too. At first she’d thought it was just a large rock. Closer up, the lump was unmistakeable: Nain’s pack.
Don’t leave the path.
The fairy tales Lil had heard when she was small said that little girls who left the path got themselves in all kinds of trouble. It had become a mantra for the runners: Don’t leave the roads. Get the demons to the portals. Come home.
But… Nain.
While Lil considered, the demon seemed content to wander in a circle, crooning to himself.
Their current path led to a portal road whose psychic pull was weakening. The last demon she’d led there hadn’t latched on until she got within a mile of the portal itself. Who knew if the pull was strong enough now? The next closest portal was twenty miles east of the first, and she’d have to backtrack if this one didn’t take.
If she struck out along Nain’s trail, she could shave half that distance off and maybe find out what had happened to Nain.
The foreman would tell her no. He’d say Nain was a lost cause; they’d mourn her when Lil got home, now get your ass back on the road so we’re not mourning you, too.
But the foreman wasn’t here. Out here it was just Lil, the demon, and, somewhere along that trail of footprints, Nain.
She had to know.
“Come on,” she said to the demon. “You get your detour, after all.”
He crowed as she stepped off the road, those creepy hands coming together for a triumphant round of applause.
As she passed Nain’s cast-off pack, she bent low and scooped it up by a strap without breaking stride.
I’ll find you alive and give it back to you. Make you carry it back home.
* * * * *
As the miles passed, Nain’s trail grew erratic. Worse, Lil found her own steps wavering sometimes, too. It alarmed her somewhere at the back of her brain, but the concern was muted, muzzy. She ch
alked it up to fatigue.
The demon’s chattering had stopped. Now he just smiled, those rows of teeth reminding her that he was anything but docile.
Their only company was the sound of their twin footsteps pounding along the ground. Lil tasted sharp night air on her tongue and cast her gaze along the trail, looking for Nain.
Then they came to the swath.
At first, Lil thought she’d lost the trail. They were at the edge of a rough patch of ground, maybe fifty feet across. It looked like a river of loose sand cutting through the hard pack. Nain’s path ran straight into it, and even though she strained her eyes looking, Lil was sure the footprints didn’t pick up on the other side.
She glanced behind her. The demon sniffed, nostrils flaring as a breeze carried something interesting past his nose.
“There’s nothing out here. Not even solitaries.”
Every now and then, scavenging parties ran across clusters of humans scratching out lives in burnt-out towns, or in caves that went deep into the earth, or even old fallout shelters. They could come live in the camp—the crews always extended the invitation—but the solitaries rarely accepted.
But there was nowhere habitable nearby. Not for miles.
“Come on,” she said, adjusting the packs slung over her shoulders. “They have to have come out the other side somewhere.”
The demon chittered.
It wasn’t until she stepped onto the churned sand that Lil realized what she was looking at: This wasn’t a washout, or a corridor of rough wind and soft ground.
These were footprints. Hundreds of them, heading north.
New portal road? No. If that were the case, the demon would’ve latched on by now. He was still bright and alert. If anything, his grin had grown.
She looked again. No, not demonprints.
They’re human.
Lil stared in the direction they were heading, as if people might materialize somewhere up ahead.