Crucible Zero (22 page)

That had to be worth something.

I threw the blanket back over the collection, then tucked up the ends and brought the unwieldy bundle over to the bench seat and lifted the whole thing over the back, to set on the seat itself.

“Well?” Abraham asked.

“Other than squirt guns, I think we're covered.”

He braced sideways in his chair, his shoulders filling the space between the front and backseat. “Have you ever traveled at night?” he asked.

“I have. But not around ferals.”

“Then I'm going to tell you what you need to do. If you follow my instructions, we'll get through this. The cache isn't far off, and we can reload there.”

“We'll need to reload?” I asked, glancing down at the pile of weapons.

“Those ferals back at the cabin?” he said. “Child's play. Out here there'll be many, many more. Different types. Some with thick hides bullets have a hard time penetrating. The sound of the van's engine will call them from miles around. The night's going to be swarming with them real quick.”

“All right. What's the plan?”

He unwrapped the blanket, then planted his hand on the back of the seat as the van rocked. His gaze quickly took in our inventory.

“We'll start with the automatics. I'll take the back; you'll take the front. Shoot only if you can make the shot count.” He glanced at me. “This is going to be bloody.”

“I can handle blood,” I said. “So, shoot, but don't waste bullets. Any kill shots besides eyes?”

“Eyes are best. Next is neck. Some of the beasts have reinforced skulls, so head shot isn't always a guaranteed kill.” He bent and squeezed through the space between the seats, then around back to where I knelt, holding on to the back of seat for stability.

He reached over the back of the seat and plucked up one of the machine guns, two extra magazines, one rifle, a handgun and clip, maul, machete, and one of the flamethrowers.

“Do you know how to use these things?” he asked as he attached everything to his body. His coat was worked with a clever set of hooks and bands all meant for carrying weapons. I suddenly wanted one.

“Nothing here I haven't seen before,” I said. “Is there a coil lighter or striker for the flamethrower?”

“Van should have a coil lighter in the dash. Don't use the flamethrower unless you have to. We'll need it for when we're on foot outside the van.”

“Got it. Good luck,” I said as I squeezed around him. The van bucked, throwing me backward into his chest. Abraham caught me with one hand around my waist, and we held there a moment too long.

“Ready?” he asked, his mouth low by my ear again. I wanted to kiss him. Wanted more. But we had a nighttime drive to survive.

I nodded, not trusting my voice, and his hand released me, palm brushing warmth alongside my waist before pulling away.

I made my way up into the passenger's seat and got my breathing in order. That man did things to me. Very nice things.

When I glanced back, Abraham had already set the weapons he couldn't carry on the floor in the back of the van next to him, as if he'd done it a million times before. The back doors were fitted with slot windows that could be opened and closed and were just the right size for the barrel of a gun.

This vehicle had been made for exactly this sort of thing: to drive at night when ferals were attacking.

So maybe we had a good chance of getting through this alive.

“We're hot,” Foster said over the growl of the engine. Abraham set the machine gun at the slotted window and scanned the darkness.

I turned with the automatic and rolled the window down a notch or two, aiming the weapon forward and bracing against the seat.

Cloud cover choked the light out of the night, but the van was equipped with low lights that gave some hint of what was in front of us. It wasn't a road so much as a rutted trail through an open field. From the glimpses of posts speeding by on either side of us, I figured this was a grazing pasture in the day.

But in the night, the entire landscape seemed to move, and all of it was made of teeth and eyes and claws.

“Shit,” I breathed. They were coming right at us. Like locusts, a swarm, a herd, an undulating wall of muscle and fur stretched over twisted bone and spine. The wolflike ferals were mixed in among squat squares of muscle the size of crocboars, and furred bearlike things the size of our van that didn't appear to have heads and instead articulated like centipedes. The ferals galloped toward us so many, so fast, we'd be buried by them if we slowed down.

Gunfire interrupted my moment of shock. I pushed away the very real fear of drowning.

I aimed and made the bullets count.

Just before the leading edge of ferals hit the van, closing in on us from all sides, Foster floored it.

The van plowed through the nightmare beasts in front of us, throwing and crushing them as Foster drove right through the mass. The impact shook off the creatures that pounded against the side of the van and threw off a few that had reached the roof.

I fired until the magazine was empty. Reloaded and kept firing. The beasts kept coming.

If we ran out of bullets or fuel, or if one of the beasts hit us hard enough to tip the van or make us lose a tire, we would be torn apart, beaten, and eaten in a manner of seconds.

No matter how many rounds I went through, more and more rushed the van, falling out of trees, squirming out of tall grasses, and pouring out of shadows.

“How far to the cache?” I asked.

“Twenty miles,” Foster said.

Twenty miles? I didn't think we were going to make it another twenty blocks.

“Running low on ammo,” I shouted back to Abraham.

“Hold on,” he said.

He scrambled up through the van and handed me two grenades.

“Not going to do a lot of good with how fast they're coming,” I said.

“Flash bomb. Don't throw it in front of the van.”

Like I would. He pushed his way to the back again, and I rolled down the window, pulled the pin, and chucked the flash bomb as hard as I could to the right.

I turned my head and closed my eyes. The night burned bright as a desert sun.

Beasts howled and shrieked. I opened my eyes, my vision fouled, even though I'd done my best to protect them. The ferals were losing ground, less of them following us.

I opened the door, leaned out, and heaved another grenade over the top of the van to the left. “Flash!” I yelled as I slammed back into the van and covered my eyes.

The world went white behind my eyelids.

Foster grunted, but somehow kept the van on the road.

“Will that hold them off?” I asked.

“No.” Abraham strapped on the flamethrower. He kicked open the back of the van.

“I thought you said we're saving the flamethrowers.”

“I lied.” He swung out of the van doors. For a single horrifying moment, I thought he'd thrown himself to the beasts following us. But then I saw his boots as he heaved himself up onto the roof.

“Sonofabitch,” I said. “Crazy. He's crazy.”

Yes, he was galvanized. Yes, he couldn't be easily killed. But there were enough ferals out there to take him down and tear him to shreds until he was dead.

The night lit up with a blast of orange. Ferals along the side of the van backed away from the fire, blinded and burned.

A distinctive
pop
sound cracked out, and a neon pink flare exploded above us.

“A flare?” I asked Foster. “Who is he signaling?”

“Maybe friends.” Foster drew a handgun from his hip, rolled down his window and shot a feral in the head. Then he flicked on the windshield wipers, scraping the thick blood and gore to the edges of the window.

Maybe friends?

“What about the weapons cache?” I asked.

“They are the cache of weapons.”

“What maybe-friends is he signaling? There isn't anyone out here. No one could survive this.
We're
not going to survive this.”

The corner of Foster's mouth curled up, and he glanced over at me. “Have faith, Matilda Case.”

And then I heard it: the sound of engines. The sound of guns. Someone
was
out here, and they were coming our way.

My personal opinion? There should be only one reality—the reality wherein Slater is dead.

—W.Y.

I
n my very short time traveling outside at night, I had learned several valuable lessons.

One: ferals never stop coming. There are not enough bullets, not enough flame, and not enough pain in the world to turn them away when they are in a hunting frenzy.

Two: ferals are always in a hunting frenzy.

Three: only crazy people go out in the night.

Four: Abraham Vail was absolutely insane.

He stood on the top of the van, even though I was having a hard enough time keeping my aim steady from the inside of the van, as we rattled down the road. He bathed the space around us in flames, and from the bleed of orange over black, I saw our real situation.

The dead ferals were just drawing more ferals who, once they heard the engine and saw the motion of the van roaring down the road, turned away from dining on their fellow creatures to take off after us.

I don't know what combination of radiation and disaster had given rise to these beasts, but there were more mutations than I'd ever be able to wash out of the nightmares I'd be having for the rest of my nightmares.

The light from the flamethrower kept some of the more visually sensitive ferals back a bit, but as soon as the flame paused, they all rushed at us again. It was like digging a hole in the sand while the walls were collapsing in on us.

Only these holes had teeth and claws and a strong desire to kill us.

I was down to a handgun, the rope, a splitting maul, a knife, and the other flamethrower.

I leaned out the window, taking out the closest beasts I could get a clear shot at. Foster had run over so many, the windshield was covered in a mess of blood and gore the wipers couldn't clear, and bits of fur and bone and other body parts were stuck in the welds of the van. I was amazed the van was still going, but the way it was constructed kept the most vulnerable parts of the vehicle out of the ferals' reach.

The engines were coming closer, though I didn't know how adding more vehicles, which would draw more ferals, was any kind of a good idea.

My gun was out of bullets, so I grabbed the splitting maul. It was weighted, but I braced one knee against the seat of my chair and one foot on the floor, and stuck it out the window.

The speed of the car meant that when my maul hit a feral, it was a hell of a jolt, both for my arms and for the unlucky beast.

But I was strong.

And angry.

The ax cut down several ferals until it buried so deep into one of the articulated, giant-bear ferals that I lost my grip and it was ripped out of my hand.

“So, these maybe-friends of yours?” I said as I rapidly rolled up the window. “Any idea when they're going to get here?”

“Next bend.”

He sounded really sure about that.

“Are you sure about that?” I picked up the flamethrower and grabbed for the coil lighter out of the dashboard so I could light the damn thing.

“Yes.”

“Why?” I rolled the window down and sent a blast of flame out, then caught a back draft of gas and burnt fur that set me coughing.

Worth it.

“That's where the world always ends,” he said.

Right. I'd somehow forgotten that Foster was just as mad-bat crazy as Abraham. I didn't know why I thought he'd want to make sense at a time like this.

Then we turned the corner.

“Foster,” I said, frantically rolling up the window again.

“Yes?”

“What is that?”

“What?”

“All the nothing out there?”

“The end of the world.”

And it might sound cheesy, but that was when the clouds broke enough that between the pale silver glow of the moon and the light of Abraham's flamethrower, I could see the vast nothing that we were driving perilously along the edge of.

It was as if something huge had punched a hole into the earth. It was a huge hole with a razor-sharp edge that seemed to fall down and down into eternity.

The memory of Quinten saying the satellites had been taken out, power grids destroyed, came back to me. The world, this world, had suffered much different disasters from the world I'd lived in. A barrage of meteors had pounded the earth, breaking the progress of civilization.

This world had died and rebuilt itself. I suppose it made sense that it would carry the scars of survival.

“How is this going to help us?” I asked.

“Look.”

I saw them. Vehicles like ours only twice the size, half a dozen of them, barreling toward us, lit up as bright as Christmas lights.

Abraham, still up on the roof, let off an earsplitting whistle. It was returned once, twice, three times from the vehicles.

Ferals surrounded them too. But as I watched, all the vehicles except two went completely dark. The other two were bright as a beacon, and the swarm of beasts shifted to home in on those lights, like moths dive-bombing a fire.

Foster killed our lights, and I heard Abraham run across the top of the van before swinging down inside and slamming the doors shut behind him.

Foster slowed the van.

“What are you doing? You can't slow down—they'll bury us.”

“Wait,” Abraham said from where he lay on his back, panting on the floor. “Give him a minute. He knows what he's doing.”

“Oh, God,” I said. Which was stupid, because it wasn't like Foster or the ferals or the other vehicles out there could hear me.

The two lit vehicles were also covered with dead ferals that appeared to have been lashed down tight on purpose. It made the vehicles an irresistible combination of food, sound, and light. The other ferals—
all
the other ferals—went completely mad.

The wave of bodies smashing into our van rocked us like we were a ship in hard seas, but the impacts became fewer and fewer as the ferals abandoned our dark, quieter vehicle for the two brightly shining, noisy ones ahead.

And then those shining vehicles drove right over the end of the world and into a darkness even their light couldn't pierce.

The ferals followed them down, right over the edge of that fissure.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, my heart pounding so hard, I was shaking with it. “Holy shit.”

“That,” Abraham said as he wiped a bloody hand over his bloody face, “is how it's done.” He pounded his fist twice into the floor of the van.

He was still breathing hard and hadn't gotten up.

“Are we just sitting here?” I asked.

“Yes.” Foster leaned back and pulled a canteen from the door pocket, took a drink, and handed it to me.

Okay. I had no idea what was going on.

“I have no idea what's going on,” I said. I took a swig of water, which was laced with a hint of fresh mint—a surreal and pleasant luxury, considering our situation and surroundings.

“Aren't we going to go help them? Your friends in those vehicles just got chased off a cliff.”

“They know what they're doing,” Abraham said. “There's a road down. It's hard to see from here. About halfway, there's a nice, tight left into a tunnel with reinforced-steel doors.”

“And?”

“And the ferals never have gotten the hang of that tight left. Pass me the water?”

I bent and half walked, half crawled back to him. “So they're fine?”

He tipped his head so he could watch me making my way back to him. “They're fine.” He was grinning like a fool. A bloody, sooty, gorgeous fool.

“You are an idiot.” I knelt next to him and held out the canteen. “The roof, Vail? What devil kind of dumb does a man have to be to do that sort of thing?”

His grin got even wider, if that was possible.

“I'm not an idiot,” he said, reaching for the canteen and catching my wrist instead. “I am just a very, very good devil.”

He drew the canteen toward him, even though he had only propped up on one elbow. But since he hadn't let go of my wrist, I was bending down toward him. Which was just what he wanted.

“What about Foster?” I whispered.

“He's not invited,” he whispered back.

He stared straight at me, looking into me. His eyebrow quirked up in a question.

Everything in me went hot. I knew what he wanted. I wanted it too, had dreamed about it. But I was not going to get naked in front of—well, behind—Foster.

He drew my arm across his body, and I propped myself over him. He smelled like gasoline and ash and sweat and something with a deep hickory tone.

He paused, waiting. His gaze drifted to my lips and then back to my eyes.

“Victory kiss?” he whispered.

Memories flooded me of the times we had made love, that same look in his eyes as he waited to see what I would do. As he made me wait to see what he would do.

He released my wrist. I tipped my head as his wide fingers dragged up my arm, sending glorious pulses of pleasure across my skin. The anticipation of him touching me tightened my stomach and turned my mouth hot from the need to feel him in me, everywhere in me.

His fingers pushed up into my thick, heavy hair, and I tipped my head down, holding his gaze.

“One,” I mouthed.

I slowly, slowly pressed my mouth against his. His tongue slid along my bottom lip, and I opened my mouth to feel him. His tongue stroked along my tongue, tangling me in aching heat.

One kiss. It was all I had agreed to. Even though I wanted more.

I lowered over him, my breasts pressing against the hard heat of his chest.

He tightened at the hot, instant sensation. He lifted and rolled, pulling me gently beneath him and lying across my body so that I could feel every hard inch of him.

I shifted to wrap one leg around the back of his thigh and tug him closer.

That had exactly the results I expected. He grinned at me and held very still. Then he gently lowered himself and pressed his mouth against the sensitive line of stitches at my neck. Teeth and tongue teased the threads that held me together, threatening to undo me in every way.

I caught my breath and couldn't breathe again, every nerve in my body paused upon the play of his tongue, lips, and teeth working across my skin.

He had never done that before. Not like that.

My lungs were still, my body unwilling to accept air, filling instead with the need for him. He shifted his mouth to my collarbone.

His mouth worked its maddening magic along the bare bits of me; then he lifted away.

“Matilda,” he said, gently. “Breathe.”

I opened my eyes, saw him grinning above me in the darkness. Remembered where we were.

One kiss.

I exhaled while he sweetly stroked his thumb along the underside of my jaw.

Inhaled while he kissed my forehead, then gently pressed his forehead against mine.

“As much as I would like to finish this,” he said, “and the need for that is immense.” He shifted his hips slightly, away from me. “We need to be moving. Before the next wave of ferals hit.”

“I know,” I said, trying to untangle my needs and wants and crazy cravings I couldn't seem to breathe my body out of. “Right. I know. I brought you water.”

“Thank you.” He hesitated, and I knew that if he did anything—if he kissed me, if he said any sweet thing—I would take his clothes off and bed the man, right here in the back of the dark van with Foster just two seats away. Ferals or no ferals.

Maybe he saw that in my expression; I didn't know. But he pulled away, my leg unwrapping from the back of his thigh as he shifted and finally sat next to me.

I sat too, avoiding his gaze while I did so.

If we were ever going to be together, this Abraham and me, it wasn't going to be in the back of a stolen van, covered in blood and guts, while we were on the run for our lives.

I pictured my bed at home in the farmhouse. Lace quilt; soft mattress. I pictured the Abraham I'd seen in the hall, happy, tattooed, naked, his body warm and clean from a hot shower, smelling of soap and sex.

That's what I wanted. Even if I couldn't have that Abraham, who had called me love.

I wanted the chance at even a portion of that dream life, that fleeting timeway.

As for his part, Abraham leaned back against the side of the van and took a long, long drink out of the canteen. I followed his lead and leaned against the other side of the van, facing him in the shared darkness, but as far away from him as I could get.

“Ready?” he called out to Foster.

Foster answered by starting the engine. That was enough to strip away any romantic feelings I was entertaining. Engines brought ferals, and we were out of ammunition.

“We're out of ammunition,” I said.

Abraham nodded. “We'll go underground for the next few hours. By the time we're through the tunnels, it will be dawn.”

“The tunnel over the cliff?”

“Not the same one, no. There are others.”

“Does everyone know about these?”

“Only the sort of people no one wants to associate with.”

“Mercenaries?”

He nodded and took another drink as the van bumped along the road, then took a tight, slow left and began an unmistakable downward descent.

“Is that who answered your flare?”

“Yes.”

“So you're telling me there are mercenaries just sitting around in vehicles, waiting to see random flares go off so they can drive a bunch of ferals off the cliff?”

“Would you believe me if I said it were true?”

“No.”

“But there are always a few people camped out near the tunnel entrances.”

“And?”

“And some might have been expecting us.”

“How?”

“While you were sleeping, Foster and I made ourselves useful.”

“You radioed ahead that we were coming, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“And where are we going, exactly? I'm assuming the
cache of weapons
line you fed me was just a bunch of bullshit?”