Monsters of the Apocalypse (21 page)

Nestor
hadn't moved and Caleb hadn't opened his eyes.

"Mary
is the girl you slept with?"

"No,
she's a kid. Kind of an adopted daughter. I said I'd protect
her."

Nestor
lowered his gun.

"And
she's the hacker?"

Caleb, after
a long pause, nodded.

"Shit.
Of course, it was just some dumb kid messing around. Shit. Okay,
I'll make you a deal. Take me to this underground city and I'll just shut
down the hacking abilities, break the computers or whatever. I won't hurt
the girl and then I'll move on."

"Sorry,
Nestor. If she wasn't the hacker, she'd just be a pretty little girl in
all of this madness and terror. You know how that ends. I said I'd
protect her. She's like a daughter to me… I… you wouldn't
understand."

Nestor
turned and looked at the passing water. It was muddy and dark. The
depth was impossible to tell, but the current was fast. He looked up at
the horizon and then checked the sky, gauging the time by the muted glow of the
sun.

"Nestor,
you're on a delay, but not that long of a delay. Mutants are chasing you.
I can hold out long enough that they get here and kill you before you
find out where the city is. I know I can."

Nestor
nodded his head, considering.

"Walk."

Caleb stared
at him in surprise.

"Really?
You're taking me with you?"

"Walk.
That way," Nestor said pointing towards the river.

"How
can you tell that it's not too deep?"

"I
can't. I can't tell what a mine looks like either. So you start
walking and I'll be right behind you."

Caleb stared
for a moment until Nestor raised his gun again and then Caleb stepped into the
water.

It was night
when Nestor finally allowed them to stop and setup camp. Caleb had been
unable to light the fire with only flint, but after watching Nestor he seemed
to get it. Nestor made them dinner from his stores while Caleb dried his
clothes and continued a constant stream of inane chatter that Nestor basically
ignored.

After dinner
Nestor quietly cleaned his guns while Caleb looked on.

“You're just
like a video game character or something, Nestor. You’ve got the scars
and the tattoos... I bet you sleep for like two hours and then wake up in a
cold sweat haunted by your past, but, you know, in a cool way.”

“You don't
make a lot of sense, Caleb.”

“You don’t
understand what it’s like. What it was like, for guys like me.
Staying up all night, numb, just day-dreaming these things that... You
know what the thing is with the media? With porn and 3D movies and all,
it lets you know what you're missing. It lets you know how unexciting
your girlfriend is in bed, how tough you aren't or how cool you'll never be.”

"You
should talk less. Quiet people get shot in the face less often than loud
people.”

Caleb
frowned nervously.

“So, you
weren’t the one on the Alpha Team who gave the inspiring speeches then?”

"No."

Nestor held
out his hand and Caleb looked at it questioningly.

"The
gun you have poorly hidden in the back of your pants, give it to me so I can
clean it."

"You
knew I had it? Why didn't you take it away so I couldn't shoot you?"

Nestor
continued his blank stare until Caleb handed the gun over with a laugh.
Nestor took the gun apart with a quiet efficiency.

"You
sure like guns. Guess that's why you were a soldier. That's smart,
making a career out of what you liked. I bartended. I was a
waiter. A janitor. I worked afterschool day care at an elementary
school. I didn’t really have any career though. I worked at places
where I could work the least while I was working. Work the least shifts
and still make enough dough to live."

"Sounds
boring."

"It
was. Life is. It was. Not anymore I guess, but it was.
Don't you think?"

Nestor
reassembled Caleb's pistol and then handed it back to him before settling into
his sleeping bag.

"No, I
never found life boring. Then again, someone has always been trying to
kill me, as long as I can remember."

"Famous
Chinese curse: may you live an interesting life," Caleb said, trying to
make himself comfortable on a stretched out blanket that Nestor had given him.

"In
interesting times. May you live in interesting times, is the curse,"
Nestor said rolling over, away from Caleb and the fire.

"You've
heard it!"

"Yeah,
a Chinese guy said it to me once… right before I killed him."

Jacob was
having his hair cut by Dr. Thomas when Arian entered the tent. The sound
of the raised voices outside was drowned out by the high volume of the screen
that Jacob was watching.

"Arian,
you're back. How was trolling for hookers?"

Arian
ignored the remark, though he wondered how Jacob always knew where he'd been
and what he'd done.

"Jacob,
we have a situation."

"Do
we? Before we get to that, I need to tell you something. It turns
out that October Carnegie has killed all of the Founders and now holds absolute
power over The Island."

"Jesus,
without that distraction he might turn his attention to us," Arian said,
momentarily forgetting what was happening outside.

"What
"us"? The government thinks they made us up, that we don't
exist. He does though," Jacob pointed at Nestor on the screen,
"so we need him to be alive, don't you
think?"

"Okay,
so we need to let it be known that we don't want Caleb killed. Negate the
rumor about the peace treaty."

"I
agree. We should tell everybody. How do you suggest we do that,
Arian?"

"Well…"

"I
know, let's catch Nestor, cut his head off and use the feed to tell everyone
not to cut his head off," Jacob laughed.

"What
about catching him and just telling him."

"First
of all, catching Nestor is not easy and once you've caught him, not dying is
even harder. Second, we need him out there, distracting the Islanders
from us. We are hardly an army yet. One drone attack and we are no
more. He distracts from us. Because October Carnegie invented the
lie
of a mutant army, when he hears about us, he won't believe it… unless he hears
about it, from us. We can't be on Nestor's feed. And, without an
army, I'm not going anywhere near Nestor."

"I
thought you two were friends."

"What
does that have to do with anything?"

"Well,
he won't kill you since your friends."

Jacob
laughed for a very long time.

"That
wolf is so cool. We should get wolves," Jacob said pointing at the
screen.

"I'm
sorry, Jacob? Did you just say, 'we should get wolves'?"

"Yeah.
Not too short on the sides, Doc."

"Yes
sir," Dr. Thomas said.

"I have
to admit Doc, your ability as a stylist is almost as valuable as your ability
to cure mutation. Not a day goes by where I don't look at my hair and
thank God that I didn't slit your throat with a very dull knife."

"I
thank God for that too."

"Haircuts,
one of the first things to go after the Apocalypse. Such a shame to lose
something so human. No other animal does it. But someone, thousands
and thousands of years ago looked at all of that hair, dangling down to their
ass and said, 'I think I'd like to have bangs.' Changed the world.
You never know when you're going to change the world, that’s the thing."

The
commotion grew outside and brought Arian back to the moment.

"That
reminds me, sir, we have situation. Some of the men went nosing around
and they saw the containers. They've noticed that Dr. Thomas had
regressed back to human. And, well, there are some boys outside who want
a word."

"Oh
dear," Jacob sighed. "No Indians I hope?"

"No,
no. But, some of them are pretty big, pretty mean."

"You
don't say? Well, I guess I should go talk to them, huh?"

"I
could go kill them all if you want."

"Thanks,
Arian, but sometimes being the King means getting your hands dirty. Doc,
do my sideburns real quick."

Arian nodded
and sat down watching Nestor's feed as the sounds of discontent grew louder.

October had
been in his room for two days. Paralyzed. Vanderbilt's blood was
still on his hands, though it had turned an ugly dry brown now. The
paralyses had come in stages. First there was a stillness that came with
the realization of absolute power. Then the stillness had moved into the
register of immobility as he succumbed to the awe that his own station
induced. The final step into paralyses had come when he realized that there
was nowhere else to climb, no higher peak, nothing left to do, but fall.

The screen,
which was always on, brought a twisted comfort to October. It gave a
desired distraction. It allowed him to disappear into the travels of
Nestor Bravo and escape his own reality. But, always in the background
was the knowledge that Nestor didn't walk without purpose or deadly cause, and
that October was his destination. He heard Miho's voice from time to
time, and from it knew that someone else was in the room. The plates of
food became empty and then disappeared, so he knew that a service staff was
still present, but nothing stuck or registered. Life had become a narrow
peak that was too small to comfortably balance on and in every direction was a
terrible death should he falter.

All in all,
he'd had better weekends.

What brought
him back was the image of Miho's ass. Having dropped something she'd bent
over, her skirt tightening over the curve of her ass, rising almost to the
point of revelation and then she had turned and looked into his prying eyes and
in that moment he found himself a ball of nervous and awkward motion and
activity.

"Well…
does this fidgeting mean that you are ready to get to work, Mr.
President?"

"Quite, quite. Indeed,
I have been deep in thought. I apologize. Heavy is the head that
wears the crown and all."

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me about this
underground city, Miho. The one this Caleb guy is from?" he said
gesturing to the screen.

"Like he said, designed by
an early form of the Founders. In Ohio we believe. There are
several. Also, like he said, impenetrable."

"That's unacceptable.
This feed is our greatest enemy; this city is hacking it and broadcasting
it. We need to stop them. I want that broadcast stopped and then I
want Nestor Bravo dead. Understand?"

"I understand, but that's
not possible."

"I'll tell you what's not
possible, Miho. Mutant cannibals walking the Earth and Nestor Bravo being
alive, that's impossible. But, here we are. So let me make this a
little simpler, Ms. Walker. Nestor Bravo needs to be dead and no one can
know that we did it. Make it look like mutants did it, if you can't…
well… I'm just not quite sure what other use I would have for you. Are we
clear?"

Miho lowered her tablet to her
side and looked into October's eyes. She tilted her head and studied the
ceiling, thoughtfully, and then returned her gaze to his with a smile.
"Yes, sir. Very well."

Nestor
stopped and looked down on the town.

"What
is it?"

"It's a
town, Caleb."

"What
is it you're looking at?"

"The
town, Caleb. I'm looking at the town," Nestor said flatly.

"Thanks,
this has been enlightening."

"Look
there, see that? By the doorway? Footprints. There's someone
here. Maybe more than one. Probably more. I don't see any bodies
or corpses. Someone has either cleaned up the town or…"

"Or
eaten the dead."

"You
ready to use that gun, you think? Has the practice helped?"

"I
guess."

"Let's
hope so."

Nestor went
down to his stomach and began sighting his rifle.

"If it
comes down to shooting I'll shoot, but if you can use your brain to keep it
from turning into a bloodbath, Caleb, I'd appreciate it. We are invading
their turf after all."

"Wait,
what's happening?"

"For a
week two of us have been eating the stores I'd set aside just for me. We
need food. There's something down there. You go down and figure out
what's what. I'll be up here with the rifle. This is the high
ground, good visibility. Take a long look, anyplace you can't see from up
here, don't go there, or I can't cover you."

"Why
don't you go down and I'll stay up here? Come on, this is your thing,
Nestor, I'm not… I'll stay up here."

"You
ever kill anybody before?"

"No."

"Well,
if I'm gonna put my life in a sniper's hands I want to know he can pull the
trigger and not miss. You don't have to worry. I don't hesitate and
I don't miss."

Caleb stared
at the town silently, but did not move.

"Look
at me, Caleb, you'll be fine. This is a precaution, chances are they're gonna be
more scared of you than you are of them."

"I
don't think I can do this, Nestor."

"Caleb,
you are either useful or you're not. Having someone to watch my back is a
good idea, so I've put up with you. Having someone who I have to watch
over on top of myself is stupid. It's time for you to prove
yourself. It's a world that is going to involve a whole lot of
killing. You're going to be on one side or the other. A predator or
prey. You can't be in between. There's no more in between in this
world. You can do this."

Caleb looked from Nestor
down to the town. He took a deep breath and, as instructed, noted where
his lines of sight died. Then he walked down the hill and stopped.
There was a sound somewhere. He couldn't say what it was, a door catching
a breeze, the foundation of a house settling, a mutant grinding its teeth or
the sound of a rifle taking aim on his head.

Caleb tried
to breathe, to feel the air coming into his lungs and then releasing. The
town came into bright focus. He'd read about the clarity of war, the
clarity of the moment before death, the clarity of enlightenment. Until
this moment he'd assumed they were different, unique. Now he could only
hope. He forced his foot in front of the other. Stopping as a door
began to open.

The door
seemed to open impossibly slow, with the head of the mutant coming into view
long after Caleb had raised his H and K. He double-checked to make sure
his safety was off.

"Stop,
stop right there."

"Why?
Why should I?"

"Because
I'll shoot you."

"Why?
This is my home, I live here. You are the intruder. You came to my
street. I did nothing to encourage you to come here. Nor did I
threaten you now that you've come here and yet, you would shoot me?"

"I
don't want to. I just… I need food. I don't eat the same food as
you. I'm not going to take anything that's of use to you, Mr.
…Mutant."

"We
aren't so different then, are we? You and I? We are both here, we
are both hungry."

"One
step closer and you drop," Caleb said with a quavering voice.

"Oh yes?
Your hand is shaking, you don't look confident human. Does he
comrades?"

It was then
that Caleb sensed the shadows in the periphery of his eyes. He allowed
himself a quick glance to see the three mutants to his right and one to his
left, closing in.

Caleb tried
to focus on his breathing as he squeezed the trigger.