Arkadium Rising (26 page)

"Come on, Kat," he called out. Either the animal sensed his need for warmth and comfort, or she needed a little herself, but she trotted up to him and leaped up into his waiting arms.

His hunger had subsided but his weariness persisted, gaining more strength with every step he took through this deplorable wasteland. He felt like weeping, but no matter how sad he felt about the poor woman, and most likely the other people exposed in their dying places throughout Rose Ridge, he couldn't summon the tears. It was beyond him; he could no longer do it, could no longer weep for every new tragedy he encountered.

He passed one house after another, each with its litany of wounds that would never heal. An abandoned Honda Pilot seemed to delineate the small town from the farmland beyond. When he reached the vehicle he saw a tattered couch had been brought to the curb to be hauled away by garbage men who could very well be dead by now. The couch had once been velvety blue but in places it was now worn to bare gray. A seam along one of the cushions had split and foam puffed from the opening. The little strength Jason had upon entering Rose Ridge had by now seeped out from him; ahead, he could see the cornfields begin again, blanketing the world for as far as he could see. More miles ahead, no end in sight.

"Let's take a minute, what do you say?" He began to shift his pack from his shoulders and Kat took the hint and jumped down to the couch. Jason set the pack down and then collapsed on the cushion next to his traveling companion.

He closed his eyes and leaned back, letting his guard down for the first time since he left Ivy & Tim's apartment. The discarded couch was more comfortable than he imagined it would be, and as the fatigue hummed through his limbs, the piece of furniture seemed to float beneath him. Kat curled up next to his leg and started to purr. He looked down at her and patted her corkscrew hair.

"You hungry?" The cat looked up at him with an earnest expression. "Yeah, me too."

He unzipped the front pouch and pulled out the dregs of a bag of chicken jerky. After placing a handful in front of Kat, he grabbed a couple Snickers bars. He could finally admit it; he was desperate. He'd promised himself he wouldn't eat the candy unless he had no other choice. While Snickers had always been a favorite of his, he could go for some real food about now. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes? Sure. Grilled steak slathered in some A1? Absolutely.

After scarfing the candy bars, he rinsed them down with the last of his water. A garden hose sat like a coiled snake next to the nearest ruined house. He would have to refill his bottles before he hit the road.

All that in good time. For now, he needed to rest. He stretched his arms above his head, stifling an exhausted groan and then laid down with the dingy armrest propping his head. He blinked a few times and his mind started to drift. He felt again like he was floating, but then his mind flashed to the memory of Delaney bringing her knife down on Austin. So fast the knife blurred… and Marcus laughed mad laughter that quickly downshifted into slow motion, until his voice hung on one drawn out, taffy-pulled syllable:
HAAA!

That same single syllable went on uninterrupted for what felt like hours—Marcus's face frozen in glee as he gazed upon Delaney with her bloodied knife now paused inches from Austin's back for one more strike—until a shrill ring of an old-fashioned telephone jolted Jason awake.

brrrrringggg!

Jason sat up quickly, covered in sticky sweat. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, trying to get his bearings. From the angle of the sun, very little time had passed.

Again, he heard the old-fashioned telephone ring.

brrrrringggg!

Jason jumped to his feet and Kat meowed and scampered away from him.

It wasn't just part of his dream. He'd heard a phone ring.

brrrrringggg!

His nerve endings jangled as he tried to triangulate the sound. It was definitely coming from almost directly in front of him.

The Honda. It had to be.

He looked inside the tinted tailgate window, but couldn't see anything. For a moment he wondered if this was some kind of trap, but how or why would an old-fashioned phone—

…brrrrringggg!

—ringing be some kind of…

He shut out his thoughts and squeezed the handle on the tailgate. The latch clicked open and he slowly lifted the door.

Immediately he was greeted with the unmistakable stench of body odor and stale, heated air. The enclosed space was empty but for a rolled up sleeping bag sitting on top of a rumpled blanket.

The blanket shifted slightly.

brrrrringggg! brrrrringggg!

The phone shrilled even louder. Someone sniffled, holding back tears.

Jason reached out cautiously with one hand while retrieving his gun from his waistband with the other. He flipped off the safety and tugged a corner of the blanket.

brrrrringggg! brrrrringggg!

"Please… no more… please…" A girl in her early twenties kicked away from him as if he meant to hurt her, but there was no place for her to retreat to. Sweat beaded her ruddy, overheated face. The mass of frizzy hair on top of her head was blonde, while the rest was cropped short and dyed raven black. Her eyes were light blue, almost gray, and frightened, so very frightened. "Please…" she whimpered and pulled her legs to her chest, curling into a ball.

"It's okay… I'm not…" He tried to reassure her and then noticed the .38 still in his grip. "God, sorry about that." He tucked the gun back into his waistband.

brrrrringggg! brrrrringggg!

The phone wasn't old after all; the sound came from a fairly new smart phone. She held it just as fervently as Jason had his gun.

"Your phone! It's working!" The concept sounded so foreign to him when spoken aloud.

"It's not… it's
so
not." She rocked herself back and forth.

"Please, can I?" He held out his hand.

Something in his voice seemed to get through to her. She looked at him with clear eyes.

brrrrringggg! brrrrringggg!

"I won't break it, promise." He tried on a smile for the first time in days.

She handed him the phone with some reluctance.

He could feel her warm sweat on the phone's pink zebra-print casing. When he touched the screen it lit up, revealing a wallpaper image of the girl at the center of a group of girlfriends standing arm-in-arm on a white sand beach under a breathtaking azure sky. An idyllic snapshot of carefree youthful exuberance—glowing smiles hinting at shared inside jokes, the unrestrained self-confidence only felt among close friends, the unbridled hope for what the future would bring. The app icons appeared a moment later, and then a low battery signal flashed along the bottom corner of the screen.

brrrrringggg! brrrrringggg!

"There it goes again," she said weakly. "It just won't leave me alone."

He noticed there was a new voice message. He touched the icon and the phone started to dial. In this setting, in this
now
, it was a surreal sound, and when the other end finally picked up, he so hoped to hear a real live voice. It felt like that connection, that direct contact that had seemed so simple a week ago was fundamental to his ability to carry on in this world. Without connection, without the technology that enabled it, how were humans any different than animals?

"It just keeps calling me and leaving the same damned message," she said. "I delete it, then like five minutes later it calls again."

The phone picked up, and no matter how much he wanted to hear a real person on the other end of the line, it was a recording. "Hi, this is Selma at Dr. Hovart's office. We have your test results. Please give us a call back to schedule a follow up appointment so we can discuss your treatment options. Thanks!"

He waited until the message ended and the voice mail box asked if he wanted to delete it. He closed the app in mid-sentence.

"It won't stop." The girl sat up, still with her knees tight to her chest. She rocked herself forward and back, forward and back, and stared into the distance.

"Can you get through to anyone? Family? Friends?" he asked, but she didn't answer, didn't stop staring into nothing.

He hit the phone icon then dialed 911. The phone picked up on the second ring. "We're sorry, but your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again."

"Damn it."

He hung up and dialed the first number to come to mind, his own apartment's landline. "We're sorry—"

He hung up and dialed his parents' number, then Ralph Sheridan's desk at The St. Louis Times. Different numbers, same result.

"It's hopeless. Just… hopeless."

brrrrringggg! brrrrringggg!

The phone rang and he nearly dropped it. He answered the call right away.

"Hi, this is Selma at Dr. Hovart's office—"

He terminated the call and then pressed the phone's power button to force it to shut down. He stared at the girl for a long time, willing her to flash him that same clear-eyed expression as before. When she finally looked up, her eyes had darkened and were now more dark blue than gray.

"When I first heard you, I thought you were one of them. I thought you came back to kill me. But you're not, are you?"

"What do you mean—
one of them
?"

"One of
them
." She pointed to the nearest ruined house. She gave him a cynical look. "They're like a swarm of savage… monsters... they feel nothing but rage and they destroy anything in their path."

"People did all of this… intentionally?" Of course the destruction of the town was intentional, but it was still hard for him to comprehend.

"Yes. I heard them talking. Boasting. I'm pretty sure they call themselves the Anaki."

1.

Hector's superior tracking skills, as well as his own knowledge of his brother, brought Marcus and his five remaining followers to the ruined town of Rose Ridge at daybreak. He didn't care if no one was left to follow him; he was going to find his brother. Wisps of smoke trailed from unseen fires to join the gray overcast sky. Marcus stopped at the center of the road as if he were waiting for some kind of signal from the town. Everyone else fanned out around him in a semicircle, aimless and uncertain without his firm direction.

Eldon Pointer wiped an already damp handkerchief across his bearded lips and the bald crown of his head. "I can't believe it's started so soon," the old man said in a dry whisper. He was dead on his feet, as was Mandy. Hector, as usual, looked strong as a rock, and Linda, who had rarely left the confines of Concord until the Arkadium's rising, looked to be his equal. Even though she was slight in build, something had gotten into her. Eldon had had a profound impact on her.

Delaney wrapped her hands around Marcus's upper arm and rested her head on his shoulder. "It's the Cleansing, isn't it, Marcus?"

"Yeah. I think so." The town reflected the Anaki's handiwork all right. Every structure had been permanently breached and damaged; windows had been shattered, walls punctured, roofs caved in, even short stretches of the road had been transformed into an alien landscape of shallow trenches and darkened pits that reached the long-buried topsoil beneath. Based on the torn down street signs, Marcus knew that inside the homes any trace of the written word would have been erased, burned, excised.

"I didn't know a swarm was so close to us," Marcus said, unable to suppress a shudder. "But, I guess, it was bound to happen sooner or later."

"Praise God and His infinite wisdom," Eldon said.

"Amen, Brother." Marcus clapped his hands together and turned to face everyone. "Okay, you've all performed admirably. The night was long and bleak, and I thank you for your courage and devotion. Now…" He hesitated when he caught Delaney hanging on his every word, silently mouthing his syllables a moment after he uttered them. "Now, we need to rest before we continue our journey."

He looked around for a flat, unmarred piece of land. A baseball field with overlong grass filled the block corner off to the right. "Here… we will shelter and get some sleep. And that's what I really need of you right now. Sleep. You're no good to me or the Arkadium if you're a walking zombie."

Five sets of eyes bore into him, waiting for further direction.

"Go, now! Get moving." He waved them away from him, and they scattered toward the baseball field. "Hector?"

The onetime soldier returned to his side.

"I'll be along shortly." Marcus handed his pack over to him.

"Yes, sir." Hector slung the pack over his already burdened shoulder and headed over to join the others. Marcus appreciated Hector's unquestioning loyalty. He would be able to rely on him when things got heated, and judging the already advancing Anaki, that was a good thing.

Delaney was the only one who remained behind. While standing with one hip cocked to the side, she tilted her head and toyed with a lock of her dark hair.

"You too, Deli." He was exasperated with her. She hovered over him so much that it was getting hard to breathe. "You're barely able to stand you're so tired."

"Not without you," she said with a coy smile. "Come to bed, love. I need you inside of me."

She reached out to touch him, but he stepped out of reach. "I want to check on a few things first."

"But I need you."

Her voice was starting to grate on his nerves. "Don't make me repeat myself, Delaney."

She sucked in a breath like she was going to argue, but she thought better of it and turned away. When she reached the fence she chucked her pack over to the other side and started to climb. At the top of the fence, she looked at him over her shoulder. "Don't be long, okay?"

He almost told her he'd be right there. He thought he had at least nodded. But when she let out a huff of frustration, he realized he did neither of those things. He'd only been staring at her, grinding his teeth, wanting, no fuck that,
needing
a fix. Like air or water or fucking, he needed to score—to set his mind at ease to take the edge off to step away from everyone's unending expectations of him. And he needed to find Jason's trail.