The Creepers (32 page)

“He’ll bring her back. That one is well
capable,” the stranger said, nodding towards the trees.

Baylor twirled his pistol overhead
looking every-which-direction. “Excuse me if I don’t know what you two are
talking about, but it has been . . . quite the morning, to say the least.”

Jamie fumbled her way through an
explanation, pausing every other word to dry her eyes with her bloody apron.

Baylor, whistling low and long, kicked
at a rock in frustration. After a few minutes of expletive-filled parables he
smoothed out his jacket and settled his shoulders. He raised an eyebrow saying,
“So let me get this straight. I told you to stay put, and you to cover the
train. And well both of you fucked up. Is that about right?”

“The kid—”

“That fuckin’
kid
killed more men
than Price. So don’t go blaming this on the kid. FUCK!" Baylor scratched
his temple with the revolver’s iron sight. He didn’t need this . . . he really
didn’t. Things were supposed to run smooth like clockwork. The train wasn’t
supposed to stop until the end of the line—that’s how it was supposed to work,
an efficient process of progress. Now, however, everything was turned on its
head. He had to get a search party together, he had to find out what happened
to Price’s brother, and the other men.

“Jamie get inside and get cleaned up.
You’re not helping anyone out here like this. It’ll be dark soon. And we made
plenty of noise . . . tracks’ll be crawling with filth before you know it. I
plan to be westward bound before that happens. And you,” he pointed his
revolver at the stranger. “You get up front and start putting in some work. Lay
track my ass. You’re too much of an intellectual to lay track. Fuck do I look
like? A benevolent friar? You either get to workin’ or get the fuck off my
ride.”

Neither one of them were about to argue
with the look on Baylor’s face.

He watched them disappear between the
cars. When he was sure he was alone he allowed himself to slump in defeat. The
stress of the day worked knots down his back and along his arms and legs. It
was hard being the leader, even before the war, Baylor had been a great
servant, an extraordinary right hand man, but he never aspired to take the next
step, partly because he couldn’t be bothered, but also because he didn’t want
to hold anybody’s hand. But when the world changed he was forced to change
along with it. Much like the kid had been forced to change.

The world certainly had a way of backing
people into corners, but fate is always the foundation and walls that make up
the corners. Baylor knew somewhere in the grand construction of the universe
this was meant to be. It truly felt like it was, but why—why should he feel
this way now? He’d been through much over the last two decades, survived much,
but he also built much, and helped take back a bit of the country at the same
time. Now, here he was again, dealt a hand that could swing the balance in
humanity’s direction, and all he could think about was, not only getting the
kid back, but keeping him safe and letting him make up his own mind.

“Damn, kid, why did you have to help?”
Baylor said to the sky. “Why couldn’t you have just been a normal kid?"
The notion would’ve made his internal dilemma easier. He could have just helped
the kid along and wiped his hands clean of it. Now, though, he had a vested
interest in the kid.

“I thought I was pretty normal. A little
small . . . not the best at football, but a smart, well-rounded player,” Bobby
said as he exited the trees with Sophie leaning on his shoulder. “And you
shouldn’t talk to yourself. People might think you’re crazy.”

“Bwahahaha . . . I-I don’t know what to
say, kid." Baylor found it impossible to hide the elation as it spread to
his face. “I’ve never seen shooting quite like that before.”

“I have." Bobby smiled.

“Sophie dear, go to your mom. She needs
you.”

Sophie turned to Bobby and planted a
firm kiss on his lips and darted off.

“She likes you,” Baylor laughed. “Heck,
kid, I owe you now . . . even more than I did before.”

“You owe me nothing, Mr. Baylor, nothing
at all. It was all I could do to help, but tell me . . . what happened to the
men that were hanging over the tracks?" Bobby tensed as he said the words.
He knew those faces. He could even hear their voices cutting him down countless
times over the course of many winters. He remembered their stares when he came
back the morning after Ryan had been bitten. He marked them well.

“The boys are cutting them down. I don’t
think all of them made it, though . . .”

“Where’s my rifle, Mr. Baylor?" The
boy vacated his voice and was replaced by something wholly automated, a cold,
calculated series of tones that wasted zero energy in being expressed.

“Kid, look,” Baylor blotted his bald
head with a sleeve, “just lay low. Get some rest. Let this pass and we can all
be on our way." But even as he said the words Baylor knew, just by looking
at the kid, that he would not be able to sway his decision. He couldn’t fault
him either.
If they had been my brothers,
he pushed the thought far,
very far, from his mind.

“I know now that there will be no rest
for me,” Bobby’s gaze found Baylor’s in sympathy, “or for anyone I encounter.
My brothers lost their lives because of what’s in our blood. I nearly lost
mine,” Bobby slumped forward his hands pressing on his temples. “About an hour
ago I almost lost my mind.”

“Kid, I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I." Bobby sighed. “But
I do know that those men will not let me live.”

“Shit, you can’t know that, kid, you
saved their lives. So did I, and Price, and Jamie . . . all of us did them a
solid. There’s no denying that." Baylor slid his revolver into its holster.
He hoped the simple action would somehow ease the unwanted tension, but he was
wrong.

“No, but you don’t know these men
either,” Bobby’s smile returned suddenly, “but I like you, Mr. Baylor, you’re
one of the good ones. So I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.”

“Fair enough, kid." Baylor wasn’t
entirely sure what he’d agreed to.

“My brother Ryan used to pick on me for
being scared . . . too bad he can’t see me now.”

“He’d be proud.”

“No, not Ryan, he’d be a wiseass. Bryan
would’ve been proud. Ol’ Randy would’ve been proud, but he’s not here. Those
men will know what happened to him.”

“Then let’s ask them.”

“Not without my rifle, Mr. Baylor.”

“Fair enough." Baylor had a hard
time trying to remove the rime of frost from the back of his neck. “Just stop calling
me Mr. Baylor.”

“Only if you stop calling me kid.”

Bobby retrieved his rifle, pausing
briefly to study the carnage before returning to the sleeper car and the rest
of his ammunition. As he loaded the rifle he could feel the far off beat of
three Creepers drawn by the noise. It wouldn’t be long before more made their
way to the train. They needed to get moving soon.

A steel resolve kept his skin on, but
the eagerness to hear what had become of Ol’ Randy had him on edge.

“You sure about this,” Baylor asked from
the hall.

“Yes,” Bobby said, racking a round.

“The boys are swapping stories in the
dining car. Let’s say you keep back and let me see how things are, after that
you make yourself known. Okay?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

 After Baylor opened the door,
Bobby stayed to the shadows between the cars, and once he laid eyes on the
Crannen twins his heart began to pound. A sour mix of past torments lighted on
the back of his tongue. The voices of his brothers cried for justice, reminding
Bobby of a time he’d tried to forget. He was suddenly sliding into the past,
into distraction. He grappled for the edge of present reason, but found only
the howling cry of memory.

It was cold. His feet, raw and red,
stung from the snow in which he stood. His knees wobbled, teeth chattering,
tears freezing to his flush cheeks. His brothers were with him, lined up with
him. They wore only their briefs and a gritty determination borne of
punishments such as the one they now found themselves in.

“Fuckin’a, Bobb-o, didn’t think they’d
figure it out so-so soon,” Ryan jested.

“I told you, Ryan, why do you always
have to cause trouble,” Bobby said, tucking his hands under his arms for
warmth, finding none.

“Shut up you two,” Paul warned.

Bobby had warned him not to steal the
fuel, practically begged him not to do it. He knew they’d get caught. Something
as precious as gasoline, even as sediment-laden as the red gallon was, would
not go unnoticed. But Ryan wouldn’t listen. He didn’t want the fuel to start
the fire that he eventually did with it, no, he wanted to take it just to stick
it to the Folks. Well stick it to them he did.

Not only did he manage to burn the
entire gallon but he immolated three latrines in the process. As much as Bobby
hated him for bringing this punishment upon them, it was worth it, just for a
glimpse of the Folks waiting to shit and piss, hands crotch-ward bound, shaking
in the cold.

“Ya’ll think it funny . . . don’t-cha,”
Thomas spat. He warmed his gloved hands over a nice drum fire. “Ain’t so
fuckin’ funny now idn’t it?”

They shook their heads.

“Thomas acksed you a question,” Jackson
said, cradling a shotgun. “Well I don’t feel like staying out in this cold all
night, ya’ hear?”

The brothers did not respond.

“Fuckin’ smell the fear on ya’s like
fresh jay bird shit. Ya’ll just earned another hunned or so push-ups. Now drop
and start countin’ and I better hear ya’ll this time. DOWN!”

Bobby dropped, ignoring the stinging
cold as his hands plunged into the fresh snow, and he started to count. His
chest scrapped the snow with each repetition, but he kept his form . . . to
stray or to falter was to invite harsher punishment. As he worked his muscles
to utter exhaustion he prayed to God to make it stop. It never stopped. They
never stopped. Apparently God wasn’t home.

Bryan was the first to drop. He hit the
snow in a sobbing, panting mess.

Ryan went next, but not from exhaustion,
he simply had had enough.

Bobby, Paul, and Pete kept on, as if
proving themselves in some useless game would have any impact on the Crannen Twins’
set-in-stone opinions of their existence. For them it was more a show of force.
They might be hated, they might be despised, but they were not weak.

“I think that’s enough!” Ol’ Randy
roared. He had Bryan cradled in his massive arms, Ryan shivering at his side.
“Get up boys. Get up now. Your parents’d would be ashamed of what’s become of
you two. They raised ya better’n’at.”

“Old Ma and Pa were only good at raising
suspicions to they actions. Just like you, Randal, just like you.”

Ol’ Randy ignored the insult. No matter
how hard the Crannen Twins tried to force him into a fight, he never gave in.
To do so was beneath him.

Bobby remembered well the numbing cold
and the night of utterly stale hot chocolate that followed. He held on to that
memory, and the image of momentary peace he, and his brothers gained that
night. How they laughed in spite of the pain, in spite of it all . . . how they
laughed.

Jackson’s grating laughter ripped Bobby
from the past. He stayed in the deep shadows between the cars watching the
Crannen twins interact with Baylor’s crew, but he was finding it hard not to
take them out from where he stood. So he waited. He owed Baylor that much. He
waited and he listened.

“We thought they were our boys waitin’
on the train,” Jackson said. His left eye was swollen shut and his left hand
was bandaged up. The wild people had worked him over. His discomfort brought a
smile to Bobby’s face.

“What do you mean
our
boys?”
Price asked, crossing his arms. The large man looked out of place in the dining
car. One of the hanging lights hovered an inch from his head like some garish
fez.

“The military,” Jackson said with all
seriousness. The laughter, like the color in his face, drained at the sight of
the scowl on Price’s. “Ya’ know . . . our boys. I heard tell of them still
fighting ‘cross the country. God bless ’em.”

“What would you know? You people come
down once a year to take, and then you return to your hidey hole in the
mountains. What do you know of the struggle of
our
military, or ordinary
people like Mr. Baylor and myself? We’re trying to win back our home . . . what
are you trying to do?" Price cracked his knuckles. “You don’t know a damn
thing about the men that wore those uniforms you fucking inbred son of a
bitch.”

“Woah, friend, we ain’t got a quarrel
with the likes of you. We all on the same side here." Thomas had his hands
up trying to ease the sudden tension.

“Price,” Baylor put a hand on the
massive man’s shoulder, “that’s no way to treat our guests. My apologies,
gentlemen, but my dear friend here may have suffered a loss in the family.
Either of you ever heard of Wyoming Blue?”

Jackson relaxed a bit at Baylor’s
interference, “No, sir,” he said uneasily.