Heaven's Gate

by Toby Bennett

  In common with all of his ilk, the lure of money was what drew Bob and often took him further into the wastes than good sense would allow. Since he was old enough to man a station on a handcart, he’d gone in search of treasure, metal or salvage from the many towns that had sprung up and just as quickly been abandoned to the relentless sands of the desert. Over the course of a decade a town could rise, made rich by ore or by one of the great trains incorporating a new stop on their route, but when the ore failed or the train stopped coming for their own mysterious reasons the richest city could be a ghost town by year’s end. Each month more hopefuls limped back from the wilderness to the stability of the Union Cities, leaving pickings ripe for men with the courage and daring to retrieve what had been left behind.

  Of course, these days, there was more to be had than the slim leavings of those returning pioneers. Less than six years ago the Inquisition had burned its brightest and Angus Leedon’s Grand Crusade had swept like wild fire through the west, scouring many of the settlements clean with holy fervour and flame, leaving behind whole towns, which the pious Crusaders were too sanctimonious to properly loot. All a cartman need do was follow the abandoned tracks marking the train’s meandering; there were innumerable forgotten fortunes still waiting at the end.

  Nothing seemed permanent in the Bowl except the Western line, the single great track that stretched from the city of Hale in the east to hard won Triumph in the west. The line was the backbone of the Union and for uncounted years Tyre and Flame had maintained it. So long as anyone could remember, at least one of the two trains had kept the rhythm on which the towns of the Free Union relied, while the other laid its own meandering tacks through the desert, in constant search of metal or fuel. It was the reliability of the line that allowed the free cities of the Union to thrive, silver from Limit and Triumph, lumber from Brigton and Island City, all moved with the trains. The great cities had even sprung up around the places where the trains routinely stopped. Anything which the trains did not supply or were light on, was supplemented by what men like Bob Tenant and his boys, could dig out of the desert and load onto their hand carts. Thus human civilization had maintained a tenuous grip, despite being surrounded by the savage chaos of the desert.

  Right now, that civilization is only a distant hope for Bob Tenant, a hope that recedes with his growing certainty that there is a train running behind them. The lanterns have already been lit on the carts, even though it is a little over half an hour till actual sundown. On the rear carriage the shuttered light winks off a smeared mirror, which has been carefully strapped on top of the rich haul that represents a month’s scavenging. Was he imagining the tremour in the glass or the rumble beneath his feet? At the moment only Gill and Clark Hayman are working the two great hand levers that propel the cart and its single cargo carriage. Their clean regular strokes could not be producing the vibrations shaking the mirror, yet both are evidently unaware of the impending danger. Bob looks again in disbelief at his timetable wondering if he could be mistaken, but he knows better than to trust the table over his own instincts, even if no one else seems to share his sense of alarm.

  Tyre and Flame are forces unto themselves, if one of them has broken the routine laid out on the timetable all he can do is get out of the way, or watch his rig and everything he has fought for, be scooped up by their greedy silver arms. That’s assuming he didn’t just decide to go down with the rig! He was so far in hock to the bank on this trip that it was unlikely he’d ever be able to get his own rig together again, not to mention the likely slow death that awaited him & his crew if they attempted to make it out of the desert on foot without more supplies than they could grab before abandoning the cart. The rare paper of the timetable buckles under his fingers as his fist balls in frustration, he forces himself to relax. A lot of the money he owed had been spent on the, apparently useless, train timetable in his hand.

  “Shit!” Bob expresses his frustration, before leaping up and making his way back to take his place at the hand pumps.

  “Something wrong boss?”

  “Train’s coming, Brett,” the cartman answers, without bothering to look back. Instead he is craning to see if he can catch some hint of the coming train, but the undulating terrain gave him little hope of seeing it until it was nearly on top of them. No smoke rose from behind them but that didn’t necessarily mean anything, everyone knew that the trains didn’t always run on coal if it was in short supply.

  “You sure?” the dark man asks snubbing his rollup and joining his boss in studying the rise behind them.

  “Sure as I’ve been working these tracks for ten years, I feel it in my bones.” Bob replies, resenting to having to explain himself.

  Gill and Clark wouldn’t have even asked, not that Gill could ask much, his brother had introduced him as a mute and Bob never heard him make a sound. He had sometimes wondered, though as he watched the tireless motions of the brute’s strong arms, if the term could have more than one meaning. Still, Clark kept the big man in line, they both followed orders and if there was more than lumps of muscle under the big, stained, green shirt Gill always wore, Bob didn’t care, so long as he kept pumping. Let the priests and doctors worry about the purity of the race, a cartman has to keep his profit margin.

  “What do you mean ‘these tracks’? I thought you said this was your first time this far west of Limit?” Brett contradicts him yet again.

  Cheap isn’t always good Bob reminds himself, bitterly but there is no time for a fight, the rumble in the old tracks is getting nearer.

  “I don’t see any difference between these tracks and any other I’ve found in the wastes, besides, ‘All tracks touch’,” he counters, quoting an old railman’s saying. “Now get on that lever and pump, if we don’t find a side track before she’s on us we’ll lose everything and that includes your share of the profits.”

  The threat is enough to stir Brett, despite his doubts and all four men take up a quick steady rhythm, which drags the whole rig forward at a speed a little above a man running. Their pace increases still further when light blooms on the horizon behind them and the white eye of a train’s headlamp stabs through the gathering dusk.

  At length even the strength lent to them by fear is flagging and the train is almost upon them. Close enough that they can discern the red luster of Flame’s red paint work, even in the dimming light. Between every down stroke, Bob scans the silvering desert for sign of an offshoot from the main track. He almost misses the answer to his desperate prayers, due to the liquid, tears or sweat, by this time he can’t tell which, pooling in the corner of his eyes. He blinks twice before the low square shape of a junction box comes into focus, as soon as he registers what it is he is looking at, he gives an urgent yell and rushes to the front of the cart. Behind him a train whistle shrills, drowning out Brett’s complaint at having been left to pump alone and giving the struggling rig its one and only warning. Blocking out the sound of the clatter of the train’s wheels, Bob focuses on the approaching box. When the train is only a few hundred meters away, he hits the smoothed button of the track-override. Power surges through the track, mimicking the pulse used by the trains to reset the junction box. The track ahead of them shifts, clicking into position with the siding and allowing them to plunge off the main track. Only seconds after their wheels have left the exchange, the tracks click once again and the red juggernaught plunges by, close enough to shake their tiny cart down to its bearings.

  “Whooo!” Brett howls his relief as the train thunders off to the west.

  Clark joins him, and even Gill punches the air in exaltation.

  “Thought we were going to be oil’n her wheels for a moment there boss!” Brett shouts still panting

  Despite himself Bob can’t help but smile. His own heart is still going a mile a minute, not least because he couldn’t shake the thought that if Flame was off her normal course it was only a matter of luck that she had stayed on the main track.

  “There’s no denying that wa
s a close one!”

  “Think we’re closer to the Western than you said yesterday?” Brett asks, slightly souring Bob’s elation. “I mean if the trains are out here we can’t be too far from Limit.”

  “How long have you been on the tracks, Brett?”

  “Three years or so, since the farm failed, like I told you.”

  “If it’s been that long, why don’t you know that predicting the trains isn’t exactly a science?”

  “No offence, boss,” the ex-farmer responds hurriedly, “just hoping we might be closer to unloading this stuff than we thought, I just don’t much fancy running into another train.”

  Hire old sheep hands and you deserve what you get, Bob thinks to himself ruefully.

  “No offence taken, Brett, but I stand by my reading, we’ve got at least six days of hard rolling before we hit town, longer if we don’t get back on the main track, this line isn’t even on my chart.”

  “Didn’t you say that was something to look out for, Boss?” Brett asks.

  “If we were deeper in the wastes it would be but I can’t imagine that there is anything unscavenged less than a week from Limit, besides it seems to be heading in parallel with the line it’s probably only a siding.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” Clark calls, looking up from his examination of the junction box on this side of the exchange. “The junction box on this side has been ruined by sand, if this isn’t a siding we’re going to have to portage back onto the main track and that’ll cost us the better part of a day on its own.”

  “We’ll carry on on this track as long as they’re parallel.” Bob shouts back, determined not to allow such a small problem to colour his relief at simply being alive. True any stop in the desert was undesirable, portaging would bring a high toll in water and muscle fatigue and of course, it would leave them sitting ducks for wandering bandits, but right now he was just happy to be alive.

  Ignoring their ragged breathing and the rapidly cooling sweat covering their bodies, the cartmen return to their labours, all of them too worked up with adrenaline to even suggest stopping for the night. The tack runs parallel to the main line for a while then begins a subtle creep off to the left. By the time Bob realizes that the tracks are leading him away from his hopes of rejoining the main line, he can see the roofs of several houses, framed by the last of the dying light. Even though his cart is full, the scavenger cannot help but be drawn by the promise of abandoned wealth. Not one of them looks back to notice the sand once more creeping over the tracks behind them, burying the girders again and effectively cutting off escape. It is a minor detail, easily missed in the flow of events, just as none of them notice that the mirror on top of their baggage cart had never, once, reflected the light from the train’s headlamp.

  The tracks roll down into a shallow depression in which the old houses stand, their timbers dry, their white paint leprous and flaked. Broken windows reflect back the light of the cart lamps, like gaping mouths full of flashing jagged teeth. Despite the state of disrepair it is clear to all of them that this place has remained unlooted since its unlucky inhabitants abandoned it, untold months or even years earlier. Some of the houses are half buried, but even they have wooden doors and wooden frames in the window, that much wood on its own bespeaks all sorts of potential. Mentally Bob begins to tally the contents of his cart and consider which of the less valuable items could be left behind. Not that he wouldn’t be coming back for them; a find like this, so close to a big town, presented plenty of opportunity for a return trip and a good fat profit on it as well, if the contents of the houses were as rich as their outsides suggested.

  As they get further into town, Bob notices several bullet holes in the pallid cracking plaster of the houses, he can’t help but rub his hands at the thought that some of Leedon’s boys had cleared the place out and forgotten to burn everything. If he could just find a few of the rarer books that had been all but consumed in the fires of the Inquisition, Bob knew he could more than pay off his rig in one fell swoop. No doubt similar thoughts are flitting through the minds of the other three men, certainly none of them are ready for the sand along side the tracks to explode and seemingly coalesce into a horde of screaming men, women and children.

  Abruptly jerked from his reverie, Bob looks in confusion into a sea of hungry eyes, burning from the shadowed recesses of the gaunt, pallid faces around him; somehow each eye contrives to catch every ounce of the light thrown by the lanterns so that, if he could not see the pale outlines of their faces, he might presume that he was surrounded by the phosphorescent eyes of foxes or cats. Wordless howls break from their lips as the attackers lurch forward. Desperately the cartmen reach for their sidearms. Bob’s hand closes on the smooth bone of his own pistol handle, as he hears the roar of Brett’s revolver.

  Hands grasp at him from every direction. Dear Crimson Christ! The hands on his ankles are those of a child, dragging him down into the heaving mass. Cannibalism was not unknown in the deep desert but he had just not been on his guard for it here, so close to the Union frontier. At risk of loosing his balance and being dragged down into the moaning crowd, he throws back his left hand, taking a firm grip on the rig and squeezes the trigger of the gun in his right. Behind him, Brett is screaming loud enough to call the devil and Bob knows why, when the half shattered child’s head that he had just nailed to the deck with his first shot, raises itself, slopping brains and the yellow fluid of a ruptured eye onto his boots.

  Not cannibals at all! In the desert wild tales abound of demons and spirit possession, of the death cults and dark magics. Bob had been around long enough not to simply shrug off these tales, he’d even seen a possession or two in his time; but, his brain kept insisting, even if the child were possessed, a bullet to the head should have stopped it. According to all the stories it was just about the only thing that did. The boy in front of him laughs, as if enjoying his confusion, revealing a pair of oversized fangs as he does so. Fire flickers in his remaining eye echoed in the hungry stares of the mob, then another shot, louder than the bark of the cartmen’s revolvers, sounds off to Bob’s left. The rest of the boy’s head disintegrates before he can bring his fangs down on his victim. The sound of the shot echoes through the ghost town like the roar of an enraged beast, all eyes turn to regard the source of the dying thunder.

  The Pilgrim sits astride his horse, at the end of what was once the town’s main street. Most of his features are obscured by a wide brimmed hat and a heavy leather coat, wild hair, white, no silver flows beneath the hat, making stark contrast with skin turned dark by the desert sun. Bob assumes the man must be a pilgrim or a prospector because they are generally the only type crazy enough to travel alone in the desert. Then again the horse, standing so calm, unfazed by the smell of gun smoke, and the hilt of a cavalry sabre at his knee, hint that he might owe more allegiance to the army than to whichever lost cause or misguided penance set pilgrims and believers roaming out on the Anvil. Maybe the truth was a little of each, there were enough fanatics in Leedon’s armies to man a thousand pointless quests. The gun resting across the man’s knee seems to be some kind of shot gun, though by the mess it had made of the boy at this distance, it had to be using solid slugs. Bob shudders to think what would have happened had the madman’s aim been off, even a little.

  The attackers are quicker to recover from the arrival of stranger and Bob almost loses his grip on the cart, as a new hand as cold and as unrelenting as iron closes on his ankle. Out if the corner of his eye, Bob can see Clark go down under his attackers, bleating like a sheep in the slaughter yards. Gill bellows his outrage and wades into the fray but for once those tireless arms have met their match and he joins his brother on the ground, torn apart by the undead in their lust for blood. Bob hears the mirror in the baggage cart shatter as Bret clambers onto the pile, trying to put distance between himself and his attackers, whose presence does not register in those silver shards. In the distance the Pilgrim’s gun fires again, dropping one of the fell creatu
res loping from the pack to intercept him. Bob fires his own gun to less effect, pumping the trigger until it clicks hollowly, resounding on empty chambers. Another hand grasps him tearing him down onto the powdery sand beside the track, the back of his head hits the side of the cart and for a moment he blacks out.

  It is pain that brings him back, the pain of two teeth plunging into the meat of his chest and sending fiery poison through his veins. Almost as soon as he is bitten, he is paralyzed, unable to move but he can feel the hollow fangs shifting, pulsing as they draw in his life’s blood. Another bite, in his thigh, then one in his wrist add to the crescendo of pain. He can hear his pulse in his ears like the pounding of hooves. Suddenly, the Pilgrim is amongst them, the cavalry sword blurring in a deadly flashing dance, the silver blade running gold and crimson in the lamplight. The unholy creatures relinquish their prizes and surge towards the madman, who hacks about himself with a strength granted only to the insane. To Bob’s watering eyes it seems that each time they are close to overwhelming him he blurs, dodging their grasping talons and gnashing teeth with an alacrity that beggars belief. Even through the filter of his overexerted perception, Bob is sure that he is right in labeling the man mad, for all the hunger that burns in his attackers’ eyes, there is a look of crazed intensity in those of the Pilgrim.

  “Samuel!” A voice comes from the shadows, the word is a whisper that sounds above the screams of combat and the pounding of Bob’s fading pulse. As if given some unheard signal the remnants of the undead begin to retreat. The Pilgrim takes no heed of this apparent surrender and three more heads hit the ground before the voice can speak again,