by Dan McNeill
Chapter 4
The stranger sniffed at the air again before making another move. Considering it safe, she popped up and climbed over to the hatch to peek her head out. Pushing up her sleeves of her camouflage hoody, she scanned the area with her binoculars.
“All right,” she called back. “It’s clear.”
Raymond came out slowly while Rowdy sniffed furiously at the ground where the orange-maned man leaped about just moments earlier.
“My name’s Salome Ortiz. And you are?”
"Raymond Bean," he replied. "Did you say train?"
Salome nodded her head. “So the dude has ears,” she said with a smirk. “Yeah, a train. We don't have ourselves a chopper so the only way we have of catching up to your brother is the supply train. Lake Geneva's one of its stops. It usually rolls in around 8pm." She flashed a quick glance at her watch. "We don't have much time. We better hustle if we're gonna get ourselves on board.”
Raymond looked at her and scoffed. “You're wasting my time. There are no trains! No cars, no trains! No goddam nothing! Now get out of my way and let me find my brother!”
“Listen to me Raymond Bean,” Salome said, grabbing his arm. “I know you don’t want to believe any of this. I understand that.”
“No, I just don't want to believe in you," he replied coldly. "Why the hell did you stop me?”
Salome paused, closing her eyes as she bowed her head. “I apologize Raymond Bean. I am but a humble servant to the man we call the Prophet. Together, we seek the 19."
"The who?"
"The 19," Salome said with a scowl. "Surely you've heard of the 19?"
Raymond shook his head. This time Salome got the point of the sneer.
“I don’t have time to give you a history lesson Ray, but let me just tell you that the 19 are our only hope. All of our hope. For the last three years, just the myth that they’ve become has inspired all of us to fight on against the rise of the Elected.”
"You still didn't answer my question," Raymond repeated. "Why the hell are you here?"
Salome turned her back. "The Prophet," she said, rubbing her temples. "He's gone. He and another apostle were captured by Chosen forces last week outside of Rockford. Jehu himself led the raid." She peaked into her backpack and removed a canteen. Unscrewing the cap, she took a drink. She looked at Raymond with a weirdly self-satisfied grin. "Tells you just how much of a threat they consider us that they have to send out the big guns!" She offered Raymond a drink but he shooed it away, ignoring her.
"So you led him to us," Raymond finally said. "It's your damned fault my brother's dead then."
"What are you talking about! I didn't lead nobody nowhere!" Salome replied. "And plus he ain't dead. Just taken. This whole thing is more complicated than you know boy! Anyway, like I said, we can get him back! Together we can get him-"
"Shut up!" Raymond shouted. He looked out at the old restaurant, noticing for the first time how much damage Jehu had inflicted. Instead of going through the front door, he had hurled the rusty trash dumpster through the back entrance. Seeing the back of the restaurant, Raymond had a sudden odd recollection that today was Friday. They used to have fish fries here on Friday nights. On one such night, while Raymond was playing the pinball machine and Abe was feeding the ducks with mom and dad after getting their fill on deep fried walleye, Po went missing. They found him here, in the back of the place. He was just talking to Rolando, one of the cooks. He was telling him how happy his cooking made him.
Raymond let out a snort. "So you stopped me from saving my brother so I could give you a hand to save your preacher!"
"He's the Prophet, Bean!" Salome snapped. "And I stopped you to save you, you fucking dumb ass!
"Oh yeah? And how do you figure that?"
Salome let out a sarcastic laugh. "Four drones against one long haired loner? The drones would've torn those muscular arms right out of your sockets." She looked at him and winked. "What the hell did you think you were going to do there Carrot Top? Tell them fucking knock-knock jokes?"
"Whatever," Raymond said. "I guess we'll never know, will we. All we do know is that Po's gone."
"He's not gone, Raymond. I've already told you that. He's been taken. By Jehu."
Raymond slid Remmy off his shoulder, clutching both hands around the barrel. Remmy was his constant. His security. But today his constant let him down. He looked out to the edge of the lake where the helicopter carried away the creature Remmy couldn't end. He remembered how him and Abe used to scoop up tadpoles around those same shores when they were kids and didn't hate each other. It was a different world, he thought to himself, staring at the twisted up VW bug the man had tossed like it was a toy. And tadpoles were stupid. The damned things always died.
Salome put her small hands on Raymond's shoulder. "We need to get out of here man. Jehu may have left but I'm sure he called for a clean up crew to root us out. That's standard operating procedure. There'll be more drones here soon. If we want to save your brother, we need to be gone. Like already gone." She shook her head. "For all we know, it may already be too late."
"Too late for what?" he said, shrugging her hands off his shoulders.
Salome looked at him. Her dark eyes appeared moist. "Those drones you saw? The ones that carried Po away?"
Raymond looked at her like she was Abe, coming to him with one of his stupid conspiracy theories again. "The robot things?"
"They ain't robots! They're people! People get locked into them suits. They get locked into them suits and those people change!" She turned to look out over the lake. "People like your brother, man."
And Raymond understood. The angel robots that carried Po away. That's why they paused when Po started to sing. Why would a robot care about a birthday.
Raymond trembled as he whistled for Rowdy, trying to keep it together. “I know of a back way to the train station. We won't be caught. After that, it's up to you. And I take it the train's not taking us to Disneyland."
Salome shook her head. "I sure wish I had a snappy retort to that my friend but there ain't nothing funny about where we're gonna need to go," Salome replied. "This train's gonna take us to Camp Glory."
"Camp Glory?"
"Don't let the name fool you. It's a slave labor camp. The largest in the Elected's kingdom. Modeled after everything you've heard about the old Nazi concentration camps."
Raymond stopped abruptly, moving his index finger to his lips as he pointed off to a pack of wolves drinking from the water near the dam. He crouched behind the reeds. "And we're just going to march inside?"
Salome looked back at him with a sullen stare. "I have a plan muchacho," she whispered. "Don't worry."
"Fine," Raymond said, getting up after the wolves moved on. He picked up the pace. "We save my brother and we save your friends. And then me and Po come back.”
“Thank you," Salome replied, trying to keep up as Rowdy took the lead. "But you ought to know what you're getting into first. Jehu is the most wicked of the seven known as the Elected.” She bowed her head and sighed. “They lead the Chosen."
"The who?" Raymond asked, ducking his head as he crossed under a tree.
"The Chosen," she said, following Raymond into the forest. "Us, technically," she continued, waving her finger between her and Raymond. "All the survivors who ain't Triz-"
"What?" Raymond yelled. "Triz?"
Salome looked at him like he was drunk. "Yeah , the ones who survived the Rap untouched, if not unchanged? People like your brother? People with Down syndrome!" She shook her head. "Anyway, after the Rap, there was a cult that formed, saying that all of us who lived through the Rapture were chosen by God."
"And these Elected?" Raymond cut in. "So I take it all you Chosen voted for them?"
"What?" Salome yelled. "I ain't no Chosen!" She shook her head. "And are you crazy? Voted? No one voted for the Elected!" She pushed up the sleeves of her jacket, revealing a black tattoo of the sun surro
unded by words that looked like graffiti.
"So how'd they get to be in charge then?"
"Wow," she laughed, slowly shaking her head. "You've even dimmer than I suspected." She closed her eyes and forced out a sigh. "Listen hombre, when the Elected came on the scene last year, no one said nothing. Who was gonna resist? Strength of a thousand men. Super speed. Near impossible to kill." She paused, looking down at her feet. She was holding back tears.
"We've tried," she said, wiping her eyes. "Believe me, we've tried. People, what few are left, believe they're gods. They're scared Raymond. Scared enough to believe in almost anything."
Raymond shook his head as they came up to a street. Glancing both ways, he quickly crossed. “Well you don't have to worry about me,” Raymond said as Salome and Rowdy followed. "I have no use for gods. Old or new."
"So you ain't a believer, eh?" Salome said.
Raymond shrugged. After crossing a shallow brook, he grabbed Rowdy by the collar as they approached the forest's edge. "Not much left to believe in now, is there?" he whispered. Crouching, he peered through the brush to the outskirts of the town of Lake Geneva.
"You got your brother," Salome said, kneeling down beside him.
"Yeah," Raymond replied. "He's about the only thing. If he's even still alive." He started to take a step through the brush. Salome pulled him back. With specks of light bouncing off the edges of her cool dark hair, she stepped forward, kissing him gently on the lips.
"Hope," Salome said, taking a step back.
Raymond nodded.
"Get down!" she suddenly shouted, pushing Raymond to the ground.
"What are you doing?"
"Look!" she said through gritted teeth. "Drones! Six of them."
Raymond raised his rifle.
"No!" Salome yelled. "Too risky. There ain't enough of us. Drones travel in groups. If we fire at them we may take out one or two before the others zero in on us. If only we had a third person to serve as a distraction it may be an even fight."
"We don't have a choice. The train is just on the other side!"
"Well then I'll do it. I'll distract them while you make a run for the train."
Raymond slung Remmy over his shoulders and grunted. "No way," he yelled, moving back into the forest. "Follow me! I have another idea."
Raymond backtracked to the shallow brook that flowed behind them, taking a path that he used to follow when he and Po made their journeys into town. The last time he did that was over two years ago.
Lake Geneva used to be a cool place to hang out. Sure, it was touristy in the summers but that was part of the fun. Besides, the crowds of tourists were a good diversion. It kept people away from places like this.
The courtyard behind the library. Raymond ran along the side, scanning the open air theater and squat marble columns in search of a friend. It was difficult to spot what he was looking for through the thick mass of weeds and vines. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of something shiny. Good, he thought to himself. Gary was still there.
Good old reliable Gary. The gamer. Raymond approached the man with caution. After two years, his animatronic legs were wrapped in twisting vines. Gary sat, his brass arms molded to a marble table, in the middle of the circular brick courtyard. Raymond walked over to the marble benches and other gaming tables positioned directly in front of Gary and stopped, staring down at him.
Salome walked around the circular courtyard.
"What the hell is this?"
Raymond brushed off more of the vines, revealing a tarnished golden man. "Our third man.”
“What?" Salome scoffed. "This? A statue of some old white dude? What, was he the mayor of Lake Geneva or something?”
“More like king," Raymond smiled. "This is a memorial to Gary Gygax. The guy who invented Dungeons and Dragons? You know, that role playing game?”
Salome crossed her eyebrows and looked at Raymond curiously. This time, she was the one who didn’t know what was going on. Raymond liked that.
“My mom was a big gamer, actually played D&D with Gary once when she was in college. Apparently the guy lived here in Lake Geneva. Anyway, when he died, they took up a collection and built a memorial for him here at the library. Two of them, I think. Though the first one was kind of lame I hear. But the second one, this one," he said, waving his hands over the golden man's spectacled face, "was something else. Some kind of solar-powered animatronic robot thing, donated by a gamer who retired from Disney. Robot Gary would actually spout off entire adventures that you could play along with. Some of them got pretty loud.” Raymond sighed, staring off in the direction of the drones patrolling across the street. “Loud enough to serve as a decoy, I think. Do you think the drones'll go for it?”
"Sure, as long as he sounds human enough, they'll come over to check it out." Salome sat down now across from Gary. “So wait a minute," she said, tapping on his metal skull. "You sure he still works? What about the electronics?”
Raymond shrugged. “I dunno. He worked fine when Po played with him a couple years ago. From what I remember my mom saying, he was like a great big music box. There wasn’t much in the way of electronics.”
"How does he work?"
"Easy, we select a game, pull the lever and he starts talking."
"That's it?"
"From what I remember, yes."
Salome stood up, looking uneasily at her watch. "The train's probably pulling up at the station right now. We don't have much time."
Raymond brushed off the leaves and sat in the marble chair in front of the gaming table. He looked up at Gary’s face and shook his head. That calming countenance peeking at him from behind his round-rimmed glasses. He looked so wise. A dry grin on a beard made of brass. Did he have any idea what was about to go down? He looked at the lever on Gary’s side that activated him.
"Come on!" Salome yelled, looking off to the road beyond the library. "If we're gonna do this we gotta do it now!"
Raymond's hands were trembling as he looked down at the game game map painted on the marble table. The brass etchings on the board indicated places on the map you could move to as Gary read out the adventure. The game was usually quite random and sometimes made no sense. But it was always fun. Brushing aside vines covering the table, Raymond found the dial and turned it to select the “Dark Tower Quest”.
He didn't know why he was so hesitant to do this. Was he too caring? Did he think it actually mattered if this thing was destroyed? Cracked branches.
"Holy shit Raymond, get down!" Salome grabbed him and pushed him hard under one of the benches.
It was his nightmares come to life. Shadows, pouring like thick blotches of black ink, came screaming out from the inner forest.
They were everywhere now as Salome tried desperately to cover the parts of them that stuck out from under the bench with the vines that roped over the top of the table in front of Gary. Shadows leaping over shadows, running faster and faster. Knocking each other down. Stepping over each other to escape. Raymond wanted to run but felt Salome's hand grip tighter.
"Sit still and shut up!" she grimaced. "They ain't here to attack us. If they were, they'd be laughing. Nope, they're being chased!"
"Who the hell are they?"
"Ragers!"
Before Raymond could say another word, they were on top of them, leaping and rolling over the table and around Gary's lap. The smell of them made Raymond want to puke. They reeked of something akin to maggot infested meat. Raymond tried holding his breath.
But he couldn't hold it that long. The fury of the chase seemed to be unending. Then, just as Raymond thought they would be crushed, gunfire.
The shadows froze. Around them, Raymond could hear a low growling from the creatures nearest to the table as the sound of clanging metal drew near. More gunfire. Targeted. A mass of shadow exploded behind the table. Another gunshot. More metal clanging against metal.
"The drones!" Salome whisper
ed. "It ain't what we planned but I think we just got our distraction." She slowly peeked up over the bench to try spotting the drones.
But Raymond remained frozen. There was another sound now. The high-pitched whistle that howled from across the lake. The one that Po would make up funny stories about to keep Raymond calm. The one that made his insides feel like they wanted to melt out.
Salome froze too. By the beads of sweat now trickling down her cheeks as she curled beneath the benches, this new threat seemed to frighten her most of all.
The shadows howled and continued to charge forward once again. Apparently whatever was giving them chase was much worse than the promise of death by drone gunfire.
And Raymond saw it. A dozen men on horseback came charging out from the dark forest. His living nightmares. Skulls, wolves, lightning bolts and other symbols that Raymond couldn't even begin to make out in the ensuing chaos. These men on horseback seemed to be painted almost entirely in black - save for the symbols on their tunics - which chests appeared to be painted in a phosphorescent yellow.
They each carried above them a staff they spun faster and faster above their heads. Inside something at the top of the staff was a burning fire that made the symbols on their tunics glow brighter. And produced the sound that filled Raymond's fears.
Without Po's stories to protect him, Raymond shut his eyes tight and covered his ears. Though the whirling flames and the high-pitched whistles still managed to find a way in. Raymond could hear shots like cannon fire blasting out towards the location of the drones, followed by an explosion and echo of crashing metal.
With the drones gone, the howling from the shadows grew more worrisome, growing in pitch to nearly match the sound made by the staffs from the men on horseback. Raymond covered his ears tighter. The only thing he wanted was for it all to be over. The hooves from the horses were following the sounds of the howls, surrounding them. Herding them.
After several long minutes, the howling sounds seemed to be contained. Then, just as suddenly as they started, they stopped.
The meadow adjacent to the courtyard seemed quiet. Raymond could hear a train's horn off in the distance. Salome got up and peeked out over the table.
"All clear," she said, patting Rowdy on the head. "Come on," she said, offering Raymond a hand. "We may still make it!"
