The Creepers (36 page)

“Sibohan and I found shelter in a farm
house. The owner’s had taken their own lives on the front porch. It was as
romantic as it was pathetic. Did they not know they could have made it? I was a
doctor of human evolution and I had become a survivalist. My wife, a baker, and
yet, there we were, surviving, while the rest of the world spiraled out of
control. We stayed there too long . . . we broke the first rule of survival. We
grew complacent.

“One night, while we slept, a roaming
band of . . . of,” Pathos shook furiously, “of human filth, a band ripped from
the our ancestral past.”

“Savages,” Bobby said, trying to wrap
his head around Pathos’s words.

“No, not yet, these men were only months
removed from civil society . . . just months but they may as well have broken into
that farm house wearing the skins of animals. Just months before, these men
were lawyers, police officers, office workers, how quickly we lose rational
thought. How quickly we replace a little hardship with what comes easy. It’s
easier to take by force than to stop a second and formulate a more beneficial
partnership. Survival in a nutshell, a relatively easy concept, something I
taught to my first year students many times over. But no matter how well read I
was on the subject, I was a mere child when it came to the actual experience.
Life it seems . . . has a way of making us soft.

“They held me down, made me watch as
they gave in to their ancestors. They made me watch my love be . . . be . . .”
Pathos sobbed. He banged his head against his weapon.

Even Jackson was not immune to the
professor-turned-survivalist’s words. The rugged Settlement man could not wipe
away the tears.

“She begged, I begged them to stop, but
they continued on and on. And when they had their fill, they ended her like an animal
they did not want to waste bullets on. They beat the life from her on the floor
of the farmhouse and then they set fire to me. The whole of my life was gone .
. . survival had become meaningless. I did not even have the will to put the
flames out.

“But life is full of partnerships. Many
of them we set out to develop on our own. We make friends, we find love, or it
finds us, but sometimes, others of like minds are within earshot, within
shouting distance and new partnerships are born. I could not tell you their
names . . . those that saved me from the fires, but I can tell you that they
displayed the same reptilian chill when they set upon the men that had taken
everything from me. The night Dr. Gabriel Demark died, Pathos One became the
founding father of another partnership.

“They wanted no part at first. They
chalked it up as delusions of a man on the verge of death. But even in the
throes of pain all my knowledge began to adapt, much as your strange blood has
begun to adapt. For you see, that is what life does. I knew if we let go of our
history we’d be right back around the fire, hooting at the beasts, waving
brands to keep them at bay. I decided I would take no part in such an end of
humanity. And I wasn’t the only one.”

“I’m sorry for your wife,” Bobby bowed
his head, “may she rest in peace.”

“Thank you, Bobby. I too, am sorry for
the loss of your brothers and your friend and your innocence, but, like I said,
partnerships.”

“It stopped raining,” Bobby said,
holding his hand in a beam of warm light. The water sluiced like honey along
the floor and the last remnants of gray clouds were being taken apart by the
wind.

“I seem to have rambled on.”

“Not at all." Bobby welcomed the
history—good, bad, and downright horrifying. “But what happened next?”

Pathos One found a dry baking pan in a
rusty cabinet. He set it on the counter in the sunlight then he laid the
laptop, along with its rolled up solar charger, atop it. “I’ve never told
anyone what happened. I think it was time to let it go." Pathos One powered
the laptop on. The patchwork machine thrummed and clicked as it came to life at
his touch. “You wanted to know what happened next. I’ve read the story of you,
in that journal . . . it seems only fair that you read what happened next.
Here,” Pathos One said, turning the black and green screen towards Bobby.

Bobby blinked at the wall of numbers and
names as Pathos One scrolled through them.

“Here we are,” Pathos One said, tapping
the thumb pad. “When you want to keep reading run your finger down like so. Got
it?”

“Yes.”

“It won’t win the Nobel Prize anytime
soon, but it’s important.”

“The what?”

Pathos One shook his head, slipped his
hood back over the scars and said, “Nothing. I’m going to take Jackson here for
a walk. We’ll be needing firewood that isn’t soaked through. Won’t be easy but
we’ll manage.”

“I ain’t going nowhere with you.”

“You don’t have a choice." Pathos
One yanked the rope, drawing Jackson to his feet.

Bobby was too absorbed in the words to
notice their departure. He read:

Pathos I – Journal Entry [00001]

January 1
^st
, 2020

Stillwater, New Jersey

It will be a wonder if the five of us
survive what is to come. We have undertaken a dangerous, but necessary task. I
often think if I was crazy in coming up with it. Are we really to be the historians
of the future? Does that even make sense? We must recover what information we
can, from whatever it can be recovered from. The quill and ink, the typewriter,
the PC; replaced now, by a jury-rigged laptop with a small, reverse-engineered
battery pack and solar panel charger. I feel strangely optimistic and yet, at
the same time, I feel terrible unease. Not because I am leaving the safety of
these parts, but because of what I will find. Make no mistake, I do not fear
them, the living dead, the Creepers, no, for I am smarter than they. Their only
advantage is in number. I will kill them when I can, but their end is not our
top priority . . . ours is. The soft scar tissue is rather bothersome. Must
keep them out of the sun.

We are to catalogue any truly dead we
encounter. If names can be captured they will be added to the list. If not they
will be recorded as numbers. I would rather not fall into the habits of old,
but if we are to make a future for humanity we must know how many we have left.

In closing . . . should you be reading
this now over my dead body, hopefully not reanimated, then I implore you to
continue the task. And if I walk in perpetual undeath, then by all means kill
me quickly and continue on.

Pathos I – Traveling Historian of the Dead

January 1
^st
, 2020

Pathos I – Journal Entry [00022]

January 25th, 2020

North Arlington, New Jersey

The majority of this little town is
dominated by a graveyard. I am camped on top of an old mausoleum for the night.
I hope the few parts of the roof that are still intact will hold my weight. It
is savagely cold tonight. I smell snow on the wind. I found the corpse of a
barber, scissors still in hand, but little else. I can hear loud banging and
moaning coming from the structure on the far end of the graveyard. At first
light I will investigate. Not even a month into this mission and already I have
found far too many instances of trapped undead. It would seem, even when faced
with the grim reality of what their loved ones had become, a greater portion of
humanity was unable to pull the trigger. I fear for us. We’ve grown too soft.
Note: have to consider alternate means of file storage as the list is growing
long.

Pathos I – Traveling Historian of the
Dead

January 25th, 2020

The passages continued in this manner.
Bobby began to jump bigger gaps in time, but always, Pathos’s entries were
shockingly similar. The grim reality of a dead world typed out over years, over
miles, spanning almost the entire width of the country. What kind of future was
the man hoping to create? How could anything emerge from all that death.

Bobby wondered how the others fared.
Five in all from what he read, but where were they now? The entries spoke of
them setting out in different directions: North, South, East, West, and one set
sail along the East Coast. Bobby imagined them much like the explorers he had
learned about on the Settlement. Brave dreamers setting out to discover the
country all over again.

Bobby sent the text flying upwards. He
lifted his thumb off the pad as he came to the list of the dead. Neither a
victim, nor an enemy was missed. Pathos One was a diligent student of all
things dead and undead. And there, just above the soldiers and savages was one
name that drove into Bobby’s chest with a cold fist.

Yannek (Ecky).

Before the tears could begin to form
three gunshots cracked the air.

“You don’t git out here, Bobby boy, I’ma
blow this man’s brains out. C’mon out hu-ere now, right now!”

Bobby instinctively dropped low,
crouching along the moldy floor he chambered a round. From this angle he
couldn’t get a bead on Jackson. How had he managed to get out of the rope? It
didn’t matter, he had to act, he couldn’t afford another innocent corpse on his
conscious.

“You let him go, Jackson Crannen, he has
no part in this!” Bobby’s voice cracked. He tried hard to speak beyond his
years but he was still a boy, but a boy that could pop a skull like a
watermelon at a thousand yards.

“Oh he’s got a part awwlright, we all
got a part in God’s design . . . ‘cept you, you ain’t even human. Now git yer
ass out hu-ere!”

Bobby searched, trying to pinpoint
Jackson’s location. He wasn’t even sure if Pathos One was still alive. He had
yet to hear the man speak. But Jackson’s words already had him formulating a
plan. He just needed a little more time.

“How do I know he’s alive? I heard three
shots." Bobby opened his mind, opened the pathway to the Creepers forming
a holding pattern a couple hundred yards around them in every direction. Most
of them were old, nothing more than bones and scraps of flesh, mummified
organs, First War Grade-A meat, but a few, a few were newly made, perhaps less
than year. Bobby directed the signal, projecting what he had in mind in their
direction. He looped the thought, the plan, Jackson’s image, and what his
imagination wanted to happen, in great detail, and then he thought it again.

“You don’t git out hu-ere gonna’ be a
fouw’th shot . . . in say this thinkin’ man’s kneecap. How’s that for a wound
in these times? I’d say I know a doctor, but—BOBBY BOY, here kilt’er. Shot her
dead . . . bullet right in her heart, God rest her soul.”

The Creepers were locked in and
beginning to move, but their limbs could only carry them so fast. The trees
would provide cover, which in turn would buy Bobby some time, however, if
Jackson caught sight of them early enough, they’d be down and out before they
could prove useful to Bobby’s cause.

Bobby slowly stood up. The weeded
parking lot in front of the diner was empty. The mound of scrub and wild flower
that used to be a gas station was equally void of Jackson’s presence. All along
the highway Bobby searched the likely hiding spots: in between rusted cars,
copses, and around a large mottled gray boulder. But if Jackson was in any of
those spots he was well hidden.

“C’mon now, BOBBY BOY!”

He cringed at the sound of his name on
Jackson Crannen’s ragged lips. How many times had he suffered beatings,
humiliations, nights of terror to that dreadful call? How many times had he
been told such punishments were God’s will? Too many, he decided long ago. He’d
always promised himself that he’d get back at them, set them straight. But he
had to be smart.

Bobby stepped out of the diner without a
sound. He held his rifle ready. This was no simpleton he was dealing with.
Jackson Crannen had survived the First War as a boy. He helped a small colony
stay alive through years of harsh winters that turned him into a cold hearted
man. He was but a wraith of the man his father had been, but for all his
cruelty he was a staunch survivor above all else.

“I’m out,” Bobby shouted. He felt the
Creepers closer, but he still didn’t have a location in which to direct them.

“Come round the east side, and come
slow. Don’t go hiding your rifle neither. I want it up high, high as your
lil’shit arms can hold it. You drop it even an inch. I kill Hamburger Helper.”

“RUN,BOBBY!” Pathos One shouted.

“Shut yer mouth!”

Bobby heard the crunch of stock on jaw.
Pathos’s shout was well timed though, and it allowed Bobby to gauge their
location. He aimed his undead missiles towards the rear of the dilapidated
diner. He eased his way along the rusted side panels that had once beamed a
brilliant silver, beckoning to hungry travelers on the lonely highway. As Bobby
reached the corner of the diner he calibrated with the Creepers. His mind was
steel wool ignited with a set of jumper cables and a battery. Sparks of images,
feelings, memories all singed and zapped along the many pathways of his mind.
But over the weeks he had learned to funnel them, to understand them, and now
he exploited their potential. He turned the enemies he’d been taught to hate
into allies, into reliable weapons.

They were just behind Jackson. Bobby
didn’t have a clear view. One of the Creepers lost the gift of sight long ago.
All that dwelled in that mind now were glimmers of the past and the hunger. But
the other one still had a useful orb, slightly blurry, however, functional. He
opened the pathway wider.