It was a guess really. He didn’t know exactly how far away the Fobs were, and he didn’t know how fast they were moving, but they looked too close, and too fast. An hour was about how long it would take him to climb down the six thousand feet of steep trails to the Lodge, so he hoped they had at least that long.
“I need to know if we should attempt to repel the Fobs, or if we should evacuate. Timing is essential, Kate. Please pass this on, now. Over.”
He took his finger off the call button, waiting for confirmation. The radio remained silent. Was she already passing the information along? Was she panicking? Had the message even gotten through? Radio wasn’t always reliable.
He pushed the call button. “Kate, do you copy? Over.”
He waited again. Each second of silence felt like another nail in his coffin.
“Kate!” he shouted into the mic. “Do you copy? Over.”
Her reply came fast and firm. “I copy, Ike. But I’m not passing the sitrep on.”
He wanted to respond. Wanted to shout at her. To beg her why. But until she let go of her transmit button, she wouldn’t hear a word he said. Radios were great for communicating in a world on the brink. Not so great for lover’s spats.
“You’re going to listen to me, Ike. And you’re going to do what I tell you, not some general who sees you as an expendable asset, and not your mother, who is even more detached from her humanity than ever.”
Ike shouted and punched the radio table.
She’s going to get me killed. Going to get my men killed!
“So calm the fuck down, Ike, and listen.” Her language caught him off guard. Like him, she rarely used harsh language, and apparently she could also read his mind from across the country.
He sat still in the metal chair, gripping the sides, trying not to explode.
When she spoke again, her voice had changed. She sounded softer. Sad. “Ike…they wouldn’t let me tell you. Your mother wouldn’t let me tell you. She said you wouldn’t finish the tour, if you knew. I told her that was a good reason to tell you, but like I said, she’s detached. I’m not sure she sees you any differently than all the other soldiers she’s sent…” She sighed, long and hard. “Look, why I’m not passing this up the chain, and why you’re going to evac, now, without arguing…”
Ike’s fingers had gone flaccid. His whole body felt weak. He knew what she was going to say, and his thoughts were already turning toward abandoning the outpost—screw the consequences—but he needed to hear her say it. He needed to know for sure.
“You’re a father.” A pause, and then. “Over.”
Ike’s shaking hand clutched the mic. “A name? Over.”
“Edom,” she said.
Edom. One of the names they had talked about when fantasizing about the future. He had a son!
He lifted the mic to speak, but realized she still hadn’t disconnected yet.
“And Akiva.”
Akiva? Was that Edom’s middle name? It was another of the more unique names on their list, but—
“Twins,” she said. “Over.”
Ike was stunned. His body shook from nerves and adrenaline. When he didn’t respond right away, Kate’s voice returned. “Ishah and Layla have been helping. They already have a brood. Five kids. Can you imagine? Ike, please tell me you’re coming home. Over.”
Ike crushed the call button down and said, “I love you. I’m on my way. Over and out.”
He heard her reply as he retrieved his gear and weapon, and flung himself toward the hatch. “Love you, too. Be careful.”
He didn’t bother closing the hatch behind him. He simply grasped the ladder’s metal sides with his fingerless gloves, placed his boots outside the rails and slid one hundred feet to the bare stone surface of Mount Hood’s summit. He ran for the trail, leaping stones and sliding over steep slopes. Before the outpost had been set up, Mount Hood was a technical climb. There were crevasses, rockslide threats and quickly changing, often freezing weather. But now, the southside path to the lodge was hewn into the stone face, the crevices were bridged, and the loose rocks had been removed. He knew the path well, but had never descended it so quickly. It was dangerous, but not nearly as much as having to fight off a horde of oversized Fobs.
He reached the lodge forty minutes later, out of breath, legs burning, but more determined than ever. He slowed to a fast walk as he approached the broad concrete staircase leading to the hotel’s massive stone façade, which was topped with an American flag. Shooting from the sand bag-walled doorway, which could be sealed if necessary, and the two octagonal windows on either side, they could repel an assault on the hotel’s front. But the building had weak spots, and it would take just one smart Fob to exploit those weaknesses. Not that they were sticking around.
Ike unclipped the handheld radio from his belt and raised it to his mouth. Before he could speak, the coughing of sound-suppressed gunfire filled the air. A moment later, it was followed by screaming.
35
Abraham
Pain spikes from my head on down, and as I drown, I think, that’s weird. I then begin to evaluate this odd line of thought; why am I not freaking out? Am I not afraid of death? Am I grateful for it? Do I want to die? That doesn’t sound like me, or at least the person I want to believe I am. But maybe after all this time fighting for my life, I really just don’t care anymore. Or maybe I haven’t at all, since I lost my family. What’s the point? Burying them, I conclude. Closure. Then I can die.
A moment after the revelation comes, I feel air on my face. My vision clears, and I see Graham standing beside me, one hand on my arm, the other gripping a handful of my bushy graying hair. Then I heave, coughing ocean water all over him, and gasping in one ragged breath after the next, as he carries my wet weight and both of our go-packs onto the squishy shore.
Panting follows gagging, and after a few minutes I’m breathing normally and wincing at the overwhelming flavor of salt in my mouth. Burning my throat. Coating my lungs. My stomach convulses, and I vomit onto the spongy, green shoreline.
“You okay?” Mayer is seated behind me. Her hand is on my arm.
“At least…I can’t…taste the salt now,” I manage to say before puking again.
Mayer pats my arm. “It will pass in a minute.”
As I lie there, staring down the emerald shoreline, waiting for my body to equalize, I start making observations. The beach, or what used to be a beach, is coated by a thick green fungus. I rub my fingers against the surface. It feels like a mushroom, but it’s far less fragile, having no trouble supporting our weight. I push on it with my fingers, expecting to punch through the surface, but it just bends and springs back, like a memory foam mattress. Smells like a vegetable smoothie, though, and I swear I can feel the oxygen pumping out of it. My attention turns to the red spots. They start a few feet up from the current waterline, probably just outside the high tide waterline. Each ruby spot ranges from baseball to basketball in size, spaced out every five feet or so. The larger spots have far fewer neighbors.
I ponder the spots, while my insides twist and coil. My veins feel like they’re pumping cement that’s hardening and expanding. Who knew surviving drowning could hurt so much? At least I didn’t need CPR. Then I’d have broken ribs to boot.
Graham is on his feet, searching the area, slowly working his way toward the high tide waterline. I blink my eyes, focusing on the red spots. There’s more there than just spots. Debris, washed up by the ocean. Sticks. Old world trash still floating about. Dead animals.
Too many dead animals.
Mostly crabs and sea birds, but I can see the carcasses of larger creatures further down the beach, all of them congregated around one of the spots.
“Stop!” My voice is ragged and stings from bile and salt, but the message is loud and clear.
Graham freezes in place, one foot still in the air. He backtracks a step and turns to face me, eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation. He’s not impatient or annoyed. He trusts my warnings,
but he’s not a fan of being startled. We’re also supposed to use ‘inside voices’ when we’re on land. Loud noises tend to attract unwanted attention, and my shout broke that rule and then some.
Mayer stands and offers me her hand, yanking me to my feet. After making sure I’ve got my land legs back and am not about to puke again, I walk to Graham’s side and look down at the softball-sized red spot he was about to walk over. I let out a chuckle.
“What’s funny?” Graham asks.
I shake my head. “My inner monologue. I’m still comparing things to Old World objects.” I point down at the spot. “Softball.” I point to a smaller one. “Baseball.”
He points to a much larger spot, closer to the forest’s edge. “Faule Mette.”
Mayer snickers. “Really?”
He shrugs. “Old habits.” He looks at me. “Right?”
“What’s a Faule Mette?” I ask.
“Cannon,” Graham says. “Fired 735mm rounds. About three times the size of a basketball. So, you’re not the only one. Now, what has you spooked?”
I locate a long dead branch, smoothed by life at sea before being deposited on the shore. It’s about the size of my arm, and should do the trick. I move the branch toward the spot, planning to poke it and see what happens. But the moment the branch hovers over the red blotch, it’s yanked from my grasp. I shout and stumble back. The branch has been run through by what looks like a spear-tipped tubeworm. The top splits and opens, unleashing a writhing mass of white tendrils that wrap around the wood, caressing its contours. Then the tendrils snap back inside, the sharp tip closes and the four-foot-tall creature retracts back into the red spot, freeing itself from the stick, which rolls away, stopping at Graham’s booted foot.
“Okay,” Graham says. “That wouldn’t have felt—” He cocks his head slightly in a way that is his equivalent of shouting, “Oh shit!” It means we’re about to be in big trouble. And then I hear it, too.
Water. Spraying. Rushing toward us.
I turn back to the ocean.
The sea-Scion hasn’t given up. It’s rushing the shore, one eye deflated, the other trained on us, not Hope.
As one, we turn and run. In situations like this, we react as a unit now. No one needs to shout ‘run’ or remind the other to not step on or over the red spots. We just act, charging up the spongy shoreline, evading living spears and following the leader to safety. Or death.
I glance back again when the fungal beach quivers beneath my feet. The massive Scion has reached the shore, but can it pursue us? It is, without a doubt, a creature of the sea. It won’t be able to chase us over land.
And then it proves me wrong.
Jets of water shoot from the liquid filled sacks covering its abdomen, launching the creature forward. It glides up the shoreline like a hovercraft, moving on a liquid carpet ride, closing the distance between us, as we try to not be impaled by the land itself.
But the Scion takes no such precautions.
The beast quivers. Its massive mandibles snap open wide. Its three Cheshire mouths gape in a silent scream. Forward momentum snaps to a stop, and then with a deep welling shriek, the creature rears up, arching back. A dozen living spears are torn from the beach, their bodies ranging in size from five to fifteen feet. Long white roots wriggle at the end of each stalk, each one tipped with a red sack similar to the Scion’s eye, and marking the strange subterranean worms as Scion themselves.
As water gushes from the punctured fleshy balloons, we continue up the beachhead, each step slower than the previous, as the density of red spots increases. At the border of the forest, the spots are in tight proximity to each other. Without debating, Graham launches himself at the spots and dives over. Spears jut upward like a trap worthy of Indiana Jones, but Graham is already gone by the time they’re fully extended.
Mayer and I pause, waiting for the spears to retract. Once they’re underground, Mayer makes the leap and is nearly struck in the leg, but she slides into the dark forest and rolls to her feet. They make it look easy. They always do. I’m far more capable than I once was, but I still lack their natural grace.
The enraged sea-Scion lets loose a gurgling roar and lunges up the beach. It’s impaled once more, but seems oblivious to the pain this time, perhaps because the ruptured sacks have already been drained. Or it sees us as the source of its pain and is out for vengeance.
I take two steps closer to the forest, getting ready to leap. The heavy pack over my shoulders pulls me forward, threatening to topple me over the mass of red spots. Using the momentum of my fall, I shove off and leap into the air. The backpack’s weight pulls my back forward and my head down. Instincts draw my hands out toward the ground. Something strikes my legs, and then I’m beyond it. My legs flip over my head, continuing their arc with enough energy to propel me back to my feet. When I rise back up on the far side, cloaked in the shade of an unfamiliar forest, I look into the shocked faces of Graham and Mayer. “Did I just flip?”
“Something like that,” Graham says. “You’re getting better at this.”
“It’s been fifteen years.”
He grins. “You’re a slow learner.”
The solid earth beneath us quakes. The Scion is halfway up the shore, and writhing closer. A veritable beard of Scion-tubes hang beneath its jaws, surrounded by limp sheets of popped orange flesh.
“Let’s go,” Graham says, backing away into the forest, his M4 assault rifle now pressed against his shoulder.
Mayer unclips her sound-suppressed TAR-21 assault rifle, chambers a round and follows after him. The weapons, now wet with salt water, will probably still function, but we’re going to have to take them apart and clean them soon. Even when the water dries, it’s going to leave a sticky salty residue that can keep a gun from firing, or worse, cause a backfire.
Exhausted from my near drowning, I opt for my handgun, a sound-suppressed Sig Sauer P229. It’s easy to use, and reliable, just like my assault rifle, a sound-suppressed AK-47. We picked it up in what once was Iran. According to Graham, its simple design, lack of dainty parts and environmental protection make it the perfect weapon for someone who doesn’t know much about weapons, which also accounted for its popularity world-wide…before the world ended.
The forest is a mix of old and new. I see maples, elms, pines and oaks, all mixed in with mossy heaps of green that remind me of the shoreline, but lack the red spots. Still, we do our best to avoid any foliage that can’t be identified. When we reach a patch of what looks like fifty-foot-tall, fuzzy green Muppet legs, we have to risk it. We need to move inland, not just to distance ourselves from the sea-Scion, but to reach our goal.
Downsville, New York.
Home.
The tall trees, many of which grow up through the remains of decrepit Old-World homes, smell sweet, and they’re topped with plumes of bright flowers. Buzzing clouds of what Graham thinks are bees attend the open petals, but when one of the small creatures zips past, we realize that they’re hummingbirds, adapting to the new environment by forming new symbiotic relationships with Scionic life.
On the far side of the Muppet forest, Graham stops. At first, I think he’s taking a break, but when I catch up and see the large white sign, tilted at an angle and half absorbed by a Scion-tree, I understand. I read the sign aloud, “Welcome to Harriman,” and then adlib the rest, “Population, zilch.”
“Zilch?” Mayer asks.
“Means, zero.”
“Huh.” She settles down, slips out of her backpack and starts disassembling her TAR-21.
“How far to Downsville?” Graham asks. He’s never been there, but we’ve talked about our pasts in depth. With no TV and few books remaining, when we’re not fighting for survival, we’re talking. Mayer resisted joining us the first two years, evading familiarity to stay sharp, but when it became clear we were something like the Three Musketeers—Graham’s comparison; mine was the Three Amigos—she started getting to know us, which led to her romance with Graham. They really are kindr
ed spirits, which is great for them, but sometimes hard on me. All those years I spent running away from my family… I try not to dwell on it. I’ll see them again soon. Or what’s left of them…if they ever made it back home at all.
Fighting a sudden wash of melancholy, I reply. “Seventy miles. As the crow flies.” I point up at a Scionic bird, flying past high overhead. The red sacks on the bottom of its body fill with air during each downbeat of its wings, then fart it out as the wings rise again, keeping the creature’s flight path smooth. “Or whatever that is.”
“The great red-titted queef,” Mayer says, revealing nothing more than a smirk, while Graham and I try to silence uproarious laughter. Of the three of us, Mayer has the most sinister and filthy sense of humor. It lifts the spirit, but sometimes makes stealth a challenge.
I wipe tears out of my eyes, while Graham sheds his pack and erases the humor from his face like a pro. “I’m going to scout the area. If we get a good night’s sleep and rise with the sun, we’ll cover the seventy miles in two days.”
He leaves without another word, leaving my insides to cramp, while I think, two days…two days…oh God…
“You going to puke again?” Mayer asks, that trace of a smile still present. “You look a little—”
“Terrified. Horrified. Squirrelly. Take your pick.”
“We’ve survived worse.” She waves her hand in the air like she’s brushing away a fly.
“I wasn’t talking about the Scion.”
She removes the magazine and ejects the single round already in the chamber, catching it and popping it back in the magazine. Then she lays her weapon on a white rag, disassembling its various pieces and laying them out. She picks them up, one by one, wiping, brushing and oiling with the attentive care of a new mother. It’s a full five minutes before she speaks again.
“I felt like you on our return trip to Israel. Questions about what I would find plagued me. Friends. Family. Rotting corpses. Destroyed memories. I pictured horrors piled atop horrors. Do you remember what we found?”
Apocalypse Machine Page 24
