Death Springs Eternal: The Rift Book III (18 page)

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The man formerly known as Terrance Graham sat alone in his office in the
Richmond
City Hall
, a pad of paper sitting listlessly in his lap. He swiveled in his chair and listened to the sounds of construction going on outside. The rebuilding was underway. The torched walls of the Hall itself were almost finished, and they were just getting started on the surrounding buildings. Things were progressing quickly, much to his liking. The legendary Alexander would be proud.

This thought brought about contemplations of his arrival to the city once more, and he frowned. For all his big ideas, for all his us-against-the-world-united-we-stand preaching, he knew his hegemony over the rank and file was tenuous, at best. He was lucky that the overtaking of the city and the casualties they encountered hadn’t turned the people against him. He knew he had Handley, Porcello, Morales, and Ngyn to thank for that, as they’d informed their segments of the population that the sacrifices were necessary, but he didn’t like it. He’d thrown all his eggs into the fanatics’ baskets. If he didn’t keep his end of the bargain, his reign would end as quickly as it had begun.
Jackson
’s cargo only threw yet another monkey wrench into the equation. He had to deal with the undesirables swiftly and decisively, otherwise the regular folks would start whispering. Regular folks always did. They didn’t trust authority, just like seemingly every other American of the new age. And that caused another fear to grow within him, for if those whispers led to anyone finding out who he really was, if anyone discovered him to be an imposter…

“Shut up,” he muttered, throwing his hands over his face.
“Enough of this.”

He stood up, shut the blinds, and then returned to his seat. His fingers twisted the tiny metal knob on his desk lamp, and a soft yellow glow emanated from the bulb.
Electricity.
Buster Siregar and the other engineers had apparently been successful in getting the old power plant up and running—at least for the central grid.
Should have power to at least half the city in about two weeks
, Buster had told him,
so long as the plants haven’t sustained too much damage.
The man was true to his word.

This should have made Bathgate feel better, but it didn’t. Still his paranoia crept up on him, making his hands shake. Closing his eyes, he recited the names of the presidents in order. This had always calmed him in the past, but it wasn’t working this time. So he did the next best thing, picking up his pencil and honing a skill he’d been practicing for the last twenty years but had never perfected.

He sketched.

His initial thought was to draw Maggie the way she had been when they first met, with her thin, aristocratic nose and wavy brown hair. The pencil’s tip raced across the paper, forming the slight curve of the cheek, the plumpness of the lips, the ridges above the eyes. He worked ferociously, not thinking about what he was doing or where the picture was going, allowing his instinct for the art to take over. His fears and doubts dropped away, leaving only him and the image he was creating in its wake. He’d never felt this way before, never been stricken with such inspiration that nothing else in the world mattered. It was exhilarating.

The pencil rubbed down to its nub and he re-sharpened it. His desk lamp dimmed, flickered, then went out—
probably a power surge…Buster better get that taken care of
, a distant section of his conscience said. Bathgate wasn’t listening to it. He just kept his head
down,
his fingers squeezed around the narrow shaft through which his creativity flowed, his eyes watching the lines form a distinct image, even in the darkness.

Even when the power came back up, he paid it no mind. His thoughts swirled, caught in the trappings of familiarity, as images of a woman very much
not
his Maggie vibrated across his vision. When the sketch was complete and he dutifully erased the spare lines, he tore open his drawer of art supplies, took out a tray of watercolors, and, using his mug of water, began to fill in the blanks of the picture.

He added red with a touch of white for the hair, scarlet for the lips, flesh with the lightest dab of pink, and eyes of green. When at last he filled in the black of the woman’s pupils he sat back, breathing heavily. The face staring back at him, a face fashioned with his very hand, grinned and winked. His heart raced and he felt his nethers harden.

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen…at least that’s what he told himself. But no, that wasn’t true. He
had
seen that face before. In his youth, in the days before he met Maggie, he would dream of her. Those dreams were always fiery and filled with sexual frenzy, and there had been many a morning when a young Terrance Graham would have to remove and hide his sticky underwear before his mother found them and chastised him. He hadn’t thought of that face, of those dimpled cheeks and wide hips and small, perky breasts, in a
very
long time. He assumed his marriage, and the love he felt for his wife, had more than a little to do with that.

But now his wife, his Maggie, was gone, and the fantasy returned. Only it didn’t feel right. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, allowing his stiffness to loosen while he listened to the sound of the building crews outside. His thoughts wandered, and in that moment, when a tingling sensation crept from his pelvis to his ribcage, he came to a realization. His eyes snapped open and he stared at the picture.

She
wasn’t
a fantasy. She was real. He could feel it in his bones.

Someone rapped on the door, and the general glanced up. It squeaked open and one corner of a handlebar mustache emerged, followed by a single, bloodshot eye.

“Come in, Greg,” he said.

Pitts opened the door the rest of the way—cautiously, as if he was afraid it might explode if he pushed it too hard—and stepped into the room. He appeared pensive, mouth twisting while his bottom teeth chewed on the hairs of his mustache. It was a look Bathgate had seen on the man’s face far too often over the last few weeks. His friend was losing it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Pitts shoved his hands in the pockets of his chaps and said, quietly, “
Jackson
will be here tomorrow…sir.” He held out his walkie-talkie, which Bathgate took.

“Thank you, Greg. Sit down, old friend.”

This seemed to calm Pitts down a bit. When he lowered his large frame into the leather chair opposite the general’s desk, the rush of air from the cushion mirrored the one that left his mouth. His pallor brightened and he managed a grin.

“So, whatchu been doing?” he asked.

Bathgate glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of him. The paint was still drying, and the glimmering wetness made the image seem that much more sensual. He sighed and, pressing down only on the corners, slid the picture across his desk.

“I was drawing,” he said.

Pitts mirrored the general’s movements, carefully twisting the rectangle around. A whistle escaped his lips. “Wow,” he said. “That’s damn good. You did this all on your own?”

Bathgate nodded.

“Nice.” Pitts glanced up with a quizzical look in his eyes. “So, who is she?
An old friend?”

“Yes.”

Pitts frowned.
“She dead?”

At this, Bathgate chuckled. “No she isn’t, Greg. Not in the slightest.”

CHAPTER 7

OF LOVERS, PAST AND PRESENT

Her head smacked something hard, and Kyra’s eyes popped open. She yelped as blurred images rushed past her vision, giant brown-and-green monoliths that melded into a wall of tentacles and flesh. Weight pressed against her knee, making her yelp once more.

“Yo, Kye,” Josh’s voice said. “What’s the matter?”

She slowly turned her head and saw him, glancing intermittently at her and the road ahead, with one hand on the wheel, the other on her knee. Her heart pounded in her ears and she pursed her lips, trying to calm herself down.
Only a nightmare
, she thought. She shook her head—she couldn’t remember the particulars of the dream, just the sensation of dread that overcame her. Glancing to the right again, she spotted a smear of grease on the passenger window, presumably from when her forehead smacked against it.

“Sorry,” Josh said as she stared at the blemish. “Hit a nasty pothole.”

Kyra rubbed the sore spot on her noggin. “It’s okay,” she muttered.

More hands touched her, this time from the back seat. She peered over her shoulder and saw Jessica’s face, brown eyes considering her with more concern than she thought she deserved. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yup, I’m fine.
Just a nightmare.”

Just a nightmare
.
That phrase didn’t even begin to tell the whole story. Every time she fell asleep it ended the same—with her waking in a sweat, panic numbing her spine. It had been going on for weeks. Just like now, she could barely remember anything concrete about what she experienced in her subconscious. Instead, in those moments she was left to live with a constant, gut-wrenching sense of claustrophobia and panic.

Her hands fell to her ample stomach. There was a hard spot on the surface, bulging out like a pimple made of stone. Her fingers traced the outline of the protuberance, wondering if it was a foot or a knee. The lump then shifted, and she felt an immense pressure on her bladder.

“Oh shit,” she muttered. “Pull over.”

Josh did so, steering the SUV to the shoulder. She was out the door before the car stopped moving, yanking down her pants and peeing on the side of the road. Leaning her head against the open passenger door, she grunted in irritation. At least she wasn’t thinking about her fear anymore.
If there’s one thing pregnancy’s good for, it’s forgetting about the little things.

When she finished, she yanked up her pants, ignoring the few splashes of urine dampening her crotch, and climbed back into the car. Jessica glanced at her with an expression that was half grimace, half smirk, holding up an old towel to shield Andy, Francis, Meghan, and the other two children in the car from the sight of her “going about her business.”
Thank God.
Kyra muttered her gratitude and leaned back in her seat, wishing she could recline it a little more. The swell of her belly made sitting in the damn car for long stretches nearly unbearable.

“How’s the baby?” asked Josh.

Kyra’s eyes turned to him, and she rolled them. “She’s fine.”

With a slight chuckle, Josh turned his gaze back to the road and hit the gas. He stuck his hand out the window, signaling for the car behind them to follow. Kyra checked the rearview mirror, saw the black hood and wide headlights of the trailing automobile, and muttered, “Oh, shit.”

Josh slapped her knee and said, “Eh, don’t worry ’bout it
none
.”

“Why not?”

“Mary did the same thing. And with those hips, I bet everyone was glad to have someone else to look at.”

Kyra chuckled, and finally a sense of lightness filled her. That chuckle became a gentle laugh, then a full-out guffaw. Josh and Jessica laughed along with her, and the children, after looking at each other like their adult chaperones had gone insane, eventually joined in as well. The interior of the SUV became a parade of raucous, carefree laughter, and for the first time that day, Kyra smiled.

Those smiles had been coming with far more frequency—with the exception of her terrifying, unremembered nightmares, of course. For the last twelve days, since Josh made the decision to leave
Kingston
(a verdict answered with a resounding
yes
by all but old Emily), each day brought about more and more good cheer. Josh seemed to be back to his old self, cracking inappropriate jokes, playing games with the
boys,
and irritating a rather cranky
Luanda
every chance he could. There were no more wandering dead blocking their path, no more eerie sounds of moaning filling their evenings. Birds and crickets chirped, and the wind brought with it the sickly sweet scent of mud and pollen. Even the distant howl of coyotes, which they heard occasionally, seemed welcome, even though Josh cringed and became morose every time. It was as if nature was waking up from a long, fitful, terrifying sleep and wishing itself to be happy again.

Yet there was something nagging at her, something that prevented her from being
truly
happy, and it wasn’t only her nightly terrors. She also felt a strange sense of foreboding in the air, a hazy dark cloud of worry that drifted into her every thought, every action. It was only when she was alone, with her hands on her belly and thinking about the child within her that the sinister ambiance lifted. It seemed that the child helped to heal her soul, much like it had her wounded insides so many months ago.

Once more Josh’s hand reached across the space between them, only this time he placed it over her belly. “Why do you always call it a she?” he asked.

She grinned. “I told you, it feels like a girl.”

“That so?
Just a feeling?”

“That’s all she needs,” piped in Jessica. “Mother’s intuition is better than any sonogram.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” said Kyra, squeezing her lover’s hand. “Sometimes, there’re things we just
know.
”

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They were outside
Allentown
,
Pennsylvania
, when the sun began to set. As always, Josh stuck to the side streets running parallel to the highway—first
I-
84, then Route 476. His goal was to connect with I-95 as far south as possible, but the journey was becoming more than a little irritating. Even with the reduced menace of zombies and crazy, deformed people, there were still constant hazards facing them, in the form of sudden obstructions or disease spread by the bounty of rotting corpses.

As he drove through the suburb, once more the eerie feeling of being watched came upon him. At one point he swore he saw a candle flicker, then die, in an upstairs window of one of the empty homes. He craned his neck as he drove, trying to see through the murky dimness, and there they were, two silhouettes, dashing out of sight. He wanted to pull the SUV into the driveway, run up to the door, and offer assistance, but he didn’t.
They’re probably scared shitless of us
.
Either that, or hostile.

Swallowing that thought, he drove onward.

The suburb faded away, replaced by acres of farmland. On the left appeared a giant farmhouse, unkempt, with broken windows and shingles missing off the roof, but otherwise untouched by conflict. He turned onto the rocky path and made his way toward it. With the last rays of sunlight forming a miasma of crimson on the clouds above, the domicile looked like it belonged in a horror movie.

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“What?” asked
Kyra.

“Nothing.
Talking to myself.”

He stepped out of the car, gestured for
Luanda
, who drove the trailing vehicle, to stay put for a second, and moseyed up to the front stoop. He clicked on his spotlight—an item on permanent loan from the Dick’s in Binghamton—and shone its giant funnel of light through the empty space where the picture window used to be. The room was empty but for the cobwebs and dust that covered most everything. Shining the light down, he noticed the hardwood floors were warped and rotting, and black mold had begun to spread. He shrugged and opened the front door. They could deal with some mold and dampness for one night. It wasn’t like they were going to make their home here.

After scouting the rest of the house and finding it deserted, Josh took the SUVs around back, hiding them in one of the empty barns. He then barred the door, and the tired group gathered what few supplies they’d need for the evening and headed inside.

Jessica rounded up all the children to get them ready for bed while Emily and Mary cooked kidney beans and corned beef hash on a gas-powered Hibachi. Yvette, Josh, and Kyra went about removing the moldy sheets and blankets from the beds in each of the six bedrooms, tossing them in garbage bags and hurling the bags out the upstairs windows.
Luanda
didn’t help at all, instead lounging in the living room, facing that smashed picture window and staring out at the starry night sky.

Josh was worried about the woman. Yes he pestered
her,
yes he tried to make her react harshly at times, but truth be told he’d grown to rather like her. She was strong and opinionated, and his biggest ally—when she agreed with him, that is. But she’d started to distance herself from the rest of the group, spending too much time alone, moping. She didn’t even retort anymore when he made a snide comment.

“What you think’s up?” he whispered while they went about the business of cleaning the bedrooms. “With Lu, I mean.”

Kyra shrugged and said nothing, but Yvette spoke up, her mousy voice almost blending in with the chirping of the crickets.

“She misses her husband,” she said. “I think she’s just lonely.”

“She
tell
you that?” asked Josh.

Yvette shook her head.

“Then how do you know for sure? I should go talk to her.”

Kyra’s hand fell on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Like I told you in the car, sometimes there’re things we just know.”

Josh accepted that answer, but only grudgingly so.
I’ll talk to her tomorrow
, he thought. He owed her—and Sophia, and his parents, and everyone else he’d abandoned—at least that much.

The group ate dinner in silence, the only sounds they made being the clank of forks and spoons on the metal camping pots. When everyone had eaten their fill (which wasn’t much—the months of lean meals had caused everyone’s appetite to diminish), they went about cleaning up the mess in a plastic basin filled with bottled water and baking soda. After that, Jessica led the charge in putting the children to bed. Zachary had fallen asleep on the floor in the living room. Josh was about to let him be, but then he remembered the black mold that covered the area by the windows and thought better of it. He scooped up the little one and carried him upstairs, lingering outside the doorway as Jess read to Meghan Stoddard and the other three girls; Jackie, Sharon, and Bliss. The glow of her LED book light encircled them like a blue cocoon. It seemed nothing could touch them in that moment—not the state of the world, not the pain of their everyday lives, not the uncertainty of their futures. As Jessica smiled and the girls giggled, they were reduced—or elevated—to their simplest forms. They were purely human, dealing the way humans do, finding joy in even the direst of circumstances…through laughter, respect, and a connection to others.

Little Zachary sniffled and nuzzled his nose into Josh’s neck. He placed his palm on the sleeping child’s head, bathing in the warmth his small body radiated. Jessica glanced up, spotted him, and passed him a smile.
Thank you
, she mouthed. Josh nodded in reply, and then walked away, placing the sleeping child on the bed in the next room. He could still hear the innocent sound of giggling down the hall.