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

by R. A. Hakok

  I hadn’t given it any thought; there was only ever one person I cared about curing. But that’s still no reason to destroy it. And then I remember the storage room in the bunker. The only crate on the shelves other than the kid’s had said Amanda Gilbey on the side.

  ‘Dr. Gilbey has a daughter that’s infected. She’s doing all this to try and save her.’

  He smiles at me.

  ‘Well, you’re finally getting it. If the scanner had’ve saved your girl there’s a chance it might have worked on Amanda, and I couldn’t risk that. I told you: the Doc’s our only hope now. I can’t have her losing focus.’

  ‘But you didn’t even wait to see if it would work. You could have put yourself through first.’

  He shakes his head again and when he looks back at me the smile’s gone.

  ‘Son, the things I’ve done I don’t deserve a cure. I’ll get what’s coming to me, and that pretty soon. But there are things that need taking care of first.’ He looks around the cavern one more time then returns his gaze to me.

  ‘So this is how it’s going to be. Jax is going to find the girl then you and she and those two we found in the tunnel and Kane and whoever else is still hiding out in here are coming back with us. But first we’ll take a visit to Mount Weather. I have a deal for you, though. You give me whatever codes you might have and when we get there, if they work, I’ll let you go. You have my word on that. You can head on down south. Do whatever you want with what little time we’ve all got left. I swear I won’t say a word. Your friends’ll never even know it was you who sold ’em out.’

  ‘But you’ll infect them with the virus, put them in cages like you did to Mags?’

  ‘Aw hell, kid, pay attention. If Doc doesn’t find a cure for the virus they’re done for anyway. We all are. You just gotta think about yourself now. Do you want to wind up in one of those cages? And that’s not even the worst of it. You haven’t seen what Doc does to them in that other room.’

  But I’m not even listening to him anymore. I raise the rifle. The cold metal presses against my cheek.

  ‘You’re going to help me with Mags and Johnny and then you’re going to let us walk right out of here. And you’re going to forget you ever even heard of Mount Weather.’

  Hicks shakes his head. He shifts his reaching arm a fraction. The parka falls back, exposing the pistol.

  ‘You’re overplaying your hand here kid. None of that’s going to happen. You think maybe because you got lucky with that MRE you can hit me? You’ll get maybe one shot, assuming you don’t freeze up of course. Took you three to hit that carton, remember? And it wasn’t shooting back at you.’

  I reach up with my thumb. The rifle’s already off safe but I snick it forward one more notch, to its final position.

  ‘You’re a lot closer than that carton, Hicks. And I’ve got thirty shots actually. All I have to do is hold the trigger down, right? Like that rookie down on the line in Atlanta? I may not hit you with the first few. But I doubt I’ll miss with all of them.’

  Hicks’ expression doesn’t change but for the first time I think Truck looks a little nervous. The smile disappears from his face. His eyes shift to Hicks and then back to me again. He takes a step back towards the pedestrian tunnel.

  Hicks squints at me for a long moment, like he’s reassessing the situation.

  ‘Fair enough, if that’s the way you want it. Corporal, the kid’ll empty that clip in a little over a second. If I don’t get him first you take him down. Understand?’

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Truck draw his sidearm.

  ‘And then you find the girl and bring her back to the Doc. She might still have use for her. Kane will tell you how to get into Mount Weather. I don’t care much for how you get that information from him.’

  ‘Sure thing, Sarge.’

  My heart sinks. He’s right of course. Kane has the same codes Marv gave me, and I’ve no doubt he’ll hand them over once Truck goes to work on him. He’ll take the Juvies back to The Greenbrier, whether or not I shoot Hicks. Mags will either die in the armory or she’ll end up in that other room he was talking about. I’m not sure which would be worse.

  And then from the depths of the pedestrian tunnel I hear a sound like something very large pounding metal. Hicks must hear it too.

  ‘Looks like Jax has found your girl. Last chance, kid.’

  The pounding continues, echoing up from the darkness. Hicks turns his head a fraction but his one good eye never leaves me.

  ‘Private, go down there and see what that idiot’s up to.’

  Weasel drops the catchpole and starts off into the tunnel.

  For long seconds there’s nothing but the sound of Jax pounding on the armory door. And then without warning something bursts out of the darkness. It’s moving too quickly and at first all I see is a blur as whatever it is hits the light. Then I catch a single snapshot of Mags, barefoot, suspended in the air as she swings whatever it is she’s holding. And in that moment I’m back on the bus we took to the White House on the Last Day. But instead of an old hardback copy of Black Beauty it’s the gray metal stock of a rifle that arcs downwards towards its target. There’s a dense crunch as it connects and a large wad of tobacco sails out of Truck’s mouth along with something that might be a tooth. She doesn’t wait for him to land; by the time he hits the concrete she’s already closed the distance to Hicks. She comes to a stop with the barrel inches from the back of his head.

  ‘What was that switch you were talking about, Gabe?’

  I don’t answer her. I suspect I’m wearing the same slack-jawed expression Truck is right now. She glances over at me.

  ‘Never mind. I don’t think I’m going to need all of my bullets.’

  *

  I KEEP THE GUN TRAINED on the soldiers while Mags binds their wrists. She works her way quickly along the pew. None of them resist. Hicks just looks bored; the only time he shows interest is when I take his pistol. I earn a look that tells me the cable ties probably won’t be holding him for long.

  Truck’s still out of it. A long strand of something brown drips from the corner of his mouth, searching for a place to settle on his fatigues. Even in the chapel’s gloomy interior I can see his cheek’s swelling up nicely, and there’s a nasty bruise spreading along his jaw. When he finally comes to I suspect it’s going to hurt something mean. It’ll be a while before he thinks of tucking a wad of Grizzly there.

  Weasel’s already back with us. He’s got a bruise just like Truck’s to go with the one across his nose, but he’s traded his front teeth for it. I think it makes him look better, although I doubt he agrees. He stares at me with barely concealed contempt while Mags slips a cable tie around his wrists. He cusses at her as she ratchets it tight. The general gist is that it’s cutting off the circulation but there’s a lot of extra words in there it’d be easy to take offense to. When she’s done she picks up the baton and zaps him in the neck with it. He yelps but after that he stays quiet and goes back to glowering at me while she moves on to Boots.

  The Viking’s the only one not present and accounted for, but he’ll do just fine where he is. Mags came around just in time; she was headed back to the cavern when she heard him making his way along the tunnel towards her. She retraced her steps and hid in the darkness beyond the armory. Even for someone with Jax’s limited faculties the open door was too much of a temptation. She waited for him to wander in and then locked it behind him. Once Hicks gets free he’ll get the code out of Kane, but by then I mean us to be gone.

  Mags finishes up with Boots and crosses the aisle to tend to the President. He’s been quiet since we dragged him in from the tunnel, but now as he sees her approaching he raises his hands and backs himself up along the pew. I suspect it’s not so much what’s in her hand as the dark shadows under her eyes and the way her cheeks are sunken in. She holds the baton up and flicks the switch on the grip. Blue light arcs between the prongs; he lowers his arms and slides them behind his back. When she’s done I
see her reach inside his jacket and slip something into her pocket. Whatever she’s taken, he doesn’t fuss over it. He just stares wistfully up at single piece of framed needlework that hangs, yellowing, from the bare metal wall. I don’t need to read it to know what it says. Ora et Labora. I’m not sure about labora but I suspect his days of praying may be just about to start.

  Mags comes over to stand next to me.

  ‘All done?’

  ‘Almost.’ She reaches over and pulls the dog tags from Boot’s, Truck’s and Weasel’s necks and slips them into her pocket next to whatever she took from Kane.

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  As we reach the door I hear Hicks’ drawl from behind me.

  ‘Be seein’ you real soon, kid.’

  I stop.

  I told Mags we should shoot them, every last one. I told her it’d be the smart thing. We wouldn’t have to worry about Dr. Gilbey and without Kane I wonder if Peck would be so interested in finding us. But Mags said that wasn’t how we were going to go about things, and she has more cause to want it than I do, so I agreed.

  But now as I hear Hicks’s words I know he’s one more thing we’ll never be rid of. I slide his pistol out of my pocket. The cylinder clicks around as I thumb the hammer back. Mags reaches out and puts a hand over it.

  ‘I got this.’

  She walks back down the aisle and stands in front of him.

  ‘No, you won’t, not if you’re smart. But I worry you’re not, Sergeant, so pay attention now. You needn’t bother with Mount Weather; by the time you get there we’ll be long gone. And there’s something else you might want to consider before you set off looking elsewhere for us. Gilbey’s not the only one with the virus. We have trays and trays of it. Ask him if you don’t believe us.’ She points across the aisle at Kane. ‘If I so much as suspect you’re taking an interest in us we’ll pay The Greenbrier another visit, and this time we won’t come empty-handed. We have the code for the bunker. Remember that.’

  We close the door to the chapel behind us and head back up to Front Street. The sound of Jax pounding on the armory door echoes up from the depths of the pedestrian tunnel.

  The kid’s sitting by the corridor to the blast door, where we left him. He rubs his eyes, like he’s just been woken from a deep slumber, and squints up at the arc lights, like maybe they’re too bright. For a second I think I catch a flash of silver, but when he looks at me I see the pupils there are dark, human.

  I tell Mags I have one more thing to attend to, so she takes him by the hand and leads him out to the tunnel. I head over to the command building and make my way inside. It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for and then I’m back out on Eden’s narrow streets. Quartermaster’s still lying on the dusty concrete where Truck shot him. I look down at him for a long moment. Then I step around him and leave the cavern for the last time.

  The scanner room’s in ruins. Hicks was as good as his word; there’s little left of the machine that’s recognizable. Its polished metal skin is twisted and charred, like a giant can that someone’s stuck in the fire without remembering to stick a hole in first.

  I walk through the showers and into the locker room. I have to pick my way over the remains of the barricade to get out. Mags is already kneeling by the open blast door, going through the soldiers’ backpacks for what we’ll need. I figure she’s got that covered so I head out into the tunnel.

  Angus and Hamish are propped up against the wall outside, their arms cable-tied to the brace wire above their heads. I pull out the knife I took from Weasel. Their eyes widen and as I kneel down I detect a sharp odor. During the course of the evening’s entertainment I think one or other of them has had an accident in their overalls. I sigh. To think I used to let these clowns intimidate me.

  I hold my hands up.

  ‘I don’t mean to hurt either of you. I’m just going to use this to cut your restraints. But before I do I need you to listen.’

  I remind myself to take it slow. The message I have for them isn’t complicated but I’m dealing with a pair of intellects rivaled only by the plastic that’s currently binding their wrists.

  ‘Those soldiers you saw earlier, they’ve killed Quartermaster. You can go back inside and have a look if you don’t believe me. Kane’s in the chapel with them right now. We’ve tied them up but I doubt it’ll take them long to get free. Before that happens Mags and I intend to be on the other side of the portal, and we mean to blow it behind us, like we did last time.’

  I pause to let this sink in.

  ‘Now it seems to me that you’ve got a couple of choices. You can go back in there and rescue Kane and afterwards take your chances with the soldiers. Or you can leave now with us.’

  They look at each other. It seems like Angus is custodian of the family brain cell today. He turns back to me and his face gets as close to thoughtful as I suspect it ever does.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Mount Weather.’ I get a blank expression for that. ‘The bunker where the rest of the Juvies are.’

  ‘And we can go there with you?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘’Fraid not. I’m going to draw you a map of the route Peck and the other Guardians have taken. If you stick to it you should be able to find them.’

  Hamish looks at me.

  ‘You want us to go get Peck?’

  I nod.

  ‘I do. And when you find him you need to give him a message. You need to tell him the soldiers you met earlier have Kane and they mean to bring him to a place called The Greenbrier.’ I see the worried look on Angus’s face. ‘Don’t worry I’ll write it all down; all you have to do is show it to him. But you need to tell Peck if he wants to save Kane he’ll have to hurry. I don’t think the person they’re bringing him to see is a fan of the President’s work.’

  Angus comes to a decision quicker than I gave him credit for. He looks up to his wrists and I cut him free. While I’m working on Hamish Mags appears at the blast door. She holds up an olive colored metal orb, just like the ones from the crate I found under the floorboards in the hallway outside Marv’s room when we first escaped from Eden.

  ‘They brought loads of them. Should be plenty.’

  I stand up and put the knife away.

  ‘Alright, let’s get out of here.’

  *

  HEAVY CLOUDS HANG LOW on the horizon, threatening the dawn that’s reluctantly taking shape to the east.

  Behind us the farmhouse burns. The flames have already made their way up into the roof; thick black smoke coils up from the rafters, smudging the morning sky. Whatever Marv had stashed under the floorboards went up like the Fourth of July, but we don’t stay to watch. Peck has a day’s start on us.

  We make our way down to the turnpike, picking our way between the gnarled trunks. There hasn’t been a fresh fall and the snow’s settled. Good tracking skiff, Marv would have called it. But we’ve barely made it a hundred yards before Hamish has his first yard sale. Angus is faring a little better but I can already hear him breathing hard behind me.

  I stop when we get down to the road and wait while Mags and the kid continue on. Angus trudges up to me a few minutes later, his face beet red. He bends down, his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. Hamish is still coming down the slope. He’s already covered head to toe in gray powder but from the way he’s driving his snowshoes I suspect he has at least one more tumble in him before he joins us on the ’pike.

  When Angus gets his wind back I hand him a piece of paper. On one side there’s the message I want them to give to Peck, on the other a simple map. We didn’t meet anyone on the way up, which means he must have taken the Catoctin Mountain Highway, the route Marv and I followed when we first went to Mount Weather. Angus looks at the paper and then back up at me.

  ‘It’s not hard. You just stick on this road ’till you hit a town called Shiloah. A little ways beyond it there’s a big highway. Turn right when you get to it. If you hike sunup to su
ndown you should be on it maybe a couple of days before you need to start looking for the first sign. Don’t worry too much about the names. I’ve written down all the numbers you need to look for.’

  Angus looks dubiously at the map and then the road.

  ‘Can’t we come with you?’

  I shake my head. Benjamin’s way through Ely’s shorter, but it’s a harder hike. And we need to travel fast now if we have any chance of getting to Mount Weather ahead of Peck.

  Angus looks crestfallen. His brow furrows; I can see him searching for something to say that might convince me. Eventually he raises one arm and points down the road at the kid.

  ‘We won’t hold you up no more than that.’

  I look at Johnny. The snowshoes are way too big for him; I’ll definitely have to find him another pair. There’s no getting around how short his legs are, either. Whatever way you cut it he’s going to struggle when the drifts get deep. I turn back to Angus.

  ‘Yeah, but him I can carry.’

  Angus stares forlornly down the ’pike.

  ‘You’ll be okay. Just keep an eye on the skies and remember to get off the road before it turns dark.’

  There’s nothing else to say so I shift the straps on my backpack and set off after Mags and the kid. When I reach the first bend I look over my shoulder. Hamish has joined Angus now. They’re both standing in the middle of the road where I left them, staring down at the map.

  I catch up with Mags. The going’s not bad along this stretch and we can walk side by side. The kid marches on ahead. The snow might have settled but I suspect it’ll not be long before he tires of breaking trail.

  ‘You think they’ll be alright?’

  I turn to look at her.

  ‘Yeah. The way’s easy and they have most of the soldier’s supplies. There shouldn’t be any more storms. I can’t see them catching Peck and the others though.’