Reapers (Breakers, Book 4)

by Edward W. Robertson

  "What do you want to do once we get home?" Tilly said, crumbs stuck to her lips.

  "Fall asleep for about a week."

  She laughed. "After we've napped, feasted, and drank till we don't know who we are."

  "I dunno," Lucy said. "With Distro gone, this city's going to be short on the finer things in life. You ever thought of becoming an entrepreneur?"

  "Shit, Nerve never shut up about that stuff. I got a veritable crash course in marketing."

  "You handle the business, I handle the grow." Lucy nodded and chewed off a rind of sourdough. "Get us a boat, sail up here two-three times a year. Sounds fun, right?"

  They got up and continued on, going silent as they skirted Kono's uptown territory. Beyond the park, as they walked past a ritzy campus, they started telling each other about the last few weeks. Tilly had had a real time of it—soon as he'd learned about her, Nerve had kept her prisoner in the tower—but she didn't seem too shaken up by it. She laughed and marveled at Lucy's stories of getting shot, of seeing the aliens touching down in the marshy field, of battling Distro in the snowy woods of Central Park. Lucy left out a few parts, like when she shot the President of Manhattan, but by the time they reached the steel span of the George Washington Bridge, there was still plenty of story to tell.

  Up on the bridge, two Fed soldiers came out from their shack, rifles slung over their chests.

  "What's up, Phil?" Lucy said. "How y'all doing?"

  Phil cocked his head. "When a pretty girl knows your name, it's always a good day. What can I do for you?"

  "Just heading out of town. I found my friend. This here is Tilly."

  Tilly smiled and stuck out her hand. "Pleased to meet you."

  "Likewise," Phil winked.

  His partner moved beside him. "Passports?"

  Lucy patted her pocket. "Know what, my bag got stolen."

  "I left mine in my room," Tilly said. "I didn't know we'd be leaving."

  The second soldier frowned. He had dark brows and lips that never seemed to quit moving. "We can't let anyone through without a passport."

  "I respect the law as much as the next man," Lucy said, "but there's been some extenuating circumstances. This morning, I helped your people assault Distro headquarters. My friend here was being held prisoner. We just want to get home to Florida."

  "Not without papers."

  "Man, you saw me come in here," Lucy said.

  "We see lots of people." The man shifted his rifle. "Things have been heavy lately. If we don't do things by the book, we could face a court martial."

  Phil gritted his teeth. "Listen, how about we run down to City Hall for the records?"

  Lucy snorted. "By the time you get down there, they'll be closed. You're gonna walk all the way back here in the dark? Where are we supposed to sleep?"

  Tilly's eyes darted between them. "Maybe we can find an apartment."

  "So we get to freeze all night? What if someone catches up with us? Like one of Nerve's buddies who saw us take him down?"

  The second soldier's face went guarded. "Were you involved in the commission of an assault?"

  "For Pete's sake, he was a war criminal." She huffed, breath hanging in the air. "You want to head down to City Hall and satisfy your curiosity regarding our status, by my guest. Our names are Lucy Two and Tilly Loman. And we're going home."

  The man moved around her. "I can't allow you to do that."

  "Sure you can," Lucy smiled. "You're a big boy. You can do whatever you want."

  She took Tilly's arm and clumped through the snow past the barricade. The day was overcast and the river looked as gray as molten lead. A single flake of snow tumbled past Lucy's face. She looked up and sighed at the clouds. A long day was about to get longer.

  "Stop!" Phil screamed.

  Something kicked Lucy in the back so hard her legs dropped from under her. At the same time, a gun went off. She slipped into the snow.

  "Oh shit," she said.

  "Lucy!" Tilly got down beside her, touching her back, her chest. The girl's hands came away bloody.

  The second soldier stood in front of the barricade, rifle smoking, drooping from his hands like a spent erection. His eyes shined with the intensity of a mistake that can't be undone. His throat worked.

  "I told you no!" He mashed his lips together. He raised the gun again.

  To his right, Phil brought up his rifle and shot the man in the back of the head. The soldier toppled facedown into the snow.

  "Lucy," Tilly said. "You been shot."

  Lucy nodded numbly. "Got my legs."

  "No, it's your back. You're bleeding." Tilly turned to Phil. "Come help her!"

  Back down the bridge, Phil gaped at the body of his partner. He glanced at the girls, hands hanging from his sides, then ran away toward the city, snow flying from his shoes.

  "Hey!" Tilly hollered. "God damn it!" She eased Lucy's pack from her shoulders and got out the spare shirt. "You got any scissors?"

  "Left side pocket." Despair fluttered in her chest like a bat trapped in a bedroom. To have come so far and go down like this—trigger-happy psychopath who took her brush-off of the rules as a personal affront—she wanted to pound her fists and kick her heels, but her legs refused to move.

  The scissors rasped as Tilly cut the shirt from her back. Tilly pressed the spare shirt against her wound, but the sensation stopped halfway down Lucy's skin. It felt like the one time her mom had taken her to the dentist. On the drive home, her mom had passed her a Coke. The drink was cold on half of Lucy's lip, but on the other half, she felt nothing at all. The Coke had dribbled down her face and beaded on her lap and her mom had laughed.

  "Oh Jesus," Tilly said. "We got to get help. You stay right here, okay?"

  "There's nobody there," Lucy said. "Just run, Tilly. Car's at the Knickerbocker Country Club. It's a Charger. Assholes painted it camo. I left the keys inside the back bumper."

  "No! You listen and you listen good. You came all this way for me. After all you done, ain't no way in the world I'm going to leave you on this bridge." Tilly forced a smile to break across her blood-smudged face. "I know I don't have to tell you to be brave."

  Tilly grabbed Lucy's rifle and sprinted back down the bridge into the city. Lucy shouted after her, but the noise came out a croak. She didn't know if she meant to command Tilly to turn around and run to the car or to beg her not to leave her alone.

  Tilly's footsteps faded into the distance.

  And Lucy understood she wasn't alone. She couldn't feel her legs or her belly, but she felt his breath on her neck, cold as the arctic wind. She had fallen with her back to Manhattan, but she torqued herself around, dropping on one elbow and grabbing her dumb thighs, pulling them around until she faced the city and the man with the scythe.

  His cowl gazed down from the ashen clouds. His scythe was the river, a dull gunmetal sweep. His presence killed even the water in the air, hardening it into bone-white bits that swirled around her like slain flies. As cold as it must have been, she felt nothing but a perfect peaceful warmth.

  And Lucy got it. His games had not been the thoughtless malice of a cat with a cricket. He had been testing her. Training her. Until she'd become his sweet blond angel. Ready and able to cut his swath across Manhattan and harvest its wicked crop. She had done her deed. Here, at last, was her reward.

  As Lucy died, she remembered three things.

  First, she remembered Mom laughing about the day she would die, because she always remembered this.

  Second, she remembered when Vic Loman had asked her to always look out for Tilly. Lucy had sworn with such hot vehemence that the life flooded back to his eyes and she thought, for just a moment, that her promise had cured him. The life and light faded from his eyes not sixty seconds later, but the smile twinkling in them lasted past the end. She remembered that look whenever she needed to be strong.

  Last, she remembered something from so long ago she couldn't be sure it wasn't a dream. She was young. A grassy field. She'd
wandered far from home but knew her mother wouldn't notice. The grass was so green she tried to eat it but it tasted no good. The sun was as warm as a hug. A forest grew from the end of the clearing and Lucy ran to it but stopped in awe.

  The forest buzzed and thrummed and pulsed. A sea of sound swept her forward. She ran into the woods and the trees were alive: their skins writhing with wings and legs, each little piece piping its own note, until ten million different tunes became one vast song. She laughed but the forest's noise was so dense she couldn't hear herself. Each step she took stirred a cloud of whirring bugs, but the song played on, too big to ever be broken, vibrating down to the core of her heart. She stayed inside it until the sun went away, then went home to her empty house.

  As soon as she woke up the next morning, she ran back to the clearing and stopped on her heels. The woods had gone silent. In the shadow of the canopy, she walked on empty shells—but when she closed her eyes, she could still hear the forest singing. Letting her know that a song, like a life, will always play in the hearts of those who were there to hear it.

  She'd been so young, she'd forgotten all about it. Because she hadn't needed to remember until now.

  On the bridge to the island, snow touched Lucy's face and melted into streams. You might have thought she was crying, but you would have been wrong.

  EPILOGUE

  When she saw her house, Ellie stopped so suddenly the sheriff plowed into her back, knocking them both down. They laughed, snow soaking their backsides, and helped each other to their feet.

  Hobson grinned down the trail. "Forget you'd put that there, did you?"

  She brushed snow from her pants. "I never knew how much a home could mean to me."

  The four of them watched it a moment, as if it might jump up and leave, then continued along the trail to the north of the lake.

  Three days after leaving New York, a warm wind had blown in from the southwest, stealing the snows from the fields. Puddles riffled shin-deep by the shoulders of the highway. Birds splashed in the melt and pecked at soil they hadn't seen in weeks. After so long slogging around in snowshoes and soggy socks, walking on hard pavement with dry feet felt like flying.

  They took advantage of the melt to do some hunting. The deer were out in force, nibbling exposed shoots. Dee knocked one down first try. They took a day to clean and dress it, to salt and smoke as much of the meat as they could and roast a full haunch then and there. The fresh meat tasted like it had been born for them.

  The thaw didn't last. Ten miles past Albany, another storm rolled in, dumping four inches of wet, heavy snow onto the woods and fields. Ellie sighed and passed out the snowshoes she'd continued to carry just in case.

  But it was nothing like the blizzard that had hit them on the way down. And though Hobson and Quinn tired easily, Ellie had no worries. They had all the time they needed. She and Dee carried the packs and took turns breaking trail through the snow. Ellie intended quite seriously to never make a trip like this again, but if events conspired to break her vow, she'd make sure to drag Dee along with her.

  Though she expected Dee would require little if any convincing.

  Twelve days after jogging away from Yankee Stadium, they'd reached Ellie and Dee's house and, after taking a long look and brushing off the snow from Hobson's tumble, they continued straight to George's. He stood outside his front door, staring straight at them, as if he'd been waiting there the whole while.

  "Quinn!" George scrambled from the porch. Quinn dropped Dee's hand and ran. The two men smacked into each other, clapping backs, laughing like old fools. They parted and George's eyes shined as strong as the lake in July. "Are you okay?"

  Quinn shrugged his narrow shoulders. "They didn't feed me too good. I could hardly keep up with this crew."

  "Spring planting will fix you right up," George winked. He shook hands with the sheriff, hugged Dee, and moved to face Ellie. "You did it." He smiled, but the lines around his eyes were deep and sad. "I should have gone with you."

  Ellie shook her head. "We didn't know he'd been taken. Someone had to stay and search."

  "I looked every day." He gazed across his fields and the trees beyond. "Did Old Man Winter take it out on the city as bad as he did the mountains?"

  Hobson rolled his eyes. "As if the five boroughs had conspired to commit treason."

  George laughed, shoulders bouncing. He covered his face with his hand to hide his tears. Quinn embraced him.

  Dee moved beside Ellie and whispered in her ear. "Thank you."

  * * *

  When Tilly ran back to the bridge with the man who claimed to be a surgeon, she found Lucy gazing up at the clouds. Snow frosted the lashes of her eyes. She was smiling like she'd never quit.

  The doctor set down his bag. "I'm sorry."

  Tilly sank beside her and took Lucy's hand. The fingers were cool but the palm was still warm. "It's not fair. She was tougher than anyone I knew. How come one stupid bullet can erase all that?"

  "Most likely because it was traveling at two thousand feet per second." The surgeon sighed and rubbed his face. "Sorry. Long day. Would you like help with the burial?"

  "No." Tilly wiped the tears and snot from her face. She probably looked a fright. She felt guilty for having the thought. Lucy would have smacked her. Or more likely lashed her with a phrase that would ring in her ears for weeks. "You can't put her in the ground like some damn rutabaga. This girl burned like a forest fire."

  They smashed down the soldiers' shack and laid the timbers in a pyre. She found a lighter in Lucy's bag, lit a candle, then used that to get the fire going.

  "My daddy would be so proud of you," Tilly whispered.

  And then, knowing it was what Lucy would have done, she turned and walked away.

  The car was right where Lucy said it would be. It was reticent to start, dying as soon as Tilly quit turning the key. She didn't know what she'd do if it refused to kick over.

  "Walk, shithead." Lucy's voice was so clear in her mind she busted up laughing. After three more tries, the engine caught, grumbling exhaust through the garage.

  It wasn't what you'd call a fun drive, but the snow gave out around Washington. From there, she tried to take it in one fell swoop, but pulled over the first time she nodded off. After what Lucy'd been through for her, she didn't dare fall asleep at the wheel.

  She rolled into town on fumes, having burnt every last gallon from the jugs in the trunk. Her house was right there where she'd left it. Some possums had broken in and crapped up the place, but after a couple days of sweeping and scrubbing, she had it all back to normal.

  In town, the same people as ever were still kicking around. Beau. Lloyd. A few new faces drawn to the rumble of the boys' motors and the easy crops and fishing. Lloyd came around some, but she sent him away. He hadn't tried to bring her back. In a way, this whole fuck-up was his fault. If he'd been able to keep it in his goddamn pants around Tilly's best friend, Tilly would never have felt compelled to run off to the city—and Lucy wouldn't have had to chase her down.

  At the same time, she knew she owed it to Lucy to live like the night would never end, but she didn't deserve it. Because it was her own fault, too. After a while, Lloyd and the others quit coming around.

  She did what she needed to get by. Farmed the yard and those around her. Fished from the docks. Sleep, work, eat, shit. Didn't seem worth it. Summer came, humid and awful. She had taken the rifle and the umbrella with her from the city and on most nights she sat on the back porch listening to the bugs with the moonlight glinting from the steel.

  Would be so easy. But the thought of being found in the grass beside a loaded umbrella was so stupid it made her stomach hurt.

  The night she came closest—out of her head on moonshine, katydids screaming from the trees—and found out the barrel of the umbrella tasted like cool blood, she ran to her daddy's grave for answers, tripping in the unkempt grass. And she found that he was as dead as everyone else. She slept there, careless whether she woke again.


  The following hangover was the kind you told your grandkids about. Her knees were scraped. Palms muddy. Legs itchy with bug bites. Mouth as dry as Morocco. Lucky she hadn't pitched headfirst into the creek.

  There was no magic moment. She didn't think life worked that way. But bit by bit, little by little, the crushing weight eased from her chest. She scared up some paint and redid her house. Started to fence in the neighboring yard. It was there that Lloyd found her, dirt clinging to the sweat on her forearms, hair plastered flat to her temples and neck.

  "Ain't seen you in a while," he said. "Heard the work."

  "Gonna farm me some pigs."

  He got a real dubious look on his long face. "Pigs?"

  She stood and arched the small of her back. "Everyone's got to do their part to move the world forward. I mean to bring back bacon."

  Lloyd nodded, swiveling his head to take in the dig. "Need a hand?"

  She squinted into the sun. He wasn't the brightest of men, and she had historical doubts about his fidelity, but there was an earnestness to him that might flower into a person you could spend time with. "Who doesn't?"

  He grinned and walked across the yard.

  * * *

  It was a lovely ceremony—and simple. A few friends from Lake Placid and the farms around Saranac. A table of George's fried chicken, Ellie's bread and cake, Dee's potato salad, and Sam Chase's fresh-caught whitefish curry, the existence of which shocked Ellie on multiple levels. It was held not in a flower-strewn gazebo erected for the occasion, but there in the grass on the island with the tower.

  Hobson said he was not only a sheriff, but an ordained minister. Ellie didn't know about that—over the course of their brief acquaintance, he'd also claimed to be a cop, a P.I., a professor, and an airplane mechanic—but no one could prove otherwise, and he acquitted himself with the same cheery aplomb he applied to all things, be it toasting his morning bread or being taken prisoner by New York gangsters. His ceremony was agreeably non-denominational. At the end, Dee and Quinn kissed, then smushed Ellie's cake in each other's faces.