The Creepers (18 page)

Bobby froze as
he glimpsed the figures on the bed. He held the hammer high.

Ecky slowly made
his way to the bed and shook his head.

The couple had been
dead for decades. All that remained were their bones and moth-eaten clothes. A
vast swath of fly carcasses dotted the bed and base of the massive window, some
hung limply from a long abandoned web. The couple’s empty sockets, propped up
to better see the window by pillows, starred into oblivion.

At that moment
Bobby felt a great peace settle over him. He lowered his head and said a silent
prayer. He knew these people had made the ultimate decision, the ultimate sin
the Pastor had called it, to take their own lives rather than face the reality
of their world. But Bobby didn’t see it as a sin, and he could understand it
completely, which scared him.

“Long rest far
from the Creepers breast,” Bobby said. Though he refrained from spitting in
such a sacred place.

“We should all
be so lucky to die in peace. To die happy." Ecky put his hand on Bobby’s
shoulder and said, “Come, we clear basement now.”

“Ecky, nobody
has been in this place for a long time. How come the Folks didn’t take anything
from this place?” Bobby asked with a sniffle. Even out of the biting wind the
chill was impossible to shake.

“Perhaps,
whoever had this house saw them and left it alone." Ecky shrugged. “But
nothing really here that would entice scavengers. Us on the other hand . . . we
can make due through winter."

Bobby looked to
the peaceful couple once more, then headed with Ecky to the basement.

The space below
offered up no demons, no undead, no surprises with one exception. Buried among
the rotting reminders of the lives past, and the lives lost, Ecky found a dusty
old CB radio. But with no solar chargers, or rigged components it would remain
dead, however, he cleaned it and kept it near. It might come in handy when
dealing with Baylor.

One of the first
orders of business was to block the windows. With the tools they had on them,
and the box of rusty nails they found in the basement, the engineer and the boy
went to work. They started by cutting up huge chunks of carpet and used it to
black out the windows before covering them with every available, and reclaimed
piece of wood. When at last only a few patches of carpet in the great room
remained Ecky gathered all the pots, pans and dishes and put stacks in front of
every door and window, even the ones they’d barricaded with furniture. If anyone,
or anything planned on breaking in they’d know. Ecky left one window draped,
but not barricaded completely. They needed an egress to hunt and to gather what
they could.

Using old
bottles and cloth, Ecky did the best he could to craft a silencer of sorts. The
elk were wandering just a few yards from the windows, and just one could
provide enough food for him and Bobby for a good stretch. Although the seals
were damaged on the refrigerator, Ecky managed to rig it with pliable pieces of
silicon he found in the basement. With the seal able to hold, he gathered a few
chunks of ice. It wasn’t perfect, but it would get them through winter.

In the back of
his mind three things daunted on him. The sound of the gunshot that provided
them food, the possibility of encountering wild men, and Ol’ Randy’s journal.
Ecky still had not delved into the notebook. And while it was at the forefront
of his mind, the cannibal soldier’s dead stare was right before him. He could
barely sleep when he switched posts with Bobby. Every time he saw a shadow stir
in the trees he tensed. Every creak of the aged home sent shivers up his spine.
The night Bobby bagged the elk with the improvised silencer was the longest
night he’d had since escaping the Settlement. The crack of the shot, though
muffled, might as well have been an atomic bomb in the silent new world.

Spooked. He was
spooked. Being on edge was good, but the fear that ravaged his mind was
debilitating. Whenever his back was turned towards a door, even the barricaded
ones, he felt himself on the edge of a cringe, as if someone were about to kick
in the doors and windows.

The days turned
into weeks, and the air grew colder, cold enough that Ecky dared to clean the
chimney out as best he could. After clearing dead leaves and the mummified
carcasses of a family of opossums he lit the first fire. The scent of burning
pine carried far on the cold crisp air, but he had no choice. He wasn’t about
to let them freeze to death, but the act of getting warm added another level to
his paranoia.

When he wasn’t
freaking out, he kept busy by using dead technology around the house to teach
Bobby how to take advantage of it. There were valuable materials to be salvaged
from the old televisions and stereos like glass and copper wire. Ecky didn’t get
too complex but he kept the increasingly distant Bobby occupied. He worried
about the boy.

Bobby spent most
of his days, and some nights, beside the couple’s bed. He stared out at the
distant, wintry sunrise with them. Though Ecky had yet to hear him speak to the
bones he had his suspicions. The confinement of winter did things to the mind,
and it was something he knew all too well.

When the weeks
turned into months, his beard insanely long and scratchy, Ecky’s paranoia
settled somewhat, but Bobby moved further and further into the solitary
confinement of his own mind. Ecky decided to dig into Ol’ Randy’s notebook, but
he would read it along with Bobby. He wanted no part of the secret keeping that
brought them both to such an extreme state of existence.

Bobby prayed
every day. He prayed to Jesus. He prayed to the stars. He prayed silently from
within to any being that would hear him. He prayed with the couple. He prayed
that they were at peace. He prayed that their souls were in Heaven. And while
he prayed for them, and for Ecky, and the elk he’d taken until his head hurt,
he prayed for something else even harder. He prayed for vengeance.

Every night,
before Bobby turned in, he said his brothers’ names over and over in his head
again. He captured the ghostly images of their memories for, he didn’t want to
forget them. If he lapsed one day he was sure their images would be lost to
him. As the nights grew longer and longer he found it harder and harder to hear
their voices, their laughter. He prayed they were with the angels, with God,
far from the terrible world of the dead. But above all else he prayed for
vengeance.

Bobby shook with
rage that started low in his growling belly. His hands trembled as he imagined
his fingers closing around the Pastor’s throat. Every waking hour, minute by
minute, his childish fears were being replaced by unbridled hatred for those
that shifted the axis of his world. He actually smiled when he relived Lyda’s
death at his hand. In fact, it was one of the only things keeping him from
completely unhinging. The way he looked at it . . . at least he got one of
them.

He imagined
himself storming the Settlement, imagined himself killing them all, all of
those that wronged him and his brothers, their blood melting the snow at his
feet. But then the reality of the situation hit him, and hit harder than Pastor
Craven’s backhand. With a handful of bullets, a half-empty stomach, numb
fingers, and one tired engineer, he wasn’t going to be settling any scores.

He still didn’t
know what had become of Ol’ Randy, and his boyish imagination did little to
paint a pretty picture. Which only fueled his rage further. In the deepest
darkness of night he kept telling himself, one day. One day he’d set things
right. All he had to do was survive.

On a clear
morning, sometime early in the new year, he watched the sunrise with the couple
like he did every morning. Golden light played weird shadows on their bones,
sparkled on the spider’s web in the man’s eye socket. But this morning was
different, though, in appearance it looked like all the others. It felt
different. The rays of the sun didn’t seem so distant, there were no clouds in
the sky, not even a hint of a wisp, and for the first time in months, Bobby
felt the sun’s warmth on his cheek. He smiled. So foreign to him had the simple
act become that it hurt his face.

He wondered if
the day the couple passed on was similar. Did they feel that life? Did they
feel that energy? Did they feel it now on their brittle bones? Bobby liked to
believe they did. He liked to believe that they basked in an endless warmth.

“It is good day,
no?” Ecky said from behind him.

Bobby didn’t
turn. He nodded and closed his eyes, letting the sun’s light wash over him.

“Bobby, there is
something we need to do . . ." Ecky stumbled over the right words. He
wasn’t sure what was inside the notebook, and all he had to go by were the
words Randy spoke to him the night they fled. He hadn’t even told Bobby what
the man said to him, and he wasn’t sure he should, for they didn’t make
complete sense to him. “Bobby, before we left Randy said to protect you, that
you were special. He said,” Ecky stopped. He wasn’t a believer like the Folks.
Sure, he had faith, but it was his own, unique and personal, a mixture of
morals born from the harsh Catholicism of his childhood, and his own
discoveries, found and developed over the years.

“What did he
say, Yannek?" Bobby asked in a death whisper.

Something in
that whisper made it impossible for him to hide the truth. “He said you were the
hand of God, Bobby.”

Bobby absorbed
the words. The hand of God . . . what did Ol’ Randy mean by that?

“He left
something in his pack,” Ecky held up the notebook. “I haven’t opened it, but I
think we should take a look together. It may shed some light on your
condition.”

Bobby rubbed at
his stomach, the bite had long since healed, but the reminder of what he did
not become stayed with him.

“Open it,” Bobby
said.

In the light of
the new day, with the couple listening in, Bobby and Ecky read the words of their
friend.

0800HRS: NEAR NEVADA BORDER

I ain’t never been this far west since
the fall. Contact has been light but old Ma and Pa aren’t being straight with
me. They keep telling me that God spoke to ’em and he is guiding ’em, guiding
us west. But if he’s talkin’ he sure as shit ain’t talkin’ to me. But for now
I’ll let them do the pointing.

It’s strange . . . ever since leavin’
the Settlement they are different. Heck, I’m different when I’m not around some
of the others. Funny how you think you know people, know ’em better’en their
own mothers. That is, until you bunk up wit ’em and stand shoulder to shoulder
on a daily basis, and in that cramped space you see you didn’t know jack shit
about ’em. It was then that I realized somethin’ and I think Ma and Pa already
came to this conclusion before setting out.

We started the Settlement with our
friends, our fellow worshippers, but fact of the matter is we didn’t know these
people. We lived around them for years but we didn’t know ’em. Not to say
they’re bad folks, not at all . . . just they’re views is different, and as the
years pass they get more and more removed.

It’s like the techno cults that sprung
up when the First War really got going. When it was nasty and we were losing
ground. When we started to turn on each other. What started out as honest to
goodness religion turned into something else, something dark, the damn devil’s
work if you ask me. I feel that the same thing is happening to our folks, maybe
this little excursion will be the break I need, the break we need.

We can’t afford to turn on each other.
Not after we’ve worked so hard. But truth be told there were many that ain’t
agree with our trip this far west. Ma and Pa’s sons included. But it’s God’s
will, and God’s word . . . I just hope they’re right.

0600HRS: MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

Old habits die hard, I suppose, it’s
early. Pa Thorton is running a perimeter check, Shirley is sleeping and I
should be too, but I can’t shake that funny feeling. We passed the town we were
supposed to pilfer two days ago. I don’t know how much longer I can be led
along like a good doggie. I mean to confront them.

0600HRS: NEVADA CALIFORNIA BORDER

Craziest shit I ever seen. Dunno how to
even describe this. My damn hands are shaking, God is bat shit crazy, and we’re
all fucking cursed . . . even the animals. Cats, cats, thousands, tens of
thousands of  ’em, and the sound, the noise is breakin’ my ears. It’s like
all the domesticated cats, that didn’t wind up in some poor man’s stomach, or
starved, locked inside a home, have gathered here in this patch of fucking
sand.

The sand, the heat, it’s like Iraq all
over again. One big fucking dustbowl filled with cats and fucking sun-baked,
bone-white Creepers. Even from our vantage point I can smell ’em, both of ‘ em,
a wash of ammonia and rot like some shitbag Lambeau-sized litter box. It ain’t
hard to see what’s happened here, but it’s sure as shit hard to put out of my
mind.

Damn swath of Creepers hit the desert
headed east and mother nature met ’em head on. She dried their skin, hardened
’em and they slowed, like the cold slows ’em and then the carrion moved in. The
line of bodies of the fuckin’ undead feast stretches over to Cali and beyond
the range of my binoculars. Bugs, birds, and cats all eating, scraping a living
from the undead. Hell I can see ’em trying to move, twitchin and clawin. It’s
damn awful. Where the fuck did the cats come from?