The Creepers (11 page)

*
* * * *

Ecky was about to light up his last
smoke before turning in. With the way the snow was beginning to fall, he didn’t
know when he’d get a chance to be back outside. His bunkmates didn’t take too
kindly to smoke in their midst. He rubbed his hands together, and popped the
notebook-paper-wrapped cigarette into his mouth. A blur of movement drew his
attention. He watched the shadow creep along the edge of farmers’ barracks. It
was much too short, and it moved to quickly to be of any life threatening
concern, but he wasn’t about to go trudging into a blizzard after another
delinquent child.

The last thing he needed was to have one
of them causing any more trouble. He had the second generator to worry about.
He didn’t need this headache, and he damn sure didn’t want to see the boys put
through the wringer once more. He pocketed his cigarette and became a shadow
himself.

*
* * * *

Pastor Craven crept into the barracks.
His pistol cold at the base of his spine. The Good Book firmly in his grasp.
How peaceful they all looked, sleeping away the storm. How serene, but he knew
the truth for some of them, he knew the tainted blood that pumped through their
veins. Soon though, the boys would be right with God and free of this terrible
test of a world. The Lord even saw to it by giving him a storm within which to
work. Yes, praise Jesus, Pastor Craven thought, as he blew out a cloudy breath.

With the snow a near sheet of white now,
and the temperature well below freezing, the Lord did indeed give him a
gracious gift. No one would question the boys’ remains when the snow lifted and
they were uncovered. No one would question the Pastor’s and the Doctor’s stories.
No one would question anything. The cold storm would give the corpses that
pallid blue sheen and the bullets would do the rest. There wouldn’t be much of
anything left to question at all.

But as Pastor Craven roused the boys
once more, he realized there were only three. He didn’t like loose ends. Having
already started down the path he couldn’t stop now. His teeth nearly cracked
under the pressure he exerted on them. He steadied his resolve with a kiss of
the Good Book. The storm began to howl through the valley, and its biting winds
stung his face as he pushed the sleepy boys out the door, and into its cold
arms. They were so dazed they didn’t put up a single word of protest.

“Alright, boys, the quicker we get to
the Corral the quicker we’re outta’ this storm. Young Bobby will regret having
snuck out this night . . . wait til’ I find him." Pastor Craven waved them
on.

Peter didn’t budge. The snow and wind
tussled his red mane about like the flame of a torch. He dug his hands into his
coat pockets and asked, “Where’s Bobby?”

“Shit if I kno—” Bryan said before
taking a hit across the back of his head. He stumbled forward, knees scraping
the hard ground.

“Boy, I’ve told you about your tongue
before,” Pastor Craven said, flexing his throbbing hand. “Now don’t you worry
about little Bobby. Just get moving.”

“But we already cleaned it today,” Paul
whined.

The Pastor raised his hand again,
dropping the youth into silence once more. “There is always work to be done.
Now get moving, before we catch our deaths in this miserable cold. Go on now.”

The boys were too tired to put up more
of a fight, but inwardly they worried about Bobby. He hadn’t been the same
since he returned from his trek with Ryan. They trudged through the storm
towards their fates.

*
* * * *

“Bobby, you make terrible sneak,” Ecky
said, as he grabbed the boy by the shoulder. Over the wailing wind he shouted,
“What is this rifle and pack? You want to get bitten too? Come with me."
Ecky dragged him along by the pack straps.

“No, Ecky, let me go! You don’t
understand. Let me go!” Bobby cried. But the stronger man held him just off the
ground, much like a mother wolf carrying a cub by the scruff. He had no chance.
The world started its slow descent into the madness of what was to come. His
stomach rolled, his eyes ached, it was starting. . . .

“We’ll see what Randy has to say about
this.”

“Ecky, no . . . you don’t understand.”

*
* * * *

Lyda did not shake as she removed the
pistol from the drawer. The weight was reassuring in her small hands. She
checked the chambers and snapped the drum back in place. She began to hum a
light lullaby, one she planned on singing for Jake, but this boy had taken that
opportunity from her. She sang it now in remembrance as she closed in on the
end of a terrible chapter in her hard life. Lyda slipped the pistol in the
pocket of her doctor’s whites and went to the bed.

Straightening the blankets between the
restraints she set about making a peaceful scene. She dried the boy’s brow,
wiped the crust from his eyes and removed the mouthpiece. How pale and blue his
young lips, she thought. They reminded her of the nightmarish images of Jake,
conjured by her guilt, in the days after she left him behind the fence: blue
and cold, blue and dead, discarded like trash, and left to the elements. Hot
tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Hush little baby don’t say a word,” she
whispered, drawing the pistol.

“Momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird,”
she hissed, putting the barrel to Ryan’s forehead. No need for a heart-stopping
sedative, she convinced herself, he’s one of them already. Her hand was steady,
and he conscience clear. The moment of moments was finally at hand. Freedom
from the terrible nightmare was just a trigger pull away. She cocked the
hammer.

“And if that mocking bird don’t sing,”
she said through gritted teeth. “Momma’s gonna buy you a diamond ri—”

The boy stared up at her. His eyes
scared and bright. His little lips trembled. She wrapped her finger around the
trigger, but before she could pull it the boy knocked her arm aside and bit
down on the inside of her wrist. The gun fell from her grip as she stumbled
back.

Ryan wriggled out of the loose restraint
and flipped unsteadily to the floor. With his one good arm he swung for the
fences, catching Lyda on the chin and sending her to the floor. He bolted out
the door into the heart of the storm, wound bleeding freely, cold stinging,
burning his feet. He ran for the only adult he trusted. The only member of the
Folks that could help him, that would believe him. He ran for Ol’Randy’s house.

*
* * * *

“There will be no need for the crane,
young Paul." Pastor Craven looked over the edge of the pit. The boys had
done a good job cleaning it earlier in the day, and he doubted anyone else
would tackle such a task with the vigor and exactness that the brothers did. It
was a sad thought, but only for a fleeting second, as his eyes fell on their
scared faces, and the orange jumpsuits. He pulled the heavy Colt from his belt
and pointed it at the boys.

“No need,” he waved the pistol as he spoke,
“it’s time to get changed." He flicked it to the jumpsuits. “Now get
changed.”

“But, sir,” Bryan mumbled. His usual
snarky comments were lost in the trembling foundations of a child’s fear. All
of the training, all of the drills, none of it could have ever prepared him, or
his brothers, for that murderous look in the Pastor’s eyes. Here was one of
their own, a living breathing human, one of the few remaining survivors of
their race, and he was aiming death at them.

“I said get changed!” the Pastor screamed.
His voice ragged and hoarse, his eyes predatory, yellow, bloodshot.

Peter stepped forward, stood tall and
said, “Pastor Craven, I want to see—”  Young Peter never got to finish his
sentence. He fell back against the rickety wall, a half-dollar-sized hole in
his forehead, a splash of brains and blood patterning out behind him, a
bloody-gray sunrise over the rumpled heap of his body. Dark eyes and freckled
face, staring at the Pastor, an accusatory glance.

Bryan fell to his knees.

Paul screamed.

“Now, boys,” the Pastor cocked the
pistol, “get changed or you’ll be next.”

Under the endless black stare of the
barrel, Paul and Bryan stepped into the blood-stained orange jumpsuits that
were much too big for them. Shaking and crying, the Pastor forced them to dump
Peter’s body into the pit. To the sound of wet crunching, Pastor Craven marched
the brothers to the door.

“I’ll give you a head start,” the Pastor
said.

The boys looked at each other unable to understand
the insanity that had befallen them. Like so many of the histories they learned
about the outside world, theirs, too, had finally gone mad.

“One, two, three,” the Pastor counted as
the Colt’s barrel drifted from one tear-stained face to the other.

Bryan and Paul ran into the raging
storm, tripping and falling over the jumpsuits.

As soon as they were beyond the arc of
the Corral’s light the Pastor stepped out as well. Methodically, he cleared his
throat, drew a deep breath, imagined himself before an unending wave of
worshipers, and then he cried at the top of his lungs.

“CREEPERS ON THE YARD! CREEPERS ON THE
YARD!”

The warning siren cut the sound of the
storm in half.

*
* * * *

Bobby sat at the small table, feeling infinitely
smaller, his feet barely touching the floor, even with last summer’s stretch.
His rifle, along with his rucksack, did little to block the looming faces of
Ol’ Randy and Ecky. Two of the most grizzled, absolutely intimidating, First
War veterans he had ever laid eyes on, glowered at him.

He didn’t know whether to swallow or
vomit.

Ol’ Randy’s dented face displayed
craggy, uneven shadows that hooded his wide, angry eyes. Ecky hung by his side
like some malnourished inquisitor, all bones and sinew and the weathered skin
of a lifetime smoker.

“What’s this,
son? You plannin’ on goin’ som’ere?” Ol’ Randy asked. His long gray hair ran
over his shoulders, a sheet of dirty ice.

“Yes, sir,”
Bobby said reluctantly. He gulped. It was going to happen any second. He could
feel it filthy and cold in his blood. His teeth ached, his temples pounded, and
under the weight of those stares, those caring, reassuring stares he cracked.
Tears rolled down his cheeks and he began to sob, lips quaking, drooling.
“S-s-sir, I’m n-n-ot right. Something’s w-wrong I—”

The door burst
open and a battered, bloodied, and severely hypothermic Ryan staggered in.
Bloody bandages trailed from his amputated arm. His bare feet were raw and red
from his flight through the storm. Gusts of snow flurried around him as he
stood inside the doorway gasping for breath.

The Settlement’s
warning siren shouted over the wind.

“The hell is
goin’ on, son?” Ol’ Randy asked. His scarred face twisting into a knot of
worried wrinkles.

“They mean to
kill us, sir,” Ryan gasped then continued in short dry bursts, “She tried to
kill me, but I’m not one of them. She thinks I am . . . something . . . to do
with blood. I socked her right in the mouth, Bobb—”

Ryan fell
forward, a blossom of dark red spread across his abdomen.

Lyda stood
behind, smoking pistol in her hand. She pressed the barrel against the back of
the boy’s head.

“Lyda, no!” Ol’
Randy shouted.

“He’s one of
them, Randal, but you already knew that!" She fired.

Ecky recoiled in
horror.

Bobby snatched the
rifle off the table, chambered a round and shot the good Doctor dead. The
bulled ripped through her chest and disappeared out her back and into the
storm. She fell to the floor with a smile on her face.

“Yannek,” Ol’
Randy called, but his voice could not penetrate the wall of shock surrounding
the engineer. He grabbed him by the collar and shook him wildly, snapping his
head back and forth. “Yannek, Yannek snap out of it!”

Ecky stared at
him, blinked, then settled into reality. He nodded. It was next to impossible
for either of the men to shut down completely, even in the face of such a
terrible situation, for, they had seen worse, lived through worse, and the only
way it had been possible was that no matter what, they had to keep moving . . .
it wasn’t them, survive or die.

“Whole world has
changed again . . . what did I do in former life to deserve this?”

“Yannek, listen
to me,” Ol’ Randy looked Ecky square in the eye and said, “Take him from here,
far from here. Give him a chance. The world needs him. God willing he’ll make a
difference.”

Bobby didn’t
hear a word they said. He had the rifle slung back over his shoulder along with
his pack. He cradled Ryan’s bloody head in his hands and tried to cry.
Something inside of him wouldn’t allow it. The only thing he felt was anger,
straight and pure of the highest proof.

“Randy, you ask
this of me . . . my friend, this I cannot do. You know what is out there."
Ecky shook violently. Though his mind was under control, his nerves were not.