Willow slowed as they followed a bend in the highway. A warning sensation pulsated through Scarlett’s veins. She scanned the area with the binoculars. A car pile-up loomed ahead. They had passed plenty of abandoned vehicles but not a pile-up. They were difficult to maneuver around. Creepers or thieves could be lying in wait. Scarlett pulled back on the reins.
“I don’t like it here,” Twila said in a panicked tone.
Twila was seldom frightened. And it spooked Scarlett. She studied the vehicles methodically, looking for the safest path. It was too dangerous. Four lanes of burned-out shells of vehicles obstructed most of the road. Had the fire already been through there? Thinking about it, without Firefighters, she was surprised all of Southern California hadn’t gone up in flames. Well, it probably won’t survive another summer.
A shiver tingled up her spine, quivering the back of her neck. A long moaning-like wail pierced her thoughts. Willow bucked. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground along with the plastic tub of packs. Twila had managed to hold on. Willow ran to the opposite side of the interstate. Scarlett snatched the packs and took off after them. The wailing intensified, piercing her ears and her heart. It reminded her of mourning—the mourning wails of other cultures, grieving the loss of loved ones.
Twila finally subdued the mare. Her amateur riding lessons had paid off. “Are you all right?” Scarlett panted, finally catching up. She’d dropped the packs. So much for the plastic tub. She didn’t want to go back for it.
“Willow doesn’t like it here.” Twila pouted and hugged Willow’s neck as far as her petite arms allowed.
The northbound lane had also suffered a multi-car crash, but it wasn’t as congested. Strange. Both sides of the interstate seemed to have come to a screeching halt. What could have caused it? It must have happened during the first days of the pandemic when people had fled for the shelters, seeking a non-existent cure.
According to Zac, there had been a vaccine in the beginning, and then the manmade virus had mutated, making the vaccine obsolete. She found it difficult to believe all the things Zac had said. The shit had really hit the fan when the vaccine hadn’t worked. She wondered how much of the pandemic had to do with the unscrupulous get-rich-quick scheme as Zac had labeled it, and how much it had to do with the Ancient Bloodlines. Were they interconnected?
“There is no difference . . .”
“I want you to ride Willow while I lead her slowly through the pile-up. If something bad happens, ride Willow until it’s safe. I’ll catch up with you,” Scarlett said, not liking the situation. Not only was she spooked, so were Twila and Willow. She tucked the gun back into her vest and grabbed the tire iron from the saddle’s pouch. She wanted to sneak through as quickly and quietly as possible. There weren’t enough bullets left to kill a horde.
The winds shifted. The raging fire consumed the sky behind them. Leading Willow by the reins, Scarlett navigated between the burnt-out vehicles. She glanced inside the vehicles only long enough to see the skeletal remains of its passengers. They reached a point where the road disappeared. Gone. Only rubble. That’s when she realized the interstate had been bombed. It was bigger than a grenade blast, maybe an anti-tank weapon?
Twila let out a series of bloodcurdling cries. Scarlett broke out in a rash of goosebumps.
“Shhh,” Scarlet attempted. Twila was lost in grief. She knew it was grief because she also suffered the intense pain—the fear of death and the agony of losing a loved one. These people had been murdered in their tracks in the middle of the interstate, probably in some military attempt for containment. They had been scared people, trying to get to their families, or trying to get the vaccine, or just trying to escape all the inhumanity. With every step she took, the weight of their pain bore into her soul.
A horrid fizzy-sizzling sound stopped her dead in her tracks. Ungodly squealing howls took over her eardrums. “Stop!” she screamed, holding her head in her hands, attempting to block the excruciating phantom pains penetrating her skull. She thrashed her head about, trying to shake free of their intangible claws. Even Willow bellowed. The peculiar fizzy-sizzling sounds amplified. She needed to check on Twila, but she found herself involuntarily turning around. A flaming mass careened down the western canyon. It wasn’t a landslide. A fireslide! It landed on the road two car-lengths behind them.
Objects billowed inside the fireslide’s debris. “What the—” In a sudden lurch, they lept—to their feet. In-flamed silhouettes juddered about. In their ignited state, the horde still seemed ruled by their crazed undying hunger. The horde flailed toward Scarlett and Twila. And just when Scarlett finally found her wits, the horde disintegrated into a pile of blackened-bones.
Scarlett glanced at Twila. There were no words to say, for nothing could logically explain what they’d just encountered. And so, they trekked on, all too aware the fire was gaining on them. She constantly eyed the canyons’ hillsides for movement, afraid another fiery horde might descend upon them. Finally, the road reappeared under their feet. They had passed ground zero of the blast.
It was a relief to find the road ahead cluttered with uncharred vehicles. She placed her foot in the stirrup ready to mount Willow and outrun the firestorm when a movement in the distance put her back on high alert. The binoculars revealed no signs of life. She continued on foot, leading the mare by the reins.
“Shit!” There it was again. Scarlett slipped the tire iron back into its place. She could use one bullet.
“Twila, is that a person or a creeper?” Scarlett pointed.
Twila looked at her with tear-soaked eyes and wailed. Her wail was joined by another wail. As they crept closer, Scarlett zoomed in on the figure. It was a lone creeper. How odd? They usually gathered into hordes. They continued at a slower pace. According to the raggedy skirt, it was a woman—had been a woman. It fiddled with something in a car. It was probably feeding on some unlucky animal.
It convulsed about, staring at them. Scarlett cocked the gun.
“Mommy, no!” Twila screeched.
The gun went off. “What!” For some reason she missed; she never missed. She checked the clip. Only three rounds left. She reached for the tire iron. They continued closer, maybe a car-length away. It hunched over the open door of the backseat. Feeding? It was the only thing Scarlett could think of. She gathered the courage to bash in its head as they passed. Its wailing continued. Twila joined in. What’s going on?
They were side by side, a lane away from each other. Suddenly, it turned around. Staring at them. Scarlett was close enough to see its bloodshot eyes. For some strange reason, instead of gurgling and lurching for them, it turned its back on them. It continued fiddling with something in the car.
Scarlett geared up for a full-body slam of a swing, ready to bash in its brains. It turned to look at her again with a glimpse of compassion on its flesh-rotting face if that were at all possible. It let out a wretched cry and then howled, nodding around at the canyon’s glowing ridgelines. It looked at Scarlett, looked past her eyes and into her.
“What in the hell—” For some reason, Scarlett didn’t have the nerve to de-activate it. With lead-filled feet, she walked past the vehicle. The creeper ignored her and frantically tugged on something in the backseat. Willow followed reluctantly, prancing nervously.
“Help her!” a tiny voice cried. She didn’t know if it was Twila or her inner voice. Before she stopped to consider the consequences, Scarlett dashed back to the car, the opposite side of the creeper. She peered inside the backseat. She had to.
“What?” A baby creeper thrashed about, strapped in an infant car seat. Trapped. The mother creeper yanked on the car seat’s straps as if trying to free her baby before the fires reached them. Impossible. A creeper who’d rather save her baby than devour Scarlett and Twila?
Scarlett flung open the door. She hesitated only for a moment when she looked into the mother’s pleading eyes. And then she did the unthinkable. She slashed away at the car seat’s straps with her knife, fre
eing the baby creeper. The mother held the baby to her heart. It let out a sound she’d never heard from a creeper before. A loving, gurgling-cooing sound. Scarlett forced herself to meet the mother’s eyes, searching those bulging blood-shot eyes. She saw. A spark of life. Deep within its decaying-tormented soul.
Chapter 16
Dean hustled back to the hotel room. It was almost noon. The kid sure sleeps a lot.
“You up yet?” Dean rattled off as he entered their economy room, The Doc Holliday, complete with rustic wooden floors and walls, four canopy-covered trundle beds fashioned into covered wagons, a bathtub, which looked like a trough, and oil lantern wall sconces. He especially appreciated the flushing toilets after so many weeks roughing it on the road.
“Ye-ah, where’ve you been?” Justin said testily.
“Tried to get you up earlier. You were out cold.” Dean glanced at the coffee table where he’d left Justin’s breakfast. “See you ate your breakfast. The Stage Coach Company office is finally open.”
“Awe-some.”
They had been enjoying their stay the past few weeks. Boom Town was a much-needed respite. Despite the break, Dean was getting restless. He couldn’t afford for his muscles and nerves to go soft and lazy on him; he needed to stay in tip-top shape. Not to mention, Luther was most likely tired of footing the bill.
They’d been waiting for news on wagon train activity coming from the West Coast. Unfortunately, the only employee running the Stage Coach Company’s office had been recovering from surgery. To pass the time, Justin had secured a part-time job in a collectible’s shop, Luther worked the weekends as a mechanic for the Enforcers, and Dean volunteered at the stables.
“Time to skedaddle.” Dean grabbed the uneaten slice of butter-soaked toast from Justin’s plate, knowing he shouldn’t.
“This place is so cool.” Justin practically skipped down Main Street’s wooden-planked walkway with his thumbs hooked under the leather gun holster riding low on his waist.
“Used to think so myself,” Dean said, remembering as a child how mesmerized he’d been with the gunfight enactments and hanging out in the saloon with a whiskey glass. Only it had been a mug of good old-fashioned sassafras root beer. Granddaddy had even bought him a cowboy outfit once. He’d worn it to shreds, playing marshal and sorting out the town’s affairs.
Back then, Boom Town had been full of adventure and fun. Now I feel stuck in a time warp. For if this simulated Wild West town was the closest semblance of society, it meant the U.S. had a heck of a lot of catching up to do before things returned to normal.
Justin interrupted his thoughts. “Where’s Luther?”
“Probably trading in the rest of his watch collection. He said he had some business to take care of.” Dean’s boots clomped along the planked walkway, stirring up those old memories again. “Here we are,” he said, pointing to the STAGECOACH COMPANY sign dangling from the porch.
When they entered the western office, the fellow sitting behind the desk said, “Last State’s not accepting refugees ’til May.” The fellow scooted his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “All I can do is add you to the bottom of the waiting list, which requires a fifty percent nonrefundable deposit. You’re required to sign the disclosure. Rates tend to fluctuate with the economy,” the fellow said before Dean could get a word in edgewise.
“What economy?” Justin asked.
“By the way, how much does Last State Citizenship go for?” Dean wondered aloud.
“Roughly, eighty thousand in gold per person.”
“For real?” Justin rolled his eyes in obvious frustration.
“At those rates, it’s no wonder you don’t have any customers,” Dean remarked.
“Scammers—in the middle of the apocalypse,” Justin jabbered.
“Don’t get sore with me. I’m just the record keeper,” the fellow jabbed back.
“What’s to stop us from driving right up to Last State’s front door and shouting, ‘Honey, I’m home’? ” Dean didn’t understand all the hoopla.
“For starters, they’d probably shoot you on the spot, thinking you’re a marauder or a terrorist,” the fellow replied. “There are only two entry points into Texas left. And this is one of them. Once the bank transfer is confirmed, Enforcers take you in through the secret tunnel.”
“Tunnel?” Dean frowned.
“That’s how it’s done. East of Boom Town—it’s all top secret. They don’t want us knowing what’s going on,” the fellow said in a hushed tone.
“Shit on a shingle,” Dean muttered. “Say, I heard you were recovering from an operation. Why aren’t you in Last State?”
The fellow behind the counter took off his 19th-century styled spectacles and set them on the counter as if giving him a moment to think about the simple question. “This is my home. I was the museum’s curator for over thirty years before they gutted it for its wagon hardware and equipment. I’ve no desire to leave. I’m not one for change.”
“I certainly understand where you’re comin’ from,” Dean said, feeling for the fellow. “In all fairness, we aren’t lookin’ to go to Texas just yet. Fact is, we got separated from one of our own. Wondering what wagon trains have been through here the past couple of months.” Dean figured Father Jacob’s group couldn’t have made it there before then. Of course, everything hinged on how far Father Jacob’s people had driven and how long they had traveled by horse.
“I see.” The fellow slipped on his spectacles. He thumbed through the pages in a large leather-bound ledger. “You're in luck; I just finished logging the immigrants per the Immigration Checkpoint reports. Not much wagon train activity. The last wagon train arrived,” he scrolled his finger down the ledger, “hmm, last month . . . late December.”
“Was Ella with them?” Justin blurted with excitement.
On the off chance Father’s Jacob’s group had driven most of the way, Dean asked, “Were they religious-type folk?”
“Doubt it. Says here in the report, they were nothin’ but a bunch of hooligans. Enforcers gave them the boot the next day,” he said, shutting the book.
“How long does it take to get here by horse and wagon—say from California?” Dean asked.
“During the Gold Rush Era it took 100 days—” The fellow stopped. “Pardon me, I digress. Part of my forty-niner Gold Rush speech. These days, it’s taking four to five months. Today’s folks aren’t as rugged and quite frankly don’t know beans about life on the trail. See, there are factors to consider, such as traveling by horse, mule, or oxen, how many people are in the party, and so forth. Weather plays a big part. For a while, Last State had numerous official checkpoints along the trails. We could warn immigrants about the weather and so forth.”
“Dude, you mean you can contact the wagon trains?” Justin was beside himself with excitement.
“The communication lines have been down for months. I honestly don’t think Texas gives a hoot. We haven’t heard a peep from the trains coming from the Lost States of America.”
Lost States of America? The words made Dean’s stomach flip-flop. Justin’s expression abruptly changed from excitement back to gloom. “What seems to be the problem?” Dean pressed.
“No official word on the matter. Except for one unseasonably early blizzard, it’s been an exceptionally mild winter. Of course, there are always blizzards to contend with in the higher elevations. However, it doesn’t explain the sudden halt of immigration. As of late, only small groups trickle in.”
“Must be the Zs,” Justin stated glumly.
“And then there are the marauders,” the fellow added.
“What about Last State? Why aren’t they patrolling the trails?” Dean inquired.
The fellow shook his head. “Not much going on in that department. Though, before I was out for my hernia surgery, I was in charge of putting together a recon team. Only two Enforcers volunteered for the mission. Couldn’t get any immigrants. I suppose they don’t want to relive life on the trail for obvious reas
ons.”
“We’ll go!” Justin exclaimed.
“It’s a tough job. No guarantees. And, it don’t pay much.” The fellow seemed to be considering them.
“Really, I’ve got to go!” Justin continued.
“What makes you so eager?” He studied Justin, pushing his spectacles forward.
“Ella. We're supposed to get married . . .”
“Good thinking. It’s best the women folk get hitched before they reach the Texan border or—” He stopped.
“Or what?” Justin asked.
“In case you haven't heard—” the fellow started.
“Duh, like there’s no Internet,” Justin interrupted.
The fellow grimaced. “The checkpoints are—mildly put, not women-friendly. Unmarried women are treated more like valuable property than human beings. If they’ve secured a marriage certificate, things usually go better for them.”
“That’s so uncool,” Justin huffed.
“Well, you can sign us up for the trip west. Think I can speak for ol’ Luther as well,” Dean replied.
“You’ll have to pass a physical,” the fellow said doubtfully.
“Oh, we’ve gotta go. I can’t live without Ella!” Justin nearly bellowed.
The spectacled fellow smiled for the first time. “True love? Not an arranged marriage?”
Dean nodded. “The truest love I’ve ever seen.”
“Well then, that’s different.” He smiled and retrieved a binder from under the counter. “Let's see what we can work out.”
Chapter 17
Scarlett sat on the deck of the vacation home they’d stumbled upon a few days ago, February 10th, according to the kitchen's atomic clock. It was strange, finally knowing the exact time, date, and day of the week after endless days of traveling.
The Hunger's Howl Page 16
