by Norman Dixon
Stop them, he thought, projecting the wild peoples’ image inside. If you can hear me . . . stop them. Voices responded to his intrusion, flitting questions, mumbles, but nothing directly like the night before Ecky died, or the fateful last moments of the Creeper trapped in the beast’s maw. Each time one of the Creepers was killed it was like a light being turned off, a loss of radio signal, a hand muffling a scream.
“Push them back,” the stranger yelled.
Bobby dropped his rifle. His hands clamped over his ears. The noise, their hunger, broke his mind apart.
“Kid, are you hurt,” the stranger asked.
Bobby was tumbling down into the void so fast he couldn’t answer the man. He couldn’t do much of anything but fall into that deep hunger, and it swallowed him whole.
* * * * *
Jamie had thought she’d seen it all before, the depths of human depravity, and she thought she’d seen the end of it when Baylor rescued her. She was wrong. The young men threw themselves against the door like lunatics trying to force themselves out of the asylum, only, they were trying to get in, to get to her and Sophie, but she couldn’t let that happen—wouldn’t let that happen. They’d suffered much at the hands of savage men and finally found a measure of peace. She racked the shotgun and took aim. No, she thought, I won’t let that happen ever again.
The fatigue-wearing youth banged his head against the Plexiglas until his blood smeared the window. More soon joined his efforts, and together they were causing the door to bend inward. The chain link behind the glass also began to give way. These were not the decaying muscles of the dead they were the strong newly developed muscles of young men hopped up on the scent of their own spilled blood.
Jamie screamed as the window collapsed. The chain held for a moment but then it, too, fell inward.
With Sophie behind her . . . Jamie opened fire.
* * * * *
“Have you ever seen anything like it,” the stranger said. He had run out of ammo and was using his AK-47 like a club, beating back the wild men, smashing skulls. But now that the din of rocks and arrows had subsided, he stood, perched on the rear railing open to a strike that he was quite confident would not come. Even the Mad Conductor, along with the rest of the crew, stood perfectly still. They were mesmerized by what they saw.
The dead were moving and they moved with purpose. Working in teams the remaining Creepers slowly circled the wild men, dragged them down. They did not stop to devour, instead, they killed and moved on to another target. The wild men were so caught up with trying to crack the metal walls of the train that they didn’t notice until it was too late.
“It’s like someone’s ordering them,” said one of the men. The wiry man tied a piece of his shirt around his head to stem the flow of blood.
The stranger meant to do the same but he couldn’t take his eyes off Bobby. As he watched the kid’s lips move his hackles began to rise. The wounds caused by the sharp stone would have to wait.
* * * * *
Bobby was moving at a sickening speed. The black wind ripped at his ears and the faster he fell the hotter he became. With the heat came the sensation of growth. Where, at first, he had been insubstantial in the face of vastness, he now began to slake the hunger . . . he was beginning to fill the void.
The thing that had been Bobby was no more. It had been replaced by the heat and the feeling of change. Not a simple shift like someone absorbing caffeine but a DNA altering, evolutionary change, as if the blocks that made up his essence had been broken down and used to form something new, something altogether different.
One by one, across the quickly shrinking void, bursts of angry red explosions bloomed along his path. He directed his thoughts towards them, feeling the hotness on his being like the freshly spilled blood of an animal. The black became a dark orange, then lighter, and lighter still, as if he held a flashlight directly to a closed eye. Flecks of color, veins branching out, and the heat, burning hot like the very fires of creation. It was then, with the light revealing what he thought a void, that he realized where he was—what he was.
Blood, I was born in blood, I’ve spilled blood, I share their blood and they mine . . . I have become something else.
Faster and faster he fell . . . no, not faster, but smoother. I drift within, drift along the path of my own demise. The words were not his own. He heard them spoken in his own voice, but they felt foreign. He could feel them move through him like wind across the skin, rippling, pulsing forth from the electromagnetic stroke of his heart. With each beat, each thump, he felt them crowding him, clamoring to be heard, snatches of voices amid a heated protest. And he drifted along now like a solitary man trapped in a sea of swarming bodies all driven to a cause, to a truth that lived just beyond his understanding.
Help us then . . . if I am you and you me . . . help us. Thinking the words was slow and unsettling like lifting his hands through wet sand. The harder he concentrated on them the faster his being moved and the louder his heart beat, pounding now, driving like a piston. I can only promise you a swift death in return.
The least you could do. . . .
So—tired. . . .
Their words cascading into his head were clear, at first, but as the others joined in he could sense the length of decay in them. He could feel the weakness of those signals, as if the rotted faces were right in front of him. He knew that these weaker, undecipherable words were those that had been sent to him from the minds of the most seasoned of the Creepers. The longer they’d been alive the worse their signals were.
Bobby moved through them all, zipping along the conduit of their shared disease. That was it . . . he could see it now, that microscopic similarity, the familial tie that bound him with them. He had become the link to something new, an evolutionary soap box through which the dead could speak and be spoken to. He needed them. He sent out his own signal showing them what he wanted them to do.
They were hesitant to his suggestions at first, but when Bobby applied the force of his will, he felt them give way, as if he passed through a spider’s web.
The subdued reddish light began to pulse brighter and brighter. He rushed towards the light, and then, he was in it, swimming in the brilliant warmth. At peace within the glow he felt as if he could bask in it for eternity. But peace was not yet his. The world wanted him back. Life wanted him back. Their dark hands clawed for him, grabbed hold, and yanked him upwards.
He was on his back. The afternoon sky welcomed him with a false sense of security then one of the ugliest faces he’d ever seen, and he’d seen a lot (especially among the Settlement’s First War veterans), eclipsed that endless blue. A crosshatch of swollen, pink and white burn scars covered the face and one emerald eye looked on him with shock. Where its twin should have been was only a shadowy socket filled with rugged scars.
“You were talking to them,” the stranger said.
Bobby jumped up too fast, swaying under the rush of blood to his head. He reached out to stabilize himself. “How?”
“Look at them,” the stranger pointed off to the left. A group of undead had a smaller group of wild men surrounded and they closed in to finish their meal. “You’re special. Like that man’s notebook said.”
Bobby pushed the stranger’s hand away. “No, I’m not. I’m just like everyone else.”
“It’s okay,” the stranger pulled the hood back over his scarred face, “I’m good at keeping secrets.”
Bobby was busy trying to ignore the man. He picked his empty rifle up and slung it over his back. Out of the corner of his eyes he watched the Creepers finish their prey. A sickening swill had his stomach roiling. But before he could even contemplate what had happened to him a scream rent the air.
“THEY’VE TAKEN MY GIRL!” Jamie wailed. She had stumbled out onto the loose shale that hugged the track. Her face was bloodied, her apron torn open, a floppy breast swaying as she searched the trees frantically. “OH HEAVEN . . . NO—NO . . . SHE DOESN’T DESERVE THIS!”
&nbs
p; Bobby was off the train in a leap that carried him ten feet to the ground. He ditched his useless rifle and ran past the sobbing Jamie. He wasn’t about to let another die because of him. In his mind he knew this was his fault. His presence alone had interrupted their lives. It was the Settlement all over again.
As he charged into the thick brush he sent his mind outward in search of the Creepers. He sent the same thought over and over: if you help me I will end you hunger.
CHAPTER 22
The cicadas were so loud they made his teeth vibrate. Had he not been so intent on his target he might’ve smiled. He had come to a clearing about four hundred yards from the tracks. It hadn’t taken him very long to catch up to them, but now he applied caution, breathing deeply, closing his eyes momentarily to calm himself like the Folks taught him during marksmanship training, though, he did not have a firearm. He silently cursed himself for leaving it behind.
Long stands of pine trees, rifled by the breeze, bent around the open space like the thick lashes of a blinking eye. Bobby kept to the dense cover they provided as he circled closer. He kept his knife, blade against his forearm, firm but not too tight.
To his surprise the girl did not scream. She didn’t even cry as the savage-in-soldier’s clothing leaned over her. Bobby could almost smell his rotten breath. He had to get closer, but it was at least fifty yards from the trees to the girl, a lot of open ground to cover. He couldn’t risk her life on an ill-fated attempt to save her. He had to be exact, use everything he could to his advantage.
The wild man seemed confused. His pock-marked face looked back and forth, snapping from one direction to the next, as if he expected his friends to come marching through the trees with the train’s bountiful loot. That confusion mixed with fear and gave Bobby an air of pride. He dropped to the ground and picked up a rock. He tested its weight. In one last effort he sent his mind out in search of the undead, but none were in range.
He tossed the rock.
All he needed were a few seconds. That would be enough time for him to close the distance and drive his knife into the wild man’s back. A few seconds . . . that was it. He charged low.
The rock clattered against a tree trunk far away with a thock that sent the wild man searching, but it only distracted him for a second. He quickly changed his focus, sensing Bobby’s presence well before he should have. At the sight of his attacker’s approach the wild man lifted Sophie by the throat, as if he meant to strangle her. But instead, he threw her to the ground hard enough to illicit a cry from her. She began to choke and sob as the impact knocked the breath from her. The savage man balled his fists and planted his feet wide and firm, smiling at Bobby.
Bobby growled like an animal, a rage-filled thing threatened with an early end. He feigned left then came back right, sweeping the knife in an upward arc aimed for the man’s throat. However, Bobby’s strike hit only air as the ropey-muscled youth, who looked every bit as young as Bobby now that he was close, ducked and rolled along his arm. Bobby couldn’t keep up with the kid’s speed. He swung the knife wildly and awkwardly just to keep him off balance, but all that effort managed to do was leave him open to a sharp-knuckled punch that spun him round. Before he could recover the beast of a teenager was on him, biting and clawing the back of his neck.
He stabbed over his back, sinking the knife, hilt deep, into the wild kid’s shoulder, but it didn’t stop the assault, it didn’t even slow the raking of dirty fingernails across his face. Bobby pushed back then went limp, falling forward to throw the youth off balance. Halfway into his forward motion Bobby twisted and countered with a punch of his own that cast the kid aside for a split second.
It was all the time he needed.
In that primal struggle Bobby became the mirror image of the wild youth, a savage animal forgotten by history. He clutched that thin throat in his hands and squeezed until he could hear the beating of his own heart heavy in his ears, until he could feel it across his temples and in his jaw, and then, he squeezed harder.
The wild youth drove his fist hard against Bobby’s face, but each successive swing carried less weight.
Bobby’s vision was red, seething hate like fire behind his eyes. All he wanted to do was be left alone to live his life, but no matter how far he ran, others found it necessary to impede that wish. And not only did they trample his simple wish, but they dragged other innocents along, sweeping them up in the hysteria. He felt the kid’s windpipe break in his grasp. He would not relent. With the kid’s eyes bulging, and his tongue sticking out like a bloated frog’s, Bobby pressed his thumbs into the kid’s throat even harder, until, at last, the life left those wild eyes altogether.
Bobby staggered back, panting, sucking wind. He went immediately to Sophie who was already up and dusting herself off. She stared at him for a long time, her red hair littered with dry leaves. The kid’s angry red handprints still prominent on her freckled throat.
“Are you okay,” Bobby reached out to her.
Sophie flinched away, clutching her hands to her chest.
“It’s okay . . . it’s . . . safe now. I promise,” he reassured her and once again offered his hand.
She nodded, then hesitated briefly, before reaching out.
Bobby took her hand gently in his own and led the way back to the safety of the train.
* * * * *
“Cut those men down, Hoss,” Baylor said, a little out of breath. He was in the middle of reloading his revolver after dispatching the last of the Creepers around the train. He’d never seen anything quite like it in all his years of survival . . . even during the early days of the railroad when they had to stop for long periods of time. The dead always came with the noise, but when they arrived they moved haphazardly, they crept and shuffled, never in order. Baylor shook his head disbelief.
Times are a changin’ old man, he thought with a chuckle. The world never ceased in its attempts to disarm his thoughts. He only chuckled when he was nervous. . . .
Baylor walked towards the rear of the train to survey the damage and do a body count. Bodies lay in heaps, twice-dead and newly dead alike. He put a bullet in the brain of every fatigued corpse he came across on his inspection. He was never one for taking chances and there was no telling how many bites had been incurred during the melee. As he stopped to reload once more he saw Jamie and the stranger far away from the train, a little too far away.
“Hey, what the hell are you two idiots doing?” he yelled.
They looked at him in stunned silence. Jamie’s bleary-eyed face like a lumpy piece of dough gone bad, and the stranger’s face, which he was seeing for the first time in bright light, had him cocking the hammer back on his revolver.
“Oh, Baylor, she’s gone,” Jamie sobbed, “my girl’s gone.”
“He’ll bring her back. That one is well capable,” the stranger said, nodding towards the trees.
Baylor twirled his pistol overhead looking every-which-direction. “Excuse me if I don’t know what you two are talking about, but it has been . . . quite the morning, to say the least.”
Jamie fumbled her way through an explanation, pausing every other word to dry her eyes with her bloody apron.
Baylor, whistling low and long, kicked at a rock in frustration. After a few minutes of expletive-filled parables he smoothed out his jacket and settled his shoulders. He raised an eyebrow saying, “So let me get this straight. I told you to stay put, and you to cover the train. And well both of you fucked up. Is that about right?”
“The kid—”
“That fuckin’ kid killed more men than Price. So don’t go blaming this on the kid. FUCK!" Baylor scratched his temple with the revolver’s iron sight. He didn’t need this . . . he really didn’t. Things were supposed to run smooth like clockwork. The train wasn’t supposed to stop until the end of the line—that’s how it was supposed to work, an efficient process of progress. Now, however, everything was turned on its head. He had to get a search party together, he had to find out what happened to Price�
��s brother, and the other men.
“Jamie get inside and get cleaned up. You’re not helping anyone out here like this. It’ll be dark soon. And we made plenty of noise . . . tracks’ll be crawling with filth before you know it. I plan to be westward bound before that happens. And you,” he pointed his revolver at the stranger. “You get up front and start putting in some work. Lay track my ass. You’re too much of an intellectual to lay track. Fuck do I look like? A benevolent friar? You either get to workin’ or get the fuck off my ride.”
Neither one of them were about to argue with the look on Baylor’s face.
He watched them disappear between the cars. When he was sure he was alone he allowed himself to slump in defeat. The stress of the day worked knots down his back and along his arms and legs. It was hard being the leader, even before the war, Baylor had been a great servant, an extraordinary right hand man, but he never aspired to take the next step, partly because he couldn’t be bothered, but also because he didn’t want to hold anybody’s hand. But when the world changed he was forced to change along with it. Much like the kid had been forced to change.
The world certainly had a way of backing people into corners, but fate is always the foundation and walls that make up the corners. Baylor knew somewhere in the grand construction of the universe this was meant to be. It truly felt like it was, but why—why should he feel this way now? He’d been through much over the last two decades, survived much, but he also built much, and helped take back a bit of the country at the same time. Now, here he was again, dealt a hand that could swing the balance in humanity’s direction, and all he could think about was, not only getting the kid back, but keeping him safe and letting him make up his own mind.