The Creepers (24 page)

How was it
possible? He had never heard them before, even under great duress, nothing
triggered what Danielson mentioned, and yet, standing in the middle of the road
he knew it had happened before—only, he’d never given them time to speak. He
was taught to kill, and kill quickly, and he did over and over. The only good
Creeper was a dead one. Two in the head ‘til dead.

They—are coming,
the
dead woman warned again.

“Ecky, we have
to go." Fear, cold and sharp, gripped Bobby. There were many questions but
they’d have to wait. He wasn’t going to spoil such a gift even though it came
from his most-hated enemy.

“Can you
run?” Yannek hadn’t the slightest idea of what was happening.

“I can manage,”
Bobby lied. The first true step almost dropped him flat, a sharp
cracking-crunching sensation sent needling pain up his entire right side. But
after that first step he stopped thinking about the pain and focused on living.
Never taking his eyes off the Creepers—he still didn’t trust the voices in his
head—he began a slow jog.

“Still many
miles to reach Baylor,” Ecky said from beside him.

Bobby looked
back, catching the Creepers still locked in thrall before the clouds hid them
from sight again. “I can make it.”

“Survival before
stupidity, Bobby, you’ve nothing to prove to me.”

“I’m not trying
to prove anything to—”

Over the din of
insects the wild woman’s unmistakable howl rent the night air.

“Run,” Ecky
shouted.

Bobby obliged.

Bobby’s lungs felt
as if they been blasted with hot, dry sand. He tasted blood on his tongue.
Snot, tears and sweat ran salty rivers down his dirty face. Spots of color
burst before his eyes, mixing with the hazy gray of the coming dawn.
Keep
moving, don’t stop,
he told himself between gulping breaths.

Yannek wasn’t
faring any better. A life-long smoker his breaths were interrupted by wheezes
and coughs. He had them heading towards the strange looking mountain in the
distance.

They took
advantage of a slight downgrade in the highway, but they had to step carefully
for a good portion of the old road had been swept away by rain. It looked like
a massive hand gouged a line down it, as if some giant tripped over the
volcanic mountain and groped the road for purchase. The scrub brush swayed in
the stiff morning breeze. The sun crested over the mountain’s brainy contours.

And with the
breaking dawn came the howls of the wild people.

Bobby looked
back just as they crested the top of the road. The woman and the long-haired
man were at the center with the others spread out to either side. Waving their
crude weapons they charged down the road, stumbling and shouting as they came.
Bobby snapped his rifle to his shoulder and put a hole through a narrow chest.

Ecky opened fire
in controlled bursts from behind him, dropping two more.

Bobby sighted on
the woman, regretting he hadn’t killed her when he had the chance. As he
dropped the crosshairs over her chest the long-haired man stepped in front of
her, letting fly an arrow from his crude bow. Bobby fired. His shot grazing the
man’s shoulder. The arrow whizzed past his ear.

Ecky cried out;
the rusty arrow embedded in his gut. The engineer stumbled but continued to
return fire.

Bobby’s heart
fell.

“Keep fire on
them,” Ecky grunted. Pinkish spittle speckled his lips.

He couldn’t
move, but Ecky’s swift kick to his rear-end set him in motion. The horde,
though thinned, had closed distance. Another arrow clanged off the rusted shell
of a car to Bobby’s left. Anger dictated his next movement. If he was going to
die today he planned on taking them with him.

“Ecky, covering
fire!”

Ecky’s
controlled bursts went full auto, scattering the horde and sending them for
cover.

Bobby set his
rifle on what remained of the roof of a car. He loaded another two shells into
the rifle. Five shots. He had to make them count.

“Out!” Ecky
cried beside him as he dropped his clip and slapped another in.

In the few
seconds it took Ecky to reload Bobby had the closest man sighted. Before Ecky
had chambered a round Bobby had that man dead with a bullet through the heart.
He tried to reach out to the Creepers to call to them but received only silence
in return.

They’d both
practiced a similar situation many times on the Settlement. Only that scenario
involved a siege on their compound, which had the high ground, now the
situation was reversed. Bobby moved his scope further up the road away from
closer targets.

Ecky slumped
against the car next to him. “I keep them off you. Kill son of bitch who got
me.”

Bobby didn’t need
to turn to know how bad Ecky’s injury was, he heard it every breathless
syllable. He searched for the man, found the woman instead, and fired. She
stood waving her arms, shouting, commanding her wild horde. Bobby’s bullet
smashed a hole through her forehead and sent her, board-stiff, to the dead
American byway.

Ecky slapped in
another clip saying, “L-last mag . . .”

Bobby counted
five but he couldn’t find the man. He wasn’t even sure if Ecky’s shots knocked
the rest down, but he didn’t have anything else to go on. He tracked one of the
men through the thick scrub. The man’s stupid, wide eyes filled the center of
his scope. Bobby sent him to the afterlife and chambered another round. He
found another target, settled, fired again. As he turned to find another target
the long-haired man burst from the brush beside him.

“Nyet!” Ecky
screamed. He shoved Bobby to the ground and took the man’s swinging bow across
his face. The engineer staggered then rammed the empty CAR-15 under the
long-haired man’s chin, driving him back into the ground. Yannek yelled in
thick Russian at the man.

Bobby got his
feet under him. He looked around for his rifle but couldn’t find it. Pulling
the Auto Stryker out he stalked over to the wild man pinned under Ecky’s
weight. The long-haired man’s deep brown eyes found his. As Bobby dropped to
his knees the long-haired man spoke one word through his sharpened, rotten
teeth, “Dead.”

Bobby pressed
the knife into the wild man’s throat and yanked it across, severing the neck to
the spinal cord. The man’s blood gurgled forth, drawing out the proclamation.

“I knew you’d
get him, Bobby,” Ecky laughed.

Bobby looked
around frantically for his rifle. He found it near Ecky’s foot. He peeked over
the car. The only thing that moved were the brush and trees. High overhead a
falcon searched the field of battle for an easy meal.

“Is okay,” Ecky
coughed, “I got them. Used most of my bullets but I got them.”

Bobby slung his
rifle and helped Ecky into a sitting position. His friend was a mess. A long
gash bled freely across his cheek. The rusty arrow bent at a sharp angle from
the struggle, and a stream of blood ran from Ecky’s mouth. It was bad, really
bad. Bobby shook. He didn’t even know where to start. He could fashion a
splint, dress a wound, even stitch the laceration on the Ecky’s cheek, but none
of it would matter. He couldn’t do anything about the wound to Ecky’s abdomen.
He couldn’t do anything except watch his friend die.

“Get me up,”
Ecky huffed.

“Ecky, you can’t
. . . you—”

“Get me up!
Don’t you cry, Bobby! This is life in world!" Ecky’s eyes betrayed the
toughness of his words. Bobby read the terror in them clear as day.

With a sad heart
Bobby helped Ecky up. He picked up the CAR-15 and handed it to Ecky, who
cleared the weapon, and placed the empty magazine on the rusted car.

“Get magazine
for me,” Ecky said, pointing to the ground.

Bobby quickly
retrieved the magazine and laid it next to the others.

“Ammo check.”

Bobby rummaged
in his rucksack for the remainder of his ammo and Ecky did the same. They
didn’t have much. But none of that mattered now as Bobby watched the growing
puddle of blood beneath Ecky with dread.

Ecky wiped the
blood from his mouth and began to load a magazine. His blood smeared fingers
shook uncontrollably and he dropped the shell. “Shit,” the word was almost
inaudible.

Bobby retrieved
the shell and clasped his hands around Ecky’s. “Let me help,” he said calmly.
“Can’t be a proper commie bastard without a fully loaded gun." He didn’t
really understand the nature of the joke, but he’d heard Ecky and Ol’ Randy
share it many times.

“Th-this is very
true, Bobby." Ecky’s face was pale as freshly fallen snow. The light of
life waned in his eyes. “Not, bad . . . two magazines worth . . ." Ecky
stared at the strange looking mountain. “Get me cigarette, Bobby.”

Bobby wanted to
scream. He could feel his friend’s death come closer with every word. He wanted
time to stop. He prayed for it all to stop. But nobody heard his prayers. No
God from on high came down to right the horror before him. The only thing he
was certain of was the cruelty of death.

He did his best
to roll Ecky a cigarette out of an old newspaper clipping. The words of a
forgotten headline blurred by his tears. Bits of loose tobacco drifted to the
ground. He managed to craft a rough version of what he’d seen the man do a
thousand times. After lighting it he handed it to Ecky.

“Eh, look at
that . . . not bad, Bobby." Ecky puffed. He coughed and spat blood; his
eyes all but gone from the world. “Baylor is bit of an asshole. He didn’t get
the name Mad Conductor for nothing. Show him what you can do. Use stupid gadget
in pack to barter. Damn thing better be worth extra weight." Ecky coughed.
The cigarette hung at his lip for a second before falling. “Ju-just . . .
remember . . . train . . . never—stops!" There were so many things Ecky
wanted to say but the life left him before he got the chance. He fell to the
ground with a wild man’s arrow buried in his stomach and the light of a new day
warm on his face.

Bobby hugged
him, pulled him close, but his friend was gone. And for the first time in his
life he was completely alone in the world.

Despair
threatened to knock him flat. His heart began to thud against his chest. Heavy
pressure beat against the back of his eyes. The glow of morning was a dizzying
blur of golden-blue that sent him crashing to the eroded black top. Smoke from
Ecky’s cigarette wafted in his face. He retched, stomach clenched like a
hangman’s noose, bile steamed on his cracked lips.

Defeat threatened
to finish him then. He envisioned a simple end: put the rifle between his legs,
barrel in his mouth, squeeze and it would all go away. Just another death in a
world full of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Too many people
sacrificed everything so that he could live. He owed them the decency of at
least trying to succeed. But just because he knew what to do didn’t make it any
easier. He had to get moving. A core lesson in his training was to never
stagnate, to stop was to die, he had to keep busy, had to keep moving.

The sun was high
overhead by the time Bobby willed himself to action. He traded his rucksack for
Ecky’s larger pack and went through the process of lightening his load. But he
had to retain much of the weight, he needed things to barter with, and he
doubted very much that the old CB radio would be enough to . . . to what? To
warrant passage on the train? Where would he go? What would he do? Would he see
Ol’ Randy again?

Even over the course
of the winter he never thought of such questions. At the time all he could
think about was Ol’ Randy’s journal and his brothers. Now he had to find those
answers, and they were as far from Ecky’s body as possible. He finished
eliminating the extra clothing except for the socks, ditched the crowbar,
packed everything around the rifle, and zipped up the pack. He didn’t like the
action of the CAR-15, but it was made for what he was about to take on. He
teetered for a moment as the weight of the pack settled. Once he had his center
of gravity, he found movement sluggish, and the throbbing in his ankle had
returned.

He closed Ecky’s
staring eyes.
You were a good friend, Yannek. I will miss your voice but I
will carry your words with me as long as I live. Long rest far from the
Creepers breast—
As Bobby thought the parting words he wondered what if?
What if he waited? Would Yannek rise before him a member of the undead? Would
he be able to hear him like those outside the drainage ditch? Would he be able
to communicate with him?
No, it doesn’t work like that and you know it,
he
reminded himself.

Bobby wanted
nothing more than to bury his friend; the man that had become another surrogate
father in a long line of them, but he didn’t have the time, and Yannek would
curse him from the grave for wasting the energy on such an archaic task. During
the winter Ecky shared many opinions with Bobby, most of which he didn’t quite
understand, but he was beginning to believe in the non-existence of God. It
went against everything he felt in previous winters, but as he stared at his
dead friend, lying on the ground in a dead world, surrounded by more death, it
made sense, though, God could have abandoned them all, too.