Across the Dark Water

by Richard Kadrey

  “Now you know why I want to leave.”

  “No. That’s not why you want to leave. Maybe part of it, but there’s more.”

  “There’s always more to a story, that’s why we call them stories. Can we go soon?”

  The guide gave him a look and poured water onto the heating ingot.

  “It needs to cool a little more.”

  * * *

  In the evening, they passed a group of children picking through the remains of an automat that looked as if it hadn’t seen food in a year. There was a feral look to the pack, so the guide took out one of his pistols and held it to his side, making sure the children could see it. The men moved on and no one followed.

  An hour or two later they came upon an old man pushing a shopping cart piled high with dirty clothes and cans of food, many without labels. The old man tried to run, but there were stones and one of his legs was bad and he fell. The thief started to help him up, but the old man pulled away. He waved at the cart.

  “Take what you want, but don’t touch me.”

  “I’m not sick,” said the thief, showing the man the QR code lasered onto his wrist. “I have antibodies.”

  “I’ve seen men with a dozen of those. Talk to ’em and tomorrow you’re coughing up blood.”

  “We don’t want your shit,” said the guide, and pulled the thief away roughly.

  The old man stayed sprawled in the street. He shouted, “You’re going to die, you know. There’s nothing but death down there.” He pointed to his head. “I can see these things. You’re both going to die.”

  The thief went back and threw a protein bar at the old man’s feet. He snatched it up and put it in his overcoat pocket.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” he said and pointed to the guide. “Your death will be quick, though alone.” He looked at the thief. “But yours will linger and you’ll beg for it.” The old man began to weep quietly, so they left him to it.

  The thief and the guide walked most of the night, until they saw the lights of a military APC in the distance. They went into a chain hotel and on the fifth floor found a room with comfortable beds and clean sheets. The guide jammed his breaching tool under the doorknob to block the entrance, and they moved a table and chairs against it for reinforcement.

  The guide removed a small device from his pack, inserted needles into each of his arms, and lay back.

  “What’s that?” said the thief.

  “Blood scrubber. Clears out the toxins, bacteria, and what have you. With your idiot pills you could probably use a cleaning. I’ll let you have a turn for some of that gold.”

  The thief considered it. He knew he could do with a cleaning, but losing more gold probably meant going back to cemeteries.

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

  “Suit yourself. You feel like a million bucks after a round.”

  The thief lay down. His body was stiff from sleeping on the floor of the vault and the bed helped ease the pain.

  “I guess I won today,” said the guide quietly.

  “How so?”

  “I die quick and you die begging.”

  “Yes. I’m sure that old man was psychic. Besides, he didn’t say begging for what. Maybe I’m having so much fun I beg for it to stop.”

  “Right. That’s what he meant.”

  “I’m tired and going to sleep.”

  “Yeah. I won.”

  The men closed their eyes, but neither slept soundly with the noise of patrols going by. There was gunfire in the distance at sundown.

  * * *

  The next morning there were still stars in the sky when the guide scanned the area on his spysat link. They headed out when there was just a sliver of light on the horizon.

  A dog, large and brown, with wounds down its body that had torn away fur, eyed them as they came into the street. The guide shouted at it, but the dog didn’t move.

  The thief said, “You’d think they’d be thinner. Strays, I mean, this far away from the inhabited neighborhoods.”

  “He’s been eating all right. Maybe that old loudmouth from last night.”

  The thief made a face at the idea.

  Finally, the guide picked up a brick and threw it as hard as he could at the dog. It darted into a sunglasses store before the brick got near it. The two men headed out and when the thief looked back, the dog was watching them from the door of the shop.

  With no patrols in sight and the sky empty, the guide led them back to a main boulevard where they made good time, even in the areas where the streets were crowded with ghuls. They reminded the thief of zombies he’d seen in old movies as a child. For the most part, their skin was gray and, on some of the worst ones, it sloughed off. But they weren’t dead. The victims of quack cures and contaminated black market medications, they paced the streets in vast herds like the undead he remembered. But the ghuls only attacked each other and it was just the maddest of them that did it. They were oblivious to the thief and guide. At certain intersections, the crowd became so dense that pushing through it took all the men’s strength.

  “Should we go back to the side streets?” said the thief once they made it through a particularly resistant mob.

  The guide said, “Only if you want to lose another day.”

  Ahead were some of the maddest of the ghuls. They were the most disturbing because they appeared utterly normal. Healthy skin. Clear eyes. On some, even their clothes were intact. But they couldn’t help gnawing on the flesh of the slower, gray ghuls. The stink of infection and creeping death was awful, and the men gave them a wide berth.

  When the way was clear again, the guide lit a cigarette, taking long drags on it as he spoke.

  “They say that sometimes the Turk moves around. What if he’s not there when we reach his place?”

  The thief said, “Who says he moves?”

  “It’s just what I’ve heard.”

  “They were lying or joking. The Turk never leaves his compound. He might be sick himself or waiting for the all clear. Or maybe he just doesn’t care what it’s like out here.”

  “Maybe,” said the guide. “So. You rob graves.”

  The thief felt ashamed again.

  “I didn’t always.”

  “You want to go back to the ghuls and pick some pockets?”

  “No thanks.”

  “They won’t mind.”

  “Stop it.”

  The guide smoked and nodded his head.

  “You like your dead less pushy.”

  “They’re not dead. They’re insane.”

  “Some are probably full of plague, so I hope that skin sealant is working for you.”

  The thief cursed. “I should have brought gloves.”

  “I have an extra pair. You can have them for a little gold.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  Soon they reached another of the mobs—the largest one yet. They cut to a side street, but it too was packed, so there was nothing to do but shoulder their way through. Deep in the sluggish sea of bodies, someone slammed into the thief and grabbed his arm. The mad ghul started to bite him, but stopped when it smelled his fresh skin. It stared at him for a moment before spinning around to bite one of the gray shamblers. As the ghul let go, the thief felt it scrape a little of the sealant off his hand. He called to the guide.

  “I’ll take the gloves.”

  The guide pulled them from his belt and slapped them into the thief’s chest.

  “I’ll get the gold later.”

  That night, there weren’t any intact buildings for them to bed down in, so the guide removed a fabric tube from his pack and tossed it on a flat spot between a garage and a sandwich shop. The tube unfolded into a small Fuller dome and the two men crawled inside. The guide sealed the door with a transparent gel that carried an electric charge to keep out intruders. The thief slid to the far side of the dome. The bottom had inflated enough that they were off the hard ground and relatively comfortable. Inside, it smelled of antiseptic and outgassi
ng polymers. It reminded him of cheap toys from his childhood. He took a protein bar from his pack and the guide took jerky from his. The men traded the food and each ate quietly for a while.

  When he was halfway through the meat the thief said, “It’s been a couple of days now. Will we reach the Turk tomorrow?”

  “This isn’t bad,” said the guide chewing the protein bar. “Unlikely tomorrow. The day after if we’re lucky.”

  “All right,” said the thief. He was disappointed by the answer and ate the rest of the jerky trying not to imagine where Mina was.

  The guide took out the bourbon, but the thief said, “Do you have any water?”

  He found water and handed the bottle to the thief. He drank deeply and when the thief realized how much he’d swallowed he felt guilty.

  “I’m sorry. I drank too much.”

  The guide waved it off. He opened his pack enough that the thief could see a little Maker inside.

  “We can cook up anything. All the food or water we want.”

  “Not meat,” said the thief. “Maker meat is always like rubber.”

  The guide put the pack away. He laughed lightly.

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  The thief finished the water and when offered the bourbon again, he drank some.

  The guide stared through the gel around the entrance and said, “I guess we’re all thieves in our own way. I quit the force when I got a better offer.”

  “It wasn’t grave robbing, I know that much.”

  “Distributor. Medicine for people who couldn’t get it any other away.”

  The thief frowned.

  “A lot of those bootleg meds didn’t work. Watered down. People died.”

  “What people? People like the old man with the cart? The losers we burned in their cars? You saw the lights in the center of town. Plenty of good people made it through alive.”

  “And you decide who the good people are?”

  The guide slid closer to him.

  “We didn’t force anyone to buy our shit, Mr. Corpse Fucker. They came to us begging.”

  “And you sold them poison.”

  The guide looked at the ceiling of the dome.

  “The hospitals had all been bought up by the banks and techs by then. Concierge care. They wouldn’t take those kinds of people. At least my way, they died with a little hope.”

  “That’s some twisted logic. Your garbage is partly responsible for those fucking zombies tonight. They didn’t die with hope.”

  “They’re not dead. Besides, if I gave you a dollar for every corpse in every graveyard you ever stole from, would you really care how the dead got there? No. You’d say thanks and count your money.”

  The thief balled up a fist.

  “Friends of mine died from the bad medicine.”

  The guide inched a little closer.

  “I’m sorry for your friends, but like I said, I never forced anything on anyone.”

  * * *

  The guide was a much bigger man than the thief, and having him this close and clearly ready to charge made the thief nervous. He relaxed his fist and said, “Can we talk about something else?”

  The guide slid back across the dome.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t talk at all.”

  “That’s fine by me.”

  The guide put out his hand.

  “But before you bed down, princess, I’ll take the gold for the gloves.”

  The guide named an absurd amount and this time the thief haggled. When they reached half the original price the thief paid him and went to sleep.

  He dreamed of Mina again. This time she wasn’t leaving him, but choking as she coughed up blood in their bed.

  * * *

  There were police patrols in the streets, so the guide took them onto the rooftops of a series of tower blocks. It was slow going, but the thief had spent hundreds of nights on similar roofs and felt at home crossing the tar paper walkways, stepping around and under air cleaners and dish antennae. However, an hour after sundown, the temperature plunged suddenly and a light snow began to fall. They had to stop frequently as drones passed overhead, silent as bats. Soon, the thief’s feet were numb in the snow.

  He said, “Should we take shelter for a while? I can’t feel my hands or feet.”

  The guide looked at the sky.

  “We can, but the snow is just going to get worse. Stop now and we could lose another day.”

  “I have gear for this kind of weather back home, but I wanted to travel light.”

  “You should have come to me earlier and I would have told you what to bring.”

  The thief cursed himself for all the equipment he’d left behind. The temperature continued to drop and he shivered as they crossed flat roofs that offered no protection from the wind. He said, “That ingot of yours will keep a room warm. Do you have anything that will work for us?”

  The guide kept up a steady pace as he spoke.

  “Sure. But it will cost you more gold.”

  The thief didn’t hesitate. “I’ll pay. What do you have?”

  The guide knelt by a large overturned satellite dish and took pills from a leather pouch on his belt. He gave the thief one pill and kept one for himself. They were small cubes without any markings that the thief could see.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Swiss. Good stuff. It’ll jack your system into overdrive. Body temp. Strength. Endurance. Heightened senses.”

  “Will they warm us for the night?”

  “No,” said the guide. “They’re only good for about three hours. But we can cover a lot of ground before they wear off.”

  The thief started to swallow the pill, but hesitated when he thought about the guide and the bad medicine he’d peddled.

  The guide laughed at him and swallowed his pill.

  “You think I’m dumb enough to take my own product?”

  The thief swallowed his and they started out again. He was cold for a long time and the going was slow. He could tell that he was annoying the guide, who had to alter his pace. The thief felt weak and foolish when he thought of his brash thefts over the years. No fear at all back then. But something had broken in him when he’d discovered Mina’s lie, and he’d never quite put himself back together again. He pushed the memory of it out of his mind and settled into counting his steps, trying to keep up with the guide.

  A few more minutes of shivering, then a sudden warmth spread throughout his body. The sensation was like strong coffee and the stimulants he took when he was working all night. It was as the guide had said. He felt stronger and it seemed to him that the night cleared considerably as his vision and hearing expanded. The guide flashed him a knowing look and began to trot through the thin layer of fresh snow. The thief kept up with him easily and they ran that way for another hour without slowing.

  Finally, they stopped behind a billboard advertising tropical vacations. The guide checked the spysat and said, “Patrols have moved on. Let’s go down. We’ll make better time in the street.”

  They went down four floors and had several more to go when the thief heard a guttural rumble. The guide put out his arm and abruptly stopped the thief. He’d clearly heard the sound too. The rumble came again and this time they understood it to be a growl. The thief thought about the dog that the guide had thrown a brick at and what he’d said about it: He’s been eating all right.

  Little light came through the building’s dusty windows but with his heightened senses, the thief could see at least six large dogs waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. There was something odd about them.

  “What—?” the thief started to say.

  The guide whispered, “Hush. Jadghunds.” He quietly slipped one of the pistols from its holster on his belt.

  Jadghund. The thief had heard the term, but never seen one. Lab-grown for heavy muscle. He’d heard tales about some with plastique sewn in their gut that could stop a tank. Necrotizing toxins in their saliva. A single bite was death.

&nbs
p; “What do we do?” whispered the thief. He was sure that with the drug in his system he could easily make it back to the roof.

  The guide said, “Run. But not yet.” He bought the pistol up level as the alpha of the pack took a few slow steps up the stairs. The fur bristled along its back and there was something wrong with its eyes. They glowed silver in the dimness of the stairwell. “When I fire, go,” he said.

  As the Jadghund readied to pounce, the guide fired off a volley of shots. There was little noise from the gun, but the dogs howled. The thief saw then that it wasn’t bullets that had hit the pack, but electrified hobbles that wrapped themselves around the animals’ legs and throats.

  “Go,” shouted the guide, and he and the thief ran back up the stairs. The guide fired more rounds, but they must have gone wide because the thief could hear the Jadghunds closing on them. Instead of running all four floors back to the roof, the guide shoved the thief into an office and slammed the door shut. The men pushed a heavy metal desk against the door and went to the windows. Most were sealed shut, but one let out onto a fire escape. The window was jammed, however, and the thick glass wouldn’t break when the guide kicked it. He slid his pack off and took out the breach tool—a small axe head on one end and a crowbar on the other. He used the bar to pry up the window and shoved the thief out onto the fire escape. The cool air felt good for a moment until the thief heard the office door splinter open and ravenous barking as the Jadghunds charged inside.

  The guide fired at the three dogs that burst into the room and two went down. But the alpha knocked him onto his back before he could do anything except grab his pack and hold it before him to keep the hound’s vicious jaws away.

  The thief left his pack on the fire escape and climbed back through the window. The guide had dropped his breach tool and the thief grabbed it, slamming the axe end down again and again onto the alpha’s back and head. Blood, ink black in the moonlight, splattered the wall and his chest and arms. At first, the hound seemed oblivious to him, but after a few more blows it ceased its attack on the guide and turned on the thief. He never stopped striking the animal, even as it pivoted toward him. It seemed to him that there was nothing left of its head but bare skull and its silver eyes. The thief pressed against the wall before the Jadghund finally staggered and slumped onto the floor.