The Dire Earth: A Novella (The Dire Earth Cycle)

by Jason M. Hough

  Something thudded against the hood of the car, rolling up and over the windshield, leaving a smear of blood on the glass. Sam stood on the brakes, capacitor-regen whining in response as the car skidded to a halt.

  Sam’s heart hammered in her chest. “Stay here,” she said, and pushed her door open without waiting for the inconsolable girl’s response.

  Outside Sam’s feet landed in an ankle-deep puddle. Mud sucked at her shoes as she worked her way toward the rear. The road was quiet. The birds, the wildlife, silent.

  A body lay in the road, ten meters behind. Samantha’s hands went to her mouth as she recognized the uniform even under the dirt and mud. Ranger Kirk.

  To her amazement he moved, groaning, and pushed himself up to a half stand. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Sam found the nerve to speak. “I’m so sorry! Are you … I mean, are you okay? Jesus Christ, man, what were you doing in the road? I …” Sam trailed off.

  Kirk’s head had tilted to one side, as if he hadn’t understood a damn thing she said. And then he coiled, rocking back on his feet, his movements primal, more animal than human.

  A car door closed. Sam jumped at the noise, turned. Through the window she could see the empty passenger seat. “Shit. Marni!”

  The sound of rustling foliage caught her attention, a dozen meters into the underbrush. Sam raced around the back of the vehicle, half expecting to see a crocodile waddling across the open ground toward the sick teen.

  What she saw instead was worse.

  The girl was running.

  Marni was fifty meters away already, racing between the low palms, oblivious to the fronds that whipped at her legs. And, Sam realized, she was screaming. A high, warbling sound born more of fear than pain.

  Sam started after her, then remembered Kirk and turned to where he’d been.

  The ranger was two steps away and closing, hands outstretched, face an ugly snarl.

  There was no time to think, no time to try to make sense of anything—the spooked girl, the fact that Kirk had been hit by the car and now apparently wanted revenge. Sam just reacted. She ducked under Kirk’s hands and drove a shoulder into his midsection.

  The older man grunted, whirled, and clawed—fucking clawed—at her face. A clumsy move from a bloke half dazed after getting thrown over the top of a vehicle. Still, one finger ripped across Sam’s nose and cheek before she could swing. Her fist took him full in the face. She felt the cheekbone give, heard the sick rattle of teeth grinding.

  Kirk staggered, went down on his ass, and then came again. His arms, she realized, were covered in blood halfway up to the elbows.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sam screamed, stepping back.

  He kept at her, spitting blood. She could see redness around his neck for a brief instant, some kind of rash. Then he was on her, hands going for her face again.

  “Enough!” Sam yelled, driving her knee up into his groin. He wailed but didn’t stop. She swung again, this time not holding back. Her fist lifted him off his feet and sent him down on his back.

  He groaned once and went still, a trail of blood running from the corner of his mouth to the reddish brown dirt.

  There was no sign of Marni.

  Sam glanced ahead. She could see the camp a few hundred meters down the road. And she could hear more sounds. Screaming, a racking cry, and worse, laughter. Insane, maniacal laughter.

  Though she couldn’t say why, Sam began to jog that way. The fact that she was leaving Kirk in the road never crossed her mind. Chasing Marni into the swamp did, but the girl was already out of sight, and the sonic horror show coming from the direction of camp refused to be ignored.

  Ahead the main building came into view. The wooden structure had all the rustic charm one could expect from an Outback Survival School for Troubled Teens, nestled deep in an Australian reserve. Hand-carved driftwood signs served as a guide. Mess hall that way, cabins the other. Big Lodge in the center, an attached garage off to the left.

  The normally quaint lodge now had its front door wide open with a body lying across the threshold, coils of intestines and gore trailing inside. One of the boys. The nerves in Sam’s gut tightened into a ball of dread. What if one of the kids got to the gun locker? Some kind of rampage? Oh God.

  She was still a dozen meters from the door when a cold rush of adrenaline finally swept the fear and pain aside. Something terrible had happened, but she might still be able to help. Sam swallowed and tried to see the situation with fresh eyes.

  The dirt road widened into an informal parking area in front of the structure, then branched off east, toward the river, and west, toward civilization. Sam glanced west. Thirty minutes to the highway, another ten to East Palmerston. That’s how long it would take for help to arrive. She fished the slate from her pocket and tapped the red emergency-call button. Without the boost of a HocNet her signal was weak, but she still managed to get a connection after a few dreadful seconds. Sam pressed the slab of metal to her ear and waited, feeling suddenly exposed and very, very alone.

  A pleasant voice informed her that all addressable channels were in use, and said to try again later.

  “Figures,” she said to herself, ready to toss the device aside, until she saw the reminder of sixteen messages, only now the count had reached twenty. She skimmed them:

  FROM: Mum

  MSG: Are you watching the news, dear? It’s so horrible.

  FROM: Mum

  MSG: Don’t worry about us. Your dad put up sheets on the windows.

  FROM: Mum

  MSG: Neighbors arrp4]

  “What the fucking hell?” She skipped to the end.

  FROM: Chelsea

  MSG: Darren safe im driving there plz call

  Sam tapped out a reply to the last one, only to get an error that no service was available. Who the hell is Darren?

  Movement caught her eye, to the right. A girl had burst through the foliage and stopped in the middle of the uneven road. Despite the filth that covered the child, Sam could see the blond ponytail even from here. “Marni! Come to me!”

  The teen stayed put. Unlike Kirk, she kept her face turned slightly away from Samantha and her eyes downcast. A submissive posture in stark contrast to the savagery the park ranger had shown. The rest of her body expressed it, too. Hands shaking at her sides, not raised to fight. The toes of one bare foot lightly pressed into the dirt as if she wanted to be able to flee at any moment.

  “What happened to you?” Sam asked.

  Slowly, achingly so, the girls eyes lifted to meet Sam’s. The contact lasted only an instant before the girl flinched and glanced toward the lodge. Sam forced herself to look there, too.

  Two people were in the doorway, one hunkered down on all fours, the other standing with his hands grasping the empty frame of the opening. They both had the same expression Kirk wore. Narrow eyes and bared teeth. A simmering promise of violence. Sam swallowed hard. She vaguely recognized both of them as members of the camp. Two kids.

  Just kids.

  The crouched one moved first. She darted across the planks of the building’s front deck and raced toward Marni. The girl, Sam saw, was already running away at incredible speed. A rabbit being chased by a dingo.

  Sam turned back. The one in the doorway hadn’t moved, but he’d coiled.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Sam said, voice wavering. “Please …”

  The kid rushed forward, closing half the distance before Sam broke and ran for the car. She felt a weight clapping against her thigh as she ran and she remembered the magazine of ammunition in her pocket. The rifle behind the seat.

  She’d never make it in time. The deranged teenager was closing fast. And if she did make it, what then? Shoot him?

  “No.” Sam had to voice the denial to kill the thought. She couldn’t hurt one of the kids, no matter what drug or poison had driven them all crazy.

  So she ran. She’d find help. If it was a drug they’d all taken, it would wear off.

&n
bsp; Sam raced past the knobby-wheeled car and kept going. Tears were streaming from her eyes, and her lungs burned with the exertion. She darted between trees, down a hill, and across a neck-deep stream that on any other day she would have given a wide berth for fear of crocs. And she kept going.

  Sometime later she realized she couldn’t hear footsteps behind her anymore. Sam slowed to a jog, then a walk. Finally, she collapsed.

  Samantha lay in the lumpy mud for a long time, staring at the maze of branches and leaves above her and the blue sky beyond. Shadows crept across her face as the sun made its lazy migration, ever oblivious to the shit mankind got up to.

  I have to go back. She mouthed the words to the sky. It must be tainted dope. One of the little snots must have snuck it in through the garage window, hidden it. They must have spiked Kirk’s food, too, before anyone realized it was a bad batch. Damn kids. Goddamn designer drugs.

  “One tiny little flaw in that theory, Sam,” she said aloud. With a mighty effort she sat. Then she was up and walking through the bush, hands dangling at her sides as her mind sought answers.

  Something had happened, something big or it wouldn’t have garnered messages from her mum down in Perth and Chelsea over in Sydney. What, though? “Marni,” Sam whispered to the swaying branches. “Marni was with me. She didn’t take any … and Mum said they put sheets over the windows. What in the …” A chemical spill, or germ warfare? Australia had had plenty of jealous neighbors since that alien cord arrived.

  She needed information. Two weeks in the media-free camp had left her—everyone but Kirk, really—isolated. And Kirk had been a sour wreck the last few days. He’d known about this, the bastard. Known and said nothing.

  Sam increased her pace despite having no idea what she’d do. At the car she paused. Of Kirk there was no sign. At least, she thought, she hadn’t killed him. Carefully Sam pulled the passenger door open. The rifle lay there, tempting, but the thought of shooting at any of the teens, even as a warning, made her stomach churn. She left it and grabbed a remote for the garage door instead, an idea forming.

  At the lodge she ran at a crouch around the side to the garage. She removed the unlatched padlock that kept it closed at night and stuffed it in her pocket. No sign of the kids—of anyone—but she heard noises from the lodge. A moan, then a snap-jaw response that left the hair on her neck standing. These were bestial noises, yet she knew they came from human beings. Sam swallowed and went to the rear of the garage, using a conveniently placed log to shimmy into the small high window she knew the kids used to sneak in and out sometimes. She should have reported the broken latch, or moved the log, but hadn’t. The idea of catching one of the teens coming in or out seemed useful, another possibility to bond, perhaps. A huge mistake, in hindsight, if tainted pills had been smuggled in here.

  As she landed, a jolt of pain shot up through her shins. She stayed on the ground, crouched and listening for ten seconds. Eventually her eyes adjusted. Sam crossed to the interior door that led into the lodge, then fished the key from her pocket and locked it, wincing as it clicked. Then she crept around the edge of the space to where a stepladder hung from a hook on the wall. Taking care not to jostle any of the tools hanging beside it, Sam took the ladder down and moved back to the space below the window. She set it up there and climbed back out the way she’d come.

  Outside, the birds were singing. She stood at the edge of the garage for a long time. Listening, watching. Letting her nerves settle. Finally, she walked to the center of the dirt lane in front of the building and cupped her hands over her mouth.

  “Is anyone in there?”

  Instantly she heard scrambling footsteps, more than one person, and then a noise like a primate’s call. Something moved in the trees behind her, too. Sam glanced back and saw one of the boys crawling out from the underbrush, twigs in his hair and a deep cut across his forehead. His eyes were narrow, full of rage.

  Sam turned back, swallowing her fear. Four more kids emerged from the front door of the lodge. Another from the far side, opposite the garage. The one who’d chased Marni, she thought.

  Sam was surrounded. By all of them, save the girl who’d fled and the ranger she’d decked. Just as she’d hoped.

  A moment passed. A pause of primal evaluation. Pack hunters evaluating their prey before some silent signal gives the order to strike.

  They came with a ferocity she’d never witnessed, never thought possible, not from people. Sam held her ground, watched them come, reached into her pocket, and pressed the button on the garage remote.

  Off to the side, the wide door rattled and squeaked as the old motor pulled it up into the ceiling.

  When she could hear the rapid footfalls of the one behind her she took off, angling toward the garage. She pumped her legs until they burned as the six deranged teens fell in behind her, snarling like animals.

  Sam ducked under the rising door. She made straight for the stepladder, leapt, and hit the top step as the fingers of her right hand grasped the window ledge. She shoved her left hand, still clutching the garage remote, through the open frame, curling her arm to gain purchase on the wall outside. She pressed the button with her thumb while she pulled, kicking at the same time. Her body slipped through the window as she heard the ladder crash to the ground, a shriek of frustration from one of the kids, and the rattle of the door as it started to close again.

  Sam fell to the dirt behind the garage, landing badly on her shoulder and rolling. She bounced up, ignoring the pain. She tossed aside the remote and fetched the padlock from the dirt where she’d left it. She rushed back to the front of the garage just as the door reached the ground. With a grunt she slipped the padlock through the metal hasp at the side of the door and snapped it closed. Locked.

  Sam backed away, heaving in breaths, ignoring the freakish howls of anger and frustration coming from behind the door.

  These were not sounds people made.

  “I’ll bring help,” she shouted, fighting tears. “I’ll come back. Try to … try to rest, okay? If you can understand me, sleep it off. I’ll find someone who knows what to do.”

  Whether they could hear her over their wild, frustrated shrieks, Sam had no idea. She couldn’t stay and listen to that sound any longer.

  The rugged car had enough cap to reach East Palmerston, just. Someone there could help. Paramedics. Police, too, though that stung.

  There was no sign of Ranger Kirk on the road, or Marni. Sam had to force herself not to stop and search for them. The reserve was massive, and Marni at least had fled with shocking speed.

  “At least we found your skill, little sprinter,” Sam said under her breath.

  Part Three

  Barrier of Sanity

  Chapter One

  SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

  15.APR.2278

  At the twenty-eighth floor the elevator doors slid open and a handsome young couple entered.

  Nigel Proctor flattened himself against the back wall to make room and smiled amicably, despite mild disgust in the woman’s gaze and a very obvious sizing-up from her man.

  They stood with their backs to Nigel. The man said, “Lobby,” same as Nigel’s destination, and then slipped an arm protectively around the girl.

  Ah, Nigel thought, the alpha male and his mate. Honeymooners? Perhaps a little tryst?

  The car chimed in acknowledgment and slid quietly back into motion. A speaker on the ceiling doled out “The Girl from Ipanema,” as all elevators were apparently hardwired to do. Nigel grinned and hummed along. Idly he wondered if the climbers along Darwin’s space elevator followed that universal law and decided probably yes.

  After a few seconds Nigel realized Alpha Male was staring at him. A poisonous glance over one shoulder. Nigel stopped humming and cleared his throat. “Here on holiday?”

  “Yes,” the handsome wag replied, face forward again.

  “I’m here to rob the hotel safe,” Nigel said.

  They both turned their heads. His grip on her arm tightened
. The woman’s eyes narrowed, jaw falling slightly open.

  Nigel did a slight bow, nontrivial in the cramped confines for a man of his generous proportions. “Only joking! Your reaction is priceless, by the way. Lovely teeth.”

  Her mouth snapped shut. In unison they turned back to the blank steel door.

  “I am here to open a safe, but it’s not robbery,” Nigel explained. “All perfectly legal. I’m a locksmith.”

  “Good for you,” the man said without looking.

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  The elevator chimed. Lobby. The couple dashed out the instant the opening widened enough to allow it. Nigel allowed himself a second and then, casually, entered the lobby.

  He felt good. He was here to do a job, true. Not a tryst, no lovely young thing on his arm, but a job. One that came with obscene pay. Besides, there were worse places to be in the world on that particular day. Africa, for example, which had all but disappeared off the digital map the day before. Total media blackout. Whatever political clusterfuck had started there this time must be pretty nasty indeed. Nigel couldn’t bring himself to care much. The nets would return soon enough and there’d be a weeklong media shitstorm, but those were easy to ignore if one was so inclined.

  A valet strode past, nose upturned and eyes forward.

  “You there,” Nigel called. “Direct me to the manager’s office.”

  The man pointed at a corridor off to one side where a bland hallway, almost invisible in the grand lobby of the InterContinental, jutted off. Just then the young couple came back in from the street, she chastising him about forgetting his comm yet again. They stepped back into the elevator. Her eyes settled on Nigel as the door slid shut.

  Straightening the lapels of his duster, Nigel crossed the lobby and ducked into the dark hallway. The long leather coat did little to conceal his bulk—if anything it accentuated it—but there was a certain confidence it gave him, the sensation addictive to the point that he wore the heavy thing all the time now, even on a balmy Sydney evening.