Positive (44 page)

 

CHAPTER 128

I
t was midafternoon. I had been working up in the snipers' nests on top of the gate, rigging up pieces of sheet metal that the snipers could use as shields. I had ­people on top of the municipal building, watching the forest for any sign of movement, but the sound was our first sign.

I think my heart stopped a little when I heard that sound.

I turned and waved at the watchers on the roof of the municipal building. One of them nodded back, indicating they heard it, too.

Luke came out of his house, holding a triangle and a little mallet. As silly as it looked, we knew the sound the instrument made would carry all the way through town. We'd trained pretty hard for this, and recently enough that everybody remembered what they were supposed to do. Positives started streaming out of the houses and the factories, all of them carrying their weapons, moving to their assigned posts. Strong and her snipers came swarming up the ladders on either side of the gate.

“We've got it from here, boss,” she told me.

I nodded, but I wasn't looking at her. I was still scanning the forest all around, looking for the stalkers.

“I hate to say this,” she told me, “but you're just going to get in our way up here.”

“Hmm?” I turned around and looked at her. She seemed calm. Ready. Much more ready than I felt. I started to make an apology, intending to head down to ground level and leave her in peace.

But then I stopped myself. “You'll have to work around me,” I told her. “I need to see this.”

Not that there was anything to see. The trees that surrounded Hearth, which I had once thought would protect it, now blocked my view of the road.

Maybe,
I thought,
we should have taken some of them down. Cleared a space around the town.
It would have made life easier for the snipers, given them better fields of view.

It's amazing how effective you can be at planning when it's already too late.

The noise of the motorcycles kept getting louder and louder. I caught a glimmer out in the woods, just a flash—­maybe a reflection off a headlight or a piece of chrome. I heard something creak and looked down and saw I was holding on to the wooden railing, so tight I was about to snap it. I forced myself to let go.

“Over there,” Strong said, and pointed deep into the woods. I could make out a dark shape. “You want me to kill that motherfucker?”

“Hold on,” I said. I knew the cultists weren't stupid. If they'd sent another stalker group, another twenty ­people, then their leader would see soon enough how outnumbered he was. Maybe he would know better than to attack, and we could avoid killing anybody today.

One of the other snipers stood up and pointed into the trees, at a spot nearer the main road. “There!”

I couldn't see what he'd pointed out, though I strained my eyes trying to.

Over on top of the municipal building someone shouted “Boss!” and I turned to look. The watcher there was pointing south, at the far side of town. Then he turned and pointed east as well.

They were coming at us from every side. There was only one road leading into Hearth. They must have worked their way through the forest to take up positions on the other sides. Surrounding us.

“Tell me when to start shooting,” Strong said.

I nodded. I had a sudden feeling this wasn't just one stalker group. That there were a lot more than twenty ­people out in the woods. So far they hadn't moved to attack us. Maybe we could get a jump on them by shooting first, maybe—­

Then a horrible electronic squawk rolled across the town, a noise I hadn't heard since the loudspeakers at the medical camp called my name. The wail of feedback. I clamped my hands over my ears so I wouldn't be deafened. I was a little heartened to see Strong do the same thing.

The feedback died out and then a voice echoed up out of the forest.

“Stones? You in there? You want to talk about this before it gets nasty?”

I knew that voice, but I couldn't believe it—­I'd never thought I would hear it again.

I looked down into the main square of town. Kylie stared up at me, looking as mystified and frightened as I felt. She knew that voice, too. I hadn't just imagined it.

I looked out over the forest, but I still couldn't see anything. “Come to the gate. Alone. And we'll talk,” I shouted.

Red Kate chuckled. “Sure, Stones. Whatever you want.”

 

CHAPTER 129

S
he'd changed her look.

Her hair was cut very short. Her face was dirty with road dust, except for a clean patch around her eyes where she'd worn goggles. She'd traded in her furs for a leather jacket with white bones painted on the sleeves and back.

But when she smiled at me, when she gave me the wicked grin I remembered from the very first time I'd met her, I could see she hadn't changed a bit.

“It really is you!” she said, and she held out her arms as if she would hug me through the gate. “When Costa's guy limped back to camp and told us what happened, I begged and begged for this detail, just in case he had it right. And look! It's really you!”

“Hello, Kate,” I said.

“It's good to see you,” she said. I must have sneered in disgust because she said, “No, really. I miss the old days sometimes.”

“You joined the skeleton cult?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Apparently,” she said, and then she snorted with laughter. “I told you, last time I saw you. I knew being a road pirate was just going to end with me dead on the side of some dusty blacktop. I came west thinking what I needed was organization. ­People to watch my back.”

“And now you're leading a stalker group.”

“A little more than that, Stones. I've got a hundred guys out here. I can get reinforcements if I need them.”

A hundred. Just like Macky had said they would send. I tried not to gulp in fear. We outnumbered them, but they would have a lot more firepower to work with. “They trust you with that kind of command?”

She leaned close, into the gate, her fingers weaving through the chicken wire. “I showed what they called leadership potential. You know what that means, when the cult says it?”

“I don't think I want to, but—­”

“You saw me last where, Pennsylvania? You saw the crew I had back then. Lot of hard road from there to Denver, where I hooked up with Anubis and his ­people. By the time I got there, everybody was dead except me and Andy Waters. You remember Andy.”

“I do,” I said, picturing the road pirate dressed in tan leathers.

“Good guy. Stuck with me through thick and thin. Think he might have been in love with me, or something. Anyway, I was talking about Denver. I showed up there and they saw this,” she told me. She touched the hilt of her knife, the one with the skulls around the grip. “Turns out it belonged to one of their badass ­people, what they call an evangelist. They told me that anybody who touches an evangelist is marked for death.”

“Yet somehow you're still here,” I pointed out.

“I could see the score. This is the cult that thinks Death is willing to make deals, right? One life for another.”

“You didn't—­”

“Cut Andy's throat on the spot, yeah. Then I held him while he bled out. I think he understood and forgave me. If not, well. Fuck him. He's dead.”

“Jesus, Kate . . .”

She shrugged dramatically, making the arm bones painted on her shoulders lift and fall back. It looked like a gesture she might have practiced in a mirror. “You feeling me, Stones? You get the point? Andy was a guy I
liked
. You, you're some punk I owe a beating. Now, how's it going down? Are we going to have to kill you all?”

I forced myself to stand up a little straighter. “No,” I said. “You can retreat right now and we won't chase after you.”

She laughed. “Good old Stones. Okay, here's the deal we're offering. Basically the same that Costa was sent to make. We dump all our positives here, then we leave you in peace, blah blah blah.”

“But I have to kill ten of my ­people,” I said.

“What? Oh, no, no, Stones—­no no no. No. That was what we offered the first time. Then you went and killed an entire stalker crew.” She clucked her tongue at me. “Not nice. Shows that you're not willing to go along to get along, huh?”

I refused to react.

“This time, we need a real decimation. Ten percent of everybody in your little town gets sacrificed. And you, too. You get to be executed publicly in Denver. I think they're talking about doing a blood eagle. You know what that is, a blood eagle?”

“No,” I said.

“It's how the Vikings used to execute ­people. They make a long cut down either side of your spine. Then they pull your lungs out and drape them across your back. Supposedly while you gasp your last breaths the lungs flutter and it looks like the wings of an eagle.”

“That's what you're offering,” I said. “You know my answer.”

“I hope I do. I really, really hope you're going to say no.”

“No,” I told her.

She almost squealed in glee.

 

CHAPTER 130

I
should have had her shot before she could go back to her ­people. Regardless of the strategic value of taking her out, it would have given me a lot of satisfaction. But I'd invited her to come talk, and it wouldn't have been right, shooting her in the back.

If I ever wanted to live in this better world Kylie had spoken of, I needed to act like I was already there.

So I watched her disappear, back into the woods. And then I turned around and started giving orders. Not that I needed to. Everybody knew their roles—­we'd practiced enough that they got in place smoothly. I looked around at their faces and saw determination. I saw courage. I saw ­people willing to fight for Hearth.

And then . . . nothing happened.

Oh, we heard a lot of motorcycles roaring around in the trees. We saw glimpses of ­people moving around outside of town on foot, though never for long enough that we could get a bead on them.

But they didn't attack. For hours, they completely failed to engage us at all.

Every minute my ­people crouched in readiness, every hour they spent waiting for the battle to begin, they got more tired and confused and complacent. I wanted to tell them to stand down, to rest, but I knew that the second I did, Kate would attack. So all I could do was move from place to place, telling ­people not to lose focus, not to worry, that it would come soon.

I'd never thought of Kate as a tactician. I'd thought her style was more aggressive and less coordinated. But maybe I should have known better. She was a great manipulator. She understood human psychology very well.

So she waited to attack until darkness fell.

After so many hours, even I jumped when I heard rifle shots. Long, sustained bursts of automatic rifle fire coming at us out of the last purple dusk of the evening. I don't think anyone was hit in that first salvo.

But the next one cut holes through a house on the edge of town. And the third attack wounded a positive down by the southern end of Hearth, a young woman who was armed with nothing but a ball-­peen hammer. We all heard her scream.

There was chaos in town, as ­people ran this way and that, as the muzzle flashes of the assault rifles sent long daggers of light dancing between the houses. I heard ­people shouting for help, bellowing in pain.

But my ­people weren't running in panic. They knew exactly what to do. We'd known the cult might attack by night. That we needed to be able to fight in the dark.

We'd made hundreds of torches—­just pieces of cloth wrapped around an old chair leg or even a stick. We set them ablaze and tossed them over our wall, lighting up the ground just outside of town.

The stalkers hadn't been expecting that. Thinking they were protected by the darkness, they hadn't bothered to seek cover out in the trees. When the light of the torches found them, they were just standing there, rifles in hand, clearly in view of our snipers.

Strong and her team made every shot count. They took down at least four of the stalkers before the others figured out what was going on and ran for the safety of the trees.

The torches didn't burn for long. As they started to gutter out, the stalkers began creeping forward again. But Strong had good eyes, even at night, and she picked off a fifth stalker who thought he was being clever. And then we just lit more torches—­we had plenty of them, a lot more torches than bullets—­and tossed them over the wall.

After that, Red Kate pulled her ­people back out of sniper range. Which meant well past the point where her assault rifles could harm us. They fired off a few bursts every ten minutes or so, just to keep us awake, but nobody else was hurt that night.

 

CHAPTER 131

W
e had a hospital set up inside the municipal building—­its thick stone walls would protect the wounded. I made a point of sitting up with those who had been hurt, holding their hands, telling them it was going to be okay. None of the injuries looked like they would be fatal, if we could keep the wounds clean of infection.

Kylie came and took me away from there, about an hour before dawn.

“Five down,” I told her. “Ninety-­five to go.”

“Ninety-­six. Don't forget Red Kate,” she said.

“Oh, I'm saving her for last,” I said. I kissed her and we started walking, just ambling through the town. As if nobody was trying to kill us, as if it was perfectly safe. I figured that might help steady some frayed nerves, if ­people saw us like that. Despite the hour, I knew plenty of ­people were still awake.

“You think we have a chance?” Kylie asked me quietly.

“I don't think there's a point in worrying about that question.” In truth, I knew we were royally and completely screwed. Kate could bring up reinforcements, she said. I didn't doubt it. So even if we took down the stalkers outside our wall or forced them to run away, it would just be a temporary peace before the next group came. And after that, there would be still more . . . the cult, I figured, could afford to just throw stalkers at us until we were all dead.

Our one hope was that it wouldn't be worth the cost. That crushing Hearth would take too many of Anubis's ­people and he would decide he didn't care about us after all.

It was a slim thread to hold on to, but I would take what I could get.

“Tomorrow they'll come at us for real,” I said. “We'll have a better idea then how this is going to go.”

Kylie just nodded. She understood.

Nothing mattered except the next day.