CRYERS (3 page)

Trot was the first to move. He fell
to his hands and knees and crawled for his pants a few feet away. He rolled
onto his back and shoved both legs in at once, never tearing his gaze from the
lawman’s wrinkled, leather-tough face. His eyes were as gray as the sky and
filled with little forgiveness.

Lode was the first to speak. “Stay
out of this, lawman. Your part in this is done.”

The rifle was placed back down on
the floor by his odd-looking boots. He went slowly for the revolver again and
held it above his head. The circle of people gasped and spread out some. “This
here
says my part is never done. Until
the punishment has been seen through to its finish, I
will
keep a semblance of order to proceedins.”

Lode wiped a trickle of drying
blood from his chin and considered. “You overstep your authority at times,
lawman. If you weren’t so old, I’d be tempted to make an example of you as
well.”

“If I wasn’t so gawdamn dangerous,
you mean.” Lawson pointed the gun at Lode. “Ain’t no one else in Burn has the
authority or right to carry one of these.”

“No one else in this town has a gun
or brains enough to use one.’

“Includin’ you.”

The bit of Lode’s face that wasn’t
covered with brutal tattoo went just as red. “I have this.” He waved the blade
above his head. “And this!” He struck Trot with his mammoth-sized fist back
into the dirt. Trot crawled away, tears of pain streaking down his round
cheeks, his eyes never leaving the lawman.

A full minute of silence followed
as the two hardened men regarded each other. Lawson put the gun away. “Get on
with the hangin’.”

It didn’t take much longer. Elward
was a shaking, dripping mess of blood and sweat. His left hand gave out first.
He dropped another foot or two, the skin of his right hand slipped away with
it. A second of life, a weak moan, and Elward dropped.

There was a jerk and the man’s mind
exploded in white. He didn’t feel the knot give way, and he didn’t feel his
ankles snap as they struck the ground.

Lode was on him in a flash of
swinging silver. “Excellent! A hanging
and
a cutting.”

Fortunately, Elward wouldn’t feel
that either.

Trot backed away, awkwardly, on his
rear end, blubbering uncontrollably as the crowd pressed in. There were blades
in their hands—knives, hatchets, spades, and pitchforks. Nothing as big as the
sword Lode was putting to use, but just as deadly.

Lawson looked away from the carnage
towards the west edge of town beyond the tannery. The dead man’s sons were
running from Burn, out into the gray plains and bleak, gray hills yonder. He
thumbed the revolver’s trigger by instinct.

Justice would be served.

2070

2,655 meters underground

253 kilometers northwest of
Winnipeg, Manitoba

Lothair opened his eyes and saw
black. He closed them…opened them again wide, and thought he may have gone
blind. When would the gas take effect? Perhaps it already had. The deep
freezing process would begin a minute after that. He counted the seconds. When
he reached sixty, he started to wonder if he had already been frozen. Lothair
wriggled his toes and clenched his hands into fists.

Not frozen.

He waited patiently for two more
minutes. During this time, he recalled his final thoughts from…before. They
were of the Jewish children—babes through teens—he’d experimented on during the
forties. He had been feeling some form of guilt, and justified the emotion as
regret. Regret about those who had thought of him as some kind of monster. They
were wrong, and he was right. It was science. It was war.

Lothair no longer felt guilty. He
felt no regret. He pictured Estay in his mind, and felt nothing.

Odd.

After five more minutes of silent
contemplation, Lothair pulled his arm up from the side. Knuckles rubbed against
cool metal, and he found the glass window six inches above his face. He thought
he could barely make out the form of his fingers, or perhaps it was his mind
placing fingers that he knew were there. Lothair tapped on the glass and felt
the condensation of his breath.

He detested tight areas. Being
enclosed in a space smaller than the inside of a coffin should’ve had him
screaming by now. He remembered that sense of dread as the lid had been lowered
into place, of how he held his breath and reassured the logical part of his
mind that he wouldn’t have long to wait before sleep claimed him. But Lothair
wasn’t screaming. He wasn’t in the least bit worried...about anything.

Very odd.

He pressed up on the glass.
Hopeless
, he thought. Even if he were
half his age and twice his strength, there was no forcing the steel lid open
unless the sealing locks had already been released. Lothair’s cylinders were
designed to withstand any force, to pass the test of time.

Three hours later, Lothair started
to think there may have been a major power malfunction on E Level. A day after
that, he resigned himself to the possibility something catastrophic had
occurred to the Dauphin installation. The clock inside his brain continued to
count the minutes and seconds. He couldn’t turn it off. After four days, three
hours, and eleven minutes, Lothair came to the conclusion he wasn’t going to
die from dehydration. He wasn’t even thirsty. His stomach grumbled in
hunger—the only other sound to listen to besides his steady breathing.

He imagined eating pails of
ice-cream, plates of steaming lasagna and sliced pizza, roasted potatoes
smothered in butter, grilled sirloin steak and mushrooms, a fat child’s juicy
thigh, bowl after bowl of chocolate pudding—

A fat child’s juicy thigh?

Yes, he had pictured eating the
flesh of a human being. Lothair’s mouth watered. He didn’t find the thought repulsive.
He felt no shame, no horror. The only thing Lothair felt was hungry.

Better to feel something instead of nothing.

He was still starving for human
flesh a month later.

The hills weren’t real
, Willem thought,
as he trailed after his big brother. They had run, jogged, and walked in a
straight line away from Burn, through the morning and most of the afternoon,
but the hills appeared no closer than they had been all those long hours
before.

Cobe turned and called back, “Why
have you stopped? We have to keep moving.”

Willem dropped into the dirt
instead. He was tired and his throat was parched. “How come the ground is all
cracked?” His fingers ran along a break in the gray soil—almost a perfect circle
around him.

His brother returned to him. “Because
it ain’t rained for a long time.”

“How come there’s always clouds in
the sky then? How come it don’t rain more?”

Cobe shrugged, and squatted down
beside him. “Been that way always.”

“Not always. Sometimes it rains
real hard and the drops hurt. I remember that one time when it burned my skin. That
was the time the clouds came in, all cracking lightning and thunder. Then they turned
green, and the twisters came.”

“You remember that?”

Willem nodded. “Course I remember. That’s
when Daddy had to rebuild the house.” The boy fell silent as he recalled the
events from that morning, not long after he’d learned to walk. His fingers went
back to tracing the cracked earth. “The clouds are moving like that; been doing
it all day.”

“Then we should keep going.
Wouldn’t wanna be caught out in the open when the clouds turn green and the
twisters come.”

Willem started after his brother
again. A while later he was relieved to see the hills were getting closer.
After a while longer, they came to a forest, and Willem hesitated once again.

“What is it this time?” Cobe asked.

“Don’t howlers live in the woods?”

“Howlers don’t have eyes. Why would
they live in a forest where they’d keep running into trees?”

It was more sawn-off stumps than
trees, at least in the beginning. The taller trees—those that had been allowed
to grow—were set further up into the hills.

“Then maybe the rollers live here?”

“Rollers like to run fast. They need
open ground to pick up speed.”

“Then how come we didn’t see none
on the way here? You figure all the rollers are dead? You think the howlers
done ‘em in?”

“A dozen howlers couldn’t bring
down a roller.” Cobe had started picking his way through the stumps and
deadfall, working a path open that his brother could follow.

“They probably sent the lawman
after us…or worse.”

“You got nothing better to do than
worry about what or who might kill us before the sun sets? If the lawman comes
after us, I’ll kick his old ass back to Burn. And if Lode shows up, I’ll do the
same to him…big, dumb, mutant fucker.”

Willem giggled. There were probably
a million things his brother could do. Even with his gangly appearance taken
into account, Cobe was strong and agile. He was smarter than any grownup Willem
had ever known. But he couldn’t put any kind of hurt to the Lawman or Lode.
Nobody could do that. But nobody could make Willem laugh like his big brother. Scared
and thirsty as he was, Willem was grateful to be with him.

 
They climbed in silence until they made it to
the hilltop. Willem looked back down over the way they’d come. “Is that Burn?”

Cobe mopped the sweat away from his
forehead. It would be dark soon, and it would get cold. The clouds hadn’t let
the sun through all day, and they continued to roll heavily into the east,
towards the faint lines of smoke trailing up, into the evening. “That’s Burn.”
He let his finger trail along the narrow strip of shit-brown river that curled
north, where more smoke met the sky. From this distance, its source seemed a
world away to the boys. “And that’s Rudd.”

“Mom was born in Rudd.” Willem’s
smile faded a second later.

“And she was taken from there when
she was younger than you, after Burn won Rites that spring.”

“Stupid Rites. Why can’t the towns
just get along? Why do people have to fight and die every year?”

Cobe sat on a rock, and Willem
plopped down beside him in the brown grass. “Pa used to say we all came from
one town.” Willem shifted uneasily at the mention of his father in the past
tense. Cobe patted the boy’s boney knee and continued, “He said that village
grew so big and the people became so hungry and mad, the whole place went to
war. Folks with less stuff fighting folks with more. People with funny skin
fighting people with different ideas. The whole town just went crazy…killing
each other for no good reason.”

Willem nodded his head solemnly. “Until
half the gawdamn town packed up and left. I know all about that from school.
And the Rites was set up to keep things balanced.”

“Yeah, but they don’t teach you
everything in school. Them people left and formed Rudd, but the fighting kept
on going. Once the snow melted after winter, the two towns would meet halfway
and start warring all over again. Hundreds would die each spring. It went on
year after year until some older folks, from both towns, came up with the idea
to only send out a dozen people each year to fight.”

Willem looked at his brother with a
puzzled expression. “But they only send one man every year to the Rites now.
What happened?”

“Every few decades they scaled it
down more and more.”

“Were they running outta folks to
send?”

Cobe shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe
they started to forget what the fighting was all about.”

“So why don’t they just stop it
altogether?”

Another shrug. “Maybe someday they
will, but I kinda doubt it. Seems like the Rites are more about tradition these
days than fighting over anything real. Like how Ma used to make us gifts to
mark the days we were born. That’s tradition.” If Cobe’s Ma had made him
something this year, she never had the chance to give it to him. He wondered if
she had time, in those last few days, to even consider it.

The sadness on his face spread over
Willem’s. “Some kids back in Burn said Ma was a slitch. Is that true?”

Slitch
. Short for ‘slave-bitch.’ Cobe
had heard it said before, but never had any of those children said it to his
face. They wouldn’t have dared. “Ma’s grampa lost the fight that year. Usually
them folks offered up fight to the death, but his opponent let him live as long
as he agreed to give Ma up as part of the deal. You won’t have to listen to
them damn kids no more.”

Willem nodded solemnly. “How come
they make the oldest and weakest fight? Why wouldn’t they send their strongest?”

“Because, win or lose, most folks
that fight die in the end, and if they don’t, they probably wish they had.”
Cobe’s head moved slowly to the right as he took in all the flat, cracked land
between the two towns. Somewhere out there in that desolate land, hundreds, if
not thousands, of people had met willingly and fought to the death over the
centuries. “The world ain’t fair, brother, but I guess it knows how to use up
what it’s got. The oldest are the most expendable…and the weakest…well, they’re
the ones that are different. You know what I mean. People born missing arms and
legs. Ones that don’t think or talk so well. The world don’t want them neither.”

“The ones with shortcomings and
abnormalities.” Willem waved his one arm in the air.

Cobe smiled weakly. “Aren’t you
glad we left?”

Willem shuffled around on his
bottom and faced west. He was done with Burn. Their parents were dead, and now
it was just the two of them. “So, where
are
we going?” The hill spread out below them at a more gradual rate. There was
more forest on this side, but nothing much alive. The leaves on the twisted branches
beyond had long since curled up and blown away. The seasons of fall and winter
could settle in for many months, years sometimes. Spring and summer, on the
other hand, were fleeting and short, like distant dreams barely remembered to
someone as young as him. “Anyone ever come this far?”

“Sure they have. It’s where they
gather most of the wood for fires and building.”

“But has anyone ever come this far
and not turned back? Has anyone ever gone farther?”

“Not yet.” He pulled his brother up
and they started down the hill. Cobe was certain other people had gone farther.
None, as far as he knew, had ever returned. Whatever lay beyond the dead forest
and setting sun was a mystery. He could only hope those few that hadn’t
returned to Burn had chosen not to. Maybe they’d found something better. Maybe
there was more out there other than howlers and rollers. And if there wasn’t,
Cobe had a feeling they wouldn’t have to trudge on much longer to find out. One
way or the other, their miserable existence in Burn and all this unfair world had
to offer, would be left behind.

The day ended, and the clouds broke
on the horizon, revealing an orange sun already cut in half by land. Cobe and
Willem marched on out of the dead woods and back into more depressing plains,
their throats dry and their stomachs grumbling. Cobe stared directly into the
sinking orb of light. It was too dull to hurt his eyes and too far gone to
offer any warmth. When it finally winked out, leaving a narrow strip of pink
above, Cobe stopped walking. Willem bumped into him and thumped back down to the
ground.

“Why we stopping?” he asked, but no
longer really cared. He had already placed his arm under the side of his head
and curled up into a sleeping position.

“I thought we would’ve found water
by now…an old stream, a dirty sinkhole…something.”

Willem yawned and shut his eyes. “Maybe
tomorrow.”

Cobe studied the boy’s still form
in the gloom. He’d started the day crying, terrified of what lay beyond the
relative safety of town, and now, here he was, going to sleep in the middle of
it. He kicked his brother a little harder than he meant to. Willem struggled
and sat back up. “Whatcha do that for?”

“I’m sorry I brought you out here.
I should’ve thought things through better….I should’ve planned more.”

“A blanket woulda been nice…and
some water. But I ain’t scared no more. I think all them stories about howlers
and rollers were just that…dumb stories.”

Cobe debated whether or not to kick
the boy again and tell him the stories were true, but he seemed at peace now.
If something came for them in the night, he knew it would be quick. Maybe
Willem wouldn’t even wake up if they attacked fast enough.

“I smell smoke,” Willem said
sleepily.

“We’re too far from Burn to smell
smoke anymore.”

“Not from Burn. It’s comin’ from
over there.”

Cobe looked back to the west. There
was a thin wisp of black rising into the air against the pink sunset. A moment
later he saw the flicker of a small fire dancing beneath it. His heart raced.
He pulled Willem back up. “Come on.”

Willem saw it a second later. “Don’t
howlers keep fires?”

Cobe was jogging ahead. “Howlers
steal fire from others ‘cause they can’t see to light them. They keep ‘em
burning real big and for as long as possible after that.” He whispered the last
sentence. They were getting closer to the flame’s source, tucked between a
boulder and a pile of rocks sitting out in the open.

Willem caught up and clawed at his
brother. “You sure it ain’t howlers? Maybe a roller done built the fire.”

“
People
build fires, not monsters.” Cobe sniffed the air. “That’s
meat cooking. You smell it?” Willem nodded, and the boys walked towards it.
Cobe held his hand. Both were shaking from hunger and cold. “It’ll be alright….I
promise
.
”

From thirty feet away, the boulder
turned its head and made a deep snorting sound at the boys. Cobe and Willem
stopped in their tracks; hunger, cold, thirst, howlers, and rollers all
forgotten. There was a click as the Lawman stepped around his horse and pointed
his rifle at their faces.