The Saffron Malformation (46 page)

             
“I need to have a look at it.”

             
“Uh… In case you haven’t noticed we’ve got a whole mess of badies just a ways behind us and I don’t think they’re going to let us call ‘time out.’”

             
Quey pointed toward a cabin near the other side of the lake.  “See over there, between the cabin and the boathouse, I can park on the other side of something and chances are good they’ll just drive by.”

             
“What the hell is going on?” Rain asked.  She was ignored.

             
“And if they don’t?  If they decide to go once around the lake for good measure we’re going to find our dicks in quite the lions mouth now aren’t we.”

             
“You can’t seriously be considering stopping here,” Rain protested, again to deaf ears.

             
Quey looked at Dusty and shook his head once.  “No.  I didn’t say we, I said I.  You guys go ahead.  We’ll catch up.”

             
“Quey this is crazy, you can’t,” Rachel began to protest.

             
Quey interrupted her.  “Look, it makes sense.  They’ll be through the house any minute and they know we didn’t head back toward town.  This is the only other way we could have gone and they’ll follow it a good while.  They don’t know how many of us there are or that we have two vehicles.”

             
Dusty looked at him, a touch of worry in his gaze and asked, “And if they do go around the lake…?”

             
Quey tried to smile reassuringly but it was fake.  “Been in tighter spots than this once or twice.”

             
From the driver’s seat of the blue car Arnie spoke up.  “They’ll be behind us any minute so what are we doing?”

             
Quey looked at Dusty and told him.  “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had a look at that tower.”

             
“What the hell is going on?” Rain demanded again.  “What’s so important about this damn tower?”  Her eyes shimmered with panic and confusion.

             
Quey looked at her and told her, “It’s about that robot I had in my truck.  The planet’s dying and I mean to know why and that tower might tell us more in a brief split than all these months of driving around letting the bot do its little studies can.”

             
Dusty had known Quey long enough to understand there wasn’t going to be any changing his mind on this subject.  He had it in his head this was important, had been looking for one of these towers he could get close to since they’d started and now he had one.  He wasn’t going to be swayed by imminent danger.

             
“Arnie,” Dusty said as he opened his door.  “Drive ‘em out of here.  Find the nearest place you feel you might be able to hunker for a spell and hide good.”

             
“What are you doing?” Quey asked as Dusty stepped from the car and closed the door behind him.

             
“I’m going with you.”

             
“Dusty,” Rachel called, a slight bit of worry in her tone.

             
He raced around the car to her opened window and touched her face.  “We’ll be fine,” he assured her.  “Like Quey said, we’ve been in tighter spots before.”

             
She swallowed hard and nodded.  “Then I want to stay too.”  He shook his head and started to protest but she grabbed his hand.  “Whatever happens, however it goes I want us to do it together.  I go on and something happens…” she trailed off.  “I’m not doing that.”  She looked up at him and he knew he had another person with a case of stubbornness he wasn’t going to be able to reason with.

             
“Whatever we’re doing,” Reggie said, “We need to do it now.”

             
Rachel opened the door and stepped out of the car, carrying her rifle.  Dusty nodded and closed the door.

             
The couple ran to the back of the truck, opened its large cargo door and climbed inside.  They were barely settled when Quey’s foot found the accelerator and the truck leapt forward.  “Remember,” he told Arnie as he started away.  Just find a place to hide out for a while.  We’ll be in touch.”

             
Arnie watched the truck turn down the road that wrapped around the lake and the further away it got the more alone he felt.  This was going to be the second time these people had saved him and he repaid their kindness by abandoning them.

             
He looked in the rearview mirror at Rain, sitting behind the passenger’s seat and Leone, who’d moved behind his seat when Dusty stepped out.  She was looking back at him.

             
“This is crazy,” he muttered as he followed the truck down the road leading around the lake.

             
“Arnie!” Rain yelped, “What the hell are you doing?”

             
He looked at her in the mirror again and swallowed hard.  Finally he understood what Quey and Reggie and Dusty had been saying since the brood attacked Fen Quada.  He told it to Rain then with wide eyes and a racing heart.  “They’re our crew.”

             
She stared at him, “You know what’s going to happen if they find us?”

             
He shifted his eyes to the road ahead and told her firmly, “They didn’t have to come.”

             
Rain felt jittery but she settled back in her seat, slightly.  He was right, of course and she felt like a bitch for forgetting.  They didn’t have to come, but they had.

             
Her hands trembled slightly.  She looked over at Leone who was looking back at her with uncertainty.  She smiled at him and he smiled back and she envied him because that was all it took to assure him everything was okay.

             
Rain leaned forward and spoke into Arnie’s ear.  “I hope these people know what they’re doing because I sure as hell don’t.”  She settled back and took Leone’s hand while Arnie followed the truck.

             
It was easier to hide the vehicles than they’d thought.  They came across a cabin, halfway to the other side of the lake, mostly intact save the wear of time, and it had a garage.  It was a tight fit; Quey thought it was meant to store a boat or something not so big as the truck, but still it fit.  The car they parked in a shed near a cabin three doors down.  Arnie had to park with the passenger’s side nearly touching the wall so he could open his door enough to get out and both Rain and Leone had to climb out the same side.

             
Arnie collected the bag of ammo from the car and popped the trunk where there was another before the trio headed back to the others.  They meant to find a way inside and wait out the Angels of the Brood.  It was better to be near the truck since they could all fit in that if they needed to.  Of course if it came to that most of them would be in the cargo hold but it was a better fit than the car.

             
Reggie put his boot to the door and it splintered around the lock and flew in with a bang.  The big man looked over and smirked, “Looks like my key still works.”

             
Quey chuckled and started inside while the big man hustled back to the truck to collect the rest of the guns.  The bag of weapons slung over Quey's shoulder sat uncomfortably so he shrugged and adjusted the strap with his hand as he scanned the vacant lower floor of the cabin.  The air was stale like an old tomb.  The windows were covered with a thin layer of grime that dulled the world beyond into a sepia blur.  Despite the brilliant sunlight outside, the room was filled with a dismal haze.  The floors were warped and the walls had cracks and chunks were missing here and there.  To his left was a room that would have been used for dining once.  There was an elegant lighting piece hanging from the ceiling caked in grime and chipping with neglect.  Through another doorway Quey saw the kitchen.  He moved toward it, checking the first light switch he came across.  It did nothing as he flipped it on and off and he was not surprised.

             
Rachel and Dusty climbed the set of steps onto the porch and stopped in the doorway.  “Lovely choice my dear,” Dusty said, throwing his arm around Rachel’s shoulder.  “A real fixer upper opportunity here.”  She leaned into him once, giving him an armless hug, then stepped inside.

             
Quey looked about the kitchen.  There was a stove, a refrigerator, a dishwasher and plenty of counter space and cabinets.  Along the wall to his left, next to the fridge, he spotted the cabin’s interface.  After pressing the boot button three times and getting no response he decided the house was either powerless or the computer had been taken out when the place was abandoned.

             
Through the window over the sink Quey could see Arnie, Rain and Leone hurrying across the barren ground toward the cabin.  He turned and went back into the main part of the lower floor where Dusty was looking out the window facing the main road.

             
“Find anything?” Dusty asked, looking over his shoulder.

             
Quey shook his head.

             
“What is it?” Rachel asked peering at him.  Dusty turned his full attention to his friend and noticed it too.  The man was tense and Quey wasn’t the sort who lent himself to such a condition lightly.

             
Reggie ran in with the last of the weapons.

             
“Quey?” Dusty asked, enticing his friend to answer the ladies question.

             
Quey shook his head and looked at them each individually.  “Something isn’t right.”

             
“What?”

             
Quey locked eyes with Dusty and shook his head.  “I don’t know.  Place don’t feel right.”

             
“Look man,” Reggie said, “If you’re having second thoughts-”

             
“Too late for that,” Rachel informed them, looking out the window.

             
The three of them stepped toward the glass and saw part of the convoy rolling down the main road.  There were three cars and a half a dozen motorcycles.

             
There was muttering outside, Rain and Leone arguing about something, but it came to a stop when they stepped inside after Leone got the last words in.  “I still say it was.”

             
Quey shushed the boy sharply and immediately felt silly for doing so.  The lake was big and the brood was at least a kilometer away, there was no way they’d hear him at that distance.  Still, bickering was annoying and this was no time for it.

             
The boy silenced instantly and the trio joined the rest of them watching the road just as the convoy settled to a stop.  Everyone’s heart skipped a beat or two and the house filled with a funereal silence until Quey broke it.

             
“Everyone on the second floor.”

             
The group hurried up the stairs that went from the living room to a landing, then on to the second floor.  Boards creaked and groaned under their weight as they marched loudly into the upper level.  There was one room at the end of the hall that had a view of both the main road and the road that ran past the front of the house.  They gathered there and hunkered down on the floor.

             
“Don’t move about too much,” Reggie said in a soft voice, not because he was worried about the brood hearing but because he wanted everyone to stay calm.  “They might spot movement if they’re looking for it.”  After that he started opening the bags and checked the guns, making sure they were loaded with one in the chamber.

             
“We’ve got things hid pretty keenly,” Quey said.  “Hopefully they’ll get bored and mosey along, but until then we have to stay hidden and ready.”

             
Reggie held up a shotgun and when Quey looked at him his eyes gestured toward Arnie.  Quey nodded and Reggie handed the young man the gun.  “Arnie, I know you had some trouble with this bit the last time we ran into it but you did good nonetheless,” Quey told him.  Then he asked, “Think you can hold yourself together on it again?”

             
Arnie swallowed hard and looked at Rain who reassured him with a supportive smile.  “I will,” he said and looked to Quey.

             
“Good, now that shotgun’s not gunna be of any use save if something is inside already.  That happens you send a spray down those steps you understand.  That’s all I want out of you.”

             
Arnie nodded and thanked Quey with his eyes.  He’d been given the job of last resort.  Shoot the raiding party heading up the steps.  If it came to that things had gone past bad and were coming up fast on totally fucked.

             
“How about you?” Reggie asked Rain.  “Can you shoot?”