The Last Mayor Box Set 2

by Michael John Grist

  I cry a bit more and try not to think about the future. Things are all changing. I think back to that conversation with Cerulean by the beach a month earlier, when we talked about the holes in people and how they fill them.

  For him it was Anna. When he found her outside Denver she stopped him from diving off the Empire State Building. For Masako it was Cerulean, but he left her, carving a hole so big not even her own son could fill it. For Julio it was a level of respect and admiration he could never get in real life, only in a torture chamber in a bunker in Maine.

  For me, it was always Lara. I left a trail of cairns across America for her. I killed zombies and people alike just to have a chance to be with her. She was my dream, the vision I would see in the sky after I joined the zombie masses clambering onto the heap.

  Now she's lying below. She's comfortable. She's warm. Nearly all her ribs are cracked, her skull is fractured, her pelvis is broken in two places, and her right arm is shattered, but she's comfortable.

  She's in a coma.

  We don't have any serious gear here. They're going out to get it now, though none of them, not Cynthia, Macy or Adonis is a doctor, nor have they done a brain scan before. We all know a little about comas, though this coma is not like the ones we went through a year before the apocalypse. We don't know what will happen with this, or what the right thing to do is.

  We don't move her. We repaired her body as best we could, and now we keep her comfortable. I hold her hand and talk to her. There's an Electro-Cardio Gram coming, perhaps some kind of rudimentary brain-scanner device, all sticky pads and wires like the emergency defibrillator I used on Abigail, but will we know how to use it, or how interpret the findings?

  They'll bring books for that. We'll camp here, in the shadow of the mound, until we have some better idea. It strikes me that we'll need to teach ourselves a lot, now our only doctor is gone. Jake is recovering from his own head trauma, but we should have him transfer all his engineering knowledge to at least one other person.

  It makes me think, it's time to get serious about the future. We need to preserve what we know.

  I go back down. I've had a break for long enough. I sit with Anna by Lara's side and hold her hand. She looks so beautiful, despite the bandage round the patch in her head where they shaved her lovely hair and stitched her scalp. She looks like she's just sleeping. We take it in turns to talk quietly, telling her everything that happened since she went under, and all that we're going to do.

  I don't want her to be afraid. If she can hear me, I want her to know that she's safe. If she can come back, or if she needs to let go, I want her to know that both are OK. She's loved and supported so well, and while we want her back, I know she'll do what's right for her. There are no mistakes in this life. It's all a tapestry.

  * * *

  A week later we go north.

  Anna and Ravi, Feargal, Peters, Jake and me.

  We've got guns and supplies. We've got explosives Sulman found in a wreckers' yard. We take an RV and a set of radios and leave the makeshift camp on McKnight behind. It's expanded now, with marquee tents and heating systems, a soup kitchen that cooks venison and fox that Cynthia hunted in the woods, a crèche for the kids, foraging groups that dig up truffles, wild potatoes and onions, and there are regular meetings of the Council to debate governance, like an upscale refugee camp.

  The Council voted Anna in. Ravi was relieved. He spends all his days and from what I understand, all his nights hanging on at her side. I get it. It's cute, it's love, and it's what makes the world go round. I have it for Lara.

  She breathes for herself. Her heart runs. For food we had to intubate her. There's a catheter and a rotating duty for keeping her clean. She's been healing. All the books say 'wait'. I've read all the ones we could find, from cover to cover, brought from book shops and hospitals and doctor's offices. You can't do anything, is the final advice. The skull has to heal itself. The extraordinary trauma has to heal itself. The brain, the spine and the mind all have to heal by themselves.

  She's in there, doing her best to come out. I can't rush that.

  We've chopped down some trees for firewood, though honestly I think we did that just because Feargal wanted something physical to do. He's been wanting to make this trip for a week, I know, to tie up the last loose end, but he was too kind to press his case.

  The Council voted we'd send a single RV. There's other work to do at the camp; all of Julio's survivors need constant care and attention, as a few are still in comas of their own, brought on by the last brush with the demons. The kids need some stability. There was Masako's funeral a few days ago, after the funeral for Chantelle, Ozark, Lucy and the others we lost.

  The Council postponed a trial about my involvement in Masako's death. Everyone knows what I did. Alan has already told the truth to everyone that'll listen, the poor guy. He can't stop himself. Masako abandoned him just as Cerulean abandoned her, but much worse really. She quit not only him, but their son and all of us. I didn't say anything at the funeral, I was torn if I should even attend, but Alan asked me too. I was sorry. I always liked Masako.

  The tally stands at forty-nine, now. We lost a lot of good people along the way.

  Driving up to Maine takes less than a day. We don't talk much, as the terrain grows slightly more mountainous, the roads a little more twisty, cutting through dynamite-blasted hills and thick snowy forests. I drive the whole way because I can't handle being in the back with the rest of them.

  I bring them down. I was inspirational before and I will be again, but I can't do it now. Not with Lara on the edge like this.

  "Ravi's asked me to marry him," Anna whispers to me some time in the afternoon, as we pass close to New York.

  "That's amazing," I say, then lower my voice, because Ravi's dozing in back. We're all on a strange napping schedule now, after having shared night shifts for the past week to help with all the sick survivors. "What did you say?"

  "That I'd think about it."

  I chuckle. "Weigh up your options, is that it?"

  "A girl can't be rushed into these things."

  I nod thoughtfully. "Smart, I suppose. if you're willing to wait, Lin will be of age in about, I don't know, ten years? He's a nice boy."

  Anna snorts.

  "Or maybe you go older? There's a few more choices there. Sulman. Smart, a provider. Or Feargal, that's a strapping man."

  She frowns. "Feargal?"

  "You saw him in his coveralls. The man's carved out of wood."

  She gives this some reflection. "That's true. Muscles are really what I'm looking for in a man, after all."

  "Good genes," I agree, "beautiful red hair."

  She laughs. You can't out-do me on this sort of thing, really, even when I'm down.

  "So what do you think we'll find?" Anna asks, sobering. "When we get there?"

  I contemplate that. "A hole in the ground. A lot of bodies. And a bunker."

  "Do you think he'll be there?"

  She's talking about Cerulean. Perhaps he was one of the seven demons, buried under the mound. He could have been the one that put Lara in her coma. Or perhaps he's still in Maine, waiting for us to come bury him. We may never know.

  "I hope so."

  I drive on. It takes about twelve hours, and I take hardly any breaks. For a time I put on some music; bits of pop that remind me of the past. Some Kanye, some Taylor Swift, a little Simon and Garfunkel. I've always been a sucker for 'Old Friends', but now I think of Cerulean and it hits me doubly. Then I think of Lara and I need to just focus on the road.

  The route is obscure but not too hard to find. I remember it, as we get into the Town of Madrid in the dark. Feargal suggests stopping over and going the rest of the way in the morning, out of some misguided sympathy for me, I think, but I don't want to do that. I need to be there now.

  So I drive up into the mountains, in first gear and crunching over thick, crusted snow and ice, winding up to the base of Mount Abraham in the dark. Its outline is
barely visible against a muffled sky of clouds.

  The warning cairns I placed here ten years back are mostly gone. The cars have been shoved off the road and the checkered finish line marking them has been painted over with bitumen. Julio's work, I expect. Just after them we stop and get out.

  I walk up to the rise with the others behind me. I'm the only one who's been here before, and the weight of memory is stifling. Here I made choices that set us all on a path. Nearly two weeks ago now I swallowed the consequences of those choices like knives, and this is the new Amo that resulted.

  Is he stronger, or smarter? Would he make better choices the second time around?

  I stand at the rise and look out, but there's nothing to see. The gun turret is gone, even the concrete block is gone. The road is there and the field is a little more lumpy than it was before, coated in snow, but this is it.

  "There," says Peters, rolling up in his wheelchair and pointing. He's looking much better than the day he came out of the sky with Anna, and his broken legs are both healing nicely. Jake stands at my other side and puts his hand on my shoulder. I'm glad they're both alive. In some ways I feel like I know them both better than anyone.

  Of our original Chinese Theater group, there's only me, Jake, Cynthia and Anna left. Cerulean's dead, Masako's dead, Julio's dead and Lara's in a coma. Peters I feel a strong affinity with, probably because of what he's been through, losing Abigail.

  He points to an indistinguishable spot in the moonlit snow. It could be the street where I shot Masako. It could be anywhere.

  "Under there."

  I put my hand on his shoulder, so we're all standing in a row like a big happy family, Jake, me, Peters.

  "Tomorrow," I say.

  It's cold and we go back to the RV.

  Tomorrow.

  18. BUNKER

  Before first light I make green tea. I can't sleep. A nervous, reckless energy fills me and I barely slept in the night, spending a lot of time pacing on the road outside, past the site of my old cairn. For each lap I made up to the rise and back down again, I counted off one of the people that died.

  It makes me angry. I think about Julio and the lie he made of Lars Mecklarin's great works. It's so strange that for ten years I've been guided by Mecklarin's books, while for half of that time he was giving Julio free reign to do what he wanted.

  The kettle whuffs up steam and I pour it into the brown clay mug, over the green tea powder I got at a Whole Foods. The water bubbles delightfully, I catch a puff of steam on my face, and the bitter tannins plume into the air.

  I sip it. In the gloom of the RV, lit by a few appliances and the bathroom nightlight, I see Feargal's bright eyes looking back at me.

  "You want tea?" I ask quietly.

  "Sure."

  He rustles up from his sleeping bag on the floor at the back. There's just enough water left to fill a cup. The gurgling, satisfied sound of the hot water is delicious, sloshing into the mug. I could pour hot water all day.

  "So what's the plan?" he asks, sipping at the steeping brew.

  "I go in," I say. "If they have any guns left, any bombs, any booby-traps, it's better if there's only one of us."

  Feargal sips his tea and studies me. He's always reminded me of Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons, in all honesty. He doesn't have a Scottish accent though. He was a florist, I think, before the apocalypse. He's a gentle, security-conscious giant.

  "Can I offer a suggestion?"

  "Go ahead," I say, though I know what's coming.

  "Let me go. I know you want to take the risk yourself, but perhaps in the past few weeks you've caught some sense of how important you are to this group. To lose you would be a devastating blow. To lose me…" He tails off.

  "It would be devastating," I say.

  He smiles. "You see my point, I think. After the vote, after Masako, after Lara, these people need you more than ever. Plus you have children. I don't. Let it be me."

  I expected this. Countless times through the night I almost just walked directly over to the bunker alone, wanting to get it done, but I held back out of some sense of propriety, that this should be a shared moment.

  I won't hold back now.

  "I appreciate the offer," I say. "I understand everything you've said, and I can't argue, but it doesn't change anything. I have to do this, Feargal. Me."

  Feargal sips his tea. "It won't change things if I said the Council already voted on it?"

  "No."

  He sighs. "All right. I had to try."

  The others wake up gradually. I make tea and we butter some of the scones Cynthia makes, enjoying a light, quiet breakfast. Ravi and Jake help Peters into his wheelchair. He's trembling and I expect he didn't sleep at all either.

  "I heard you going up and down in the night," he says to me, rolling over like Cerulean would. "Like the tide. I found it soothing."

  I smile. Slap slap.

  Anna straps on some guns as it gets light outside. Jake straps on guns. We all do, though I don't really know why. If there's another demon it won't help. If there's a person they'll become a zombie as soon as we get in range.

  We go.

  I lead us out of the RV and over the crisp snow, unblemished by any human trails, up the road and onto the sloping field. I flash back to my past trip here, running over this space to tackle Julio on the concrete block. Back then the ground had been paved with the dead husks of the ocean, like chaff left behind by a corn-picking machine.

  "It's over there, I think," says Peters. Feargal, Ravi and Anna work together to slide his wheelchair over the snow. His voice is firm. "Last time I saw it like this was over six months ago, when he first brought Abigail and me in."

  "And when you escaped," I add.

  We draw near and I stop around fifty yards away from the spot. "That's far enough," I say, turning to face the motley, injured crew. Here's Anna with her sling, Peters in his chair, Jake with the bandage on his head. Amazingly I've come through all this with only scrapes and bruises. "I'm going the rest of the way alone. I'd prefer you all stay under the tree cover, but if you insist, then Feargal can you keep an eye on the sky? Any strange flash would mean a drone, and we all get out. Is that clear?"

  "I can do that," says Feargal.

  "Peters, you don't ever have to go back in if you don't want to."

  "I'll stay out here."

  I nod, taking a deep, cold breath. "Then I'm going in."

  I start walking. Moments later footsteps crunch up quickly beside me. Of course, it's Anna.

  "I'm coming," she says.

  I look at her and shrug. She has every right; Cerulean was her father and she needs this just as much as I do. "OK." If we both die in a booby-trap bomb, so be it.

  We cover the distance in a minute, and find a large dark hole in the ground, like an entrance to the underworld. Set next to it is a huddle of snowed-over, blocky equipment lying in a shallow dip in the field. This must be the winch that Julio used to get Cerulean down. Two cables and a human-sized bucket lie alongside, the shapes muffled under thick snow.

  The hole is twice as big as a manhole, and it feels surreal to really see it, dug down into the frozen earth. Even after all that we've been through, I still half expected to find only sheer snow out here. A hole means there really was a torture bunker, there really was a plan for this all along, and there really are thousands of people underground.

  Anna and I circle it and peer down.

  It's darker inside, though light picks out the floor far below where snow is piled in an uneven mound. My heart thumps like a drum and my legs start to shake. This is it.

  "I'll go first," I say.

  Anna draws a gun and stands at the edge, aiming down.

  There's a stiffened rope ladder hanging from rusted pegs near the winch machine, set in a heavy metal hoop encircling the hole. I hunker down and test my weight on the upper rungs. It seems strong so I start the descent, like I'm climbing down into the past. It gets darker and colder quickly, as I'm e
ncased in a cement-plastered tunnel. Moments later I descend through the ceiling, into an open space where the light from above reflecting off the snow below illuminates almost everything.

  It's an icy, sheer cement corridor, so tall there's something cathedral-like about it. The long gray walls are dappled with dark streaking stains and the remnants of thirty or so chains. The floor is scattered with a handful of shadowy bodies. There are small trenches dug into the edges running along the base of the walls, and from these rises the faintest wisp of corruption.

  Bodies are rotting here, so slowly in the cold. It smells almost sweet.

  "What do you see?" Anna calls.

  "Come down," I answer.

  I hold the ladder steady as she descends; an awkward climb for her with only one good arm. Now my eyes are adjusting to the gloom, and I can make out the glass door at the far end, twinkling with a faint reflection, like a giant vending machine display front. Near it lie a few very large bodies, like slumbering giants. There's a trail of them spreading from the glass to halfway up the corridor, and they grow smaller as they draw near.

  Scattered amongst them like boxy turtles lie three generators, with cables drooling out to three dead heaters. Riveted to one wall are a cluster of long missile-like canisters of gas. There's a kitchen area, a sink and some stacks of ancient canned food. Down near the glass there's what looks to be a filthy mattress, a rack of clothes, some tattered books.

  I notice the decapitated head just as Anna reaches the ground. I illuminate it with my flashlight.

  "Jesus," Anna whispers.

  I don't blame her. It feels bad down here, like you'd expect. People died, people were tortured. There's a claustrophobic feel in the air, a sense of being trapped, like the devil's church. I don't believe in ghosts, but if ever lost souls felt the need to stalk the Earth seeking revenge, it would be here.

  "I hate it," Anna says, and shudders. "We should burn it."

  "Agreed," I say, "then fill it with cement," and as I say it I know that that's what we'll do. There's something to be said for memorials for the past, but we have enough of them already. The great white mound back in Pennsylvania is our biggest testament to death yet, and I'm sick of it. Enough.