Revolution No. 9 (13 page)

B
y mid-afternoon, the rain was coming down in sheets, driven by lashing gusts of wind that blew the trees around like candle flames. The gloom was already indistinguishable from twilight. The camp seemed almost deserted. Sidewinder continued to skulk around, taking refuge under the eaves of a shed, apparently forbidden to go inside; and a couple of the other men had stopped into the lodge to make sandwiches. But Monks had been alone with Mandrake for the past hour. With the rain, there wasn't much incentive to wander around.

He walked to the kitchen to check out something that he had noticed on one of his trips back from the washhouse—a gap in the old rock-and-mortar foundation, where the kitchen water and drain pipes ran in. Probably the plumbing had been added some time after the lodge was built, requiring a space for a man to slither in under the floor. The water
pipe was wrapped with insulation, suggesting that it was prone to freezing. Monks had done a fair amount of plumbing on his own house, and once in a while the weather got cold enough that he needed to thaw a pipe. It was a lot easier when there was access to it from both ends.

He opened the cabinet under the kitchen sink. A section of the heavy plank floor had been cut out for the pipes, then replaced with two pieces of half-inch plywood, about eighteen by twenty-four inches, joining in the middle with hemispherical cuts around the pipes.

The plywood was not nailed down.

He quickly removed the items under the sink—cleaning supplies and a bucket to catch drips from the leaky drain—and lifted the plywood sections. He could just see a gray patch of twilight through the foundation's gap, fifteen feet away. It opened out the back, on the opposite side of the lodge from Sidewinder's watch point.

It would be a tough squirm for a good-sized man. But a good-sized desperate man could make it.

He replaced the stuff under the sink, mentally going through all the factors he could bring to mind. Then he walked to the lodge's door and stepped out into the rain.

Sidewinder walked to meet him, unhappily drawn forth from his cover.

“Where you going, man?” he said.

“To visit my son,” Monks said, continuing his walk toward Glenn's cabin. He had been watching it from the lodge's windows, and had seen Glenn a couple of times, hurrying to the washhouse or on some errand. But he had not seen Shrinkwrap. He was hoping that she was gone.

“I'm already fucking soaked,” Sidewinder complained. “I was outside all night and I haven't slept. Freeboot's making me stay on duty, 'cause—”

“Because you asked me that question last night?” Monks interrupted. Sardonic words came to his mind—
Sorry I caused you trouble
—but he had already made enough enemies here.

Instead, he said, “I'd have worried about eating that raw meat, too. I think Freeboot overreacted.”

“Yeah,” Sidewinder said, seeming slightly cheered by the sympathy.

“Look, I'm not going to try anything, are you kidding?” Monks said. “You can stay where you were and watch the door. I'll only be a few minutes.”

Sidewinder glanced around nervously, as if fearing that Freeboot would materialize and smite him for this slackness. Then he nodded and hurried back to his shelter. But he unslung his rifle and stood at watchful attention.

Smoke was rising from the stovepipe of Glenn's cabin, a thin plume barely visible in the rain. Monks knocked sharply on the door, and braced himself for the possibility of facing the hostile Shrinkwrap.

But it was Glenn who answered, opening the door just a few inches. He looked bleary, surprised to see his father. If he noticed Monks's missing chunk of hair, he gave no sign of it. But, then, Glenn was a good enough actor to pull that off.

“Let me in,” Monks said. “It's pouring.”

Glenn's face turned reluctant, and he seemed about to object, but Monks pushed the door open and stepped past him.

Immediately, Monks saw at least one reason for Glenn's hesitation. There was a woman in the room, but not Shrinkwrap. It was Motherlode, lounging on the bed, watching the screen of a laptop computer that was playing a video—a Tom and Jerry cartoon, it looked like.

She stared at Monks blank-eyed, then glanced furtively at the dresser. He followed her gaze to a syringe—one that had been pilfered from Mandrake's supply—and a bottle of Percocets. There were other items that Monks recognized as be
ing used to render the pills injectable—a porcelain coffee cup for grinding them up and mixing them into solution, a soggy wad of tissues for straining it, and a length of surgical rubber tubing.

One syringe. Two people.

“I hurt my back,” Motherlode said.

She was wearing sweatclothes, and Glenn was fully dressed; the situation did not appear to be a sexual one. Monks figured that was none of his concern anyway. He just wanted to get her out of here.

“Mandrake would really like to see you,” he told her. “Now would be a good time.”

Her eyes focused a little more.

“I can't—” she began.

“Try to overcome your pain,” he said, with a harsh edge. He held her gaze, letting some of his anger show in his own.

Pouting, she got up and put on an anorak, not forgetting to collect her Percocets before she went reluctantly out the door.

Glenn slapped his own thigh in anger. “
Now
you come in and fuck up my party. This ain't my room at home, Rasp.”

Monks stepped to a window and watched Motherlode hurry off through the rain. As he had expected, she did not go toward the lodge to visit her child.

“She's been stealing these from Mandrake,” he said, showing Glenn the syringe. He set it back on the dresser. “You ever hear that it's not smart to share a needle?”

Glenn shrugged, but he looked uneasy. “I hardly ever shoot anymore.”

“This must be a special occasion.”

“If you're nice to her, she'll share.” Glenn grinned slyly, displaying his black-spotted teeth. “Sometimes 'codes are a good way to chill out. Especially when you've been doing a lot of crank.”

“That's what you're using mostly? Meth?”

“Yeah. Shrinkwrap got me off junk.”

“By getting you
on
speed?”

“Sort of. Freeboot doesn't like hard dope for the people he's got to count on. It slows you down, makes you unreliable.”

“He doesn't seem to mind with Motherlode.”

Glenn snorted. “He doesn't care what
she
does.”

The casual callousness hit Monks with a pain so deep, it went beyond sorrow. It came to him that there was no point in worrying anymore about who was to blame for all that had gone wrong between them. They were like different, hostile species.

And yet, this was still the son that he had raised. That bond that went all the way down to the DNA in their cells—deeper than the rational mind could ever hope to penetrate—would never be erased.

It was impossible to break through to Glenn and impossible to quit trying.

Monks walked over to him and gripped him tightly by the upper arm. Glenn tried to pull away, but Monks, although decades older, was larger, stronger, and not wasted by drug abuse.

“I need you to call for help,” Monks said. “That kid's going to die if we don't get him out of here.”

Glenn's eyes showed alarm. “No way, man.”

“If you don't, his blood's going to be on your hands. Let that sink in through your tough-guy shell, Glenn. A four-year-old.”

Glenn's gaze flicked around, as if he were looking to escape. “I mean—there's no lines up here, and cell phones don't work.”

“Come on, you're the computer ace. There has to be some way.”

“There's satellite e-mail, but Freeboot changes the password every day. He only gives it to me when he wants something.”

“Is there a vehicle we could steal?”

“They keep all the cars at the security station up the road,” Glenn said, squirming under Monks's grip. “There's guards, twenty-four seven.”

Monks remembered with icy clarity the group of scalp-hunting
maquis
that he had seen last night—trained, violent, and well armed.

“Do you have a gun?” he said.

“Dad, you're fucking
crazy
—”

Monks shook him hard.

“No,” Glenn muttered. “I don't need one for what I do. Now, would you let me go, please?”

So—this failure was absolute. Monks had not really expected Glenn to suddenly come to his senses. By Glenn's lights, he
was
making the sensible choice—staying safe. Still, Monks had harbored the faint hope of swaying him and made one last try.

“You're strung out, at risk, maybe dangerously ill,” Monks said. “And mentally impaired. You've bought into whatever fanaticism Freeboot and Shrinkwrap are preaching, but all they're going to do is take you down.”

He stared hard into his son's eyes for another ten seconds, then released him. Glenn backed away, rubbing his arm and looking badly shaken. The tough-guy skin had been bruised at least a little bit.

“I can't leave here,” Glenn said, with a whine in his tone.

“Of course you can.”

“You don't understand, man.”

Monks exhaled. “I'm going as soon as it's dark. Say, twenty minutes. Come over to the lodge if you change your mind.”

“Why the fuck did you bring this on me?” Glenn burst out, in misery and anger. “Now I'm part of it.”

“You don't have to tell anybody.”

“I
can't
lie to Freeboot.”

Monks shook his head helplessly. There was no answer to that. He clasped Glenn's shoulder, more gently this time.

“I love you, Glenn,” he said. “Believe that, will you?”

He stepped out into the downpour, leaving Glenn standing there, pale and alone.

Through the deepening gloom, Monks could just make out the thin figure of Sidewinder. He threw a salute in that direction and walked on to the lodge, clamping off his surging emotions like severed blood vessels—no time to deal with that now.

The lodge was still empty. He quickly checked Mandrake over, and coaxed as much water down him as he would take. His brief improvement had slowed and maybe reversed. Monks had anguished over whether to take him along, or race for freedom in the hopes of sending back help. Trying to carry him would impede Monks severely, and might doom them both.

But while leaving Glenn behind was wrenching, leaving Mandrake would be unbearable. Glenn was an adult, capable of making his own decisions. Monks hardened his heart. This was triage.

He was under no illusions about his chances—carrying the boy on foot, without a weapon or even decent gear, they amounted to not much better than nil. The only hope he could see was to beat his pursuers to the thick, brushy timber ahead, where their night goggles would not be of much use. If he made it to the next day's light, he would try to reach a paved road.

He broke a porcelain cup into shards and used one of them to worry slits in a wool blanket, fashioning it into a serape for himself. It was far from adequate, but wool would at least keep you warm when it was wet. He fashioned another blanket into a sling that he could loop around his shoulders
to carry Mandrake. He collected the remaining insulin and syringes into a pillowcase, along with some bread and cheese that he had taken from the kitchen, and stuffed that inside his shirt.

Mandrake seemed only vaguely aware of what was happening when Monks wrapped him in the blanket, pulling his legs through the slits so they would hang free like a baby's in a carrier.

“Come on, buddy,” Monks whispered. “Let's go find some mermaids.”

M
onks quickly pulled up the plywood panels under the kitchen sink, then lowered Mandrake into the crawl space. He followed head first, squeezing his way painfully through the narrow cut-out. There was only about a foot of room between the cold earth and the floor joists. He managed to reach back up and pull the cabinet doors closed. Then he rolled onto his belly and wormed his way forward, pushing Mandrake ahead of him as gently as he could.

The opening in the rock foundation was barely visible now. He pushed Mandrake out and worked his way through, one arm and shoulder at a time. The sharp rock edges scraped his skin through his clothes, and the sluicing rain was already soaking his arms and legs. Finally free, he spent a few seconds on hands and knees, getting his breath. Then he scooped up the little boy and stood, arranging the sling over his shoulders.

“I was just starting to trust you,” Freeboot said, behind him. “You motherfucker.”

Before Monks could turn around, he heard a distinct metallic click—like a gun's safety being released. A figure stepped into view ahead of him, from around the corner of the building. It was Sidewinder, holding his assault rifle leveled.

Monks sagged.

“Put the kid down,” Freeboot said. He sounded more disgusted than angry, like a teacher whose patience with an unruly student had finally run out. It was more chilling than his rage.

Monks unslung Mandrake and set him on the ground.

“Take off your blanket.”

Monks pulled his homemade serape over his head and tossed it aside.

“Callus,” Freeboot called commandingly.

A third figure came striding toward them from the forest. Monks recalled seeing him at the scalp hunt. Like the other
maquis
, he was clean-shaven and neat-haired, with an insurance salesman's look that contrasted jarringly with his backwoods clothes. He was one of the older men, in his thirties, and he had an air of efficiency that was almost prim—but there was a ruthlessness about it, too.

Callus also was carrying a leveled rifle, Monks thought at first. Then he realized that it was a tree branch, four or five feet long and twice as thick as a broomstick.

Something slipped around Monks's neck, yanking tight. He clutched at it, fighting to free himself from the choking pressure. But it was futile. His fingers felt leather, slippery with rain—Sidewinder's rifle sling.

Monks drove his right elbow back into Sidewinder's gut with everything he had. He got the grim satisfaction of feeling Sidewinder double up with an explosive grunt. The sling's
grip loosened. Monks stomped down hard on Sidewinder's instep with his bootheel, and fought to twist around.

Off to the side, he thought he heard Freeboot laughing.

Then Callus swung his heavy stick across Monks's shins.

Monks yelled, a roar of rage and disbelief at the agony that burst through his bones and shot up into his brain. Pain was so
intimate
. There was no way to hide. It knew everything about every tiny bit of you, flared up in every one of those millions of nerve endings that you were unaware of most of the time.

“You
cock
sucker,” Sidewinder sobbed into his ear. The sling tightened viciously. Through the spots starting to float across his vision, Monks saw Callus swing the stick again. This time, the impact was hard enough to chip bone. Monks clawed back at Sidewinder's face, his feet dancing crazily, trying to run of their own accord.

A third blow crashed across his shins, bringing him to the edge of blacking out. His consciousness was filled with the torture in his legs and the sound of his own choked bellowing in his ears.

The pressure around his neck let up suddenly, and the sling was released. The rifle butt slammed into his back, driving him sprawling onto the ground.

“Next time we'll use a sledgehammer,” Freeboot said. “Now get back under that floor.”

Monks crawled to the foundation's opening and forced himself through, moving helplessly past the wool-wrapped bundle that was Mandrake. Maybe he had been aware of what had happened, maybe not.

“He still needs his blood sugar checked every hour,” Monks panted. “And the insulin shots.”

Something came into view outside. There was just enough light left for him to recognize Freeboot's bare feet.

“Yeah?” Freeboot said. “I'm starting to think you've been
keeping
him sick. Trying to get me to let you go.”

“If you want him to die, you're almost there,” Monks said hoarsely.

The feet stayed there a few seconds longer. Then they were gone.

“
You
, fuckhead—I ought to make you get in there with him,” he heard Freeboot say to Sidewinder. “You better be right on top of him, watching every second. Callus, bring the kid.”

Another pair of feet appeared outside the opening, this time wearing boots.

“You stick your fucking nose out, I'll blow it off,” Sidewinder said. His voice trembled with fury.

Monks curled up again and closed his eyes, trying to rub a little of the fire out of his throbbing shins. A couple of minutes later, he heard the sound of bootsteps on the kitchen floor above him, then hammering. The plywood sheets under the sink were being nailed down. There might have been a hidden camera, watching him the entire time, he thought.

Or Glenn had gone to Freeboot and alerted him that Monks was planning to run.

Gradually, the pain subsided to a bearable ache. The discomfort of being cold and wet moved in to join it. Lying in the dirt, trapped by the floor joists, he couldn't move enough to warm himself. Within half an hour he was shivering convulsively.

A warm deer carcass to crawl into would have looked pretty good about now.