Pike didn’t respond.
“Teddy Bear? Come in, Teddy Bear,” he said, feigning concern. “Teddy Bear!”
He laughed to himself and hung up the CB before rubbing his grainy eyes.
“You probably shouldn’t have pissed him off like that,” said Valentine, though she couldn’t help but smile.
“Sorry, couldn’t help it.”
Max grabbed the radio. “You there, John?”
“Yup.”
“Alright, in a few miles we’re going to reach Brushton. Now, it’s got one of those old-school covered wooden bridges. Just a small one, but without it there’s no getting over the river without going miles out of your way.”
“Lemme guess,” said John. “We’re going to burn it down.”
“I hate to, but it’s gotta be done. Anything in your rearview?”
“All clear, Sheriff.”
“Good.”
They continued into Brushton and turned right back onto Route 11. The bridge came up a few minutes later, and Max pulled over on the side of the road once he’d crossed it. He waved John on before putting the Bronco in reverse and backing onto the bridge once more and parking sideways.
“I love this old rig, but when it’s time to say goodbye, well, it’s time,” he told Valentine. “Help me get this stuff into the Hummer.”
With John’s help, they hurriedly transported everything from the Bronco and stowed it away in the Hummer. Five minutes later, Max was spreading gas all over the beautiful wooden bridge. He really did hate to burn it down, but it was them or the bridge, and, well, bridges could be rebuilt.
When he was finished soaking the bridge, he pulled out the gas cap and stuffed a gas-soaked rag into the hole and walked over to the others.
“John, you do the honors. I just can’t bring myself to kill Chuck.”
“Chuck?”
“The Bronco.”
“Right.” John took the matchbook from Max. “You want to say a few words?”
Headlights suddenly appeared on the hill leading toward the bridge.
“We’ve got company!” said Max.
John and Valentine looked up, and John lit a match, caught the book on fire, and tossed it on the soaked wood.
They all rushed back to the Hummer, and Max jumped in the driver’s seat. Valentine called out shotgun and hip-bumped John into the passenger side door. They all filed in, and Max put it in gear as the first of the headlights broke over the hill. The bridge caught quickly and went up in a wild pyre as Max peeled out.
Half a dozen sets of headlights appeared on the hill leading down to the bridge, and Max grinned to himself as the Bronco finally exploded, likely scaring the shit out of Pike and his men.
He floored the four-wheel drive Hummer and tore through the ten inches of snow on the road, blasting through the two-foot drifts.
“Shit!” he said, slamming the dash and making Valentine jump.
“What?”
“I forgot the Hip CD.”
“This one?” she said with a smirk and popped it in the CD player.
“Ahead by a Century” began to play, and Max grinned at Valentine.
“Attagirl!”
Chapter 13
The Mohawk Militia
Max drove through the sleepy towns of Northern NY as fast as he dared given the snow covering the roads. The Hummer was a four-wheel drive beast, but some of the drifts were over two feet high on the road, and the last thing they needed right now was to go off the road. Max guessed that Pike and his men were only a few miles behind them at this point, and with the tracks left behind, there was no way to thwart them.
His best bet was the Mohawk Reservation.
The Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation spread across parts of Northern New York and Canada, and as a result, its people enjoyed dual citizenship. There was a casino located on “The Rez,” which provided a lot of jobs for the area, but there had always been and was still a lot of illegal activity. The St. Lawrence River provided a means for the natives to smuggle drugs, guns, and even people to and from Canada. Most natives looked down on such activities, but where there was opportunity, there were people willing to take a chance to make big money for dangerous work.
Max knew that the natives would have the road leading into town blocked off. By now they would have locked down the area, and there was no way Pike and his men were going to get through.
The army boys hadn’t gone this way to get to Fort Drum, but Max knew it was his only shot. He didn’t doubt that a good number of the Mohawks had been just as sauced as the rest of the country on the night of the meteor shower, and there would be hundreds of survivors. He regretted that the screamers had started creating the strange howler cocoons, for he might have helped to cure more people, but now it looked like that stage had passed.
As he drove into the rez, he saw the telltale sign of life—light emanated from the top of the incline leading from the valley, and Max knew it wasn’t the lights of the casino. Power had died before he woke up on Sunday morning, but there was still plenty of fuel and generators.
“You two sit tight and let me do the talking,” said Max.
“You think they’re going to let us through?” said Valentine.
“I’m hoping they’ve got a few screamers locked up that haven’t yet joined the howler cocoon party. If so, then we’ll trade. There’s no way Pike’s getting through. Look.”
As they crested the hill, a barricade of big trucks came into view, illuminated by powerful floodlights that were aimed at the road to blind anyone approaching. It worked. Max pulled the visor down and put on his sunglasses as he approached, and that’s when he noticed the men on the sides of the road. The Mohawks were known for their illegal guns, and now they stood with machine guns trained on the Hummer, eyes and faces obscured by masks.
There were at least a dozen men and women around the barricade with similar weaponry, and one walked forward holding a stop sign.
Max stopped and shut off his headlights. He then put his empty hands out the open window, urging Valentine and John to do the same. The men on the sides of the road moved in as two more walked up to the Hummer. One man, who wore an Akwesasne Mohawk Police jacket, shined his flashlight in Max’s face as he came around to the driver’s side.
“You lost?” he asked in a thick native accent.
“No sir,” said Max, squinting against the light. He could only make out the man’s build: average height, stocky. Given his voice, Max put the man in his fifties.
“Anyone else witcha?”
“Just the three of us,” said Max as the man ran the light over Valentine and John before sweeping the Hummer. “But we’ve got a bunch of crazy rednecks after us. Thought maybe you’d grant us passage and—”
“How many are after you?”
“Dozens, probably six or seven truckloads of assholes.”
“Turn around, go home.”
“Listen, Oaks, is it?” said Max, catching a glimpse of the jacket once more.
The man stood motionless, waiting.
“I’ve got something to offer.”
Oaks glanced at Valentine, but Max saw no hunger in his eyes. “We don’t need nothing. Go home.”
“I bet you’ve got a few screamers locked up. Maybe kids that you’re trying desperately to help? Loved ones? Well, I can cure them, make them normal again. In trade, you let us through. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds like white man promises to me,” said Oaks. He lifted the flashlight and glanced at Max’s jacket. “You sheriff? Or you steal that from a dead man?”
“I’m a sheriff. We drove down from Lake Placid. The army came through and took all the survivors. We’re headed to Fort Drum.”
A nod from Oaks, but his eyes gave away nothing.
Lights caught Max’s attention in the rearview, and some moments later, headlights crested the hill. “That would be the rednecks,” said Max. “We got a deal?”
Oaks squinted at the distant lights and glanced at Max suspic
iously. “We’ll get rid of ‘em, then we’ll see if what you say about a cure is true. If not, you leave the way you came.”
“Thank you,” said Max.
Oaks gestured to the men around the barricade before opening Max’s door. “Walk hands up toward the trucks.”
They all filed out of the Hummer and walked into the blinding floodlights. Soon men and women rushed out to pull them past the barricade. The trucks filled in the space once more as Pike and his men drove up behind the Hummer. Max watched from behind the trucks with anticipation as Oaks and his men approached Pike and his little army. He didn’t know what to expect—sudden gunfire, an explosion, perhaps an angry army of howlers suddenly tearing into both groups. His nerves were beyond frazzled, and his sense of danger was tipping the scales toward sheer panic.
Max took a few steadying breaths, and soon the mood passed. He had seen combat in the army, lots of it, and he had gone days without sleep before, but that was when he was a young man. Now, the impending doom was starting to get to him.
He caught Valentine looking at him worriedly and offered her a reassuring nod.
In the distance, Pike and his men turned around and angrily peeled out. But to Max’s disappointment, they stopped on top of the hill and parked once more. Oaks walked back to the barricade, taking his sweet time as the trucks parted before him.
“Alright, Sheriff. Time to see if what you say is true,” said Oaks.
“Why are they waiting up on the hill?”
Oaks turned and glanced back before offering Max a dead stare. “If you’re lyin’ about the cure, then you go back the way you came.”
“And if not?”
“We’ll see, Sheriff. We’ll see.”
Chapter 14
The Land Where the Partridge Drums
Max, John, and Valentine were brought to the local police department, which they found to be just as heavily guarded as the jailhouse in Malone had been. But the Mohawks were much better armed than their redneck counterparts. Many of the men and women held AK-47s, and a few had grenades strapped to their belts. One man even boasted an honest-to-goodness flamethrower.
A stinking pile of bodies burned in the field behind the station, and Max noticed the telltale tentacles of the howlers among the misshapen corpses. It looked like the Mohawks were doing just fine on their own. Indeed, a surprising number of homes and businesses were lit up around town, and the steady buzz of generators emanated from the snowy landscape. The rez had significantly more gas stations than the average American town, given there was no tax on gas on the sovereign land. Cigarettes were cheap here as well, and with the rez so close to the Canadian border, there was always a steady stream of Canucks visiting and leaving behind their money at the local casino, gas stations, and smoke shops.
Max passed stoic-looking young men and women whose eyes gave nothing away but seemed to see everything. The Mohawks possessed a silent strength that Max admired, for he had seen the look before in people all over the world, people whose ancestors had seen great hardship.
The lights inside the police station forced Max to squint, and he along with Valentine and John were led to the holding area in the back of the building. There, crowding a group of cells, stood over one hundred screamers.
“Why aren’t the screamers screaming?” Max asked. It was then that he noticed the old Mohawk woman standing in front of the cells and chanting softly to the zombified people in the cells.
“Mother Laughing speaks to their spirits. Calms them. Helps them to sleep,” said Oaks.
“What’re they doing here?” said a younger man as he stormed into the station.
He wore black pants and a camouflage jacket, and on his back rode a rifle with a fat barrel. Half his face was painted in camo, and a pair of night vision goggles rested on his head.
“Relax, Rory. The sheriff says he can cure the possessed.”
“They should not be in here with the possessed. If they start screaming again, they’ll lure the damned,” said Rory, eyeing Max dangerously.
“You worry about the woods and the roads, I’ll worry about town,” said Oaks.
“What’s this cure of yours, eh whitey?” Rory asked.
“It’s Sheriff,” said Max. “And if you get me a funnel, a bottle of liquor, and a screamer, I’ll show you.”
“Screamer?” said Oaks.
“A possessed.” Max hooked a thumb back at the cell full of zombies. “We call them screamers, and the three-headed ones that come out of the eggs, those are howlers.”
Rory stared blankly as Max grinned stupidly. Things got awkward, and no one spoke for at least ten seconds.
“Sooo,” said Max. “How about those supplies?”
Rory, whom Max had determined to be some sort of militia leader, turned to the lawman. “Get them out of here, Oaks. Let him try his cure at the Brass Horse.”
Oaks nodded.
With one last glare at Max, the young warrior marched out of the station and slammed the door behind him.
“Good guy, I like him,” said Max.
Oaks and the others ignored his affability and went to work without a word. The cell doors were opened, a screamer was led out, and Max and his friends were shown to the door. They took two trucks down the road a few miles and pulled into a bar. A literal brass horse stood by the sign promoting its namesake, and Oaks parked close to the door.
“Come on,” said Oaks, and when John and Valentine started to get out, he stopped them. “No, just the sheriff. You wait here.”
“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” said Max, offering John and Valentine a wink.
“Wake me when you do,” said John, laying his head against the window and hunkering down.
“Grab me a drink,” said Valentine.
Max followed Oaks into the bar, and four armed men followed Max. Behind them came two more men leading the screamer, whose mouth had been stuffed with rags. Whatever effect the old woman they called Mother Laughing had on the screamers, it was beginning to wear off this one. The young Mohawk boy’s milky eyes were wide with terror, and he was beginning to muffle against his rags.
Oaks led them to the main bar, where a funnel and a bottle of whiskey sat on the counter. “Lay the boy down here,” said Oaks, pointing at a table by the bar.
The men complied, and the screamer’s hands and feet were tied to the table legs. Oaks handed Max the funnel. “Let’s see it, Sheriff.”
Max took the funnel and gestured to the screamer. “Someone take out the rag and hold his head.”
The soldiers glanced at each other, and then Oaks.
“You do it,” he said to Max.
He knew he wouldn’t win that argument, and like a man preparing to steal a snack out of the mouth of a lion, he readied himself. Max grabbed the screamer’s chin and quickly yanked out the rag. The boy chomped and screamed, and Max shoved the funnel in his mouth.
“Somebody hold his damn head!” he said, wrestling to keep the funnel in and maintain control over the thrashing young man.
Two men grabbed the boy’s head, and Max pulled the cork out with his teeth and poured the whiskey down the funnel and into the screamer’s throat. The boy thrashed and bucked and puked up most of it, but Max held firm, dumping a quarter of the bottle down the poor kid’s throat.
He pulled back and watched, knowing that the liquor would take effect any minute. The others backed up two steps, not knowing what to expect.
Then suddenly the boy stopped thrashing, and the milky whiteness of his eyes faded away. He hacked and gagged, and as Max expected, coughed up a space worm.
“Fuck that thing!” said one of the men, jumping up on the bar like a cliché housewife leaping to safety at the first sight of a mouse.
Someone else cursed in Mohawk.
Another made the sign of the cross.
“Get it!” a woman yelled, and Max brought down his boot on the slimy space worm as it tried to wriggle away.
Oaks looked up at Max, glanced at the boy with a look that
he could not hide, and turned glistening eyes back to Max.
“You can do this for all of them?”
“You and your men can, yes,” said Max.
Oaks nodded. “You’ve done a good thing, Sheriff. Now you cure the damned.”
“The damned?” said Max.
Another nod—this time, his expression was grim. “The howlers.”
Chapter 15
Medicine Man
“I don’t know how to cure them,” Max said for the third time.
Oaks ignored him as he drove back to the police station. John was snoring in the back, and Valentine was pouting about the drink Max forgot to get her.
“You learned how to cure the screamers, so learn how to cure the howlers. Maybe liquor?” said Oaks.
“Maybe, I don’t know, man. I’ve never shared a drink with a three-headed alien hybrid electric squid. Look, I did my part, now you—”
“You’re on my land. You don’t tell me, I tell you.”
Max let out a slow sigh and rubbed his eyes. “Even if the same cure works for the howlers, then what? You think anyone is going to want to live like that? Spend the rest of their days as a six-legged, three-headed squid?”
Oaks said nothing, and Max suddenly realized something.
“Someone you know is a howler, aren’t they? Someone you love…”
Oaks remained silent, but his eyes betrayed him. They began to glisten once more, and the stoic man sniffed and raised his chin.
“Jesus, I’m sorry,” said Max.
“My wife, son, daughter, all one now. I was going to put them down. Finally worked up the courage. But now…” He glanced at Max. “Your cure gives me hope.”
Max decided to tread lightly, not knowing if the man was ignoring the facts, or just didn’t want to face them. “Oaks, you don’t want them to live like that.”
“Maybe the cure will undo it all.” Oaks was grasping for straws. Max had seen it before with men on the battlefield, their legs blown off and thinking that somehow, they just needed to be put back on, unable to accept that the injury was irreversible.
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