The Creepers (Book 2): From the Past Page 10

  Keaton was among them. There were six men in all. She did not know their names, with the exception of Keaton, but that came later. They taunted her while they ate rank meat and drank strong liquor from dusty bottles. They spoke mundanely about what they were going to do to her. Threats of rape, of torture, speaking of the vices of weak men. Power and no substance, and while they waxed ape-like, Moya plotted. She would take the life from the black-haired man when he lay atop her. She would rip his throat out while the others drank, using his spasms to feign intercourse.

  The black-haired man came for her, slapping her face with the power of a weak branch in the wind. Moya cried out to him. Her lips trembled as she fell back. He lay atop her and so it began. She kissed him on the throat. He froze in surprise, and then Moya ripped him wide open. The blood was a welcoming warmth across her face on such a cold night.

  “You were weak, predictable, and that is why you die,” she whispered to the man, tasting the saltiness of his life as it drained from him. When he twitched his last, she rolled him aside and lay in the shadows crying.

  The next man came, thinking his friend done for the night. He didn’t make it two steps. Moya rolled up and launched her body at him. Her fingers and nails, honed and powerful from years of rough survival, entered the man’s throat easily. One quick rip and he was on the ground gurgling.

  Drenched in blood, she stood in the light of their fire. Those that remained simply stared. Their eyes filled with terror. Moya collapsed the next man with a series of sharp-knuckled blows that cracked his jaw, eye sockets, and temples. Then the strangest thing happened.

  “Allow me, Ma’am,” one of the men said, using his pistol to shoot the two men next to him.

  Moya slipped from the past, seeing herself in the soldier. A body honed by years of war. A wrathful but stoic soul. She turned to Keaton and said, “Your own brothers.”

  “I’d do it over again. It’s one of those moments you’re so fond of, Ma’am. One of those moments. . .”

  Moya flashed him a smile. “And here is another.”

  “I wouldn’t call it that yet, Ma’am. Seen his type before. All bark and no bite, like my brothers and their crew.”

  “He is different, Keaton.”

  “We’ll see.”

  * * * * *

  Post dropped the last of the fresh ones and he spun with the club, cracking skulls in such quick succession it was almost a song. He stood over the bodies, heaving, gritting his teeth. He stared up at those cheering, cursing faces. He stared up at Moya, pointed the club at her.

  “Well done!” She clapped, a thin smile parting her small face. The sun caught her hair, setting a fiery aura about her.

  “Fuck you, lady!”

  Several men jumped down at Post’s words. He gladly accepted the challenge. He ducked the strike of the first challenger a little sluggishly. The knife left a gash across his shoulder. He swung the club back, turning with the strike to face the other two. The knife-wielder was not as quick to react. The club caved in the front of his face.

  * * * * *

  “I told you.” Moya felt those feelings she’d thought long dormant stir inside her again. The very essence of them frightened her.

  “I see a smart man fighting a bunch of drunk idiots,” said Keaton, a little agitated. “They’re all sloppy.”

  “They are merely protecting their queen.”

  “You ain’t no queen, Ma’am. You’re different. That was the point of all this.” Keaton waved his arm around the camp. “Ain’t it?”

  * * * * *

  Post tripped one man with a broad sweep that cracked kneecaps while he drove the club into the gut of the other man. He smashed both of their faces in. He stood slowly, blood running down his cheeks. He held the club up to display the row of teeth embedded in it.

  “Bravo, soldier, bravo.”

  “Fuck all of you! You want me? Come and get me!” Post shouted. He shook the club at them, turning in a circle amidst the corpses.

  “Now, I let the first insults slide, but this—” Moya jumped from her mount— “I cannot allow.” She walked to the edge of the pit. Powerful hands resting on her hips, she said, “Poor manners. Isn’t that right, Mr. Keaton?”

  Post could hear his own ragged breathing, Moya’s words, and nothing else. The entire camp was silent. Those rough faces looked only at Moya with an obedience borne of respect. He watched her carefully. Her powerful hands rested on her thin hips, rested on the scalps of her enemies. She leaped into the pit. Her body flipped once, landing between a twisted heap of old time Creepers.

  “So, soldier, you wanted me, now you have me. Cowards first,” she said with a bow.

  “I’m no coward.”

  “You are. Only a coward willingly makes sacrifices for the beliefs of others. So come now, coward. Show me you’re ready to die by my hand. Prove my point.” She walked towards him.

  Post gripped the club. Keaton laughed from above.

  “I never hit a woman before,” Post said as he charged her. He stepped to the left and came from the side.

  “And you never will.” Moya slid left, then bent down beneath the sweeping arc of the club without even lifting her hands. Then she twisted back and around and set a right cross at Post’s jaw.

  Post took the punch, or rather, the punch took him. He felt teeth jarred loose, only to end up in areas teeth had no place to be. An explosion of light and pain ripped his head apart. He was falling. The world ceased to be. Only deep black depths and that sickening sensation in his gut. The drop. The long, long drop.

  * * * * *

  Moya drank from a large water skin. A row of maps lay on the table in front of her. Her closest followers stood silently inside the comfortable shade of the tent. A rogue scorpion scuttled across the sandy floor.

  “This is the closest thing I’ve had to real wine in quite some time, Mr. Pathos.”

  “Thank you, Miss Moya. I paid it special care. We found a way to bring the garden with us. Times are a changing.”

  “Do you ever wonder what happened to the others with whom you shared a destination?” Miss Moya flipped through the rough charcoal drawings as if bored with them.

  Pathos Two rubbed his giant belly. His bald head dripped sweat like a fountain. “All the time,” he said with a wave of his tubby fingers. He smacked his lips as Miss Moya passed him the wine skin. He took a sip and jotted down a few notes on the pad he kept at his side. “All the time. One day perhaps, when things are set to the right, they will surface.”

  “Or they are already dead.”

  “There’s always that possibility.”

  “What do the numbers look like since we crossed the old border?” Miss Moya stood up, rearranged the maps, tracing a finger across their yellowed surfaces.

  “We’ve lost 637. Most of them in the battle with this Wyoming Blue, but some to natural causes. The horde was thinned by 768 to my best estimate. It is quite the task to keep track of them, and we lost 3 prisoners due to suicide.” Pathos Two flipped the notebook to a fresh page. He licked the tip of an old pen.

  “Keaton, talk to me.” Miss Moya sat on the table and cracked her knuckles.

  “Well, we took a hit, but we knocked out, as far as we know and as far as folks tell it, our biggest obstacle in soldier boy’s people. They were the best armed, best equipped to give us a fight.”

  “And they did.”

  “They did, but we’re still here. I left a good chunk of calvary to deal with the train man. They were to give ’em hell, and if any lived absorb them into the fold. The main objective, of course, is to keep the train intact. It’s our quickest way east to establish a better base of operations.” Keaton spat a wad of chew on the sand.

  “Such a piece of technology would be a welcome addition. But it’s not our only objective. How have the scouts fared?”

  “Haven’t heard back from the Oregon boys yet, but. . .”

  “But what, Keaton?”

  Keaton avoided her eyes.

&nb
sp; “What is it?”

  Keaton waved his hand, saying, “Bring the bastard in.”

  Two of Keaton’s men dragged a sobbing man into the tent. He was emaciated and covered in blisters from the sun. His hands were bloody from weeks of hard riding. He stunk worse than any of them.

  “Madre, madre,” the man blabbered, holding his hands out to Miss Moya.

  “I sent more than one of you to the city,” Miss Moya said in rapid Spanish. “Yet, you return alone. What happened? What did you see?”

  “She killed them. She followed us from Colorado. She followed us after you left. The hills, she was in the hills w-w-watching us. Killed them.” The man cried into his bloody hands.

  “She didn’t kill you,” Miss Moya said coldly. “What of the city? Was there anyone there? I will not ask you again.”

  The occupants of the tent flinched at the tone in her voice. They knew it well. All they could do was try to prepare themselves for what was to come.

  “Empty, just like you said, but for one man. He helped her kill them. I saw, I saw.”

  Miss Moya looked at Keaton and nodded. The bearded man disappeared through the folds of fabric.

  “You were instructed to see if the rumors were true. To see if this man was still living in the city, and if so,” Miss Moya said, leaning over the man. She pressed a finger to his lips. “If so, you were to bring him back unharmed, yet you are here and he is not. I am not one for failure. You were given a task, a simple task.”

  The man trembled at her touch as she tousled his hair.

  Keaton came back in carrying a bucket covered in blood and filled with rotten slop. Maggots floated on the surface and flies buzzed overhead. He placed the bucket at Moya’s feet.

  The man’s eyes went wide and he began to pray and plead.

  “Your prayers will do nothing to absolve your failure. We are but pieces to the puzzle, and you’ve lost one of those pieces. A piece that could change things.” Moya grabbed a handful of hair and dragged the man over to the bucket. He tried to grab the bucket and dump it out with his hands, but as he did, Moya let go, snatching him at the wrists and drawing his arms back. The man’s joints strained, holding for a moment, before Moya’s strength snapped them. The man fell to the floor screaming.

  “Please, please.”

  “Simple, so simple. I don’t ask much, do I, Keaton?”

  “Ma’am you ask we get things done ’bout as far as I can tell.”

  She grabbed the man’s head and held it over the bucket. His terrified breaths sent waves over the slop. “Easy tasks. That’s all. Go to the city and find the man and bring him back if he was there. Do you smell that? That is what failure smells like. That is your end, or is it the beginning of your servitude?” The man screamed as Moya pushed his face under. Bloody bubbles popped around his ears. “Can you feel your failure changing you? Can you feel it killing you? Right now it is mixing with your blood. Death conquering life to be born again in your rightful place.” The man kicked out then went limp. Moya picked his bloody head up out of the bucket and dropped him on the floor.

  “Keaton, see that he is kept at the back of the horde. I want him around awhile. I want another round of coated bullets in case we hit any small groups on our way to the last outpost. They can join this one in the ranks.”

  “Right away, Ma’am. You two get this sorry son of a bitch out of here.”

  Keaton’s men draped a hood over the man. Just as they did, his low moans filled the tent. They dragged him to his fate.

  “You think the kid’s father is still alive?”

  “Yes, Mr. Keaton, I do.”

  Pathos I – Traveling Historian of the Dead

  April 28, 2041

  Pathos I Journal Entry [7670]

  I’ve never seen one change so quickly from normal circumstances. If you could call gunshots normal. I guess these days they are, but that depends on your ammo situation. The bite I can understand. I’d seen plenty in my days, and the times always varied greatly depending on location and severity of said bite. Never, never have I seen one die and pop into one of them so quickly. Sometimes it could take days. I remember in the camps, early on, when the elderly passed, they were laid out respectfully and counted lucky they’d lived so long. But then they came back, sometimes taking days, and it was one of the reason the camps didn’t work. Ticking time bombs.

  But never this quick.

  I killed a man today. A man that saved my life. A man that looked after me though he owed me nothing. A man who died saving the four of us. A brave man, much braver than I. A selfless man. I killed him, but he would tell you, if it were still possible, that I did him a favor. The smart thing, the necessary thing, but I don’t feel any better about what had to happen. With the help of the others, I buried him beside the tracks he loved so much.

  So here I am, now a willing participant of history, and history has left me behind. There is some kind of fucking irony in there I can’t quite understand. On the other hand, perhaps this is where the next stage in history begins, with the three of us and one crying baby.

  I can only look to the empty tracks behind and hope they are okay. Though I know where they are going is much worse. What happened was but a precursor. It was not meant to happen as it did, but that can’t be helped. All I can do is hope, and help them make it. North Carolina is a long way off and I don’t know how to drive a train, or is it pilot? I was a good passenger, but never meant to be the captain, never meant to be the leader. Just a cog, a fitting piece in the grand machinery of things. This is too much, but then I look at the child and realize what’s at stake.

  Jamie assures me it’s easy and that she can help, but I can see the cracks in her brave veneer. Sophie is barely hanging on. If it wasn’t for Randal, I think she’d have lost it. The world has become a cruel and twisted place. One could argue that it always has been, and there is a validity in that statement, but being part of this first hand makes it far worse. Another family torn apart.

  Starting the fire and keeping it going is easy. The steams hisses, the train struggles forward, and I leave that man to time and what lurks beneath the sand. It is a shame none of them knew his last name.

  Price was all I was able to jot down in my records.

  I stoke the fire, feeling every jerk and pop of the rough machine, and I watch the night come. Somewhere ahead lies an uncertain future, and somewhere behind, the future fights to keep on. Many outcomes, many diverging paths, but few of them can end well. I hope they are okay tonight. I hope the familial bonds born from this tragedy are strong enough to see them through the dark. All I know for certain is no harm will come to this child if I can help it. But nothing is set in stone and each day brings new problems. I put a little more coal on the fire and watch the darkness cover all.

  CHAPTER 11

  Howard held her against his chest, her breath warm on his neck. He started the song over. With one earphone each, they listened as they watched the sun come up. The haunting words came from another time, but they meant everything in their current situation. There were other songs, but they always greeted the dawn with this one, as had been their ritual since leaving Los Angeles.

  Nearly three weeks had passed. They worked their way through the shattered landscape. The earth moved constantly and the ocean lapped at newly formed shores. The dead wallowed, trapped by the hunger of the microscopic invaders controlling their bodies.

  “His voice is so beautiful,” Jennifer said. “We had music too, but it was different. Not like this.”

  “We have others too, but these are my favorites. This one was my father’s favorite.” Howard thought of the morning on the roof as he said the words. Somewhere far behind, his father rested in the tomb of Los Angeles, a monument to another time, leaving behind only his son and the music of the dead.

  “Howard, Howard I haven’t much time. This, this is all I have left to give you,” Doc Danielson said through the headphones.

  Howard jumped up, heart racing.


  “What is going on?” Jennifer readied her rifle, searching the night for targets.

  Howard grabbed her shoulder. “Listen,” he said, his lips trembled as he heard the ghost of his father speak. In his haste to be rid of his shackles, he’d forgotten all about the blinking message.

  “Howard, I’m sorry—” his father’s ghost sobbed— “for everything, but I will say it for the last time. It was all for you, for all of you that are left. It’s all we had to give, and I hope it is enough. No one should have to bear the burden your generation does, but you must, for the sake of what’s left. All we can do, all we have done throughout history, is carry on, and so you must.” Doc Danielson coughed. The rattling sound was enough to make both Jennifer and Howard grimace.