by Ryder Stacy
Now all that was left were the two great craters, like immense anthills filling the whole sky. Rockson half expected giant ants to emerge from them. The craters, each about a mile high had been built up by the accumulated debris dropped by the winds and rains. Each about two miles wide, they stood facing each other like great hollow mesas. Their slopes had become overrun with bizarre-looking plants, vines, creepers, trees . . . of varied shapes and colors, with prickling, undulating bodies that made Rock not want to even get close to them. Through the binoculars at five miles, as they slowed a little, Rock could see that animals had been trapped in those vegetable jaws. Bones, flesh, and some still alive—struggling, luckless creatures that had strayed too close to the crater walls and had become ensnared in the meat-eating mutations that had taken root there.
They headed far around the place, their spines shivering as they all stared sideways from their saddles at the grisly sights unfolding. It was not something to write home to mother about. Those who had mothers. What a way to go. The craters were visible for more than two hours and they kept turning, looking back, as if the things might uproot themselves from the ground and come after them. Whoever said that nothing was really haunted, that there were no ghosts? That nonbeliever need only come to what had been Topeka, what had been a million souls—and he would feel their souls, would hear their silent screams.
But after several hours, as they came to some low hills, the towers of Babel disappeared and they all breathed sighs of relief. Rock wondered if there had been any survivors. Surely some had made it out—those at the outskirts—and started another town. And after they had gone another ten miles or so east he saw that his Holmesian deduction was in fact correct. For not only did a town stand directly in their path, but a great statue of some kind seemed to guard it, standing over the road that led through the center of what, even from a mile off, was clearly filled with people.
As they got closer, the men wondered if they shouldn’t head back to the craters, for the statue that confronted them was not of the most endearing appearance. It stood a good thirty feet high, and was made of corn stalks, cobs and silk. All woven together and painted to create the giant that protected the town. Its eyes were human skulls, and within them burned lanterns covered with red glass. Its vegetable face was half falling apart, the smile made of dead branches. It was not easy to look at.
“Easy men, easy,” Rock called, turning around to them. Twice he raised his right arm and then lowered it, meaning to slow, watch your ass, make sure your gun is ready. But they didn’t have to be told that, not even the dimmest of them. Archer cocked back the string on his bow and fitted a hunting arrow into it. An arrow that could go through three men—and still be looking for more flesh to penetrate.
They rode slowly up and into the main street and nodded in friendly fashion to the people who seemed to smile back. They wore black robes and round powderkeg hats and reminded Rockson of some of the sects he had pictures of—early American, Amish-type people. A crowd suddenly gathered from both sides of the street, coming out of stores, wooden houses, some even fairly well constructed. All in all the town had a sense of purpose about it—far more than most of the little backwater holes he had seen.
“Welcome, strangers,” a tall, bearded man said, stepping forward out of the crowd and in front of Rock’s ’brid. But he moved slowly and with a smile, and Rockson could see that he wasn’t armed. None of them were. The Doomsday Warrior relaxed a little.
“Howdy,” Rock said, trying to look as friendly and unthreatening as he could. He knew that to a lot of civilized townsfolk, he and his greasy, unshaven crew would look like nothing more than mountain bandits. They had no reason to trust him, either. Rock put both hands up on Snorter’s neck, so they could see he wasn’t about to pull a weapon. “We’re just passing through. Don’t mean no trouble. If we could get a hot meal and some food and water for the ’brids—that would be great. We can pay in Freefighter currency—or gold.” He looked around at the hundreds of them now, standing silently on every side. With a start, Rock realized that if they wanted to they could just charge and smother the whole team. They didn’t need any weapons. Then he berated himself for being so damned paranoid.
“Yes—we can provide all that you ask,” the man said calmly, smiling back in a way that Rock found both very comforting, almost fatherly—and also chilling at the same instant. For there was something dead in the man’s tone. As if he had no emotion at all. Rock rubbed his eyes. He had to slow down, cool out, mellow up.
“I am Jabiel—and we are the Clavendish,” the man said, sweeping his arm around in a circle to indicate the townspeople. “We are the People of the Corn,” he went on, and Rock suddenly noticed that around their necks were pieces of corn—from single kernels on a strand in a necklace-like arrangement, to whole cobs, dangling like immense hippie medallions on their chests. They really were into corn!
“For Corn and God are the same,” the man went on, his eyes starting to get a little fiery and excited. He stared at Rock as if he had a desperate message to part. “Procreation, extermination, recreation, those are the three forces of the corn!”
“Right,” Rock said, trying not to fall asleep in his saddle. But they had all been given numerous warnings by C.C.’s anthropology experts not to ever insult anyone’s culture or religion. America had broken down into countless little cults, organizations, belief systems. Wherever people had been trapped, isolated when the bombs struck—often they stayed that way forever. And their children and their children’s children knew only that life, that cave, that valley. And often, whatever few books or objects that were still among them took on titanic religious significance, becoming the foundations of their society, their belief system. Rockson had once run into people living in a shopping mall who worshipped R.H. Macy, the twentieth-century retailer.
“Yes, we have what you want—food, rest, warmth. All men need these things. They are the three basic needs. Come, come with me. You shall be taken care of.” Rock didn’t like the sound of those last few words, either. He had seen too many old film-noire videos back in the C.C.’s film archives not to know what they usually signified. But again, was he being antisocial? The other men of the team looked at him imploringly and Rockson relented without giving it all too much more thought. They would eat, and rest—a little town, friendly people. And yet, something was wrong, horribly wrong, and gnawing at his stomach like a rat.
But once they were all seated inside, by the roaring fireside of the inn, with plump cheerful waitresses and bowl after bowl of lamb stew and rabbit pie, and corn—god did they serve corn: cornbread, corn pie, corn flakes, corn pudding, corn sauce, corn juice. But it was all good, delicious in fact, and the men gobbled down enough to make a python reach for the Pepto Bismal. The women were buxom and their ample breasts swung around in the team’s faces so that soon they were all red-faced and laughing as they sank into a sort of mini-Bacchanalian food and beer frenzy. And yet, Rock swore that as the smiling women turned away the smiles dropped from their faces like a meat cleaver descending on a sow’s throat. As if they would waste not one drop of energy more than they absolutely had to. But again, he chided himself. He’d been out on the range too long. Not everyone was a murderous cannibal, for God’s sake. So he made himself relax a little more—and asked for thirds.
Thus they partied into the evening as Jabiel told them all of the town’s founding by corn farmers a century before. Just three families at first. But they survived—and lived on their corn surpluses. Thus the Clavendish—named after the largest of the families back then—had stayed on and multiplied. And because they had lived on, nay, survived on the corn that had been stored, they came to worship it, to have it be an integral part of their daily life, from the ritual washing of their feet and hands with corn juices in the morning upon rising, to numerous other rituals performed every day.
“We pray to the corn, the howling of the corn. And many more things,” Jabiel concluded, smiling that benign smile of
his, “that wouldn’t interest you. And now I bid you good night,” he said rising. “I have things I must attend to. I’m sure you will find your hosts here more than helpful. When you are ready—there are rooms upstairs, and soft feather beds. The softest ye shall ever sleep in.” And with that the towering figure was gone, into the night, his long black coat snapping in the breeze of the inn’s doorway.
They ate and drank and told war stories, until they were all in fine fettle and had to help each other upstairs to their rooms, singing such favorites as “A Hundred KBG Heads on the Wall,” and “Bang Bang Susie,” the thousand-verse version. They were to stay in one large room, they discovered as they stumbled through the door, half falling over each other in stupid giggles. Five beds were made up, sheets pulled back, soft down pillows all plumped and filled with air just waiting to cushion their heads.
“Home. I’m home,” Detroit screamed as he swan dived through the air and landed on the bed nearest the window, his favorite spot—so he could heave grenades should the need arise. Rock knew what he meant. The whole place had such an archetypal feeling about it. It was home. Everyman’s in his dreams. From the pink-faced kindly lady outside to the lusty young blondes downstairs, to this room with its creaking wood floors, its old prints of dogs and goofy things on the walls, its ancient floor lamps. It all was like some half-remembered dream from childhood and was very powerful.
Powerful enough to make all of them, even Rock, fall down on the ultra-soft duck-feather beds and fall asleep almost instantly. Who wouldn’t fall asleep—and sleep like a lamb—at home. At the home of their dreams. But they had scarcely dozed off when they all felt something pricking their arms and legs. Hypodermic needles shooting into their bodies in a dozen different places. Squirting some kind of burning liquid into them. To a man, their minds were awake instantly from the jolt of adrenaline that rushed through them, telling them they were being attacked—poisoned—killed. But even as they started to try to rise, the drug that had been injected into them—a mixture of incredible potency—flopped them back down like puppets. Like deaf and dumb puppets that had just made a big mistake.
Twelve
But though they were puppets—in that their bodies were no longer functional but lay on the beds, every muscle frozen—their minds were fully conscious and alert. After a minute or so, Jabiel walked back in. This time there was a real smile on his face. The grim smile of the reaper about to harvest his crop!
“Works amazingly fast, doesn’t it?” the head preacher or whatever the hell he was asked, looking down at Rockson, whose eyes were focused straight up, though he was so paralyzed he couldn’t even move the muscles of his eyes to follow the black-coated leader of the Clavendish as he walked slowly around the Doomsday Warrior’s soft, imprisoning bed. “Yes, it’s a mixture of curare and sodium pentathol—along with a few other things with complicated names. But that’s not what’s bothering you—is it?” Jabiel smiled again as two of his assistants walked along behind him, similarly clad in black, with the same funereal expressions that they all seemed to love so much.
“What’s bothering you is the question—what are they going to do with us, with me? Well, the answer Mr. Rockson—is we are going to burn you, to consume you and your compatriots in our sacred fires. But we do this not out of hatred or anger—but purely as a sacrifice to the gods, the corn gods. Really—it is quite an honor to be chosen. Though I can’t imagine any of them ever feel that way.” He grinned again, an expression that a rattlesnake might have used on a prairie dog, and walked a few steps to the window, still addressing Rock and the rest of them. Rockson’s brain felt like it was going to explode. To be completely conscious, yet not be able to lift a finger, move a muscle, utter even one word of protest, of defense for his and the others’ lives. That was the worst of it.
“Yes, you see there’s one thing I didn’t tell you about,” Jabiel went on, looking down the main street of the small town at the huge Corn King that stood at the far end. “We don’t just eat the corn, and live by its rise and fall—but we worship it, Rockson. And it is a demanding god. It must constantly be fed food—the fertilizer of human souls, of bodies turned to ashes. Otherwise the crops are bad. Very bad. But you and your men should appease the Corn God for the entire season. We are all very grateful to you for this, of course.”
He turned and walked back to Rockson and stood straight over him, staring down into the frozen blue and violet eyes that glared back at him.
“Yes, if looks could kill—I know, Mr. Rockson,” Jabiel said with a laugh. “But fortunately for me, they can’t. Or I would be long dead. For we take all travelers who come by this road, through this town. No one who has entered has ever left. And they have all looked at me like that, wanting to kill. But the drugs we use are potent enough for the toughest of gunmen. Like yourselves.” He stood back and clasped his hands in front of him and seemed to go into a kind of ecstatic state, his eyes rolling back, his mouth grimacing peculiarly. It lasted but a few seconds and then he returned to normal.
“Ah, but I bore you, I’m certain,” Jabiel said, suddenly energetic and moving faster. “Anyway, I must be on my way to supervise the final construction of the bonfire. It must be just right—you know how those things are. But you shall get to see it soon enough yourself—when the sun rises, in fact. Good-bye Mr. Rockson. Giving of your bodies will help our whole town to live. You can go to the beyond knowing that, feeling a certain pride in it, perhaps.”
“Yeah, right,” Rockson’s brain screamed out, but his lips moved not a muscle, not even a little twitch at one side. Never had he felt so helpless—so ridiculous—like an ant beneath a steel boot paused a fraction of an inch over its head.
“Inject, them with the antidote ten minutes before sunrise,” Jabiel instructed two underlings who would stay behind and guard them. He walked to a small table and opened the top drawer, taking out several bottles of fluid and a number of hypos. “Ten minutes before dawn—remember—it takes twenty minutes to take effect. And they must be conscious and feeling everything when they are consumed in the purifying flame. The Corn God demands that no one come to him without their full senses.” Both men bowed slightly to their ruler and he turned and headed toward the door.
“Make your peace with your God, Rockson—for you shall soon meet him.” With that he slammed the old wood door behind him and was gone. The guards made a quick perusal of the room, testing each man’s reflexes by pinching or slapping him. But not a one moved. Out like a light. Their eyes, like Rock’s, were all opened, staring up with such blistering hate at the two Clavendish attendants that neither man could look any of them in the face—but went around doing their jobs as if they were dealing with cows or chickens, not even acknowledging the men as human.
Once assured that things were all right, the two walked to the window and both men stared out at the procession below, at the building of the sacred bonfire in front of the statue of the Corn God. It was their ritual, thus it fascinated them. Fascinated them enough that they didn’t notice one of the prone bodies on the bed suddenly move and rise up to a sitting position. Archer—his face pale as a sheet, his shoulders and arms nearly stiff at his sides, like a corpse. Yet he could move—the mountain man’s system was far tougher and stronger than any man the Clavendish had ever trapped. Stronger even than Rockson’s. Archer had lived in the mountains for decades—eating so much poisonous shit, mushrooms, poison berries, that he should have been a dead man. But somehow his system just seemed to get stronger and stronger, as did his body. And though he could feel the stuff like sludge in his veins, though he felt like he weighed a ton—the mountain man could move.
Slowly turning his head as if it were cemented to his shoulders, Archer saw the two guards engrossed in something outside the window. He knew it was up to him. Everything. The others couldn’t move, he understood that, though he hadn’t understood most of what the preacherman had said. Archer knew he wasn’t that smart—but he knew tonight that it was all up to him. That Roc
k and the others were counting on him to be clever—to get them the hell out of this. He tried to think, think hard; his brain felt like it was smoking, spinning, making him dizzy. First the guards—first had to be the guards. They couldn’t be allowed to warn the others.
He rose and nearly fell over, but after a few seconds steadied himself on his tree-trunk legs. He lurched awkwardly across the room, the floor boards creaking beneath his huge booted feet. But still they didn’t hear, their eyes riveted to the goings-on below. The Clavendish were already gathering with their sacrifice robes, forming a large circle around the Corn God, and dancing, dancing through the night.
One of the guards looked down at his pocket watch—four hours to go until sunrise. As he dropped it back inside an inner pocket of his black robe, the man caught something just out of the corner of his eye. He turned, reaching for the long, curved blade inside his sleeve. But not in time. A tremendous arm, as big as a linebacker’s thigh, came down like a sledgehammer on the man’s head. Archer’s closed fist slammed into the skull, cracking it in half.
The second man turned and froze like a rabbit in a light beam. But then, he wasn’t trained for combat, just for guarding men who couldn’t move. Only this one could. Still moving like Robby the Robot—and unoiled at that—Archer managed to raise his other arm. It seemed to hang there in the air like the avenging hand of God for a few seconds as the Clavendish stared at it with a look of abject terror on his face. Then it descended. This blow hit the man’s neck just at the base. It cracked it in a flash, like a chicken bone being snapped at Sunday dinner. The man, his head askew and hanging sideways off the neck, fell over and joined the wet pile that was his pal.
