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

by R. A. Hakok

  ‘Okay, I guess.’

  It’s barely light out but she’s squinting. The circles under her eyes are black now. I force myself to smile back. She pulls the sleeping bag tighter around her.

  ‘Is it colder this morning?’

  It’s not but I nod anyway.

  ‘Yeah, but I’ll soon have a fire going.’

  ‘Did you find Johnny?’

  ‘He’s in the back. I’ll go get him as soon as I’m done here.’

  ‘Is he okay?’

  The news that I’d found him seemed to cheer her up a little, so I don’t mention what happened in The Hogtied. I set to work on the fire. As soon as it’s lit I put water on to boil and hand her one of Gilbey’s containers. She washes it down with the coffee and then asks me for a couple of Tylenol but shakes her head at breakfast.

  As soon as I’m done with my MRE I head down to the lanes to cut the kid loose. The scant light that filters in through the entrance doesn’t make it much further than the fire and I find myself dragging my heels as I make my way back into the darkness. Tell the truth I’m worried what I’ll find. But as my eyes adjust to the gloom I can see he’s right there where I left him, sitting hugging the thick metal rails of the ball return machine. I don’t want to give up Weasel’s knife so I go looking for anything else that might do to free him. I find a boxcutter in one of the drawers behind the refreshments counter; the blade’s rusty but it’ll do the trick. I ask him if he’s okay and he hesitates for a moment but then gives me a thumbs up. As I lean in to cut the plastic ties I can see he’s been working on them and it doesn’t take much for me to finish the job. I throw the ’cutter away and hand him his medicine. When he’s taken it he asks for a strip of tape for his mouth then he puts his mittens back on and I tape them too, making sure to add a couple of extra turns for good measure. I start to make my way up to where Mags is sitting by the fire but he holds back.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  He points up towards the entrance and I understand. He’s already wearing his goggles but I guess they’re no longer enough. I tear another strip of tape and cover the remaining slit then zip his hood all the way up. I bend down and hoist him onto my back and we make our way up to join Mags. She looks up when she sees us and her eyes widen.

  ‘It’s okay, he’s taped pretty good. This is how we got here last night.’

  I set him down next to her. She looks over at Hicks but he just shakes his head like he wants no part of it and goes back to eyeballing the parking lot.

  We pack up our things and get ready to leave. Outside the storm’s moved on but the powder’s soft and deep from the fall overnight. I hoist the kid onto my shoulders. He wraps his arms around my neck and buries his head in my parka and we set off.

  All morning we trek steadily north. Hicks takes us out to the interstate at the first opportunity. We can’t be that far from Hager and I think sticking on 11 might have been faster but I don’t reckon there’s much in it so I don’t argue the point. The road curves this way and that but at least it stays pretty flat. I keep checking behind me to see how Mags is doing. Hicks is breaking trail and I’m following in his footsteps, so the snow she’s treading’s as packed as it’s going to get, but before we’ve gone much more than a mile she’s struggling.

  We pass an exit sign for Falling Waters and shortly after there’s a succession of overpasses. The last of them has collapsed and we have to take off our snowshoes and pick our way down through the rubble. Hicks clambers up the other side. I let Mags go ahead of me; I can hear her breathing hard inside her respirator as I follow her up. When we reach the top I ask if she wants to take a break but she just shakes her head and waves Hicks on.

  The road swings east for a couple of miles and then starts a long, slow descent. We come to a faded yellow sign that says Maryland Welcomes You and a little ways further on we reach the Potomac. There are separate bridges for east- and westbound traffic; the westbound crossing’s given way but thankfully ours has held. I stop in the middle and wait by the rust-spackled guardrail for Mags to catch up. Beneath us the river flows sluggishly south.

  We reach Hager soon after. Hicks stops at a large stone church on the far side of town. A bell tower with a tall steeple looms over us as we trudge up to the entrance and unsnap our snowshoes. Two heavy oak doors bar our way but they’re not locked and we step through into a darkened foyer, our boots shedding snow on the cold stone. Stained-glass windows sit high on the walls on both sides but they’re carrying a decade of silt and grime and they admit little light.

  Hicks chooses a spot near the door and sits with his back to the wall. I set the kid down and ask how he’s doing. He hesitates for a moment then nods tentatively so I unzip his hood.

  ‘It’s pretty dark in here.’

  He lifts the goggles onto his forehead and squints around. But then he catches Hicks pulling the thermos from his backpack and scurries off into the shadows.

  There’s a stack of hymnals that have been missed that’ll do for a fire; I gather them up and use the last of the gas to get it going. Mags wraps herself around the coffee I make but shakes her head when I offer her an MRE and just asks for a couple more Tylenol. While she’s taking them I go through her pack and throw out whatever she won’t need to lighten the load. She looks like she might object when I find Owen Meany so I jam it into the inside pocket of my parka instead. When I’m done Hicks raises the thermos to his lips and looks over at me.

  ‘How much further we got, kid?’

  ‘We’re close. I reckon we can be there tonight.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘We go in as soon as we get there.’

  ‘Sure you’re up to that? You won’t need to rest up or nothing?’

  I don’t need to look over at Mags to see how she’s doing. She started coughing again as we were coming into Hager, and that worries me. The kid’s no better; he’s barely holding it together now. He’s been squeezing my shoulder for the last hour, asking to be set down, but we don’t have time to wait while he sorts himself out. I shake my head.

  ‘Fair enough. You have the code for the blast door?’

  I don’t, but I nod anyway.

  ‘Alright. And what’ll we face when we get in there?’

  I hesitate. The truth is I don’t know. Up until now my main concern’s been that Kane would send Peck to Mount Weather for us at the earliest opportunity. Now if I’m going to get Mags to the scanner I’d much rather he and the Guardians weren’t in there waiting for us. But they could well be, and I guess Hicks deserves to know what he’s up against.

  ‘Kane’s secret service agent, Randall Peck.’

  ‘He any good?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Anybody else?’

  He already knows about Kane. Quartermaster used to be the Secretary of State for Defense but I suspect it’s been a while since his fingers fitted a trigger guard. I tell him about Scudder. He was a soldier too, even though he was mostly Eden’s maintenance guy.

  ‘That it?’

  ‘And maybe six Guardians.’

  ‘Guardians?’

  ‘Kids like us that Peck has trained. He used to keep two of them at the portal. Another two patrolling inside.’

  ‘Armed?’

  ‘They could be.’

  Hicks shifts his jaw, like he’s considering this.

  ‘Alright, then. Well, it’s your show from here.’

  *

  WE TAKE I-64 EAST out of Hager. For a long while the highway runs straight. Giant billboards clutter the fields on either side. Most have collapsed, the metal supports weakened by rust or virus, the wind and the storms doing the rest. Those that still stand look down on us as we pass, their tattered hoardings showing weather-faded images from a world that no longer exists.

  The road finally starts to curve north and we pass a Food Lion, and then a little further on I spot the farm store, its familiar parapet walls towering over the adjacent lots. Next to it’s the veterinary clinic where I fou
nd Benjamin, what now seems like a lifetime ago. We come to a junction. A collapsed traffic light gantry lies across the intersection, almost drifted out of sight. I take us out around it but we keep to the road. Less than a mile further on I find what I’m looking for: a sign, mostly buried under a blanket of snow, that says US491 above an arrow that points right. On the other side of the road there’s another, its message hidden under a thick crust of snow and ice. Hicks stops in front of it and scrapes it off while Mags catches up. He stares at it for a moment and then turns to me.

  ‘Raven Rock. Is that it kid? Is that where Kane’s been holed up all these years?’

  I shrug my shoulders like I don’t know, but I do. Marv told me Eden’s real name just before he died. Hicks looks at the sign some more and then shakes his head.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned. You have to hand it to him. I’d forgotten that place even existed. Suspect most folks had; must be fifty years since they mothballed it. No-one would have thought to look for him there.’

  We turn off the highway. The road narrows until there can’t be more than two lanes of blacktop under the snow, and at times it’s hard to know if we’re still on it. I follow the telephone poles, but there are stretches where they’ve fallen or been cut and then I’m down to picking my way through the bare and blackened remains of the trees, searching for anything that might look familiar.

  The light’s already slipping out of the sky. I reckon we’ve only got maybe ten more miles to go but from here most of it’s uphill. Mags is coughing behind her respirator now, pretty much all the time. The kid’s been squeezing my shoulder for a while to let me know he needs time to de-fury himself so I bend down and let him slide off while she catches up. He stumbles off to the other side of the road and crouches down in the snow.

  Hicks stops beside me and points back down into the valley. I follow his finger. It takes me a while but then I spot them: four figures side by side, about a mile into that long straight stretch of road out of Hager. They can’t be more than seven or eight miles behind us. There’s little wind, nothing to cover our tracks. Truck’ll have no problem spotting where we’ve gotten off.

  Mags stops beside me and unsnaps her respirator. She bends over, the palms of her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. I want to ask her if she’s okay but that’s a question without any meaning to it now so I don’t.

  ‘I’m sorry. We have to keep going.’

  She stays like that for a while, like maybe she hasn’t heard me. But then she nods once and hauls herself upright.

  One by one I tick off the landmarks I remember. An old house with lap siding and a wraparound porch where Marv and I stopped for lunch. The fire truck whose final journey somehow ended out here in the middle of nowhere. The white sign by the crossroads at a dip in the road, its once-neat black letters spelling out The Zion Lutheran Church, and underneath, Little Is Much If God Is In It.

  We come to a junction, the red of a stop sign just visible above the snow and I stop to dig out a mile marker. I’m pretty sure I know the way from here but night’s falling and it would be easy to get lost. I can’t afford to lead us wrong now.

  As we set off again Mags stumbles. She kneels in the snow and unsnaps the respirator, trying to catch her breath. Hicks stares back down the road into the gathering darkness then looks over at me.

  ‘How much further?’

  I figure a mile, maybe a shade less, to the state line and another beyond that to the turnpike. From there three more to Eden.

  He whistles softly through his teeth but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. The soldiers are running us down. Sometimes on the switchbacks I can see their lights now, always closer.

  I bend down to Mags.

  ‘We need to go.’

  She nods and gets to her feet. As she clips the respirator back in place the filter on one side detaches and falls silently into the snow; when I look at it I can see the steel retaining ring on that side has given out. I dig in my backpack for one of the spare cotton masks I carry while she unfastens it. As soon as she’s tied it on we set off again.

  We continue on past Fort Narrows. From the road I can just make out the barracks, row after row of low brick buildings, the snow drifted almost up to the eaves of their roofs. I’m pretty sure this was where Marv was getting the things he’d stashed under the floorboards up at the farmhouse. There are things in there I could use, but I can’t stop now to go looking for them. Hicks has promised to buy us the time we need when we get to Eden. I’ll have to rely on him for that.

  The road curves around and we come to a railroad crossing, the top of the dead lights just visible above the snow. I don’t know exactly when it happens because there’s no sign but shortly after that we return to Pennsylvania.

  *

  IT’S WELL AFTER DARK when we leave the turnpike and start making our way up the mountain. We’re close now but I’m not sure how much more Mags has left in her. The ’pike was mostly flat but even there she was struggling to put one snowshoe in front of another. And she’s coughing continuously, just like Marv was in the end. We don’t do frostbite checks anymore but I’ve seen the blood that flecks the cotton mask I gave her to replace the respirator. The kid’s in bad shape too. He doesn’t squeeze my shoulder now; he just grips tight and butts my neck with his head, like he’s trying to find a way in. I’m not sure setting him down would do any good, even if we had time for it. There may not be much left of him in there anymore.

  We pick our way between the withered trunks that poke through the gray snow. As we pass the farmhouse where Marv and I used to store our scavenging gear Mags stumbles again. She tries to push herself back up but it’s like she’s used the last of whatever strength she’s been saving to get this far. I turn around and start back down the slope to help her up but Hicks gets there before me and extends a gloved hand. She looks at it as if she means to wave it away but then she reaches up and allows him to pull her to her feet.

  We stop at what used to be the tree line and I scan the darkness. I know the portal’s somewhere up there ahead of us. It’s little more than a hole in the side of the mountain, though, barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through. Even in daylight it’s hard to spot. I guess that’s what Kane must have been hoping for when he had Peck collapse the tunnel entrance.

  Hicks points down the slope.

  ‘Don’t mean to rush you kid.’

  On the turnpike four lights have appeared around the curve of the mountain. I look back up, desperately searching for our way in. I used to find it by lining myself up on the transmitter tower but it’s way too dark to see those bristling antennae now. I’m beginning to wonder whether Kane’s re-opened it. Maybe the Juvies were right all along; maybe he never meant to come after us and all this was for nothing. But then I see something: the faintest glimmer coming from a spot not more than a hundred yards further up. Hicks has spotted it too.

  ‘Is that it?’

  I nod. He looks down the mountain at the lights making their way along the turnpike. He studies them for a moment and then turns to face me.

  ‘The tunnel. How long?’

  ‘One thousand and fifty-three paces.’

  He raises an eyebrow, like it’s high time for me to start providing useful information.

  ‘How long will it take you to get through?’

  Flat out, with fresh legs, I reckon I could clear the tunnel in a couple of minutes. I look at Mags. She’s exhausted; she won’t be running any part of it. And first I’ll need to deal with whoever’s waiting for us at the portal.

  ‘Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.’

  He looks down the mountain at the approaching soldiers.

  ‘Yeah, I doubt we’ve got that. If Truck catches us in there it’ll be like shootin’ fish in a barrel.’

  He unzips his parka and reaches inside for the pistol.

  ‘Best you get going then. I’ll hold them off here long as I can. Let me have the code for the blast door so I can follow you in.’ />
  ‘I don’t have it.’

  ‘What?’

  He raises the gun like suddenly he might have a different target in mind, one much closer. I hold my hands up.

  ‘It’s okay, I know how to get us in. Peck always keeps a couple of Guardians posted at the portal.’ I point up at the spot where light’s escaping through the snow. ‘That’ll be their fire. Give me Marv’s pistol. I’ll make them open it.’

  ‘You and I need to put some serious work into our communication, kid.’ He says it without a trace of humor, like he’s come too far for such a threadbare plan, but he digs in his pocket and tosses me Marv’s Beretta. There’s no clip and when I pull back the slide the chamber’s empty.

  ‘Yeah, there ain’t no bullets. If you’d thought to tell me this was what you were planning maybe I could have brought some.’ He slides his pistol back in its holster. ‘And don’t think I’m sending you in there with an empty gun either. We’ll have to take our chances with Truck.’

  I slip the Beretta into my pocket and we continue up the hill. The glow from whatever fire the Guardians have got going grows stronger as we approach. Another coughing fit grips Mags and she drops to her knees in the snow. I have to pry the kid’s arms from around my neck but once he’s off my back he calms down a little and just crouches in the snow. Hicks stands over him while I unsnap his snowshoes and then I help Mags with hers. When I’m done I slide Marv’s gun from my pocket.

  ‘Wait here okay? I’ll call for you when I’m ready.’

  Another coughing fit hits her. When she’s done she just nods.

  ‘Don’t worry. This’ll all be over soon.’

  I take one last look down the mountain. The flashlights have already left the turnpike and are starting up the slope.

  Hicks gestures for me to go first, just like Marv used to, so I lower myself through the hole in the snow and start crawling down the rubble, trying to make as little noise as possible. This was when I’d call ahead, so whoever was on duty would know I was coming, but I won’t be doing that tonight. I inch forward through the darkness, the empty gun cold and heavy in my hand. I tell myself it’ll be okay; the Guardians at the portal didn’t used to carry anything more than billy clubs and there’d be no reason for that to have changed in the months since our escape.