Burn

by Geoff North

  The two had travelled down a snaking tunnel lit in eerie red for two hundred meters until they came to a stop at a junction with three separate corridors. “Which way did they go?” Cobe whispered.

  Lawson had his eyes trained on the flooring, searching for any sign of Kelvin and Hank. It was an easy thing for the Lawman to track people out on the ground. Foot prints could be seen in grass and dirt, but there was none of that down here. Hard concrete and smooth plastic weren’t as cooperative. “Damned if I know. If even one of my shots nicked him, we’d have a blood trail to follow.” He looked left and then right. “Yer guess is as good as mine.”

  “Guessing ain’t good enough. Kelvin Eichberg knows this place. He could hide away from us forever.” Cobe thought on that for a second. “Or pop out any time he wants and kill us quick.”

  “Maybe we should go back before we get lost.”

  An idea suddenly came to Cobe. He reached for a device stuffed in his back pocket. “Maybe we ain’t as lost as we think. I’ve been hanging onto this thing since Jenny attacked Willem.”

  Lawson watched him power up the black handheld. “What good is that thing gonna do us here? You reckon reading one of them old stories will draw him out of hiding?”

  “There’s a lot more to it than old books. Jenny taught us a bunch of other stuff it can do, like showing where you are if you get lost.”

  “How can a shiny piece of black glass do something like that?”

  Cobe held it up as the screen came to life. Jenny had somehow managed to bypass its hidden secrets by displaying most of its fantastical features on the shiny surface. “These little pictures are called icons. They all do different things.” Cobe pointed to one of the four dozen available images. It was a white-ringed circle with two more smaller rings inside. At its center was a red dot. “She told us this one can figure out your location in all these underground cities.” He pressed it and the screen changed to a complicated maze of multi-colored lines. The lines interlaced and overlapped. Most were straight, but others curved and twisted back on themselves. “I think these are like corridors and stairways.”

  Lawson pointed to other sections of the map where the lines ended in larger blocks and circles.”What are them things, rooms?”

  “I guess so.” He pointed to a pulsing yellow dot in one of the lines near the screen’s bottom edge. “That’s us.”

  “Don’t look like us,” the Lawman rumbled.

  “Not literally you and me, just showing where we are.”

  “Just like Big Hole, a gawdamn confusion of strange. It might show where we’re headed, but it ain’t going to locate them other two.”

  “Maybe it will.” Cobe tapped on another icon up top and an empty bar appeared with the letters of the alphabet directly below. He typed the name ‘Hank’ and pressed search.

  “What’s it sayin’?” Lawson asked.

  Cobe frowned. “Says I need to be more specific. It wants a second name.”

  “Does he have a second name?”

  “I think so.” The boy closed his eyes and tried to remember. “I heard Angel talking about him last night, just before Sara up and killed Jacob. It was something like Aden… or Olsen… Olen?” He typed ‘O’ after Hank’s name and the device auto-filled O’Dell. “That’s it! Hank O’Dell, fifty-third President of the United States.” A picture of the man appeared before them. He was dressed in a similar-looking suit with a red tie. This Hank from a thousand years ago wasn’t grey-skinned. He looked like any other human with normal flesh and blue eyes.

  The device vibrated in Cobe’s hands, giving him a start. Hank’s picture winked out and a second pulsing yellow dot appeared on the map. “That’s him, that’s where they are!”

  The Lawman nodded down the corridor to their right. “That’s where we’re headed. Can it give you any idea of distance?”

  Cobe touched the glass and ran his finger along it. “Not too far, maybe a hundred steps until we reach a stairway going down, then another fifty or so steps… wait a second. They’re moving. I think they’re heading down again, in one of them automatic moving boxes.”

  “Come on then.” The Lawman pulled him along. “So long as this thing shows where they are, we got the advantage.”

  “I doubt that,” Cobe said. “That big one knows this place. It’s been his home for almost forever. He’ll know where to hide, and how to fight back.”

  Lawson held up one of his powerful handguns. “He ain’t goin’ to be able to fight back against this.”

  ***

  “They’ve made it down to this level… coming straight for us.” Kelvin pointed to the two on the security monitor. “How is it possible an uncivilized pair of barbarians know their way through an installation they’ve never set foot in before?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Hank countered. “I’ve never been here before either.”

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter. The sooner they catch up, the quicker I can end this.” Kelvin attached the fuel canister to the base of the barrel and pointed the flame thrower at Hank. “His guns are formidable, but they’ll be useless once I fry the skin off his body with this.”

  Hank backed away a few more feet until his head thumped into the wall. “This was a maximum security prison facility. Why was it supplied with such lethal weapons?”

  “It wasn’t a thousand years ago. Back in those days, the deadliest weapon available were plastic butter knives. We’ve had a bit of time on our hands down here. It really is amazing the toys you can create with centuries to play with.”

  They had come to a supply room that Kelvin and his fellow prisoners had converted into a weapons workshop. Metal shelving and locker units that had originally stored employee and prisoner belongings had been stripped and transformed into every assortment of knife, sword, and spear imaginable. There were even crude-looking firearms fastened to the walls. Hank pointed out a row of quadruple-barrelled shotguns. “Do those thing even work?”

  “Everything functions here. We can create fresh ammunition from the sulphur and charcoal deposits we discovered three-hundred meters beneath the lowest level of the facility.”

  “You’ve been preparing to take over the world for centuries,” Hank noted solemnly. “Such devotion. So much ambition. There was no hope of you ever leaving this place but you kept preparing anyway.”

  “Hope is strongest when there is little or nothing left to hope for.”

  “Were you telling the truth when you said those other two inmates were the last? Are you the only creature left alive down here?”

  “The nano-technology that extended our lives and strengthened our bodies isn’t a limitless commodity. We’ve had to ration out the injections throughout the years amongst a dozen of us. But even that doesn’t make us immortal. We still age… very, very slowly. Half of us died eventually of natural causes. Others—like me—received more injections, and voluntarily re-entered our cryogenic chambers every second century to extend our life spans.”

  “All in the hope that someone like me would arrive some day to set you free.”

  “And that day has arrived.” He nodded his head at a communications console next to Hank. “You can access the security servers directly from that keypad. Deactivate the automated gas release mechanisms and open the tunnel hatches.”

  Hank eyed the monitor over Kelvin’s shoulder and saw the two figures closing in. The Lawman was perhaps a minute away. He needed to stall for time. “You won’t get what you want by force. Kill me, and you’ll remain trapped down here forever. Work with me, and the world is ours.”

  “Work with you? Let me guess—you’re offering me a Vice Presidency position? Didn’t you hear what I said? There are no more United States to govern. What’s left up there needs to be ruled by the strongest of what was. That’s me.” He pointed the barrel of the flame thrower directly into Hank’s face. “Key in the information and I’ll let you live. If not, then I’ll kill you, and I’ll burn the others to crisps.”

  “Then you�
�ll never get out of here. You will live the rest of your life trapped… alone.”

  The big man took a step back and lowered his weapon. “I said I would kill you. I didn’t promise it would be quick.” He adjusted the nozzle and pressed the trigger. A thin line of concentrated blue fire leapt out and ignited one of the tattered pant legs of Hank’s suit. The President jumped back but Kelvin stayed with him, keeping the lethal flame trained on his leg. The fire made quick work of the fabric and started melting the grey skin beneath. Hank collapsed, screaming out in agony as the smell of his own burning flesh reached his nostrils.

  Kelvin planted a boot into his chest and held him to the floor as the brutal assault continued. He directed the flame down from his thigh to his knee, to the shin, and then finally to his foot. Hank’s toes sizzled away like wax from a candle. By the time the attack ended, all that remained of his right leg was a length of charred, black bones and some strings of smouldering cartilage.

  “Three limbs to go,” Kelvin shouted over his wails. “Then I’ll fry your testicles.”

  Hank held one shaking hand up. “Stop! Please stop! I’ll do it… I’ll enter the codes.”

  Chapter 49

  The muffled screams had ended, but Lawson and Cobe remained where they were, ten feet away from the closed door. “I never heard a man cry like that,” the younger of them whispered. “Not even sure if that was Hank.”

  “A man can make some pretty terrible noises with the right amount of pain inflicted,” Lawson replied. “It can get to a point where he don’t even sound like a man at all.”

  “If that big one’s torturing him, we got to help. If Hank dies, none of us are getting out of here.”

  The pulsing red lights in the corridor faded out to black before the Lawman could answer. An automated voice spoke out in the darkness. “Security protocols have been deactivated.” The light returned moments later, white and steady. “Facility lockdown ended. Criminal sentences have been served. All rehabilitative services have been terminated.”

  Cobe shot the Lawman a dumbfounded look. “What does all that mean?”

  “I think it means that whoever is left down here is now free to go.”

  The door in front of them slid open. Kelvin Eichberg’s hulking form filled the frame. “It only applies to those that were employed here and criminals that had life sentences to serve.” He had a massive weapon trained on the two. “You’re trespassers, and trespassing is punishable by death inside installations like this. Drop the guns and I’ll consider not burning you to ashes. I might even let you and the others leave in peace.”

  Lawson glanced behind him and saw the mutilated form of Hank writhing on the floor. “I reckon you’re full of shit. Soon as I lower these guns, you’ll kill us all.”

  Kelvin smiled, revealing an upper row of brown teeth and black gums. “I reckon you might be right… Or maybe I’m telling the truth. If I kill the two of you here now, you’ll never know what became of the ones you came here with.”

  Lawson was no longer looking at his face. His focus was narrowed in on the hand holding the flame-thrower, especially the one finger wrapped around the trigger. It twitched, and the Lawman opened fire. The first bullet ripped into Kelvin’s thick wrist, shredding the skin and fracturing the bone beneath. The second bullet punched into the flame-thrower’s fuel tank. It exploded in a blinding flash of orange. A wall of heat slammed into Lawson and Cobe, throwing the two back down the corridor.

  An awful scream rose up over the sound of raging fire. Cobe gasped hot air in and saw Kelvin Eichberg at the center of the conflagration, burning alive. Lawson had taken hold of the boy’s shirt collar and was pulling him back. He was yelling something in his ear, but Cobe could only hear Kelvin’s terrible cries.

  “Move! He’s still comin’ fer us!” Lawson gave Cobe’s shirt one final tug, and the boy rose back to his feet. Kelvin was charging towards them, his arms flailing through the air like twin tree trunks encompassed with fire and swirling black smoke.

  Cobe had never seen such intense flame. It seemed to be burning hottest at the center of the man’s chest. It flickered and danced there, changing colors from orange, green, and blue. How was he still moving? How could any living thing withstand so much destructive power and keep forcing one foot in front of the other? This gruesome fascination coupled with the stifling heat made Cobe forget where he was momentarily. His left foot tangled with his right, and down again he went.

  Lawson fired his remaining ammunition into the charging thing’s chest and head, but it had no effect. Kelvin lunged through the air, preparing to consume Cobe and the Lawman in the fire with him. Something landed on his back, altering his trajectory.

  Hank’s teeth sank into Kelvin’s neck. The President’s red hair erupted into brilliant orange, and the skin on his face bubbled and peeled away as the flames enveloped him. His body melded with Eichberg’s as the two burned against the wall, writhing, kicking, screaming.

  Cobe finally closed his eyes, and the Lawman pulled him away again. They ran back the way they’d come, the awful wails and roar of the spreading fire echoed after them. Minutes later they reached the tunnel exit expecting to find Sara and the others waiting for them. The chamber was empty, save for the two Victory Island inmate corpses still lying on the floor.

  “Where’d they go?”

  Lawson took hold of the steel ladder and looked up the tunnel. The two heavy hatch coverings were open, exposing a tiny circle of grey sky almost a hundred meters above. “Back up into the village.”

  “They wouldn’t have left without us,” Cobe countered.

  “Not by choice,” the Lawman agreed grimly. He climbed the first few rungs, cupped one hand around his mouth and called out. “You up there?” No reply. He yelled a second time. “Sara? Kay? Trot! Where the hells are all of you?”

  The grey patch of sky disappeared. For a moment, Lawson believed the tunnel had been sealed off, but then he saw patches of light around an object at the top. Someone was looking down at him. He called up again, but the figure didn’t answer. Something was wrong. He started climbing back down in a hurry as a whistling sound met his ears. He took one last glance up and saw the face getting closer. Someone was falling headfirst down the tunnel towards him. He dropped away from the last few rungs and jumped back. The body somehow managed to avoid hitting the two open cylindrical hatches and landed with a sickening crunch at the bottom, inches from the Lawman’s boots.

  Cobe covered his mouth and tried not to gag as Lawson turned the crumpled body over.

  The Lawman stepped back and whispered. “Angel.”

  A familiar voice called down from the top of the tunnel. “Laawww-maaan.”

  Cobe tore his gaze from Angel’s lifeless, bloody face and stared at Lawson. “Lothair… he’s still alive. He’s found us.”

  The Lawman bent down and gently scooped up the dead girl’s shattered body. He laid her back down in a corner of the chamber, straightening out her broken limbs and arranging her hands together across her midsection. “She didn’t deserve none of what happened these last few weeks,” he murmured, remaining lowered on one knee next to her. “Losin’ her Ma and Pa violently… Taggin’ along with us but never feelin’ truly accepted… A shit life fer a kid, and an even shittier end to it all.”

  Cobe placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a small shake. “Lothair will kill the rest of them if you don’t do nothing.”

  “It just ain’t fair.” He took a thumb and passed it down over one of Angel’s eyes, closing the lid.

  Cobe stared into her remaining open eye. She had loved him, and he had been repulsed by the idea of it. “Yeah… not fair at all.”

  The Lawman closed the second lid and stood. “I got no bullets left. We’re both gonna have to face him and fight it out, hand to hand. Good chance we won’t survive.”

  Cobe started up the ladder first. “Surviving is all we’ve ever done. We should be pretty damned good at it by now.”

  Chapter 50
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br />   The Lawman followed Cobe to the top. When he’d emerged out onto the iron platform surrounding the tunnel, he was shocked to see it was the only intact structure left standing in the village. Everything else was ablaze and collapsing all around them. The grey smudge of light they’d seen from below was a churning maelstrom of smoke and ash.

  The old hotel they hadn’t even stayed in for an entire night came crashing down last as they jumped off the platform. In every direction there were bodies, down every street, charred beyond recognition. There were dozens of them, some piled in heaps, three and four high. The stench of burning flesh was inescapable.

  Cobe gasped for clean air. “All of them… He killed everyone.”

  “We killed everyone.” Two figures emerged from the swirling smoke. Lothair Eichberg didn’t look much better than any of the smouldering corpses in the streets. His grey skin was torn and shredded, hanging in places like rotted bark from the branches of a sickly tree. Most of the flesh on top of his skull was gone altogether. A flap of it hung over one eye. He tore the piece away and stared malevolently at the Lawman with glowing pink eyes.

  Cobe hadn’t even looked at Lothair. All of his attention was drawn to the girl next to him. She was covered with streaks of black ash and splatters of dried blood. Between her eyes was a healed over recess colored purple and blue where the bullet he’d fired had entered her brain. “You shouldn’t be alive,” he uttered. “Nothing could’ve survived that.”

  “Nothing… human,” Jenny rasped. “I’m not… like you… anymore.”

  “You had it coming! You killed my brother! You woulda ate him, too, if I hadn’t pulled the trigger.”

  “Don’t hold my great-great-Granddaughter accountable for that,” Lothair said. “That was me. I got inside her head, showed her things that weren’t really there. Jenny thought she was at a picnic with her parents, eating chicken wings.”

  “Is that true, Jenny? Did he make you see those things?”

  “Doesn’t matter… what I saw. I’m with him… now.” She pointed to Eichberg with a finger dripping blood. “I’m with… family.”