Doug rolled his eyes. “No,” he said in a faux-whine, “but don’t tempt me.”
This brought a laugh from Corky. It hurt his nose to do so and soon he deteriorated into a fit of squealing. Stan put a hand on his back but he swiped it away.
“I’m good,” he said, forcing a smile. “Don’t worry ‘bout me none.” He breathed in through his mouth. “How about we say hey to our new friend?”
“Go for it,” Doug said. “Mind if I take a breather? Join the others for a bit?”
“Go for it, kiddo.”
Doug stood up and ambled away. Corky turned the knob and cracked the door. It was quiet as a tomb in there. With the way the guy had been screaming he guessed he would’ve heard him panting like a dog, but there was nothing. For a moment he feared the dude might have shrieked himself to death.
He stepped into the room and that fear subsided. The guy was most definitely alive. He was tied to a chair, staring at Corky as he entered. His eyes, surrounded by deep black rings, seemed to radiate sadness. The flesh on his cheeks drooped and his chest appeared sunken. To Corky, Shelly’s father looked like an old man deep in the clutches of anorexia. Despite that, the distinct feeling that he’d seen this guy somewhere before entered his mind. He simply couldn’t figure out how that could be the case.
Hector and Horace followed him in. They flanked the detained man on both sides. Hector’s fists were firmly planted on his hips. He scowled. Horace took a kinder approach – he bent over the guy, wiped sweat from his face, and offered him a drink of water.
The man didn’t respond. His gaze never left Corky’s.
“So, what’s up?” Corky said after the uncomfortable silence lasted a bit longer than he liked.
The man shrugged. He muttered something under his breath.
“Huh?” said Corky. “Couldn’t hear you, bud.”
The eyes staring at him widened. “Sorry,” he said, “about your face.”
The calm in his voice took him back a step. This didn’t sound like the same man who’d been hollering at the top of his lungs only fifteen minutes earlier. This man sounded dignified and under control. And once more, Corky thought, familiar.
“Well? Do you accept my apology?”
Corky snickered and scratched his head. “Um, okay.”
They stared at each other for some time. Mystification ruled Corky’s thoughts. The whole episode seemed so unreal. The calm, sad expression never left the man’s face.
Silence persisted. Corky grabbed another chair, yanked it across the room, and straddled it, facing the man. He tapped his foot, not knowing what to say.
The man strapped to the chair then smiled and said, “You’re a very large man, you know.”
Corky giggled and dropped his face into the crook of his arm. His ruined nose rubbed against his elbow. He winced.
“Once again,” said Shelly’s father, himself wincing, “I am truly sorry about your face.”
Corky nodded. “Hurts like a bitch.”
“I can imagine.”
“Bet you could.”
“Listen, I really am sorry. I haven’t been myself lately. The stress has been getting to me. I mean, everything went to hell and we ran here, where we thought it was safe. Then you guys show up, and I could just imagine it being the same here as it had been when we fled Washington. I didn’t want my family to be hurt. I’m sure you understand this.”
Corky nodded, stuck out his hand, remembered the guy was tied up, and retracted it. “Corky,” he said. “Corky Ludlow.”
The man chuckled and replied, “Tom Steinberg.”
“Oh, shit,” Corky said. In that moment everything snapped into place. He glanced at Horace and noted that the old man’s eyes were bulging. His mouth had dropped open. Hector, meanwhile, only scowled.
Corky stood up, shoved his hand in the pocket of his jeans, and pulled out his knife. He flicked it open and approached Tom. The confined man didn’t flinch. Hector, however, did. As Corky leaned over and lowered his knife the portly Mexican leapt at him. He was too late. By the time his shoulder made contact with Corky’s chest the deed had been done. Tom’s restraints were severed.
“What’chu doing, man!” Hector screamed. “You’re just as loco as that dude!”
Corky pushed his friend away. “Yo, chill out, Hec. Ain’t nothing wrong here. You know who this guy is?”
Hector faced Tom, who now stood, coiling the cable that had held him around his wrist.
“No,” he replied.
“That,” said Corky, “is Tom Steinberg.” He looked at the man. “Secretary of State, right?”
Tom shook his head. “Speaker of the House.”
To which Corky replied, “Oh, yeah.”
“But…but…” stammered Hector.
Horace placed a calming hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Hector,” he said. “I can confirm this. He is who he says he is.”
“You know him?”
Horace glanced at Corky, then at Tom, and then shrugged. “Not really. But I had seen him many times on television. He is definitely much thinner now than he had been, but it is most certainly him.”
Corky mulled this over for a minute, cocked his head, and looked over at Tom. “Yeah, you really don’t look well, dude. What happened to you? Last time I saw you on tv you were round as Rush Limbaugh.”
Tom brought his hands up and frowned. “Must not be eating too well,” he replied.
After a short yet serious conversation they made their way for the door. Hector seemed to chill out a bit, though grudgingly, and Horace gained an uncertain, distrustful air. When Corky prodded him as to what was wrong, the old man said, “I’m just thinking,” and shut his mouth.
Corky didn’t care. Even though it always seemed to find him, in truth he hated conflict. He wanted nothing more than to be friends with everyone, no matter the cost. There had been many nights in his past – early nights, mind you, before the liquor flowed – where he’d forgiven even the most spiteful comments because of his desire for everything to Just Be Okay. So when Tom had apologized and appeared to mean it he instantly wanted any bad feelings shoved under the rug.
This man had helped create that beautiful creature down the hall, after all. And he was a Republican, for Christ’s sake, the House Speaker for the last nine years, and Corky thought himself nothing if not a loyal conservative. Despite the horrible wound to his nose he had the feeling he would grow to enjoy this man’s company. Hopefully, with time, everyone else would too.
Can’t we all just get along? was Corky’s motto.
They exited the room. Horace, talking again, railed into Tom about failed policies when it came to worldwide pandemics, a subject to which Tom developed a morose expression, his lip jutting out like a child. They walked on ahead with Hector trailing, heading back to the room where the rest of their friends – and Tom’s family – were stowed away.
Corky paused when he closed the door. He glanced to his right. Stan was there, sulking, his back pressed against the wall.
“Damn, Stan,” he said. “I forgot you were here.”
Stan sniffled.
“What’s the matter, dude? What’s got you so fucked up?”
Stanley looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “I can’t believe you let him go,” he muttered.
“Huh? Why?”
His friend peeled himself off the wall and jabbed a finger in his face. “Look at your nose, Corky!” he exclaimed. “Look what he did to you!”
Corky put his large hands on Stan’s shoulders. “Calm down, man. Just chill out. It’s okay.”
Stan started to cry. “It’s not…I just…this can’t…I wanted to kill him, Cork.” He leaned in and hugged him. It surprised him that it actually hurt a bit.
After a short while Stan pulled away. “What the fuck was that all about?” asked Corky.
“I’m sorry,” Stan said between sniffles. “I just don’t trust that guy. I don’t know why, I just don’t. And I love you guys so much. You’re all
I have left. You’re my family. I don’t want to lose you guys, too.”
Corky threw an arm around Stan’s shoulder and ruffled his thinning hair. “Don’t worry, bud,” he said with a laugh. “There ain’t no one dying around here any time soon.”
This seemed to calm his bespectacled friend. At least a little.
Chapter 12
The City of Three Rivers
Winter is a savage beast, wrote Billy. His hands shivered while hail pummeled the tarp above his head and blew in through the exposed front of the lean-to. He put down his pencil, flexed his hand, felt it cramp, and flexed again. The small fire he’d built crackled and flickered with each gust of wind. He gazed at Christopher, asleep and himself shivering, and took time to adjust the boy’s blanket so it covered him up to his neck. A muted groan sounded from outside the tent, barely audible beneath the howling wind. Billy reached into his knapsack, grabbed hold of the pistol resting inside, tapped its trigger with his frozen fingers, and waited.
Nothing happened for a long time. No creature like those seen wandering the streets the previous days appeared, for which he was glad. The last few they’d run across – a group of seven or eight decayed things gathered around the remnants of a multi-car pileup, feasting on the icy remains of some poor, long-dead citizens – pursued them through the thick copse of trees surrounding the highway. The snow and ice, starting to melt with the warmer temperatures, slowed their progress as they tried to escape. They slipped and slid through the underbrush, gaining distance between themselves and their staggering pursuers but not enough to quell the sounds of their moaning. The things were relentless and Billy didn’t want to stop until he was sure they were safe. They found a fallen tree and hid beneath it for what seemed like forever. When Billy finally decided their scent had been lost it took nearly two hours to find the highway again.
Their entire trip had gone this way, constantly fleeing from the cannibalistic horrors that now seemed to populate the area, making what should have been a two day journey stretch into five, soon six. Their rations were gone, for he and Christopher had split the last can of mixed fruit that evening. The lighter he used to start their nightly fires was down to its last few gasps of butane and he kicked himself for not thinking to grab more than one. The situation looked bleak. They wouldn’t last another two nights without food or heat.
As for Christopher, the poor child put on a strong face but was clearly scared to death. Billy guessed there were some things folks could never get used to, even those who had witnessed the butchering of their own family. This conclusion, despite the awfulness it implied, soothed him. Perhaps there was some hope for humanity, after all.
The wind kicked up once more. The tiny fire licked sideways and an ember landed on his bare wrist. He felt the tingling burn and watched as its light faded away. He closed his eyes, tried to block out the surrounding noise, and focused inside. After a short time Marcy appeared. Her voice was weak, virtually nonexistent, but still there. He smiled despite the cold. With another shiver he picked back up his pencil, straightened his bundle of papers, and continued writing.
In the end there is nothing for us but pain. We are born in pain, we live in pain, and we die in pain. It is pain that we feel in the morning when we wake up, pain that drives us to obliterate our senses during the day, and pain that causes our bones to ache upon lying in bed at night. And as I sit here watching the Earth die around me I can only ask if all this pain, all this suffering, has been worth it.
My initial reaction is no. I have seen too much, experienced too many horrors, to think we can intrinsically overcome this. However, my irrational mind tells me otherwise. All I have to do is look at this boy, this evolved ape beside me, and my thoughts are set adrift. All I have to do is think of the girl, this woman I have never met, and my emotions become overwhelming.
It is in these instances that I question everything. I question the need for the pain I so cling to. I question whether or not there might be a release from suffering that does not include the obliteration of our race. I question this hope I feel, arriving as it has at the apparent end of our world, and wonder whether this is indeed The End.
Throughout the history of the universe, all endings are fundamentally beginnings. Was our becoming not the result of the end of some other life form? I cannot think, despite the dreadfulness I have seen and suffered through, that this is anything but a clean slate; tabula rasa, our chance to start over. And as my questions mount I now doubt my past and my willingness to transcribe it.
For the first time since I was a child, the suggestion that there is a God does not seem an improbable proposal. This is not such an unwelcome consideration.
* * *
“Oh…my…God.”
Those were Christopher’s words as they stood between the pilasters that held up the bridge the next morning. They were on the cusp of the city now and the weather seemed hell bent on keeping them out. It tried to hold them back as best it could, hurling rain, sleet, and strong winds into their faces.
They stuck to the back roads. After the terror of the past few days Billy wanted no part of the confinement and darkness of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. That led them here, to an abandoned construction site near Frick Park, hiding beneath the highway ramp. The snow had melted enough to see the objects that populated this space; a row of urinals to their right, half-built scaffolding to the left. Rusty cranes and bulldozers lurked near all of them, metallic harbingers of impending doom.
Hundreds of bodies littered the ground. These had been the cause of Christopher’s proclamation. Hands, feet, and faces emerged from the melting snow, staring at the sky, grasping for it. Their flesh was an odd shade of blue, preserved in a state of shock through the long, cold winter. The expressions on their dead faces seemed to hurl accusations at them. A flock of carrion birds, the first signs of wildlife he’d seen in months, pecked away at the remains. Billy tried to look away but couldn’t. Every face screamed the same refrain – we are the lost, we are the expendable, you are no different. It was so much like what he’d seen inside Greensburg only on a much larger scale. He remembered the words he’d written the night before and began to doubt their validity.
Christopher clung tight to his arm. Billy felt him shake through his layers of clothing. He wrapped his arm around the boy and finally managed to turn away from the frozen mausoleum.
“We should go,” he said.
Christopher’s silence was his approval.
They climbed the hill on the other side of the highway, a good mile away from the construction site. Billy could see the city rise above the trees. He turned around and faced the direction from which they’d come. From that distance the scene could have been pretty. Colors spotted the white landscape like a patchwork quilt. The birds were specks of black moving at random. The construction equipment looked like the Tonka trucks he played with as a child. All we needed was separation, he thought, and it all looks so innocent.
Then, suddenly, everything changed. The wind picked up again, throwing tiny shards of ice-like snow against his cheeks. He pulled his collar over his nose and squinted. Something moved. Lots of somethings. The sun peeked through the clouds and the birds took flight. Human figures, tiny as toy soldiers, emerged from beneath the bridge, descending on the pile of dead bodies like staggering robots. Billy’s eyes widened. The horde followed the crows’ lead and picked through the cadavers, grabbing, tugging, dozens of wobbling pirates, pilferers of the dead. Some of those same frozen bodies they’d just passed by started to move, as well. He watched as first one, then two, then five rose from their deaths on shaking legs. In that moment he was afraid yet also felt a sense of relief, glad they were too far away to see anything clearly. He stared up at the newly exposed sun.
“Warmth breeds life,” he muttered.
“Huh?” asked Christopher.
“Look over there,” he said, and pointed.
He glanced at the boy, whose eyes watered as he stared straight ahead. “There’s so
many,” Christopher whispered.
“The weather must be drawing them out,” Billy replied. Christopher didn’t look at him.
Just as he was about to explain further he heard a loud crack. A dead limb from a tree not ten yards away dropped, slapping against every possible obstacle on the way down, creating a ruckus. The noise it made when it landed swallowed all sound, even the wind. Billy took Christopher by the collar and backed up. His heart raced as he peered at the construction site. The falling branch had caught the attention of the carcass rustlers. A hundred pairs of eyes he couldn’t see were now aimed in their direction. The mob shuffled forward, right for them.
He grabbed the boy by the wrist and turned about-face. Down the other side of the hill they stumbled, feet slipping on the combination of ice and sludge. Bordering them on the left, just beyond the highway, the water of the Monongahela River roared.
They ran for more than an hour, following the riverbed. Billy’s lungs burned, his feet ached in their boots. The plastic bags he’d wrapped around them to hold frostbite at bay rubbed his flesh raw. Liquid swished beneath his toes. All he wanted was a place to stop, to wash his spoiled feet before infection set in, but he couldn’t, at least not yet. He could still hear the groans of their pursuers.
Finally they arrived at a concrete wall that stood at least seven feet high. The land bordering the river dropped suddenly, straight into the water, leaving them nowhere to go. Above them, in the other direction, was the highway. Billy bent over and clutched his knees, panting.
“Are we safe?” Christopher asked, himself gasping for air.
“I cannot be sure,” he replied.
“Well – ”
Billy placed a finger to his lips. “Shush. Just listen.”
They stayed in their respective positions, Billy hunched over and Christopher leaning against the wall, and waited. Billy could hear a constant drone from other side of the wall, like a gigantic outboard motor, but nothing else. Barricaded by the wall and the river on two sides, he stared out at the expansive woods. Nothing moved save the trees as they swayed in the wind.
Dead Of Winter (The Rift Book II) Page 19
