Falling Sky (9 page)

But I'm feeling a bit more confident, and I want to give the rest of the house a search.

It's tech-lite, the way a lot of these country homes are. Dad used to tell me that people preferred these homes without too many modern distractions. People who lived in the cities often used these places to get away. I had to take his word on that. I never knew a world with distractions other than finding a way to survive. But I've read about them. It's like reading about wizards and sorcerers.

I find a couple of tech boxes whose uses aren't clear to me. I strip what I can from them and pile them into the bag.

Then it's up the stairs.

Again, this is a bit trickier. Just because no Ferals came at me before doesn't mean there isn't a whole nest up here, enjoying the slightly elevated temperature, waiting for a tasty morsel to drop in on them.

So it's revolver out, my finger ready to fire away.

I realize this place is bigger than it appears. Lots of rooms. Which can be trouble. But I take them one by one. Swinging the gun into the entrance, switching between the room and the hallway.

It also appears to be clean. There's not much up here. Some old furniture. Some books. I pick up a few. These are for me. Entertainment isn't easy to find in the Sick, and it looks like I'm going to have a lot of time on the ground to fill.

At last I crest the third floor. It's just one room up here. A huge room. With a window looking down on the fields below and some kind of stove or heating unit crafted to look like an antique.

There's nothing here for me, either. But still I stop for a moment and admire the view, trying to imagine what it would be like for someone to live here.

After just standing for a while, I decide it's time to leave. I could check out another of the houses, but my haul is substantial enough and I don't need to right now. Besides, I'll have plenty of time to clear these old houses. At least until the fuel stops lasting. I might as well take it a little slow.

I drop my finds into the back of the Ferrari and gun her up. The sound of the engine seems louder now that my heart isn't jackhammering in my chest. Then I'm heading back to the hill and toward Viktor's farm.

My smile is wide as I make my way back.

I park the car near the fence's gate and scramble with my haul inside and into the house. Happy, almost beaming, I remove all my treasures and line them up on Viktor's table, waiting for his arrival.

I also crack open the liquor and take a quick celebratory swig.

I expected Viktor to be here when I got back, but he must have decided to do something else. In a way it's better like this. I can surprise him when he gets back.

I slide into a chair gripping one of the Westerns I took from the house. I haven't read many of them, but every time I come across one I feel drawn to it. Something about that time, people living in a wild, dangerous frontier. It reminds me of now. Only those were society's growing pains. Now we're living in its death throes.

I'm into the second chapter when I hear a horrific squeal outside. I run to the window and through it I see Rex rearing in front of the gate. I wonder what's going on, then it hits me. Maybe the horse is hurt. Maybe Viktor's hurt. Maybe that's why they aren't already inside the fence.

I'm out the door and halfway to the gate when I realize that Viktor isn't on Rex's back.

I hit the gate release and the horse comes galloping in, running around the open yard and tossing his head. He looks wild. Huge. I'm afraid to go near him.

I wonder if he would attack me. My hand hovers near my revolver.

It's as I'm thinking about how to subdue him that he seems to calm down and approaches me slowly. I reach my hand out the way Viktor showed me, though my other hand still remains near the pistol.

Rex walks closer and nuzzles my hand.

Where the fuck is Viktor?

I slowly walk around Rex and then I see it. The large dark stain on the horse's brown flank. Sticky.

Blood.

I back away. I don't know whose blood this is. It could be Viktor's, of course. Or it could be Feral blood. I know that it doesn't appear to be the horse's blood. He doesn't appear to be injured from what I can see, though I'm certainly not getting too close to that blood.

What the fuck happened?

I feel like I should get on Rex and go out looking, but I barely know how to ride and again, there's that blood. So instead I leave Rex and go out to the Ferrari. I drive down the hill, around where we saw the Ferals. I drive in the direction I saw him leaving that morning. I go around and around until I'm not sure which direction I'm facing.

There's no sign of Viktor.

That doesn't mean anything, I think. He could still be out there. Maybe he just fell off Rex and is now making his way back to the house. Slowly. Carefully.

So I return to the house myself. Rex is now calm, away from the outside world. I manage, somehow, to undo the straps on the saddle and remove (or rather topple) it from him, being careful not to get close to the blood, even wrapping my gloves in additional cloth. Then I leave the horse to wander.

I return to the house and sit there, worrying. Wondering. So I pick up the book and start to read. Have to pass the time somehow. I keep listening, though. For any sign of Viktor. For a shout. A groan. Anything.

But nothing comes, so I read instead, hoping that cowboys will distract me.

I fall asleep with the book on top of me.

I dream of gunslingers and horses and revolvers and gunfights. The book I was reading is about a sheriff in the Old West, a lawman, trying to bring order to his chaotic town. Only without the Bug to dog his steps.

I wonder if anyone back in the Clean ever longed to live in a time like that. It was rough if the book is any indication. People dying left and right. Disease. Violence. Lawlessness. But you could live the life you wanted. You could have a house. Friends. Neighbors. Family. You could make a living doing something. Running a store. Building things. Training horses. Farming. I find myself longing for even the simplest of lives back then. Something quiet and comfortable. Maybe even a marriage. Growing old and getting fat with a woman beside me.

And if lawlessness or violence did come my way, well, I know how to deal with that.

There's only one real law in the Sick: survive.

When I wake I go back to the Ferrari and take it out again, looking for any sign of Viktor. I know what it's like to get caught outside. Sometimes the best thing to do is to hide, hole up somewhere warm and safe and come out when things get quiet. Stirred-up Ferals tend to stick around. But they didn't have the best memories sometimes. Let them get distracted by something else and you could often make a run for it.

I drive around, hoping that if Viktor is out there he sees me and comes running. Without Rex he'll be easy prey unless I can get him in the Ferrari.

But he doesn't appear. I stay out as long as I can, only returning when my stomach starts howling at me to fill it. I know I'll be better with some food in me, so I go back and go through some of the food I foraged from the house. The canned beans are a little funky but seem to be mostly okay. You tend to develop instincts about this sort of thing. The fish, likewise, seems good if a little salty. I wash them down with some of Viktor's fresh water and a sip of tequila.

That flat, gray voice is starting to speak inside my head again. It's the voice of Reality, the one that always kicks in when I start to stray into wishful thinking. It's saying that Viktor isn't coming back. It's saying that he got caught and he's either dead or Faded and there's nothing I can do to help him. I try not to listen to it.

But I start thinking about what happens if he doesn't come back. What do I do then? I look around at his comfy digs and think, can I really just stay there?

The gray voice says, can you really afford not to? Here I have protection, security, food, water. It's not the Core, but it's close. I have the Ferrari. I can forage through the nearby houses until I amass a suitable stash. And if I end up with some really good salvage, maybe I can barter it to get back in the air. I could sign up with a crew, work my way up to my own ship again.

The thought makes me want to spit because I had my ship. I had my home. But then I think about how I didn't really bleed to get the
Cherub
. Don't get me wrong, I've bled lots. For my ship. For my family. Sometimes even for strangers. But I got lucky growing up on the
Cherub
. Some other zeps out there had to earn their ships, bit by bit. I never had to deal with that. And isn't being in the sky worth it?

You're getting ahead of yourself, the voice says, and I know it's right. For now, I have a place to live, food, and shelter. I'll deal with the rest as it comes.

But first, I go out to look for Viktor one more time. I spend a more time this round on looking for hiding places, under rocks, beneath bushes, things like that. Those are often places that Ferals hide out in, but what can I do?

Nothing. The air smells fresh and wild and I think of Viktor out wounded in it. He couldn't have gone too far, I think. And if he's not back now, something has gone horribly wrong. Odds aren't good, the gray voice says.

But I push it back. He could be hurt, sure, but that doesn't mean he was infected. Maybe he broke his leg falling off Rex. He pulled himself into some crevice somewhere, and he's just trying to figure out a way to get back. I make sure to shut off the Ferrari's engine, strain to listen beyond the bird calls and the rustling of the trees.

Nothing.

The gray voice stirs again and again. I silence it. I wonder why I'm spending so much time on this. But it's fairly simple in the end. Viktor saved me. I want to do the same.

What if you can't? This time the gray voice doesn't go away. It's not like you're good at saving people. Better at getting them killed.

Since I'm already out, I decide to try another house. The one I choose is smaller—less to check—and so I carefully kick in the door and enter with my pistol out.

Nothing moves, but a smell washes over me. Not the stink of Ferals but the smell of death. Something died in here. And relatively recently.

I take in the room quickly. It's a large open space, with a kitchen area ahead of me and a lounging area to my right. I move through the open area to make sure there's nothing hiding and then check out the kitchen.

Unfortunately, any of the dry goods were rotted by a broken-in window and the weather it let in. There are a few bottles of sauces and condiments, but nothing with real nutrition.

There's also a dearth of electronics here. Just a pair of old guitars that have long since rotted through.

A set of stairs leads up to a second level. I take them up.

The scent of death is stronger upstairs. A long corridor winds its way around the top floor with doors leading off it.

I take them one by one, willing myself to be quiet, hoping not to alert anything that might be hiding here. The first room is just a bedroom—bed, bureau, and rocking chair. I open the drawers, but there are only moldy sheets inside.

The next one is the same. And the next. Maybe some kind of boarding house?

The last room reveals the source of the smell. A figure is twisted up on the ground at the foot of the bed. Dessicated and stiff.

It's a Feral. Female. The nakedness doesn't give it away, but the long, dirty nails do. I don't get close to it. The Bug almost certainly died with it, but I don't think I can bring myself to approach.

I can't help but wonder why it came in here. Maybe searching for food, I think, but then why not just leave? Maybe it had been sick with some kind of Feral disease?

It was almost certainly on its own, otherwise other Ferals would have eaten it. Miranda says that in addition to stealing away reason and increasing aggression, the Bug speeds up the victim's metabolism. So they're always hungry. They're as likely to eat each other in extreme cases as they are anything else.