The Creepers (Book 2): From the Past (15 page)
Her breathing became steady for awhile,
calm and even as the night engulfed them. Howard could not sleep. Somewhere in
the darkness, a new Creeper had entered his range. He tried to block the
images, but he’d been drifting off in thought, dreaming of what might be if
they just ran away. He envisioned how they would live, the kind of place they’d
call home. Then the emotions and pain and unending torment hit him full force.
Hunger so much deeper than the normal Creeper craving, and not for human flesh.
Whatever had happened, it died extremely hungry when it was human.
Howard felt that painful hunger as if it
were his own. It held for a moment then passed, only to come rushing back
again. He was nauseous and starving, but even thinking about quelling the
hunger made him want to vomit. The back and forth threatened to undo him as
many such encounters had before . . .
Pipa, Pipa, Pipa,
echoed in his
mind. Howard wanted to scream. He concentrated on Jennifer’s warmth and the
waves. The hunger began to lessen, falling and fading until it was gone, and
the Creeper was silent in his mind.
He was getting better.
If he concentrated on one thing, he was
able to block the noise, but could he do it from the start without the sudden
empathic rush?
The question lingered there with no
clear answer. The rush had always been there. In the early years when he was
just a child, he remembered crying. His father would ask him what was wrong and
he never had a straight answer. He was too young. He didn’t even know or
understand what he was seeing, what he was hearing, in some cases. He lacked
the experience to catalog them, but as he grew and as his father educated him,
they began to make sense, horrific sense. How could he stop it?
“I can feel your heart race when you
communicate with them,” Jennifer said. “I can feel your body tense. What is it
like?”
“Like every painful memory you have
floods your mind at once.”
Jennifer coughed then winced from the
shock to her wound. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m learning to deal with
it, but it’s the initial contact that is the hardest. Like a blow to the head.
If I could stop that, this might work.”
She pressed herself tighter against him.
The rain stayed steady, and somewhere behind the clouds, cold stars blanketed
oblivion. “Be somewhere else in your mind.”
“That would work if I could see them as
I approached, but that’s not always the case. It’s the ones I can’t see. Like
lights suddenly coming on in a long dark hallway. Like land mines really,
exploding inside my head. I can’t be somewhere else at times like that.”
“Sure you can,” Jennifer said, a little
out of breath. “Ugh this wound is kicking my ass. You can, Howard. You can be
somewhere else. When we’d fight, it was rarely on our terms. Post . . . all of
us . . . we’d get in these sudden skirmishes. Hordes, wild people, cultists . .
. always someone, but in those flashes of violence, I learned to be somewhere
else. At least the part of me that was afraid. If I allowed myself to be fully
aware . . . I’d have . . . never made it.” She coughed. Her heart raced.
“Jennifer.”
“It’s okay. The fuck was worth it.” She
laughed. “Definitely worth it. Just took a bit out of me.”
“More than a bit. You should rest.”
“No, you need to hear this. Some
shooters would count, or fall into breathing exercises. None of that shit ever
worked for me. But one thing did.”
“What?”
“It’s silly, but when the shit hit the
fan . . . I’d start to build a house in my head. I’d think about the
foundation, adding walls, windows, all that crap we never had, all that crap
the older guys talked about, just kept adding it while I fired my gun, while I
killed, and it worked. I was there . . . reacting . . . but I was . . .
somewhere else. You just have to find your home, Howard.”
Jennifer shuddered then drifted off
again. Her frantic heart beat became steady as the night carried on.
Baylor gauged the distance to the far
end of the lush green valley, added just the right amount of coal, and set the
beast at a crawl. He snapped his revolver open, loading it with the
blood-covered bullets. He draped the dead man’s bandolier over his purple coat
and headed to the roof.
The desert had fallen away in pieces. A
few brave bits of green here and more there, but then, after miles of brush
fighting the creep of the sands, an explosion of nature. Pines and oaks and
tall grass untouched by man for decades dominated the valley. A light gray rain
fell and the wind drifted coolly through the bend in the world. It was one of
the most beautiful things Baylor had ever seen, and he’d been this way many
times before, but this time everything was right. The grayish cloak, the rain,
the wind—it all fit so perfectly, like a piece of art from the old world viewed
in just the right light, but they ruined the image for him.
The army’s fires could be seen on the
far side of the valley. Hundreds of burning lights like candles on a god-sized
altar. There were so many. He peered through the binoculars. Riders were
approaching. So many people, men, women, even children, moving like ghosts all
along the hillsides. He dropped the binoculars and straightened his coat. There
would be no fighting his way out of this. He wasn’t afraid, though he wasn’t
resentful either. He sought for ways to manipulate the situation to his
advantage.
One of the riders halted ahead. He was a
young man with close cropped black hair and a long mustache. He waited for the
train to approach, nodded his head, then began to pace it. Others soon followed
suit, until there were too many for Baylor to count. He watched them closely.
If any of them attempted to board the beast, he’d shoot them before they even
laid a hand on her.
It was all posturing and curiosity. He
was just as guilty as they. He’d killed their people, and they his, and now was
the moment of awkward peace. How long would it last? That remained to be seen.
They didn’t go through all the trouble of testing him to crease his skull
without so much as a fuck you. This went deeper.
He caught glimpses of babies riding with
their mothers and fathers. There were older children too. It didn’t make sense.
This wasn’t just an army, it was a god damned diaspora.
“It’s the train man.”
“Mad Conductor.”
“Martin failed.”
“This means, my Thomas. . .”
Some cried, some cheered, others
threatened, but they all stayed their hands, even Baylor. The train sputtered,
a long hiss cut the sound of their voices out, and it clanked one last time
before coming to a halt. A woman in a long robe walked up to the animated body
of the lone rider and began to wail. She dropped to her knees. The others began
to crowd around to see.
Baylor drummed his fingers on his
holster, studying them. This collection of those that survived and those born
after. He might have envied them if not for the violence done in their name, or
had they a say?
The robed woman shouted at him, but he
could not make out the words through her sobs. Her weather beaten face shook.
Rage filled her eyes. Her fingers, laced with wrinkles and scars, pointed at
him, accused him.
A small woman with long red hair
approached, walking delicately on the beams of the track. She rested her hands
on the wailing woman’s shoulders. “There is no room for tears in tomorrow’s
world, Sandra. He made a choice and saw it through, but was not the victor.
History will forget him, but not you, Sandra. There is still much left
unwritten. So will you have a page or will your life end here?”
Baylor felt a chill at the tone of her
voice, and it was furthered when he noticed the scalps adorning her waist.
“There is no life without him!” Sandra
screamed.
“And there is no room for such wasted
energy.” The red-haired woman brought her hands up around Sandra’s wet cheeks,
and then she moved in a flash, snapping her neck and discarding the body
without so much as a second glance. Teenagers from the crowd began to remove
the woman’s shoes, digging in the dead woman’s pockets. One of the men was
about to fire a round into her dead skull when the red-haired woman said,
“Don’t. Such weakness does not deserve your mercy.”
Baylor watched the red-haired woman walk
purposefully towards him. He had no doubt this was the woman, their leader. The
muscles in her arms glistened from the rain. Rounded shoulders, carved
biceps—had she been a man he’d have called her ropey, but somehow she retained
a ferocious femininity. She stopped before the mouth of the beast. Her fist
rocketed out, smashing the forehead of the lone rider. His groans died
instantly. She traced a finger along the spikes of the cage.
“The Mad Conductor, or do you prefer,
Baylor?”
Baylor looked in her dark eyes and found
something to be afraid of. There was a knowledge lurking there that he didn’t
quite understand, but the return stare exposed him, as if in an instant she
knew all of his faults and hopes and she wanted to crush them under her heel.
Then he realized what she was wearing.
“How many guns you got on me?”
“Enough. One can never be too cautious.”
The woman waited politely. No doubt
backed by the assurances of her snipers.
“Baylor is fine,” he said, leaning down
to help her up.
The red-haired woman ignored his
chivalry and flipped along the spikes in a twist. She launched herself up and
over, landing at his side. She looked up at him with her hands on hips.
“You could have just asked you know?”
“Baylor.” She laughed. “And what would
have been your response?”
“Same as it is now.” He wished he had
just a fraction of the lone rider’s speed. But he had to keep himself in check.
He had to give Bobby time to work.
“I think you’re likely to change your
mind.”
“You’re free to think whatever you like.
Your man down there gets any closer to my girl and I’m going to make him dead enough
to walk until the end of days.”
She whistled loud and sharp. The man
backed off at her command. “These are the end of days. Most people call me Miss
Moya.”
“Well, Miss Moya, how about you tell me
what this is all about?”
* * * * *
The rancid smell of rotten animal fat
would’ve made Bobby gag had he not been indoctrinated into the scent of the
enemy by the Folks. Baylor used the nasty stuff to grease the gears in place of
oil. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Bobby could see the legs of horses and people
through the thin slats. He was somewhere below the engine car, cramped in a
coffin-like space. He had his rifle, some rounds, and that was it. He didn’t
like the odds.
He promised Baylor he would wait. Wait
until dark to sneak out and scout the area, the army, and see a way to right
wrongs. There were so many of them, and he could hear more in the distance. A
sudden scream made him jump but it was silenced. He could hear the bass of
Baylor’s voice from above but he couldn’t make out the words. There were no
Creepers within his range.
What could they really do against all
that he’d seen from afar? The count went beyond either of their estimates. In
the same thought, he wandered back to the Settlement, and all that had
transpired. There was a chance, but he wouldn’t know its extent until he got
out there among these people. But to do that, he had to wait for dark.
Many a winter night had been spent at
Ol’ Randy’s side working on being quiet. All the boys had to prepare for a time
when hiding was the only option, and move about while hidden, and not all of
the lessons involved Creepers. Bobby remembered the night well.
Ryan led a team of some native
Settlement boys and the rest of his brothers, while Bobby and Ol’ Randy ran
their own team. There was some punishment due to him for being the best, but
for the moment he relished in the fact he’d been chosen again.
In those seemingly insignificant
moments, Bobby felt almost like a son, like he mattered to someone other than
his brothers.
“He’s good. Well—” Ol’ Randy spat—
“thinks he good. ’at boy ain’t got a lick a sense in ’im. He’s taking the dog
route up the back slope. Thinks I’m a fuckin’ idiot. Tryin’ to make me think
he’s crazy, but he left the fat Clarendon boy on watch a mile back.” Ol’ Randy held
up a red piece of cloth. “Only four left, Bobby boy.”
Bobby held up two pieces of red cloth
and smiled. “Two.”
“Att’a boy. You a force to be reckoned
with, Bobby. Now, what do ya say we teach the rest of them a lesson they ain’t
soon to forget?”
“Sounds like a plan, sir.” Bobby slipped
into the dark with Ol’ Randy. They moved when the wind moved. They stepped
around the light. They worked with the terrain and communicated like animals.
Never did they break twigs by accident, never slipped up. They were undefeated,
and even Ryan, as devious as he was, could not usurp them when it came to
stealth. Bobby and Ol’ Randy knew all the tricks. When they were out in the
wilderness, all bets were off.
Together they found Ryan and Pete
doubling back. Bobby cringed at how loud they were. He moaned like a Creeper
and Ol’ Randy followed suit.
“Shit stack. Thought that old bastard
said the hill was clear?”
“Shut up, Ryan. You’ll draw them to us.”
“Make them easier to kill.”
They moaned again. Bobby tossed a rock over
Ryan’s head. It took everything in his power to keep from laughing, though he
worried Ol’ Randy wouldn’t take that last poke lightly.
“It’s over there,” Ryan said, his face a
circle of pasty white in the light of the moon.
“I hear it.”
Ol’ Randy kept up the low moan, drawing
them in. Bobby circled around behind them before they had a chance to react. He
soon had two red flags and an ear to ear grin.
“Thought you was cute, little Ryan. Cute
as a button,” Ol’ Randy said, picking the boy up by the collar. “What was that
bit about a bastard?”
“Sir, I-I—”
“Go on, son. Speak up now. Let the whole
hillside know about that bastard!” Ol’ Randy laughed, relishing Ryan’s tears.
The train rocked, and clattering
machinery ripped Bobby from the memory. His brothers and Ol’ Randy slipped away
like steam from the beast’s mouth. Bobby plugged his fingers in his ears and
waited.
Wait for nightfall
, he told
himself,
wait for nightfall
. Then he would really know the depths Baylor
had put them in.
* * * * *
Baylor smelled smoke. He knew instantly
it was not wood that was burning. He’d smelled plenty of burning corpses in his
time and not just after the world fell apart. He remembered being in the city
that day, collapsing buildings, clouds of dust, and that smell. That melted
plastic and bodies as they smoldered smell. The city never lost that scent,
even after the clean up, which was one of the reasons he had to leave.
She leaned against the beast’s inner
cage. “The smell bothers you?” She gripped the bars, flexing her muscles,
threatening, testing him.
“A lot of things bother me,” Baylor
said, tossing a bit of coal into the box.
“Do I bother you?” Her lips smiled but
her eyes were predatory.
“That goes without saying. Cannibals
bother me. I see those scalps, I smell the flesh, that nifty getup you’re
wearing. How long ago did you lose your humanity?”
“The judgments never seem to leave,
Baylor. That old world just won’t let go, or rather some of us won’t let it go.
We had a little issue with a group of real savages. And now they’re being
disposed of. Nothing more. You’re not the first to make assumptions about me
based on things that no longer apply.” Miss Moya turned away from the barred
view. “None of this is what it seems. Just like you, Baylor, just like you.”