“Can we go around?” asked Lilah.
“We can,” said Joe, “but we’d lose a lot of time, and from what you said, this is the route your friends would most likely have taken. If we go around, we could miss them entirely, and that crowd of bozos might find them.”
Lilah grunted.
“Then we fight,” she said.
He turned and grinned at her. “I admire your spunk, darlin’, but you’re in no shape for a brawl.”
“I can shoot.”
“There’s that.” Joe dismounted. “Tell you what,” he said, “you can play target practice with anyone who gets past me and the fuzz-monster.”
“There are too many for you,” she said. “Even with Grimm.”
The dog looked from her to the advancing knot of reapers and back again and almost seemed to smile. He gave a discreet whuff and held his ground.
“Just watch our backs,” said Joe, and began walking toward the reapers. Lilah watched him. The man sauntered down the path as if he was taking a leisurely stroll on a spring evening. Grimm walked beside him. Joe’s sword was still slotted into its rack on the quad and his gun was in its holster. The man was insane.
The reapers thought so too. They grinned at one another and puffed out their chests as they strode forward to share the darkness with this sinner.
Joe stopped when he was twenty feet away and held up a hand, palm out. Grimm sat down next to him.
“Okay, kids,” he said loud enough for the reapers and Lilah to hear, “before you go all wrath-of-God on me, let’s chat for a bit.”
The reapers slowed and stopped, looking wary. Their eyes darted from Joe to the dog and back again. One of them, a tall man with a head tattoo of hummingbirds and flowers, stepped out in front of the others.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Doesn’t matter who I am,” said Joe.
“Have you come to accept the darkness?”
“Not as such, no.”
“Then what do we have to talk about?”
Joe shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. How about we see how devoted you guys are to the whole joy-of-dying thing.”
The leader of the reapers snorted. “We are reapers of the Night Church, servants of God and purifiers of this infected world.”
“Okay,” said Joe. “And…?”
“And we do not fear dying. To die is to become one with the darkness, and that is the greatest joy of all.”
“Really?” asked Joe, seemingly incredulous. “You guys actually believe that?”
“Yes!” declared the man with the hummingbird tattoos, and the other reapers roared in agreement.
“No fear of death at all, is that what I’m hearing? I mean, is that the gist?”
“Death is a pathway to glory and oneness with the infinite.”
“So… if I shot one of you, everyone here would be good with that?”
“You think like someone from the old world,” sneered the leader. “You still think that we fear death and—”
Joe drew his pistol and shot the man through the heart. The draw was lightning fast — faster than anything Lilah had ever seen, faster even than Tom — and the leader pitched backward without even a cry.
The echo bounced around the woods and then vanished, leaving a stunned silence behind.
“Now the funny thing is,” said Joe into the silence, “there’s more than a couple of you who look pretty damn scared right now.”
They gaped at him and cut uncertain looks at one another.
Joe holstered his pistol, reached into his pocket, and removed a round metal object. It was squat and green, with a single metal arm and a round ring. He held it up.
“This is an M67 fragmentation grenade. Yeah, I know it’s from the old world, but let’s pretend that it still has relevance to the moment. It has a casualty radius of fifteen meters, with a fatality radius of five meters. That covers all of you cats. Now, I’m willing to bet a brand-new ration dollar that not one of you is going to bravely stand there while I throw this. In fact, I’m willing to bet you’re all going to run away as if you really are afraid for your own lives. What do you think about that?”
The reapers stared at him.
Joe grinned at them.
He pulled the pin. He kept his fingers tight around the metal arm, holding it in place.
And the reapers scattered. They flew away from the path as fast as they could run.
Joe held his ground. Beside him Grimm yawned.
The sound of the reapers crashing through the forest eventually faded into silence. Joe sighed, replaced the pin in the grenade, and dropped it into his pocket. Then he turned and strolled back to Lilah.
“Call me cynical,” he said, “but I’ve come to believe that most people who follow a total wack job aren’t always true believers. They just like to follow. They like the perks. Makes them feel strong. Kind of weakens your faith in fruitcake fanatics.”
Lilah goggled at him. “Would you have really thrown the grenade?”
Joe grinned. “What do you think?”
Lilah nodded, then asked, “If we meet more reapers, will they all do that?”
He shook his head. “Sadly… no. Some of them are true believers, and those you have to deal with.” He paused. “And there are a few of them who are way past simply believing. There are some who really won’t care if you shoot them or maim them, and they will crawl on broken knees through hell itself to take you with them. Saint John’s like that. And Brother Peter. You don’t talk with them, you don’t screw around. If you are ever unfortunate enough to be face-to-face with either of them — you take your shot before you take your next breath. ’Cause otherwise it will be your last breath.”
She frowned. “You’re afraid of Saint John?”
Joe put his hands on her shoulders. “Lilah, there’s not a living soul on this planet who shouldn’t be afraid of Saint John.”
He got back on the quad, and they roared off toward the plateau.
72
Mother Rose stood in the shade of a massive cottonwood tree. Brother Alexi stood behind her, his massive hammer standing on its head, the handle leaning against the tree trunk. Other reapers — all trusted members of her inner circle, her chosen ones — stood in a loose ring around them. In the middle of this ring was a ragged prisoner, a stocky man with a Hawaiian face and curly black hair. He knelt directly in front of Mother Rose, and she towered over him, dominating him with her personal power as well as the evident control she held over his life.
The Hawaiian bowed his head.
“—and this girl who was leading you,” said Mother Rose, “her name was Riot?”
“Yes, ma’am,” mumbled the prisoner.
“She was leading all of Carter’s people through the woods?”
There was a pause before the man said, “Carter wasn’t our leader. We’re all from Treetops. No one elected him ‘king.’ We all fought our way out.”
Mother Rose flicked a glance at Alexi, who mouthed the word “Bingo.”
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Mako,” said the Hawaiian. “Like the shark.”
“It is my belief, Brother Mako,” said Mother Rose, “that Carter presumed leadership of your group only because he had a relationship with Riot.”
“I guess. Carter’s always been an arrogant… ” Mako let the rest go. “The two of them were thick as thieves, ever since we met her.”
“They are both sinners,” said Mother Rose.
Mako hesitated, then nodded. “I guess so.”
“I know so. Sinners and heretics who care only for themselves. Tell me what happened.”
Mako glanced at the reapers, then risked a look up at Mother Rose, who gave him an encouraging smile.
“I don’t want to die,” said Mako. Fear and defiance warred on his face. “I don’t owe a damn thing to Carter. I… don’t want to die.”
“Death waits for all sinners,” said Mother Rose. “But for those who serve the will of God…
there is always a chance for a new life.”
Mako blinked in confusion. “But… I thought… the reapers… ”
Mother Rose bent and caressed the man’s bruised cheek. “The world is full of mysteries, and the Lord Thanatos moves in such unexpected ways.”
“Wait… I… ”
She bent closer still and whispered in Mako’s ear. “A new world is waiting to be born. If there is something you know — a word, a name — something you ache to tell me… then that name will buy your way into a new paradise. And no, my friend, I am not talking about the darkness. This is no trick. This new world will be right here. This world. Our world.”
“You promise?”
“On my life,” she assured him. “Now… tell me.”
Mako leaned back and studied her face, looking for the lie. Finding none.
“I know where Riot was taking Carter and… the rest of us. A place called Sanctuary.”
“I already know that she was taking them to Sanctuary,” said Mother Rose with a sigh. “Is that all you know?”
The big Hawaiian man shook his head. “There were four of us. Carter, his wife, Riot, and me. Two nights ago, Riot drew a map in the dirt to show us the best routes in case we ran into trouble. In case we got separated from her.”
Mother Rose waited, holding her breath.
“I know how to find Sanctuary,” said Mako. “I can take you there.”
FROM NIX’S JOURNAL
When we left town, no one came to see us off.
No one.
How screwed up is that?
73
They gathered up as many of the papers and maps as they could and shoved them into the largest pockets of their canvas vests. Maybe Chong could make sense of the science stuff, and perhaps they’d eventually find someone who needed to have this information.
Someone from the American Nation, perhaps.
The door to the cargo bay was heavier than the cockpit door, but there was the same kind of unbroken wax seal over the lever-style metal handle.
Above it, the word DEATH seemed to glare at Benny.
“So encouraging,” he said.
He placed his fingers lightly on the handle and arched an inquiring eyebrow at Nix.
“We have to,” she said.
“I guess we do.”
He gripped the handle, took a breath, and turned it. The wax snapped and fell away. The big lock went clunk, and then the door shifted in his hand. Nix rested her hand on her pistol, and Benny drew his sword. It was too big a weapon for practical indoor use, but he’d rather have a clumsy weapon than none at all when going through any doorway marked DEATH.
I’m crazy, he told himself, but not that crazy.
Benny nudged the door open with his foot. “I’ll go first,” he said.
In truth he’d rather go first out of the hatchway and down to the desert floor. Then all the way back to Mountainside. Hopefully no one would be living in his old house yet. Maybe his bed would even still be there.
“Okay,” said Nix. No argument, no tussle over who was pack leader.
Nix’s quick agreement did absolutely nothing to bolster Benny’s confidence as he stared into the ominous darkness of the big plane’s cargo bay.
Faint light from the hatchway reached tentatively into the bay but failed to reveal anything. He took a cautious step inside. The air smelled heavily of industrial grease — the old stuff, made from oil, not the stuff they mostly used in town that was made from animal fat; and there were other smells. Dust, animal dung, and some sharp chemical smells that reminded him of the kind of booze that Charlie Pink-eye and his crew drank. Stuff Mr. Lafferty at the general store sold as whiskey but that Morgie Mitchell’s dad used to call “rotgut.” And the ever-present stink of death. It wasn’t as strong as the other smells, but it was there.
All they could see were dozens of crates lashed together with nylon bands and secured to metal rings set in the floor. Most of the crates were made from some tough-looking plastic; but a few were metal and the biggest were wooden.
“What can you see?” whispered Nix.
“Nothing much. Bunch of big crates and boxes.”
“Boxes of what?”
“Don’t know. Probably not puppies, apple pie, and new baseball gloves. Pretty much bet on that.”
He took a few steps inside, listening for sounds and hearing only his own nervous breathing. The cargo bay stretched past the stacks of crates and vanished into the gloom. He had all-weather matches in his vest, but he didn’t really want to put down his sword long enough to fish one out and light it. Not yet.
The floor creaked under his weight, and Benny remembered all the cracks he’d seen in the plane’s crippled body.
A soft scuff behind him told him that Nix had entered the bay.
“You have your gun out?” he asked very quietly.
“Yes.”
“Put it away. I don’t want to get a bullet in the back because another mouse jumps out at us.”
She muttered something, but he heard the scrape of metal on leather as she holstered it.
Benny’s night vision was kicking in, and he was able to make out some details. There were words stenciled in black on some of the cases, and Benny mouthed them as he read the closest ones. The wooden boxes had labels like:
MRE
LAB EQUIP
MED RECS
HAZMAT SUITS
The metal cases were labeled:
RPG
CLAYMORE MINES
LAW RKTS
M-249 SAW
M24 SWS
“What is this stuff?” Benny asked.
“I have no idea. It must all be lab equipment and science stuff.”
Benny nodded and moved a few steps deeper into the darkness.
“Do you hear anything?” whispered Nix.
“No. You?”
“No.”
“That’s good,” said Benny, and mentally added, I think.
He moved a few steps forward, trying to sort out and identify the shapes of things he saw. The pale light was too weak, and the shadows of the bay seemed impenetrable.
Benny leaned toward Nix and spoke softly into her ear. “Listen, I’m going to walk down the center aisle. Wait for me here. If there’s something hinky, I don’t want to have to run you down to get out of here. This place gives me the super-creeps.”
There was a faint rattle and then the scrape of a sulfur match. Light blinded him, and the sulfur stung his nostrils. He winced and peered through the glare to see Nix holding out a match.
In the intense darkness of the cargo bay, even the pale light of the match revealed so much that was hidden.
Vehicles chained to the floor.
Banks of computer equipment standing inert against the walls.
Gleaming loading hooks on chains attached to the ceiling.
And beyond the rows of crates were row after row of metal chairs.
Benny and Nix both froze in shock.
People sat in the chairs. They were dressed identically in one-piece jumpsuits. At least two dozen of them wore yellow jumpsuits, four were in blue jumpsuits, and two wore green.
They were all dead.
But all of them stared with hungry eyes at Benny and Nix.
Nix screamed.
74
“Honored one,” began Brother Peter, “if we are to doubt Mother Rose and any reapers she has led astray, then I think there is a matter that must be attended to.”
Saint John’s face was bland. “Which matter?”
“The Shrine of the Fallen.”
“What about it?”
“The way Mother Rose protects it, denying everyone — even your own holy self — to enter it, there must be something of great value hidden there.”
“Value is relative,” said the saint. “A man with his house on fire and a man dying of thirst each place a different value on a glass of water.”
Brother Peter nodded, accepting the point, but doubt still chewed at him. “
She can’t possibly hope to take Sanctuary with only a few reapers. What does she have — a hundred or two who will follow her? No, she must have some resource we don’t know about. It has to be inside the shrine. It was a military plane. Surely there are some weapons aboard…. ”
“I have no doubt.”
“Then, Honored One, shouldn’t we take it instead?”
Saint John shook his head sadly. “Even you, Peter? Even you?”
“I don’t—”
“You think there are weapons aboard that crashed airplane. So do I. Mother Rose knows it for sure. She has done everything short of building a wall around the shrine to make sure no one ever looks inside. For a time I even agreed with her. The plane represents the world that was. Whether it is filled to its rafters with scientific research on how to cure the gray plague, or medical supplies to treat all the many diseases that have been with us since the Fall, or a battle tank, it doesn’t matter what is in that plane. All of it is evil. All of it is polluted.”
“I understand that, Honored One,” insisted Brother Peter, “but surely if we used such weapons, their nature would change. As Mother Rose is so fond of saying, it is the intention that matters when picking up a sword and not the sword itself. After all, you allowed us to use the quads, and they are from the old world.”
“They are not weapons of war.”
“Even so—”
Saint John held up a hand. “I know what you would advise me, Peter, and it would sound like wisdom to both of us. It would even sound like a victory — to take something forged with ill intent and turn it to a holy purpose.”
“Yes, I—”
“But that is a pathway that would lead us from the purity of who we are back to the pollution of what we were.”
75
Mother Rose walked through the forest with Brother Alexi by her side. A hundred reapers followed forty paces behind them. Their newest “chosen one,” Brother Mako, walked in the midst of the crowd. He looked slightly dazed but very happy to still be alive. The other chosen talked and laughed with him, clapping him on the back, sharing stories with him. They treated him like a hero, like a brother or cousin who had just done something amazing that benefited the family. And it all drew Mako further into his new role as a chosen of Mother Rose.
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