Dark Victory - eARC (15 page)

An Excerpt From the Journal of Randall Knox

Three months without a letter from Dad. Had a dream about him last night. Not much of a dream. Just him sitting at our kitchen table, little smile on his face, buttering a slice of toast for me. Lying that he already had breakfast; by then I knew his tricks pretty well, how he often passed his rations to me. Wearing a threadbare UMass-Boston sweatshirt, hair all gray and white, black-rimmed glasses with one stem repaired with a piece of white tape, sagging face clean-shaven. This was when we were in our old quarters, just before I moved out. Those quarters were tight, leaking roof, mice in the cabinets, had to share a bedroom with him. Got bumped there by post commander—my uncle and Dad’s brother-in-law—during a round of promotions that led to a shortage of officers’ quarters.

Woke up after this dream, in bed, in my barracks room. Feeling blue. Remembered why I had left Dad. I had gotten a lot of grief from my squad and platoon members that I was still Daddy’s boy, living at home. So I requested a transfer. Dad was shook up at the time but put a brave smile on it. Said, yeah, it was probably time for me to be out on my own. Hated to admit it, but did like being out on my own, with own room, dining with my buds and gals. Didn’t think of how dad felt with me gone, where he went out to eat without me.

Dad went out on intelligence assignments, here and there. Rhode Island. Maine. Pennsylvania. If he was deployed for a while, always managed to drop me a letter.

Three months now. If he was dead or injured, I would have gotten an official telegram.

Hard to get back to sleep after the dream. Still feel blue about leaving him all alone. But Dad never complained. Never.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The carriage is a four-passenger coach, colored shiny black, and has a small blue Ford logo on the side. A pair of Morgan horses is leading the wagon, with plastic shoes covering their hooves, and a well-dressed man with a thick black beard is holding the reins, a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun hanging from a harness at the side of his carriage. He’s dressed in clean jean pants and a light yellow barn coat, and his hands are large and hairy. He brings his Morgan pair to a halt and says, “Offer you a ride, soldiers?”

“That’d be great,” I say. “Where’s the nearest town?”

“That’d be Adams, but my farm’s closer.” He peers down from the coach. “How did you end up here, soldiers?”

Serena says, “Train wreck yesterday, a few miles back. Creeper attack.”

The wagon driver shakes his head. “Heard about that in town. Bad business. Any one of you need a doctor?”

“No,” I say. “Excuse me, but—”

“Looks like you folks could use a ride, a bath and a good meal. Interested?”

Serena speaks up, “Sir, thank you . . . thank you very much.”

I keep my mouth shut.

He smiles, gestures with one hand. “Climb up then, and your dog, too. Love dogs.”

In a matter of moments we make the necessary introductions, and the farmer is Eddie Carlson, who owns a farm on the outskirts of Adams, a city on the western end of Massachusetts. I settle in at the rear of the carriage with Buddy and Serena sitting across from me, Thor sitting next to me, tongue hanging out, enjoying the ride, looking out at the scenery. I rub his furry neck. The seats are comfortable, cushioned leather. Even Buddy seems to be enjoying himself, though it’s hard to tell from the look on his young face.

Eddie turns and says, “Pretty smooth ride, isn’t it.”

“Sure is,” Serena says.

“Should be, paid enough for it, even with new dollars,” Carlson says. “Latest Ford production model, called the Henry. Took six weeks for it to be delivered from Michigan, but it was worth the wait.”

I keep quiet as our host maneuvers his wagon to the right, onto a wide dirt driveway by a mailbox marked carlson, and he says, “Home mail delivery started last month. Pretty good sign of progress, don’t you think?”

“Sure is,” I say, but I don’t really mean it. Even with the comfortable ride I’m feeling grumpy, and it’s Serena’s fault. I crook my finger at her and she leans to me, just inches away.

“Specialist,” I say, keeping my voice low.

She tries to smile it away. “You mean Serena.”

I give her my best ticked-off-sergeant look. “Specialist, you should have known better, back there. No reason to tell him how we ended up here.”

“You don’t think he could figure it out?”

I say, “Enough. I don’t want word getting around about us being survivors from that Creeper attack.”

She leans back. “You’re being paranoid.”

“Doing my job. You should do the same.”

Up on the dirt road, the farmhouse comes into sight. It’s a comfortable-looking two-story home, painted white, with a wraparound porch. There are fenced-in pastures on both sides of the farmhouse, and a barn and another outbuilding towards the rear. A silo and a windmill are nearby. In the pastures are horses and cows. Out beyond the buildings are fields with crops, looking like corn and low vegetables, maybe potatoes. By the barn is a huge oak tree, and there’s a tiny white picket fence there, surrounding a stone.

In a few moments Carlson has unhooked his team and says, “My boys are out in the fields, getting the morning weeding done. But if you’d like, give me a few minutes, I’ll bring you into the house. How does a hot bath and lunch sound? My wife Beth puts on a good feed.”

Serena makes to speak and I say, “We really don’t want to impose, Mister Carlson. What we want is to get to Adams as soon as possible.”

Carlson grins, scratches at the back of his head. “Tell you what. You let me and the missus take care of you, and then I’ll have my boy Edgar take you to Adams, just as soon as you finish eating. How does that sound?”

I reluctantly nod. We really should be getting on our way—between the dispatch bag and passing on the news of the Creeper surviving the ambush, there’s a lot to be done—but a meal and a hot bath sounds wonderful.

“All right, Mister Carlson,” I say. “You’ve got a deal.”

“Great.”

Later we’re in the front parlor of the house, meeting Beth Carlson, a pleasant but tired-looking, heavy-set woman with white hair and horn-rimmed eyeglasses, wearing baggy jeans with patched knees and a flannel shirt with sleeves rolled up, revealing thick and muscular forearms. I let Serena and Buddy go before me to the bath, and Beth comes out, their clothes in her hands. “When you take your bath, dump your clothes out in the hallway. I’ll do laundry and have your clothes dry before you leave.”

She goes off and I gingerly sit on the edge of a couch. There are three chairs, a coffee table, two bookshelves and a dead big-screen television in a wooden console in one corner, being used as a shelf for some plants. On one of the bookcases are a number of photographs. I recognize a younger Eddie and Beth Carlson standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, with big grins on their faces, holding the hands of two little boys. There are other family portraits as well, including a black-and-white photo of a little girl, sitting on an older Beth Carlson’s lap. The photo looks like it was taken on the front porch, and not that long ago.

The room is still. I think I hear Serena talking to her brother. I wait some more, the dispatch case and my assault pack at my feet. I’m tired, my tongue is still sore from me biting it yesterday, and my back aches from sleeping on the ground.

Thor is being a good boy, lying down on the carpet, taking a snooze. I envy him. I close my eyes and lean back against the couch. Time passes. I jerk awake and Thor is still sleeping, and I see why.

It’s warm, safe, and comfortable. There are no weapons, no battlements, no moats, no netting to hide weapons and vehicles from the killer stealth satellites. This is just a quiet farmhouse in a rural county in New England. Outside there are horses and cows, quietly grazing and meandering in the fenced-in pastures. This clean house smells of soap, of baked bread, of a quiet life. The rooms back at my barracks smell of sweat, gun oil, and through it all, the dull cold scent of fear. So this is what civilian life could be.

Serena is laughing from another room. I like the sound. She comes into the parlor, rubbing her blonde hair with a towel. Her brother is walking in with her. Buddy is wearing gray slacks and a faded New York Yankees T-shirt, and he still has the bandage on his forehead. But I look at Buddy for barely a second. I’m staring at Serena. She has on sandals and her bare feet have painted toenails. Painted toenails! She has on a khaki skirt that’s cut high above her knees—one of the shortest skirts I’ve ever seen on a girl or a woman—and a yellow knit blouse that’s snug about her chest and a bit low cut. I move my head away. I shouldn’t stare.

But Serena says, “Guess I clean up well, eh, Randy?”

I clear my throat. “Very impressive, Specialist.”

“Serena, Randy. Still Serena.”

“Where did you get those clothes?”

Beth comes in, wiping her hand on a towel, grinning. “My fault, young man. I could fit this boy with some clothes from Roger, my youngest. But for Serena here . . . well, I dug deep into my closet, for clothes I had years back, when I was in college.”

She touches Serena’s shoulder, adjusting the yellow knit top, like she’s trying to get back memories of when she was so young and slim. Beth says, “God, I miss those days . . . I was at Northeastern University, in Boston, studying computer science.”

Beth pauses. I see she’s trying to gather herself. She takes a breath, smiles tightly, and says, “So here I am. No more Northeastern, no more Boston, no more computers.”

In the bathroom I strip off my clothes and gingerly open the door, and then place my clothing on the hallway floor. Back in the bathroom I still have my 9 mm Beretta and the dispatch case with a chain and handcuff at the end. One of the lessons from a drill sergeant who worked from a wheelchair back when I entered service at twelve years of age: trust but verify. I’m trusting Eddie and Beth Carlson of Adams, Massachusetts, but there’s always a need to verify that trust. Some of the older vets have told me chilling tales from the beginning of the war, when some civilians—crazed by the relentless attacks from the Creepers and convinced all was lost—turned on the military when they could, stealing their clothing, their equipment, their food, their lives.

That wasn’t going to happen to me, even now, with the war over. There’s a straight-back chair in a corner by a small window. I pull it over and shove the back under the doorknob. I put my pistol and the dispatch case on the chair, and go to the tub, surprised to see it empty. I had expected to use gray water, but Eddie must be doing well indeed. I draw a bath and sink in, the hot water causing me to take a sharp breath, and then I relax, the steam and water soaking my aching muscles. I lie back, look at my skin, see the old scars, the bruises, the scratches. I stretch some and wiggle my toes, the nails black and broken. I sit and listen and remember earlier this day, when I had gotten up before Buddy and his sister and even Thor. Knowing it was still wrong, I did it anyway, going into her purse, taking out that old copy of
Seventeen
. I slowly flipped through the pages in the early morning light, looking at the artifact from another age.

I ignored the words, had looked at the photos, of the beautiful young girls and the handsome young men. Both photos had fascinated me, of young women who were well-fed, dressed and always smiling. The young men looked happy as well, their smiles and skin perfect. They had tasty food and sweet drinks any time they wanted, electronics that gave them music and books and movies in an instant from anywhere in the world, and medical care that was so expansive it could waste resources on straightening their teeth or noses.

I hated and envied them at the same time, and when Serena had stirred some under my jacket back among the rocks, I quickly put the magazine back into her purse.

A knock on the door. “Yes?” I call out.

From behind the door Beth says, “There are clean clothes on the floor, belonging to my boy Edgar. When you get dressed, lunch will be ready. And my word, what a sweet dog you have.”

I’m not as well dressed as Buddy and Serena. The blue cotton shirt is so tight that it’s hard to button, and the pant legs are so long, I have to fold up the ends so they don’t drag across the floor. Eddie and Serena smile as I go into the dining room, but I ignore them as lunch is served. I put my pistol and the dispatch case under my chair. We’re in a formal-looking dining room with a hutch on one end, and we eat well, me and Serena and her brother, and our two hosts. Eddie explains, “My boys Edgar and Roger are out in the fields, but they’ll be back in a bit. They have to bag their own lunches. I’ll have Edgar ride you into town.”

I say, “In Adams, is there transportation out west, to New York state?”

Eddie says, “Sure is. Greyhound has a pretty good bus service, leaves on the hour.”

I want to ask more but Beth comes in and we simply have the finest meal I’ve had in a very long time: chicken stew with fresh salad, an oil dressing, and freshly baked bread with sweet butter, all washed down by cold milk that’s so thick and delicious it’s practically a meal in itself. Thor is at my feet and when I think no one is looking, I slip him pieces of chicken and bread.

When we’re nearly done, Eddie looks at me and says, “Suppose you can’t tell me why you need to go to New York.”

“That’s right,” I say.

“But a smart fella like me would think you’re probably heading to one of the new bases. Maybe even the Capitol.”

I catch Serena’s eye and I’m pleased she keeps her mouth shut. Her brother is deftly taking a piece of bread and wiping the soup bowl clean. Thor puts his head on my lap. I scratch his muzzle.

Eddie senses he’s gone too far and says, “Never you mind. Beth’ll tell you that I don’t know when to keep my damn mouth shut, that’s for sure. You ought to hear what they call me at town meeting every March. But I hope things will change for the better for you and everyone else your age. Heck, from what we’ve heard, looks like the war is finally over, with their orbital station being destroyed. At least that’s what the President says . . . though truth be told, that bitch on wheels that works for him, Tess Conroy, she’s the one who really speaks for him. But still, good news . . . but if I can speak cleanly and plainly, most days, for me it was a good thing we got attacked back on 10/10.”

Serena drops her spoon. Buddy slowly turns his head. Beth is quiet as she comes in and clears out our dishes. I try to speak, can’t find the right words, and Eddie says, “Heresy, I know. But the truth is the truth. Before 10/10, I was an assistant manager at Aubuchon Hardware in North Adams. Had this old beat-up farm, lots of land, and property taxes you wouldn’t believe. Now . . . I’m working all of this land, and some land belonging to my neighbors that I’ve leased. I own that Aubuchon store I once worked at. We farmers are the Googles and Intel of this generation, kids. This is one of the richest farms in the valley. Look at my Ford carriage if you don’t believe me.”

I try to keep my temper in check. “Good for you. Billions of others weren’t so fortunate.”

Eddie shrugs. “The price of change, the price of progress. What kind of world were we before the Creepers came? Too many people, too little food and water. Famines. Wars. Refugees. Climate change. Terrorist attacks where people were killed because of their religion. Even in the so-called civilized world, what kind of people were we? Nobody lived life anymore. It was all Twitter, Facebook, e-mails, iPods and texting. Kids rode in cars that had movie theaters in the back so their parents could ignore them. Nobody cared about the land anymore, or their neighbors, or even their country. We were spoiled children. Like it or not, the Creepers took us back to a place that Jefferson had dreamed about: an America of simple farmers and merchants. Minding our own business. Staying out of foreign affairs, foreign wars.”