The Creepers (Book 2): From the Past (13 page)

“Pretty obvious, kid. Not rocket
science.”

“No, take a look,” Bobby flipped the
bullet to Baylor.

“Progress my ass.” Baylor shook his
head. “While we’re out here trying to beat them back, some other mother fuckers
figuring out how to increase the spread. Maybe we don’t deserve to win anything
back. Maybe we are doomed and rightfully so.”

A monitor flicked on in Bobby’s head.
The man offered up not a word. No panicked shouts, no pleading, but a flood of
images knifed through Bobby’s mind. He swayed, then steadied himself,
remembering the march on the Settlement. He’d been so focused on getting Ol’
Randy back that he’d just added numbers. He wasn’t thinking about them. At
least, not on the level he did now, and he was finding it harder to go back to
that robotic kind of thinking.

“You all right, kid?”

“Yeah,” Bobby said uneasily.

“He talk to you?”

“No. Just images, but vivid.”

“If I didn’t know any better, and I
don’t, I’d say you’re human and that’s the problem. Jesus freaks had you
running their game and not living. You been out on your own, got a taste of the
world and, well, the good parts grew on you. Not a bad thing.”

“Maybe.”

“Fuck maybe.” Baylor jumped down.
“Forget maybe. Look, kid, where we’re going, what we’re heading towards, it
could be it. But it has to be done. I…” Baylor looked away. “It’s all fucked,
Bobby. All wrong. We were supposed to be on the beach around a fire enjoying
our little victory. You should be playing dad. We shouldn’t be dealing with
this. I shouldn’t have put you in this position, this situation.”

“Baylor,” Bobby said, feeling weird by
dropping the Mr.

“Don’t lay it on me. I can’t take that
to my grave.”

“If it wasn’t for you taking me in, I’d
be wandering. You took a chance and saved my life.”

“And you mine. We’re even. At least we
were, and now I’ve gone and pulled you into a situation because I’m selfish.
Because no matter how much good I try to do, I always find a way to fuck it
up.”

“You’re family, and I hate you for doing
it,” Bobby said, staring at Baylor with all seriousness. “But I love you too.
You gave me a home. I’m not about to see it destroyed.”

Baylor pulled Bobby close and hugged him
tight. “It shouldn’t be like this.”

“But it is. And we have to deal with it.
Ol’ Randy always said you leave your problems be like you let a Creeper live
and they’ll both come back to bite you.”

Bobby maneuvered the man in front of
them.

“Keep him still,” Baylor said. He pulled
a long blade from his boot.

Bobby watched as the man he’d come to
love hacked the dead rider’s limbs off. He watched unaffected by the brutality.
He watched Baylor tack what was left of the corpse and drive it down on the
head spike. Bobby broke his hold as Baylor stepped away. The rider’s mouth
clacked as he bit the air.

“They’d turn us into them. For what?
Territory? They want my shit, my home, all that I’ve built and worked for,
because that’s what they do, people like them. They take. Can’t do a thing for
themselves. Like fucking Reggie.” Tears flowed from Baylor’s eyes. “I can’t
allow it. I didn’t allow it. Fucking kid, he—” Baylor sobbed, falling to his
knees.

Bobby stood motionless. He’d grown used
to the ebb and flow of Baylor’s emotions, but he’d never seen this side of the
man before. Usually it was psychotic rants followed by words of wisdom or
friendly banter. Never had he seen the man collapse. Cry, yes, but not this. He
didn’t dare move.

“My son, Bobby. My boy. Raised him
right, but he never wanted to listen. He never wanted to do what was right,
always wrong, but he was my son,” Baylor screamed. “I can’t anymore!” He drew
his pistol and emptied it into what was left of the rider. The newly formed
Creeper snapped and growled, six massive holes exposing its dead insides.

“My boy, he was like them,” Baylor spat.
“He left home when he was a little older than you. Just up and left. I looked
everywhere for him. I stopped going to work, stopped eating, stopped living.
Night after night I kept thinking that if I could just find him I’d be able to
change him. I’d be able to make him understand.

“Night after night I came up empty. I
thought he was dead. I thought he’d succumbed to the lifestyle he’d been
leading. Playing thug, emulating whatever fool got into his head. We can’t be
changed, Bobby. Even family won’t change. We are who we are and Reggie was
Reggie.” Baylor pulled a root from his pocket and chewed. His eyes were wider
than ever, that wild animal look, as he paced, smoking gun still in hand.

“Then it happened. People biting people.
Stumbling around. I watched it happen before my very eyes. The city was a
strange place at night and it helped mask the truth until it was too late to
stop it. I was out looking for Reggie, hoping I’d find him before it got too
bad. I couldn’t give up, Bobby. He was my son, my son! Creepers were all over,
walking into traffic. People thought it would pass. They locked their doors and
kept going, kept running. When it got too bad, I hunkered down at home.

“Sirens and choppers and screams. It was
all fucked, but somehow I still thought I’d find him. I had hope. But I didn’t
find him. He found me. He came home. And it was then that I knew I had truly
lost him. That I had to let him go. Like I said, you gotta let shit go.” Tears
poured from Baylor’s wide eyes. “This is letting go.”

Bobby felt the tension rising within
himself. He felt the tiles of the water treatment plant crack as he smashed the
Creeper into oblivion before Ecky’s eyes. He felt Bryan’s blood hot on his
face. He remembered the shock of watching Ryan die, and as Baylor spoke, he let
them go. He let all of them go. Life had taken such a turn that grief was
forgotten in favor of survival.

“He stumbled to the door. I remember his
weak knocks, random bangs. I could see his silhouette through the curtains. I
didn’t want to look. I couldn’t look. It was my boy. I didn’t have to. I just
knew it was him. I knew that was what life had to offer me. A reminder of my
greatest failure. I knew it was him, Bobby. My Reggie…”

Baylor stared into the past. He held the
pistol up against his wet cheek. “I couldn’t look. I sat by the door until my
body went numb. Until it went dark and the light came again. All the while he
kept banging, kept walking into the door, over and over, moaning. My boy! I
dared a look then. And in the light of morning, I realized, Bobby, I realized
it wasn’t Reggie. No, it wasn’t Reggie. Reggie was dead. This wasn’t my boy,
this was whatever took him from me. It wore my son’s face but it wasn’t him,
couldn’t be him. My son never came home.” Baylor pulled the trigger over and
over, slowly. The click of the empty chamber punctuated his words. “He never
came home…”

Bobby wiped the tears from his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. It had to be done. Had to be
done. Had to be done. It’s different now. Take that horse, Bobby, and ride
away. Get away from me, get away from here. Follow the tracks back east. I
wasn’t right for what I did.”

“No.”

“You really are fucking crazy, kid. You
know that?”

“If I did, would I still be crazy?”

“Bwahaha.”

Moya let him wander in the wild garden.
The little angel from the north. He was special with his blue eyes and pale
skin and curly hair, twisting and laughing in the truest sense of beauty. She
smelled spring, full bloom, fragrances she thought dead for so long, but things
had changed. She had direction now, she had the little angel, she had
followers. The desert proved a great buffer, and the farther south they went
the less broken societies they found, but it was never far enough. There were
always signs, always threats, from them, from within, from others.

Moya watched her little angel twirl in a
field of blue and red flowers, arms outstretched wide as the world. A gift
given to her by one of her most faithful. One who braved the wild north and
returned with the tip of the spear. A child who was immune to the plague. Her
little angel, little Josh. The hope of the future. Now they had the pieces, the
drive, but not the numbers.

Josh twirled and twirled, proclaiming
himself king of the garden, and Moya laughed, truly laughed—an emotion she
thought she’d lost. Keaton stirred somewhere near, ever watchful, as the rest
of the camp went about the business of the day. She’d built a bond with the
child almost instantly, and nearly a year had passed since she’d seen the
extent of his gift. He kept them in check, moved them, played with them in ways
she thought impossible. He didn’t know them as she did. He was too young to
understand the horrors they’d visited upon the world.

Moya watched, horrified, as she did each
night since losing her little angel. He twirled and twirled, laughing, and then
he was silent. A budding dark red stain appeared on his pristine white shirt.
He did not cry. He departed this life in an instant. Before the chaos that
followed would erupt, Moya woke, gripping her sweaty sheets in mid-scream.

“I’m here,” Keaton said from the dark
corner of her tent.

Moya slid off the bed. The candle light
accented her muscular legs as she stepped into her clothes. She could still
hear Josh’s laughter, but it was fading, fading as it always did upon waking
from the torment of the nightmare.

“Keaton,” Moya said, cracking her
knuckles.

Keaton stepped into the light, holding a
thick piece of wood. Heavy dents and blood stains dominated its center. He held
it chest high and braced himself by planting his feet and leaning towards Moya.

Moya breathed in calmly, letting the
tensions caused by the nightmare move from her mind and into her body,
bounding, exploding in the tightness of her muscles, and then she released it.
Her first punch caused Keaton to stumble back. The second knocked him over.

“Again.” Moya bounced back and forth,
her body alive and tingling. She traced the scalp of the man that took Josh’s
life.

Keaton readied himself for another blow.

Moya lashed out left then right,
pummeling the wood. Each blow cracked louder than the one before it—a steady,
almost deafening beat. She continued to drive Keaton back and drive the demons
from her mind. It would mean something. Josh’s death would mean something. It
had to mean something for her.

“You about done?” Keaton huffed. “My
arms are about to break.”

Moya flipped backwards. Her feet grazed
the top of the tent. She landed perfectly. “Yes, Keaton, I’m done. The ghost
has retreated.”

“Good.”

“For now. Just a child, a baby. The
world is such a terrible place.”

“We aim to change that.”

“Certainly.” Moya pulled her long hair
back over her shoulders. Her green eyes flashed at Keaton.

“But.” Keaton rubbed his arms.

“There’s always one.”

“Reservations. This isn’t like you.”

“Hardly, Keaton. There are none. Regrets
perhaps, but not reservations. As much as I would love to break off and see
this empty city first hand, to finally meet the boy’s father, I cannot.”

“I can send men. I can go.”

“No, to divert now would be foolish. To
break from the course—” Moya bit her fingernail— “no, no that won’t do. It was
but a dream and nothing more. I would’ve really loved to have met Josh’s
mother, such strength in the face of death, but we know her fate. It’s strange
really.”

Keaton grabbed a wad of tobacco from the
pouch on his hip and crammed it in his mouth.

“He was never my child. Not in the
traditional sense. Just voices from the past on the airwaves. Do you remember?”

“Like it was yesterday. We had our
little party and nothing as far as contact for years. I remember those days.
Raiding small villages of nothing but the dead, finding jack and shit. We were
a few but we were efficient.”

“Those voices, the promise. It was
glorious and so was he.” Moya’s eyes were cold and hard. “There is no reason to
explain why I feel the way I do—the attachment, the depths of preservation, of
failure. Not even my own blood. A testament to the potential. And so, even
without our cure, we will do what we set out to do. On our terms.”

“Yes, ma’am. His loss will matter.”

“Not a loss, Keaton. A catalyst.
Something that got us thinking on longer terms, something that got us moving,
and something that we must never forget. One day we will have our world. A
world where that doesn’t happen. A world where death doesn’t happen unless it’s
asked for.”

Moya pulled the tent flap aside and
entered the cool, misty morning. Pine and loam filled her nostrils. All around,
beasts and men moved. Far in the distance, like the fog horns of old, she heard
the sad lament of the Creepers. Her dead weapons. The army had occupied the
hillside for the last few days, preparing for the final push west.

“What if he doesn’t make it through?
We’ll be doubling back for very little gain.” Keaton spat. He leaned on a mossy
stump, rubbing his hands for warmth.

“It will harden us for the push east.
But he’s never late. A few days more. Don’t expect him to just welcome us with
open arms. He may very well sign his own death warrant, but we’ll have a
train.”

“With that, we’ll have a country. You
ever thought about what we’ll call it, ma’am?”

Moya laughed at that. She’d never given
it even a second thought. But names were important—lasting things that attached
themselves and never let go. “My dear Keaton, I have not, but it will come in
due time.”

A horn blared in the distance, followed
quickly by another, and another. The camp exploded in an uproar of commotion.

Moya whistled sharp and loud. A second
later, her horse crashed through the wet boughs to her left. With one foot in
the stirrup, she hooked her leg over the saddle and sat upright. She gazed into
the distance, but she could see nothing of note. The horns continued to blare.

Keaton appeared, riding his mount. She
hadn’t even noticed the man vacate the area. He leaned over his saddle, eyes
practically welded to a pair of binoculars.

“You’re not going to believe this, Miss
Moya.” Keaton spat without looking away. His horse stamped at the offense.
“Heck, I don’t believe it.” He handed the binoculars to Moya.

Moya set the focus and watched as the
men along the edges of the camp formed a disciplined line. A terrible smile
crept onto her face. Just beyond the first line, she caught sight of Keaton’s
amusement. A group of wild people charged her flank. Rifles boomed and pale
faces fell, screaming against the deep green backdrop. Her men barely flinched.
Another series of horns split the foggy morning, and then another set, and more
followed.

“Keaton,” Moya warned, the tone of her
voice implying everything.

“I’m on it, ma’am.” Keaton kicked his
horse and darted away.

Moya clenched her fists around the
reins. This did not carry the hallmarks of the usual skirmish. Something had
her heart racing vigorously. She moved her horse in a slow circle to take it
all in. A man screamed to her left. She turned in time to see him stumble from
the tree line with an arrow through his throat. He called to her, hands raking
air, blood bubbling up and out of his mouth. He fell to his knees, reached out
to her as another arrow erupted from his chest. He fell over dead.

Moya did not flinch. She whispered
reassurances to her horse. Three savages stepped from their cover to retrieve
their arrows. One of them smiled at her with rotten pointy teeth like black
snail shells. He said something in the languages of the lost, which only served
to annoy her further.

Moya charged them. The man with the
pointy teeth tried to move out of her way. Her speed was deceptive, and her
fist even more so. Mid-dodge, her knuckles came down like a hatchet, catching
the man on his temple. Moya felt the side of his head crumple, felt the orbital
socket break apart, and felt the slight bump as her horse finished the job. The
other two came around her, trying to set arrows.

She sent her mount to the right as she
flipped off the saddle and came around opposite it. She hit the ground at a
run. The savage fired, but she was quick to dodge the poorly aimed arrow. She
didn’t fake. She drove her fist in a long sweeping uppercut that cracked jaw
and teeth. Then she followed with a quick straight arm that collapsed the
savage’s throat. He fell to the ground, suffocating on his own screams.

Moya did not give the other man a chance
to react. She dropped low, legs pumping, arms out like a darting eagle. She
drew her arms up, catching the man on the temples, fracturing both eye sockets.
The slivers of bone she sent into his eyes made him scream. She clapped her
hands and her horse was at her side.

Keaton rode up behind the wailing
savage. He put a round in that dirty skull. “Ma’am,” he said with a nod of his
head.

“Speak to me.”

“Skirmishes on all sides. Small groups,
but coordinated. Bunch of damn rock throwers. Nothing more.”

“It only takes one rock, one arrow, one
bite, Keaton. Remember that.”

“Who says I ever forgot it?” He smiled.

Together, they rode out to meet their
enemy and the dawn.

* * * * *

“Don’t try to talk. It will only serve
to make the pain worse,” the fat man said. Post’s portly nurse applied a
freshly filled water skin to his broken jaw. His face was badly bruised. The
fat man had spent the better part of several hours, after the initial damage,
removing splintered teeth. That was over a week ago. The wound looked worse
now.

Post instinctively went to rub his jaw,
but the fat man swatted his hands away. He tried to stand but swayed
unsteadily. He was in the same room he’d been in since being lifted from the
pit. Vaguely he remembered being taken here, through brief patches of
consciousness, but everything since was blurry.

The room was small and crafted of
roughly hewn wood. The walls were lined with jars of various liquids. Dried
herbs hung from the ceiling and long white roots poked through the uneven beams
above. He remembered the bottles clinking together like a sad wind chime, he
remembered rocking, but everything was shrouded in sheets of dirty gray. He felt
fuzzy.

“Sgt. Post, please sit down. You’ve been
heavily sedated for many days, and for your own good. If you want to live, sit
down!” The fat man balanced a glass jar on his massive belly, stirring the
brownish liquid with his fat fingers.

Post’s eyes lit up when he glimpsed the
Beretta on the small table. He flexed his fingers, trying anything to gather
himself. His mouth felt like he’d eaten a ball of cotton and glass that pulsed
with each breath he took. The pain sent waves of nausea through him, but even
if he had to, he didn’t think he could vomit. The pain would be too much. It
would rip his mouth apart.

Post snatched the Beretta off the table
and pointed it at the fat man.