The Creepers (Book 2): From the Past (18 page)

The man was busy putting cords of wood
into an old cast iron stove. Flakes of rust clung to it in patches.

“How did you get that thing up here?”
Howard asked, judging the object to be at least a few hundred pounds. It was
the first thing he could settle on. Maybe it was the height that had his brain
wandering, or the rush of running? He didn’t question it.

“Simple science.”

Ancient technology aside, the rest of
the fort was furnished with simple wooden furniture that looked handmade. The
circular structure was dominated by a plethora of printed material: hardbacks,
paperbacks, engineering manuals, medical journals, hunting guides, skin mags,
maps. Many of them crumbled and were spotted with mold, but still readable.
There were stacks on every available surface. The small bookcase near the
window had long ago been over loaded. It seemed to sag from the weight of the
hardbacks on it. Beyond the window, the gray world waited.

The fresh carcass of a deer lay gutted
on the floor near the stove.

“Was in the middle of dinner before you
came yelling into my woods. Terrible, terrible manners.” The man removed his
coat.

He shook his gray mane as he removed his
battered ball cap. He started to butcher the meat of the deer, laying long
strips on a smoking rack on top of the stove. “I ever tell you about the Imp?”

The question gave Howard pause. He
studied the man closely, took everything in. He suddenly wished he’d taken his
rifle. The spike was still on his belt though. The man wasn’t all there. That
much was clear. Howard knew the signs of isolation sickness well, madness
really.

“No,” he said, trying to keep the
conversation going. Images from the dead racked his mind, but something about
the warmth of the fort settled him somewhat.

The man laughed heartily. “My
apologies,” he said, producing a large skillet from under a stack of books. He
cut two large portions of venison and laid them on the skillet. A moment later
the venison sizzled and filled the fort with a mouth watering scent. “I blame it
on the books. My salvation and curse, between those musty pages. Where was I?”

Howard opened his pack and pretended to
rummage through it. His mind was on edge, trembling, but manageable. More dead
thoughts whispered through by the thousands. Howard focused on his unstable
host, letting the thoughts pass as quickly as they came. Something wasn’t right
about the man. Something in the back of Howard’s brain screamed at him to run.
He had to tread very carefully.

“The Imp,” Howard said.

The man scratched his long ragged beard.
His eyebrows were like wandering dead branches arching over his hollow eyes. He
held the permanent gaze of someone afflicted by the apocalypse.

“No story is free. I saved you, you
know? They’re out there right now. Listen close. You can hear them walking down
there. Been through these before. Usually lasts a few days and then they’re
gone. Good thing I caught dinner before you stumbled along. Fucking hills will
be empty for weeks now. What’s your name?”

“Howard.”

“Well, Howard, you’re young and you’re
alive, so I’m going to assume you came from somewhere.”

Howard started to speak, but the man
waved him off.

“Look.” The man pointed at him with a
fork. “I don’t want to know where and I don’t care. I only saved you because
you’re not one of them. And had you been a crazy, you would’ve died before we
got this far. You look rough. Look like you’ve seen a ghost or two. I know what
that’s like.”

“More than two,” Howard said under his
breath.

Howard wondered what the man had seen in
his days? He had enough horror stories of his own. Would his eyes hold the same
emptiness one day?

The dead lamented in the fog below,
their moans lingering in the thick wetness. They wandered every which way. Some
stayed until they became stuck in the mud, while others slipped over and over.
They’d come for him and now they were lost without him. Howard kept his mind
open, but his focus remained on the man. He found it easier to breathe that
way. Though he’d have to face them for her sake.

Somewhere behind the hurt, the truth of
what he had to do lurked, stalking his reluctance. He didn’t want to face it.
Her terrible pleas were not far away. He found himself looking over his
shoulder, though he knew she was not there. He pictured her stuck somewhere, crying
out to him, crying out to be set free, to be ended. He felt sick again. The
smell of the searing meat only made it worse. He was hungry, but the thought of
eating was replaced by Jennifer’s teeth trying rip him apart. Her gnashing
teeth and empty eyes.

“Don’t want to know. But if you want to
know more about the Imp, and you want dinner, well, you have to give me
something. Lot of these books were brought to me over the years and a lot more
I found on my own. Getting harder and harder to come by as time goes on. Those
I saved repaid the favor. It’s a pretty sweet deal. You take a breather, fill
your belly, and then you get the fuck out in exchange for a book or two. If you
don’t have one, you have to leave a story. If you have neither, you can climb
back down that chain.”

The man pulled his rifle and aimed it at
Howard’s face. “So, Howard, what have you?”

Baylor screamed. The reaction was
normal, human, as he watched the young men shot one by one and kicked into the
massive pit like trash. He stopped the train, leaning over the controls. He
felt his teeth about to crack as he ground them together. It took everything he
had then to keep the Mad Conductor at bay.

“It’s better than they deserve. Come
with me,” Moya said, heading for the door.

Moya’s men finished the task and moved
to the next like ants. All around, fires went up, voices rose here and there,
metal clattered, and children laughed. Baylor took it all in. Orange light
spread across the sea of growing darkness, while shouts and cries carried from
the pit. He played the scenario in the abandoned town over in his head,
imagining the remnants of Wyoming Blue lined up along that pit and shot in the
back, not the head. Shot with the blood of humanity’s greatest enemy, shot like
cattle only to be turned later, to be turned on one another.

“I think to myself often, Baylor, I
think what if the men that killed Josh, what if they knew of his gift? Would
that have stopped their bullets? Would they even care that such a thing as
ending the Creepers would be possible?”

“You really think he was immune?”

“I know so, but when I ask those
questions I realize that I already know the answers. Your reaction was true,
but those are not people we’ve tested. Those are savages that attacked us.
Savages that have abandoned language, lower than the cultists, lower than the
dead in a lot of ways. It’s broken things like them, and like the men who took
Josh from us all, that give me my answers. They wouldn’t care. If I went to
them and said tomorrow will different. Tomorrow will be better, safer, free
from the bite. Do you know what they would say?”

“They’d kill you before you stopped
talking.” Baylor drummed his fingers on the grip of his revolver. The highly
polished wood had smoothed from age and use. What would another death be to the
inanimate tool? What would another death be to him?
Not yet,
he
cautioned the Mad Conductor.
Not yet.

“They would, or rape me, or both, and
that is not only the answer, but the reason that had to happen. It’s the reason
we’re on the move. We’re here to put an end to living like this. An end to
mother’s losing their children. We’re here to bring meaning. This isn’t some
religious movement like the cultists, or the evangelicals when the infection
first broke out. This is what people want. But tomorrow isn’t waiting for
everybody. Those days are over.”

“Violence as faith. It has a certain
ring,” Baylor said, trying hard to ignore the noises coming from the pit. It
wouldn’t be long now. His men turned, tried to eat him, and this woman was to
blame. It would be so easy, so easy. The rest didn’t matter. She did.
No.
He pushed the urges back.

“There is no faith involved. You are
weak or you are strong. It goes beyond the physical realm, but it’s far from
being esoteric.” Moya snatched a torch from a man passing by. Her hair
shimmered in its light. “So, Baylor, are you curious enough to see what
tomorrow brings?”

The noises from the pit stopped. A
terrible silence fell over the camp. He knew what was to come. A single moan
followed by screaming then gnashing teeth, the clacking, wet crunching sounds.
He shivered. No one deserved to go like that. Not even the fucking trash, he
thought. “Dawn’s not far off. I’m game for now.”

He followed her deeper into the camp.
The newly dead moaned behind him. Eyes watched him from the darkness, guns at
the ready. He hadn’t forgotten about them. His fingers inched closer to his
revolver. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep the Mad Conductor at
bay.

* * * * *

Bobby had the Auto Stryker out and
ready. He thought Baylor was in real danger. But the situation was not as he’d
imagined from his hiding spot. He slipped beneath the train, using the
machinery for cover. He reached out for the dead, but they were of no use.

He needed to move within the camp first.
He needed to find out the inner workings of their enemy, and then he’d find a
way to exploit the thousands of waiting soldiers. He watched two sentries
shadow Baylor and a small woman as they moved near the pit. He doubled back and
moved into a thick copse. He bent with the wind. He moved like the brush, stone
still, then waving, unseen. He never crushed a leaf, never broke a branch, and
never plopped in the mud. He crept on the outside of his feet just like Ol’
Randy taught him, placing all his weight on the outer edges and rolling them
forward as he stepped.

He worked in a circular pattern away
from Baylor and the woman. He watched several more sentries fall into step
behind them. Their focus was singular, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more
scouts farther out. He had to stay frosty.

Bobby watched a group of men and women
curse and cheer around a roaring fire. He froze as one of the men broke off
from the rest to piss. He was close enough to smell it. The foul steam rose
inches from his face, and hot spatter landed on his cheeks. But he was
elsewhere. Ol’ Randy told him if he had to shit himself to stay hidden, then so
be it. When the man finished and stumbled back to the rest, Bobby was up and
moving.

He worked deeper into the camp, studying
the flow of it as he did. There were drunken parties, kids playing, many people
scurrying about in animal skins and hoods.

He watched a lone man welcome sleep near
a small fire. A pair of horses nuzzled one another a few feet away. Each fire
was like a little state within the massive country of the army. Together they
were everything, but alone they were nothing.

Bobby moved on the man with the pair of
horses. He watched him breath for what felt like hours. He watched the fire
until it became nothing more than embers, and then he struck.

Bobby crawled on his belly, smelling
rich, damp earth. His clothes were wet and freezing, but he was elsewhere. The
man stirred, rolling to his side. Bobby covered his mouth, pulling the Auto
Stryker across his throat. The man’s eyes opened but his scream never made it.
Hot blood soaked into the dirt. Bobby removed the man’s hood then found the
darkness once more.

* * * * *

Baylor felt completely at ease as he
entered the large tent, though he knew at any second these people could decide
to kill him, and that would be it. He was okay though, working with a true
clarity none of them could match. It gave him the advantage, but at the same
time he let them believe they held all the power. He just hoped Bobby was taking
advantage of the time. He didn’t know exactly what he’d do when it happened,
but if all went well it would happen. Going to dirt with anything less than
stopping this lunatic woman was unacceptable.

A gruff looking man with a thick gray
beard was already in the room. A plate of fresh greens and seared venison
dominated the large table. He could see pieces of the old world all around: a
plastic fold out table, rusty metal chairs, brittle plastic utensils. Baylor
wanted to laugh. The woman gave off the air of a queen on the march, but she
served picnic grade fare. Then he remembered the way she calmly broke the
wailing woman’s neck.

“So here he is.” The bearded man nodded.
“Been years. Years I heard of the stories. Years I waited to meet you, sir!” He
held out his hand. A pair of pistols hung from his hips.

Baylor stared at him but did not offer
his hand in return.

“Mr. Baylor is unsure, Keaton. He has
yet to make up his mind about us.”

Keaton laughed. “That so?” He picked up
a piece of venison and chewed it loudly. He studied Baylor while he ate,
remaining absolutely stoic. “Who else you know that can offer the likes of
this? Who else you know that can offer safety in such numbers?”

Baylor saw zero validity in Keaton’s
words. He’d heard the safety in number fare before. It never worked. The number
portion of the equation worked for a time, but once complacency settled in, the
numbers began to wonder about their needs. Needs needed to be fulfilled. It was
one of those in theory things. It’s the reason he chose to keep the North
Carolina group at a manageable size. He’d turned people away over the years.
Numbers didn’t matter in the time after the fall, but character did, and these
people had none. Bravado and vision, but no character. The Mad Conductor paced
between his ears, waiting to explode.

“How could a man refuse?”

“I know I’d find it terribly hard,”
Keaton said.

Moya ruffled a stack of papers. She
leaned back in a chair, feet propped on the table. She picked at a head of
broccoli.

“Mr. Keaton is my right hand, Baylor. He
has been with me since the beginning. I figured he’d be the best one to explain
everything to you.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary. We’re all
adults here. Been around awhile. Used to the way things are. I’m just waiting
to see what you do, and you’re waiting to see if I’m as crazy as the stories
say. There’s a measure of exaggeration.”

“There always is, but—” Moya paused as a
series of shouts found their way through the camp beyond the tent.

Baylor caught the slight flinch in Keaton’s
demeanor.

“Pay no mind,” Keaton said to Moya. “The
boys are just heady from the fight with the savages.”

“They coordinate?”

“They did,” Keaton said with a nod.
“Some even had on military gear, a few guns among them. They are getting
savvy.”

“Had my own encounter last year.”

“It’s things like that we can protect
against, but not only that, Baylor, not only that. You see, we—” he waved a
piece of venison around— “we aim to eliminate it entirely. That’s where you
come in. We’re going from one end to the other of this fine country and we’re
gonna clean her. Remove the trash. Brave new world.”

Baylor saw years of tough decisions in
Keaton’s eyes. He saw himself in those eyes. Circumstances had him on another
side though, and some sense of goodness that he’d been born with kept him
there. Was that always the way of things? he thought. For one to kill for good
reason, and another to kill for the wrong one? Was it all a matter of
perspective? If he stepped into Keaton’s body, would he find justification? He
didn’t think so, but wasn’t that because it would be impossible to find out? He
kept thinking as a way to buffet the Mad Conductor, or was he just trying to
find a reason to let him out?

“Many groups tried the same thing. Know
a group of Jesus freaks that had it all laid out. Had everything in order. Had
supplies, had education, had food, and a defensible position. They had it all,
had the future in their hands. Know what happened to them?”

“They put too much in their faith and
not enough into reality,” Keaton said with a laugh. “Knew many like ’em over
the years. God don’t win wars, Baylor. He just gives reasons to start ’em. He
never seems to get past the cherry poppin’. We in for the long haul now.”

Baylor nabbed a piece of venison and
walked around the tent. He felt their eyes on him. “So you want my girl for
something. You need the train, but you need my knowledge also. Otherwise I’d be
at the bottom of one of those pits. I’ve been thinking since Utah. What do you
need the train for?”

“A lady never tells all her secrets,”
Moya said coyly.

“She does if she wants my girl.”

The side of the tent burst open. A trio
of fresh Creepers stumbled in. Keaton had his pistols out and ready. Baylor
smiled. He could tell from their gaping neck wounds that Bobby was hard at
work. Keaton’s pistols boomed. Two of the Creepers were left brainless while
Moya cratered the skull of the third with her heel.

She stood over the bodies. “These are
our men. Jim Cranston, Methias, Liebre.” Her eyes found Baylor’s. “I want your
girl because she’s an icon. She’s something that inspires hope. And you—” she
stepped towards Baylor— “are a figure like John Henry, a hero, and we need you
and your girl to win over the rest.” Moya held his gaze a moment then moved
through the opening. “I did not spend all this time creating a new world to see
it destroyed from within a decade down the road by the children of the fallen.
Mr. Keaton, see that Baylor is fed and well rested. We have wolves among us.”