The Remnant (12 page)

"They seemed pretty excited. What are they
doing now? Over?"

"Looks like there’s some kind of light up on
Raven’s Head."

Ashley stared at the radio. "What would a
light be doing up there?"

"Got me. I don’t like it."

"Me, either."

"The driver just started to get out, but the
passenger dragged him back into the car. I’m gonna take a look
farther up the valley road. Over."

"No!" said Ashley, a sudden chill gripping
her in icy fingers.

She blinked again. Even without the
telescopic lens it was clear that the occupants were still carrying
on a heated argument. She pointed the M-16 at the slope across the
road. Pete was nowhere to be seen.

Ashley tried the radio three more times, but
Pete wasn’t answering. She flipped to channel 17. "Stan or Paulie,
this is Ashley. We have a situation. There’s a car at the crossing,
and I’ve lost contact with Pete. Over."

It was a couple of minutes before she heard
Stan’s voice. "Is the car heading this way? Over."

"Right now it’s parked in the middle of the
road, facing into the valley. Over."

"Occupants? Over."

"Two males. They’re not Angels, but they’re
arguing and pointing into the valley. The driver wanted to get out,
but the passenger jerked him back inside. Over."

"Where’s Pete? You say you lost contact?
Over."

"He’s gone to get a closer look. But he’s not
answering his radio now. Over."

She thought she caught a glimpse of movement
in the treeline across the valley road, and she lifted the scope to
her eye again. It was Pete, slipping stealthily through the forest.
She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ashley?" squawked the radio.

"I spotted Pete. His radio must not be
working. Over."

Suddenly the driver jerked himself out of the
grip of the passenger and opened his door. He stood up, shielding
his eyes with one hand and staring up the valley road. This time
Ashley could hear the passenger shouting at him to get back in the
car. Against her better judgement she crept along the edge of the
bluff trying to get a glimpse of the cliff.

Breaking through the skein of woods, she
peered up the valley. There was a flash of light up near the top of
Raven’s head, and then it disappeared, and she blinked, turning
back to the car and its occupants. The driver was shaking his head
and climbing into the car again. The passenger threw himself back
against the seat and bowed his head as though to say
at last
as the Jeep’s tires spun out, and the SUV roared away up the main
road headed for town.

Ashley glanced through the scope at the far
slope, but Pete was out of sight again. She rested against a tree,
searching the woods for him, then farther down the mountain to see
if he had headed toward the valley road.

No Pete. Damn.

"Pete!" she shrieked, breaking protocol.
"Where are you?"

Her voice echoed across the valley, but the
only answer was a feeble whisper from behind her. She spun, rifle
ready, but then it dawned on her that her radio was lying beside
the tree where she’d left it.

She hurried back to it, keying in.

"I’m here. The car’s gone but I’ve lost Pete,
again. Over."

"What do you mean you’ve lost him again?
Over?"

"I spotted him again, and then he
disappeared. I shouted, but so far no answer. Over."

"I’m on my way. Go back to your post. Do you
understand? Over."

"I understand. There was a light up on
Raven’s Head, too."

"A light?"

"Just a flash, like maybe a lantern. Then it
was gone."

She knew that this might be some kind of
Angel ruse. If so it had already had a limited amount of success.
Both of the two pickets had abandoned their posts, and now one of
them had vanished. She doubted any Brethren would have made the
climb up to Raven’s Head cliff in the middle of the night.

"Pete!" she screamed again.

The call, echoing away up the valley reminded
her of just how alone she was. Now she wished she had brought
Maxie. He wasn’t much for protection, but he made a good early
warning system. Still, if there was trouble in the valley she was
glad the dog was with Marie.

Returning to the bunker she slipped the carry
strap of the machine pistol across her shoulders. The gun was
smaller and quicker than the M-16, but like the carbine it carried
a 30 round clip, and with a touch of the trigger she could dust the
surrounding woods like an Apache attack-chopper. She leaned back
against the tree and lifted her binoculars again, scanning the
slope across the valley road for Pete. The night had taken on an
even more ominous waiting feel, a stealthy, skulking vibration that
seemed to rise up right through the soles of her boots.

What the hell was that light? She thought of
the figure in the woods in front of her house, and her heart
thumped heavily. Her pulse throbbed in the palms of her hands. Her
whispered breath sounded like the roar of a jumbo jet, but she
forced herself away from the tree, studying the pitch black forest
all around.

Nothing moved.

The Brethren had established protocols for
the crossing guards. They had created a network of telephones and
radios and a warning system, but there was no formal chain of
command. They were the remnants of a sect that believed in full
equality for all before God and man
.
No Brethren was ever
likely to take orders from another. Suggestions, requests, yes.
Orders, no. But still she had a duty to the group, to remain at her
post. She had a duty to Paulie and the others, who would be on
their way, to be where they expected her to be.

But she had a duty to back up Pete as well.
When the machine pistol clicked against the buttons of her blouse
she realized she was quivering with fear, and that angered her. She
gripped the gun tighter and willed herself to stop shaking.
Snapping the radio to her belt, she slipped the strap of the
night-vision binoculars around her neck and headed back down the
trail the way she had come up, eyeing the woods suspiciously.

When she reached her car she paused to
listen.

It was uncanny just how quiet the woods
remained. There was always some sound in the forest, the call of an
owl, the flutter of bats, the rustle of a raccoon or porcupine, or
even the occasional twig snapped by a deer, but tonight there was
nothing. The woods seemed to understand that there was a predator
on the prowl, something so preternatural that even the night
creatures were all crawling back into their nests or burrows or
huddling shivering in the brush. She trotted down the rutted lane
to the valley road and stared up the slope across from her just as
the scimitar moon slashed its way up over the ragged mountain top.
Now the skeletal silhouettes of the forest looked even more
uninviting, and the darkness between them that much deeper. The
dark shape of Ravens Head-the sharp precipice of black granite that
overlooked the valley-glistened like polished onyx, and for just an
instant she thought she saw another gleam of light there. But
staring at the rocky crag she realized it had to have been a trick
of the moon playing off the wind-polished stone.

The sound of a car off to her right caught
her attention, and she waited guiltily until Stan’s open Jeep
pulled up alongside then turned to block the road. He gave her a
disapproving look as he killed the engine.

"Pete still hasn’t shown up," she said,
nodding toward the other slope.

Stan climbed slowly out of the car, grabbing
his pump shotgun from behind the seat and glaring at her. "Why did
he leave his post?"

She shrugged. "He saw the same light I
did."

"I sent a couple of men up the back way to
Raven’s Head to have a look. Where did you last see him?"

She pointed up the slope directly across from
the Jeep.

"All right," he said, snagging a flashlight
from beneath the driver’s seat. "Come on."

She fell in step behind him, wondering how he
could not notice the silence, the waiting, watching feeling. Skin
was literally crawling up her back.

"Through there, I think," she said, pointing
to a saddle in the slope just ahead.

When they reached the depression Stan once
more shone the beam around, lighting the rocky slope that fell away
into a small dell before the mountain continued its skyward climb.
The moon lit the meadow grass in a weak yellow gloom.

"Pete!" yelled Stan, breaking the silence at
last.

His voice echoed away hollowly just as hers
had, as though the mountains were not earth and stone, but sheet
metal skin over some vast and empty nothingness. The ground beneath
her feet seemed suddenly insubstantial and untrustworthy. But still
Stan seemed unaware of the strange transformation. He turned slowly
in all directions calling Pete’s name again twice, but there was no
answer.

He stopped to stare at her for a moment, and
she could see that he was on the verge of some sharp reprimand.
Then he bit his tongue.

"Haven’t you noticed how quiet it is?" she
croaked, barely able to find her voice.

He slipped the hand holding the flashlight
under the stock of his shotgun and glanced all around slowly.

"Let me see your radio," he said,
reaching.

It took him a moment to get Paulie on the
horn, giving the old man their location. The connection was
staticky, and to Ashley Paulie sounded out of breath. He must have
slept right through all the earlier radio traffic. Waking him from
a sound sleep wasn’t something anyone wanted, but he was still
considered by most to be the heart of the community, people would
expect him to be informed.

"Send up four or five more men as soon as you
can get them out of bed," said Stan. "Tell ‘em to bring dogs and
come well armed. Ashley and I will be waiting for them at the
crossroads. Over."

Paulie acknowledged and signed off.

"I’m going to lead the way down the slope,"
said Stan, quietly. "You back down behind me."

She nodded.

They took three times as long to make it down
the hill as they had to climb it, and every crunching footstep
sounded to Ashley as though it were roaring away through the trees.
She wondered if they had just missed Pete, if they might have
stepped right past his wounded, bleeding body in the darkness. But
what could have happened to him?

Angels.

Could it possibly be? Were they in the valley
now? Had the car been just a diversion?

She felt as though every tree hid a killer,
and she and Stan were in their sights.

The sinister and silent night was reluctant
to render its secrets. Six men, three women, and four
dogs tracked Pete close to the dell, but after that the ground
grew too rocky, and in the moonlight there was just no telling
where he might have wandered-or been dragged-off to. Flashlight
beams laced the trees in a flickering golden web, the mountain air
seemed stagnant and frozen in time, and the surreal sense of a
rarified earth beneath her feet only added to Ashley’s
disorientation.

"He didn’t fly out of here," she grumbled.
"And the dogs are running all over the place like there’s too much
scent."

Stan sighed, shaking his head. "Probably is.
They’re not blood hounds, and this area is full of the smell of
Pete and every other Brethren who’s passed through on patrol or the
way to the picket post."

"My God!"

The woman’s cry came from the slope behind
Stan, and both he and Ashley started. She could hear others
crashing through the brush toward the call, and she and Stan
followed.

"Halloo!" shouted Stan as they approached the
dell once more.

The thin meadow grass lay silvered by the
twinkling glow of stars. The cone of light from Stan’s flash cut a
wide swath toward the woods upslope as he called again. Finally a
quavering voice answered, then another.

"Up here!"

As Ashley and Stan rushed across the clearing
and then through the bramble up the slope toward the call she began
to make out more nervous, murmuring voices.

"What the heck... You guys relax, okay! You
scared the dickens out of me."

It was Pete! Ashley crashed through a small
alder into another clearing. There stood the old man surrounded by
Brethren who shone their lights into his squinting eyes.

"Where the hell did you go?" Ashley shouted
at him, stomping her foot in agitation.

Pete took on a hangdog look. "Sorry, Ashley.
I wanted a better look at that light. I got twisted around on a
side trail up near the cliff."

"You hiked all the way up to Raven’s Head?"
said Stan, frowning.

Pete nodded sheepishly.

"You left your post," said Stan.

Pete gave him a crestfallen look. "I know it
was stupid. I honestly don’t know what got into me. Sorry."

"You didn’t see anyone up there?"

Pete shook his head. "Not a sign."

"Must have just missed the men I sent up. And
your radio?"

Pete shrugged. "I didn’t hear anyone on it.
Battery must be dead."

"You deserted your post," said Stan,
again.

"I said I was sorry."

"Sorry doesn’t cut it," said Stan. "Everyone
in this valley needs to be where they’re supposed to be."

Pete glared back but said nothing more.

"Would
you
like to return to your
post?" said Stan, raising an eyebrow at Ashley.

Ashley frowned, nodding as she turned toward
the trail.

Constant vibration and the after-affects of
another over-extended adrenalin rush lured sleep into the car as
Trace gazed steadily at the giant bronze orb reeling hypnotically
ahead. The glowing sphere held his complete attention so that he
could not recall when he had first noticed it or exactly from
whence it had appeared. Glimmers of gold shot from the ball as it
rolled on down the highway, and the rumble of its passage lulled
him even deeper into a mesmeritic daze.