by James Axler
“We’re living in a remote fortress and someone tried to bomb the quickest way out,” J.B. said. “I’ve been all around here—the place is locked up tighter than a drum. They could train an army here and send it out whenever they wanted.”
“They’re not an army,” Ryan repeated.
J.B. shook his head in irritation. “And the bomber doesn’t worry you?”
“A madman,” Ryan related. “You get them. Even in Front Royal we had malcontents.”
“Like Harvey,” J.B. said.
Ryan shot J.B. a fierce look at that. His brother Harvey had been power-mad and had slashed Ryan’s face and tried to chill him during his deranged quest to take the seat of the barony. Harvey’s machinations had sealed Ryan’s fate and shaped his life.
“Why don’t you come and have a drink?” Ryan said finally. “The mead’s good.”
“No,” J.B. said, shaking his head, “I’d sooner keep a clear head, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Oil your own blaster, then,” Ryan said, and he turned back to the archway and strode through, returning to the celebration in the plaza.
J.B. watched his friend go, feeling more unsettled than ever. Mentioning Harvey had been a low blow, but it should have provoked more of a reaction in Ryan than it had. Ryan held his anger in check, but to say nothing, to not even comment when J.B. had cruelly mentioned the brother who had cut out his eye...? It didn’t ring true somehow. He had known Ryan a long time. Something was up. J.B. just couldn’t figure out what it was.
* * *
CHARM AND JAK returned to her cottage after the rally and made love. Both of them had been hot for each other at the dance, and it was all Jak could do to keep from tearing Charm’s clothes off as she’d danced for him in the center of the plaza. Back home, they coupled in the bed they shared, the covers tossed back and the moonlight playing off the sweat on their bodies. It was a fierce kind of lovemaking, their bodies writhing together like snakes in combat, muscles straining and pushing against one another as they drove each other to greater realms of pleasure.
Afterward, as Jak held Charm close to him to conserve their body heat, she asked him what he wanted.
“What mean?” Jak asked, his eyes focused on a flickering candle by the side of the bed.
“The future,” Charm said. “Where do you see yourself in a year’s time? Five years?”
“Each day as comes,” Jak replied pragmatically. That had been his philosophy for as long as anyone could remember, and certainly since his father had died at the hands of Baron Tourment when he was barely a teenager.
“We could leave,” Charm told him, her eyes fixed on his. “Create our own Heaven, like this one, only better. With me as queen.”
“And me as king,” Jak said, laughing.
“You’re strong,” Charm said, brushing Jak’s sweat-damp hair from his eyes. “We could build something beautiful together, another Home.”
“Ville?” Jak asked.
“If that’s what you call it. I’d make a good Regina. I’m strong, Jak. I’m ready to lead.”
Jak’s red eyes flicked to Charm and he seemed to regard her in a new light. “Serious?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “The Regina tells us we should spread out, bring light to the darkness. Soon it’ll be time. Heaven Falls will become too full and people will need to move on. I could lead them, Jak, with you at my side. We could make something wonderful that banishes the darkness forever, just like Heaven Falls. We could do this.”
Jak stroked Charm’s slender body, a smile on his pale lips. His world had been one of pain and suffering. To hear her talk like this, to hear the promise that their lives together held, made him desire her more, and desire the future they could have.
Charm kissed Jak and they made love until the candle flickered and died, leaving only a thin line of gray smoke fluttering from its charred wick.
Chapter Twenty
Ryan awoke with a head full of mead and thoughts on his mind. The sun was streaming through a gap in the drapes, a bright golden spear of light that drew a shimmering line across the bed and the wall behind it where he and Krysty slept. She was still asleep, naked, the cover pulled up over her shoulder, her face snuggled against his chest.
Ryan looked at Krysty, the light dusting of freckles on her shoulders where she had caught the sun. He was happy with this woman, had always been happy with her. She fed his soul with brilliance, the way the sun fed the seeds to make them grow.
As if sensing his eyes on her, Krysty began to stir, her hand brushing at her nose and her eyes flickering open. “Lover?” she asked, her voice a husky whisper.
“We pulled a mad one last night,” Ryan told her, stroking her red hair back from her face.
Krysty smiled. “So that’s what’s buzzing in my head. Did we dance?”
“We always dance when we’re together,” Ryan replied. “Even without any music.”
Krysty looked at Ryan, her emerald eyes fixed on his lone blue orb. His chin was dark with the start of a beard and his hair was in disarray from where he had slept hard with the alcohol inside him, but he was undeniably handsome. “You look like you were thinking deep thoughts,” she said.
“Mebbe I was,” Ryan replied easily. “I’ve learned things here, new skills. Was thinking mebbe I could build us a house for ourselves, out there at the edge of the trees where they’re still clearing the earth.”
“Build a house?” Krysty repeated, surprise in her tone. “For us?”
“For us,” Ryan confirmed. “I don’t know... It would take help, I couldn’t do it on my own. But the people around here, Terrence and the others—they’d all weigh in if I asked, I’m sure of that.”
“And we’d have a house,” Krysty said, smiling.
“Yeah, one of our own. Not one that someone else built, but one for us, up here in the mountains, safe.”
“Ryan, do you think that’s possible?”
“I think we’ve found a little spot of Heaven here that we shouldn’t let go of,” Ryan replied.
“I think so, too,” Krysty agreed. And there were tears in her eyes.
* * *
ARRIVING AT THE nursery, Krysty felt light-headed. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Ryan had said, about building a house, settling down. They had been on the road for so long that their goal of living quietly together had become a distant dream, one that a person paid lip service to without ever truly believing. Yet here they were in Heaven Falls, where food was abundant and community was paramount, where safety was not a daily ritual of oiling and reloading blasters but simply existed, untouchable, in the very air around them. They had found perfection.
Andrea was outside the nursery building beating blankets. “Hey, Krys, you look good,” she said as she saw Krysty strolling toward the low-roofed building.
“You, too,” Krysty said, bemused. “What do you mean?”
“You and that man of yours were knocking back the wa-wa juice last night,” Andrea teased. “I’m surprised you can even see straight.”
Krysty smiled. “Who says I can?” Yeah, nothing was going to put a damper on her day this day. Nothing could touch her. She was bulletproof and she knew it.
* * *
THE KIDS ARRIVED in their usual groupings, Hailey and her friends clustering around Krysty when they saw her emerge from the little pantry. Krysty sipped on a mug of cool water, conscious she needed to rehydrate herself following the alcohol of the night before. It was a luxury: a hangover that could just be nursed away rather than fought through while a mutie horde chased you toward a cliff face shooting flaming arrows. In a week her life had changed that much—why would anyone go back?
Krysty helped Andrea with the babies for a half hour in the morning. There were only five of them this day, and while it wasn’t unusual that one or other kid might swap depending on their parents’ rota, Krysty was struck that it was Geoffrey, the little lad who had seemed lethargic before, who was missing.
When
Krysty asked about this, Andrea just shrugged. “Little mites get sick sometimes,” she said. “All part of growing up.”
Not long after that, while the older kids were settling down for their lunch, Krysty took a few minutes to check on the baby room again while Andrea helped serve. The familiar sounds of gurgling and snuffling came from the cribs as Krysty walked down the center aisle. She felt a little like she was walking in a minefield—one false step and all these babies would be set off and start wailing. Stopping by the farthest cot, the one close to the windows, Krysty leaned in and looked at the little girl who lay there. To her surprise, the girl’s eyes were wide-open and she was looking up at Krysty with a dull expression.
“It’s okay, sweet flower,” Krysty whispered soothingly. “Go back to sleep.”
The girl—blue-eyed with blond hair like cobwebs—didn’t seem to notice Krysty, and so after a moment Krysty reached in and lifted her gently from her crib.
“There, there,” she soothed, rocking the child in her arms. “It’s all okay. Nothing to worry about in your tiny little world.”
The girl felt limp to Krysty, floppy, like holding a fish. Her eyes were wide but they didn’t focus on Krysty, not even when she spoke to her or touched her gently on her little button of a nose. What’s more, as Krysty looked, she noticed that the child’s belly seemed round, like she’d swallowed a ball.
“I don’t think you’re very well,” Krysty said, still using the same singsong whisper she had used to soothe the little girl.
Just then, Davina appeared in the doorway, backlit into silhouette. “Hey, Kryssie, we need you in here.”
Krysty put the baby back in her crib and trotted out of the darkened room and into the main play area. There was a mess of spilled food on one of the tables and an upturned jug was sprawled across the floor, leaking sweetened water all over the boards in a shiny residue. All around, kids were crying and shouting and pulling each other’s hair.
“What happened?” Krysty asked, her eyebrows raised high on her forehead.
“From what I gather, Jessie there tried to show some of the kids a trick,” Christine explained, the sigh audible in her tone.
Jessie, the daughter of Ryan’s friends Terrence and Bernie, was standing in a corner of the room crying while some of the other kids shouted at her. Krysty hurried over and pulled a few of the kids gently aside before leaning down to Jessie.
“Hey, hey, it’s all right,” Krysty said.
“I spilled it,” Jessie said, tears running down her face.
“Not on purpose, though,” Krysty told her.
Jessie looked up at Krysty for the first time and the flame-haired beauty saw the relief there in her eyes. “No, not at purpose,” she said.
“Not on purpose,” Krysty corrected her.
* * *
THE TRAUMA WAS forgotten by the afternoon, and by the time the parents came to collect their kids everything at the kindergarten was back to its normal level of chaos. As the last of the parents took their two girls home, Krysty excused herself and headed over to the medical tower, leaving Andrea, Christine and Davina to tidy up the last of the toys.
The medical tower’s white exterior was turned orange by the setting sun, looking like a shaft of sunlight that had been drilled into the ground like some grand cosmic marker left by a forgotten god. Beside it, the other towers were also glowing red and orange in the sunlight, basking in the last of its warm rays.
Krysty strode past the archways and into the reception area. It was enviously clean in here after the chaos of the kindergarten, and Krysty took a few moments just to enjoy the stillness and the quiet.
Women were hurrying around or discussing this or that patient or case in brisk, clinical terms. Krysty walked over to a group of three women dressed alike in pale apron-like dresses and waved her hand to get their attention.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt...” she began.
“No bother,” said one of the women, an olive-skinned lady with her long hair clipped back in a tight bun. “What can we do for you?”
“I’m looking for a friend of mine—Mildred Wyeth,” Krysty said. “She works here.”
“Mildred? Sure, I know her,” the olive-skinned woman replied. “I’ll show you. Can I ask your name?”
“It’s Krysty.”
Krysty was taken to a second-floor room that seemed to double as waiting area and dining room, where she was told to wait. Shortly after that, Mildred arrived wearing a similar apron-like dress, and she gave a broad smile as she saw Krysty waiting for her.
“Krysty! What brings you to the medical faculty? Nothing bad, I hope.”
Krysty made as if to check her elbows and her knees. “Nope, no broken bones,” she confirmed with a broad grin. “Actually, I wanted your expertise on something. A little problem I came across at the nursery where I work.”
“Fire away,” Mildred said, taking a seat beside Krysty.
“The kids are normal enough,” Krysty explained. “Nice kids really, full of life. But I noticed a few of the younger ones seem kind of, I don’t know, sleepy a lot of the time.”
“Sleepy how?” Mildred asked, her interest already piqued.
“It’s really the little ones,” Krysty said. “Babies. We take them pretty much from birth, so there are a half dozen babies there under two. I noticed one of them was really out of it a few days ago, just lying there like a solid weight.”
“Was the child breathing?” Mildred asked with concern.
“Oh, yes, I’d have come to you straight away if he wasn’t,” Krysty said. “It was more like he didn’t have any energy, like a rag doll. Then today, there was a girl—cute thing, pretty as a buttercup—and she looked like she’d eaten too much—her belly was all rounded and she was absolutely out of it. I tried rousing her but she was... Well, she was awake but she wasn’t really there, if you know what I mean. Do you think they’re drinking mead?”
“No, it sounds like an infection, maybe,” Mildred mused, “or a virus. Is it spreading, do you know?”
“I haven’t noticed,” Krysty said. “Christine—she’s one of the other assistants there—she said it’s pretty normal, and the kids there go through this from time to time.”
“So she’s seen it before?”
Krysty nodded. “Her and Andrea, another lady who helps out. They seem to think it’s nothing. I just... Children, you know?”
“Yeah,” Mildred said, nodding slowly. “They tug on the heartstrings. Have you spoken to Ricky at all?” Mildred added, reminded tangentially of their youngest companion.
“Not recently,” Krysty admitted. “Is he still here?”
“No, he was at the dance last night,” Mildred said. “Dance! I mean the rally. What do you call that thing?”
“I danced,” Krysty said, blushing fiercely.
“Anyway, your kids...” Mildred said, getting back to the topic at hand. “You want me to come over, take a look-see?”
“How hard do they work you here?” Krysty replied. “If you could come over in the daytime then...”
“Tomorrow morning,” Mildred stated firmly. “I’ll come over during my break and give your kids the once-over. Tell them it’s for their own good.”
“It is!” Krysty reminded her.
“Good, then I won’t be lying!” Mildred said.
“You know how to get there?” Krysty asked. “It’s close to the clustered pines out by the west hedge.”
“Nursery by the hedge. I’ll find it,” Mildred confirmed.
* * *
JAK COULDN’T EXPRESS in words what it was that he was feeling, but then words had never really been his strong suit. He only knew that he wanted to be with Charm, and that she treated him really nice. The previous night she had spoken about a future together, about them setting up their own ville where she would be the baron.
No, not baron—Regina.
He wanted to be with her. The way she swung her hips when she danced, the way they made love with fury and strengt
h until his muscles burned. He wanted it to last forever.
His need to be close to her had driven him that day, and he had cleared a great square of field—enough work for two men over two days and he had done it in one. But he was wasted there, he knew, clearing fields and chopping firewood from what was left. He wanted Charm to be proud of him, the way she admired his body, his strength. He wanted to use his old skills, hunting skills, chilling skills—the things that Jak Lauren had brought to Ryan’s group.
After his shift was over in the field, with his muscles aching from all that he had put them through, Jak stomped into town like a hurricane, making a dead-eye path to the Regina’s towering residence in the very center of Heaven Falls.
Words had never come easy to Jak, but he somehow managed to make it clear that he was there to see the Regina and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. The Melissa on the door, a sweet-faced brunette called Dorothy, told him to wait on one of the benches outside, where he caught the last of the sun’s dwindling rays and listened to the insects buzz and the birds sing. There was green in the skies today, where toxins floated around in wispy clouds that barely had any substance to them, like a sheet of gauze cast over the air. It was fallout from the nukecaust, that terrible day that had changed the world and never seemed to come to an end.
Dorothy came back and accompanied Jak into the Regina’s residence. He kept pace with her as she led him up through the tower and into a high room whose windows looked out in all directions, taking in the fields and the houses and the mountains. If he looked really hard, Jak thought he could even see the redoubt where they had arrived a week earlier, just a little mound in the grass, hidden among the trees.
The Regina reclined on a low-backed chair that was more like a bench, picking at dried berries glazed in honey. Her hair was up in an elaborate design that dropped in front of her like the horn of a unicorn, and she wore a yellow dress made up of gossamer-thin layers that seemed to cling to her svelte body like liquid. Her eyes and mouth were striped black with makeup, cast there in thick lines like a painting that was smudged before it could dry.
