by J D Stone
The vagabond was wrapped in a large, olive-green coat, the back seam split straight up the middle. Frayed thin ropes strung with brightly colored soda cans dangled from its neck like aluminum Hawaiian leis. Its spindly legs were covered with a pair of tattered blue trousers shredded to the knee, and its left foot was shoved into a filthy rubber boot.
The android was one of the “freaks,” as his brother Cameron called them.
When the Surge hit, the electromagnetic pulse disabled the critical control function that kept the androids from developing personalities.
After the EMP had fried this control, the robots began to adopt peculiar human characteristics: attractions to vibrant colors, bright lights, extravagant clothing, retro music, and soft and feathery things.
Cameron loved to spook the kids by telling them that the Surge made the robots go insane.
While not all the rogue androids were pre-programmed with lethal capabilities, these “vagabonds” — as the group called them, for they wandered ceaselessly, seeking to amuse their fancies — don’t have any value for human life, especially if a human has something it wants.
Like flashlights.
As soon as the vagabond burst through the door, Danna tossed the heated flint ten feet down the cosmetics aisle, and it hit the ground with a brilliant spark and flash. The vagabond drew itself up and stomped over to the source of the flashing.
“Now!” Danna cried.
Ben pulled the strip of film from the taser; and in a fraction of a second, it was charged. He took two running steps toward the vagabond and leaped into the air. Holding the taser high above his head, he came down on the vagabond and drove the taser’s screws directly into the back of its neck, sending a 9-volt jolt of electricity into its artificial nervous system.
An ear-splitting zap followed a faint pop, and the vagabond collapsed to the floor, shaking spasmodically.
For a moment, Ben stood there, his eyebrows raised, curious to observe the aftereffects of the shock.
“Ben, let’s go!”
“Good idea,” he said under his breath. He grabbed his duffel bag and followed Danna into the suffocating fog.
Ben stopped after twenty feet and pulled out from his bag an M67 grenade. The plan was to execute the mission unarmed, but as they left the retreat, he’d slipped the grenade in his bag. Just in case.
He flipped the pin and hurled the grenade like a four-seam fastball into the pharmacy.
So much for the beef jerky.
They took two running steps and hit the pavement, opened their mouths to prevent their lungs from collapsing from the imminent blast, and covered their necks. The grenade detonated, shattering the rest of the door and setting off a ferocious firebomb; it must’ve landed near the flammable hairspray cans.
Coughing and out of breath from the grenade’s pressure wave, they got on their feet, brushed themselves off, slung the bags over their shoulders, and hobbled hastily toward the car.
They didn’t make it one hundred feet before they saw a person lying face down in the street.
Ben’s heart sank. He knew it was Ron.
They dropped their bags and rushed to his side. His face was pale and slick, and he was missing his coat and one of his boots. A small stream of blood trickled on the black pavement.
Danna checked his pulse; he wasn’t breathing.
Ben then heard the dull static of Ron’s radio, still clenched in the boy’s grimy fingers. He picked it up; it was set to channel three. Clenching his jaw, he hurled it down the street and watched it shatter into a thousand plastic pieces.
He tried to warn us, Ben thought. He was brave after all. He glanced at Danna, who was staring absently at Ron.
“We need to go,” he said hoarsely.
“We’re just gonna leave him?” Danna asked desperately, her porcelain face ashen with grief. She hovered over Ron’s body protectively and looked up at Ben with tears streaming down her face.
But she already knew the answer.
“If we stay here any longer,” Ben replied, firmly but reluctantly, “you know we’re not gonna make it back.”
Danna nodded her head and wiped her eyes.
With his grimy fingers, Ben gently closed Ron’s eyes. Then they gathered what was left of themselves and limped to the car.
CHAPTER TWO
The Stranger
THEIR CAR, AN old Saab station wagon, was parked next to a burnt-out UPS delivery truck. As they approached the car, Ben glanced over his shoulder. No pursuers. The fog was lifting, and their moonlit shadows followed them along the damp concrete.
They threw the bags into the backseat and jumped into the car. Ben reached for the keys to turn the ignition. No keys. He pounded the dashboard.
“Ron must've taken them with him,” Danna said.
“I specifically told him to leave the keys in the ignition,” Ben said, fighting back anger. “Who on earth is gonna steal a car at three o’clock in the morning in this graveyard?”
“There’s no way we can go back and get the keys?”
Ben shook his head and got out of the car. “There,” he said, pointing to an old Honda Civic parked on the other side of the road. “Grab the bags. And get the gun out of the glove compartment.”
The Honda was unlocked. Opening the driver side door, Ben bent down and broke the plastic housing underneath the steering column.
“You think you’re gonna hotwire this thing?” Danna asked skeptically as she got in the car.
“It’s an older model Honda, so yes.”
Ben yanked as hard as he could on the steering wheel, breaking the steering column lock and the lock cylinder from the lock body. Next, he unclipped his multitool from his belt, flipped up the Phillips screwdriver, and turned the cylinder. With a choked whine, the car fired up.
Not a moment too soon. The car suddenly shook violently, followed by the piercing scrape of tearing metal. Ben turned around and watched in horror as a vagabond ripped off the trunk lid. Half of its head covering was torn off, and one of its neon eyes was missing.
Ben shifted into drive and hit the gas. The vagabond punctured the roof with its titanium alloy fingers and swung itself up to the front passenger side window. Its feet dragged along the road, sending up short trails of hot white sparks.
“Danna, duck!”
With its other hand, the vagabond punched through the window, sending a torrent of shattered glass into their laps. Danna leaned back just in time. The robot reset its approach, then edged its way into the window and reached for her neck.
Panicking, Danna fumbled around looking for a weapon. Her probing fingers felt Ben’s multi-tool, and seizing it with her left hand, she lunged forward and jammed the screwdriver into the vagabond’s remaining eye.
The robot’s head exploded into a shower of neon sparks; and with a sudden jerk it reeled backward and slid off the car, grabbing and ripping off the side mirror as it hit the road.
Ben pushed the gas pedal to the floor and tore off down the road. Exhaling deeply, he glanced at Danna. Her hands and arms were covered with sharp pieces of glass, several of which were stuck into her arms.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, weakly.
Far behind them, the vagabond lay in the middle of the road. For several seconds, its limbs twitched violently until a final flash of blue flame shot three feet upwards and then it moved no more.
For a while, both were silent. The car tires hummed dully on the road, and the wind rushed through the broken window.
Ben’s thoughts turned to Ron.
Ronald Godfrey had been with the group since the beginning. He was a junior at Ben’s school. Ben had never spoken to him before, but he had known who he was; from what he heard, Ron was a class clown.
On the day of the Surge, Cameron had rushed to the school to pick up his brother and head straight to the retreat — to “get out of Dodge,” as their dad used to say. As they were driving away, Ron lumbered alongside the van and begged to take the last seat.
&n
bsp; Cameron had saved the seat for their cousin Dominic, but he chickened out at the last minute and decided that he’d be better off hiding under his desk until help arrived.
But help never came, and Ben knew he’d never see his cousin again.
So Ron lucked out. Since they arrived at the retreat over a year ago, he had been practically useless; he’d just loaf around and watch the other kids work.
After a while, Ben finally decided to put Ron in charge of inventory in the food pantry, a menial job. It didn’t take long for Ben to notice the missing packages of Ritz crackers and other snacks here and there. But he never said anything to Ron about it. Danna always said Ben was too easy on him.
Of the ten kids who escaped with Ben from the school, Ron was probably the one who took everything that happened the worse. Sure, most of the kids were devastated about losing their families, but Ron’s dad split when he was little, so Ron and his mom were really close.
After they had made it the retreat, Ron figured his mom was gone, but he never mustered whatever courage he thought he needed to go looking for her. The group would never have let him leave the retreat anyway: he wouldn’t have survived the afternoon.
A few months ago, Ron decided that he wanted to get involved. Ben wondered if Ron wanted the younger kids to start looking up to him. He spent a day learning operational security, the retreat’s defense protocol, and how to conduct patrols.
Ron wasn’t allowed to have a gun, however, because he neither received proper firearm safety training before the Surge, nor, in the alternative, did he “graduate” from Cameron’s haphazard gun lessons affectionately dubbed the “Warrior Academy.”
Ben thought Ron was ready for supply runs; unfortunately, he was mistaken. To Ben, Ron represented a greater problem. The group was still too weak; too many of them were still afraid. Not just afraid to die, he thought. They’re afraid to live. And people who are afraid to live won’t survive in this world.
“How long till home?” Danna asked, breaking the silence. She forced herself to look out the window and not down at her bleeding arms. A couple of gashes were deep; she’d need stitches.
“Less than an hour. I took a different route home to shake any followers.”
They moved into hillier terrain, where the fog still haunted the lowlands. Up above, the moon cast an eerie glow upon the dark land — a land without lights, without life.
Danna winced in pain. Ben leaned over and popped open the glove compartment. “Might be a first aid kit in here—”
“Watch out!”
Ben snapped his head up and saw a hooded silhouette standing in the middle of the road with its palms stretched outward, imploring them to stop.
He slammed on the brakes. The car swerved from right to left before coming to a screeching halt ten feet before the figure. With its hands now above its head, the figure stood there like a ghostly statue frozen in the swirling moonlit mist.
“Ben, let’s go,” Danna said warily, clutching her hands. “This isn’t safe. Just drive around it.”
Ben paused and leaned forward, squinting his eyes. He was about to drive off when suddenly he felt a dull, cold ache in his chest. And just as quickly, that ache began to wrestle with a strange feeling of warmth, like long lost joy, only reachable by walking blindfolded across a thin thread of hope.
He opened the door. “Stay in the car,” he said to Danna blankly. “Whatever it is, it shouldn’t be kept alive.”
“Then just run it over!”
Ben shot Danna a sharp look then leaned over and pulled the handgun out of the glove compartment. He held it up as if to ask, “Better now?” As he got out of the car, he thought: Danna’s right. What am I doing?
“Stop right there,” he said, pointing the gun at the figure.
Danna shone a flashlight on its face. It was a man. He had a gaunt face, ragged beard, and hollow sleepless eyes. He wore a green, heavy-duty hooded poncho with a large military pack slung over his shoulder. Five feet behind him a large black garbage bag lay on the road.
In a steady, lower-pitched voice, Ben said: “Set your bag down, take big three steps backwards, and drop to your knees.”
The man did as he was told. “Please help,” he said hoarsely, shifting from one knee to the other. He coughed. “My friends are dead, and I’m all alone.”
“Welcome to the club,” Ben said bitterly. As soon as the words left his mouth, his chest tightened with a pang. His father would’ve let him have it for speaking disrespectfully like that to an adult. But I’m not a kid anymore, he thought. I should be, but I’m not. We’re all equals now.
Keeping the gun leveled at the stranger, he walked over to the man’s pack and rummaged through it, searching for weapons. None. He slung the pack over his shoulder and stared at the man intently.
“What makes you think we can help you?” Ben asked. “Plus, you nearly killed us.”
“It was the only way you’d have stopped,” the stranger replied as he hunched his shoulders. “Besides,” he added with a weak smile, “the thumbs-up sign doesn’t work for hitchhikers nowadays.”
Ben frowned. “We can’t help you,” he said. “Really, there’s nothing we can do for you.” Without taking his eyes off the stranger, he set the pack on the pavement and slowly got back into the car.
Danna’s eyes were fixed on the man; her Ka-Bar fighting knife was on her lap.
The man let out a long, slow sigh and lowered his head. “Please, I beg you,” he said, looking up again. “I don’t need food or water; I just need shelter for the night — it’s like they’re hunting me.”
Far, far away — miles perhaps — a single gunshot broke the silence.
“We’re all being hunted!” Ben called out as he put the car in drive.
“Decided not to kill him, then?” Danna asked dryly.
As Ben drove past the stranger, who had gotten up and was walking to his bag, he was drawn to the man’s hollow, distant face, a face without anger or malice, but one of kindness — and hope?
He wanted to hit the gas pedal. He knew he should. But he couldn’t. He stopped the car. Maybe I’m just out of my mind, and everything is finally getting to me. Dad said to trust no one. No. One.
“Ben, are you crazy?” Danna snapped. “We need to go, like now.”
“Where are you going, by the way?” Ben called out to the stranger. “There’s nothing around here except death — and those who have caused it.”
Wincing in pain, the man reached into his pack and pulled out a tattered map. “I’m not from around here. I started out — or we did — weeks ago.” Tracing his finger along the map, he added: “I’m a half a day’s walk to my destination if I’m not mistaken. I can set out in the morning if you put me up for the night.”
“Are you going to a settlement?” Ben asked suspiciously, alarmed at the possibility of another group so close to the retreat.
“No, I don’t think so,” said the stranger. “It’s the summer home of an old friend of mine, Colonel Thomas Knight.”
Ben and Danna looked at each other, stunned.
“Get in the car,” Ben said roughly. “But first, take off that poncho and submit yourself to a search.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Retreat
DAWN WAS ONLY an hour away, and Ben wanted to get home before sunrise. The home stretch was a two-lane highway that wound its way through ten miles of barren, boulder-covered hills before descending into a grove of oak trees and scrub brush.
The drive was slow. Every other mile it seemed like he had to weave through abandoned vehicles on the road, many of them wrecked, flipped over, or smashed front first into the side of a cliff. Scavengers had ripped out the salvageable parts: pipes for weapons, side panels for armor, or tires for shoe soles.
Ben proceeded cautiously. Closer to the city, it wasn’t uncommon for bandits to hide behind overturned vehicles and waylay unsuspecting travelers. But nobody travels on these roads anymore. Or at least Ben hoped.
The
y passed several houses a stone’s throw from the road, all of them abandoned, or so they appeared. Of course, if anybody were living in one of those houses, they’d be smart enough to make it look deserted. The smallest flicker of a candle light would attract vagabonds; and no, the metal monsters don’t ring the doorbell before entering. No doubt a lot of these homes were empty because people found that out the hard way.
As he drove by, Ben wondered if the mailboxes were stuffed with letters. Clothes catalogs, bills, a birthday card from a dear relative, never to be seen again.
Maybe he’d stop one day to see — they weren’t far from home.
The road straightened for a half-mile as it cut through a large open space of old citrus groves surrounded by low lying mountains that were plastered with massive boulders. The Martian Mountains, as Ben used to call them.
It hadn’t rained in a long time. A month ago a brush fire ravaged the nearby hills, turning the sky into a filthy haze and dusting the earth with an unholy ash. Fortunately, the wind blew the fires elsewhere, to devour the empty cities and — Ben hoped — the ravenous deadheads that roamed the streets.
The road made a sudden turn to the right, avoiding a rocky outcropping and descending into a small oak grove. Ben slowed down, pulled off to the side of the road, and stopped. Twenty feet to the right were two fallen logs and an old, rusted-out minivan flipped over on its side.
Danna began to unlock her seatbelt, but Ben stopped her.
“I can get it,” he said, hopping out. He ducked his head back in the car and smirked. “I mean, seriously, look at your arms.”
She gave a half-shrug and started tapping her knees with her fingers.
