Children Of The Mountain (Book 2): The Devil You Know (34 page)

The road finally starts to curve north and we pass a Food Lion, and then a little further on I spot the farm store, its familiar parapet walls towering over the adjacent lots. Next to it’s the veterinary clinic where I found Benjamin, what now seems like a lifetime ago. We come to a junction. A collapsed traffic light gantry lies across the intersection, almost drifted out of sight. I take us out around it but we keep to the road. Less than a mile further on I find what I’m looking for: a sign, mostly buried under a blanket of snow, that says US491 above an arrow that points right. On the other side of the road there’s another, its message hidden under a thick crust of snow and ice. Hicks stops in front of it and scrapes it off while Mags catches up. He stares at it for a moment and then turns to me.

‘Raven Rock. Is that it kid? Is that where Kane’s been holed up all these years?’

I shrug my shoulders like I don’t know, but I do. Marv told me Eden’s real name just before he died. Hicks looks at the sign some more and then shakes his head.

‘Well I’ll be damned. You have to hand it to him. I’d forgotten that place even existed. Suspect most folks had; must be fifty years since they mothballed it. No-one would have thought to look for him there.’

We turn off the highway. The road narrows until there can’t be more than two lanes of blacktop under the snow, and at times it’s hard to know if we’re still on it. I follow the telephone poles, but there are stretches where they’ve fallen or been cut and then I’m down to picking my way through the bare and blackened remains of the trees, searching for anything that might look familiar.

The light’s already slipping out of the sky. I reckon we’ve only got maybe ten more miles to go but from here most of it’s uphill. Mags is coughing behind her respirator now, pretty much all the time. The kid’s been squeezing my shoulder for a while to let me know he needs time to de-fury himself so I bend down and let him slide off while she catches up. He stumbles off to the other side of the road and crouches down in the snow.

Hicks stops beside me and points back down into the valley. I follow his finger. It takes me a while but then I spot them: four figures side by side, about a mile into that long straight stretch of road out of Hager. They can’t be more than seven or eight miles behind us. There’s little wind, nothing to cover our tracks. Truck’ll have no problem spotting where we’ve gotten off.

Mags stops beside me and unsnaps her respirator. She bends over, the palms of her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. I want to ask her if she’s okay but that’s a question without any meaning to it now so I don’t.

‘I’m sorry. We have to keep going.’

She stays like that for a while, like maybe she hasn’t heard me. But then she nods once and hauls herself upright.

One by one I tick off the landmarks I remember. An old house with lap siding and a wraparound porch where Marv and I stopped for lunch. The fire truck whose final journey somehow ended out here in the middle of nowhere. The white sign by the crossroads at a dip in the road, its once-neat black letters spelling out
The Zion Lutheran Church
, and underneath,
Little Is Much If God Is In It
.

We come to a junction, the red of a stop sign just visible above the snow and I stop to dig out a mile marker. I’m pretty sure I know the way from here but night’s falling and it would be easy to get lost. I can’t afford to lead us wrong now.

As we set off again Mags stumbles. She kneels in the snow and unsnaps the respirator, trying to catch her breath. Hicks stares back down the road into the gathering darkness then looks over at me.

‘How much further?’

I figure a mile, maybe a shade less, to the state line and another beyond that to the turnpike. From there three more to Eden.

He whistles softly through his teeth but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. The soldiers are running us down. Sometimes on the switchbacks I can see their lights now, always closer.

I bend down to Mags.

‘We need to go.’

She nods and gets to her feet. As she clips the respirator back in place the filter on one side detaches and falls silently into the snow; when I look at it I can see the steel retaining ring on that side has given out. I dig in my backpack for one of the spare cotton masks I carry while she unfastens it. As soon as she’s tied it on we set off again.

We continue on past Fort Narrows. From the road I can just make out the barracks, row after row of low brick buildings, the snow drifted almost up to the eaves of their roofs. I’m pretty sure this was where Marv was getting the things he’d stashed under the floorboards up at the farmhouse. There are things in there I could use, but I can’t stop now to go looking for them. Hicks has promised to buy us the time we need when we get to Eden. I’ll have to rely on him for that.

The road curves around and we come to a railroad crossing, the top of the dead lights just visible above the snow. I don’t know exactly when it happens because there’s no sign but shortly after that we return to Pennsylvania.

*

I
T’S WELL AFTER DARK
when we leave the turnpike and start making our way up the mountain. We’re close now but I’m not sure how much more Mags has left in her. The ’pike was mostly flat but even there she was struggling to put one snowshoe in front of another. And she’s coughing continuously, just like Marv was in the end. We don’t do frostbite checks anymore but I’ve seen the blood that flecks the cotton mask I gave her to replace the respirator. The kid’s in bad shape too. He doesn’t squeeze my shoulder now; he just grips tight and butts my neck with his head, like he’s trying to find a way in. I’m not sure setting him down would do any good, even if we had time for it. There may not be much left of him in there anymore.

We pick our way between the withered trunks that poke through the gray snow. As we pass the farmhouse where Marv and I used to store our scavenging gear Mags stumbles again. She tries to push herself back up but it’s like she’s used the last of whatever strength she’s been saving to get this far. I turn around and start back down the slope to help her up but Hicks gets there before me and extends a gloved hand. She looks at it as if she means to wave it away but then she reaches up and allows him to pull her to her feet.

We stop at what used to be the tree line and I scan the darkness. I know the portal’s somewhere up there ahead of us. It’s little more than a hole in the side of the mountain, though, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through. Even in daylight it’s hard to spot. I guess that’s what Kane must have been hoping for when he had Peck collapse the tunnel entrance.

Hicks points down the slope.

‘Don’t mean to rush you kid.’

On the turnpike four lights have appeared around the curve of the mountain. I look back up, desperately searching for our way in. I used to find it by lining myself up on the transmitter tower but it’s way too dark to see those bristling antennae now. I’m beginning to wonder whether Kane’s re-opened it. Maybe the Juvies were right all along; maybe he never meant to come after us and all this was for nothing. But then I see something: the faintest glimmer coming from a spot not more than a hundred yards further up. Hicks has spotted it too.

‘Is that it?’

I nod. He looks down the mountain at the lights making their way along the turnpike. He studies them for a moment and then turns to face me.

‘The tunnel. How long?’

‘One thousand and fifty-three paces.’

He raises an eyebrow, like it’s high time for me to start providing useful information.

‘How long will it take you to get through?’

Flat out, with fresh legs, I reckon I could clear the tunnel in a couple of minutes. I look at Mags. She’s exhausted; she won’t be running any part of it. And first I’ll need to deal with whoever’s waiting for us at the portal.

‘Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.’

He looks down the mountain at the approaching soldiers.

‘Yeah, I doubt we’ve got that. If Truck catches us in there it’ll be like shootin’ fish in a barrel.’

He unzips his parka and reaches inside for the pistol.

‘Best you get going then. I’ll hold them off here long as I can. Let me have the code for the blast door so I can follow you in.’

‘I don’t have it.’

‘What?’

He raises the gun like suddenly he might have a different target in mind, one much closer. I hold my hands up.

‘It’s okay, I know how to get us in. Peck always keeps a couple of Guardians posted at the portal.’ I point up at the spot where light’s escaping through the snow. ‘That’ll be their fire. Give me Marv’s pistol. I’ll make them open it.’

‘You and I need to put some serious work into our communication, kid.’ He says it without a trace of humor, like he’s come too far for such a threadbare plan, but he digs in his pocket and tosses me Marv’s Beretta. There’s no clip and when I pull back the slide the chamber’s empty.

‘Yeah, there ain’t no bullets. If you’d thought to tell me this was what you were planning maybe I could have brought some.’ He slides his pistol back in its holster. ‘And don’t think I’m sending you in there with an empty gun either. We’ll have to take our chances with Truck.’

I slip the Beretta into my pocket and we continue up the hill. The glow from whatever fire the Guardians have got going grows stronger as we approach. Another coughing fit grips Mags and she drops to her knees in the snow. I have to pry the kid’s arms from around my neck but once he’s off my back he calms down a little and just crouches in the snow. Hicks stands over him while I unsnap his snowshoes and then I help Mags with hers. When I’m done I slide Marv’s gun from my pocket.

‘Wait here okay? I’ll call for you when I’m ready.’

Another coughing fit hits her. When she’s done she just nods.

‘Don’t worry. This’ll all be over soon.’

I take one last look down the mountain. The flashlights have already left the turnpike and are starting up the slope.

Hicks gestures for me to go first, just like Marv used to, so I lower myself through the hole in the snow and start crawling down the rubble, trying to make as little noise as possible. This was when I’d call ahead, so whoever was on duty would know I was coming, but I won’t be doing that tonight. I inch forward through the darkness, the empty gun cold and heavy in my hand. I tell myself it’ll be okay; the Guardians at the portal didn’t used to carry anything more than billy clubs and there’d be no reason for that to have changed in the months since our escape.

Kane can’t have imagined we’d ever try and come back.

*

T
URNS OUT
I
NEEDN’T
have fretted, at least not on that score. There’s only one Guardian waiting for us as we make our way down into the tunnel. It’s Angus, and he’s fast asleep in one of the plastic chairs, snoring fitfully. There’s a sizable fire at his feet. He’s got his boots so close to it that I reckon the rubber soles might be in danger of melting.

Something’s not right, though. The Guardians didn’t ever come out to the portal by themselves. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen Angus and Hamish separated. I look around, checking I haven’t missed anything, but everything else seems normal. The step-through scanner waits where it always has. There’s an old familiar flashlight sitting on the table next to it, the light from the fire reflecting softly off its scarred metal sides.

Angus sleeps on, oblivious. His ample rump’s still wedged pretty tight in the chair, but in the firelight his face looks thinner than I remember. Without the farms they’ll have been relying on what was left in the stores, and I know better than most how little that was. I guess it’s been a lean winter in Eden.

I wait until Mags and the kid have made their way down to wake him. In different circumstances the look on his face might even have been comical. He blinks several times at the gun and then does a double take as he sees Hicks standing next to me. But it’s not until he sees Mags and Johnny that his eyes really widen. After that he’s like a steer that’s just been shown the branding iron; it’s hard to get him to focus on much else. In the end I have to get her to take the kid over into the corner just so he’ll pay attention to me.

‘Where’s Hamish?’

His eyes flick over to Mags and Johnny.

‘Inside.’

‘Why’s he not out here with you?’

‘We’re the only ones left. Peck took all the other Guardians and went looking for you.’

It’s the thing I’ve been worrying about all winter, but right now I can’t imagine better news.

‘How long have they been gone?’

Angus’s gaze returns to the kid.

‘Hey, focus. You want me to bring him back over here?’

His eyes snap back to me.

‘No, no. Don’t do that. This morning. They left this morning.’

‘Why aren’t you and Hamish with them?’

He looks down at his boots.

‘Peck said we was too outta shape.’

‘So who’s in there? Just Kane, Quartermaster and Scudder?’

He cuts another glance in the direction of Mags and Johnny and then shakes his head again.

‘Sergeant Scudder’s gone with them too.’

We’re so close now; the scanner’s right at the other end of the tunnel, only minutes away. All that’s left is to get us inside.

‘So how do you get back in? Did Kane give you the code for the blast door?’

I know even before I’m done asking that can’t be it. Kane would never trust the codes to any of the Guardians, and even if he had, this knucklehead wouldn’t be able to remember it. Angus shakes his head again, confirming my suspicions.

‘I buzz Hamish on the intercom.’

I point the gun at Angus.

‘Alright, on your feet.’

I lift the old flashlight from the table and stomp out the fire. No point in making it easy for Truck to find us. I still haven’t figured out what we’re going to do about the soldiers, but I’ll worry about that once we’re inside. Only Hamish and the blast door stand in our way now and for the first time in days I allow myself to hope. Suddenly getting Mags her scanner time seems like it might just be possible.