They were not alone in the forest. They had passed many trails, some animal and some human, and a few times they had spotted the shapes of tents and lean-tos in the forest, built with tarpaulins and animal skins and plastic tablecloths. Sometimes the trees near these camps were strung with metal wire from which empty cans dangled, a primitive alarm system. The brothers did not discuss meeting their wilderness neighbors; they merely exchanged a troubled glance and pressed on.
Where were they going? Despite his mention of Federation towns, Victor did not know. They should have been going south instead of north, if they had intended to travel any great distance, but Victor sensed their journey would not take them far. Maybe this was a decision he had privately made. If Dante felt any differently, however, he did not say it.
They hunted; they tracked their course by the celestial bodies and the occasional monuments of civilization; they slept beneath the ascendant moon and woke with the rising sun, and when at last they broke from the forest and found themselves along a crooked highway that rolled and plunged through the hills and valleys, inheriting its course from the feet of cows that had drifted from pasture to pasture in days long past, Victor felt like a new man. The heat of his vengeance, stoked to such fury during his chase of the horsemen, had finally cooled and he could think clearly once again.
His thinking was this: The world had been broken. It was not a clock that needed new batteries to get it going again, but a brick house that has collapsed and must be built anew. The new structure could be just as strong, perhaps, and beautiful in its own way, but it could not be the same as the old one because some of the pieces were missing.
And then he thought: I want to write my name on one of those bricks the way they sometimes draw their names in sidewalks before the concrete hardens. I want to make something that will last forever.
He was on the wrong side of thirty, and in a world without health care or drugstores at every street corner, it was fair to think half his life might already be spent. A morbid thought, maybe, but a fair one. His was the age when a man starts thinking about what he will leave behind, what mark he will make on the world that made him, and when Victor cast his gaze across the photo album of his achievements, few events caught his eye. He had been successful, certainly, and he had worked hard enough to achieve most of the things he had ever wanted, but when his body was in the ground and his name whispered for the last time, what would his legacy be?
He thought of this in the darkness after Dante had drifted off to sleep. He had done enough to impress his friends, had lived through harrowing experiences that made great stories for cocktail parties or picking up women at bars. But when the history of this century was told a thousand years later, would his name even be mentioned? Would his accomplishments even receive the attention of a footnote?
He had never become president or run for the job; never acted in a famous movie, built an iconic piece of architecture, or become a symbol for equality or humanitarianism or progress. He had devoted most of his adult life to the military, keeping his uniform spotless and saying “Yes, sir” and “How high?” and marching to music written by men sitting in leather chairs in dusty old offices with their golf clubs tucked neatly away in their closets and a tray of liquor always near at hand.
“Uncle Sam” was what they called this entity, and for all Victor’s service - the many times he had stepped into harm’s way for the “greater good” - his reward had been a ticket through college, a pat on the back, and a discount at the local barbershop. Name? Reputation? Personal glory? You set all these things aside for a higher cause, trusting that it was a cause worth serving, a cause that would have your back when it was all over.
At some point he had lost his faith in the system. He would have had no interest in the politics of the military or climbing the golden ladder even if such goals had still been attainable. Every act of patriotism was predicated on the belief that one’s cause was just, that one’s country was worth serving. And though Victor did - and always would - love his country, he believed its true ideals had been buried beneath the egotism of career politicians, its true colors replaced by a piracy whose only end was the accumulation of wealth and power.
Victor believed in something more than this. He could not quite say what it was, but he thought he would recognize it when he saw it. And he wondered, during that long wilderness wandering with Dante, whether the destruction of the system was not the birth pang of a new revolution.
___
The highway was not as lonesome as it seemed. Gangs of armed men on bicycles patrolled the tarmac, some wearing strips of bright cloth around their forearms or legs to distinguish themselves, and the brothers soon retreated back to the safety of the forest.
There was a brook that cut a shallow path among the trees. Maples, undercut by stolen soil, leaned inward to cast dappled shade over the merry water. The two men stopped and, like gunslingers on the edge of a new town, surveyed the area in silence.
“Go ahead,” Dante said softly. He now held the Winchester, as he had for the past few days, and his hard eyes watched the trees while Victor filled his canteen at the brook. There was no need for either of them to say anything more. The rigid strictures of the wilderness seemed to have pushed them closer together than ever before, so that sometimes one spoke what the other was already thinking.
“Might be safe,” Victor said, rising as Dante nudged his horse forward, “but we’d better wait until we can boil it tonight.”
“Lumpkin seems to like it,” Dante answered, watching the Belgian’s lips twitch at the water as he drank.
Victor rubbed his forehead wearily. “Please stop calling him that.”
“What? It fits. He’s fat and lumpy, so—Fatty Lumpkin. Besides, it’s memorable.”
“Just give me your canteen.” Victor plunged both canteens into the water, which was colder than he had expected. It passed the eye test, too, though the real danger, of course, would be the parasites he could not see. There was a good chance the water had been contaminated by trash, pollution, or even human waste. You couldn’t always count on moving water being safe if humans lived nearby.
“I’ve been thinking,” Dante began.
“That’s a first.”
Dante gave him the finger. “If you’ll let me speak for a moment, I was going to say I’ve been thinking about what we’ll do when we find other people.”
Victor capped the canteens and stood at the edge of the water, listening attentively.
“It seems to me,” Dante continued in a slow, finding-his-way-as-he-went voice, “the major challenges for survival can be divided into two categories: production and protection.”
Victor raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Go on.”
“Let’s say we run into a group of people who are barely scraping by. They’ll need protection, but they’ll also need food. You can protect people, Vic. It’s what you do. And I…” He paused. “I don’t mean to say I’m an expert at growing food, but I can learn. We could make a great team, Vic—the Farmer and the Soldier.” He smiled, but it was not the cheery, devil-may-care smile he usually wore. This one was tentative, ready to crack at the slightest pressure.
“I’m not sure I have a good track record at protecting people,” Victor answered. “I wasn’t there when you needed me back at the cabin. And don’t forget Jenny. I still don’t know what happened to her. She could be anywhere by now.” He had briefly considered searching for her on the assumption she had escaped the sewers, but there was no trail to follow and he had no idea where she might wander. His sole responsibility now was to look after Dante, as it had been back at the cabin.
“But you never gave up on me,” Dante replied. “You could have left me, but instead you risked your life to save me—more than once.”
Could he really have given up on Dante? No, he didn’t think so. Not every action was a choice, any more than sleeping and eating were choices. Call it destiny, divine guidance, whatever you liked. Some things you were jus
t born to do.
Victor sighed. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you?”
Dante met his gaze, unwavering.
“Who would take us?” Victor asked. “Nobody knows us. People are as likely to shoot us on sight as to give us a chance to talk.”
“We can’t stay out in the woods forever,” Dante answered, and there was a note of sadness in his voice. Despite all the times Dante had wanted to leave the cabin, Victor sensed his brother understood what they would be leaving behind. Out here, they made the rules and lived how they pleased. They trusted one another, risked their lives for one another. As soon as there were other people, everything would change.
“No,” Victor replied softly, “we can’t.”
Just then, Lumpkin lifted his head and pricked his ears.
“Did you hear that?” Dante asked, frowning.
Victor stared through the thin screen of trees. There was just enough light for him to discern the rigid lines of buildings on the other side. Light glared from a tin roof.
“What was it?” he asked.
“A voice. Sounded like a woman’s.”
Then Victor heard it—a woman’s scream, muffled and barely discernible above the murmur of the brook.
“It’s not a good idea, brother,” he said, shaking his head. “It will be getting dark soon, and you’re injured. It could be a trap.”
“It could be anything,” Dante replied. “You’re right—it would be stupid for us to investigate.” He paused. “That’s why I’m going to stay here while you go.”
The tone of Dante’s voice caught Victor by surprise. He was not suggesting the idea or inviting Victor’s opinion. He was telling him how it would be.
“You haven’t been eating wild mushrooms, have you?” Victor asked.
Dante surprised him again by playing the responsible brother. “She sounded like she needed help, Vic. That’s why we’re out here, isn’t it? To find other survivors?”
Victor stared toward the trees again, hesitating.
“Vic!” Dante urged.
Victor turned and pointed his finger at Dante. “You keep that gun ready, and if anyone other than me comes through those woods, don’t hesitate to shoot.”
“Fine,” Dante answered. A sly grin stole across his face. “I’ve been meaning to hunt me some wabbits.”
“There’s the brother I know,” Victor said, and trotted off toward the sound of the woman’s voice.
___
The calendar, which was pinned to one of the columns supporting the vast interior of the factory, showed the month of January, 1953. The advertisement at the top depicted a man with a tricorne hat and white leggings leaning toward the words, “Ruppert Knickerbocker: New York’s Famous Beer.”
Victor stared down the length of the second-story room, which was lit just enough to create long, trailing shadows that criss-crossed and overlapped. Rusted fluorescent lamps roosted bat-like from the ceiling. Torso manikins stood skewered on poles like victims of Vlad the Impaler.
“Hello?” Victor said softly, testing the sound of his own voice. Something rustled in the darkness overhead. Probably just a bat, he told himself.
Overturned chairs with metal legs littered the dusty floor, throwing into chaos a room designed for order, regulation, conformity. Bird droppings crunched underfoot as Victor crossed the wooden boards.
And what was that smell?
A banging sound came from the far end of the room. Victor could not see what was down there, but he suspected there might be an office of some kind. The factory might have employed as many as a hundred people in its day, but not without someone to oversee the work.
“Help!” came the voice, more a yell than a scream. “Can anyone hear me?”
The end of the main room was divided by a false wall that ended a few feet short of the ceiling. The wall had two doors, along with windows blocked by junk.
Spray-painted across this wall in garish letters were the following lines:
WE SHALL WASH OUR HANDS IN THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENTS
THE BEAST THAT HUNGERS SHALL BE SATISFIED
Below this scrawl, as if intended to serve as a signature, was a crude imitation of a creature’s head. It appeared to be a serpent.
Victor’s eyes moved from the letters to the picture, and his senses sharpened to the rustling of creatures overhead…the metallic odor of copper in his nostrils…the rhythmic clack-clack-clack now coming from inside the room on the right.
The lady or the tiger, he thought. One door leads to true love, the other to death.
Whoever was on the other side of that door had been put there for a reason. Dangerous animals, not docile ones, needed cages. But what was worse, Victor realized as he studied the footprints in the dust leading to the door, was how easily the woman’s pleas for help had led him to the factory.
Could the trap have been more obvious? But if it was not a trap, if this truly was a woman in need of help, how could he turn away?
“Is someone there?” the woman asked. Young, maybe twenties or thirties. “Please, I don’t know when they’ll come back. Maybe at sunset, and it’s getting dark now. You have to help me.”
Victor closed his eyes, steeling himself for whatever might happen next. “Who are you?” he said through the door. “Why are you locked in there?”
That clacking sound came again. “What’s wrong with you?” she answered, her voice rising. “They could be back any moment!”
“If you want my help, I need to know—”
“Then why don’t you come in here and speak to me face-to-face?”
Victor tried the door handle. “It’s locked.”
“Really, Einstein? Your deductive skills are extraordinary.”
“Stay back.” He raised his right leg and slammed his boot into the door just beside the lock. It was a new boot (he had discovered a sturdy pair at the clubhouse), with plenty of cushion to minimize the impact. The frame splintered and the door swung inward, bouncing off a metal filing cabinet.
She had full, dark hair that was swept back except for a single thick lock across her forehead. Her skin, by contrast, was pale and delicate, with a smooth jaw-line and small ears and a clear face unblemished except for a single mole riding her left cheek. She was wearing a gray pea coat and a red scarf, and she was handcuffed to the leg of a metal desk.
Victor hesitated when he saw her.
“Not what you expected?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. She didn’t look desperate—certainly not as desperate as her situation gave her the right to be. Besides that, she was too clean to have been surviving long in the wilderness.
Victor recovered himself and chose to skirt the question. “Anyone else in here?” he asked, glancing quickly around the room with the Colt in his hands. An open doorway led to the second room of the office, which appeared to be empty.
“Don’t worry, I’m a handful by myself,” she answered.
Victor returned his attention to her. The desk looked heavy, especially if the drawers were full. He could see why someone had assumed she would be unable to lift the desk from her position on the floor and free herself. Still, the situation had the feel of a rushed job.
“Who handcuffed you here?” he asked.
“People,” she answered dryly. “The religious kind. Want to give me a hand now?”
“You said they might return at sunset. Why?”
She shrugged. “Because that’s when their god gets out of bed. I don’t know! Are you here to help me or interrogate me?”
“Trust me, if I was interrogating you, you’d know.”
She laughed, tossing her head to remove the lock of hair from her face. As she did so, Victor noticed a mark on her forehead. The image, a slightly different shade of red from the words scrawled on the office wall, showed three bird-like talons with long nails. The talons appeared to be clutching the woman.
“You like it?” she asked with a bitter smile. “I’ve seen the mark before. It means their g
od owns me—that’s what they think, anyway.” She uttered a short, derisive laugh. “I just hope it’s not permanent marker.”
“So they caught you and just threw you in here for later?”
“Are you asking if I handcuffed myself?”
“I’m asking you to convince me. I want to trust you, but why should I?”
“You’ll have to figure that one out on your own, Sherlock. If you don’t want to help me, I’ll just keep screaming and hope the next visitor has an ounce of human decency.”
Victor held her gaze, measuring her. She was bullish—that much was easy to see. But he sensed a touch of fear behind that defiance. What would happen if he left her? What were the chances anyone else would come along before the fanatics returned? And if someone did respond to her cries for help, how likely was it they wouldn’t take advantage of her?
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