Children of the Mountain (Book 2): The Devil You Know

by R. A. Hakok

  My stomach’s reminding me I haven’t had breakfast or lunch so as soon the flames are licking up through the wood I dig in my backpack for a can of roast beef and gravy I found while I was out. I hold it up to Hicks but he just shakes his head and says he’s already eaten. Even if I’d had a bellyful of cold franks there’d be no way I’d turn down a meal like this. But hey, his loss. I take the top off the can and pop it in the fire. The label chars as the flames lick up the sides and soon the gravy’s bubbling away, filling the room with its thick, rich aroma. My mouth’s already watering; I can barely wait. As soon as it’s ready I fish it out with the leatherman’s pliers and take it back to the table. I grab a plastic spoon from my pack and start slurping the pieces of meat straight from the can. Within seconds I’ve burned the roof of my mouth in at least two places.

  Hicks picks up the plastic thermos, lifts it to his lips and takes a sip. He grimaces like he doesn’t like the taste much and then nods in the direction of my pack.

  ‘Looks like you did good.’

  I’ve just taken a spoonful of hot gravy so it takes me a moment to answer.

  ‘Yep, got everything on your list.’ And something that wasn’t: a pint bottle of bourbon with the tamper ring still in place. I don’t think it’s the brand he was drinking the other night but the Sergeant strikes me as more of a pragmatist than Quartermaster. I reckon it’ll do to get him in the right frame of mind for the discussion I mean us to have.

  ‘Who taught you how to find stuff?’

  Between mouthfuls of roast beef I tell him about Marv and how we used to go out and get things for the others in Eden.

  ‘Eden. You mentioned that when we picked you up yesterday. Where’d you say it was again? Somewhere north of here?’

  I don’t want to get on to the topic of where Eden might be so I just nod and turn my attention back to the can. But he doesn’t seem satisfied with that answer.

  ‘Do you remember any of the names of the towns you and Marv used to scavenge? Trapp? Briggs? Linden?’

  Those are all places near Mount Weather. I shake my head.

  ‘I don’t think so. I’m not sure. I don’t read so well.’ I catch him glancing over at my backpack, now full of items from the list he gave me, so I add: ‘I mostly go by the word shapes.’

  He squints across the table at me for a while, like he’s trying to figure out where the truth in that statement might be. I look down and go back to digging in the can. In the end he must decide it’s not worth pushing me on it.

  ‘So what happened to him, this Marv fella?’

  ‘He died.’

  ‘How’d that come about?’

  ‘He caught the virus while we were out scavenging. He killed himself before he could do me any harm.’

  ‘He get it from a fury?’

  ‘No, Marv was too careful for that. It was President Kane. He put it in his respirator the last time we went out.’

  If Hicks is surprised by this he doesn’t show it. He just takes another sip from the thermos.

  ‘Doc says you and the girl plan to move on.’

  I shrug. Probably.

  ‘That’s a pity; we could use you. Where’ll you go next?’

  ‘South, I guess.’

  ‘You don’t have provisions enough to get very far.’

  I tilt the almost empty can of roast beef in his direction.

  ‘We’ll get by.’

  He takes another swig from the thermos and works his jaw from side to side as if to say Maybe. Maybe Not. I think he’s about to say something else but he doesn’t. I reckon this is as good a time as any to start getting the information I need. I fish the bourbon from my pocket and slide it across the table. He looks at it for a long while, and I think I catch a look like the one Quartermaster used to get when I’d bring him back something like that. But in the end he just shakes his head.

  ‘Thanks kid, but me and bourbon don’t get on like we used to.’

  Well, worth a try. For a few moments I go back to scraping bits of burned beef from the bottom of the can.

  ‘I heard there was another bunker, just outside Pittsboro, in North Carolina. Some place called Fearrington. Dr. Gilbey said you might have been there.’

  The thermos is halfway to his lips again but it stops at the mention of Fearrington.

  ‘How’d you come to know about that, anyway?’

  I tell him Marv told me about it, which is close enough to the truth.

  ‘Remarkably well informed fella, this Marv.’

  The thermos continues its journey to his lips. He takes another sip, winces, then sets it down again.

  ‘So, do you know anything about it?’

  He nods.

  ‘It was our first stop, after Atlanta.’

  *

  I SET THE CAN of roast beef I’ve been working on aside.

  I remember a scrap of newspaper I dug out of a fireplace, not long after I started going outside with Marv. It was little more than a headline and a date, a corner of grainy black and white photo and a couple of column inches that had somehow escaped the flames. I don’t know why but I kept it anyway, put it with the other clippings I’d collected. I’d go through them, when I was in my room in the farmhouse, sitting out quarantine, trying to figure out how our world got to be the way it is. I brought them with me to Mount Weather but they’ve sat in a shoebox under the bed all winter. I guess I’ve had other things on my mind, and besides, that mystery’s been solved.

  I’ll never forget that charred headline though. It was about Atlanta.

  It simply read Our Last Stand.

  ‘Were you there?’

  Hicks just nods but doesn’t say anything further. I remind myself I came here to find out what he knows about Fearrington, but now we’re here for the night I have time and I figure it’ll be easy enough to bring us back to that topic when I need to.

  ‘What was it like?’

  He doesn’t say anything, just reaches into his parka and pulls out a crumpled pack of Camels. He lights one and exhales a plume of smoke that disappears into the gloom.

  ‘How old’re you, kid?’

  ‘Seventeen. Almost.’

  ‘Close enough.’ He pushes the bourbon across the table towards me. ‘Don’t care much for drinking by myself.’ He raises the thermos.

  I want him to keep talking so I pick up the bottle and unscrew the cap. It smells like wood and smoke and leather sofas and the cigars I used to get for Kane. I take a small sip. It’s smoother than the Fireball I shared with Mags on the roof of the mess back in Eden, but still it makes my eyes water.

  Across the table Hicks is staring into the hearth, like maybe he’s trying to figure out the right place to start. There’s a soft crack as a branch shifts in the fire. A handful of orange sparks rise in a swirl and then disappear up into the chimney.

  ‘It was a bad business. We’d already lost New York, Philly and DC to the strikes. Detroit fell to the virus a few weeks later, then Chicago. After that it was like dominoes. Pittsburgh, Columbus and Indianapolis went dark within days of each other, then Charlotte and Nashville. Each city that fell pushed a new wave of them south towards us; they flooded in through the Carolinas along 85 and through Tennessee down 75.’ He stops and looks over at me. ‘You came down 81, right? Probably all the way from up near Reliance?’

  Reliance is a small town just a little ways west of the Blue Ridge Mountain Road, not far from Mount Weather. I saw signs for it on our way down.

  ‘I’m not sure. We came through a lot of places.’

  He waves the question away, like it doesn’t matter. He picks up the thermos again and gestures at the bottle with the cigarette. I take another sip. The bourbon hits the back of my throat and burns its way down. It’s all I can do to keep from coughing.

  ‘Well, whatever. Where you started’s not important. Point is you were on the road a while, right? Maybe a week, give or take a day?’

  Mags and I made much better time than that; we were only on I-81 for four da
ys. But I nod anyway.

  ‘Right. Well, imagine what that road would have looked like with a million other people on it, all of them towing carts, pushing barrows, shopping trolleys, whatever they could find. That’s enough people to stretch back along 81 almost as far as you travelled it. Helluva lot of people.’

  I nod again, like I understand, but in truth there’s been so few of us for so long I have trouble imagining what a hundred people all together might look like, let alone a million.

  He raises the thermos and looks over at the bourbon.

  ‘Am I drinking by myself here kid?’

  I take another sip and he continues.

  ‘It was the rumor that brought them, of course. I don’t know where it started, but pretty soon that didn’t matter anymore. We heard it from each new batch that arrived. The scientists were close to finding a cure, they said; they were working on it right here in Atlanta. The government would never let the city fall. This would be where we’d turn it around. Hell, I’d heard it so often I think some days I even believed it myself.’

  He looks over at the fire again and shakes his head.

  ‘Back then we still had power of course, and a little heat, a few lights, it goes a long way. The army patrolled the streets at night and during the day the grunts went house to house clearing out any furies that were holed up inside. Infantry trains for urban combat so they were good at that, and south of Home Park and east of Decatur was pretty much fury-free. It felt like we were winning, or at least holding our own. Who knows, maybe if we’d had a little longer to prepare.’

  Outside the wind gusts under the eaves and then settles. The cigarette continues to burn between his fingers, but it’s like he’s forgotten it now.

  ‘But that was time we never had. Those that had survived had taken to the freeways, and they were leading the furies right to us. There wasn’t nothing we could do about that, so the brass figured we might as well use it to our advantage. 75 and 85 come together just north of the city and I guess when they looked at their maps it seemed like a good spot, so that’s where we picked to make our stand. The sappers stretched concertina wire right across the highway, just north of the 17th Street Bridge. Behind that they lined up the tanks, the Bradleys, Strykers, the Humvees with the roof-mounted fifty cals. They basically emptied out Fort Benning; it was everything we had. All the other roads into and out of the city were blocked off. Jersey barriers, shipping containers, school buses, you name it; we used anything we could lay our hands on. After that it was just a matter of waiting. The survivors would bring them to us and we’d end it.’

  He gives a short, humorless laugh.

  ‘Sure wasn’t how that worked out.’

  He takes another sip from the thermos and nods at the bourbon.

  ‘How’re you getting on with that?’

  I hold up the bottle, surprised to see that there’s already a couple of fingers missing. I take another hit. It’s definitely getting easier. I feel it warming my insides as it slides down.

  ‘Ortiz and I had picked ourselves out a spot on the roof of the Wells Fargo building, right by the interstate. We had orders to take out the first ones to show themselves. Brass thought it’d be good for morale. The grunts had always liked having us watching over them when they were on door-kickin’ duty.’

  ‘We’d walked both highways that morning, placing our rangefinders. It was a shade over twelve hundred yards to the Peachtree overpass where the interstates came together. Not an easy distance to make, especially with the light. But Ortiz and I were the best sniper team in the 75th. On a good day with him spotting for me I could shoot the ticks off a hound at a thousand yards. The Win Mag was waiting on a tarp next to me. I’d always favored the SR-25; you don’t have to work a bolt so it’s faster. But at that sort of distance the ’Mag shoots tighter groups.’

  He flicks the cigarette, sending gray flakes floating slowly to the floor.

  ‘So we’re sitting up there, waiting, our comms dialed in to the AC-130 that’s patrolling above us. They haven’t seen anything yet, but it’s early and besides the infrared they’re using never worked well on the furies. They’re just too damn cold. Soon as it turns dark and they start making their way down the highway I figure we’ll hear about it.’

  ‘The last of the stragglers make their way through the gaps in the razor wire and I can see the engineers getting ready to close it up. Down on the line the grunts are waiting behind sandbags, just smoking or cleaning their weapons. Ortiz and I had stopped to chat to a few of them when we’d been down there earlier. The mood was pretty good. The general consensus was that brother fury didn’t have a prayer. Once we opened up with all that firepower he wouldn’t know whether to shit or go blind.’

  He lifts the thermos and I take another hit from the bourbon. I run my tongue across the roof of my mouth; I can no longer tell where I burned it.

  ‘The sun starts to set and the arc lights the engineers have rigged all along the highway come on, lighting up the kill zone. A cheer drifts up, for a few moments drowning the drone of cicadas that’s been building since dusk.’ He lifts the hand that’s holding the cigarette and points it at me. ‘Something’s bothering me about that, mind, but right then I can’t put my finger on what it is.’

  ‘We don’t have long to wait after that. Ortiz taps me on the shoulder and points in the direction of the overpass. There’s a single fury, crouched in the middle of the road on all fours. It’s moving its head, shifting it from side to side like a dog scenting the air, you know, like they do.’

  I nod. That’s exactly what the one I ran into in Mount Weather’s tunnel had been doing. A shiver runs down my spine and I take another sip of bourbon. Hicks squints at me for a moment, then he continues.

  ‘I know what’s troubling it, of course. Ortiz and I had scrounged a half-dozen blood bags from a casualty clearing station they’d set up on 14th. We’d sprayed the area under the overpass when we’d been up there placing our markers; I figured it might give me a few extra seconds to make the first shot. Ortiz is already calling it in so I take the ’Mag off safe. The scope’s dialed out for the range so I just line the sights square on its forehead and squeeze and a second later the top of its head comes off, like I’m shooting melon at the fair. We’d been ordered to ditch the suppressors so everyone down on the line could hear and my ears are ringing, but right away I can tell something’s not right. Only minutes before they’d been whoopin’ and hollerin’ just because somebody’d turned the lights on, but now there’s not a sound other than the damn cicadas. I look up over the top of my scope but I can’t see a thing. I never cared much for the night vision the army gives you; at that sort of distance it’s more hindrance than help. But the light’s fading fast now and I can’t make out whatever it is has the grunts spooked, so I reach up and switch it on. The arc lights lined up all along the highway cause the scope to flare out but after a second it calms down. And then I see it.’

  He reaches for the thermos again.

  ‘You ever been to Atlanta, kid?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Well, for a city, it’s got a lot of trees. They start immediately north of the point where 75 and 85 come together.’

  He trails off, as if remembering.

  ‘Infrared may not work so good on the furies but night vision works like a treat. All along the tree line it lights up their silver eyes like it’s Christmas.’

  *

  HICKS TAKES ANOTHER SIP from the thermos and leans back in his chair. Outside the tavern darkness has drawn down over the world, but I’ve barely noticed. I look over at the hearth. The fire’s burned down; there’s little more than a handful of scattered flames among the embers. I should go build it up, but whether it’s the roast beef and gravy or the liquor my insides feel pretty warm, and I really want to hear what happens next.

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘The furies. They were in the trees.’

  ‘Right. Well that’s when it hits me. That noise I’m hearing,
drifting up to us from the tree line. I’d mistaken it for cicadas. We were coming into summer, but of course it had already turned cold by then, so it couldn’t have been that; we hadn’t heard insects in weeks. It was the furies. Have you heard the sound they make?’

  I take another sip of bourbon.

  ‘It’s like a clicking, from back in their throat.’

  He squints across the table at me.

  ‘You must have gotten pretty close to one.’

  I nod.

  ‘Yeah, just last year.’

  He looks at me again, and then at the bourbon, like he’s trying to work something out. After a moment he raises the thermos to his lips and continues.

  ‘Well anyway, I guess me shooting the first one must have set the rest of them off because they’re breaking cover now, just swarming out of the trees and onto the highway. I get to work with the rifle. I’ve got my eye in and they’re dropping, but there’s just too damn many of them; I can’t crank the bolt fast enough. I grab the SR-25 and start squeezing off rounds. Down on the line it’s gone deathly quiet, and when I stop to reload I see why. They’re knocking out the arc lights as they come; it’s like they’re bringing the darkness with them.’

  An image floats into my head, unbidden. A black and white snapshot of Mount Weather’s tunnel, the fury lit by the muzzle flash as it bounded towards me, and for a second the terror I had felt in that moment returns. I take another swig of bourbon to banish it.

  ‘There’s a few pops from the grunts now, but they’re just wasting ammo. Even if their hands were steady they couldn’t be expected to make shots count, not at that distance, not on things that move that quick.’

  ‘As I’m jamming another magazine into the rifle I hear a noise and look up. A Warthog’s banking around from the east. It opens up with that massive gun in its nose and for a few seconds it’s like God Himself has taken a weed whacker to the tree line. The Comanches come whining in, right on his heels, sending their Hellfires streaking down towards the overpass. But the things coming down the highway don’t even seem to notice what’s going on behind them.’