Nathan hadn’t drunk or eaten anything so welcome in his entire life, he reckoned. The taste of that burning building and the stench of destruction was all about him and Syd, but on the inside he was full and warm.
Stryker had been sat on a chair, his arms tied behind it. He had refused all food and liquid. Just staring morosely at his feet—blond hair awry, clothes still stinking of gas.
Nathan pulled his chair over to sit in front of Stryker.
The man turned his head away as if the eye contact burned him like the flames at the Masonic might have.
“Just get it over with, man. I know I don’t deserve to live. If you hadn’t found me, I’d be ash now. Ash blowing on the wind.”
Nathan took a deep breath.
The man who he had been best buddies with when they’d been teens and in college was now a broken shell of his former self. He looked pretty much inside out at this point. Face a dark mass of hollows, topped by weeping eyes. His blond hair lay in straggles and rat-tails around his ears. His shirt—one of those stupid Hawaiian jobs that was Stryker’s preferred mode of dress—seemed curiously appropriate now. Wearing the lie of summer on his back while he’d told summery lies to Nathan and Cyndi. The material was raggedly torn and filthy with his sweat and dirt.
Nathan sighed the deep breath out. “I don’t know why you did what you did, Stry. Why you led me here, and, it seems, played me with Brant the whole time, just to get Cyndi on-site and working in the Greenhouse. But you did… I don’t get it, but here we are.”
“You should have left me.”
“I could have. But in the same way that I wouldn’t let someone else throw their life away a few nights ago…”
Syd’s cheeks reddened.
“…I’m not going to let you do that now. You don’t seem like a man who’s got any more options, Stry. A man who’s willing to set himself on fire has suddenly become a man I can trust.”
Stryker looked up, his tearful eyes confused.
“Before I saw you up there, Stry, I wouldn’t have trusted you to tell me accurately how many feet I have, let alone anything important. The last few days have convinced me you’ve been a cuckoo in the nest, a backstabber and a spy.”
Stryker’s eyes moved away again, filled with shame, but this time Nathan put his index finger under Stryker’s chin and lifted his head back up. “No, damn you. You look at me and you listen. Before, I couldn’t trust you—but a man willing to check himself out… at that moment, the only thing he has left is the truth that drove him there. What changed, Stry? What changed to make you remorseful? What has happened?”
“She’s dead.”
She? Dead?
The two words hit Nathan like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. The bottom of his heart hinged open and all the love ran out. He grabbed Stryker by the lapel. “Cyndi’s dead? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Stryker’s face crimpled and the tears almost gushed from his eyes, sparking on his cheeks and dripping from the end of his nose. He shook his head. “No… as far as I know, she’s okay.”
“Then who’s dead? Tell me or so help me God…”
“Rachael. Rachael is dead.”
The heat in Nathan’s head dispersed almost as immediately as it had arrived. “Who…? I don’t know…”
“My wife,” was all Stryker could manage before his head dropped to his chest and sobs wracked his body like earthquakes that wouldn’t end.
Nathan got up from the chair and paced. Wife? Stryker had never mentioned a wife before, and certainly not since they’d arrived in Detroit. If this was just another piece of Stryker’s BS—just another layer of lies….
Nathan bit down on the words that wanted to burst out, all accusations and bile. Instead, he took a breath. Bunched a fist. Waited for Stryker to stop crying. Unwilling to offer the man who had betrayed him any comfort until he knew the score.
Syd looked at her nails. John drank his coffee.
Only Rose came from the shadows and knelt by Stryker, gently putting her hand against his head, wiping the tears from his eyes with the hem of her dress and kissing his forehead. “Man is safe. Man is safe. Rose is here. Rose is here,” she whispered in his ear and repeated softly like a cross between a mantra and a lullaby until Stryker’s shoulders stopped heaving and his breathing returned to something like normal. “Man hurtin’, Rose can see that. Rose can’t take away the pain, but she can be here. Rose is here.”
Stryker leaned the side of his head against Rose’s shoulder and sniffled. Rose grabbed Nathan’s hand as he moved to pace past them, and she pulled him closer. “Sit down. Man need to confess.”
Nathan’s head was a soup of emotions—still recovering from thinking, however fleetingly, that Stryker had been telling him that Cyndi was dead, and then moving to having to be expected to turn around and start to feel sorry for Stryker, the man who had sold him lock, stock, and family to Brant. It was nearly too much for Nathan. He didn’t feel he had charge left in his emotional batteries for the man who used to be his friend.
But he sat at Rose’s insistence—her, he trusted. Rose squeezed Nathan’s hand tight by way of thanks. “Tell the man, Stry; tell him.”
If anything, Stryker became more hollow and insubstantial as his head rocked on Rose’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Nate. Brant… had my wife. Holding her gained my cooperation to get you to come here. The deal wasn’t for me to go into the Greenhouse with her, but for her to be released when Cyndi went in. I couldn’t tell you about Rachael because then you’d know Brant had me by the throat.”
Nathan wanted to have Stryker by the throat himself, but instead, he let him continue.
“They needed someone with Cyndi’s prepper skills bad. They’re not growing enough; stocks are dwindling. When I told Brant about Cyndi and that we were in contact, that’s when he got Harmsworth to take Rachael. But when you guys got here and Cyndi refused to help, Brant went crazy—he knew that he had to get her to come there of her own free will, that she wouldn’t help without it being that way, and so he made me put you in contact with Tasha. All this is my fault, and I’m sorry, Nate. Truly. But my wife… the only thing I’ve ever gotten right in my life.”
Nathan wanted to scream, What about my wife? What about my kids? And Rose must have sensed it, too, because she squeezed his hand again. “Rest easy, pretty boy. Let man ’splain.”
“Rachael got out of the Greenhouse, but she was shot. One of Harmsworth’s men. She made it back to the Masonic to me and she died in my arms. Right there in my arms, Nate.”
Stryker was a man who had lost all of his power, his agency, his honor, and all of his love. That’s why he looked so hollow to Nathan. There was nothing left of him.
“And so I decided there was no point in going on. I knew Brant and Harmsworth had plans for the Masonic. They wanted everyone out—which is why Brant got Harmsworth’s men to shoot the place up and kill folks. Then blame it on terrorists. Spread the fear, get people on the move again. I guess he wanted the building for the next phase of the Greenhouse project. It’s good and solid, high, and already fixed up with power and plumbing. So, I figured… I figured…”
“You’d go out with it?” Nathan asked, his voice almost a whisper. He hated and loved the bones of the man at the same time. He understood on some level how Stryker would have done anything for the woman he loved, even if that meant betraying his oldest friend. He got it. It didn’t excuse it, or make Nathan feel any better disposed towards Stryker, but at least now he understood it.
“I… I’m sorry, Nate. I didn’t know what else to do.”
And, in that moment, neither did Nathan.
Nathan sat in the dog pen. The malamutes clustered around him, snuffling for treats or strokes or ear rubs. One lay down across his legs and pinned him into place. Its warm, heavy body wasn’t a burden across his thighs; it was a comfort. He stroked the dog’s head and rumpled her ears. Her fur was thick, gray and black. Her face a burglar’s mask and her snout like t
he coal nose of a snowman. Her paws were hefty as hands, too, and as he scratched at her ear, her hind leg moved in a succession of ghost scratches and canine ecstasy.
Nathan had left John’s room without a word when Stryker had finished spilling his guts. Understanding didn’t do much to reduce his level of angry despair, and he wanted to have a chance to collect his thoughts before he decided on his exact course of action.
The plan to get the schematics had been a success, and Horace had already taken them to Dave. He would be poring over them already, trying to see what chance they had of gaining entrance to the Greenhouse that way. The keycards that Nathan had wouldn’t be good for a way in; all the entrances above ground were guarded, and so even if they had a key to get in that way, there would be too much heat generated by that means for them to get in and find their people and family without bringing the whole of the security operation down on them. So the tunnels under the city remained their best bet.
Even with Stryker’s revelation, that part of Nathan’s future hadn’t changed, but he wondered how he could use it to his advantage, and a separate plan started to form in his mind also—one that would give Stryker an opportunity to pay back some of the hurt and distress he had caused with his actions and inaction.
Maybe those keys could be used in another way altogether.
Glad to be thinking a little clearer for a change, Nathan spread his strokes around the dogs that were still close to him, licking his hands and snuffling into his ears.
“You sleeping out here?”
Nathan looked up. It was Syd, looking as pale and concerned as he had ever seen her. “Mind if I sit with you? It’s hurting my eyes being in the same room as Stry.”
“Be my guest,” Nathan said. “Pull up a dog and make yourself comfortable.”
Syd sat down and two of the dogs broke away from Nathan to get some fresh fuss from new hands. “I half-hoped we might see Saber at the temple.”
“I wish we had. I’m tired of us all being separated.”
“I hope she wasn’t in there when it burned. She’s a smart dog, though; she’d have gotten out of there when she needed to. She’ll probably do fine hunting in the city, too. Better chance of surviving out there than me, that’s for sure.”
Nathan could only agree, and then added, “Has Stryker said anything about Freeson?”
Syd shook her head. “Nothing. Want me to go back and ask him?”
“Let him deal with one crisis at a time.”
“So, who do you think you’ll have to stop committing suicide next?”
There’d been a twinkle in Syd’s voice and a curl in her lip to say that she wasn’t being entirely serious, and she laughed with genuine humor when Nathan answered, “At this rate, probably me.
“It’s good to see you laughing, Syd,” Nathan said, “There’s not been a lot to laugh about recently.”
“True. And we’re still not out of the doo-doo yet. And won’t be until everyone is out of that place.”
“I’m sorry I brought you here, Syd. Sorry about everything. If we’d gone south from the start, then none of this would have happened. You’d not have run into Danny again, that’s for sure.”
“It doesn’t matter where I am; Danny’s gonna wanna find me. He’ll follow me to the ends of the Earth and over the ledge. That’s why I was on the ledge myself, Nate. It’s the only way to escape him.”
“Unless he isn’t around to follow you.”
Syd looked at Nathan as if he were mad. “Danny doesn’t die. No matter what you do to him. I should know.”
Nathan stroked the dog on his lap. She was turning onto her back, showing her belly in an act of trusting supplication. In many ways, when Syd was in a talkative mood, she was the same. Rolling over, exposing her belly, the act of trust that didn’t come easy. “You want to talk about it yet?”
“It’s… difficult.”
“I get that.”
“We could have been an item, could have been together, but he wasn’t the waiting kind. I liked him. He was cool. He could handle himself, too. His gang was the best around, got the most stuff…”
“But…”
“I wasn’t ready. Not for… not for that. I liked him. Even loved him a little. I dunno. The world was crashing off the road and he looked like a driver. Maybe it was just a crush, I don’t know. But I fell for him. But… there’s something broken in him, Nate. Something twisted.”
Nathan hadn’t yet told Syd what Danny had done to Dave. Dave hadn’t gone into details about being nailed to the floor and used as bait, either—perhaps it was too difficult for him to relate. He just used his bandaged hands as best he could and got on with it. Nathan could guess where on Syd’s body the emotional bandages would need to be wrapped. “Yes, I know that he is. And you don’t need to go into detail. I can guess.”
“Thanks. I don’t think I could ever find the words anyway. Just that he wouldn’t wait. And that’s that. So, he kept trying. Night after night, he’d come to the apartment, with drugs and drink for Mom, and want me to spend time alone with him. But I knew where it would lead. And then Mom… Mom died, and he didn’t give me time, and still wouldn’t wait. He was focused on one thing and one thing only… me. I think he was obsessed, Nate. That twist in his head, it had curled around the idea he had of me, and he was tied to me. If there hadn’t been the Big Winter, I guess he’d be one of those creepy stalker guys you read about. Something not right up top, you know what I mean?”
“All too well, yes.”
A malamute was nuzzling into her ear now and alternatively licking at her cheek, so Syd nuzzled it back and hugged it around the neck. The dog wagged his tail and fluffed his fur with a shiver down his body.
“Then, one night, about a month after Mom died, he came to the apartment again. I didn’t want to let him in, and he just kicked the door down, just like that. BAM. My place. My safety. He dragged me by the hair into my room and tried…”
“It’s okay, Syd; no details.”
“And when he… you know, started, I reached to the side of the bed where I kept my knife in case anyone got in while I was sleeping. And I stabbed him… there. Twice.”
Nathan’s compassion for the young woman welled, and he wanted to hug her hard, but the dog was serving that purpose for Syd. Maybe, in a roundabout way, Nathan was just admitting to himself that right now it was him who needed the human contact of a hug. Syd continued. “He fell forward and I stabbed him in the back. Left the knife in him, got his keys from the pocket of his pants, and ran. I took Saber to his safe house, used his keys to steal a bunch of food, guns and ammo, and took his car. Saber and I got out of New York.”
“You thought he was dead?”
“I did. Like I said, he’s unkillable if he could survive what I did to him, and he will not, will never, give up.”
“Well,” said Nathan, the rest of his plan crystalizing in his mind, “perhaps we can help you with that, too.”
12
“Freeson punched me unconscious. When I woke up in the snow, he and the Humvee had gone. I don’t know why he didn’t kill me. I wish he had.”
Nathan had allowed Stryker’s hands to be untied. They sat in Rose’s kitchen, in the shadow of Horace, and were waiting for Dave to share the good or the bad news about getting into the Greenhouse.
“Why did he attack you then?”
“I can only suppose he’d worked out some of what was going on and thought it was best to dump me before I handed him over to Harmsworth—which, to be fair to him, I was going to do as soon as we got back to the Masonic. He wasn’t at all wrong on that count. At that point, I still thought Rachael was alive.”
So, Freeson was out there somewhere. With a Humvee… causing mischief? Knowing Freeson, probably. And it would make sense to hook up with him before the attempt was made to get into the Greenhouse, but without any idea of his location, the way Detroit was right now made that damn near impossible.
Rose had allowed them to use her house in Tra
sh Town as a base of operations because, like many people, she wanted to see an end to Brant and his dysfunctional society of elite haves, all of them parasitically thriving off the outer city’s have-nots. “You give man a bloody nose from me, pretty boy, n’ make it bleed proper,” she’d said.
Dave laid out the charts on the table and held the edges of the paper down with books from the shelf. The schematics for the main Greenhouse around the Chase Tower showed the full extent of the place, over six acres of glassed-in streets and pedestrianized walkways, offering detail up to the first floor of all the surrounding buildings. There were pipes that led directly to the river to pump water into the township and into a wind-powered purification plant. There were also plans for the hospital, the school, and various other public buildings needed for the running of the city. The schematics also showed three other satellite greenhouses dotted around the downtown area of Detroit, all of which were used almost exclusively to grow produce in hydroponic bays and keep chickens, pigs, and sheep.
Stryker started to offer some background. “They’re just not producing anything like what they need,” he said, pointing to the outliers on the map. “They lost pretty much all their pigs to swine fever last year. They’ve tried to source new stock from us, but if they take more of our stock, they lose in the long-run and they know that.”
Stryker was warming to his lecture, as if everything before was forgotten. As Syd made eye contact with a pained expression, Nathan could tell there were at least two of them in the room who were far from forgetting the past, but he let Stryker plow on with his potted history.
“In the outer city, we were doing better with our animals and produce, but we have many more mouths to feed than the Greenhousers—what they have is a near monopoly on good water. Their purification plant is the one thing that works well. They feed us water and we barter the little surplus we have. In actuality, we don’t have a surplus, so we go without, but we need the water. It’s a vicious circle.”
After the Shift: The Complete Series Page 37