The Creepers (Book 2): From the Past (6 page)

“I was born among them. I was born
after. This is all I know, but thanks to my mom’s guidance and Post’s
leadership I know what was lost, and I want nothing more than to regain it. We
were making a difference.” Tears welled in those big eyes. She blinked them
away. “Then these, these animals. . .” The word came out in a half sob. “These
animals came out of nowhere. And they were using Creepers as weapons and—” She
drew a ragged breath, stopping to regain herself.

Howard wanted to reach out, but
somewhere inside he heard his father warn him. Perhaps she was putting on a
show like the people in the old movies, like the man with the glasses. And then
he saw it, the dart of her eyes to something unseen. A weapon perhaps?

“We-we didn’t have many women in our
platoon. They’re all gone, taken to who knows where. They actively sought them
out in the chaos, making sure not to kill them, but the men, Post and his
squad, I-I don’t know what to think.”

“Why didn’t they take you?” Howard jabbed
at the debris fueled fire with a rusted piece of old car.

“They didn’t know I was there.” She
stood and walked behind the wounded man. Pacing, she said, “I’m the best they’d
ever seen. Post told me himself. Nobody could find me, not even the Creepers.
But there were too many to pick off from a distance. They were so organized.”
The tears cut ribbons of pure, milky skin down her dirt covered face.

“What did they want?” Howard continued
to poke at the fire, sending up sparks. The call of the coyotes was much closer
now. He hoped his little ruse would keep them occupied for the evening.

“Your turn.” She smiled and continued to
pace. She moved with a bouncy, nervous energy.

“My dad died today. I don’t exactly know
when he died, only that it was today. I wasn’t there to see him off. I saw him
after. I saw him in that suspended state. He looked so peaceful, almost fake,
like the mannequins laying in the dust of the past. A perfect representation of
what was. I imagined him watching the birds drift on the wind. I wonder what he
was thinking of. Probably mother, knowing him. I hope he saw her when the end
came. I hope he found in death everything he’d lost in life,” Howard’s voice
carried on the night, punctuated by the intermittent cries of the coyotes. Though
they were his own words, they shocked him. He’d never spoken to anyone in such
a manner. Not even his father. Howard looked up, awaiting her reply.

Jennifer was gone.

“Touching really,” she said from behind
him. The very familiar sound of a bolt chambering a round echoed off the
shattered buildings. “Take that rifle off slowly and lay it down. You even so
much as turn that head of yours and its lights out. How about you show me and
my little friend to your hidey hole.”

Howard
slid the rifle from his shoulder. He heard his father somewhere in the past,
‘never let your guard down, son.’

Bobby could smell them before he even
reached the top of the dune. Baylor was somewhere behind him barking orders.
They stopped the train just outside what was left of a rural town. Nothing but
dust and dunes, a few skeletal remains of brick buildings gutted by time, and
sand and wind. Sparse bits of green worked against the pervasive rusty tableau.
Off in the distance, Bobby could see a vast plateau haloed by an angry storm.
It was moving fast behind the warm, dry desert wind. A rarity in these parts.
Bobby took it as an omen.

The closer he got, the harder it became
for him to control the multitude of voices and images flashing through his
mind. He dropped to his knees, squeezing the rifle for stability. He brought
the strap to his mouth and bit down on it, focusing on the oily taste to
balance himself. As he calmed down, he began to take control of the riot inside
his brain.

Building and moving his army against the
Folks had been easy. He’d had time to acquire and manipulate, grabbing a few
stragglers here and there, adding them over the course of the march, but now
the rotting minds came all at once.

Bobby made it to the top of the dune.
Below him, a pit nearly twenty yards long ran the length of a burned out
building. A faded sign canted at an angle, its words long since sandblasted
away. From his vantage point he could see the tops of their heads, all hundred
plus Creepers. A swarm of flies buzzed above them like dirty fog. Buzzards
circled overhead, but none seemed to dare to partake of the strange scene.

Near the pit was a pile of what looked
like automatic weapons. At several points around the pit, the remnants of camp
fires scarred the bright sand, and then Bobby noticed the wisps of smoke rising
from them. He flattened himself to the sand. Slowly he moved away from the
exposure of the dune.

He looked back towards the train. He
waved his hand, stopping Baylor and Price in their tracks. Clear of the openness
of the dune-top, he quickly made his way to them.

“I don’t know what I saw, but I know
that whoever did it is still nearby.”

“Kid, what’re you talking about?”
Baylor’s wide eyes darted about like some frantic rabbit.

“The fires are still smoking. Looks like
some kind of, I don’t know what, but they left a pile of weapons.”

“What about Wyoming Blue?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Price. I didn’t stay
up there long enough to see anything but the top of their heads. But there are
at least a hundred. I’ve never had to deal with a sudden pop like that. That’s
why it floored me.” Bobby worked his scope over the landscape, stopping to
check what remained of the structures.

“All right. We work slow. We work safe,”
Baylor whispered.

“The only Creepers are the ones in the
pit.”

“It’s the living I’m afraid of, kid.”

“Always,” Bobby said.

“Price, get back to the beast and update
the crew. Hoss already has roof point, but I want everyone ready. All right,
kid, you take point and we work our way around from the west.”

Bobby nodded and darted for a cluster of
scrub brush. Thunder conversed in the language of angry gods in the distance,
but it seemed strange, more sustained and rhythmic. He searched every nook,
every shadow, but found nothing. He didn’t think he would either. The harder he
looked, the more he realized there were no tracks on this side of the dune. Not
a single one.

As they came around the dune, they
started to see signs of movement: footprints, what looked like drag marks, deep
ruts, all in the process of being reclaimed by the sand. The Creepers wailed
from the pit. Bobby searched their minds, but even though he had them under
control, he was unable to glean anything useful. He looked over the edge of the
pit and was surprised by what he found.

There were many fatigue-wearing members
among the rotting throng, but there were also many older Creepers, mummified in
that sickly golden sheen. Their empty sockets filled with shadows. Noses had
long since rotted off, or been eaten by insects. The old ones far outweighed
the freshies. Bobby was thankful for that. It meant the others might still be
alive. This Wyoming Blue, this group of people fighting to represent something
he had no part in the creation of, Price’s brother was one of them, and that
was enough for Bobby. As far as he was concerned, they were family. Everyone on
the beast and everyone affiliated with them were his family now, and he meant
to protect them as best he could. He knew what it was like to be alone and
unwanted, and he never wanted to feel like that ever again.

“What the fuck,” Baylor said from beside
him. 

“Look.” Bobby pointed to the pile of
weapons.

Bobby’s eyes followed Baylor’s as they
circled the pit to inspect them. The rifles were field issue CARs, military
grade, in great shape considering their age. “They’ve been field stripped. Look
there. Some parts were taken, so were the ammo and magazines, but they left the
rifles.”

“Which means they’re already armed and
coordinated.”

“This is beyond what we encountered with
the savages, Bobby. I don’t like it. I really don’t fucking like it.” Baylor
shook his head as he looked into the pit once more. “What the fuck is all this
for? Looks like they brought or found these old ones.”

Bobby crouched at the edge of the pit.
He started to stack and shift the monitors in his mind, pulling some forward
and others back, like a game of dominos. In just a few minutes, he had the
oldest Creepers on one side and the freshies on the other. He could see bullet
wounds and bright red blood splashed on the muted browns. None of the men had
been properly eliminated before being thrown in the pit.

Bobby shifted his focus into the eyes of
one soldier. He had a rugged black and gray beard, a fat wide nose, and many
scars across his face. His hands were massive, hardened by a rough life. A man
who had seen it all and died trying to understand it. Bobby looked at the
others, studying their wounds.

There were no bites on the soldiers.
They reanimated naturally. They were thrown in here dead from the gun shots.
Thrown in the pit with the others. He went from soldier to soldier, inspecting
them. No bites, no head shots, and then he found one. A man, who in life
sported a long ginger mane. A stick of a man with muscles like steel cables.
Bobby bade the Creepers part so he could study this man. He could see the fine
black stitch across the man’s breast, a name.

SGT. PARSONS

The sergeant had been put into the pit
alive, and judging from the defensive wounds on his long fingers he put up a
hell of a fight. Bites marred his neck and face. The thunder rose to a
constant, steady roar.

“Storm’s coming,” Bobby said. He kept
his mind focused on the man, on the clues presented to his sniper’s eye.

“What’re you doing?” Baylor said,
kneeling beside Bobby. “Who is he?”

“Trying to figure out what happened.
Sergeant Parsons. Did you know him?”

“Not personally. Other than Price’s
brother we had minimal interaction with the rest of the group. We met them
maybe once a year on route. We shared updates and supplies and that was it.”

“He was put in there alive. On purpose.”

“I just don’t know anymore. The shit
I’ve seen. They had a job, we had a job, and we were doing it. Cleaning up this
fucking mess. I just don’t understand. What happened to us?”

Bobby didn’t know how to answer that
because all he knew was violence. He was born into it. He didn’t understand the
Folks’ motives and he couldn’t even begin to understand this.

The cadence of the thunder broadened and
picked up pace. Bobby looked towards the storm. A massive wall of rust-colored
dust danced on the horizon. He peered into the scope and nearly dropped it. It
wasn’t thunder at all. It was men on horseback. Lots of them.

“Mr. Baylor.” Bobby pointed to the
horizon.

“I told you I didn’t fucking like it. I
really don’t fucking like it. Kid, since I met you, we been having a lot of
crazy fucks rushing my train.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I wouldn’t have it any other
way.”

The nervous wink did a piss-poor job of
hiding the worry behind it. Bobby shivered at the thought of the Mad Conductor
in such a state. The riders were closing fast, but they were still a good
distance away.

Bobby stared into the pit.

“Kid, we gotta fucking move.”

“We’ll be sitting ducks if the train’s
not moving.”

“We got the thumper and a few other
surprises. She’ll hold. We’ll hold. Nobody is laying hands on my girl.”

Bobby ran to the faded sign. He nudged
it out of the sand. The years had eaten it almost hollow but it held. He
dragged it towards the pit. With Baylor’s help, he was able to angle the sign
down into the pit. The Creepers stumbled, walked into it, but had no idea what
their new master had in store.

As they ran towards the train, Baylor
barking orders, whistling loud staccato bursts beside him, Bobby fell into the
swath of Creepers, translating, imagining what he wanted them to do. And they
obeyed. The newly dead corpses of Wyoming Blue made the task at hand quite
easy. There were a few old ones that couldn’t handle the angle. Bobby almost
felt sorry for them. 

He hit the train in a full out run,
leaping between the cars, and he rushed to the roof. Several of Baylor’s men
were already in place. He nodded at Price, ducking to avoid the massive
belt-fed grenade launcher.

Bobby watched Baylor snap at the man.

“Remember what I said!”

Price nodded reluctantly, then handed
over the weapon before disappearing down the ladder.

Bobby didn’t know what Baylor was on
about, but he trusted the man. He went prone between the shields. The riders
were still too far to start taking shots. He worked on the Creepers instead. He
moved them out of sight: behind houses, behind the dunes. He knew they wouldn’t
stand up to the horses in a full out charge. More than half of them would
probably disintegrate on impact, held together by nothing more than a very
diligent virus and hardened by the sun. No, he wanted to lunge at their flanks
as they passed the town to get to the train. He wondered how many riders
possessed long range sight capabilities? More than a few, if they were able to
relieve a good chunk of Wyoming Blue of their duty.

He drew a long breath, released it,
relaxed, settled into the habit of preparing to deal death. Bobby racked the
bolt, fine tuned the Creepers’ position, blocked out everything else.

There was a loud hiss of steam. The
train jolted to life, smoke rose from the beast’s mouth. The horizon shifted
through his scope. He adjusted, never taking his eyes off the riders. Even
though, in the back of his mind, he began to hear the men of Wyoming Blue
speak.  

* * * * *

Price opened the firebox and brought it
to life. He gripped the shovel in his giant hands, flexing his arms until they
hurt. Almost every part of him wanted to be on that roof, defending his home,
but one trait mattered more than anything. Loyalty. It kept him in the return
trip, elbow deep in coal. He could hear the riders approaching. But the debt he
owed Baylor, the absolute love he had for the man, had him stoking the fire,
readying the beast’s backend for something he wasn’t so sure would work.

Jamie’s rapid fire fucks and shits
echoed through the cars from somewhere behind him. She didn’t bother praying.
Not many of them did anymore. Price gathered himself, checking the action on
his CAR. He didn’t want the fire to roar. Not yet. That would come when the time
was right. He knew he would be ready to make the break, but could he lead them
to the safety of the hills so many months to the east? Without Baylor’s
guidance, would any of them make it?