Bloodlands (4 page)
Authors: Christine Cody
Chaplin kept growling. Even I felt myself tensing until I forced myself to better serenity.
“Lo?” the second visitor called out in greeting.
Like the other intruders from Stamp’s camp these past few nights,
this
guy was speaking Text, the shorthand English that had become so prevalent because of chat rooming, texting, and the like. Since the Badlanders had long ago cut themselves off from all that crap, they’d clung to Old American, just like the shut-ins who tucked themselves away in their urban hub homes and the businesspeople who communicated also in Hindi and Chinese with the global community.
this
guy was speaking Text, the shorthand English that had become so prevalent because of chat rooming, texting, and the like. Since the Badlanders had long ago cut themselves off from all that crap, they’d clung to Old American, just like the shut-ins who tucked themselves away in their urban hub homes and the businesspeople who communicated also in Hindi and Chinese with the global community.
I hunched toward the visz, my heartbeat tapping against my breastbone. Chaplin growled louder at the silhouette on the screen. The guy wore his long hair back, most of it secured into a bun by what looked to be chopsticks.
“C’mon ot,” the silhouette said, strolling round the area as the camera tracked him. A jangle accompanied every footstep.
Clink, clink.
Clink, clink.
He was still too far away to recognize in the night vision, and thank-all he wasn’t looking straight into the visz’s lens like visitor number one of the night had done.
Yet that didn’t mean my defenses went down. I felt the threat of this one in my very cells, which collided and heated up.
As I got off the couch, Chaplin followed, going to the sleeping stranger’s side as if to guard him. I didn’t have time to ask him why he thought that important. I also had no time to indulge in the disappointment of seeing my dog’s loyalty spread to another.
For the second time that night, I took out my revolver from its waiting position in my holster, then headed toward the ladder. While passing the visz on the way, I gripped my firearm, palms sweating and—
Crash!
I whipped round, my revolver aimed.
But all I found was Chaplin barking up at the trapdoor as it closed, darkening the empty spot below where the stranger had just been resting.
3
Mariah
I
’d thought the stranger was down for the duration. Wrong.
’d thought the stranger was down for the duration. Wrong.
Darting to the visz bank, I discovered just where he’d gone—to the surface, standing behind the new arrival, shadowing him while he belatedly turned toward the sound of the already-closed trapdoor.
Obviously the stranger hadn’t been hurt all that much, because there he was on the visz, with his ragged clothing and taut body providing an ominous threat to the unknowing visitor. Even more unsettling was the fact that, although the stranger wasn’t in close range of the camera, his eyes seemed to be shining in the night.
Belowground, I readied my revolver, my blood racing.
“Wh’r u?” the intruder asked. Then he stopped, spun round, as if he felt his spine tingling.
When he found nothing—at least, that was what
he
probably thought—he walked toward the now-hidden trapdoor. “Whooz thr . . . ?”
he
probably thought—he walked toward the now-hidden trapdoor. “Whooz thr . . . ?”
The stranger kept mirroring the guy like a true shadow, and I inched closer to the visz, my heartbeat hammering my lungs flat. But I didn’t let myself panic.
When the intruder reached for some jagged scrub five feet from the trapdoor, the stranger spoke in Text, stopping the other man.
“I wodn’t.”
He sounded strong, but I sensed the effort beneath the words.
A stretched hesitation marked the reaction of the man with the chopstick hair; I wasn’t even sure whether that pause lasted for a second or a full minute. At any rate, it was enough time for me to realize what was coming next.
The man with the chopsticks moved his arm, clearly going for a weapon.
I hitched in a sliver of oxygen, then sprangoward the ladder, not really knowing what I’d do once I got up it.
The stranger’s voice filtered through the speakers. “I sed
stop
.”
stop
.”
His tone halted
me
cold, turning my veins to lines of ice. The after-slice of his words cut and echoed through me, a shattered whisper.
me
cold, turning my veins to lines of ice. The after-slice of his words cut and echoed through me, a shattered whisper.
On the nearby visz, I saw the new intruder startle to a freeze, too. Nearby, Chaplin’s growls doubled in volume. Dog was pissed.
As if hearing Chaplin, the stranger’s shadow tilted toward the camera. But he couldn’t have heard. The viszes were one-way hookups.
In the next moment, he was back to facing the intruder, sauntering closer, leaning toward the man’s ear, whispering.
I couldn’t hear what he said, but the new guy took off running, jangling madly as his form faded into the darkness.
Chaplin and I didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, finally, my dog made a
hmmm
sound. We watched the stranger touch his head, probably to adjust the bandages there, then inspect his hand. Afterward, he stumbled forward, carefully making his way back to the trapdoor.
hmmm
sound. We watched the stranger touch his head, probably to adjust the bandages there, then inspect his hand. Afterward, he stumbled forward, carefully making his way back to the trapdoor.
Chaplin ran to it, releasing the button to let our guest back in.
Without ceremony, the stranger made his stiff journey down the ladder, the door closing behind him. Then he fell the rest of the way to his blankets, offering no explanations. Nope, he merely removed his long, beaten coat, then his bag, while his bandages slumped over his forehead. He reached into the carryall.
Again, I just stood there, brain-fried.
But that didn’t seem to attract the notice of our guest. He casually went on to extract the flask from the bowels of his bag and gesture to us with the container.
“Excuse my indulgence.”
I had to absorb the Old American. Absorb the fact that he could be so nonchalant.
“That’s it?” I asked. “No expounding on what just happened?”
He paused, a melancholy look passing over him.
As sure as the moon had started its waning phase tonight, I wasn’t about to let him off the hook. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he must’ve known I meant real business. I hadn’t saved his hide earlier for him to come in here and toy with me.
The stranger sent me a lowered glance. “The way you talk . . . I haven’t heard Old American for a while. Haven’t ever seen a real live Intel Dog, either.”
I was about to ask him why he seemed more comfortable speaking Old American when he continued, just not in the way I would’ve liked.
“Seeing as our visitor won’t be back tonight,” he said, “I’d like to settle. Talking can follow, if you don’t mind.”
Oh, so he thought it’d be that easy.
“Exactly what did you say to make him run off?” I also wanted to ask about his wounds. How was the stranger all of a sudden functioning well enough to
be
scaring off others?
be
scaring off others?
He smiled, and it was a sad sort of gesture. But then he winced, holding a hand to a cut near his mouth. I noticed
that
gash wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d first made it out to be, either.
that
gash wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d first made it out to be, either.
Just seeing his injury brought the smell—the nightmare, the adrenald sight—of blood back to me, and I blocked it off again.
“What I conveyed to him,” the stranger said, undoing the top of his flask, as if resigned to being interrogated for a bit, “is between Chompers and me.” He toasted the pronouncement and took a gulp. When he finished, he closed his eyes, shivering.
“Chompers,” I said. “Who’s Chompers?”
“Our flown visitor. That clinking he was making? From some silver-capped teeth strung around his booted ankles. Human teeth, I gather, since animals don’t generally subscribe to that sort of dental work.”
A chill tumbled down my spine. Even Chaplin began to pant, stressed out by the thought of what kind of creep Stamp employed, if indeed that was who Chompers had been—one of Stamp’s henchmen.
I reached over to console my dog, but my other hand still held the revolver. In the light of the dwelling’s solar-batteried lamps, I could see that
all
the stranger’s wounds seemed to be healing quickly.
all
the stranger’s wounds seemed to be healing quickly.
What was in that scentless unguent of his?
“How’d you stalk up behind that man so easily, especially since you could hardly even stand a short time ago?” I asked.
The stranger shrugged. “I just did it quietly.” He faltered slightly, seeming to lose energy. “Now, if I could . . . ?”
He gestured to his flask, then swigged another gulp. Again, he quaked in the aftermath, hanging his head to hide his expression.
Like a genial host, Chaplin trotted over to the stranger and gave him a thankful nudge with his nose. It caused our so-called friend to crash back into his blankets with a grunt.
“See, here’s someone who understands the beauty of rest,” the stranger said wearily. He closed his eyes.
“I’m still talking with you.”
“I’m listening through my eyelids.”
Chaplin brightly glanced at me, obviously expecting me to enjoy the humor, too. But all I could focus on was my dog’s bright eyes. Had the stranger brought some kind of crazy bug with him and had Chaplin caught it? Outside held all sorts of dangers and disease that might weaken even an Intel Dog.
But Chaplin had seemed off
before
the stranger had actually come into our home, so our guest couldn’t have brought on any kind of bug.
before
the stranger had actually come into our home, so our guest couldn’t have brought on any kind of bug.
“I’d like just a few more moments of chatter, if
you
don’t mind,” I said.
you
don’t mind,” I said.
When the stranger answered, the voice that’d been so persuasive outside had turned to an exhausted whisper. “I understand. You want to know who you’ve taken in.”
Yeah, and who I’d be throwing out just as soon as I could.
Chaplin sat on his haunches by the stranger’s side, his long fur like dark root tea in the lamplight. His quick affection might be a show of gratitude for what this man had done with Stamp’s guy, and I should be expressing the same, really. But I could ill afford parlor manners beyond what I’d already extended.
The stranger’s eyes were still closed, his hands clasped on his chest in ease. “For the record, I’m appreciative of your kindness. Truly. But I’d just like to allow my medicines to get on with healing.”
A beat passed, heavy with my unanswered questions. Heavy with the look I fd myself running over him, too—a look that made me weaken, my bones starting to turn to something like liquid.
I went back to pacing my breathing. Hell, it wasn’t as if I’d never been near a man before. It’d just been a while. The attack in Dallas had scarred me in a lot of ways, and I wasn’t used to people anymore.
As if sensing my interest, he opened his eyes, and I saw the gray of them.
“I suppose, manners-wise, I should at least offer that my name’s Gabriel.”
I nodded, hoping he’d go on.
“Not much else to tell,” he said.
When he smiled—just a slight, pained gesture with those injury-swollen lips—I swallowed. My mouth had become dry, but not the same dry as outside. Not at all.
The realization brushed over me with shame, with awareness, with . . . I didn’t want to give name to it. But something lingered in the way he was watching me.
And what did he see exactly? A tallish twenty-three-year-old woman with red hair sawed off to the jaw by frequent knife cutting for the ease of care, her eyes narrowed in eternal distrust and self-loathing. A flinty hostess sheathed in dusty garb and an impregnable attitude.
His smile . . . For some reason, I thought it meant that he appreciated the way I looked. It made me want to peer into my rarely used mirror to see what he saw, to discern if I’d changed somehow since the last time I’d checked. It’d been a long time since anyone had told me I was pretty.
I glanced away from the stranger . . . Gabriel. With harsh reluctance, I tucked my revolver into its holster. Then I fixed my gaze right back on him, letting him know that even though there was one less gun in his face, I’d still have it handy.
Chaplin woofed softly. He was chiding me for being prickly.
Hell, since when had
he
gone lax? Oh, yeah—right when the stranger had shown up.
he
gone lax? Oh, yeah—right when the stranger had shown up.
“I look forward to the rest of your story, Mr. Gabriel,” I said, prickly indeed.
“Just . . .” The stranger’s smile disappeared. “. . . Gabriel.”
“At the risk of keeping you awake, can you at least tell me why you’re in the New Badlands, in the middle of the nowheres? It’s not on many itineraries.”
He sighed, as if willing to give up this one last inch. “I’ve been passing through what’s left of the States for . . . well, it’d be about twenty-five months now. After everything that’s gone down the last twenty-odd years . . .” He paused. “I lost my family in the epidemic way back when, and though I haven’t been wandering all that long, I never did find any place to root since they died. Not with substitute families, not with anything much.”
The mosquito epidemic. I softened at this; a lot of people had lost their loved ones then. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Afterward, everything fell apart. But you already know.”
A burn stung my throat. I knew.
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