The Creepers (Book 1)

by Norman Dixon

  “Damn, kid, why did you have to help?” Baylor said to the sky. “Why couldn’t you have just been a normal kid?" The notion would’ve made his internal dilemma easier. He could have just helped the kid along and wiped his hands clean of it. Now, though, he had a vested interest in the kid.

  “I thought I was pretty normal. A little small . . . not the best at football, but a smart, well-rounded player,” Bobby said as he exited the trees with Sophie leaning on his shoulder. “And you shouldn’t talk to yourself. People might think you’re crazy.”

  “Bwahahaha . . . I-I don’t know what to say, kid." Baylor found it impossible to hide the elation as it spread to his face. “I’ve never seen shooting quite like that before.”

  “I have." Bobby smiled.

  “Sophie dear, go to your mom. She needs you.”

  Sophie turned to Bobby and planted a firm kiss on his lips and darted off.

  “She likes you,” Baylor laughed. “Heck, kid, I owe you now . . . even more than I did before.”

  “You owe me nothing, Mr. Baylor, nothing at all. It was all I could do to help, but tell me . . . what happened to the men that were hanging over the tracks?" Bobby tensed as he said the words. He knew those faces. He could even hear their voices cutting him down countless times over the course of many winters. He remembered their stares when he came back the morning after Ryan had been bitten. He marked them well.

  “The boys are cutting them down. I don’t think all of them made it, though . . .”

  “Where’s my rifle, Mr. Baylor?" The boy vacated his voice and was replaced by something wholly automated, a cold, calculated series of tones that wasted zero energy in being expressed.

  “Kid, look,” Baylor blotted his bald head with a sleeve, “just lay low. Get some rest. Let this pass and we can all be on our way." But even as he said the words Baylor knew, just by looking at the kid, that he would not be able to sway his decision. He couldn’t fault him either. If they had been my brothers, he pushed the thought far, very far, from his mind.

  “I know now that there will be no rest for me,” Bobby’s gaze found Baylor’s in sympathy, “or for anyone I encounter. My brothers lost their lives because of what’s in our blood. I nearly lost mine,” Bobby slumped forward his hands pressing on his temples. “About an hour ago I almost lost my mind.”

  “Kid, I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I." Bobby sighed. “But I do know that those men will not let me live.”

  “Shit, you can’t know that, kid, you saved their lives. So did I, and Price, and Jamie . . . all of us did them a solid. There’s no denying that." Baylor slid his revolver into its holster. He hoped the simple action would somehow ease the unwanted tension, but he was wrong.

  “No, but you don’t know these men either,” Bobby’s smile returned suddenly, “but I like you, Mr. Baylor, you’re one of the good ones. So I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.”

  “Fair enough, kid." Baylor wasn’t entirely sure what he’d agreed to.

  “My brother Ryan used to pick on me for being scared . . . too bad he can’t see me now.”

  “He’d be proud.”

  “No, not Ryan, he’d be a wiseass. Bryan would’ve been proud. Ol’ Randy would’ve been proud, but he’s not here. Those men will know what happened to him.”

  “Then let’s ask them.”

  “Not without my rifle, Mr. Baylor.”

  “Fair enough." Baylor had a hard time trying to remove the rime of frost from the back of his neck. “Just stop calling me Mr. Baylor.”

  “Only if you stop calling me kid.”

  Bobby retrieved his rifle, pausing briefly to study the carnage before returning to the sleeper car and the rest of his ammunition. As he loaded the rifle he could feel the far off beat of three Creepers drawn by the noise. It wouldn’t be long before more made their way to the train. They needed to get moving soon.

  A steel resolve kept his skin on, but the eagerness to hear what had become of Ol’ Randy had him on edge.

  “You sure about this,” Baylor asked from the hall.

  “Yes,” Bobby said, racking a round.

  “The boys are swapping stories in the dining car. Let’s say you keep back and let me see how things are, after that you make yourself known. Okay?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  After Baylor opened the door, Bobby stayed to the shadows between the cars, and once he laid eyes on the Crannen twins his heart began to pound. A sour mix of past torments lighted on the back of his tongue. The voices of his brothers cried for justice, reminding Bobby of a time he’d tried to forget. He was suddenly sliding into the past, into distraction. He grappled for the edge of present reason, but found only the howling cry of memory.

  It was cold. His feet, raw and red, stung from the snow in which he stood. His knees wobbled, teeth chattering, tears freezing to his flush cheeks. His brothers were with him, lined up with him. They wore only their briefs and a gritty determination borne of punishments such as the one they now found themselves in.

  “Fuckin’a, Bobb-o, didn’t think they’d figure it out so-so soon,” Ryan jested.

  “I told you, Ryan, why do you always have to cause trouble,” Bobby said, tucking his hands under his arms for warmth, finding none.

  “Shut up you two,” Paul warned.

  Bobby had warned him not to steal the fuel, practically begged him not to do it. He knew they’d get caught. Something as precious as gasoline, even as sediment-laden as the red gallon was, would not go unnoticed. But Ryan wouldn’t listen. He didn’t want the fuel to start the fire that he eventually did with it, no, he wanted to take it just to stick it to the Folks. Well stick it to them he did.

  Not only did he manage to burn the entire gallon but he immolated three latrines in the process. As much as Bobby hated him for bringing this punishment upon them, it was worth it, just for a glimpse of the Folks waiting to shit and piss, hands crotch-ward bound, shaking in the cold.

  “Ya’ll think it funny . . . don’t-cha,” Thomas spat. He warmed his gloved hands over a nice drum fire. “Ain’t so fuckin’ funny now idn’t it?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Thomas acksed you a question,” Jackson said, cradling a shotgun. “Well I don’t feel like staying out in this cold all night, ya’ hear?”

  The brothers did not respond.

  “Fuckin’ smell the fear on ya’s like fresh jay bird shit. Ya’ll just earned another hunned or so push-ups. Now drop and start countin’ and I better hear ya’ll this time. DOWN!”

  Bobby dropped, ignoring the stinging cold as his hands plunged into the fresh snow, and he started to count. His chest scrapped the snow with each repetition, but he kept his form . . . to stray or to falter was to invite harsher punishment. As he worked his muscles to utter exhaustion he prayed to God to make it stop. It never stopped. They never stopped. Apparently God wasn’t home.

  Bryan was the first to drop. He hit the snow in a sobbing, panting mess.

  Ryan went next, but not from exhaustion, he simply had had enough.

  Bobby, Paul, and Pete kept on, as if proving themselves in some useless game would have any impact on the Crannen Twins’ set-in-stone opinions of their existence. For them it was more a show of force. They might be hated, they might be despised, but they were not weak.

  “I think that’s enough!” Ol’ Randy roared. He had Bryan cradled in his massive arms, Ryan shivering at his side. “Get up boys. Get up now. Your parents’d would be ashamed of what’s become of you two. They raised ya better’n’at.”

  “Old Ma and Pa were only good at raising suspicions to they actions. Just like you, Randal, just like you.”

  Ol’ Randy ignored the insult. No matter how hard the Crannen Twins tried to force him into a fight, he never gave in. To do so was beneath him.

  Bobby remembered well the numbing cold and the night of utterly stale hot chocolate that followed. He held on to that memory, and the image of momentary peace he, and his bro
thers gained that night. How they laughed in spite of the pain, in spite of it all . . . how they laughed.

  Jackson’s grating laughter ripped Bobby from the past. He stayed in the deep shadows between the cars watching the Crannen twins interact with Baylor’s crew, but he was finding it hard not to take them out from where he stood. So he waited. He owed Baylor that much. He waited and he listened.

  “We thought they were our boys waitin’ on the train,” Jackson said. His left eye was swollen shut and his left hand was bandaged up. The wild people had worked him over. His discomfort brought a smile to Bobby’s face.

  “What do you mean our boys?” Price asked, crossing his arms. The large man looked out of place in the dining car. One of the hanging lights hovered an inch from his head like some garish fez.

  “The military,” Jackson said with all seriousness. The laughter, like the color in his face, drained at the sight of the scowl on Price’s. “Ya’ know . . . our boys. I heard tell of them still fighting ‘cross the country. God bless ’em.”

  “What would you know? You people come down once a year to take, and then you return to your hidey hole in the mountains. What do you know of the struggle of our military, or ordinary people like Mr. Baylor and myself? We’re trying to win back our home . . . what are you trying to do?" Price cracked his knuckles. “You don’t know a damn thing about the men that wore those uniforms you fucking inbred son of a bitch.”

  “Woah, friend, we ain’t got a quarrel with the likes of you. We all on the same side here." Thomas had his hands up trying to ease the sudden tension.

  “Price,” Baylor put a hand on the massive man’s shoulder, “that’s no way to treat our guests. My apologies, gentlemen, but my dear friend here may have suffered a loss in the family. Either of you ever heard of Wyoming Blue?”

  Jackson relaxed a bit at Baylor’s interference, “No, sir,” he said uneasily.

  “Well they’ve been kicking undead ass for the better part of twenty years. A couple hundred of our nation’s finest, well, what’s left of them at least. Last we heard they were ranging through their namesake and up around Montana looking for clear cattle land. But that was months ago.”

  “You thinkin’ they all fell to road trash? Ta’fuckin’ savages?”

  “You did,” Price said smugly.

  “That’s different. See what happened was, we was coming down along the road, just five of us,” Jackson looked at his brother then crossed himself, “rest their souls. And we see all these military types lined up. We ain’t stupid . . . so we took it slow but when they didn’t respond we backed off. Only problem was they came out the trees. Took Jimmy Paulson right there on the side of the road. Cut his throat." Jackson shivered as he spook.

  It felt good to hear the man’s torment. Bobby soaked it in. Something else became apparent to him as he watched the exchange. Something that, up until now, the Crannen Twins had never been privy to. Fear. They were afraid, though, they’d never admit to it, they were afraid of the people that surrounded them. Even though Baylor and his crew showed no hostilities the Crannen Twins sensed anger swirling just behind the niceties the Mad Conductor dispensed. Baylor and his crew were protecting him . . . they were acting like true friends.

  “Tim Deerborn went next,” Thomas picked up where his brother left off. “And before we knew it, they smashed his brains out with a rock. Ain’t right what they done to us, ain’t right at all. But they wasn’t random. At least, not like we heard tell of all these years.”

  “What do you mean?” Baylor asked.

  “I mean they was organized. They had this spot pegged long before we came along, and from what you said about them soldiers and they uniforms . . . heck they been getting smarter’n a coon around a locked garbage can.”

  “Boss,” Price turned to Baylor, “with what they tell us and what the kid told us. This is not good. There’s no telling how many of them are still running the countryside. And if they got all of Wyoming Blue. . . .”

  “They didn’t, Price. You can’t think like that. It’s—”

  “What kid? Y’all seen a kid?" Jackon’s demeanor changed the second he heard the word. His eyes darted around the car.

  Bobby stepped into the light of the car. And for the first time in his short life he stood before the Crannen Twins without fear, in fact, he stood before them with an unspoken arrogance. After all, it was he, not them, that had survived the wild onslaught. He braved the winter, and the wilds, and had made it through. He hadn’t been caught. Looking at their bruised faces he realized he had surpassed them in every way.

  “You!" Jackson jumped up. Fist shaking wildly, he said, “Y’all got a demon in your midst. That kid ain’t right. Should have killed you myself when I had the chance.”

  Baylor lurched, as if he were about to strike the man, but Bobby’s voice made him pause.

  “No, Baylor, their hatred is not for you." Bobby had never felt more relaxed and worried at the same time. His worry fell solely on one subject: Ol’ Randy. He had to know, and now that everything was out in the open he asked, “What happened to Ol’ Randy?”

  “Look’it ‘im, Thomas,” Jackson made an exaggerated sad face. “What happened to Ol’ Randy?" He laughed. “I put lead in the old bastard’s legs. Damn right I did. He tried to attack the Pastor. Caught up with the Devil . . . just like you, boy.”

  Bobby’s fists clenched.

  “Should’ve killed him like those brothers of yours. Should’ve shot him dead. But the Pastor’s a forgivin’ kinda man. So we put the crazy old fool in the brig." Thomas laughed, and when he saw the pride wash from Bobby’s face he laughed harder.

  Everyone in the car was in such a state of shock that they barely registered Thomas’s lunge for Price’s weapon. Everyone except Baylor. Before Thomas wrapped his hand around the barrel of Price’s gun, Baylor had his revolver out, and aimed at his head. Baylor didn’t hesitate, didn’t take a moment to moralize, he put a bullet in Thomas Crannen’s brain, dropping him back into the seat.

  Jackson reached for Baylor, but Price caught him around the arm. The golem of a man lifted Jackson out of his seat and slammed him to the aisle. He closed his massive hands around Jackon’s throat.

  “NO!” Bobby shouted.

  Baylor and his crew looked at him as if he was crazy. But he was far from it. If he was ever going to have a chance at a normal life, and if he ever wanted to see the only family he had left, then he knew what he had to do. He had to go back to the Settlement. He had to see it through.

  “Don’t kill him.”

  “Kid, he means to kill you. Any man with that much rage just can’t be trusted.”

  “Mr. Baylor, if I don’t take care of my past then it will never let me go.”

  “Kid. . . .”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Baylor, I’ve caused you enough trouble already. This is what happens to me. I’ll be out of your hair in no time. If I may ask for some bindings for this man and a little ammunition . . . and maybe a little food. I’ll be gone before you know it.”

  “It’s the least I could do. You saved the train . . . you saved Sophie. Price take that sack of shit out of here.”

  “No problem, Boss.”

  “Kid, look,” Baylor leaned over Bobby with a concerned look on his face, “think this through. You have a spot on this ride. You don’t need to go back there.”

  “Mr. Baylor, what kind of person would I be if I stayed, knowing that the only family I have left is rotting away in a cell?”

  “What, shit, kid, I . . .” Baylor went silent. He couldn’t argue with that.

  “Mr. Baylor, you have business out west, but when you’re done and you come back this way, keep an eye out for a kid and a giant of an old man.”

  “You can’t be leaving the child to go off on his own, Baylor. Not without a full belly,” Jamie said from the doorway. Her words came off in half-mumbled slurs thanks to the swelling in her face.

  “Fair enough.”

  CHAPTER 23

 
Bobby tossed and turned. He couldn’t sleep. The night rested heavily against the cracked window. Sweet spring wind forced its way through the cracks in thin high-pitched whistles. Beyond that almost impenetrable wall of darkness countless insects were coming awake, shaking off the shackles of a long harsh winter. The time for being dormant, for keeping hidden, for playing it safe, had passed.

  Probing the edges of his perception were the trio of Creepers from earlier, but since the late afternoon their trio had grown into a sextet. They were old, exactly how old, Bobby wasn’t sure, but they filled his head with things he didn’t understand. He pushed back at those unknown images, begging them to cease and come no closer. His intrusion was met with resistance and confusion that bounced around in his brain, rattling his skull like a woodpecker hammering into a sappy trunk.

  He stumbled through this gift much like he fumbled his way through bible lessons. Keep it simple, don’t over think, he told himself. As he worked his way around his own mind, he wondered if the Folks realized what they had helped cultivate. All those years they didn’t know what lurked in his blood, and because of that, and their beliefs, their true desires concerning his demise were kept at bay. But now he was about to return to them, a thing of their nightmares, a creation of the devil, a killer they helped train, how would they react?

  They’d try to finish the job. Misguided by those same beliefs that helped keep him alive over the winters past. He couldn’t quite understand it. For so many winters he believed in their God, in a man that floated above all, watching, helping, and waiting. How many times had he prayed for things to go right? How many times had he put his trust in someone he’d never met, never witnessed, and wasn’t even sure existed? Too many, but there had to be something out there.