The Creepers (Book 2): From the Past Page 5

  The feedback he received didn’t make any sense at first. Feet, legs, hundreds, filtered light, bodies pressed in tight quarters. They were in some kind of pit, the sky overhead a blue rectangle. A lot of the Creepers were definitely new, but there were many others that had been weathered by the desert. Vomit rose in his gorge.

  They were close.

  “Mr. Baylor, stop the train!” Bobby writhed on the floor. He rolled over, pressing his face into the cold metal of the beast’s roof. He growled like an animal, fighting the sensation. He wanted to let go, to pass out.

  “Kid.” Baylor put a hand on Bobby’s back.

  “Stop the fucking train!”

  Bobby grabbed the Mad Conductor by the shirt and looked at him. His eyes conveyed the seriousness of his message.

  “Hoss,” Baylor yelled, and followed it with a series of high whistles.

  The slow chug and release of steam synced with the beating in Bobby’s brain. Sssh . . . chock . . . sssh . . . chock . . . sssh. . .

  “They’re out there.” Bobby pointed starboard.

  “Who?”

  “T-the . . . Creepers . . .” He struggled to get the words out. “And whatever’s left of Wyoming Blue.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The woman looked at her blade, at the man, shocked that she still drew breath. She should have looked at the fourth man behind her. And she did, but not until after Howard’s bullet knocked a hole in his chest. The man staggered then crashed to the ground in a heap, the handgun falling uselessly away in the process.

  Howard chambered another round. He was scared. Thoroughly terrified to the point of shitting himself. He removed his finger from the trigger, though he kept the gun aimed at the woman and her captive.

  “Easy, just take it easy.” The woman kept her machete at an angle, only a few inches from the tan man’s neck. “Lower your weapon.”

  “Lower yours.” Howard gulped.

  “I can’t do that,” She pressed the blade into the man’s throat. He screamed, firing off foreign words in rapid succession. “You see, little ranchero here killed my friends, and he helped take a great many of them captive. I need to know where they’re headed. I didn’t track them through four states and a fuckton of Creepers to be left holding my dick.” She ran the blade back, cutting deeper.

  “Que-que-que?” the man screamed.

  “What’s he saying?” Howard asked.

  “Fuck if I know. They know English. I heard them when they didn’t think I was there, but now that I’m here he’s reverted back to his native tongue. Which I’m about to cut the fuck out if he doesn’t answer my question!” She grabbed the man’s face, squeezed, and then rested the tip of the machete in his mouth.

  The man’s legs kicked out. Tears rolled down his reddish brown cheeks.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Where the fuck did you come from?” she said. “If you don’t mind, I have business to tend to. So shoot me if you want, but this fuck is going to talk or he’s going to die. And if you’re not quick enough, you’re next, stranger.” The woman pushed the machete into the man’s mouth. He gagged on the sharp steel. Blood oozed from the corners of his mouth.

  Howard froze. The scene unfolded by the light of the fire. What would his father do? His father would have had some delicate speech to quell the situation, a quick snappy dialogue, but the man had had years to hone such speeches. Howard had only the language of those that were left, and there was nothing delicate about it. The language his father loved to fall into was a lost art that died with him on the rooftop.

  “Where?” She pushed the blade deeper. “You answer in anything other than English and I’m cutting the left side of your mouth open. I know you can speak it. You told your buddies what you did to that girl. You told them in English. You laughed as you said this. Yes. Not three nights ago on a hill outside the city. I watched you sleep. I watched all of you, and you had no idea that death was but a whisper away, and she’s here now.”

  “Wait,” the man managed to gargle.

  The woman drew the blade out.

  The man wavered, spitting blood from his mouth. His hands were bound behind him, so he did his best to wipe the corner of his lips on the dingy plaid shirt. He laughed.

  “You have no idea,” he said defiantly. “Puta. Your friends are fucking dead. Not now, not all of them, but you already know that, yes? They are taking a trip, going with Miss Moya, going to see how tough they are. You never see them again.” He spat at her.

  Howard registered something in her body language. A slow twitch that began to build. Her legs stiffened, her gloves squeezed the grip on the machete tighter. He could almost hear the leather in them squeak. Her mouth peeled back, revealing her predator-like teeth. She pulled the machete back and then walked away. She stood over the other man, shaking in a pool of his own blood. The woman leaned close to him and whispered something.

  “You don’t scare me, senorita. I’ve seen the devil’s work. I’ve seen the world end. Been here forty years, and me familia been here longer ’an that. The dead take you, puta. The dead take you and the dead take your fri—”

  Howard cried out as she spun low and brought the machete down on the man’s thigh. The cut was not clean, but it went deep. The blade caught in the bone. She rocked the blade to the man’s screams, until she finally managed to retrieve it. She wiped it on his pant leg and slid it back into the sheath that hung from her hip. “No, ranchero, the dead take you, when you stumble awake after you bleed out. I’m taking your limbs and leaving you here with the others.

  “You going to shoot?”

  Howard could barely believe what he’d witnessed. He lowered the rifle.

  “That’s what I thought,” the woman said, turning to walk away.

  What the hell was he going to do? The question hung but a moment, and then he lifted the rifle again, sighted the man’s sweat-drenched face, and fired. His anguished wails died with the crack of the rifle.

  Howard looked at the woman. “His screams will draw the coyotes, and that’s not a good thing. They’ve been well-fed for a long time.”

  * * * * *

  The bodies were not as light as his father’s. Without a word, he dragged them down the street while the woman tied off the now one-armed man’s wound. He wanted them as far away as he was able to move them. The fire wouldn’t be enough to keep the coyotes at bay, but if they had a meal to occupy their time they’d stay clear. He managed to heft them into a deep hole in the street. Their bodies crashed fiercely into the dark below. The coyotes would have to work to get them.

  Howard adjusted the rifle as he walked back to the fire. He watched the woman from afar. Her psychotic mask of rage was gone. She smiled at the man as she dressed his wounds. She talked to him softly, saying something Howard couldn’t make out.

  “Where’s your spot, stranger?” she asked, ripping a piece of her shirt in half with her mouth. She double knotted it around the man’s bloody stump.

  Howard leaned on a broken building, always mindful of his positioning. Just like his father had taught him. “Somewhere far away from here. I came from the south. Nearly got trapped in a swarm.”

  “You’re far too clean for that. Where’s your spot? These assholes dared venture into the city. They should’ve known better. They’ve been at this a very long time. And so have I. No one who wants to live goes into the cities.”

  “You did.”

  “Yeah, no shit. I scouted it for a few days first. And guess what I found?”

  “Me.”

  “Cute, but no. I didn’t find a fucking thing.” She went back to the man’s wound briefly, whistling a jaunty tune. “Pretty amazing for a city this size. Must’ve been millions of Creepers when the shit hit the fan.”

  “Maybe something drew them away.”

  “Keep playing your games.”

  “Howard.”

  “What a precious name. Since we’re in the way of manners, my name is Jennifer, and this here is—” She pun
ched the man in his wounded arm. He cried out in pain, sobbing and blubbering something unintelligible.

  “Ma-Manuel,” he gasped.

  “Good, glad we could get that all out of the way. Where are all the dead-dead? Where the fuck are the Creepers?” She waved the machete at Howard.

  “I killed them.” Howard scratched the stubble on his cheeks. His only hope was misdirection. This woman had him on edge. The men even more so. He’d been in the city nearly two decades and there was little to no contact with the outside, even after he cleared the Creepers. People simply avoided the cities as a precaution. It was the perfect defense for a very long time, but now the outsiders changed that.

  The woman laughed until she snorted.

  “One by one, and it took years,” Howard said, feeling the memories of all that carnage.

  She kept laughing, smacking Manuel’s leg.

  Good, Howard thought, as long as he kept her guessing he’d be okay. But her intelligence wasn’t lost on him. She spoke clearly, but crudely, and her body spoke volumes of her nutritional health. She looked to be no older than him. Which meant she’d been raised post war. Which garnered its own series of questions, but Howard kept them to himself. He needed to break the tension. Although the woman held a playful tone with him, he watched the opposite truth about her character develop.

  Every so often, her eyes would dart around to the windows, searching for more people. She never let her hand wander far from the grip of the machete. Her temples pulsed as she ground her teeth. She was afraid.

  “Why did these men attack you?” Howard said, moving closer to the fire. He sat down, which made Jennifer jump.

  “It’s what men like Manuel do. We were supposed to stop them, but we didn’t anticipate that second group.” She shook her head. “Fucking came out of nowhere, and they had Creepers . . . led the damn things right into our flank.”

  “Who’s we?” Howard said in a soft tone. He wanted to reassure her. He needed answers.

  “Look, Howard, it’s give and get. I’m not stupid. You’ve got that gun, and don’t think I haven’t noticed you keeping a good distance so you can snap off a shot, okay?”

  “Very well.” She was well trained. Her fear was just a mask. He had to be careful.

  “You didn’t just roll up here. You’ve been here. Your fingernails are clean. I haven’t met a man with clean fingernails since the trading post, and that’s been over a year now. Nobody really has clean hands. Not like yours, not anymore. What’s your deal?”

  “Give and get, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I was born here. I’ve lived here all my life, and today was the day I was going to venture out into the world. To make my own way, and well, Jennifer, you kind of fucked that up for me.” He didn’t like to curse. His father did often but always warned Howard against it. It was something from the way things used to be, but that didn’t really matter anymore, or did it?

  Jennifer studied him before saying, “Where are the Creepers?”

  “Give and get, Jennifer, but I already told you. I killed them all. You still owe me a little more info for taking care of the one you forgot. If I hadn’t of happened along, you would be dead or worse.” Howard let the latter part sink in.

  Jennifer reached into her pocket, removing a black piece of cloth. She pulled her long black hair back and tied it, shaking the leaves and twigs from her locks in the process. “That doesn’t mean you get it all, Howard.”

  Even covered in dirt and grit her face held a fragile beauty. A small, narrow nose, sharp yet small ears, and a beautiful smile. She still had all of her teeth, a bonus in Howard’s eyes. He hadn’t encountered many over the years that took hygiene seriously. His father would’ve beaten it into him had he been a violent man. It was paramount to one’s prolonged health. He found her slender frame inviting, but he could tell from her hands she held a wiry kind of power, like him, like his father. A power borne from the hardships of post First War life. There was a lot of strength in that tiny frame. The dead men in the hole more than affirmed that.

  “We thought they were coming from the ocean. Somewhere between here and Oregon. Running boats up the coast, avoiding the Creepers, and then cutting across to the east. But we were wrong. And that was our mistake, our downfall.”

  “We?” Howard asked again.

  “Wyoming Blue,” she said. The man stirred, babbling incoherently in the throes of a fever. Jennifer kicked him. “We were what was left of the military. If you could call us that. I think Post would rather have referred to us as what was left of old America—the survivors not willing to give up. We’ve been at it a long time.”

  “But you’re—”

  “I was born among them. I was born after. This is all I know, but thanks to my mom’s guidance and Post’s leadership I know what was lost, and I want nothing more than to regain it. We were making a difference.” Tears welled in those big eyes. She blinked them away. “Then these, these animals. . .” The word came out in a half sob. “These animals came out of nowhere. And they were using Creepers as weapons and—” She drew a ragged breath, stopping to regain herself.

  Howard wanted to reach out, but somewhere inside he heard his father warn him. Perhaps she was putting on a show like the people in the old movies, like the man with the glasses. And then he saw it, the dart of her eyes to something unseen. A weapon perhaps?

  “We-we didn’t have many women in our platoon. They’re all gone, taken to who knows where. They actively sought them out in the chaos, making sure not to kill them, but the men, Post and his squad, I-I don’t know what to think.”

  “Why didn’t they take you?” Howard jabbed at the debris fueled fire with a rusted piece of old car.

  “They didn’t know I was there.” She stood and walked behind the wounded man. Pacing, she said, “I’m the best they’d ever seen. Post told me himself. Nobody could find me, not even the Creepers. But there were too many to pick off from a distance. They were so organized.” The tears cut ribbons of pure, milky skin down her dirt covered face.

  “What did they want?” Howard continued to poke at the fire, sending up sparks. The call of the coyotes was much closer now. He hoped his little ruse would keep them occupied for the evening.

  “Your turn.” She smiled and continued to pace. She moved with a bouncy, nervous energy.

  “My dad died today. I don’t exactly know when he died, only that it was today. I wasn’t there to see him off. I saw him after. I saw him in that suspended state. He looked so peaceful, almost fake, like the mannequins laying in the dust of the past. A perfect representation of what was. I imagined him watching the birds drift on the wind. I wonder what he was thinking of. Probably mother, knowing him. I hope he saw her when the end came. I hope he found in death everything he’d lost in life,” Howard’s voice carried on the night, punctuated by the intermittent cries of the coyotes. Though they were his own words, they shocked him. He’d never spoken to anyone in such a manner. Not even his father. Howard looked up, awaiting her reply.

  Jennifer was gone.

  “Touching really,” she said from behind him. The very familiar sound of a bolt chambering a round echoed off the shattered buildings. “Take that rifle off slowly and lay it down. You even so much as turn that head of yours and its lights out. How about you show me and my little friend to your hidey hole.”

  Howard slid the rifle from his shoulder. He heard his father somewhere in the past, ‘never let your guard down, son.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Bobby could smell them before he even reached the top of the dune. Baylor was somewhere behind him barking orders. They stopped the train just outside what was left of a rural town. Nothing but dust and dunes, a few skeletal remains of brick buildings gutted by time, and sand and wind. Sparse bits of green worked against the pervasive rusty tableau. Off in the distance, Bobby could see a vast plateau haloed by an angry storm. It was moving fast behind the warm, dry desert wind. A rarity in these parts. Bobby took it as a
n omen.

  The closer he got, the harder it became for him to control the multitude of voices and images flashing through his mind. He dropped to his knees, squeezing the rifle for stability. He brought the strap to his mouth and bit down on it, focusing on the oily taste to balance himself. As he calmed down, he began to take control of the riot inside his brain.