The Border

by Robert McCammon

  He slid to the concrete and under a smashed pickup truck that used to be black but was now more red with rust and still had a Denver Broncos decal on the remains of the broken rear window.

  Dark blurs entered the parking lot. The Cypher soldiers were on the move, from somewhere to somewhere. The boy pressed himself against the cracked concrete. If any of them sensed him here…

  Something was coming.

  The boy felt it, in a shiver of his skin. He smelled some form of pulsing power in the tainted air. From his hiding place he saw the legs of several of the soldiers materialize, as they stood motionless; they too were feeling this yet-unknown approach.

  There was silence but for the dripping of water from the car hulks. Then something passed overhead with a noise like a whisper of wind, and there was a bright flash of blue light that lit up the parking lot and made the boy squint and then whatever it was had gone.

  The boy waited, blinking. Spots spun before his eyes. Some of the soldiers blurred out again, while others remained in cautious and stationary—and maybe stunned—visibility.

  Above the boy, the pickup truck moved.

  It gave a shudder that made its rusted seams groan, and the boy heard that same groaning of metal echo across the parking lot, and suddenly the underside of the pickup was changing from metal to red and brown scales, and its moldy tires were changing into stubby scaled legs from which grew red spikes tipped with gleaming black.

  He realized the pickup truck was coming to life.

  In a matter of seconds a breathing belly was over his head. He saw the shape over him broaden and thicken, with a noise that was a combination of bones slipping into sockets and metal crackling as it formed itself into flesh.

  With a burst of panic he rolled out from under the thing, and found himself on his knees amid what was now not a parking lot of abandoned vehicles but a menagerie of creatures from the darkest depth of nightmares.

  The boy realized that whatever had passed over and released its energy beam in its eye-stunning blue burst had the power to create life. And the life it had created here, from the rusted and abandoned hulks, were either born from real creatures of the Gorgons’ domain, or from the imagination of an alien warlord. Bulky, muscular shapes began to rise up from the concrete. The boy was in their midst, among their clawed feet and legs that seethed with red and black spikes. Horned heads with multiple eyes and gaping mouths scanned the battleground, as the Cypher soldiers opened fire. The red coils of otherworldly flame flailed out, striking and burning the newborn and monstrous flesh. The creatures that were hit roared and yowled, shaking the earth, and others rushed forward with tremendous speed upon the soldiers. As the boy watched in stunned horror while the Gorgon creations struck left and right with spiked arms and claws into the mass of soldiers, he noted that one of the thickly-muscled beasts had a Denver Broncos decal on the reddish scales at juncture of shoulders and neck. It appeared to be just underneath the armored flesh, like the faded remnant of an earthly tattoo.

  The soldiers fired their weapons, scaled flesh burned and smoking, the creatures crushed and tore apart and trampled the long slim figures in their black uniforms, and intestines that smelled of grasshopper juice flew through the air and splattered where they hit. One monster’s triple-horned head with six deepset crimson eyes burst into flame from a Cypher weapon, and the creature rampaged around the parking lot blindly striking out as its craggy face melted like gray wax. The Cyphers were being overwhelmed and crushed beneath the monsters, and some blurred away but a few remained standing their ground and firing into the beasts until they too were ripped to dripping shreds. Some on all fours and some on two legs, the creatures began to give pursuit after the retreating soldiers. Three dying Gorgon beasts lay on the concrete being eaten up by the Cypher flames, and they shrieked and beat futilely at the alien fire and tried to rise up from their impending deaths. One got to its knees, its burning triangular head on a thick stalk of a neck turned, and its ebony eyes found the boy, who crawled backwards away from the thing even as the eyes burned out, the flames rippled across its scales and spikes and it fell back upon the concrete with a gasp of life released.

  The boy got up, staggering, and ran again.

  It was all he could do to stay upright, but as he entered the haze of yellow mist he knew he could not—must not—fall. He could hear the roaring of the monsters behind him, off in the distance, and his dirty Pumas nearly flew him off the ground. He was no longer on concrete, but again on a field of mud and weeds. Crumpled and smoking bodies of Cypher soldiers lay around him, where another battle had passed. Score one for the Gorgons, he thought.

  He hadn’t gone another hundred yards when he knew something was coming up fast behind him.

  He was terrified to look back. Terrified to slow down. Terrified, to know he was about to be destroyed in this muddy field.

  Whatever it was, he sensed that it was almost upon him.

  Then he did look back, to see what was after him, and he was about to juke to the right when a rider on a gray-dappled horse emerged from the mist, reached down and grabbed the boy’s arm in a lockgrip. He was pulled off his feet and upward, and a hard human voice growled, “Get up here!”

  The boy got up behind the man and held on tightly to his waist, seeing the man was wearing at his left side a shoulder holster with what looked like an Uzi submachine gun in it. The horse and its two riders swept on across the field, while in the distance the Gorgon monsters roared like a chorus of funeral bells on the last day of the world.

  TWO.

  BUT IT WAS NOT THE LAST DAY OF THE WORLD.

  It was a Thursday, the 10th of May. Some may have wished it was the last day of the world, some may have prayed for it to be and wept bitter tears that it would be so, but others had prepared for yet another day to follow this one, and so the boy found himself on horseback, approaching a fortress.

  On the road that led up to this Colorado hilltop on the southern edge of Fort Collins was an aged and weather-battered sign that showed the stylized emblem of a prowling panther and the tarnished brass lettering Panther Ridge Apartments. At the top of the hill, with a panoramic view of all around, were the apartments themselves. There were four buildings constructed of bricks the color of sand with gray-painted balconies and sliding glass doors. Built in 1990 and at one time a desired address for swinging singles, the Panther Ridge Apartments had fallen on hard times since the crash of 2007, and the investment company that owned it had sold it off to another company in the beginning of a downward spiral for maintenance and managers. The boy knew none of this. He saw only four dismal-looking buildings surrounded by a fifteen-foot high wall of mortared rocks topped with thick coils of barbed wire. Wooden watchtowers with tarpaper roofs stood behind the wall at east and west, north and south. He couldn’t fail to note heavy machine guns set up on pivoting stands at each tower. As the horse and its riders continued up the road to the north, a green signal flag was flown from the south-facing tower. The boy saw a large wooden door covered with metal plates begin to open inward. As it opened wider the horse galloped through and immediately the men and women who had pulled the heavy door open began to push it shut. It was locked by two lengths of squared-off timber manhandled across the door through iron brackets and into grooves in the walls. But by this time the boy was being lifted from the horse by a husky man on the ground who had run up alongside to do just this task. The husky man had a long gray beard and wore leather gloves and held the boy before him like a sack of garbage as he ran deeper into the apartment complex and down a set of stairs. A door was opened, the boy was nearly thrown inside, and the door closed again. The boy heard a key turning in the lock.

  He was, as he discovered within a few seconds, imprisoned.

  The floor was bare white, scarred linoleum. The walls, painted a yellowish-gray, also bore scars. They looked to the boy, as he sat on the floor and examined his surroundings, like claw marks. And bullet holes here and there, too. The door was reinforced with m
etal plates, as the front gate had been. The sliding door to the balcony was covered with sheet metal and barbed wire. One small square of window allowed in a weak shaft of light. There was no furniture. The light fixtures had been removed but of course there was no electricity so the bare wires hanging down were just reminders of what had been. He saw on the walls and floor what might have been the faint brown remnants of bloodstains.

  The boy said, “Okay,” just to hear his own voice again.

  And it was more than that. Okay. If he had made it across that field and out of that parking lot with the Gorgons and Cyphers all around, then he was going to survive. He knew he had a survivor’s instinct, though he had no idea who he was or where he’d come from. So…okay. And okay because at least he was with humans, and maybe they were going to stick him in a pot, boil him, and eat him, but…well, maybe thinking that way wasn’t so okay, so he let that go. But at least he was with humans, right? And okay because for the moment—just for this moment—he felt safe here in this little apartment prison, and he didn’t have to do any more running right now, and he was tired and hurting and it was okay just to sit here and wait for what was coming next.

  What was coming next was not very long in coming. Within a few minutes the boy heard the key in the lock again. His heartbeat quickened. He tensed and slid himself across the floor to press his back against the wall behind him, and he waited as the door opened and three men came into the dimly illuminated room. One of the men carried an old-timey black doctor’s bag and a burning oil lamp, which he held toward the boy as he entered. The other two men were armed with submachine guns, which they also aimed at the boy.

  The door was closed and locked behind them.

  “Stand up,” commanded one of the men with a machine gun. “Take off your clothes.”

  “What?” the boy asked, still dazed from his run.

  “Up,” came the rough voice. “And your clothes off.”

  The boy got to his feet. The man who had spoken to him was the same who had heaved him up upon the horse. This man was maybe forty years old, was of medium build, but obviously strong for his size. He had a hard-lined face with a hawk’s beak of a nose and deep-set, wary, dark brown eyes. He looked like he’d never known what a smile felt like. Such a thing might break his face. The man wore faded jeans, brown workboots, a gray shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and on his head was a grimy dark blue baseball cap. He had a brown beard edged with gray. Around his left shoulder and hanging down close at his side was the holster for his very deadly weapon. On his left wrist was a battered-looking watch that had no crystal.

  “Go ahead, son,” the man with the doctor’s bag urged. He was older, probably in his mid-sixties, was white-haired and clean-shaven, thin and dressed more neatly than either of the others in a blue shirt and faded khakis. He was holding onto whatever he could of his life as it had been. His face maybe had once been friendly and open, but now was strained and tense. The boy noted a holster around his waist with a revolver parked in it, and this man wore a wristwatch that looked to be in fairly good working order.

  “Are you going to kill me?” the boy asked, speaking to the elder man.

  “If we have to,” replied the hard-faced man. “Get your clothes off. Now.”

  The third man, thin and sallow and black-bearded, stood aside near the door. The boy figured he was there in position to get a clear line of fire. The boy began to undress, slowly because his bones ached and he felt so weary he could sleep for a hundred years. When he was out of his clothes and they had dropped around him to the floor, he stood motionlessly while the three men stared at him in the light of the oil lamp.

  “Where’d you get all those bruises?” asked the doctor-man, in a quiet voice.

  The boy looked down at himself. He hadn’t realized. Across his chest was a massive, ugly black bruise. It covered from shoulder to shoulder. Black bruises were streaked across his sides, his stomach and his thighs. He had no memory of what had caused those injuries, but now he knew why he was aching and he was spitting up blood. Something had hit him, very hard.

  “Please turn around,” said the doctor-man. “Let’s see your back.”

  The boy did. The black-bearded man at the door gave a low grunt and the hard-faced man spoke in nearly a whisper to the third one.

  “My question again,” said the doctor-man. “Where’d the bruises come from?”

  “I don’t know,” came the still-stunned answer, as the boy turned to face them again.

  “You have an equally large bruise across your back and down your spine. Your contusions look to be very severe. You’ve been through an extremely violent incident…not like falling down some stairs or skinning a knee. I mean…violent.” He stepped forward, shining the lamp into the boy’s eyes.

  “Careful, doc!” warned the hard-faced man. His Uzi was trained on the boy’s midsection, and did not waver.

  “Are you spitting up blood?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’m not surprised. What’s surprising me is that your lungs didn’t burst and that you still can breathe. Your hearing all right?”

  “Got a little ringing in my ears. They kind of feel stopped up. That’s all.”

  “Hm. Interesting. I think you’ve been through…well, I won’t say right now.” He offered a thin, crinkly smile, which was maybe the best he could do.

  “Can I put my clothes back on?”

  “Not yet. Hold your arms out to your sides, will you?”

  The boy did as he was asked.

  The doctor gave his medical bag to the hard-faced man and neared the boy again. He shone the lamp over the boy’s body, and seemed to be looking for something in particular. He frowned as he examined the huge black bruise across the boy’s chest. “You can lower your arms,” he said, and the boy did. Then the doctor reached back and opened the medical bag. From it he brought a hypodermic needle, which he uncapped ready for use. “Left arm, please,” he said.

  The boy hesitated. “What’s this for?”

  “A saline solution.”

  “What’s it for?” the boy asked, with a little irritation.

  “We’re checking to see,” said the doctor, “whether you’re fully human or not. The saline solution causes a reaction in the alien blood. It heats it up. Then things happen. Left arm, please.”

  “I’m human,” the boy said.

  “Do what you’re told,” the hard-faced man spoke up. “We don’t want to shoot you for no reason.”

  “Okay.” The boy managed a tight smile. He offered his left arm. “Go ahead.”

  The needle sank into a vein. The doctor stepped back. Both of the other men were ready with their weapons. The doctor checked the time on his wristwatch. About a minute slipped past. “Dave,” the doctor said to the hard-faced man, “I think he’s clean.”

  “Sure about that?”

  The doctor stared into the boy’s face. His eyes were blue, nested in wrinkles, but were very clear. “No nodules I can see. No abnormalities, no growths. No reaction to the saline. Let’s give a listen to the heart and take a bp reading.” The doctor retrieved a stethoscope from his bag, checked the boy’s heartbeat and then used a blood pressure cuff. “Normal,” was the conclusion. “Under the circumstances.”

  “What about the bruises?”

  “Yes,” said the doctor. “What about those.” It was a statement, not a question. “Son, what’s your name?”

  The boy hesitated. He was tired and hurting, and he could still taste blood in his mouth. A name? He had none to give. The men were waiting. He decided he’d better offer them something, and he thought of a name he’d recently seen. “Ethan Gaines,” he answered.

  “Really?” Dave cocked his head to one side. “Funny about that. One of our lookouts spotted you through her binocs running into that high school parking lot. Funny, that it’s Ethan Gaines High School. Was, I mean. So that’s your name, huh?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “I think,” the doctor said, “he doesn’
t know his name. He’s suffered a very violent concussive event. An explosion of some kind. Might have been caught in a shockwave. Where are your parents?”

  “Don’t know,” the boy said. He frowned. “I just seemed to wake up, all of a sudden. I was running. That’s all I remember. I know I’m in Colorado…in Fort Collins, I think? But everything else…” He blinked and looked around the little prison. “What’s this place for? What did you mean…about the alien blood heating up?”

  “That’s for later,” Dave said. “Right now, we’re the ones asking the questions…like where you came from?”

  The boy had reached his limit with Dave. Whether the man was holding an Uzi on him on not, he didn’t care. He took a solid step forward, which made both guns train on him, and he thrust his chin out and his blue eyes glinted with anger and he said, “I told you. I don’t remember who I am, or where I came from. All I know is, I was running. From them. They were fighting over my head. All around me.” He had to pause to draw a breath into his sore lungs. “I don’t know who you people are. I’m real glad you got me out of where I was, but I don’t like guns aimed at me. Either yours or the Cyphers’.” He let that hang for a few seconds, and then he added, “Sir.”

  The weapons were lowered. Dave glanced quickly at the doctor, who had stepped to one side and was wearing a small, amused smile.

  “Well,” said the doctor. “Ethan, I think you can put on your clothes now. As for who we are, I am John Douglas. Was a pediatric surgeon in my previous life. Now, mostly an aspirin-pusher. This is Dave McKane,” he said, motioning toward the hard-faced man, “and Roger Pell.”

  “Hi,” said Ethan, to all three of them. He started putting his clothes back on…dirty white socks, underwear that was the worse for wear, muddy jeans, the grimy dark red shirt with the torn-off right sleeve, and the dirt-caked Pumas. He thought to check the pockets of his jeans for anything that might be a clue, but searching them brought up nothing. “I don’t remember these clothes,” he told the men. And he felt something break inside him. It was sudden and quiet, and yet it was like an inner scream. He had been about to say I don’t remember who bought them for me, but it was lost and fell away. He trembled and his right hand came up to press against his forehead, to jar loose the memories that were not there, and his eyes burned and his throat closed up and everywhere he turned there seemed to be a wall.