Trey’s scream was cut off as the arm snapped right through the middle of his chest, slicing him in half.
A horrified Laura, suddenly covered in her captor’s blood, jumped up and raced into Joad’s arms.
Primo, the crossbow slipping through his hands, saw Fixer whip his head to the left. He felt a corresponding rush of wind as the Retriever moved in concert with Fixer’s head. Primo’s eyes widened in sudden understanding.
“You… !”
The exclamation died on Primo’s lips.
Fixer’s eyes snapped open. He trained them on the two remaining brothers. The visibly stunned Secundo had backed up to stand side by side with Primo at the base of the sand dune.
“You wanted to know what he could do, ” said Joad, holding the quivering, bloodied Laura in his arms.
Fixer concentrated on the tentacle swirling through the air. He whipped his head down in an exaggerated motion.
Primo finally found his voice.
“You son of a bitch!”
He barely got it out before the Retriever arm burrowed into the heart of the sand dune, causing an immediate avalanche.
Primo tried to shove Secundo out of the way but the two brothers tumbled to the ground under the masses of shifting sand.
Primo saw Secundo get swallowed up by a landslide of lunar-like dirt.
And then he saw….
Nothing.
22
Joad watched Sayers for a long while, wondering what thoughts were flying through the doctor’s head. The man was perched on a cliff’s edge, staring into the mist rising from below. Joad didn’t think the man was considering jumping, even though he was clearly despondent. He just couldn’t believe Sayers was selfish enough to commit such a heinous act in front of his stepdaughter, no matter how strained their relationship.
Joad understood that Sayers regretted what had occurred beside the crater. The physician had apologized profusely to both Joad and Fixer for revealing Joad’s name to the brothers, and tipping Fixer’s Gift. And though Joad told Sayers it didn’t bother him in the slightest, Fixer had been a different story. He accused Sayers of backing him into unleashing his Gift in such a violent manner. The doctor said the brothers deserved to die; that it had been an us-or-them situation, and Fixer did what he had to do.
Fixer hadn’t seen it that way. He fancied himself a killer and blamed Sayers.
The once-upon-a-time healer reacted by taking up his roost on the cliff, and had been there ever since.
Joad went to check on Fixer and Laura. They were wading in a nearby stream, poking at fish with a stick, attempting to catch dinner. The girl was trying to cheer Fixer up with corny jokes interspersed amongst fishing lessons that Joad had taught her. Fixer was having none of it. Always the first to laugh at the stupidest pun, he never cracked a smile. He just went about stabbing at fish, missing more often than not. Which just added to his gloom.
The same gloom that had hung over them since leaving the crater, a half day’s ride behind.
One brother’s body lying in pieces beside the remnants of a ditched spacecraft, coupled with his siblings buried beneath a massive dune of sand, didn’t offer solace for Joad, Sayers, or Fixer. Only Laura expressed relief, and Joad figured that came from escaping the clutches of the knife-wielding brother. And the total trust she had put in the three men she was accompanying through The Fields.
Joad was only certain of one thing. He knew they couldn’t have gotten away from the crater quickly enough.
Moments after the avalanche, Joad had shielded Laura from the grisly sight of the butchered brother’s body, keeping her face buried against his chest as he crossed to the jet-black horse they had ridden together.
“Think you can handle him yourself?” Joad had asked.
Laura looked up from Joad’s chest. She nodded and let Joad help her up onto the back of the magnificent animal.
Fixer and Sayers continued to stare at the collapsed sand dune, waiting for it to erupt and see the brothers emerge like a phoenix from the ashes.
“We should go,” suggested Joad.
Fixer wiped blood from his nose; his effort controlling the Retriever’s tentacle had produced quite the gush of red. His body was still shaking, but not as much, slowing down like an old jalopy sputtering before it shut off for good.
Sayers found his voice. Barely. “Where?”
“Away from here.”
“But they’re gone. Dead, right?” asked the doctor.
Joad could only hope. He felt it was imperative to leave this place as soon as possible. Rather than nod, he pressed his point by repeating himself.
“We should go.”
A debate ensued about the brothers’ three horses, which were wandering aimlessly nearby. It would be easy enough for each to take one. But Laura was unwilling to leave Macy—it would be like losing a loved one. Joad wasn’t anxious to abandon his mount either, as they had been literally joined at the hip for some time now, and he had grown attached to his constant companion. He said towing two horses would slow them down, and that only he and Laura were capable of handling the jet-black mounts.
So, they chose the fittest of the three—the one that had belonged to Primo—and set out. Joad and Laura rode the fire-snorters, with Fixer on Joad’s mount, and Sayers atop Macy.
Then they had to decide which direction to head.
Joad made it clear that he was continuing to Nemo. He didn’t offer for them to come along. Part of him would have been completely happy to go separate ways. The brothers had been vanquished, the threat removed; it was time to break up the band. But the better part of him, the part that always got in trouble (like being chased by the brothers in the first place), felt responsible for dragging Fixer, Laura, and her stepfather up to The Fields. So, he didn’t come out and say they should fend for themselves.
Laura was the first to second the Nemo notion. Sayers didn’t protest this time. The man looked more defeated than ever. In that moment, Joad understood the burden the physician had been carrying for years. Call it survivor’s guilt, crawling into a homemade bottle of booze, or not paying proper attention to the young girl he never expected to raise alone. Add feeling like a coward when facing the threat of death from the brothers, and Joad wasn’t surprised to see the beaten-down physician just shrug and acquiesce.
“Whatever Laura wants.”
Fixer told them there was no way he was riding back up into The Fields. If they were heading toward Nemo, he was going too.
“If you try and ditch me, you know I’ll come find you.”
Joad didn’t doubt that for a minute.
When he saw Laura offer up a smile, while continuing to wipe drying flecks of the dead brother’s blood from her pale skin, Joad realized a truth he would never admit.
He would have been disappointed if they had chosen to stay behind.
Still, the mood remained somber around the campfire.
At least Sayers had found his way off the cliff ledge. As an evening chill settled in, he huddled close enough to the campfire to warm his hands. There was a slight breeze that made it difficult for Fixer and Laura to keep the flames going; it kept dwindling and they needed to constantly stoke it. As a result, the fish took a while to cook.
Joad was just happy to not be on the run or grappling with the brothers. But he couldn’t deny the uneasiness hanging in the air. He had no idea where it was coming from. It might have been self-learned behavior, a habit of constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop. Seven years on horseback will do that to a man. So Joad didn’t take this respite for granted, and hoped the feeling in his gut was wrong for once.
Laura became frustrated with the dinner prep and shoved the pan to the ground.
“We won’t be eatin’ anything with it down there,” said Fixer.
“Why don’t you just … do that thing you do and heat it up?” asked a frustrated Laura.
“Doesn’t work like that.”
“What about what you did with the ship? Twice, you did it. Mov
ing that giant arm! How can you not get the fire going?”
“Because I can’t.” Fixer considered it. “Maybe if it were an electric fireplace.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I can’t move just anything. It has to be mechanical,” explained Fixer. “This thing … this Gift, if that’s what you insist on calling it … kinda replaces the electricity that makes stuff work. Like a blender. A clock or watch.”
“A model car,” suggested Joad.
Fixer turned an appreciative eye toward him. “You catch on quickly.”
“I’m beginning to.”
“Then you understand why I didn’t tell Primo and his brothers the truth.” Fixer couldn’t help but glance at Sayers. The guilt-ridden physician lowered his eyes, averting Fixer’s gaze.
“I’m sure they would have found a use for you,” said Joad.
“And tossed me like a dead battery the second I stopped working.”
“When does that happen?”
“I’ve no idea. It hasn’t yet.”
“Have you always been able to do it?” asked Laura, staring with the fascination that resides only in the wide-open eyes of a child.
“Not before The Seventh Day.”
Laura laughed. “Of course. Even I know that, silly.”
“When did it start?”
Joad was surprised to see that Sayers asked the question.
He could tell Fixer’s first instinct was to tell the doctor to go to hell. But the wiry man seemed to think better of it, realizing Joad and Laura were wondering the same thing.
“Pretty soon afterwards.”
He took a deep breath and started in.
A shopping cart.
A frikkin’ shopping cart.
Fixer had been embarrassed beyond belief. The only consolation (and some consolation: “Yes, Alex, I’m so happy to get the runner-up prize—No One Survived!”) was that there wasn’t anyone to see him shoving it down the middle of the deserted streets.
He had tried to carry Tory, but that lasted all of three miles. His shoulders ached until he was certain they were going to fall off. At that rate, he’d be lucky to reach the coast in a couple of months, if at all. And he was determined to take his half sister back to her favorite place.
Their favorite place.
So, when he came across the rusted-out shopping cart on the side of the road, Fixer didn’t think twice about commandeering it. He had managed to find a blanket tucked away on a hospital shelf that the Strangers somehow missed, and used it as a buffer on his shoulder when carrying Tory. At least he convinced himself it was a buffer. The truth was that he couldn’t stand having her cold, clammy skin touch his own, even if she was of his half-born blood.
Fixer eased her body into the shopping cart and covered her with the blanket. Again, he told himself that it was for her own good, that the sun wouldn’t inflict any more damage on poor Tory. But who was he kidding? He knew the real reason—he wouldn’t have to explain things if he ran into someone on his way west.
Of course, he never saw a soul.
The shopping cart definitely helped. It eased the burden on his aching shoulders, but not the one on his heart.
Till his dying day, Fixer would never understand why he had been spared and Tory switched in his place. During the long push to the coast, he was constantly reminded each time he lifted the blanket to check on her (which in itself seemed preposterous; did he really expect her to rise from the dead and act like the bullet wound in her head wasn’t ever there? Well, yes, since that was exactly what had happened to him!), that he had been saved apparently only to feel guilty.
This time, when they reached the beach, it was even more deserted. A trio of rusted-out cars, their engines stripped and wheels missing, lined the edges of the parking lot like ineffectual guardians. The sand stretched for miles and like the ocean it bordered on, there wasn’t a person to be seen.
Fixer removed Tory gently from the shopping cart and carried her into the sea.
He swam out past the breakers they used to hope and dream upon, and eased her onto her back.
Fixer watched her float for what seemed like forever, until she mercifully started to sink.
And then, he was alone.
Truly, really alone.
For a moment he thought about forgetting to dogpaddle; just slipping deep into the ocean depths with Tory—but a blast of sputtering water from his lips made him reconsider and he began crawling back to shore.
Only when he reached the parking lot, and saw the shopping cart leaning up against the pole where he’d parked it, did he collapse in a heap.
Fixer leaned back against his half sister’s final transport and openly sobbed for the first time since he had been reborn after a flash of purple had poured through the O.R. skylight and the world had changed forever.
Fixer shut his eyes, trying to stop the tears, but they streamed even harder. All the built-up pain and regret flooded over him. His body began to shake and quiver.
He was so overwrought that it took him a while to notice the whirring mechanical sounds around him.
Fixer opened his eyes just as the sounds died.
The parking lot looked different. At first, he couldn’t tell what had changed. Then, he figured it out.
The wrecked cars.
They were no longer hugging the parking lot perimeter. It was as if they had abandoned their assigned posts and decided to cluster together on a coffee break.
Together.
That’s how Fixer looked at it, because they were practically on top of one another.
Fixer convinced he was totally losing it, shut his eyes and wailed harder, feeling completely sorry for himself.
“Why? Why? Why?” he screamed.
His cries were buried once again by the whirring sounds.
This time he snapped his eyes open to see the impossible.
The stripped-out cars were lumbering directly toward him, revving their non-existent engines as if they had just been cranked up.
Fixer froze and screamed.
“No!”
The cars ground to a halt maybe three feet away from him.
Fixer thought: If I had that guy’s gun, I’d put a bullet in my head right now and this time make it count.
But of course, he didn’t.
The fish still lay in the pan, uncooked. Joad was caught up in Fixer’s fascinating tale, as was Laura. Even Sayers had been drawn into the story of Fixer’s Gift, Joad noticed.
“At first, I thought I’d been slipped some drug and was having this massive hallucination.”
“What changed your mind?” asked Laura.
“When something similar happened a few days later.”
Fixer paused, as if remembering. Joad studied the man’s pained expression. Clearly Fixer didn’t reveal this part of himself often, if at all.
“I beat it from the beach. Frankly, I went looking for something to drink.” He caught Sayers’ look. “But every liquor store, market, or restaurant had been stripped bare. Not a drop of alcohol anywhere.
“I ended up falling asleep on the floor of a busted-up bar. I started dreaming about Tory and woke up screaming from the nightmare.” Fixer shivered. “That’s when I saw this vacuum cleaner moving right toward me, all lit up. I realized I was shaking like a leaf and forced myself to calm down. The moment I did, the vacuum cleaner died. I put two and two together right there.”
“It only happened when you got upset?” asked Joad.
“At the start. I kinda learned how to handle it. To call it up when I needed. Sort of a controlled rage.”
“Like Primo and that rain cloud,” Sayers murmured.
“I think so.”
“Did you ever try to use it on anything else?” asked Laura.
“Such as?” Fixer asked, cautiously.
Laura hesitated. Joad knew what she was going to ask. When Laura spoke, they could barely hear her words.
“Something dead?”
“How come
I knew you’d ask that?” Fixer let out an uneasy chuckle.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Of course, I tried. The moment I came across a dead squirrel. Then I tried it with a bird.” Fixer shook his head, the somberness clearly returning. “Believe me, if it had worked, I would’ve gone right back to the ocean and kept diving until I found Tory. But I was mercifully spared that.”
Then, Fixer added:
“Or left to live with it.”
Fixer bent and started to fiddle with the pan. Laura knelt beside him and helped him stoke the fire.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” she told him.
“Thanks.”
A few minutes later, the fish had begun to fry. Sayers finally spoke up.
“I understand why you didn’t want to tell anyone about it.”
“Yeah,” muttered Fixer.
“This gift—it must be difficult to live with,” Sayers said.
“It really hasn’t been that bad.” Fixer flipped the fish in the pan. “Until today when I used it to kill someone.”
Sayers looked away.
There was a lot of fish left over after dinner. Nobody had much of an appetite.
The girl’s moaning woke Joad up.
Laura was on a blanket beside him, tossing back and forth. Joad knew she was having a nightmare. He reached and gently shook her awake.
“Laura. It’s okay….”
She bolted up, catching her breath.
“No. No!”
“Shhh,” soothed Joad. “You’re just having a bad dream.”
Laura shook her head violently. “Yes!”
Joad kept a hand on her shoulder, attempting to calm her down. But Laura was frantic.
“It wasn’t mine.”
Joad let go of her shoulder. “Whose was it?”
“One of them. The brothers.”
“Tell me.”
SAMUEL
And they had the nerve to call it a mile.
Far from it.
It was maybe one hundred yards. One-fifty at most.
The Long Mile, my ass, thought Samuel.
They’d lied about it, which was pretty much SOP for everything from the moment he ended up in the joint. Even his last meal had been a sham. They said, have anything you want, so he told ’em he wanted chicken piccata. They had shoved a plate of fried chicken with a scoop of mashed potatoes and a glop of gravy in front of him. When Samuel told the guard he’d ordered chicken piccata, all he got was a nasty smile.
The Seventh Day Page 16
