Children of the Mountain (Book 2): The Devil You Know

by R. A. Hakok

  He drops the boots at my feet and sets the snowshoes on top of his pack.

  ‘Did you have any problems?’

  He shakes his head but doesn’t elaborate.

  I figure I’ve earned dinner so I reach into my backpack for an MRE. I tear the top off the heater and slide the packet with my meal in it inside. I add a little water from my canteen to start the reaction and then lean it against the side of the seat. It starts hissing, telling me it’s getting to work.

  Hicks sits down on one of the pews opposite. His gaze shifts to the fire and I catch him eyeing the bloodstained remains of the slippers I left there. When he looks back at me there’s an expression on his face that’s not hunger but maybe something not too far removed; a memory of what that feeling once was. I point at the MRE in case he wants one, although now that I know what’s wrong with him that seems foolish. He just shakes his head and reaches for the thermos, unscrews the cap and raises it to his lips.

  My dinner’s as warm as it’s going to get so I pick up the pouch and start scooping out the contents. Outside the wind gusts, sending a flurry of gray flakes tumbling down through the gaping hole in the rafters to settle around us.

  ‘So what will you do after?’

  What I really want to know is whether I can trust him to help me get Mags out of The Greenbrier and back to Eden. But there’s little point asking a question like that flat out, so I figure I’ll come at it sideways. Softly, softly, catchee fury.

  ‘One problem at a time, kid. I reckon we have our work cut out for us just getting you and the girl back to wherever this Eden place is.’

  I take a mouthful of mostly-mixed chili beef.

  ‘Yeah, but you must have thought about it. You’ll never be able to come back here. Won’t you miss the others?’

  Hicks sighs, like he’s resigning himself to answering my questions.

  ‘Less than you might think. Truck’s got a mean streak in him wider than a four-lane highway. I’m not sure his own mother ever missed him. Weasel’s no better. I told you they were all for shooting me on the roof in Atlanta and tossing Ortiz out the back of the chopper, just in case. It was only the Doc that got in the way of that. You’ve seen what Jax is like; it’s been a long time since all of his dogs were barking. Pops can’t be much more than a quick look down the road behind him.’

  ‘And Boots?’

  He takes a sip from his thermos and grimaces at the taste.

  ‘Yeah, Private Kavanagh. Seems harmless enough, right? You know we found him at The Greenbrier, the night we arrived?’

  ‘You said he got locked inside when the order to evacuate came and then couldn’t figure a way to let the other soldiers back in.’

  He squints at me over the top of the thermos.

  ‘Yep, that’s what he told us. The button’s right there by the door of course. Big green thing, hard to miss, even with those Coke bottles he wears for glasses.’ He takes another sip and holds the thermos up. ‘A suspicious mind might wonder whether Private Kavanagh saw the writing on the wall and figured the supplies in the bunker might stretch a lot further if they didn’t have to be split quite so many ways. You remember I told you it took us a while to convince him to open up when we arrived.’

  I nod. Hicks had said it was only when Boots found out Gilbey was working on a cure that he let them in.

  ‘Well, I might not have told that part exactly how it happened. Boots didn’t give a damn about no cure. He only agreed to let us in when Doc threatened to contaminate the bunker if he didn’t.’

  ‘And what about Dr. Gilbey? She saved you.’

  ‘She did, and I’ll always owe her for that. But something’s changed.’ He sets the thermos beside him on the pew and looks at me, as if deciding something. ‘I’m not sure your girl getting infected was an accident, Gabriel.’

  I put the spoon down.

  ‘Doc runs things too tight for something like that to have just happened.’ He shakes his head. ‘I guess I should have seen it coming. She’s been down in that bunker by herself this last ten years, thinking of nothing but finding a cure, and that’s a heavy load for one person to bear. Could be you and the girl showing up pushed her over the edge, or maybe she’d already taken that step a while back and I hadn’t noticed.’

  He raises the thermos to his lips and takes another sip.

  ‘Well, if it’s true it can’t be excused. I can’t have anything more to do with her.’

  *

  IT’S STILL A FEW HOURS ’till dawn when we set off.

  Away from the fire it’s cold. I’ve zipped the parka all the way up but it bites at my frostbitten cheeks through the thin cotton mask. I sit on the steps in the shelter of the church’s arched doorway and strap on my snowshoes. I've bandaged my feet tight and my legs feel a lot better; I can make half a dozen circuits round the inside of the church without having to rest. That’s not much, I’ll grant you, but you’ve got to look at where I started from just a few hours ago. And as Hicks says, one problem at a time. The first thing is to get Mags out of that bunker. After that we’ll see how many miles I have in me.

  Hicks takes us west on route 60, away from The Greenbrier’s gates. We walk in silence. I’m beginning to wonder where we’re going when he cuts off the road and switches back onto what looks like it was once little more than woodland trail. The wind’s died and the only sounds are of my breathing and our snowshoes crunching through the ice-slicked powder. Limbless, lifeless trunks push up through the snow on either side, closing around us as we start to climb. I’m keeping to Hicks’ tracks but inside my boots my feet are starting to hurt. I’m more worried about my legs though. The slope’s not that bad but already I can feel the muscles there tiring.

  The path inclines, skirting around the hill that sits behind The Greenbrier. We’ve been following it for maybe fifteen minutes when ahead of us a low concrete structure slowly separates itself from the darkness. Snow’s banked high against its featureless sides. More sits in heavy layers on its flat roof.

  A large funnel-like entrance cuts into the hillside. The drifts have gathered deep between its walls, almost obscuring a huge metal gate at the end; only a series of rectangular vents near the top point to its existence. A rusting sign warns against trespassing. Another carries a faded symbol of a lightning bolt, and underneath the words Danger High Voltage.

  Hicks hikes up to the gate. I’m wondering how we’re going to get it open, but he just starts scooping snow from a spot near the center. I kneel down next to him and join in. My hands have loosened up a little but it still hurts to work my fingers. Thankfully Hicks is making a better job of it and soon I can make out the outline of a smaller door set into the steel. When he’s cleared enough snow he reaches for the handle. The door sticks in its frame but after a little pushing it gives and then swings inwards with a dull metallic groan. Gray powder tumbles in.

  I unsnap my snowshoes and follow him through into darkness. He pulls a flashlight from his parka and flicks it on. A cone of red light illuminates a square concrete-lined tunnel maybe twice as high as I am tall that ends abruptly at a massive blast door. Two huge buttressed hinges bear its weight, the only other ornamentation six circular steel plates bolted to the wall above. I’m not sure what purpose they serve but the shadows cast by the bolts make them look like giant clocks.

  Hicks shines his flashlight at a spot on the wall. A stubby metal cowling stands proud of the concrete.

  ‘You’re up kid.’

  As I step closer I’m relieved to see the keypad’s just like the ones in Eden and Mount Weather. I pull off my mittens and hit reset to clear whatever might still be stored in the circuits from when Gilbey tried this, years ago. The dusty plastic keys slowly illuminate, and a red light at the bottom blinks on. There’s a gentle whirring from above my head as a camera focuses. I glance up.

  ‘Don’t worry about that. Doc’s the only one in there and she’ll be sound asleep.’

  I tell myself it’s just jitters, like I’d get when I w
as about to step into Eden’s tunnels, but somehow in spite of Hicks’ words it feels like we’re being watched. I close my eyes and the section of Marv’s map that showed The Greenbrier, complete with the code he had written next to it, appears before me. I carefully punch in the twelve numbers and letters. There’s a pause and then the light underneath the keypad switches to green. From somewhere behind the door I hear a faint whine, rising in pitch as electric motors that have lain dormant for a decade shake off their slumber and get to work. Moments later a grating sound, like the teeth of cogs being forced into service. The pitch of the motors increases and then from somewhere inside the door there’s a heavy clunk, followed by the muted screech of metal being dragged against metal and finally the familiar sound of bolts sliding back into their recesses. Another set of motors come to life, slowly pushing the dull, cold steel towards me. When it reaches the wall the motors suddenly die and silence returns to the darkness.

  I follow Hicks into a long, straight tunnel. Large-bore pressure pipes run along the walls; more hang from the ceiling. Behind me, above the blast door, huge vents have been drilled through the thick concrete. Each one houses a fan, the heavy metal blades protected behind mesh screens. The steel plates I noticed on the other side were covers, allowing the bunker to be sealed off.

  We make our way into darkness, our footsteps echoing off the walls. I start the count. Here and there Hicks’ flashlight picks out cardboard boxes, their sides stamped with the names of the supplies they once contained. Each is empty now, the contents long since removed.

  It’s two hundred paces before the tunnel ends at a door marked Decontamination. Another camera bolted to the concrete above blinks solemnly down at us as we pass under it. We enter a shower room. Nozzles protrude from the walls on either side, making the space seem narrow. The flashlight’s beam paints everything in shades of crimson so it’s hard to tell what color the tiles are. If I were forced to guess I’d hazard blue.

  The decontamination area ends and we step into a long corridor. From somewhere off in the distance there’s the low drone of a generator. Safety lights hum gently, bathing the painted walls in shades of gray and green.

  Doors lead off to the left and right, each room’s purpose stenciled, military fashion, above. We pass a series of numbered dormitories. Some of the doors are open; inside I can see row after row of steel bunk beds. A large but cheerless cafeteria comes next, and then a smaller lounge area, stacks of decade-old magazines still arranged neatly on the coffee tables. After that an infirmary with a dozen or so beds, and then a room with a large mural of the White House, a lectern on a podium in front of it, a television camera standing ready to transmit the news of what’s just happened to those who might have survived. A little further along two drab halls filled with chairs that look like the auditorium where Miss Kimble used to bring us for assembly. The sign above one reads Senate and the other House of Representatives. Dusty pictures of men I recognize from her first grade civics and government class hang from the walls.

  The door at the very end says Power Plant. The thrum from the generator increases as Hicks pushes it open. I follow him into a cavernous room and up onto a narrow metal gangway. A tangle of pipes snakes above my head; tanks, pumps, generators and other assorted machinery crowd into the space below. At the end of the walkway we step through another door. The noise from the plant recedes as it closes behind us.

  Steel stairs spiral down into darkness. The beam from Hicks’ flashlight sweeps the concrete as we descend. The steps continue for longer than I was expecting but at last we reach the bottom. I look around. A single door leads out of the shaft we’ve just come down. Hicks steps over to it and punches a code into a keypad. There’s a muted click as the lock releases and he pushes the door open.

  *

  I FOLLOW HIM into a long, low-ceilinged room. Plastic cages stacked two deep line the walls on either side. Hicks hands me the flashlight.

  ‘Stay right here. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  He opens a door to what looks like a storage room. I have a second to glimpse rows of empty shelves and then he disappears inside, closing the door behind him.

  I shine the flashlight along the rows of cages. They’re all empty now, but I wonder what used to be kept in them. Hicks said when they took him off the roof in Atlanta Gilbey had put him in something that had been designed for a chimpanzee. These certainly look like they were built to hold a creature of about that size. I haven’t seen an animal since Jackson, Sam and Reuben’s dog, on the morning of the Last Day. I wonder if there are any still left down here.

  I point the flashlight into the darkness but it doesn’t reach very far. I figure there has to be another room at the end of this one. Maybe that’s where Mags is. Hicks said to wait but I want to let her know that I’m here, that she’ll soon be free. I start to make my way down the aisle.

  The beam slides over the plastic bars, causing the shadows behind to shift and merge, so when I first see it I almost miss it. A small plastic tray, the kind that might once have held a TV dinner. I bend down to examine it through the bars. The compartments are all empty save one; in it there’s what looks like a scoop of beans, long cold, the sauce congealed. I’m about to move on when something causes me to shine the light further into the cage. And that’s when I see him. A small boy, lost inside dark overalls that are way too big for his tiny frame, pressed into the shadows at the back. His hands cover his face but I can see his head is shaved; his scalp looks pale, almost gray. He slowly splays his fingers, revealing a pair of solemn eyes that stare back at me, the large silver pupils reflecting the crimson beam from Hick’s flashlight.

  I take an involuntary step backwards, my mind already measuring the gap between us, trying to work out whether more might be called for. He doesn’t appear threatening though. He makes no move towards me, just continues to watch from the spot he seems to have picked out for himself in the corner. After a moment he raises one impossibly thin arm and points behind me.

  I turn around and shine the light into the cage opposite.

  She’s lying curled up on the floor, asleep. She’s wearing the same dark overalls as the boy, but her wrists and ankles have been bound. I bend down as quietly as I can, suddenly afraid to wake her. What if she opens her eyes and I see what I’ve just seen in the cage opposite? I take a deep breath.

  ‘Mags.’

  She looks up and as she blinks back the sleep I feel relief wash through me. The shadows under her eyes seem a little darker than they were earlier but that’s probably just the flashlight; the pupils are the same deep brown they’ve always been. She picks herself up, a little awkwardly because of the restraints. Her hands reach for the bars but then she remembers, and quickly pulls them back.

  ‘Gabe. What are you doing here? What happened to your face?’

  At first I’m not sure what she means; it takes a second for me to work it out.

  ‘Oh, frostbite. I guess I got careless.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  It does a little, but I shake my head.

  ‘This is what happens when I’m not there to watch over you. What are you doing here? I thought I…’

  There’s a noise from behind me and her eyes dart down the aisle between the cages.

  ‘Gabe, you need to get out of here.’

  Her voice is low, urgent. I look over my shoulder. Hicks is walking towards us carrying a large plastic crate with the number 100 stenciled on it. I turn back to Mags.

  ‘It’s okay. He’s helping us.’

  Hicks sets the crate down on the floor.

  ‘I thought I told you to stay put.’

  He looks at me for a long moment like he’s deciding whether he’s done taking me to task over wandering off, but then he must figure we have more pressing matters to attend to. He squats down next to me and looks at Mags.

  ‘Now we need to do this my way. Understood?’

  She looks at him as if she still doesn’t know what to make of this but in the end
she just nods. He turns to me and I realize I’m expected to answer too.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  He looks into the cage.

  ‘You got a blade on you?’

  I nod.

  ‘Well give it to me then.’

  I hand him the leatherman and he thumbs out the knife.

  ‘Alright, now move to the front of the cage and slide your hands through.’

  I keep the blade sharp; it doesn’t take him long to cut through the plastic at her wrists. When he’s done he passes it through the bars. While she’s working on the cable ties at her ankles he unsnaps the lid on the crate, pulls out a set of thermals and hands them to her. ‘Change into those. Go on now, nobody’ll look at you.’

  She hesitates a moment and starts unsnapping the fasteners on her overalls. I turn away but when I hear her wince I glance back over my shoulder. Mags has always been thin but not like this. Even in the scant light I can see the bones along her side, the play of muscles across her stomach. And before she pulls the thermals down over her head I catch a glimpse of something else: a chain of dark, ugly welts tracking from one hip up her ribcage to her shoulder.

  I turn away, but I feel something, also dark and ugly, welling up inside me. The best we can hope for now is that we get away from this place and never see Truck or any of the other soldiers ever again. But I know there may be no limit to the things I would do to the person that has inflicted those marks on her.

  When Mags is done changing into her thermals Hicks passes a pair of latex gloves and a roll of duct tape through the bars.

  ‘Put those on and tape the cuffs to your wrists.’

  She snaps on the gloves and then uses her teeth to tear a couple of strips from the roll.

  ‘Alright. Now I’m going to let you out. But you need to do exactly as I say until we’re outside. Got it?’

  Mags looks up from wrapping the tape around her wrists. I can tell she doesn’t care much for the instruction but she agrees. She eyes the leatherman but Hicks just shakes his head and she leaves it behind her on the floor of the cage. He unlatches the door and swings it open. She crawls out and stands, a little unsteadily at first.