Children Of The Mountain (Book 2): The Devil You Know (25 page)

I slip the gun inside my sleeping bag and settle back against the wall to wait.

*

I
T IS DARK NOW
, and that is good. It was a little scary to leave the only place he can ever remember but he is glad to be out of the cage. He heard what the doctor said. He knows the mean soldier would soon have come to take him into the other room. He really didn’t want to go there.

He doesn’t like the outside though.

It’s not the cold. That doesn’t bother him. He’s aware of it, of course, but in a way that is distant, unimportant, like how the clothes he wears now feel different to the ones he had in the cage.

It’s not the snow either, even though it is difficult. He knows the girl and the boy are going slowly because of him and they need to go quickly now, so the mean soldier doesn’t catch them. But the snow is deep and his legs are short and sometimes even with the sticks the boy cut for him he struggles to stay upright. He thinks he is getting better though. If he stays in the boy’s footsteps like the girl showed him he can do it. Tomorrow he will try and go faster.

But the light! He did not think it was possible for anything to be that bright. It is like the very sky is on fire. Even with what the boy has done to his goggles he cannot bear to look up at it. So he keeps his head down and focuses on planting his poles, lifting his snowshoes, making sure he places them in the tracks ahead of him. The light will not let him be, though. Even reflected off the gray flakes it burns his eyes so badly that more than once he has prayed for the cage and the darkness of the room underneath the bunker.

And there is something else now too, something that frightens him even more than the thought of going out into the hateful brightness again. He felt it earlier, stirring inside him, when the boy was tending to the cuts on his feet. It receded a little when he finished and the bandages went on the fire. But traces of it still linger and they are maddening, just like when the girl cut her hand, and before, when the mean soldier fell in front of his cage. He knows what that feeling is now. He has not had it for so very long; so long that at first he did not even recognize it. But now he does.

The candy bar the girl gave him sits untouched in his lap. He picks it up and sniffs at it, then puts it back down again. There is nothing there that holds his interest. He knows what he wants now, but he doesn’t dare admit it, even to himself, because that might make it real.

He looks across the room. The fire has died down again and it is dark, but he can see perfectly well. The boy is sleeping. He tried not to for a long time. He watched his head fall forward onto his chest, saw it jerk upright as he caught himself, and then moments later slump forward again.

He likes the boy. He sees how he looks at the girl. He knows the boy doesn’t want him here but still he made him poles so he could manage the snow, and he tried to fix his goggles so the light wouldn’t hurt his eyes so badly. He heard what the soldier with one eye said, when the girl refused to leave him in his cage, and later, when he pulled the boy back into the tunnel and gave him the thing that smells of oil and metal. He wishes the boy wasn’t frightened of him.

But maybe it is good that he is.

*

I
WAKE WITH A START
and the feeling that I’ve just cried out in my sleep. The dream’s already fading, but I remember a tunnel, and a shrill voice I haven’t heard in a long time, urging me to run faster. I blink sleep from my eyes, worried I might still be there. But I’m not. I’m sitting upright, my back to the wall, the frigid air pressing against my sweat-soaked thermals. I must have drifted off while I was supposed to be watching the fury. I quickly look over but it’s where it was earlier, huddled in the corner on the far side of the room. Next to me Mags is curled up in her sleeping bag.

The fire’s dead and black on the ground and it’s cold. It’s still sometime before dawn but I know I won’t sleep again so I get up and head outside for more firewood. Mags is awake when I get back. I set a couple of MREs to heat and then get to work on a fire. She asks the fury if it wants anything but it just holds up the HOOAH! it’s been working on since yesterday and says it’s fine.

When we’re done with breakfast I hand her one of the little plastic vials Hicks gave me. She takes it, unscrews the cap and finishes it with a grimace, then holds her hand out for another. I hesitate. I know the path she means to commit us to; I’ve known it since she demanded the second container from Hicks on the way out of the bunker yesterday. But what if he can’t get us more medicine? There’s only three of the vials left. With the pace we’re setting that’s not even enough to get her to Eden, and that’s as much as I care about. I glance over to the other side of the fire. The fury’s got its knees hugged to its chest but I can see it watching to see what I’ll do. I don’t intend it harm but Hicks said it’s only a day or two from turning, which means anything we’re giving it now is just a waste. I guess that’s not the way Mags sees it though. She reaches out to touch my arm, but then thinks better of it and pulls back.

‘Gabe?’

I look back at her.

‘Listen, you either give me another container or the next one I get I’m just going to give to him anyway. But it’s not going to come to that, is it?’

In the end I relent and she takes the medicine and hands it to the fury. I pack up our gear while she gets it ready. The Walmart had a big outdoors section and I picked up a pair of hiking poles to replace the branches I cut for it. I also found ski goggles with a darker lens and a kid’s jacket with a hood like a snorkel. The goggles are for an adult, so they’re a little big but Mags adjusts the strap and they seem to stay on. I’ve taped the lens like before, so only a small slit remains through which light can enter. Mags hands it the jacket and it tries it on. It fits okay and she gets to work taping its gloves. It can’t grasp the zipper pull with its mittens on so she has to help it. Its face disappears inside the hood as she slides it all the way up.

Dawn’s just starting to creep into the sky as we set off. The fury hangs back inside the shadow of the doorway and Mags has to coax it out. It still doesn’t want to look directly at the light but it manages to hold its head at a more hopeful angle than anything it could muster yesterday.

I had another look at Marv’s map over breakfast. Route 220 out of Covington stays parallel to I-81 for most of its length. We can follow it almost as far as we need to go north and then rejoin the interstate for the last couple of days and it doesn’t look like we’ll have added much to our journey. I discuss it with Mags as we head down to the highway and she reckons we should take it. I stick a patch of duct tape to the exit sign so Hicks knows which way we’ve gone.

We follow I-64 east for a third of a mile or so. The road crosses a wide river the map says is the Jackson and then a little further on we come to an embankment that drops down onto railway lines. According to the map they’ll take us north out of town as quickly as 220 and I figure if Truck’s looking for places we might have gotten off he’ll check the roads before anything else. The wind’s picked up overnight and in a few hours any tracks we lay down this morning should be gone but I reckon we should do something to cover our trail, just in case.

I hang back while Mags takes the fury on ahead. I watch as they make their way down the slope. It seems to be doing better with the snowshoes this morning. I don’t know if it’s the poles I got it or the darker goggles, but it’s managing to stand almost upright now; it only fell once on our way out here. Just as I’m thinking this however it snags an edge and goes head over heels down the embankment. Mags catches up to it and digs it out and they set off again.

I unsnap my snowshoes. The cuts on my feet are troubling me less this morning but it’s still a relief to step out of them. When I get to the bottom I shuck off my backpack and drag it behind me to smooth out our tracks until we get to the first bend.

The railway line follows the river for a ways and then it continues north while the dark, brooding waters wind out west. About a mile from the interstate we come to a set of signals; the hooded lights hanging from the rusting gantry arm stare down at us as we pass underneath. After that the track opens up. Endless rows of rusting tank cars sit silent in their sidings, hauled to their final resting place by huge locomotives. They tower over us from under a blanket of gray snow as we walk between them.

We leave the tracks at a railroad crossing. The barriers are down and an arrow points to a sign that says another train is coming but we don’t wait for it. The Jackson’s gray waters curve back around to greet us as we rejoin 220 and leave Covington behind. The road hugs the eastern edge of the valley, rising and falling as it winds its way north into the Appalachians. I keep looking over my shoulder, hoping for Hicks’ lean, rangy form to appear around a bend behind us. But that morning there’s nothing.

Sometime around noon we come to a pickup that’s slid off the road. There’s been no other shelter for miles so I break the window and we climb inside to eat our lunch. There’s a narrow bench seat in the back and Mags holds the door open to let the fury in. It looks up for a long while but I guess it’s not feeling sociable because it turns around and slips into the back under the tarp. We eat quickly and set off again as soon as we’re done.

The wind drops and the same gray clouds that were scudding across the mountain tops this morning now just hang there like they’ve no place better to be. We come to a narrow bridge; a gray ribbon of ash-choked water flows sluggishly south underneath us as we cross. If we’re where we’re supposed to be on the map this should be the Jackson again, but this river seems much smaller than the one that accompanied us out of Covington. I spend some time looking for a sign but there’s none.

The road runs true for the next few miles and then it veers west through a break in the ridge at a place called Gulley Run. I can’t see any mention of it on Marv’s map, and that’s not the direction I think we should be headed. I spend some time looking for mile markers to make sure we’re still following the right path but the snow’s drifted deep and I can’t find any.

I look back over my shoulder. Behind us the valley’s straight enough to see for miles but there’s nothing. Hicks should have caught us by now; I’m beginning to think he missed the tape I left on the exit sign. He told us to stay on the interstate as long as we could, but I reckon he meant I-81, and we never made it that far. I wonder if he would even have been looking for directions that soon.

We continue on, following the road as it snakes into another valley. This one’s smaller than the last, with steep sides and a narrow floor. It stretches out for miles in front of us, barren, silent and lifeless, without even a barn or a stand of trees to break the emptiness. I begin to worry I’ve made a mistake, bringing us this way. With the pace we’re setting we can’t hope to outrun the soldiers, and there’s no shelter here; nowhere to hide; no way out but on or back. If Truck manages to pick up our trail at Covington and they follow us in there we’ll be trapped.

I stop and pull out the map again, pretending to examine it while I consider our options. It doesn’t take me long to realize we don’t have many. If we turn around now we could march right into them, but that’s not even my main concern. As I reached into my pocket my fingers brushed the last two containers of Gilbey’s medicine. Enough for just one more day if Mags keeps sharing. Eden’s still maybe five days ahead of us, at our best pace. Without Hicks I don’t know how I’m going to get us there in time to save her; I only know we don’t have time to backtrack. I fold the map and point ahead, like I know where we’re going. The truth is the road I’ve put us on is looking like a bad call, but there’s nothing to do now but keep following it.

We set off again. The sides of the valley close up around us but the slopes remain bare, without even a single withered trunk to break the gray. With each step we take I feel more and more exposed. I keep looking over my shoulder. I started out this morning hoping at any moment to spot Hicks behind us, but when I turn around now it’s Truck and the others I expect to see.

All afternoon we hike north, deeper and deeper into the valley. I look for mile markers but find none. I’m still stopping us every hour for frostbite checks, although I’m not sure why, other than for the break it provides. I’m not sure Mags can get frostbite anymore, and I already have it. I dread it now, the moment she lifts her goggles on to her forehead. I find myself staring at the darkening shadows under her eyes, trying to convince myself they’re not getting worse, but struggling to find the evidence of it.

As dusk settles we pass a row of mailboxes, only their rusting tops visible above the snow. We’ll need shelter soon but there’s no sign of the homes to which they once belonged. I stop to search them. I tell Mags I’m looking for kindling but in reality I’m desperate for anything that might tell us where we are. But there’s nothing.

Darkness falls around us. The temperature’s dropping fast and I’m starting to panic. We haven’t passed shelter since the pickup where we ate lunch, and that’s too far behind us now to contemplate. At last we come to a widening in the road that somebody has bothered to name Mustoe. It doesn’t show on Marv’s map but that doesn’t matter; as we round a bend I spot a small farmhouse, set back a ways from the road. We trudge up to it as the last of the light leaves the sky. I haven’t managed to replace the pry bar I lost at the hospital but as we get closer I can see I’m not going to need it. The back door’s already busted open and inside looks in a sorry state. If we had alternatives I’d walk us on by, but we are beggars now not choosers. I unsnap my snowshoes and step inside.

*

H
E SITS IN THE CORNER
, one wrist held up to his mouth. His small teeth probe for the edge of the tape binding the mitten to the cuff of his jacket, unaware that that is what he is doing.