Five Days Dead (12 page)

Quinlan and his children had turned left on a side road and were met by more Wrynd.  He gave up on his pulse rifle and drew the sword Harley had given him, which Harley thought was overall an excellent move for the young man. At least with the sword in his hands he could be of some help. With the pulse rifle all he was doing, was making noise.

Harley stepped out of his truck, still firing as Wrynd continued to rush toward them and out of the corner of his eye he saw double, triple the number he now faced rushing up from behind. He was good; he had no doubt of that and history had proven him right on more than one occasion. But he wasn’t that good. There was no way out for all of them and quite possibly no way out for any of them.

Quinlan wielded the sword with more skill than Harley would have imagined and he remembered the fighting prowess of Vania, how easily she had taken down Victor. He wondered just who these people were. But there was no time for answers, barely time to point and shoot.

Coming from the east on Airport Road was another vehicle, a battered four-door sedan, and it pulled to a stop 50 feet from Harley’s truck. A little old man and a little old woman stepped out of the car and motioned for Quinlan and the children to hurry their way. The couple looked ancient; sticks and bones encased in leathery skin. He had seen them before, riding in their antique automobile, smiling their crazy smiles. He knew these people. They lived in an apple orchard, and they were mad. Completely mad. Anyone who smiled as much as they smiled had to be completely insane.

The old woman had long gray hair pulled behind her and tied in a knot and her eyes sparkled green as she begged the children to come her way. She was smiling the sweetest smile Harley had ever seen and in that moment he wanted to go to her as well because he was sure if he could just reach her that everything would be okay, that everything that had been so wrong in his life would suddenly be made right. Her smile tugged at a memory and he wanted to relive it, but then a Wrynd slammed into him and almost threw the gun from his hand and he was forced to kick it away and concentrate on his gun and his hand and cutting down as many of them as he could.

There were more Wrynd between Harley and Quinlan then there had been before and Quinlan put down his daughter and pushed her and Noah toward the old couple in the sedan as he hacked at another Wrynd. Noah dragged the pulse rifle behind him as he grabbed his little sister by the hand and rushed toward the car.

The zombies were coming in waves now and as Harley fired with one hand and hit with another, he knew that even with the old couple’s arrival there was no chance for Quinlan and his children. If he used every skill he possessed, fired with more precision than he ever had in his life, he just might be able to slip out of this noose, but for them there just wasn’t a chance.

Then he caught a motion from the old man, a slight flick of the wrist, a twist of the head, a look in the eye and for a moment Harley could not even pull the trigger on his blaster. He was mesmerized. 

There was a tree on the side of the road, a great cottonwood with branches old and twisted and thick as a man’s body. As the Wrynd rushed toward Harley and Quinlan, the tree swept out with those branches and a dozen zombies were sent sailing through the air. Harley narrowed his brow and looked at the old man who smiled at him and extended his right arm, palm up. A wind he could not feel scooped up the zombies and flung them away. Harley gaped.

Behind him, three Wrynd regained their feet and rushed toward him and the branches of the cottonwood tree reached towards them, scooped them up and tossed them down the roadway.  They landed in a heap and lay still.

“What the…”

Quinlan and the children dove into the back seat of the couple’s car and the old woman climbed back inside.

The old man looked across at him and nodded and then he winked at Harley and climbed in the car. They raced east.

Harley stood, not quite believing what he had just seen, his sidearm dangling uselessly in his right hand. The Wrynd started climbing to their feet and turned their attention toward him.

He lifted his blaster, fired at the closest zombie and climbed back into the truck. He wasn’t sure exactly what had just happened or how it had happened or why it had happened, but he knew for a surety that they weren’t out of this yet.

Old Shepherds

Quinlan sat in the back seat of the old couple’s car, holding onto his children tight and worrying that it was far too late to save them. He had lost his wife and in trying to find her he had lost his children. Noah and Raizor sat mutely, unresponsive to his urgent hugs. Their faces were slack and their eyes were wide and unfocused. Drool dripped from Noah’s narrow lips and both children twitched and breathed in jagged hiccups. He couldn’t reach them.

The old man drove for only a moment or two and then he pulled the car to the side of the road and stopped. The old woman climbed out of the passenger’s seat and opened the back door and motioned for Quinlan to get out.

“Let me get back there and snuggle with these little lambs.”

Quinlan shook his head. “No.  I need…”

“You need to let me help is what you need,” the old woman shushed. Quinlan looked at the old man and he nodded and climbed out of the car. Noah and Raizor did not move.  

The woman climbed into the back seat and sat between them and pulled them both close in a massive bear hug. The children sat rigid, looking forward blankly and the old woman began to hum softly and stroke their matted hair. Quinlan sat in the front seat and closed the door and looked back at his children being held by a little old woman he did not know, fear and worry knotting his brow.

The woman looked to be in her late seventies and she had the kindest face Quinlan thought he had ever seen. She was thin, but not overly so and wrinkled folds of skin cascaded off narrow cheeks and poured down a soft neck to disappear beneath a simple dress made for modesty rather than style. Her hands were small and boney and her veins were large and blue. Her hair was long and silver and beautiful and looking at her Quinlan could not help but feel that she was glowing softly in the back seat while holding his children, radiating a peace and a calm that he hadn’t felt in such a very long time. 

The old man sitting beside him was the male equivalent of the woman in the back seat. Where her hair was long his was all but nonexistent. His scalp was darkly tanned and speckled with sunspots and where she radiated calm, he radiated a strength that laughed at his wiry, bent frame. The one thing they both shared completely were their eyes, green emeralds sparkling with magic and dancing within them was enough love and humor and concern that it overwhelmed him and Quinlan found himself sobbing in the front seat.

“Go ahead and cry if you need to. We’re safe for a little bit.” The old man patted Quinlan’s arm softly.

They sat in the car on the side of a road pointing toward the mountains and it was quiet except for Quinlan’s soft cries and the old woman humming in the back seat. After a time, the sound of the old woman’s voice gently escaping closed lips began to calm Quinlan and when his tears dried he looked back and both of his children folded into the woman’s arms, their little heads resting on her bosom. Their eyes were closed and the convulsions had ebbed. Quinlan thought that they might be sleeping but then Noah opened his eyes slightly and smiled at his father and Quinlan thought that his heart might break. He had failed them so miserably. How could he have brought them out into the Wilderness on this hopeless quest?

When Noah and Raizor finally hugged the old woman back, she began to speak softly and her voice was a balm that eased the horror of the week’s past.

“Just hold on to ol’ Sara now and let me have all your worries.” She pulled them even closer and they hugged her back equally hard. “Let me have your fears and your sorrow and everything that has happened to you of late that causes you pain. We’re going to bottle it up and put it away for a time. All that nonsense that would gobble you up if you let it, we’re just going to put it away. And if any other fears come your way between now and the time you and your Daddy are safe, well, you just put that in the bottle as well and put it away. And when you are safe and your life is good and happy and you can play and be children again, well I want you to take your bottle from time to time and you uncork it and take a little sip. Just a little mind you. Sip at it slow and then put the cork back on good and tight and put the bottle away again for a time. It will be bitter and it will hurt but you have to sip at it until it is gone, if you don’t it will turn to poison, such dark poison that no bottle could contain it. But not now, not anytime soon, but eventually, take the bottle and have a little sip until it is all drank up and pissed away.”

And Noah and Raizor listened to her cooing voice and buried their heads on her chest. Quinlan stared in amazement as his children breathed deep of the magic the old woman radiated and when they both sighed and soft smiles kissed their lips he had to look away again.

“Ed.” The old woman whispered, and the old man raised a caterpillar eyebrow. “Get this family some apples. That will make them right inside and out. Right as rain in spring.”

The old man nodded and climbed out of the car with a grunt and went to the trunk. He came back with three large red apples and handed one to each of them. Noah and Raizor took the apples with one hand and they were almost too big for them to hold. They didn't want to let the old woman go to eat, so they fumbled with the apple with one hand and took a bite and the crunch was the most delicious sound they had heard in quite some time. Quinlan bit into his own apple and the taste of it made him swoon. He grinned as apple juice escaped his dry lips.

“Who are you?” He managed between bites of apple.

“Just an old shepherd.” The old man offered, and his eyes pierced Quinlan’s own and when he smiled it was a soft smile tinged with just a hint of sadness as he offered a spotted hand to the younger man. “Edward Toll. Just call me Ed if you like. This gentle witch is my lovely wife Sara.”

“I’ll show you gentle witch.” The old woman chirped, and the children giggled. They giggled when only half an hour before they were so horrified by what they had seen and experienced that they were all but catatonic.

“Why are you here?”

“We come to town every now and again to barter our apples at the ol’ Walmart. We were there when the crazy ones came into town. Decided we would take the long way around to get home when we saw you and your lambs running up the road. Thought you might need some help.”

“Home?” Quinlan finished his apple and after a moment’s thought started on the core.

“Orangeville. It’s 30 miles or so south of here. We have a little orchard up the canyon.”

“There are people there?”

“Besides us you mean?” The old man winked. “Yes, there’s still people. Some good people and a few bad ones. It is home and when you have a home you take the good with the bad, I think.”

“Where’s home for you son?” Sara reached toward him, and her aged hand caressed his elbow and he felt electricity in her touch. Neither of them was wearing a powerband, Quinlan noticed. They were neands.

“Home?” The question puzzled Quinlan and he finally shrugged. “Spanish Fork I guess. The Utah Hub. At least it was home.”

“It will be again.” 

But Quinlan was not so sure. As they sat in the quiet comfort of the old NG powered car Quinlan told them how they had come to be in Price, of hiring the deputy marshal to help him find his wife and of meeting up with the stranger on the road.

“Harley Nearwater.” Edward spat his name before Quinlan.

“You know him?”

“Aye. He calls Orangeville home as well. A shiftless man. Little in the way of scruples. You’re lucky to have survived him.”

“My wife didn’t.” Quinlan told them about their encounter with the zombies and how Harley had killed Vania after she killed the deputy.

“She killed a deputy?”

Quinlan nodded and looked at his children. They both fell asleep with the apples in their hands, cuddled up against Sara and she was softly caressing their cheeks. “I tried to warn him. We didn’t like spending our time on the Link, so we had…hobbies. If you don't have a job and you won't plug in, you need to have a hobby or two. We studied. Vania wanted to join the Marshal’s Service and was determined to be ready, so she pushed herself physically. In every way really. I was along for the ride. Before the kids were born she used to pick places at random that she wanted us to explore. Realtime places. She didn’t have much use for the digiverse. Said it made you soft. She would pick the strangest places on earth to visit and I swear she picked them on the likelihood of something there killing us. She just wanted to see everything, experience everything, challenge herself physically. She was strong. I’m lucky to have survived. I got pretty good at hand to hand combat, but nothing like her. She was unstoppable. If she hadn’t been under the influence of ink, if she hadn’t been distracted by me, there is no way Harley would have been able to kill her.”

“Sounds like she was dead already. If she took the drug, there’s no coming back.” 

“Maybe.”  Quinlan looked out the window. The afternoon was fading away. “But if anyone could have come back, she could have. I guess I’ll never know now.”

“How did you come to be in possession of Harley’s sword?” Ed motioned to the black blade at Quinlan’s feet.

“He gave it to me before he left us. Said I wasn’t worth much with a gun.”

“You’re not.”

Quinlan grinned. “Suppose not.” He looked at Edward’s bare, sun-speckled arm. “Your home. You don’t have power?”

“We have a windmill –“

“And water wheel.” Sara gushed.

“And water wheel. Gives us all the power we need.”

“You live in an orchard?” Quinlan finished the apple core.

“The most wonderful orchard.”  Sara’s voice wavered as she spoke and she kissed Raizor’s head again. “If there is anyplace left in the world where magic still lives, it is there, on Edward’s orchard.”

“So you never use the Link.”

“Bah,” Edward spat. “Link. Don’t need none of that science fiction stuff.  World is complicated enough without that.”

“We don’t hanker for science fiction stuff.” Sara chimed.

Quinlan found himself grinning again. It was hard not to grin in their presence. “How long have you lived on your orchard?”

“Oh forever.” Sara nodded her head as if there were no truer statement and Edward smiled softly at her. “We’ve always lived there and nowhere else.”

Edward looked out the window for a moment. “We need to get moving. The Rages are coming.”

“Rages?” Quinlan followed his gaze. The sky was still clear and he had seen no animal life.

“A storm. Big one. We want to be wherever it is we’re going before it hits.”

“How do you know?”

Edward shrugged. “Just do.”

“You could come home with us,” Sara offered and the children hummed softly in their sleep. “To the orchard. You would be safe there.”

Quinlan sighed and closed his eyes. It would be tempting, so very tempting to go with them. But for how long? Could they live there all their life, would they live there all their life? He had meant what he said to Harley Nearwater and the dead deputy, the world was changing, rotting away. It wasn’t chaos yet, but it was only a matter of time and when it came would Noah and Raizor be prepared for it by hiding from the world in an apple orchard? Would any of them?

“We need to go back home I think. We can’t hide and be safe from what is coming.”

Edward nodded as if he understood, and Quinlan wondered if perhaps the strange old man understood far more than he ever would. “Truth there, I think.”

“Do you think we could get back to my truck?” 

“Maybe. I think the crazy ones were more interested in Harley than us.  We’ll see if we can slip in and get your truck. If you do, we’ll take the business loop around the city.”

Quinlan thought for a moment. “Still have the slide to deal with up the canyon. We’d have to walk the last 20 miles.”

Edward pursed his lips. “That wouldn’t do.”

“Fairview Canyon Ed. They could go over Fairview. It’s still open.”

Quinlan gave a puzzled look, and Edward nodded. “She’s right. People go to the Hub over Fairview all the time. You get to it in Huntington, south of here.  It will get you to the Hub south of your home, but you’ll be at the Hub.”

“Sounds good.”

Sara stirred the children, and Edward put the car in gear. “Let’s go get your truck.”