Burn

by Geoff North

  He was on his knees near the back of the tank. A cabinet had opened during the collision and a litter of weapons had spilled out onto the floor. Willem was holding an assault rifle in his hand, offering it up to the Lawman.

  Lawson took it and blasted the first grey face into red mist. The sound it made inside the tank’s confined space was deafening. Cobe felt the following gun shots more than he could hear them. Thump. Thump. Thump. He kneeled down and helped Willem pick more weapons from the floor. They shoved boxes of ammunition into the waists of their pants. The Lawman continued firing and the creatures kept coming.

  Jenny had broken through the window. She was climbing up into the jagged opening, pushing more of the shattered material back along the way. Cobe picked one last heavy hand gun up and shoved it into his armpit. He helped the others along and climbed out of Big Hole for the final time.

  Lawson exited last. Cobe’s hearing had returned. He could just make out the sound of fingers clawing against rock and dirt. The remaining ABZE clients still trying to dig their way free wouldn’t make it any further.

  They stood together in a dirty, exhausted huddle away from the twenty-foot high pile of collapsed concrete and dirt. The crater wall of Big Hole stretched across the horizon two miles away. The exit-ramp bunker had stood there for centuries, waiting to open its steel mouth in case the disastrous happened far below. A hundred tons of wind-blown dirt had accumulated on top, and the whole thing had caved in once the door started to open. It looked like a giant, smashed gravestone dedicated to all those buried underneath.

  “How much time is left?” The Lawman asked.

  “Less than two minutes,” Cobe answered.

  Lawson looked to Jenny. “How big of an explosion is that thing gonna make—do we have enough time to outrun it?”

  She didn’t know how to answer. How did you explain to a group of people that had just learned of the existence of an ancient Technological Age the difference between an explosion and an implosion? Jenny had lived during that Age, and she barely understood it herself. “I doubt it,” she finally replied.

  “Hello?—is somebody there?” A one-eyed horse poked its head around the rubble. Dust stepped forward a little more and they saw Trot sitting on his back. The other horses galloped up from behind.

  “Now we have a chance,” Lawson said.

  Chapter 15

  Dust had never run so fast and so far in less than a minute. Even carrying the combined weight of Lawson and Trot, the horse was still pulling ahead of the others. The Lawman counted backwards in his head the best he could. He’d started at ninety and was now down to twenty. His timing might’ve been off so he risked a look back. The pile of rocks they’d climbed out of was still there, but getting smaller. Big Hole’s crater wall didn’t seem as high. There were low hills ahead of them to the west. He dug into Dust’s sides and hollered for the horse to run faster. Dust did as he was told.

  Willem’s face was buried in horse hair. Cobe had shoved the boy’s head into the horse’s mane and told him to hang on. It had been the only thing he’d said to his brother before riding off. He couldn’t say anymore if he tried. The air was pushing into his face too fast, forcing him to breathe through his nostrils. Dust was pulling ahead of them. Cobe did as he saw the Lawman do, and kicked his heels into the horse. They started making up ground. Sara and Kay were racing up beside them on the right, Jenny and Angel to their left.

  It had been more than two minutes, Lawson was sure of it. He started counting back again from sixty. Dust was beginning to slow, all of the horses were. By the time Lawson had counted back to thirty, they were into the hills. When they’d reached the top, he had hit zero again. Dust had come to a stop and the Lawman didn’t force him another step further. The others caught up and gathered around them. They looked back over the plains and waited.

  “Maybe it malfunctioned” Jenny said. “Maybe I don’t know shit about nuclear phys—”

  A blast of cold wind from the west sucked the air out of her lungs. It rushed around them, whistling in their ears, and pushing against their backs. Cobe shoved Willem back down into the horse’s mane and held him there by the neck before the boy could be lifted away. Cobe’s ears made an uncomfortable popping sound. He shut his eyes and felt his stomach lurch.

  The wind ceased.

  Cobe opened his eyes and saw that the distant rock pile had vanished. The crater wall was gone. An immense, gaping absence of everything had swallowed up most of the plains below them.

  Big Hole had become a whole lot bigger.

  ***

  They had traveled at a considerably slower pace for the rest of the day, stopping finally along the shore of some nameless lake where the water wasn’t too tainted to drink. The last bit of orange sun sank behind another set of distant hills. Willem deposited an armload of branches next to his brother and fed a piece into the flames. He grinned at Angel sitting next to him and winked at Cobe. “Nice night for a fire, hey brother?”

  Cobe didn’t think it was particularly so. The air was cold and howlers were crying somewhere off in the north. But it was the safest he had felt since leaving Burn. They had plenty of guns and ammunition, and Jenny had caught two rabbits for them to roast. If Kay was sitting next to him instead of Angel he may have answered his brother differently. He nodded glumly. “It’s alright.”

  Kay and her mother were sleeping soundly a few feet away in the grass. Trot was sitting on the other side of the fire re-telling the story of how he’d single-handedly reined the horses in and fought off a hundred screaming cryers. The tale became greater every time, but no one seemed to mind. He had saved all of their lives, and he could tell the story any way he wanted. Jenny was seated next to Trot, staring intently at Cobe with her green glowing eyes.

  Two girls liked him—one uglier than a roller dropping, the other not quite human. They were both orphans, like him and his brother, but he wasn’t attracted to either. The girl he liked still had parents.

  He looked away from the fire and saw Lawson standing by the water’s edge. The big gun Cobe had taken from the tank rested heavily in the holster at the Lawman’s side. He was smoking one of his cigarettes, listening to Trot and other sounds in the evening. Cobe went and stood with him.

  Lawson exhaled smoke and grumbled. “Don’t go wanderin’ off.”

  “Just stretching my legs.”

  “I mean don’t go off with yer brother again. You seen what’s out there… It ain’t safe.”

  Cobe buried his hands in his pockets and kicked a stone into the water. “I’m sorry for all them things I said about you being responsible for our parents dying… I know you cared for Ma, seeing how close she was to Sara... and what Sara means to you.”

  Lawson replied after his cigarette was done. “We’ll keep headin’ west first thing in the morning. I know this old trail we can start followin’ just over them hills. It’s a hard ride where we’re goin’… And I got this feelin’ in my gut we ain’t seen the last of Lothair Eichberg’s kind. We woke somethin’ bad and it sounds like there’s more Big Holes planted in the ground.” He hitched a thumb back at the others around the fire. “Help me along with that bunch and we’ll make it to Victory Island. We’ll be safe there.”

  Cobe nodded. It was what he expected the Lawman might say. “I reckon we will.”

  Chapter 16

  “I did good, didn’t I?”

  “You did well, Leonard. You did very well.”

  “I ran fast like you told me. I carried you in my arms and ran up the hole. I ran across the ground and kept you safe.” He grinned up at Lothair. “Now you can carry me. We can run across the ground and catch that old Lawman… Which way did he go?”

  Lothair looked at his ravaged face. The torn scalp and bite marks would heal quickly enough. He wasn’t sure if the eyeball would grow back. Lothair could barely stand, but he realized there was no other way around it. Leonard no longer had feet. Or legs.

  “He went west.”

  Leonard ke
pt grinning.

  “It doesn’t hurt?” Lothair asked.

  “Nope, can’t feel nothing.”

  Lothair touched Leonard’s thigh. He ran his fingers along one of the smooth grey stumps the outer edge of the collapsing black hole had cut off. Both limbs would grow back, but Lothair couldn’t wait. His great-granddaughter’s mind attack had left him lost for hours. Too much time had been wasted sitting in the dirt recovering his thoughts and listening to Leonard go on, and on, and on. He had a grandson to meet, and a cowboy he wanted to kill.

  He sat on Leonard’s chest and choked him until he was dead.

  Lothair Eichberg stood up and started walking towards the hills where the last streaks of pink were surrendering to the darkness above.

  “He went west. Where all cowboys go… riding off into the sunset.”

  Chapter 17

  Two weeks later

  Jenny wondered where she had heard that humans couldn’t dream in color. She was dreaming now, and the buildings around her were burning yellow and orange. The muddy streets were pooled deep red in blood. She was walking amongst the ruins of Rudd, and the colors were unavoidable. Perhaps she could dream in color because she was no longer human. Jenny Eichberg had stopped being human the day the hospital machines hooked into her body had been shut off over a thousand years ago.

  She was a cryer now, and cryers could see things humans could not.

  But there was something Jenny couldn’t see. It was that one thing she had come searching for—that one person. She was in the dead and burning town trying to find her mother.

  I never should’ve left, she thought while in the dream state. I had a choice. I could’ve stayed with her instead of helping the others… helping him. Jenny came across a stinking corpse. Its bloated form was lying face down in the dirt and blood. She placed her foot beneath one shoulder and lifted it over onto its back. The skin of its face peeled away, leaving a steaming red mass of skull and teeth leering up at her. The eyeballs had either boiled away, or they had been plucked out. It didn’t much matter to Jenny. The poor creature wasn’t suffering any longer, and it definitely wasn’t her mother. She moved on.

  The town meeting place came into view, and she thought of Cobe again. It was where they had conspired in the dark to run. It was the building they had walked out of late at night holding hands. She had tried to make him understand how she felt about him. Cryers don’t have emotions, she reminded herself bitterly. At least not the kinds of emotions that mattered. So what had she felt for the boy? What was it that made her think of him at a time like now, and in a place like this? She pushed the feelings aside and got back to what she was there to do.

  She crawled over a three-foot high section of crumbling stone wall. The town meeting place had seen better days. Town meeting place… stupid name. It was a stupid name, and the six-hundred people that once called Rudd home had been stupid as well. They’d herded themselves into the pit and been slaughtered by a half dozen monsters. Jenny didn’t play a part in any of that. She was one of the monsters, but she didn’t murder defenceless people. She hadn’t eaten anyone.

  Jenny walked about in the smoke and charred remains, calling her mother’s name. She had been on this gruesome quest many times. When the people she was traveling with stopped to rest, Jenny took the opportunity to close her eyes and search. She didn’t need sleep like Cobe and the others. That was another benefit of being a cryer—no emotion, no sleep, only a burning hunger for flesh. A thick wooden beam over twenty feet in length was sitting in the dust and smouldering remains of the floor. It’s where they strung up the town people by their necks… to feed on.

  A leg was sticking out from beneath it. The toes were charred black. Jenny bent down and lifted the half-ton beam away effortlessly. The flattened body underneath didn’t belong to Edna Eichberg. She rested it back down and studied the burning embers it had left on the inside of her forearms. Cryers could feel pain, but she was able to ignore it in this other world. She watched the orange spots melt into her white skin a few moments longer before rubbing them away. They left long dark streaks that looked like lifeless black veins.

  She yelled her mother’s name again. Jenny screamed it at as loud and long as she could. The crackle of burning timbers was her only reply. Where are you? Jenny stumbled out from the remains of the town meeting place and collapsed into the middle of the street. If she could’ve, she would’ve cried.

  The hair at the back of her neck rose. She wasn’t alone. Someone was watching her. “I know you’re there. Quit hiding.”

  “I’ve never hidden from anyone or anything.” Lothair Eichberg stepped out of a swirling wall of grey smoke and stood before her. “Well, that’s not entirely true. In my first life… as a mortal man, I found it necessary to evade certain groups. But those days of running are centuries behind me. It now seems I’m spending most of my time chasing after others… after family.”

  “I’m not your family.”

  “You are my great-great Granddaughter. You are family.” He sat in front of her, crossing his thin legs. “What did you hope to accomplish by joining the humans? You’re one of us… an Eichberg re-born.”

  “I’m a cryer,” Jenny said. “I’m no longer human, but I’m nothing like you. Nothing like the others.”

  Lothair nodded. “So you say, but it will only be a matter of time before you join us… what’s left of us, that is.”

  “My mother’s still alive, I know she is.”

  “I wasn’t speaking about Edna. Your meddling has resulted in the death of someone very close to me. Do you remember Leonard Dutz? He was slow-witted and unable to fend for himself. He’s dead now, and you’re to blame.”

  Jenny stood and started walking through the burning ruins again. She would find her mother whether the old lunatic was there or not. This was her dream, and he wouldn’t stop her. “You’re dead. I saw what my mother did to you. I saw where she sent you.”

  Eichberg walked beside her. “Yes, that was… unexpected. But sending me back to Sachsenhausen to confront all those children from my past only delayed me. It didn’t destroy me. Did you think obliterating the Dauphin installation would end all of this? So long as I live, your new friends will never be safe. You can run to the other side of the world, and it still won’t be far enough. I will follow.” Jenny ignored him and continued searching. “There are more ABZE facilities. I will revive my ancient clients and they will join me hunting you down.”

  “You don’t care about me,” Jenny spat. “This isn’t about family. It’s about taking revenge on the ones that revived you. The Lawman. You want to kill the Lawman.” She removed a burning sheet of wood from a hollow in the ground. The flames licked up her arm. The hollow was empty.

  “He’s dangerous. His meddling ended the lives of your father, of Eddie, and the others. Do you remember the others, dear? Do you ever seek out Aleea Shon, Mary Gades, or Eunice Murrenfeld in your dreams? What about the Russian?”

  Jenny pictured Ivan Tevalov’s bearded face leering over her. She remembered his hands around her throat, the spit dripping into her face as he pounded her skull into the ground. “The Russian tried to rape me. Watching his brains being stomped into mush was the only pleasurable moment I’ve had as a cryer.”

  “Still—he was one of us. So was Brian Hayward. They all died because your Lawman interfered. I will see he pays for that.”

  Jenny turned on him. “You murdered Brian Haywood. You’re responsible for all of this… all this destruction and death. Mother told me what you were, and I’ve seen with my own eyes what you’ve become. You’re a monster. You always have been a monster and always will be. Quit calling me family and get the hell out of my life.”

  Lothair grabbed Jenny by the wrist and squeezed. Even with all the fire surrounding them she could feel the cold evil of his grip. “I will not. When you least expect it, you’ll become like us. The hunger will blind you to what’s real.” Lothair continued squeezing. He forced Jenny to her knees. He twisted
her arm and pushed her onto her back to the ground. “Tell them. Warn the Lawman and the others. I’m coming.”

  He broke apart before her eyes, dissipating into the smoke and drifting ashes.

  “Jenny?”

  Another face started taking form. Big, blue eyes replaced sickly pink ones. Jenny saw a hand move up in front of the face. Her mouth started to water, and she fought the urge to bite at the fingers.

  “Jenny? You gonna sleep all morning?” Willem shook her by the shoulder. “Lawson and the rest wanna get moving soon.”

  She sat up and looked out over the quiet lake they’d set camp next to the evening before. Jenny saw Cobe packing his meagre belongings into the saddlebag hanging on Dust’s side. The older boy looked at her and smiled. “I told him to let you sleep a little longer. What with how the Lawman’s making us travel every day, I figured you could use as much rest as you could get.”

  What was it about the teen she liked so much? He was fair-skinned and gangly. His hair was an unruly mop of dirty blonde. Cobe was hardly the most handsome boy she’d ever seen in her long life, but looks didn’t much matter anymore in this new world. Maybe it was those kind eyes. He had seen enough murder and cruelty in the last few weeks to harden the softest of hearts, but that smile and those kind eyes still shone through. What did he see when he looked back at her, she wondered? A thing with grey skin covered in scars. A thing that died a thousand years ago.

  Jenny remembered the dream encounter with Lothair Eichberg and jumped to her feet. “He’s still alive.”

  “Huh?” Willem shoved his one hand into a pants pocket. “Who you talking about?”

  She ran to one of the horses and jumped up onto its back. “We have to go somewhere else. He knows where we’re going.”

  Lawson and Sara were watching from the remains of their fire a few feet away. The Lawman threw his last bit of coffee onto the ground and went to her. He grabbed Jenny’s horse by the rope reins and held it in place. “Easy now. What’s this all about? There ain’t nobody out here but us. No one knows where we’re headed.”