Authors: Daniel Powell
The smile still in place, Coraline
looked past him. She watched the waning storm. The Three Sisters Range had
become visible through the rainfall, their snow-capped peaks like the head and
shoulders of some distant mountain god.
An airplane passed overhead and Ben
looked skyward.
“Where do you think they’ll send you
when it’s time to leave?”
“New York City, I suppose,” she replied
matter-of-factly. “Someone needs to give the world pretty clothes. It might as
well be me.”
Ben thought about how she’d decorated
her kit, instilling beauty in such an ugly object. “That would be nice. You’d
do a great job, Corr.”
“Thanks. How about you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Someplace
warm, I hope. I love Oregon, but I’d like to see the sun more often. I’d like
to be near the ocean.”
“Miami.”
“Miami,” Ben said, trying the word on
for size. “Miami.”
The rain dwindled and finally stopped
altogether. Ben picked up the botany journal, paging forward to the next entry.
“
Coprinopsis
atramentaria,” he said, sounding it out. “Also called the ‘Inky Cap.’ It’s a
mushroom. Here’s a picture.” He held the journal out to her, but she ignored
it.
“Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
she said. There was something in her eyes—something that thrilled him at the
same time that it frightened him. “You never got your answer, Ben.”
“My answer?”
“About the difference between a woman
and a girl.” She darted forward and gently kissed him at the corner of his
mouth. Her lips, soft and full, lingered there for a long moment, and then she
turned her head and grinned at him. “The difference is a girl won’t do that.”
She stood and, without another word,
walked out into the ravine and started up the hill. Stunned, Ben touched the
spot where she had kissed him. A smile spread slowly on his face.
“Hey, Corr!” he called. “Hey, wait up!”
He scrambled after her and they spent
the rest of the afternoon searching the hillside for mushrooms.
~
“Why?”
she said. Her voice sliced through the memories, yanking him hard from the
forests of Central Oregon and back to the miracle farm. “Why on earth did you
put yourself through this, Ben?”
He swallowed. Damn, he was thirsty and
his head throbbed! It was still dark out, but he sensed dawn just around the
corner.
“I had to see it,” he replied. “I just…I
had to, Alice.”
She nodded and took his hand. “I’m so
sorry, Ben. You were…you were calling out for her.”
He wiped his eyes and leaned forward,
his forehead nearly touching hers. “I was saying goodbye. I was letting go, as
best I could.”
Alice nodded. She pulled him into an
embrace. “Let’s turn this off and get you to bed. You’ve still got a few hours of
sleep left.”
He hugged her back and followed her
across the room, where she briefly paused to stoop down and unplug the
television on their way to the bedroom.
PART II
THE STOCKADES OF HELL
It
felt like they’d been walking for ages, but it hadn’t been much more than a few
months. Roan had sent the trio out on recon in the final weeks of summer; on
the day they stumbled across the old farmhouse, it had to be February—maybe
even later than that.
They’d kept the house under surveillance
for the better part of a week, taking turns watching the curious little clan
that kept it going from a distance. It was still damned cold out, but the days
were warming and these people had been spending a bit more time each day in the
barn and out on the grounds.
The men sat around a campfire deep in
the woods, roasting a squirrel they’d snared. They were coated with ash and
radiation scarring—three dim, emaciated remnants of humanity.
“That little mutie’s been coming out a
bit more lately. She played on the swings for at least an hour this morning,”
Jones said. Roan had put him in charge, and he liked the responsibility. What
he’d like even more would be a decent place to lay his head when they got back
to Atlanta. He was disgusted with the cold. It had gotten into his bones, and
he wasn’t so sure he’d ever be warm again.
These people were making it work. Why couldn’t
he have a place?
“Aye. She has,” Petey rasped in
agreement. If he took offense to the term “mutie,” he didn’t let it show. He
had a medium build, and what was left of his hair grew in scrabbly patches on
his scarred scalp. The burns had claimed his right eye and he looked like an
extra in an old sci-fi film. He’d lost his right arm at the shoulder (the Reset
diet—better than Weight Watchers!), and he shuffled about with a limp. “She’s
got spirit, that’s for sure.”
Crank just leveled a vacant stare at the
fire. The big man might speak two dozen words in a given day, with very few of
those of the polysyllabic variety. 250 pounds of muscle, he scared Jones a
little. Roan liked his soldiers mean and desperate, so he had an abiding love
for Crank. The berserker seemed to be named for his drug of choice. How he
stayed in a decent supply of the stuff was beyond Jones, but Crank seemed wired
most of the time.
“So what’s the play, Jonesy?” Petey
said.
Jones pulled a strip of meet from the
squirrel’s thigh. He handed it to crank, who stuffed it into his mouth without
blinking. “I want a closer look. The woman’s prime stock. There’s no denying
that. I know we’ve been out here on mission for a long time, boys, but it might
not be worth it to test them. That fellow’s fit, and I’ve seen him out hunting.
I imagine they’ve got plenty of guns. I’m inclined to live and let live, unless
there’s something…I don’t know, unless there’s something really
special
about that group. A fine building like that is a tad peculiar, but we’ve seen
‘em before. It’s not like it’s that out of the ordinary.
“I’ll creep in close tonight. You two stick
tight. I’ll see what I can, and if they’re just scarping by as much as the rest
of us, then we’ll keep moving. No sense in getting shot over it.”
“I want her,” Crank grunted. He locked
eyes with Jones, his pupils almost nonexistent.
“Let me take a look first,” Jones
replied. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Crank spat in the fire. He held Jones’s eyes
another instant, clearly angry, then sauntered off into the woods to piss on a
tree.
“Charming,” Petey said. He wore a
cheerless smile.
Jones handed him what was left of the
impaled squirrel, nodding his agreement. “Who knows, Petey? Maybe they’re no
different than the rest of us and there’s nothing to salvage here. I don’t want
to pick a fight if we don’t have to.”
“Live and let live, eh boss? Roan
wouldn’t like that.”
“Roan’s not here, is he Petey? We’re
scouts, so that’s what we’ll do. I’ll take a good look tonight, and we’ll just go
from there.” He stood and went to his tent. “In the meantime, I’m taking a nap.
Wake me if I’m still out at sundown.”
“Sure enough,” the scarred man replied.
He tore a hunk of charred squirrel from the stick and chewed thoughtfully,
turning his gaze to the blighted forest.
~
Jones
stole through the night. He moved quickly on legs that had once carried him
through dozens of marathons. The thought made him grin. Jesus Christ—he’d once
run insane distances for
fun
!
He’d been a corporate executive before
the Reset. He’d had a family he loved dearly—a nice home and a good life. He
shook his head, banishing the memories. Distractions were bad; often, they were
deadly.
The farmhouse looked deserted at night.
These people did a good job of locking up tight. He darted around the barn and
into the courtyard, exposed for an instant in the moonlight. If they were
watching, he’d be dead.
He sprinted for the nearest cover and
collapsed against the side of the house, hidden behind the padlocked entrance
to the root cellar.
It took a minute for him to catch his
breath. In that time, he heard a curious thing.
They were singing.
He recognized the song. God, how many
years since he’d last heard it?
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the
stream…
They were all singing, but he heard the
girl’s voice above the others’ and the sound made his heart ache. How he missed
his little ones! He’d been on a business trip in Japan when things fell apart,
and when he’d finally made it back to the United States, Charlotte (and most of
the rest of North Carolina, for that matter) was gone. So was Denise, and so
were the girls—Amy and little Karen. He’d left on a Thursday morning to tour
the company’s foreign processing plants, and that was it.
He had never seen his family again.
His daughters used to sing to him. They
had voices just like the little mutie.
He crept around to the front porch and approached
the front window as quiet as a sigh. A heavy shade blocked most of his view,
but there were a few centimeters of bright light peeking beneath it, and he
squinted into the room. At least a dozen candles blazed there.
They had gathered together. If there
were more folks inside the home, they’d never stepped outside in the week
they’d been watching the house. Jones felt safe in assuming it was just the
five of them.
God, they looked like a family.
The older couple held hands on the
couch, the little girl on the woman’s lap. The younger couple occupied a pair
of chairs. They started a different song, another children’s tune, and Jones
swallowed thickly.
There was no reason to bother these
people.
He was about to leave when they finished
the song. “Time for my special treat!” the little girl shouted, arms raised in
jubilation. This coaxed laughs from the adults, and then the old man did a very
peculiar thing.
He plucked
an apple
from the
pocket of his vest, shined it on his sleeve and handed it to the little girl.
“Holy shit!” Jones whispered. This
changed everything. These people had food. Finding food, especially
renewable
food, was the -primary reason they were out on recon in the first place.
He touched the pistol in the holster on
his hip and turned his attention back to the interior of the house.
The little girl polished off the apple
quickly, and Jones felt a jab of hunger deep in his gut. How many years since
he’d had fresh fruit? Jesus, it seemed like forever.
They sang another song and then they all
stood. Hugs were exchanged, and it looked like they were turning in for the
night.
That was good. Maybe he could go back to
the root cellar and jimmy the lock. If he could find a couple of apples, he’d
bring them straight back to Roan. It would surely get him his own place and,
when the time was right, they could come back and pay these folks a visit. Find
out the secret behind their good fortune.
Maybe there wouldn’t have to be any
bloodshed at all.
He almost ran smack into Crank on his
way around the side of the house. The big man’s face was twisted into a scowl.
Even in the scant moonlight, Jones understood he was amped.
“What are you doing, Crank? You
disobeyed a direct order!”
“I’m here for
her
,” he replied.
Jones heard the man’s jaw muscles creaking as he fumed there. He had a knife, his
serrated hunting blade, in his right hand.
A hundred yards distant, Petey limped as
quickly as he could around the side of the barn.
“Shit,” Jones said. “Come on, you two!
We had a plan!”
“Fuck the plan,” Crank said. He shoved
Jones out of the way and strode around the side of the house.
Jones heard his heavy steps on the
porch, heard the concussion of his size fourteen boots as he kicked the front
door off its hinges.
“Boss!” Petey panted. “Boss, Crank’s
snapped! He’s been all worked up, ever since you left!”
Shouts from inside. Cries and shrieks of
surprise and pain.
God, the little girl was screaming.
“What do we do?” Petey said.
Jones wiped his eyes. “We gotta go in,
Pete. Come hell or high water, this is going down right now.” He pulled the
pistol from his holster and Petey followed suit.
“But who are we shooting, Boss? Crank
doesn’t seem like he’s in his right mind anymore.”
Jones nodded. “I agree, but let’s see
how this is playing out. Stick close and watch my back. We’ll do what needs
doing when we sort it out.”
There was a tremendous shattering of
glass and then they were around the side of the house and up the stairs, and
into a hell of their own
creation.
THIRTY-TWO
Ben
was just a few pages into his book when he heard the door come crashing off its
hinges. He sprang out of bed and had the shotgun in hand quicker than a
rattlesnake could strike.
“Get Lucy and go out the window, Alice.
I’ll meet you out at the power station. I’m going to kill ‘em first and then
I’ll see to Arthur and Gwen.”
Alice yanked her jeans on and crammed
her feet into her boots. “Okay. Be safe, Ben.”
They’d practiced for this. They’d made
plans for this very night. Still, it happened so quickly and then she was gone
and he heard her sprinting down the hallway even as the Lawtons were screaming
below.
Ben climbed out the window and onto the
little balcony outside their bedroom window. He threw the gun down and, in two
lurching steps, climbed down the trellis they’d fortified with boards from the
barn. He grabbed the gun and ran around to the front of the house, hoping to
flank them.
He’d just made it around the corner when
the one-armed mutie snapped a shot at him. It slammed into the wood ten inches
from his head and he felt a volley of splinters take a bite out of his cheek.
He let the shotgun roar and felt a sick sense of pleasure when the little man
flew sideways on the porch.
Criminy, he’d been blown clear out of
his shoes. One solitary boot remained there on the porch. Ben ran up the stairs
just as another of the bastards disappeared inside. He stopped for an instant
to kick the dropped handgun off the porch and saw the frail mutie bubbling
blood as he struggled for a breath. He shuddered and went still, and the porch
filled with the stench of his evacuated bowels.
Alice screamed and Ben ducked inside.
Gwen was sprawled there, face down on the living room carpet.
She wasn’t moving, and Arthur knelt near
her, mumbling to her, too scared to touch her. A crimson pool slowly spread
over the back of her nightgown.
There was another tremendous cry—this
time a man’s voice—in the kitchen, and Ben knelt near Gwen. He stripped his
tee-shirt off and pressed it to the wound. “Help me!” he said.
Together, they rolled her over, the
shirt in place over her wound. Her eyes were wide in shock. Her mouth opened
and closed, a trickle of blood sliding down her cheek.
“Lucy,” she whispered. “Where’s…Lucy?”
“Gwen!” Arthur said, weeping. “Gwen,
stay with me, girl! We’re going to help you!”
“Lucy,” she repeated.
The man screamed again, only this time
it was cut off partway through.
“Ben!” Alice screamed. “Ben, hurry! He’s
got her! He’s got Lucy!”
“Keep pressure on this, Arthur. Stop the
bleeding,” he said. He doubted Gwen would make it, but his friend need hope. He
squeezed her hand. “Hang on, Gwen. We’ll take care of this.”
“Lucy,” she gasped. “Get…
Lucy
.”
Ben ran into the kitchen, shotgun ready.
There was a dead man on the floor. He
had a fork in his eye, and his throat had been slashed. There was a pistol on
the floor a few feet from his outstretched hand.
Alice leaned against the counter, they
heavy kitchen knife in hand. She was hysterical and bleeding from an ugly head
wound.
The back door was wide open.
“He took her,” she sobbed, pointing a
shaking finger at the darkness outside. “He took our little girl, Ben.”
Ben pulled her close. With a shaking
hand, he tried to wipe the blood from her cheek. It was coming fast, sliding
down her face and dripping from her jaw. He helped her into a seat at the table
and rummaged around for a dish towel, which she clamped to the wound.
“Go,” she said. “You can still catch
him.”
“Alice, I think…”
“Go!” she shrieked, pointing again at
the door. “There’s no time!”
He didn’t have his shoes and he wore
only a pair of threadbare sweatpants, but he went. He bounded over the three
steps and across the courtyard, scanning the horizon for Lucy and her abductor.
There was something out there.
A shadowed mass sprinted for the woods.
Ben felt gravel tear into the soles of his feet. He felt the cold biting at him,
but he gave it everything he had. He tore into the fields, the frozen mixture
of ash and soil harsh beneath his feet.
“Lucy!” he shouted. The shadow paused
for a moment, and he thought he could just hear her cry for him. “Lucy, I’m
coming!”
The shadow picked up the pace. Shit, he
wasn’t going to make it. Ben dug deep and found another gear. He was flying
though the field, with at least half a mile to make up.
Shit.
The shadow slipped into the woods and
Ben lost it.
Five minutes later, a searing pain in
his side, he pulled up at the edge of the woods. “Lucy!” he called.
“Leeeew—seee!”
There was nothing. Save the wind in the
trees, there was nothing but silence among those frozen Georgia pines
.