ROBINSON CRUSOE 2246
A Novel
By
E. J. Robinson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ROBINSON CRUSOE 2246
Copyright © 2016 Erik J. Robinson
http://erikjamesrobinson.com
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
(Illuminati Press)
Edited by Jessica Holland
Cover Design by Amalia Chitulescu
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
For my sons
Table of Contents
PART ONE Chapter One The Pack
Chapter Two Dust
Chapter Three What Lies Beneath
Chapter Four Troyus
Chapter Five The Tree of Gifts
Chapter Six Cassa
Chapter Seven The Spit and Firm
Chapter Eight Swoles
Chapter Nine The Fire Lords
Chapter Ten The Mother Bird
Chapter Eleven Jacks
Chapter Twelve Preparations
Chapter Thirteen Fire With Fire
Chapter Fourteen The Black Eye of Infinity
PART TWO Chapter Fifteen Sickness
Chapter Sixteen Another Promise
Chapter Seventeen Denver
Chapter Eighteen The Priests of Blasphemy
Chapter Nineteen Scuff
Chapter Twenty Dia
Chapter Twenty-One Sweethome
Chapter Twenty-Two Joule
Chapter Twenty-Three Hunter and Hunted
Chapter Twenty-Four An Understanding
Chapter Twenty-Five Those Who Came Before
Chapter Twenty-Six Hello Emptiness
Chapter Twenty-Seven Head and Heart
Chapter Twenty-Eight Awake and Alive
Chapter Twenty-Nine Red Leaf
Chapter Thirty Birds
Chapter Thirty-One One Step Back
Chapter Thirty-Two The Gates
PART THREE Chapter Thirty-Three The City of Glass
Chapter Thirty-Four Virulent
Chapter Thirty-Five An Old Friend
Chapter Thirty-Six Probe
Chapter Thirty-Seven Genesi
Chapter Thirty-Eight Waiting in the Groves
Chapter Thirty-Nine Tracks
Chapter Forty Allegiances
Chapter Forty-One Lost in the Night
Chapter Forty-Two A Walk Among the Trees
Chapter Forty-Three What Waits in the Shadows
Chapter Forty-Four The Vial
Chapter Forty-Five Behind the Mask
Chapter Forty-Six Value
Chapter Forty-Seven Silent Sorrow
Chapter Forty-Eight Treachery
Chapter Forty-Nine Peacekeeper
Chapter Fifty The Oath
Epilogue From the Ashes
DEAR READER
Acknowledgements
PART ONE
“The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.”
-Marion Zimmer Bradley
Chapter One
The Pack
“How far back are they?” Robinson gasped.
Friday tugged the scarf from her face and lifted the water skin to her mouth. After two deep draughts, she wrapped the cords tightly around it and slipped it back under her coat. Then she turned east, eyes narrowing on the funnel of dust growing on the horizon.
“An hour or less.” She grimaced.
Less than a single turn.
The old Robinson might have cursed, but these days he knew it was wasted breath. Instead, he wiped the sweat from his brow, the coarse sand from his hand pricking his skin, and brought his scavenged binoculars to his eyes.
There was nothing as far as he could see. Not a crevice. Not a stand of trees. Only sterile, infinite prairie land in all directions. With the sun barely past its zenith, night was too far off to aid them.
“Do we make our stand here?” Robinson asked.
Friday put a hand to her brow before pointing west over the Great Plains. “There. A structure, four or five spans out.”
Robinson looked, but he only saw wavering heat. He licked his dry lips. “Can we make in time?”
“We must,” she said before dashing off.
Robinson slipped the binoculars away and followed.
They'd been running for a day and a half straight, ever since the pack had reacquired their trail.
The first encounter had come two moons after leaving Cowboytown. They’d been working their way north on a rumor that the City of Glass might be located near the Great Lakes. After they’d set up camp on the outskirts of Indianapolis, the attack commenced.
“Renders!” Robinson yelled.
The assumption was reasonable enough. The signs were there. Mutated flesh. Guttural roars. And yet the attack was coordinated on three sides. When the deluge of bolts and bullets rained down on them, they understood they were seeing something new.
“They’re armed!” Friday shouted.
Robinson couldn’t believe it. The weapons had been fused into their flesh.
They’d managed to escape that night. And as the weeks passed, they had begun to doubt what they’d seen. When the Great Lakes proved fruitless, they turned south as the sweltering humidity of summer descended. It was there, a month later, when they were preparing to cross the Missouri river, that the second attack had come, this time in daylight. That armed Renders were involved was no longer questionable. Perhaps more disturbing was that they were commanded by a single man.
He led from the back of a rendered bison, a beastly ruminant with engorged musculature and horns like inverted elephant tusks. The man had worn a tattered brown duster and a mask of burnished steel. At odd intervals, he raised something to his mouth, and thin discordant notes echoed over the prairie. Those notes drove the pack with furious zeal.
Robinson and Friday managed to make another escape that day by leaping into the churning river. But here, less than two weeks later, the pack was on them again.
It left little doubt they were being hunted.
They fled over a land in decay. Drought had driven the loam from the soil, leaving hardpan, scoured and baked. What soil wasn’t calcified had been buried in an ocean of ruin.
Robinson felt the ache of his muscles keenly but was too busy worrying about Friday to feel the pain. By his calculation, she was close to four months pregnant. And despite her assurances to the contrary, it was starting to take its toll. She was slower, requiring more food and rest. And though she still hadn’t shown signs of affliction, they both knew it was only a matter of time.
They needed to find the City of Glass quickly. Because failure meant death. And death for one meant death for all.
They had been running at a fevered clip for a quarter turn when Robinson looked back to see the pack gaining. The rise of dust had turned into a dark shadow. There were more than he’d thought.
Robinson thumbed his pistol and saw he only had three bullets left. Boss had given him extra gunpowder, but like a fool, he hadn’t made time to refill his spent cartridges since crossing the river. Friday was also down to her last four arrows. Outnumbered and with fewer weapons, Robinson and Friday were in serious trouble.
The structure soon became visible. Robinson doubted they could reach it in time. He was about to call out to Friday when a gust of hot air blasted him from the north. He pulled his hat low to avoid the whipping thi
stles and briars.
Friday kept turning her head north. Robinson called over the swelling roar to find out why. Her only response was to pick up the pace. The wind worsened. Robinson wrapped some fabric over his face, covering everything but his eyes, but the sand still blinded him. The stinging grit scoured their clothes and skin.
A look back revealed the pack had cut the distance between them in half. They were now close enough to count. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven counting their masked leader. He rode at the forefront, furiously whipping the reins of his beast as it tore across the cracked earth. Their gait left little doubt that they’d seen the structure and were now racing to prevent their quarry from reaching it.
Once again, Robinson called out. “Friday! I don’t think we’re going to make it. If we stop here, we can catch our breath before the fighting starts.”
“We must reach the shelter,” Friday said.
“We have a better chance of cutting down their numbers if we turn and face them.”
This time, Friday turned to him. “It’s not the pack I am worried about.”
Friday nodded north. Robinson turned and nearly lost his footing.
A dust storm had risen on the horizon and filled the sky as far as the eye could see—a suffocating curtain of earth several thousand feet tall and still climbing. Brown at the center, inky black at the base. As it swept across the land, it smothered everything in its path. It was as if the land had been upended. Earth had become sky. Day had become night.
Hell had come.
Robinson’s mouth lulled open and dirt coated his tongue. He didn’t bother spitting. He didn’t have the time.
Cassa saw the dust storm roiling and grunted. Such was his luck. He'd been hunting the pair for two months straight, ever since the Master had set his horde on their trail. And yet each time they came close to their target, the pair had managed to slink away. Whether by luck, it didn’t matter. Failure was failure. This time, he swore it would be different.
The girl was formidable. Cassa had seen many outliers work a recurve bow, but her gifts eclipsed them all. Despite movement, fatigue, and environment, her arm never wavered. Her aim was always true. She impressed him. In another life, he might have pursued this woman sexually. Conscripted her love with fear or fear with love. But not now. Not her. She carried the seed of the boy in her belly. Even if the Master hadn’t marked her for death, she was tainted.
The boy had surprised him more. Cassa hadn’t expected him to own a firearm, much less know how to use one. Yet each time they crossed paths, the gun seemed to find the boy’s hand with ease, its red eye sampling the air like a serpent’s tongue ready to strike.
Cassa had been astute in anticipating the pair’s movement. North then south, progressively moving west. He had amassed his horde at the river that bordered the dead lands and waited. His instincts proved true. They always had. And yet even now as the trap had sprung, this storm threatened to undermine everything. He had to reach them first.
Cassa put the pipes to his lips and blew loudly. The pack responded immediately as fury overtook them.
The chorus of howls broke through the storm, which now loomed ten thousand feet high, blotting out the sun. Robinson felt the air fill with electricity before the thunderheads broke. He knew it would be close.
Dust—fine as flour—assailed him, coating the inside of his nose and throat. He coughed and struggled to keep sight of Friday in front of him.
In all his days, Robinson had never seen anything so massive, so immutably powerful as that storm. All of mankind’s monuments and endeavors paled beneath the might of nature’s wrath. In its great shadow, he felt pure humility.
The structure was a single-story relic of another time. Though less than one hundred meters away, it too had begun to vanish under the torrent of dust and debris. Just when Robinson thought they might reach it, a bolt flew past his shoulder and missed Friday’s legs by centimeters. There was no chance of making the sanctuary in time. Not together anyway. With one hand, he pulled the sling from the loops of his trousers and slipped a weighty river rock into its cradle. As his arm craned in revolution, he knew his timing would have to be perfect.
Cassa saw the boy’s arm rotating and pulled on the reins, but it was too late. The projectile hit Bull between the eyes. Cassa felt the beast lurch and pull to the right, but it kept its footing. He wanted to howl with delight. Then, he saw the girl coming around with her bow. He was shocked when she missed to the right.
Friday knew that hulking monster would be impossible to put down with a single arrow, so she aimed for the smaller one next to it instead. The arrow sunk deep the creature’s left leg, and as expected, it veered violently into the behemoth’s path. As they collided, both tumbled forward at full speed, catapulting end over end.
The remaining pack pulled up or veered wide. It only took a second, but it was enough. Friday grabbed Robinson and darted for the shelter. The full force of the storm caught them a dozen feet short, launching them off their feet toward their target, sending them rolling in the blackness until they too were swallowed by earth.
Chapter Two
Dust
Friday woke, eyes burning, nostrils caked with dust. She tried to move, but her body wouldn’t respond. It took her a moment to realize she was buried up to her neck.
Friday wasn’t prone to panic, but an image took hold in her mind. The nook inside Arga’Zul’s ship. All those months she’d spent chained to the floor, her body and mind withering away. For a moment, she could feel the motion of the ship and smell the odor of the slaves in the pen nearby. But she fought the memory back as she always did. She had survived the Spinecrusher and Arga’Zul. She would survive this too.
A narrow shaft of sunlight plunged from an old window above, illuminating the dust mites that danced lazily in the air. Friday took in her surroundings. The structure was old but stable, made up of concrete bricks and steel framing that had yet to submit to rust. She felt a breeze stealing from somewhere and willed her heartbeat down.
Friday heard Crusoe before she saw him. He was snoring lightly nearby. He too was covered in dirt, canted inside the strange steel furrow at the bottom of the structure that had likely saved them. She decided to let him sleep and gyrated in her cocoon until her arms and torso came free.
Friday patted her pockets until she retrieved the crane meat she’d been saving since before they crossed the river. It was tough but good, despite the earthy grit that peppered it. After four bites, she rewrapped the rest for Crusoe. He would argue as he always did that she needed it more. She was eating for two after all. How could she forget?
Friday had made it past the three-moon mark and knew this should bring her relief. But she also knew the baby was feeding on blood that carried the plague of the ancients. Though she’d yet to show signs of affliction, it was only a matter of time.
And yet Friday had always lived a life devoid of fear. Or perhaps despite it. With Crusoe by her side, she had beaten back death so many times. Clearly, the Goddess had plans for them. And if they were meant to live, maybe their child was too.
When Robinson finally woke, he called out in a panic, only to calm down when Friday took his hand. He eventually asked about the storm, and Friday told him it had passed.
“How long did we sleep?”
“Through the night.”
Friday watched him take in their surroundings. He eventually asked about the pack.
“I’ve heard nothing but the wind,” Friday replied.
Robinson’s shoulders lifted as he began to dig himself out of the dirt. “We’d better look around then.”
The cleft in the building came from a tear at the top of a retractable metal door. Robinson clambered up the drift to peer out.
“Looks clear,” he said, before winding his way through the jutting divide.
Friday exited the structure to find Robinson staring out over the prairie land, which was now a monotone ocean of dirt as far as the eye could see. The only discernabl
e rise on the horizon were the mountains far to the north.
“What is this place?” Friday asked.
“I think it’s an old fuel station,” Robinson answered. “That corridor we fell into in the basement? I’ll bet it was used to tinker the underside of automobiles.”
The words meant nothing to Friday. Still, it pleased her Crusoe could decipher the riddle of such things, and how he took his own pleasure in the mechanics of the ancient ways. She wondered if their child would as well.
Robinson withdrew his waterskin and took a modest drink, handing it to Friday when he was done. She offered him the remaining crane meat afterward. He considered turning her down before he saw that familiar scowl.
He was stuffing the last piece in his mouth when he spotted something in the dirt a dozen paces away.
“Look,” he said.
A glint of metal shimmered from a swollen patch of dirt. When they drew close enough, they saw it was an ulcerated arm. Robinson went to nudge it with his foot when Friday warned him back. She drew out her blade and sunk it into the meaty part of the body beneath. There was no reaction.
Only then did Robinson pull the Render’s corpse from the sand.
The creature looked identical to the thousands they’d encountered before, save one difference: this one was armed.
“Take its weapon,” Friday said.
“Easier said than done,” Robinson replied. He twisted the creature’s arm to reveal the weapon—a bolt launcher of some sort—had been sewn into its flesh. “This isn’t even manual. See these wires? They’re layered under the skin.”
Friday looked confused. “What triggers its release?”
Robinson followed the wires up the creature’s shoulder to a small metal box at the back of its head. A wave of goosebumps ran over him.
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