A Hole in the Sky

by William C. Dietz

  It was a horrible scene.

  A bonfire blazed in the middle of the street. But the Chimera liked cold air, so it wasn’t for the heat. They were cooking with it. Half a dozen human bodies had been dragged into the circle of flickering firelight, where they were being systematically butchered and eaten. The axes made a thunking sound as they rose and fell. Was the blond waitress among the victims? Capelli hoped not. “Follow me. And be quiet,” he whispered to Locke. “Or they’ll have us for dinner too.”

  Locke looked ill. But he managed a nod and followed Capelli out onto the sidewalk. The ruins of the parking garage were at the very edge of the firelight’s reach. Moving stealthily, the men were able to slip from shadow to shadow, steadily putting distance between the stinks and themselves.

  The Chimera were ghastly silhouettes by then, gathered around the leaping flames, gnawing on human flesh. Capelli had seen a lot of horrible things during his days as a Sentinel but nothing worse than the scene in the middle of Rose Avenue.

  It was a clear night, and the stars were out, leaving just enough light to navigate by as they sought to put the stinks behind them. Moving carefully, Capelli led Locke east about a quarter of a mile until the taller buildings began to thin out. Then he was faced with the usual conundrum. Should they find a place to hole up because it was dangerous to travel at night? Or should they keep going because it was dangerous to travel during the day?

  That’s a tough one, the voice in Capelli’s head said unsympathetically. If you make the wrong decision you could wind up like me—which is to say dead!

  Shut up, Hale.

  That’s shut up “sir” to you, the voice responded sternly. Because I’m an officer. Or was, until you blew my brains out.

  You were changing, Capelli countered, for what might have been the thousandth time.

  You could have taken your concerns to the Major, or to Dr. Malikov, the voice said accusingly, but you didn’t. Why was that, Capelli? Was it because you were afraid I would turn into something like Daedalus? Or was it because you’re an insubordinate sonofabitch who can’t take orders?

  Screw you.

  Peals of laughter echoed inside Capelli’s head. The laughter faded away as he heard the familiar click of claws and Rowdy materialized out of the gloom. He was panting and he produced a soft whining sound as he bumped Capelli’s leg. Then, having announced his presence, he surged forward to take up a position roughly fifty feet ahead.

  They went on like that for another ten minutes when the bulk of a barely seen building blotted out a section of stars. Capelli gave a low whistle to let Rowdy know that he was turning off the road, then activated the shotgun’s light as a church loomed in front of him.

  They climbed a few stairs, the blob of white light playing across the gaping door and probing the chapel beyond. It revealed signs of a battle: spent casings, the projectile-riddled pews, and what might have been dried bloodstains. Then, as Capelli made his way down the center aisle, he saw that some words had been painted to the right of the altar. “Why, God, why?”

  It was a good question. One that Capelli couldn’t answer.

  Locke gave the only eulogy the people who had taken refuge in the church were likely to receive. “Poor bastards.”

  “Yeah,” Capelli agreed as he spotlighted the choir loft above. “See that? We’ll spend the rest of the night there. Then, immediately after daybreak, we’ll follow U.S. Route 40 east.”

  Locke looked from the loft down to the man next to him. “So you’ll take me to Haven?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you said you wouldn’t.”

  “That was then,” Capelli answered. “This is now. Let’s get some rest.”

  No matter where Capelli found himself, he was almost always able to get a reasonable amount of rest since Rowdy’s finely tuned senses were on duty twenty-four hours a day. That night the dog, a half German shepherd, half Rhodesian ridgeback mix, gave no warnings, so both Capelli and Locke were able to log six hours of sleep. But it seemed like only a matter of minutes before a beam of bright sunlight slanted down through a dirty window and threw a carpet of gold across the choir loft’s wooden floor.

  That woke Capelli, who wiggled out of his sleeping bag and slipped the Magnum back into its shoulder holster. Both Locke and Rowdy were awake and watching him. “I’m going to climb up into the tower and take a look around,” Capelli announced as he laced his boots. “Assuming the area is clear I’ll be back down. Then we’ll make breakfast and hit the road.” If Locke resented taking orders from what amounted to an employee, he showed no signs of it as he began the process of extricating himself from his bedroll.

  After retrieving a pair of binoculars from his pack Capelli went over to a narrow door, pulled it open, and began to climb the twisting-turning stairs. The stairs delivered him to a small platform just below a large pair of church bells. Four vertical windows allowed Capelli to scan the area without being seen. The air was cold, but the clear sky suggested that the day would warm up later.

  After about ten minutes of peering out through the narrow slits, he saw that with the exception of a wispy column of smoke spiraling up into the sky from town, there were no signs of life, Chimeran or otherwise. Having eaten their fill and resterilized the town, it appeared that the stinks had left for parts unknown.

  Satisfied that there weren’t any imminent threats to worry about, Capelli returned to the choir loft. Locke was in the midst of preparing breakfast for the two of them, black coffee and thick oatmeal, with some precious raisins thrown in, all brewed over a can of Sterno. The meal was followed by half a Tootsie Roll each.

  Haute cuisine it wasn’t, but Capelli felt pleasantly full after the meal, and ready to begin the thirty-five-mile hike to the city of Goodland. He figured it would take about two days, unless the weather turned bad or some stinks got in the way.

  After checking the surrounding landscape, the threesome left the church and made their way east onto Route 40. The two-lane blacktop led them through mostly flat farmland with overgrown wheat fields on both sides of the highway. Houses could be seen here and there, along with barns and silos, and trees that had been planted to shelter the buildings from the wind.

  Once in awhile a feral Chimera could be seen in the distance, searching for something to eat, and they passed the rotting remains of a cow. But other than an occasional bark from Rowdy as he took off after a rabbit, and the eternal hum of the wind, the land was silent.

  They saw cars of course, and trucks, and even a yellow school bus, but all were motionless. Some sat as if abandoned only moments before, out of gas perhaps, or broken down. Others lay every which way, having been attacked from the air, and shot full of holes. That had been at least a year earlier, of course. The drivers and passengers who could be seen through filthy windows looked like skeletonized half-mummies, still clad in scraps of rotting cloth, waiting for the elements to bury them.

  And they saw graves, too, with improvised crosses standing like lonely sentinels beside the road. Each marked the end of a desperate journey, back when there had been places to go and the strength required to dig.

  But amidst these signs of death there were unmistakable signs of life: Route 40 was a natural trail for people to follow. Capelli’s practiced eye took note of a recent campfire, a signpost with a cryptic message written on it, and a couple of .22 casings too bright to have been lying on the road for very long. All signs that, in spite of Chimeran efforts to exterminate them, human beings still walked the surface of the planet.

  They had been walking for three hours by the time Capelli called a halt just short of a bridge. The sun was high, and other than the white scar that a Chimeran shuttle had left on the blue sky, it was as if the threesome had the entire world to themselves. From the highway they had to skid down a steep bank into the shadowy area below. A stream ran under the bridge, and judging from the trash left by others, they weren’t the first people to pause there. “You supplied breakfast,” Capelli said, “so lunc
h is on me.”

  Capelli opened his pack and brought out a jar of applesauce he had found in an abandoned farmhouse—plus two cans of Vienna sausages purchased a couple of weeks earlier. “Looks good,” Locke said. “Shall I heat the sausages?”

  Capelli shook his head. “No, save the Sterno for later. Rule number one is never light a fire during the day.”

  Locke nodded. “If you’ll give me your mess tin I’ll divide everything up.”

  Locke and Capelli made small talk during lunch, but not much, since the two men didn’t know each other that well. But Capelli learned that Locke had done a hitch as a hospital corpsman in the Navy after high school, inherited some money, and gone into business as a car dealer back before what he referred to as “the plague.”

  Then, after the Chimera overran Great Britain, Locke had been quicker than most to see how things were going. So he purchased a large quantity of supplies while they were still available, stashed them near his cabin in the mountains, and eventually moved there. At first, Locke had been satisfied to simply hide out, but after receiving a couple of runner-delivered letters from his sister, he eventually resolved to join her in Haven.

  Capelli was intrigued by the possibility of a truly successful survival community. But when pressed, Locke had very few details to add. Still, Capelli thought to himself, it’s worth taking a look at. And the truth is that I don’t have anything better to do.

  So Capelli finished the last of his applesauce, washed his plate in the stream, and removed a pair of binoculars from the top of his pack. “See the tree over there? The one on the east side of the stream? I’m going to climb it and take a look at our back trail.”

  Locke looked around. “Where’s Rowdy?”

  “Wherever he wants to be,” Capelli replied.

  The stream was shallow enough to wade through without overtopping his boots. So Capelli followed it as far as he could, knowing that he wouldn’t leave any tracks. His caution wasn’t the result of a specific threat, but because it was always best to be careful, even when there was no apparent danger.

  Having left the streambed at a point approximately thirty feet from the cottonwood, he made straight for it. The dry calf-high grass swished past his boots and a raven made a throaty cawing sound as Capelli arrived at the base of the tree. With a flapping noise, the bird took to the air.

  He passed his binoculars around so they hung down his back and shinnied up the textured trunk, up to the point where he found reliable footholds in a series of sturdy branches. A few minutes later Capelli was as high as he could safely go and scanning the countryside through the binoculars. I taught you that, the voice said. I taught you to stop, look, and think.

  Yeah, Capelli agreed. You were a fucking genius. Now shut the hell up.

  The voice could be quite insistent, but this time it did as it was told, and Capelli was free to examine the horizon without any distractions. And it was then, while scanning the highway, that he saw the tiny figures coming up the road. His heart began to beat faster. Were they Hybrids? Grims?

  No; as Capelli rolled the image into perfect focus he saw that they were humans. And that was when he swore. Not because they were headed east on Route 40; lots of people did that. But because these individuals were jogging! And nobody runs while carrying a heavy pack unless they have a very good reason to do so.

  Like catching up with people ahead of them.

  Turning the glasses to the right, Capelli scanned the area beyond the bridge, before making his way out of the tree. Once on the ground it was a simple matter to hurry down to the streambed and follow the water back to the bridge. He found Locke reading a leather-bound book. He closed it as Capelli approached. “See anything?”

  “Yeah, I sure as hell did. How many people did you show those gold coins to back in Burlington?”

  Lock frowned. “Not many. Two, no three people, counting yourself. I exchanged one of them for some silver coins and I gave the other away.”

  “You did what?”

  “I gave it to a woman with a sick child so that she could pay for a doctor,” Locke answered defiantly. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because five men are hot on our trail,” Capelli answered darkly. “Maybe it was the money changer, or maybe it was the woman, but somebody fingered you. And now some very unpleasant people are coming to take your gold.”

  Locke looked doubtful. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because they’re running, goddammit, and that’s the only explanation that makes sense. Now, here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to head over to the rise on the other side of the stream and build a little fire.”

  Locke frowned. “You’re going to use me as bait.”

  “That’s right,” Capelli replied, as he removed the Marksman from its scabbard.

  “How do I know I can trust you?” Locke wanted to know. “You could let them kill me.”

  “You should have considered that before you went to sleep last night.”

  Locke grinned. “That’s true! I’m alive, aren’t I?”

  “For the moment. Now take your pack and rifle, cross the stream, and build that fire.”

  “Okay,” Locke said reluctantly. “But what if they shoot me from a thousand yards away?”

  “Then you’ll be dead. Now get going.”

  Rowdy had reappeared by then. He nosed the ground, then ran to catch up as Locke splashed through the stream and climbed the slope beyond. Rowdy was always up for an outing and followed along behind, pausing every now and then to lift a leg.

  Capelli considered calling the dog back, thought better of it, and took a moment to stash both the pack and the Rossmore on top of the retaining wall that ran under the bridge. Then he returned to the stream and followed it north. That enabled him to move quickly and stay off the skyline as he made his way towards the spot he had chosen while up in the tree.

  A sharp left-hand turn took him up a slope and into a field of unharvested wheat. His boots produced puffs of dust, and a squadron of grasshoppers fled ahead of him as he went facedown on the hard ground and elbowed his way up onto a rise. Even though the land looked flat there were slight undulations, and even a few feet of additional elevation would give him a slight advantage.

  Once at the highest point, and with a screen of wheat stalks to conceal him, Capelli put his eye to the Marksman’s scope. It was, as the name implied, a very accurate weapon. Though not appropriate for the task at hand, the semiautomatic rifle could launch a small semiautonomous Drone as well, which would fire on any life form it encountered.

  The highway seemed to leap forward as Capelli found the strip of blacktop and followed it back to the five-person column. They looked bigger than they had before, the heat rising off the blacktop causing them to shimmer slightly, and the left-to-right breeze would be a factor as well. Not to mention the fact that the bastards were still running.

  Still, Capelli was confident of his ability to make the shot as he led the first figure slightly and wondered which one of the would-be thieves was the group’s leader. The one in front was a good bet. Unless the number-two man had enough power to force someone else into the point position. Capelli was running through the possibilities when he saw the lead figure wave the others forward.

  Confident that he knew which person to shoot first, Capelli glanced over his left shoulder, and saw that a thin column of smoke was rising up into the sky. Locke was doing his part and the thieves were taking the bait.

  Capelli turned back, nuzzled the rifle with his cheek, and felt a sudden emptiness at the pit of his stomach. Suddenly the column was close, a lot closer, which left very little margin for error. Capelli made a slight adjustment for windage, squeezed the trigger, and felt it break. The butt kicked his shoulder, and the report was nearly lost in the vast grasslands, as the group’s leader appeared to stumble and fall.

  It was tempting to stay on him, and make sure he didn’t get up, but that would be dangerous. The column was breaking up, so he had to send a secon
d projectile after the first, and do so quickly. The trigger gave, and another man threw up his arms in a gesture of final surrender, as the rest of the thieves sought cover in the wheat field beyond.

  That was good, but not good enough, as the wheat rippled and the surviving thieves made a beeline for Locke. Capelli swore. He’d hoped that after two pursuers went down the rest would pause, giving him an opportunity to thin the group even more.

  But these people were not only tough, they were determined, and that made them that much more dangerous. And as the road rose to meet the bridge deck, it was going to provide the thieves with more cover if he remained where he was.

  So Capelli was forced to pull back, slide down the slope, and splash south. As he passed under the bridge and emerged on the other side, he noticed that Rowdy was nowhere to be seen. And, having heard the gunshots, Locke had gone to ground.

  Capelli didn’t have time to look for his client as he climbed up out of the streambed and looked towards the west. He could see them now, plowing their way through waist-high wheat, weapons at the ready. And they could see him. The man on the right fired a Bullseye tag, which missed by a foot. Then, as the thief triggered half a dozen poorly aimed projectiles, Capelli shot him in the chest. He appeared to throw the Chimeran weapon away as he fell over backwards.

  The others were firing by then, so Capelli had no choice but to throw himself facedown, and roll sideways. The man on the far left fired a carbine, and geysers of dry dirt shot up all around the ex-Sentinel as he came to a stop. He was pinned at that point, or would have been except for Locke and his Winchester. The rifle made a crack, crack, crack sound as the businessman triggered three rounds. That was followed by a familiar growl and a cry of pain as Rowdy attacked one of the men from behind.

  Capelli popped up at that point, and saw that another thief was down as the last one whirled, trying to bring his shotgun to bear on Rowdy. However, the dog’s teeth were locked onto his butt. So as he turned, Rowdy spun with him.