CRYERS (20 page)

Chapter
33

She had been
called Gertrude originally. It was a name her mother had given her from a time
long ago when names had some sort of meaning. Gertrude’s mother didn’t know
much about meanings—she liked the sound of it, and that was good enough for
her. As Gertrude grew, the name was shortened by her family and friends living
in Rudd to Gertie. She grew tired of being raped nightly by her father, and
late one evening when she was of an age older than Willem but younger than
Cobe, Gertie bashed his head in with a heavy stick. Gertie’s ma told the town
folk she’d done the deed herself because her husband was a filthy, two-timing
cocksucker. Killing cheating spouses was acceptable in Rudd. Daughters killing
fathers wasn’t—even if the cause warranted it. The abuse didn’t end there.
Gertie’s ma took up with more men—banged half the town, according to old Dirty.
The molestation continued, and Gertie killed two more men in their sleep.
Gertie’s ma never told the truth of things—she kept on taking the blame—and she
was hanged for it.

“How’d you
end up in these hills?” Willem asked. The boy was sitting across the fire from
her. Almost all were gathered there: Willem, Cobe, Trot, and three or four
dozen of Gertie’s daughters, sons, and grandchildren. The only ones not
listening to the old hag’s story were Lode and the lawman. Lawson was still in
a semi-conscious state, sleeping in the dirt, and Lode was still tied to his
tree some distance away.

“Most folks
took my ma at her word, and she swung for what I did.” The single green tooth
rubbed away at her upper lip. “But some knew the truth…the wives, the sisters,
and the daughters of the men what fiddled with me could see the hate in my
eyes—clear as hate and twice as strong. Finally left town one night figurin’
I’d be killed before the sun could come up again. Ran to the hills, and I ain’t
never gone back.”

Cobe didn’t
like the idea of his little brother listening to such a gruesome story, but he
couldn’t help himself; he wanted to know more. “You call yourself Dirty now.
How come?”

“You need to
ask?” She spread her arms out and clawed at the smoke rising from the flames
and into the night. Clumps of mud were tangled in the thatches of her underarm
hair. Tracks of grime ran down her arms, all the way to the tips of her
wrinkled, hard fingers. The woman’s leathery, stinking skin hadn’t been washed
in years, Cobe guessed, and that was being generous. He looked away as Dirty
thrust out her chest and showed them her breasts and ribs. “I was a
bad
girl…I done bad, dirty things. Saw
no sense in hidin’ what they done to me…what fuckin’
civi-lie-zaeshum
made me.”

Civilization.
Cobe had heard the word spoken only once or twice before by his mother.
It was an old idea, something lost and hard to reclaim, she’d said.

Trot spoke
honestly; his childlike mind left him little choice but to say things as he saw
them. “But you’re
all
so dirty and
ugly… Why would you want other people to see you naked?”

“These are
my
hills, twit. I ain’t got nothin’ to
hide, and neither do my children. You start hidin’ shit and pretty soon the
truth gets swallowed up, too. Men lie to their wives…folks get fucked over. Not
here, boy.
Dirty Hills
is a haven of
honesty. It’s a family place.”

Dozens of
heads nodded, and voices whispered agreement. Cobe studied their grisly
features in the firelight. Trot had it right—they were dirty, and they were especially
ugly. A child with hair hanging down to her knees picked away at a nostril
large enough to stuff three fingers into. Her eyes were two different colors
and the space between was too wide. The woman standing behind her wasn’t any
prettier. Her eyes were set even further apart, reminding Cobe of the lawman’s
ugly old horse, Dust. One of her hands rested on the girl’s shoulder. There
were only two fingers, each as fat as a well-fed grass snake. She had no thumb
at all. Cobe saw more people in the crowd missing fingers and limbs. Some had
more than normal. A little boy wriggled his twelve fingers over the fire for
warmth. The man next to him had no ears or nose, but a third arm was sticking
out of his chest, all wrinkly, gray and dead. Ugliness was the one thing they
all had in common. The man could’ve been the boy’s father. The two-fingered
woman might’ve been nose-picker’s mother. Maybe they were all brothers and
sisters, and cousins, and aunts and uncles. It was impossible to tell.

Trot broke
the silence. “Do I still have to make babies? I ain’t done something like that
in a long time…and only to myself…never been with a woman.”

Dirty’s
children started to giggle. The old woman waved them quiet. “That was the
idea—it’s why I had my kids fetch you here. But I ain’t so sure that’s the way
things should go now. That big fucker tied up over yonder already done near
tore one o’ my girls in half. Poor thing asked fer a man and she got a monster.
Maybe he’s spread enough seed in the other three to change things up a bit.
Maybe provide ol’ Dirty with some big, strong grandsons to do the heavy work
‘round here.”

“You’re
letting us go?”

Gertie
shrugged. “You three ain’t like the others we found you with. Them bastards was
loud and foul-mouthed. No respect for Dirty. Not sure about the old one. That
bruised fart hasn’t woke long enough for me to judge one way or other.”

“He ain’t a
bad man like them others,” Willem insisted. “He was with us, and we
weren’t
with them.”

Dirty picked
something out of her gums and flicked it into the fire. “Maybe I’ll let you go
in the morning…maybe I won’t. I’ll sleep on it.”

Sleep didn’t
come easy for Cobe. Dirty’s children split off into groups amongst the trees,
and the sounds of baby-making kept him awake even longer. Trot started to snore
loudly, and Willem’s nose whistled. Cobe stared across the smoking remains of
the fire, into the black slit that led to Dirty’s home in the tree. She still
terrified him, but after hearing how hard her life had been in the early years,
he couldn’t help but feel some sense of connection to the old woman. They had
both fled from home villages at a young age after seeing their parents die
horrible deaths, knowing they would be next. In Dirty’s case it had been far
worse—she’d killed her pa for the things he’d done to her. How could a pa do
something so horrible to his own child? What kind of evil lived in the souls of
the men that followed in his place?

Cobe’s feet
were cold. He reached off to the side for more leaves to bury them in and his
hand struck metal. He tried sitting up and his head hit glass. Cobe was trapped
inside one of the cylinders back down in Big Hole. How had this happened? Who
had brought him back to this awful place, and why had they put him in here?

Willem. That gawdamn Willem shoved me in here.
Cobe started to giggle. His little brother had
a wicked sense of humor. Cobe pushed up on the window
. I’ll kick his ass when I get out. I’ll tell Ma what he done, and
we’ll see if he pulls any more tricks after that.

It wouldn’t
open. He pushed harder, realizing his brother didn’t have the strength to drag
him all the way back over all those miles of flat ground and through all them
roller ruts. He was a four-foot nothing with only one arm. Cobe punched the
window. He pounded away at it with two fists.
The lawman brought me back here. That mean old fuck strapped me across
Dust’s back and kept me asleep. He shoved me in here to die. He thinks I’m a
coward. Doesn’t think I’m worthy to carry a gun.

“Sssshh…”

Cobe lowered
his fists and stared through the window. The girl with the long red hair and
the glowing green eyes appeared a moment later. “You…It was
you
that put me in here.”

“You won’t be in there for long. I just needed
somewhere quiet to tell you something.”

Cobe tapped
the glass. “How can I hear you?”

“Never mind that.”

“I saw
you…just before the explosion. I saw you sitting in the corner. What’s your
name?”

“Quit asking stupid questions and listen. I’m
trying to warn you.”

“You don’t
look the same. Your skin isn’t gray now. You look more like me. Please let me
out. I want to touch your hair.”

The girl was
losing her patience.
“We’re coming for
you. Tell the others—tell everyone.”

“Who’s coming
for us? What’s your name? “A scar appeared between the girl’s eyes. Cobe
watched another one form above her lip. Dark shadows threatened to drown her
eyes; the skin on her cheeks turned white.

“The cryers are coming. We’re going to kill all
of you.”

“Your name.
Tell me your—”

Cobe’s words
were choked off. Something warm and hard covered his mouth and nostrils. He
couldn’t breathe. The girl vanished and was replaced with Lode’s ugly face. The
red tattoos glistened deep purple in the moonlight.

“Don’t make a
sound,” the man whispered. “I just killed the three men Dirty had watching over
me. If any of the others wake up and see, they’ll finish us off. No chance of
escape… No more fucking… We’ll be dead. Understand?”

Cobe nodded
and Lode removed the hand from his face. “She was gonna let us go in the
morning. You ruined everything.”

 
Lode slapped two giant fingers across Cobe’s
nose. It didn’t make a sound, but the pain was real enough. “Don’t you start
with me, boy. Maybe she would’ve let us go, maybe she wouldn’t. I’m not letting
the old bitch make that decision. I’ve already dragged the lawman halfway out
of the hills. You’re going to wake your brother and make sure he keeps his
mouth shut. The four of us will be back on our way to Rudd before the sun
starts to rise.”

“What about
Trot?”

“I don’t give
a fuck about Trot. They can have him.”

Cobe could
feel blood leaking out of his nose where he’d been struck. He wiped it away and
stared defiantly back at Lode. “He comes with us or I start yelling.”

Lode looked
ready to give Cobe another hit—a much harder one. He reined his temper in and
rose to his feet. Trot was still sleeping soundly as Lode kneeled down and
punched him in the face. The snoring stopped. Cobe covered Willem’s mouth and
shook his brother awake. The younger boy appeared disoriented and confused for
only a few moments. Cobe didn’t have to say a word. It was time to go.

They caught
up to the lawman twenty minutes later. He was finally awake and crawling out of
the last bit of forest on his hands and knees. Lode dropped Trot to the ground
and dragged Lawson up to his feet. “You two can pull that fat idiot along. I
want to keep the lawman close to me.”

“Please don’t
beat him no more,” Willem begged.

Lode pushed
Lawson ahead of him. “No more beatings, I promise. We need him strong and able
to compete for us in the Rites.”

Trot groaned
at Cobe’s feet. “My hands…my ear…my nose. It all hurts so bad.”

“Can you
walk?” Cobe asked.

“Yeah, I can
walk.” He whimpered some more and pulled at the rope-belt around his waist as
he stood. “It’s about all I can do.”

A scream
broke out from the hills. It was a mournful, raging wail that echoed off into
the plains for miles. More joined in as the five trudged off towards Rudd,
leaving the Dirty Hills behind them.

Chapter
34

The group of
ten didn’t need to rest. They had stopped in the open plains with the looming forested
hills less than a mile away because Eunice Murrenfeld had insisted. Her fat
feet were swollen like things dead and looking set to burst.

Clouds from
the northeast had drifted over their heads throughout the night, and as morning
took hold they became a solid, roiling bank of gray tinged with dull green. “A
few more minutes,” the obese cryer said while she sat in the dirt, rubbing her
sore toes. “They’re starting to feel better already.”

She’d said
the same thing half an hour earlier.

Lothair squatted
down in front of her. “We need to keep moving. I would like to reach those
hills before it starts to pour.”

Eunice
sneered at him. “You afraid of a little shower? What about all those
remarkable enhancements
you’re always
going on about—they gonna wash away in the rain?”

“This is a
different world from the one you and I once lived in. Those clouds…I don’t like
the color. There may be more than just water falling on us.”

“Clouds are
clouds. Ran is rain. What’s the big deal?”

“Chemicals.
Acid. Radioactive fallout.”

Eunice looked
at Eichberg concernedly. She rubbed at the bloated purple veins a little
faster. “One more minute, I promise.”

The group of
ten didn’t need to rest, but Jenny had slept anyway. In an attempt to reach out
again to her catatonic mother, Jenny had sensed someone else in her dream. He
was trapped in one of the cryogenics cylinders, but unlike the horrors she had
discovered in her first dream, this one was different. She knew who this was,
and she had felt his fear. Jenny didn’t know him well—she had seen him only
once in those brief moments before the grenade had blown her mother apart. She
thought his name might be Colby, or something close to Colby. Jenny should’ve
hated him for a being a part of that, but the boy had pointed a gun into
Lothair Eichberg’s face. How bad could he be? In a previous life, Jenny might
have been attracted to him. He was tall and gangly, maybe a little too skinny,
but he was good-looking. A thousand years ago she might have told her teenage
friends he was cute.

Michael
Strope had been watching his daughter. He left Edna sitting in the dirt,
propped up uncomfortably on one elbow, and went to her. “That’s the second time
I’ve seen you sleeping. Are you sick?”

“Just resting
my eyes.”

“Your lips
were moving.”

“I was
singing.”

“No you
weren’t.”

“Isn’t it a
few centuries late for fatherly concern? You didn’t care about me when I was
growing up, why try now?”

Strope’s face
remained grim and emotionless. “You’re my daughter. It’s my duty to protect
you. Be careful of what you say, and what you do.”

Jenny saluted
him. “Aye-aye, Colonel. Now go back to Mom. She needs your protection more than
I do.” She shoved past him and set off towards the hills. She had gone a
hundred yards when the first spat of rain stung against her forehead. Jenny
scratched at it like a mosquito bite. More drops struck her cheeks and bit into
her arms.

The others
started yelling behind her. Jenny turned and saw them running. The rain came
down then like a blanket of fire. It was too late to make it to the hills
before they were all soaked in it. Jenny looked at her hands. Clear water ran
between her fingers and down the length of her exposed arms. Her skin wasn’t
melting away. The rain hurt, but it wouldn’t kill them. Cryers were made of
tougher stuff than that.

Aleea Shon
made it to her first. Jenny tried grabbing the woman, wanting to tell her the
threat was minimal, but she pushed her into the mud and kept running. The
ground was shaking under Jenny’s hands. Ivan Tevalov’s knee caught her in the
shoulder and knocked Jenny onto her back. They were all rushing past her. She
saw her mother’s head bobbing back and forth as her father carried the woman on
his back.

He yelled to
her on his way by, “Get up and run!”

Leonard
stumbled in the mud and fell on top of Jenny. He tried helping her up but the
rumbling ground made it too difficult. He made a squeaking noise of apology and
pushed away from her, fleeing along with the others.

Jenny sat up
and saw Eunice bearing down on her at unbelievable speed. There wouldn’t be
time to roll away from the impact. Her head would be caught between the woman’s
thighs and torn off at the shoulders. There was a sickening crack and Eunice’s
body rose into the air. One of her toes scraped through Jenny’s hair, and the
woman was gone. Something huge and matted with fur brushed her face. More
creatures thundered past, shaking the earth and throwing up mud. Jenny was
caught in a stampede of monstrous heads and raking claws. She slipped and fell
repeatedly in the mud, trying to get back on her feet. By the time she was
finally able to stand, the wave of animals had passed.

Jenny
staggered through the disturbed earth, stumbling in ruts and wet cracks. One of
the creatures had turned and was charging at her again. Colonel Strope smashed
into its side, throwing it off course. His arms wrapped around its thick neck
and twisted. The creature lost its balance and fell over sideways. Strope
wrestled his way on top and punched through one of the black eyes. The creature
roared a low, throaty growl as Strope pushed his arm further in, breaking
through the socket and slipping his fingers into its brain. Jenny watched his
arm give one final jerk, and the animal went still.

They started
looking for the others. A heavy fog—caused by the rain that continued to pour
and the heat of so many moving bodies—had set in. Strope led Jenny to her
mother first. She was sitting in a puddle, staring off into the mist.

Jenny stared
at her father accusingly.

“I had to put
her down—I had to come back for you.”

She didn’t
appear any more damaged than she already had been. Perhaps it would’ve been
best if one of those hooves had crushed her skull in. The thought made Jenny
sick. She was becoming more like Eichberg with each passing hour.

Leonard Dutz
appeared out of the gray, weaving through the rain and gnawing on something
red. “So hungry…so hungry...so hungry.” Strope guided him to Jenny and the man
sat down next to her and Edna, his eyes glued to the piece of flesh clenched in
his fingers. Jenny almost asked what it was—monster or cryer—but decided she
didn’t want to know. There wasn’t much difference between the two.

The ground
started to shake again. Leonard looked up from his meal. Blood and rainwater
were running down his chin and neck. “Tastes like hamburger.” He giggled, and
more blood bubbled out from between his teeth. “The cows are comin’ home.”

Jenny felt
the heavy thuds of the creature’s feet through the ground, and heard the low
snorting of its breath. None of them could see a thing beyond an arm’s length
in the fog. It could be coming from anywhere, but it was definitely coming for
them. A woman started screaming, and the animal’s charge ended abruptly. There
was a sound not unlike a tree crashing down in the forest.

Jenny’s
father grabbed her by the wrist before she could explore further. “Wait,” he
whispered. “The rain’s beginning to let up.”

They sat
still for the next few minutes, staring out into the rising mist, listening for
sounds, and feeling against the mud for movement. Leonard sucked noisily on a
piece of remaining gristle. The colonel smacked it out of his hand. “
Quiet
.”

An immense,
unmoving form began to take shape forty feet away. One of the beasts was lying
on its side. Something almost as big was perched on top, ripping into the dead
animal’s stomach and pulling out steaming entrails. As the fog lifted, Jenny
saw Eunice Murrenfeld, covered in gore. The woman was shoving heavy intestines
into her mouth faster than her fat hands could pull them out. Her thick throat
bulged like a balloon being fed too much air as she sucked it all down. She
wasn’t even bothering to chew.

Leonard
started crawling towards the woman and her prize. “Burgers.”

Lothair
Eichberg appeared out of the remaining bit of gray haze and helped Leonard
stand. “Leave the woman with her kill, Leonard. There’s more for you to feed
on…more than enough for all of us.” Lothair led him to a second carcass.
Leonard sank to his knees in front of its gargantuan head and smiled up
gratefully at Eichberg. “Eat all you can, my friend. It’s been a long time
coming.”

Leonard
started in on one of its big black eyes.

The bodies
were scattered all around them. Jenny spotted Aleea Shon a hundred yards away,
gnawing ungraciously at an arm already stripped clean of its fur. The animal’s
muscle was proving hard to chew through, but the woman stuck with it, anchoring
the creature’s long claws into the ground for additional leverage. The Russian
was staggering between carcasses, weaving away like an old drunk. He held a
heart the size of a grown man’s head between his hands. His face was mired into
the organ, sucking away at the torn arteries. Tevalov tossed it aside seconds
later and fell greedily onto the next dead form. His gray beard had turned red.
Even her father had become part of the frenzy, pushing meat and fur clumped
together into his mouth.

Jenny
wouldn’t eat. Not like this. Not like them. She would starve herself before
sinking to that level. Unfortunately, she realized with sinking dread, it would
be an almost eternal wait.

When the
feasting had finished, and the cryers had gorged themselves sufficiently,
Lothair resumed his trek towards the hills. Leonard fell in behind him,
followed by the still-stumbling Tevalov and a blood-drenched Shon.

Eunice pulled
at the back end of one of the creatures, dragging a hundred pounds of meat on
bone after the others. Twelve more feet of glistening intestine were draped
about her shoulders and neck for a future snack. Edna was in Strope’s strong
arms. She chewed mindlessly on a piece of fat as he carried her.

I’ll stay here. I won’t go with them no matter
how hard they try and make me. I’ll sit here until I die.
She remembered the boy from her dream. Colby…
Cobe
. His name was Cobe.

Jenny out set
after the others.

They found
Mary Gades another quarter mile on, or what was left of her. Half of the old
lady’s head was mush—the other half was twitching in agony. She was trying to
speak, but her throat was pulp, and her bony chest had been trampled flat into
the mud.

“Can you save
her?” Aleea asked Eichberg. “Like you saved your granddaughter?”

“Why bother?”
Lothair continued walking.

Brian Haywood
had almost made it to the hills. He was propped up against a rock and his legs
were gone. His left arm was lying on the ground next to him, still attached to
the stump of his shoulder by a piece of skin and a few blue veins.

“I bet you’re
all wondering how I made it
this
far.”

Lothair
didn’t hesitate, offering the most likely answer. “You were pinned to the face
of one of those animals and pushed here.”

“Yeah, that’s
about right. Like steppin’ in front of a semi. Damn thing’s claws tore my legs
clean off as we went.”

“Unfortunate.”
Lothair started to step around him.

“Hold on just
a minute—you ain’t leaving me here like this, are you?”

“You’d only
slow us down,” the old man said without a trace of compassion.

“What about
our deal? My farm for your cryogenics installation… You promised to take care
of me.”

Eichberg went
back to him as Jenny and the others continued up. “I promised to have you
cryogenically preserved near death. I brought you back, and our business came
to an end. Done deal.”

Haywood
didn’t argue. He didn’t plead. “You got me there. Guess I wouldn’t be much use
to anyone now…not like this.”

“At least
you’ll die in familiar surroundings. This was still good farming land in your
time, wasn’t it?”

“You bet. I
owned over six thousand acres.” He went to point with a hand no longer there
and settled instead with a nod of his head to the southwest. “Best years of my
life…I should’ve stayed dead.”

“Perhaps not
all of us are suited to a new world.”

“No kidding.”

“Goodbye, Mr.
Haywood.”

“Yeah, see
you later, Eichberg… Nice to see the bison return to this new world of yours.”
Lothair waited a moment longer for him to explain. “The late eighteen
hundreds…beginning of the twentieth century…this was buffalo country. Hundreds
of thousands of them covered the land…until mankind came along and wiped them
out, that is.”

“Those
weren’t bison we encountered, Mr. Haywood.”

“Technically,
no…but I thought the idea…was kind of poetic.”

Lothair left
the farmer propped up against his rock and headed into the Dirty Hills.