The Creepers (40 page)

The young man was close by handing out
bags of ammo. He snapped to the Pastor. “Yes, Pastor?”

“That demon child is watching the tower.
He’s killed Mason and Doherty. Find him! Even if you have to send someone back
up into that tower as bait!” Pastor Craven snapped. He didn’t wait for a response.
He hobbled towards the Corral. “So it’s Randy you want . . . it’s Randy you’ll
get.”

*
* * * *

Pastos One was
bleeding from at least a dozen places. The climb had not been easy, but he made
it to the narrow lip, hugging the fence he worked his way around the back of
the Settlement. He stayed within the shadow of a long low building. Bobby’s
descriptions had been so exact he didn’t need to guess. He reached the repaired
fence in almost as many steps as Bobby had said, but the boy hadn’t taken into
account the man’s much larger shoe size.

Pastos One
checked the fence. It wouldn’t be an easy fit, but if he removed his hood he
should be able to make it through. Carefully, checking for movement, he slid
his assault rifle under. Next he used the sleeve of his hood to tie the fence
up so he could crawl freely.

Once on the
other side he found the closest window and peered inside. Neat folded piles of
coveralls were stacked on wooden tables along the far wall. In the dim light he
could make out many tall racks that appeared to have been ransacked. Empty ammo
crates jutted out at odd angles while loose bullets sparkled on the floor. The
Folks had cleared it in a hurry.

The crackle of
gunfire settled into a steady pace. Pathos One broke the window with the butt
of his assault rifle. He crept inside and donned a pair of coveralls close
enough to his size. The collar itched the back of his neck. He scratched and
chased the itch around his head as he observed the Settlement in crisis mode.

The sun burned a
sword-like beam through the window, silhouetting the men and women on the
rooftop across the yard. They called out orders to each other. They fought for
their survival, a species on the brink. Pathos One contemplated being part of
their downfall as he waited for night.

*
* * * *

“Pa, crops ain’t gon’ make it,” Ol’
Randy said from the bottom of the pit. Above him, painted in the light from the
open door, stood the father he knew as a boy. He spoke to him as such, but
knew, though he couldn’t grasp it, that this shouldn’t be possible. Breakdown.
He could feel the crumbling within like watching a time lapse of the country
from above as it rose and fell and finally burned to black.

He could see bones he’d never known he
had poking through his gray skin. He lived in his past most of the time now,
though, there were occasional interruptions by glimpses of the present. He
tried not to think about where they put him. But when the bullets began to fly,
when Ol’ Randy heard the intimately familiar sound of war, something in his
wiring bypassed the pain, and suddenly he became very aware of the molten glass
that had become his bloodstream.

“Your father I ain’t. Now g’on and get
in that sling, Randal. The Lord above needs you out that pit,” Pastor Craven
said from above.

“Why don’t ‘cha git down here and make
me?” Ol’ Randy said smugly. “This here rotten dirt ain’t so bad,” a cough
rattled his body, “once ya get used to the stink.”

“Would you rather I find Cale and end
his life?” Pastor Craven threatened. His voice cracked, eyes bulging in anger,
a tremor of worry bent the corner of his thin mouth.

“You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t kill
me either. Nothin’ but a coward.”

“Jackson Crannen’s buzzard food . . . by
my hand, by God’s design. Things have changed, and if the Lord shall demand I
take that young man’s life, so as to get you into gear then, so be it. NOW PUT
THE HARNESS ON!” Pastor Craven screamed. Spittle rained down into the pit.

Ol’ Randy rolled and clawed his way into
the harness, palming a sharp rock in the process. He had no idea what had
transpired, but it was enough to shake the Pastor. He had to be ready for
anything.

*
* * * *

Bobby’s eye burned. It had been hours
since his second shot. He watched the battle develop, rapidly, and now he started
the second stage. Half of his force continued the march directly up the road
while the rest stayed behind rocks, under cover, and out of any serious lines
of sight. The bank of monitors in his head resembled a billboard in Times
Square in need of repair. Some had already reached the fence, and he didn’t
waste their sacrifices.

The metal work was just as strong as he
remembered. They wouldn’t breach on strength or number alone. But the
sacrificial advances gave him a better glimpse of the proceedings. He worked
through the vision of a legless Creeper. From beneath a rusted chassis he
looked for a weakness to exploit.

There were none, at least, not in the
physical sense. However, in the Folks’ eyes he found his critical strike point.
With night approaching fast Bobby crawled with the Creeper. He viewed the world
from that prone position, imagining it, the view from a rodent’s eyes.
Rotting legs shielded him from fire along with clouds of kicked up dust.

Monitors continued to wink out, tolling
the bell of many second deaths.

He propelled the legless Creeper along
the fence, dragging sun dried entrails like smoked sausages. Some of the
younger Folks, those that had no real combat experience, were on the ground
level, firing their weapons without discipline, taunting, shouting epitaphs at
the horde. Bobby felt the Creeper’s swell of hunger at the sight of potential
meals. He felt the bullets, too, ripping through the paper-thin-skin of the
Creeper’s back. Wild shots. Misplaced shots. They were too caught up in the
rush of battle. Especially one boy of about nine or ten. The child-warrior was
right at the fence, jamming his small caliber rifle through the gaps and firing
blindly. Before the sandy-haired boy could react, Bobby thought of clamping
down on that milky calf. It was so close, taunting, an offering for sacrifice.

The Creeper obeyed.

A moment later his widow was drawn shut.

Bobby quickly went to his scope and
found the ashen face of the boy. He remembered him well. Ted Burland. Now let
them live with the fear, he thought. Ted continued the fight, ending the
advance of an old woman with half her scalp missing. No one noticed Ted
pretending to be normal in that moment of paralyzing fear. With his ticking
time bomb planted, Bobby settled into the cadence of rhythmic breathing. The
night would bring with it a new kind of terror.

*
* * * *

Cale climbed the rungs slowly. The body
of Doherty taunted him, silently, from below. Each time his hands met the
rungs, he flinched. The world he knew had turned to madness. Somewhere beyond
the fence, beyond the horde of Creepers, a little boy sat with his rifle,
waiting for a new target. Cale reached the top and crawled past Mason’s body.
The wood planks sticky with blood as he slid along.

He clutched the .50CAL but he didn’t
dare stand up. With all the gunfire erupting from below he couldn’t tell if
shots were flying over and around the tower. He was terrified. Part of him
wanted to stand up and fight for his home, for his people, for his life, but he
didn’t want to die, wasn’t ready to die, regardless of the many scenarios
presented to him over the years. He wasn’t equipped to handle the strangeness
of this battle. What did Jackson mean that Bobby was controlling them?

Cale shuddered. Mason’s ruined face
leered at him, the ropey gray matter lapping at the blood like some shattered
ruin of a dog splattered on the side of the road. He couldn’t move. True fear
gripped him, primal fear, and he was powerless against it. He didn’t have the
capacity to kill that which he didn’t understand. And in the months that
followed the boys’ and Lyda’s murders, Cale no longer understood anything.

He began to scream.

But he couldn’t even hear his own wails
over those of the Creepers.

*
* * * *

Ol’ Randy lay at the edge of the pit, the
filth of months caked on his ragged clothes and sore-ridden skin. But he was
altogether himself, really and wholly, in complete control. He shifted his
weight to his good leg and rolled up on his elbows. He held the rock close to
his leg, shielding it with the baggy folds of his blue jeans.

“What’s got ya in a tizzy? The Lord
finally catch up with ya?” Ol’ Randy said.

“No, your little Devil’s about to come
to justice. Get up!" Pastor Craven prodded Ol’ Randy in the ribs with the
tip of his crutch. “Get up!" Sweat ran nervously from the Pastor’s red
temples, his whole face looked sun burnt, bordering on purple, and not at all
healthy.

“I do believe you’re ‘bout to stroke
out, Pastor. I ain’t goin’ nowhere until you tell me what in the hell is goin’
on.”

Pastor Craven lashed out with the
crutch.

Ol’ Randy was alert, but his body was on
the verge of becoming dust internally. He only thought of blocking the Pastor’s
blow, the crutch catching his jaw with a hollow knock. The pain rippled through
his body. He tasted blood, rich and metallic on his tongue.

“Get up!" Pastor Craven leaned the
crutch against his hip. He quickly slipped the Good Book behind his belt at the
small of his back. He then drew his revolver from its holster. “This here good
old American steel,” he drew the hammer, “says you gettin’ up.”

“Lord knows you won’t kill me. You’re a
coward!”

The Pastor cocked an ear to the rattle
of gunfire and the wail of the Creepers. “You don’t get up you’ll be responsible
for killin’ us Randy. That spawn of Satan is at our door with an army of the
dead. And he’s here for you.”

“Bobby. . . ."

“GET UP! I won’t kill you, you got that
right,” the Pastor laughed,  “but if you don’t get up, and those things
break our walls I won’t have to.”

Ol’ Randy came forward, using the
movement to slip the rock into his pocket. Now wasn’t the time to strike. He
braced himself with his hands, the pain in his joints unbearable, and dragged
his knee forward. The dirt floor sloshed beneath him, as if he was afloat on
rocky seas. Why, Yannek, why did you bring him back, he thought, angrily.

“That’s right,” he nudged Ol’ Randy’s
back, “crawl . . . crawl to meet the scourge you set upon God’s earth.”

*
* * * *

Ted didn’t feel too good. His skin
boiled. The food he’d been given lacked flavor. He watched remorsefully as the
other boys gobbled up their rations. They were told to keep strong, to keep
fighting, God willed it, and so they did, well past sundown. Even Ted. His sock
stuck to his foot, but he couldn’t feel it. All he knew was a terrifying
coldness that worked its way over every inch of him, starting in the bloody
bite on his calf. For awhile the severed veins and ripped tendons hurt, but no
longer.

The stale bread fell from his gaping
mouth, crumbs peppered his pale chin, and suddenly he wasn’t Ted anymore.
Everything stopped.

In the thick brush beyond the fence, in
the mind of a boy, a new monitor flickered in the darkness.

*
* * * *

Pathos One had
unknowingly relied on outside forces for revenge, he found it funny, now, that
he had become the outside force in someone else’s quest for revenge. He highly
doubted he’d have made it this far, almost twenty years, without the
intervention of those men, those men that, not only saved him, but brought his
wife’s murderers to justice. Now, it was his turn to spin the karmic wheel, to
do what was right, he gulped, and climbed out the window.

Flashes of
gunfire popped on the rooftops and around the gate, but most of the Settlement
was blanketed in darkness. Some of the Folks had set fires in large oil drums,
the orange flames mere sparks, on this night. They were diverting power to the
bank vault to help facilitate the survival of the women and children.

Pathos One
stayed well within the darkness, hiding behind building after building. Bobby
hadn’t told him exactly what to look for, but only, he’d know it when it
happened. And when it happened, he had to open the gate. He only hoped Bobby
would be strong enough to control the horde, and his emotions.

Pathos One
hurried into the fray, firing above the Creepers for effect. In the darkness,
in the blue coveralls, he’d become one of them, a tool in the next stage of
history. He waited for Bobby’s signal.

*
* * * *

Bobby weaved his way into the dense pack
of Creepers pressing against the fence. The Folks continued to nip away at his
troops, but in the dark, without the aid of the thermal scope, the headshots
were few and far between. He pressed his body against an oily patch of asphalt,
balling himself up against what was left of an old Ford pickup. All around him
rotting bodies jammed together, flies buzzed unmercifully, but he had long
since grown used to the stench.