“What’s in it for you?” Trace’s voice startled Josh once again. He turned his head in the chair. Trace had entered the dining room through a door at the far end. He was walking towards them, but he was so light on his feet, it was almost like he wasn’t walking at all, but rather gliding. Trace moved like a ghost.
Jackdaw and Steve snapped to attention. They were definitely afraid of ghosts.
“Well, let me tell you, Mr. Standing, what is in it for you.”
Trace was dressed in a green linen day suit, and he carried his cane, but his spats had been replaced with brown leather shoes that had been scrolled and carved with immense precision and skill.
He stopped by Josh and gave a small, hook-lipped grin. “It’s quite simple, Mr. Standing. You get to live.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“I have no doubt of it, Mr. Standing.”
Trace shooed Jackdaw away from the chair, set himself primly down on it, and crossed his legs with the exactness of a watchmaker placing a spring.
“As I’m sure you know, we are some five miles outside Savannah.”
Josh nodded.
“Savannah used to be such a lovely city. Did you ever visit it?”
“No.”
“A shame. I heartily recommend Harper Fowlkes House. A finer example of classical Greek revival architecture you’ll not find in the South, Mr. Standing. Well, what I mean is, you wouldn’t have found. I understand it’s suffered a ruinous fire on the Night of the Madness. But I digress. Like many cities since that night, Savannah has fallen to those most badly affected by the events of that fateful night. They’ve become places, in just a couple of months, of high danger, disease, anarchy, and fear. I can’t in good conscious send good stout fellows like Steven or Jackdaw here into that, can I? I mean, it wouldn’t be fair, would it?”
“I suppose not.” Josh had fully gotten the idea of the kinds of people Trace would send into cities like Savannah.
“Excellent!” Trace trilled, patting Josh on the knee with a plump pink hand. “I see we’re going to get along famously.”
It took all of Josh’s strength not to flinch his knee away from under Trace’s fingers. Trace seemed to pick up on this and, with a tight grin, gave a little squeeze.
“You see, with all systems broken down, the cities have become areas of great resources. Resources we need to extricate. Before the cities are razed to the ground by fire, or made non-traversable by vermin and pestilence. There is a clock ticking down, so to speak. We need to get in there and get out what we can before it is all destroyed. Food, ammunition, weaponry, medicines, water purification equipment. You understand, Mr. Standing, this is a grave emergency. We have to save as much of this for ourselves and future generations as possible.”
“You’re sending people into that hell?”
“Yes. I am. People like you.”
“I take it all back,” Poppet said suddenly. “I want a freaking drink, and I want one now.”
Trace ordered Steve and Jackdaw to take Josh and Poppet outside to the cage, where he would join them shortly.
“Cage?” Josh asked as they were marched through the house, past the kitchen and out to an area of ground by a low brick wall that had metal shutters over it. The shutters were padlocked closed with thick chains and guarded by four men with H&K Mp5s at the ready.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Jackdaw hissed as they approached.
Harve came out of his tent. He was shaved and had put on a clean shirt over his naked torso. Hair slicked back with water in a near approximation of Trace’s widow’s peak.
“Getting to the meat an’ potatoes, are we?” he asked, coming over and looking Poppet up and down. “Not bad in your day, I suppose. Past it now, of course.”
Poppet said nothing—not because, Josh thought, she was purposely not rising to the bait, but because her body was shaking with the DTs. Her jaw chattered, and the hands in the cuffs behind her back worked like whisks.
Withdrawal like this, Josh knew, could last from forty-eight to seventy-two hours. If she was lucky, she’d not suffer seizures or hallucinations. The DTs, nausea, and general body shock was bad enough without mixing in those specters of the condition. In many respects, it had probably been a good thing they’d not escaped together that night. She would have slowed him down, and as soon as anyone from Parkopolis had picked up their trail, they would have been caught.
Harve seemed a little unhappy his insult hadn’t hit the mark, and so he rounded on Josh. “What did you used to be, then? Before the Madness?”
“I’m still what I was before. A probation officer for young offenders.”
This amused Harve to no end. “Young offenders? Oh, that’s priceless, it really is.”
Trace approached from the mansion. The sunlight was generous and warm. Dappled shadows thrown off by the trees gave the whole scene a surreal atmosphere, and one of contradictions. So much beauty happening at a time of such ugliness.
Trace had his cane over his shoulder.
“So, here we all are. Mr. Standing, you’re aware of what I require of you, and where I require you to carry out my orders. But there’s just a couple more things to put in place, because of course you are so smart and resourceful.”
“I’m still listening.”
“You will be going into Savannah for me, and you will be going in with a squad of my other scavengers, but because of the extreme dangers you will encounter, I will obviously not be sending any of my own men with you.”
Josh raised an eyebrow.
Trace nodded and tapped his nose. “I see you’re already computing your chances of escape.”
Josh began to open his mouth, but Trace put a finger to his own lips. “Please don’t insult my intelligence, Mr. Standing; of course, your first thought was escape. You’ve already proved your motivation in that direction. So, let’s not kid ourselves. I need you to understand, like my other scavengers, what the consequences are if you do escape, and believe me, Mr. Standing, you will, once we set you down on the outskirts of the city, be able to walk away. But, like my other scavengers, you will not walk away. You will instead come back here on schedule and with the items I task you with recovering.”
Josh felt that wave of blue fiery dread once again shivering up and down his body.
Harve stepped over the small brick wall and began to unlock the padlock holding the shutters closed. The rattle of the chain moving through the two handles set Josh’s whole body on edge. He wanted to be uncuffed. He wanted to be running. He didn’t want to know what was in the cage because he knew that, whatever it was, Trace was sure that it would stop Josh from running away, and the look in Trace’s eyes, that hungry avarice mixed with triumph, told Josh that it probably would.
“You see, my scavengers know what I keep in this cage, Mr. Standing. They know what I will do to the occupants if they run or disobey orders. They know I will because they’ve already seen me do it.” Trace paused and licked his lips. “Now, Harve.”
Harve pulled back the first metal shutter on a rusty, squeaking hinge and let it clang to the ground.
“Please, Mr. Standing. Do look in.” Trace pointed toward the dark space that had opened up beneath the shutter. Josh could see stained bricks just inside the rim, slick with moisture and smudged by mold.
He took a step forward toward the newly uncovered space. The first thing he saw, down in the dark, were a number of blinking eyes. At first, it didn’t compute. As if what he was looking at didn’t want his mind to comprehend it. A vision that was ashamed to lodge in his head. A sight that would rather have just moved on by and found a different head to make sick.
Then the overwhelming clouds of confusion parted, and a dawning horror cast its awful light over Josh’s thoughts.
He was staring at the tear-stained, dirt-smeared faces of at least twenty children.
7
Maxine had been sitting with her mother for three hours or more. She was trying to build up the courage to un
lock the chains from around her ankles and wrists. She’d come into the almost bare room with her head in the right place—the place to defy her father and release her mom, who was curled up in the fetal position on the bed, wrists and ankles raw, her eyes hollow and her lips streaked with mucus.
But the roar and scream as Maxine had approached with the key had stayed her hand. Rage strained at the chains, fear exploded from the mouth, and eyes wept their confusion straight at Maxine.
So, she’d sat down cross-legged on the floor, out of reach of her mom’s frenzy, and waited.
Three hours.
The mom she had known her whole life—the resourceful, wise, practical woman with a wicked grin, a sparkle for every occasion, and confidence that was infectious—had been erased by the effects of the supernova.
Storm came up a couple of times to make sure she was okay and bring her coffee. He didn’t say much, just looking at Maxine with a face full of strained concern. It was moments like this when Maxine wished Josh––even the Josh who had become adrift from her affections––were around to run interference with his son while she dealt with Maria. Right now, Tic-tac could do with having a father around just to put an arm around his shoulder.
Maybe Storm would shrug it off, but it would be better all the same.
Each time he dropped in, Storm had squeezed her arm and left Maxine to the vigil—it made her wonder which one of them needed the support more.
For so many other people, the Barnard’s Star explosion had also detonated inside heads and brought on a sickening madness that had seen Boston burn. Along the way to West Virginia, Maxine and her son had come across unholy amounts of destruction and many individuals who had not necessarily become insane, but whose levels of aggression had been tuned to the max.
Whatever had turned off all the electricity and machines had had a devastating effect on the population, too. Maxine didn’t understand it––there had been a scientist guy on the TV being ridiculed for warning that something was coming. Something major. Professor Robert Halley, a pop-culture scientist with a ’90s ponytail and a counter-culture hangover, had been on rolling news programs and a couple of talk shows where he’d obviously been let on for comedy value on the proverbial TV Freak Show. But he’d been right. Something had come. And now Maxine was looking at the most personal and devastating effect of that something.
Her mom. Reduced to a snarling animal who’d had to be chained to her bed by a husband who didn’t know what else to do.
After her dad had gone with Storm to deliver the calf that had been breached in its mother’s birth canal, he had come back to the kitchen of the ranch exhausted, covered in dirt and hay. His arms had been slick with the filth of a difficult birth, and Maxine had warmed some creek water on the fire so that he could wash. He hadn’t spoken about the incident with the shotgun in Maria’s room—that was obviously too raw, Maxine thought, and she hadn’t pushed him. But at least he’d been talking.
He’d talked about the night he’d lost his wife.
“I was out on the porch with a beer and the radio. Mom was inside fixing us some supper. We planned to spend some time looking up at the nebula and enjoying the show. First, I knew something was wrong. I heard a crash from inside the house; a thud as your mom went down. I got up to come into the house and musta blacked out there and then. Hit by a headache that felt like I was being kicked in the temple by a mustang. When I woke, it was all I could do to crawl into the house. By that time, your mom was up wrecking the kitchen. Never seen anything like it. I tried to hold her, but she had the strength of ten men. Threw me away like I was made of paper. Snarling like an ornery dog and spitting like a wildcat. She started throwing anything she could get her hands on at me. Pots, pans, glasses. When she ran out of things to throw, I tried again to get hold of her. That’s when she bit me.”
At that point, Donald had stopped washing the skin of his arms and gripped the side of the sink like he’d needed to steady himself before continuing.
Maxine had placed a hand on his shoulder and realized in that moment that that was probably the first time she had touched her father in such a tender way since she’d been a small girl, back when the tall giant of a man had looked like he was bigger than the world. And now, washing the birth-dirt away from his skin and telling this story of personal tragedy, he’d seemed small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.
Donald had sniffed, nodded, and then dipped his hands back into the water to continue cleaning.
There are some things that you can’t wash away, Maxine thought.
“My hand hurt like hell, and she wouldn’t stop wrecking the place. I tried again to get her to calm down, but she wasn’t listening. And then the second headache and blackout hit. When I woke up that time, she was already trying to set fire to the place. She’d grabbed a newspaper, lit it in the hearth, and was moving towards the window to set light to the drapes. Maxine… I didn’t know… I just… so, I hit her. Just the once. Just once. I’ve never raised my hand… never would… just… I didn’t know…”
Maxine had squeezed her hand over his shoulder.
“I know, Dad. I know.”
“And she went down unconscious. I tied her up with clothes line and waited for her to wake up. Which she did, about ten minutes later. She was wild, Maxine, wild and crazy. Spitting, screaming, and growling. I went to the phone, tried to call Dr. Challis, but the phone was out. There was no power in the place. So, I carried her best as I could to the truck to take her to the emergency room, but the truck was dead. Nothing was working. Nothing on the TV, the radio, nothing. The world had gone dark.”
Donald had begun drying his hands on a towel by then, scraping roughly at the skin of his arms, making the liver-spotted flesh red and raw.
Maxine had wanted to go further than just the hand on his shoulder, and pull him into a full hug, but hadn’t been able to. It had been like the barriers which had fallen slightly were back up.
She hoped they would come down again in time.
And so, she sat with her mother chained to the bedside wall, with the key in her hand and her father’s words echoing around her head. The desperation of his experience on that night rushing through her now.
What should she do?
Could she risk letting her mother free? Would that be too dangerous to Maxine, Storm, and her father? Would she be able to cope better than her dad? Or… would she find herself fighting on the floor with her mom?
Or would she respond differently to Maxine? Would she allow herself to be released, and perhaps listen and respond to Maxine’s training as a nurse?
Maxine stood up and took a step.
Maria exploded from the bed in a savage whirl of limbs and blood-flecked spittle.
Tally’s heart felt like it was about to burst out of her chest and drag her headlong out of the substation storeroom.
She was ready by the substation’s door, breathing hard. Not from anxiety, but to oxygenate her body and get the adrenaline circulating that would prepare her for the explosive movements she’d need to carry out in the next minute.
The ladder she’d found in the back of the storeroom leaned against the well. The dead man’s rucksack, which she’d found among the pallets and crates, undisturbed by whoever had attacked him, now contained the cans of beer, the candy bars, rolls of paper to use as fire starters, an empty plastic water bottle, the lighter and the fire ax––blade in the bag, haft sticking up between the zippers at the top. The zippers weren’t fully closed, so she’d be able to draw the ax when she needed to. She hoped she wouldn’t have to, but that depended on what happened when she left. Her supplies were meager, but they would have to do until she got to the nearest town.
Tally had slept in the storeroom. The idea for the actions she’d decided on had come as she’d seen the toe of the ladder poking out from behind a couple of crates of circuit breakers and copper busbars. As she’d lit the area up with the flame and lighter, she’d reached down and the ten-foot ladder had come ou
t giving her the idea for what to do––as if her fairy godmother had touched her head with her glittering wand.
It would be a risky course of action, but when she considered all the angles of the situation she found herself in, it seemed the best. And it would give her the best chance of getting away.
She didn’t feel entirely rested, because a few times every hour she’d woken to go to the door and listen for sounds of any activity outside. She’d heard nothing all night. Perhaps whoever had been out there trying the gate had moved on, uninterested in Tally, but she thought it more likely they were waiting, hidden with good sight of the gate to ambush her when she unlocked it.
But Tally wasn’t going to unlock the gate. She was going to leave the compound by a different route. Now her limbs were warmer, her muscles more relaxed, and the sugar rush from the candy bars had given her the boost she needed; she was ready.
Opening the lock to the gate would leave her too exposed. She remembered that the mechanism was tight, the outside of the lock stained and old. There was no guarantee that the lock would open the first time, so the exposure wasn’t worth the risk.
She’d reasoned that she couldn’t stay in the substation indefinitely, either. She had maybe three days before her supplies ran out. She certainly didn’t know how much fuel was left in the lighter. There was no water—just the beer—and less than ten candy bars. Those numbers didn’t increase her level of survival in any way whatsoever.
So, she had to get out fast, and away from here even faster.
Thing was, moving fast through a complex environment of obstacles was exactly what her love of free-running—parkour—had prepared her for. She wasn’t competition standard in the same way Storm was as a track athlete, but she was strong, wiry, and unafraid. All the things that you needed to be a good free-runner. She’d gotten into the discipline in school, enjoying both the high-intensity training and the sheer exhilaration of flying over concrete, not to mention her love of the feeling of ground rush when hanging high up over space.
Supernova EMP- The Complete Series Page 31
