by Geoff North
Cobe started running out onto the bridge, Jenny pulled him back. “Wait! There’s someone with him.”
Cobe saw a second figure emerge from the driving rain. “No… Not her… Please let it be anyone but her.”
Willem crossed the bridge and let the rifles drop at their feet. “She saved my life, Cobe. She untied me from the rocks and snuck me out of the pit when Eichberg went off to fight the Lawman.”
The remaining bit of hair on her head was fused into her skull, and the one side of her wrinkled face was black and scabbed over. The old woman grinned. Cobe saw the single green tooth rub against her upper lip.
“What’s the matter, boy? Ain’t you happy to see ol’ Gertie?”
The big twister that had erupted out of the north and taken residence near the fighting pit was moving again. The mile-wide column churned towards them. Willem tried to climb down into the moat half-filled with rising rain water and stinking corpses, but Cobe yanked him back. “You’ll drown down in that shit!” he shouted. “Jenny found a cellar under Sara’s place. We can wait the storm out there.”
They fought the wind and rain on their way back. Half-burned shingles and larger chunks of wood flipped through the air like falling leaves. Gertie was nearly sliced in half when a section of barn wall cart wheeled by at blinding speed. Jenny pushed the old hag down to her hands and knees. She fell with her and ended up on her back. A hundred feet above their heads a roller was screaming. A black piece of timber was hurtling towards it. The big wooden beam from the town meeting place where we hung up all those people, Jenny realized. It shot through the center of the flailing beast and disappeared into the colossal body of the vortex. The roller went silent and continued spinning crazily in the other direction.
Jenny dragged the woman the rest of the way. Cobe was already there, fighting to keep the trap-door they’d found buried in the dirt that morning open. He helped Gertie down the steep steps into a dark hole where Willem waited. Jenny followed, thumping the door down into place behind her. They sat in utter blackness, catching their breath, and listened to the intensifying howl over their heads.
Willem was the first to speak. “Where are the horses?”
“The Lawman told us to look after them,” Cobe said. “They broke free and ran west when the winds started getting real bad.”
“Smart horses,” his brother replied. “A lot smarter than you two.”
“You think we were going to run too, and leave you behind?”
“Do I gotta sit in the dark and listen to you two bitch until this storm ends?” Gertie asked.
Cobe felt her lean up against him and pass wind. “There’s nothing else to do.”
“Two boys, two girls… We could make babies.”
Her fart stunk in the hot, confined space. Cobe gagged and tried shifting away from her wet touch. Jenny pushed him back. There was barely enough room for the four of them to sit, their legs all curled up into their guts. “No baby-making. Not back in your hills, not here. Not ever. Why don’t you have something to eat?”
“Ain’t nothin’ to put in my mouth ‘cept these rocks riding up my ass.”
“They’re potatoes,” Jenny said.
“Oh.” They heard her rub the dirt off one against her boney chest. She bit into it with her tooth and gums. “I’ve grown better spuds in my hills.”
They listened to her crunch and smack. The howl above died some after a few more minutes. Jenny went to open it up a crack, but something smashed it back down into place with enough force to knock chunks of dirt from the walls. Jenny tried pushing up again, but the door wouldn’t budge. She could feel a crack in the thick wood, something moist and furry sticking through. “Another roller dropped in.”
She wasn’t trying to be funny, and nobody laughed.
Willem spoke again. “I saw yer Ma, Jenny. She helped set me free.”
Cobe yelped as the cryer crawled across his legs. He heard Gertie make a choking sound. Jenny had her pushed up into the wall. “My mother was with you? She’s still alive?”
The woman coughed up some half-chewed potato skin as Jenny released hold of her throat. “Fuckin’ bitch killed my Boy. I woulda throttled her dead if that gawdamn burning building hadn’t collapsed on us first. Next thing I remember is wakin’ up in the plains with that whore sittin’ over me, demanding I help find you and yer fuckin’ friends.”
Jenny smacked her hard across the face. “My Mother never would’ve asked someone like you to help her. You’re lying.” She hit Gertie again.
“Fuck, girl! You don’t have to beat my face any uglier than it already is. The boys here was already repulsed enough by my looks.”
“Tell me what you know about her… Tell me everything.”
“She’s a strange one, yer ma.” When Gertie was sure she wasn’t going to be slapped again, she continued. “When she wasn’t nursin’ my burns and pouring piss-warm water down my throat, the woman spent stretches just sittin’ in the dirt with her eyes closed. Once I had enough strength to sit up and talk, I asked if she was alright in the head. She kept saying the dreams are gone, the dreams are gone… Crazy bitch… When she wasn’t actin’ like that, she was helpin’ me recover more, making me eat meat I wasn’t certain hadn’t been pulled off a human corpse. She told me when I was able enough, we was gonna head out and find you. Then the day come when she spotted that old cocksucker, Lothair, ridin’ into Rudd with a whole fuckin’ herd of rollers behind him. We been hidin’ ever since… watching things develop.”
Gertie stopped talking. Cobe heard Jenny repeat the words in a whisper. The dreams are gone. He tried reassuring her. “Sounds like your ma was trying to get back inside your head, but couldn’t find you.”
“She could barely speak the last time I saw her,” Jenny said. “Whatever part of her brain Lothair dug into to get at that shrapnel must have healed up… and taken away her ability to see me in her dreams.”
“Yer ma saw you in the flesh,” Gertie croaked. “When you and the others rode in. She figured out what Eichberg was settin’ to do, so we kept on hiding… waitin’ fer the right moment to make ourselves known.”
Jenny scrambled back over Cobe’s legs and tried the door again. The dead roller above didn’t move an inch. She yelled at the others. “Help me! I have to get to her.”
Cobe could hear the storm raging over her efforts. “You’re not going to do anyone any good if you run out into that. Wait for it to pass… your ma will still be out there when things settle.”
Jenny settled against the steps grudgingly, and waited. Gertie bit into another potato.
“I don’t feel so good,” Willem said.
“None us do, having to wait down here,” Cobe replied. “I’m sick of gawdamn holes in the ground… especially ones that stink like farts.”
“It ain’t that,” his brother said. “My head feels fuzzy… like I can’t think too good.”
Jenny pushed into the door with her shoulder. The step beneath her broke, and she fell into the dirt and half-mashed potatoes. “The air. We’re running out of air.”
Willem giggled. “That’s silly. Air’s everywhere.”
“Don’t you get it?” She snapped. “We’re going to suffocate down here!”
Cobe had never heard the word before, but he had a pretty strong idea what it meant. Three sets of hands started in at a section of wall near the top, tearing dirt away, and pulling rocks free. Willem joined in with his five fingers, clawing with the others for their lives.
Chapter 32
Edna slammed into Lothair and the two rolled in the mud. She ripped one of his ears away with her teeth before the old man could push her off. He staggered back to his feet and circled around her warily.
“You look better than the last time I saw you, dear,” he called out. “Your spine has straightened out, and you’re quite… spry.”
“I was wrong. We were all wrong. Freezing people and bringing them back is unnatural.”
Lothair lunged and swiped at her fac
e. His grey finger nails took most of the skin on her nose off. “It is unnatural not to try. The human race can only survive if we keep striving for the impossible.”
Edna kicked out. Her foot caught behind his knee. Lothair fell to his back and Edna drove both of her fists into his sternum. He made a pained wheezing sound, and spat black blood over his chest. Edna sat on his stomach and tried jamming her thumbs up into his eyes. He jerked sideways and one thumb dug into the gory ear wound. She twisted it in, searching for something soft her nail could stab into. “Can’t believe I respected you… worshipped you… sick old bastard.”
Lawson couldn’t hear what they were saying. One side of the twister’s mile high vortex wall had reappeared above him. Its ferocious appetite was chewing into the boulders on the outside of the pit. Crushing rock and howling wind was all he could hear. He could only watch as the cryers tore each other apart. Lawson burrowed into the rocks deeper and twisted his arm around a tangle of thick roots. The tree, he thought. It’s how that side-hanging tree has held on for so long. Hopefully the tree, the roots, and the rocks would hold a few minutes longer.
Lothair twisted his head again and Edna’s thumb sunk into the ground. His teeth found the soft skin of his great-granddaughter’s forearm. He bit and chewed and swallowed until his teeth gnawed against bone.
“I won’t let you hurt anyone anymore.” Edna seemed oblivious to the pain. She pressed her arm—with Lothair’s face still clinging to it—into the mud. “I won’t allow you anywhere near my daughter ever again.” She punched down into his forehead with her fist and sunk him down a little further. “I’m putting you back where you belong.” She hit him again and felt his skull crack. Lothair Eichberg’s face disappeared into the wet earth. Edna pushed down harder.
The wind suddenly stopped. The rain ceased.
Pieces of human remains that had been sucked up into the sky came pouring back down. Another roller fell ass first into the center of the pit where Rudd’s town leader, Yaven, had been decapitated weeks earlier.
Lawson snaked his head out from the rocks without releasing hold of his roots, and peered up at the strange, green sky. He had never seen so much destruction happening before his eyes in a total absence of silence. The massive twister had settled on top of the pit. He could see the inner walls of the vortex continuing to move and churn. Trees, corpses, rollers, and rocks were caught up in the snot-colored endlessness of it.
Edna pulled her arm out of the mud and looked up. An orb of white light glowed down on her from the upper atmosphere. Tendrils of distant cloud snaked from its edges like green, bloodshot vessels. It is the Eye of God. Witnessing in His great light what we have become in our darkest moment…
Let it all end now.
She stood up and the great eye in the sky began to close.
The wind returned with a vengeance. The fury of the storm screamed in her ears. Something sharp stabbed into her side, and tore an exit hole out through the other. Edna’s legs went numb, her spine broken into two pieces once again. She dropped to her knees, and a long fragment of leg bone sliced her throat open on its way by. The wind intensified more, tearing her head from her shoulders in one merciless gust.
Lawson saw the woman’s body fly off into the green and grey. His would be next if he didn’t sink back into the boulders. He yanked on the roots, and the twister pulled harder in the opposite direction. It sucked the air out of his lungs. Lawson dug the toes of his boots into the earth and pushed. His other hand found more roots. He pulled again.
Hold on, tree. Hold the fuck on.
Something stabbed into his back, and the Lawman staggered down to one knee. The pain shot into his left shoulder and climbed into his neck. Sand blasted into Lawson’s eyes as he turned his head. Slivers of dead grass cut into his cheeks like tiny blades.
Lothair was inches from his face. The cryer’s finger nails had torn through Lawson’s shirt and hooked into his skin. He was screaming something, but the Lawman couldn’t hear. Black teeth and a flapping grey tongue were the last parts he saw of Lothair Eichberg before the monster tornado stole its final victim off into the clouds.
***
Lawson found the horses wandering out in the plains between the pit’s remains and a completely flattened Rudd. Cobe, Willem, Jenny, and the old bitch he’d thought and hoped was dead, found him a time later. The twister kept on twisting to the east and to the south. Its black funnel still dominated the horizon over ten miles away.
“Are you sure she’s dead?” Jenny asked.
Lawson nodded his head gravely without going into details. Jenny didn’t ask for any.
Willem tugged at his arm. “What about Lothair? Ain’t we gonna make sure he’s dead too?”
“I’m sick and tired of chasin’ after dead people.” He strapped his guns around his waist, and climbed up onto Dust’s back with an effort. “I’m just plain tired. It’s time we got headed back west. Find the others.”
Jenny got up behind him, silent and stiff. He half-expected the girl to burst into tears after hearing what had become of her mother. The other half of him expected she wouldn’t. She was an Eichberg. She was a cryer, and the last thing cryers did was actually cry. Lawson shifted up a little farther. His back burned where Lothair had dug in with his nails. He didn’t want the girl to rub up against the open wounds. He didn’t want her touching him at all.
“Are you coming?” Cobe asked the old woman.
Dirty Gertie shook her head, and stepped back as the brothers climbed up on Cloud. “Ain’t never sat on a horse, and I sure as hells ain’t gonna try it at the age I am now.”
“We’ve got a long ride ahead of us,” Willem said. “You’re gonna have to ride.”
“I’m not goin’ with you. I’m goin’ back to my hills and findin’ what family I got left.”
Everyone seemed relieved. Lawson looked out across the plains towards her home. “The hills are a long way off, a day of walking… maybe two fer you.”
“I won’t die of thirst. Plenty of rain puddles to drink from, and tons of roller carcasses to pick at along the way.”
Lawson started out, and Cobe dug his heels lightly into Cloud’s sides. Willem made him stop. He turned back and called out to the old woman. “You saved my life. Figure I owe you something for that.”
“Come back when yer a bit older!” Gertie yelled. “You can fuck one my girls and give me a grandson!”
They left her there, and rode fast for the hills.
Chapter 33
“What is this place?” Angel asked.
They moved slowly through the ancient remains, picking their way around concrete foundations grown over with grass and flowers. Iron girders were sticking up out of the dirt in a thousand places at varying angles. They were more rust than metal. “It was a city,” Hank said. “A city called Calgary.”
Trot stumbled up behind him. He was on foot now, like Hank. The horses seemed anxious walking through the place, and Trot didn’t want to get thrown if they got any more nervous. “Was Calgary part of your United States?”
“No. Different country. But it will become part of the United States now. Everything you’ve seen, and all that’s left, is US land. All of it.”
Trot scratched his head at that. He couldn’t figure how one man needed so much land to live on. “All I know is that this place scares me. It’s like them trees heading into the hills back outside of Burn. Howlers live in them dead forests, I know… I seen them with my two eyes.”
“This isn’t a forest, and those aren’t dead trees.” He pulled Trot to one side before the man could stumble over a downed traffic light pole half corroded into the ground and covered in orange moss. “Watch where you walk.”
“Oh, that’s pretty.” Trot ran ahead and sank to his knees. A centuries old bottle was sticking up out of the dirt. He wriggled it free and held it up triumphantly for the others to see. “Look what I found! It’s green! What is it?”
“A soft drink bottle,” Hank answered. “Be ca
reful how you handle it.”
Angel jumped off of Spot and rushed towards Trot. Let me see it.”
“It’s mine.” He hugged it into his chest, and the brittle glass caved in. Fragments and dust poured down the front of his shirt. A few more pieces had stuck into the palm of his hand and drawn blood. “Look what you made me do,” Trot whimpered. “Gods… it was so beautiful.”
“I warned you,” Hank said. “But I wouldn’t be too upset. There are thousands more just like it buried beneath our feet.”
That cheered Trot up some. He fell in behind Hank and kept his eyes peeled to the uneven ground for more treasure.
Angel went back for Spot, but the horse reared up on its hind legs before she could get a hold of the crude rope reins. Sara yelled for her to keep back until the animal settled. Angel ignored her, and went in a second time. The tip of Spot’s front hoof connected with her shoulder and sent the girl flying back. The horse bolted off ahead of them, kicking up dust and chunks of crumbling sidewalk. It raced towards the immense steel frame of a building that had shed its glass walls centuries before. Angel yelled for her to come back, but the horse kept running. It fled out of sight around the building.
Kay steered their remaining horse up beside Angel. “Stupid girl.”
Angel glared up at her. “I ain’t stupid. That horse was stupid. And dumb, too.”
Sara poked her daughter in the back. “Don’t start this again. Just let it go.”
“Why should I let it go? She never listens. I found all the gawdamn horses, and now she’s up and scared one of them off. Somebody ought to smack that ugly face of hers and knock some sense into her brain.”
“Did you just say I was ugly?”
“I’ve seen howler puke prettier than you.”
Angel clawed at her legs and the big black horse reared up. Kay slid back into her mother, and both tumbled off onto the street. Hank and Trot backed away as Angel drove her head into Kay’s chest. Kay grabbed at the girl’s rat’s nest of brown hair and scraped her face into the dirt.
