by David Peters
“When we finally got to the back pallets on the trailer we pulled back from Sumter I found those. Travis was with me at the time and he was actually the one who brought up the idea of saving them for a Christmas present. I was just surprised he could keep the secret this long,” Dylan was eight different shades of happy at being able to pull off the surprise.
“Now I need to figure out when I can wear the dress!” she said excitedly as she danced around the room holding the dress in front of her. She carefully draped the dress over one of the kitchen chairs and opened the bottle of perfume. She immediately sprayed her wrists and breathed it in. “I forgot how much I love that smell. Thank you so much Cowboy!” She jumped into him and wrapped him in a huge bear hug and another kiss.
Erica stood and held the dress to her in the same manner that Niccole had done. Dylan was struck by how much she had changed in the last six months. She had really moved down the road to becoming a grown woman. Very early on Erica had been extremely shy and withdrawn around others. The more she had worked with Niccole and seen how outgoing her new mom was the more Erica tried to emulate her. He was proud of her daughter but sad in the same thought. He started thinking about the things that she may never have in her life and quickly stopped the train of thought. There was simply no point in dredging up the sadness of what could not be. They were here now and alive.
Niccole was watching Erica and having similar thoughts to Dylan, “We will have to find an excuse for you to borrow that Sweetie.”
Erica blushed when she saw her parents looking at her, “I couldn’t do that Mom, but thanks for thinking it.”
“We shall see when the time comes,” Niccole said as she smiled back at her.
“There are eleven more bottles of the perfume too, so you should be good for a while.”
“Wow, when you deliver, you really deliver!”
Dylan walked to the kitchen and reached above the top cabinet and pulled down a small package with a pink ribbon carefully tied around it, “And one more surprise delivery for…” Dylan made carefully read the tag on the gift as if he didn’t actually know who it was for, “Erica!”
Erica looked excitedly at Niccole and accepted the small package. Dylan sat next to Niccole and watched her carefully untie the bow. Inside the small box she pulled out a small heart pendant on a chain. Carefully opening the small locket tears formed in the corner of her eyes as she read the inscription.
“How did you do this Dad?”
“I have to be honest, that was Travis’ idea too. He was able to etch with some tool he has. We actually found quite a few things and passed them out to various people for surprise gifts on Christmas morning.”
“Travis wrote this?”
“Sure did” Dylan answered with a smile.
Niccole opened the small locket and read the roughly etched words, ‘In you, there is hope’.
They opened the last few remaining crafted gifts and hand drawn cards. By the standards of Christmas’ of the past it was meager at best. But in the dark light of what was now their life, it was simply the best Christmas the three could ever remember.
The family spent the rest of the afternoon sitting around the fireplace and drinking their home brewed teas. They talked of Christmas’ gone by. Not in sadness, but with a fondness of the good times they had and the memories they still carried of those they had lost.
--2--
Dylan and Niccole woke to the sound of heavy knocking on the front door. Dylan looked around the room bleary eyed and sat up in bed. In another moment he felt like his head was catching up with his body and dropped his feet to the floor. He rubbed his eyes and looked around the room to get his bearings. Niccole was standing on her side of the bed buttoning up her shirt and he decided that he should do the same. As the two dressed rapidly they could hear Erica’s muffled voice downstairs greeting whoever had knocked. After a few mumbled sentences the door closed and Erica called out to them from below.
“Mom? Dad? Got a few people waiting to chat with you. You up yet?”
Dylan passed a concerned look to Niccole as he struggled with his boots, he answered in a loud voice over his shoulder and out the open bedroom door, “We’re up sweetie, what’s the problem?”
“James, one of the scouts, came by and he says they really need you out front. He sounds kind of wired, ya know? He won’t tell me anything else.”
Niccole cinched up her belt and snapped the cover over the back of the pistol grip “We’re on our way down Baby, be just a minute!”
Dylan finished putting his shoulder holster rigging on and reached for this rifle, “I really hope winter isn’t already over. I was just getting used to the peace and quiet around here. It isn’t even January yet damn it!”
“She let us sleep in, that has to count for something, right?”
Dylan held the door open for Niccole as they stepped out onto the front porch. Dylan finished zipping up his jacket and flipped the heavy collar up to warm his neck. Pulling the door closed behind him he nodded to the two scouts. The sun was just finishing its climb over the far mountain peaks and was attempting to push back the morning cold. The two scouts stood patiently at the edge of the porch holding the leads to their mounts and whispering quietly to each other. Both horses were still breathing heavily and sending out clouds of warm breath as they exhaled.
“Sorry to bug you before our normal report Boss but we thought you should hear about this now,” said the taller of the two. “Something is happening in Sumter. We really don’t know what to make of it or how to report it so it makes sense.”
Dylan raised an eyebrow at the young man, “And?”
Niccole looked at Dylan and smirked, “Sounds like a mystery to solve! I’ll get the van!”
Dylan laughed as the scouts looked at each other in confusion, “I think that might be a little before their time. Never mind James, we haven’t had our coffee yet.”
“Can you give us any hints at all James?” Niccole asked.
James looked at the other scout and shrugged his shoulders, “Not sure how to explain it Niccole. But the 'Rupts are up to something and I don’t know how to describe it. You sort of need to see it.”
“And hear it.” The second scout added.
“All right, give us a few to get saddled up. We will meet you at the main gate and we can head out from there.”
Dylan looked at Niccole and shrugged as the two scouts mounted up and trotted towards the main gate.
“So at what point should I start worrying?” Dylan asked.
“I wasn’t aware you ever stopped.” She flicked the rim of his cowboy hat and held his hand as they walked towards the stables. Whatever the scouts wanted them to look at would still be there whether they took their time or not. Whatever plan the Corrupted were hatching was well underway and there was little they could do to stop it anyway.
--3--
It took nearly an hour riding before the scout trail broke out from the cover of the heavy forest. The path followed the top of a steep hillside before disappearing back into the woods. From this vantage point they could see most of the small town of Sumter. Dylan was still in the saddle as he looked down on the town spread out below them. Most of the buildings and roads were buried by the heavy snow and it was difficult to see where drifts of snow piled up against something man-made gave way to those of nature.
“What the hell are they doing?” Niccole asked to no one in particular.
“That’s a really good question,” remarked Dylan.
Sumter was a small town with only one real industry aside from the business that supported the people that lived there. A river cut through the north side of town and meandered off into the distance to the east. On the river was the logging mill, the only reason people started coming to the town in the early nineteen hundreds. This was also the scene of their battle a few months ago. It was about a week after they thought they had blown up the hive that they began seeing the signs of not only rebuilding, but quite a bit of expansi
on. Once the cold set in it appeared that the Corrupted built even faster. At the center of the hive was a large stack of some kind. To Dylan it reminded him of the cooling tower of a nuclear reactor he had seen as a boy. The entire hive looked like it was made out of brown paper Mache and for the most part was around the same height as a two story building. The stack towered above the rest of the hive but until today the Corrupted hadn’t given any indication of what purpose the thing might have.
Today the stack was humming. It was a very low pulsing hum that immediately reminded Dylan of the rumble strips on the sides of the highways in Colfax. It would come and go in waves of sound about ten seconds between the highs and lows.
“What is coming out of the top of that thing?” asked Dylan as he brought his binoculars to his eyes. “And what the hell happened to all the snow down there? I don’t see a single spot of snow within a hundred yards of the hive. How warm is that place?”
One of the scouts cleared his throat, “Uh, Boss, it’s been that way for a couple of weeks now.”
“You didn’t think that was worth bringing up at any point in time?” Dylan’s face flashed an angry red as he stared at the scout.
“I guess I do now,” he said sheepishly as he turned his face away trying to look anywhere but at him.
Niccole was sitting on her horse and leaned in to talk quietly to Dylan, “Dylan, they’re just kids. They’re trying to do their best. You tell them to report what they think is important. Generally snow melting doesn’t fall into that category.”
Dylan looked at Niccole and felt awkward for his initial outburst at the scout. He turned back to the others sitting quietly on their horses, “Sorry Ben, just a little disappointed that winter is ending earlier than planned. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. You guys have kind of a shit job and I’m sorry.”
Ben nodded, “S’ok Boss. We understand. We should have said something now that I think about it, I guess it does look a little out of place now but it happened kinda gradually, you know? We come through here every morning, don’t rightly notice it until someone points a finger at it.”
James agreed with Ben, “Ya. It won’t happen again Boss.”
Dylan was looking for any movement in the parking lot with his binoculars when the humming stopped abruptly. The sudden change left the valley in ominous silence. The sound of the river far below them was now all they could hear from the town. A slight breeze was moving from the south and somewhere in the track housing far below a wind chime intoned a few random notes.
Niccole observed quietly, “Whatever was coming out of the top is nothing but a trickle now.”
For nearly five minutes the eerie silence continued around them. Dylan gave Niccole a concerned look. Part of him wanted to turn tail and run back to town; if he had learned anything from this war with the Corrupted it was not to trust them for a single second. With a sudden deep base ‘thrum’ the pulsing sound began again sending the horses into a brief panic and startling the riders at the same time.
Niccole wrinkled her brow as she fought the calm the horse, “What the hell?” As soon as the sound began again the heavy rippling effect appeared at the top of the stack sending a rolling plumb of clear distorted air into the sky, “Whatever is coming out of that stack certainly isn’t smoke, it’s clear,” observed Niccole, “and what in the world is that noise coming from the hive?”
Dylan continued to note the details through his binoculars, “If I didn't know better, I'd say that whatever is coming out of that stack is pretty hot. You can see that shimmering effect goes way the hell up before it finally fades out. It reminds me of looking down the highway during mid-summer and seeing the ripple in the horizon. Kind of has the same effect.”
“I need to get on the radio and see if any of the other townships are seeing this,” Niccole said with a touch of alarm. “This can’t be good whatever it is. Nothing these things ever do seems to be anything but bad for us.”
The two scouts turned their horses around and headed back up the trail towards Paradise Falls. Niccole gave Dylan’s thigh a quick pat and turned to follow the others. He smiled back at her then turned to take one last look over the town. When they had fled from the Corrupted back in the fall of the previous year several blocks were completely engulfed in flame. With no fire crews to control the flames it had consumed a large portion of the central downtown. What few buildings still remained were mostly just hollowed shells of concrete and served little to no purpose to the survivors. The thick blanket of snow covering the town gave it an almost peaceful feeling. At least until his eyes found the bare wet ground around the hive. As a heavy sigh escaped his lips Dylan turned his horse and headed up the winding path. As he entered the forest his arm briefly brushed a pine tree branch and for the first time he noticed that the snow was melting off the trees.
--4--
“Order!” Dylan hit the podium with his fists, “Order! Shut the hell up damn it!” He was struggling to yell over the shouted arguments that filled the courtyard. Several different groups of people had separated themselves as the shouting matches started looking like they were going to come to blows.
“I will not have this breaking down into a shouting match! We will give anyone and everyone that has something of value to add, time to say their piece!” Dylan realized he was grabbing the podium so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. More and more often he was finding occasions where he had difficulty keeping his temper under control. The mounting stress associated with the role of mayor was eating him up and he knew it. He turned and looked at Niccole behind him. She was a pillar of control but he could see the watchful eyes of hers roving over the crowd looking for anyone that might take an argument one step too far.
Niccole could sense him looking at her and threw him a smile and a wink.
For a brief second he flashed back to a trip they had taken to some small town in Mexico with a name he could no longer recall. He thought about the white sand beach and that beach bartender, ‘What was his name? Pablo? Palo? Something like that. That guy was incredible, really made that trip. What that man could do to a drink was simply magic. I wonder if we will ever have another vacation. I wonder if I will ever lie on a beach again.’
Dylan winked back at her and turned to face the crowd again with a sigh. He stood up a little straighter and addressed the tense group in front of him, “It’s cold out here and I am as anxious as you to get back to something resembling warmth. We all knew this time was coming. We had hoped that it would be later but the Corrupted didn’t get the memo. This is information we need to hear. I know we have quite a few people that believed the Corrupted died of the cold. We know positively now that isn’t the case. There is no point in arguing this fact; it just simply is how it is. Secondly, you can wish all you want that the snow will remain until spring but we are already seeing it melt off the trees. Simply hoping isn’t going to do a thing for us at this point. The snow isn’t going to be with us to much longer if these temps keep rising.” The crowd had quieted back down to the occasional murmur as Dylan continued “We need information and we need a plan. It is what got us to where we are today, ok? Now Doc, you were saying something about some of your recent findings. Please continue.”
Doc was standing towards the back of the crowd. He was the epitome of a fifties era small town doctor; white beard, wire rim glasses and a Cardigan sweater that seemed permanently attached to him. His voice sounded like he could do old time jam commercials, if old time jam commercials were ever going to be made again. He pushed his glasses closer to his eyes nervously and looked around before he continued where he had left off, “Thank you Dylan. What I was trying to say is that it has become quite clear that not only did the Corrupted not die from the cold; they appear to have grown stronger. Now Niccole and I have been gathering a very large quantity of data from other townships that have hives nearby. Every single hive started the humming sound at nearly the same time. The only way I can see this occurring in this manner would be if
there is some sort of communication that exists between the nests. In other words, I think all of the hives have some way to communicate or are connected in some manner. Whatever the goal of the Sumter hive is, it is firmly a mutual goal with the general Corrupted population as a whole. Not only do the hives themselves seem to operate as a collective, all of the hives together are one massive collective, a network with a purpose.”
Once again the sound of the crowd swelled as individual conversations and debates started yet again. Some people refused to hear what most were finally beginning to accept as the truth. Dylan shook his head as he looked over the few members of the crowd that just couldn’t face the cold hard facts that others were beginning to accept as the truth. They would wind up getting dragged kicking and screaming into the real world soon.
Dylan motioned with his hands to keep people quiet, “So are you telling us that all of the hives are talking to each other?”
