The Stranger (30 page)

Forty-six

“You’re out of your mind, Valdiva! You’re getting nothing!”

“I need two hundred pounds of dynamite. Detonators. Fuse wire.”

“Valdiva, if you don’t get the hell out of here all you will get is shot. OK?”

“Mike, we need that dynamite. Believe me, we need it to keep people alive out here.”

“Get away from here, Greg. You’re not welcome in Sullivan. Neither are your friends.”

Ben squatted beside me in the ditch that ran within a hundred yards of the high fence that separated Sullivan from the outside world. “See? I told you they wouldn’t give you any dynamite.” His hands shook as he clasped the rifle to his chest. “Did you really think they’d say ‘Oh, welcome back, boys. Here’s what you need’?”

“No, but they’ll give it to us in the end.”

“For crying out loud, how, Greg?”

We squatted low in the ditch with the dirt wall ending just above our heads. Sullivan must have had hornet trouble, because around a dozen hornet corpses with bullet holes in their chests rotted down here with us. The stink felt strong enough to peel the top off your skull.

“Jesus, Greg, I’m gonna throw up if I stay here any longer.”

“Come on, Ben, I need you, buddy. We’ll get the stuff.”

“Some time, never. Aw, Jesus, I’ve been kneeling on a head . . . what a smell! Christ, it’s full of maggots.”

I let Ben alone as he complained. He had some cause to. This wasn’t going to be easy. OK, so the first part had been simple enough. At sunrise Ben and I had come down here on foot. No way was I going to give any trigger-happy guard on the gate an easy target, so we’d crept as close to the gate as we could along the drainage ditch. I didn’t count on rotting dead men for company, though. I’d recognized the guard on the gate as Mike Richmond. I didn’t figure he’d shoot if he saw us: we were his old beer buddies, after all. But he was vicious enough when he saw our faces. And when I’d asked for the dynamite he turned us down flat. What’s more, he must have called out the Guard. Coming up the road rolled a fleet of trucks and police cars, sirens whooping.

Ben looked over the top of the ditch. “Oh, fuck, Greg, he’s invited a shooting party.”

“Perfect. It gives us chance to talk to the boss.”

“They won’t talk, they’ll fire. . . . Jesus, this stinks. I can’t breathe.”

When the dust raised by the tires had blown aside I eased my head up above the ditch top. The townspeople weren’t tossing caution to the wind either. I saw a line of heads just above the vehicles. In the morning sun I could see the glint of gun metal, too.

“I want to speak to someone in charge!” My voice echoed back at me.

A bullhorn crackled. “I’m in charge, Valdiva. Speak to me.”

“Recognize the voice, Ben?”

He gulped. “Crowther junior. You know he hates your guts. You’ll get nothing from him.”

“Crowther,” I shouted. “We need two hundred pounds of dynamite, fuse wire and detonators.”

There was a pause. Then in a friendly voice, Crowther said, “Come right up to the gates, Greg. We’ll see what we can do.”

That was enough to make me duck my head back down into the ditch, out of sight. “Crowther! I’m not falling for that one! Your people will blast me to kingdom come the second they get a clear shot.”

The bullhorn boomed back. “Suit yourself. Either get away from here right now or we’ll come out there and blow you to shit.”

“You won’t do that, Crowther. One: You’re too chicken shit scared of infection. Two: We’ve got guns. You won’t get through the gate in one piece.”

“OK, Valdiva. Stalemate. But you’re not getting what you want.”

I risked a glance over the ditch. Damn . . . the dust kicked up by the wheels had reached us. I got an eyeful of dust and ducked back down again. And Christ, that smell of rotting meat was worse than ever. My stomach heaved.

“Greg,” Ben hissed, “let’s get out of here.”

He’d seen this stink was working its black magic on my guts, too. I waved him away. Then, without lifting my head, I yelled, “I’m here with Ben!”

“That geek? You’re welcome to him.”

I wiped the grit out of my eyes, but more blew across as I heard vehicles pull up on the far side of the fence. Sullivan was mustering an army. They came in such numbers, I could even smell aftershave on the Guard.

With a deep breath I shouted, “Here’s the deal, Crowther. We leave you alone in return for the dynamite.”

“You’ve got to be kidding, Valdiva. You can sit out there in the ditch until Thanksgiving for all we care.”

“Crowther, there are ten of us out here. We’re armed with military sniper rifles. If you don’t give us the dynamite we will sit out here until Thanksgiving. And whenever any of you or your neighbors walk out into the open we’re going to blow their heads clean off their shoulders. We’ll keep doing that until you give us the stuff. OK?”

“You’re bluffing, Valdiva.”

“Try me.”

Beside me, Ben, edged away from a corpse with a hole in its head you could have waggled your fist in. He kept swallowing, his eyes watering. I rubbed my stomach as it gave a queasy squirm.

I’d expected some response from Crowther, but it became quiet. I guess the guys were in conference all of a sudden. Time to make my contribution to the debate. Carefully I eased my head up above the ditch. More dust carried downwind, creating a golden mist. With luck the guardsmen who were keeping watch might not see me through that swirling filth.

My stomach muscles bucked. Christ, that smell of rot had gotten itself deep down into the pit of my belly. I held out my hand. “Ben, pass the rifle.”

Wiping the back of his mouth, he handed it to me. I chambered a round. Raised it to my shoulder. Looked through the telescopic sight. Sullivan had grown soft and careless. Magnification bloated the heads like beach balls. Sitting in the center of the crosshairs I saw Mike Richmond looking up over the top of a car. There were others I recognized, too. Finch, the old cop whose daughter Lynne had been murdered by the townsfolk. There was Mel, who grew the marijuana, toting an Uzi. Every so often she lifted her head above the back of a truck, an easy target. A tempting target as well, bearing in mind that she’d snitched on me that I was hiding a stranger in my cabin. But life’s short anyway. I allowed the crosshairs of the telescopic sight to slide over one target after another. I counted six heads I could get a clear shot at. And even though I’d lied about the number of marksmen we had I knew we could leave a couple of our people here who’d turn this side of town into sniper’s alley. Lifting the rifle a little, I could even get a clear shot of the main street. I could pick off townsfolk as they went to the mall or the courthouse.

I lowered the rifle. The veil of dust was thinning. Gold specks settled on my bare arms.
Make this quick, Valdiva
, I told myself.
They’re going to see you any moment now.

Once more I traced the line of vehicles. When I reached a truck I stopped. Although I couldn’t see him I saw the bullhorn protruding from behind the front fender. Crowther had shielded himself. Even so, the bullhorn poked out like a bird’s tail from behind a bush. I panned the rifle until the crosshairs sat squarely on the bullhorn; then I gently squeezed the trigger.

The sound of the bullet striking the bullhorn was amplified by the thing’s mike into a shriek of feedback. The bullhorn flew out of Crowther’s hand to the ground.

This time a hail of lead came back in our direction, but we were well hidden by the time it did. Once the dirt stopped erupting from the lip of the ditch there was silence again.

When Crowther spoke next it was without the aid of the bullhorn. But to be honest I didn’t recognize the voice. Fear squeezed it into a high squeal.

“Valdiva! OK! You’ve got what you want! But you’ve got to promise that you won’t come back here.” The voice rose even higher. “Do you hear that, Valdiva?”

I smiled at Ben. I could picture Crowther all sweaty and scared and still rubbing his tingling fingers from when the rifle bullet had smashed the bullhorn from his hand.

“Valdiva! Did you hear me!”

“Yes, I heard. Remember, I want three hundred pounds of dynamite. Detonators. Fuse wire.”

“Valdiva, you asked for two hundred.”

“The price just went up.”

“OK, you bastard, you’ve got it.”

“Leave it outside the gate. Two people in an army Jeep will collect it. Don’t harm them . . . otherwise I’ll sit out here and pick you all off one by one. Right?”

“OK! OK! Give us half an hour.”

Ben smiled and held out his hand. “You’re the miracle man.”

Smiling, I slapped his palm. “It was easier than I thought.”

“That’s because you scared them good and hard, old buddy.”

My smile turned grim. “I had help from other quarters.”

“Oh?”

I rubbed my stomach as it spasmed. “Ben, they’re scared because they’re in the early stages of infection.”

His eyes went wide.

“That’s right, old buddy; Sullivan’s lousy with Jumpy. They just don’t know it yet.”

With Ben staring at me like I’d just punched him, I began to make my way back along the ditch to where Michaela waited with the others.

Forty-seven

“How long do you give them?” Michaela asked from the passenger seat as we drove away from Sullivan.

“A few days before the symptoms become obvious.” I shifted the gearshift. “Then they’ll cull the ones they know are infected. Only the ones doing the killing will be infected themselves.”

She pushed her hair back from her eyes. “So why aren’t we infected?”

I shrugged. “Natural immunity.”

“I wish you could be so sure.”

“You’ve been exposed to the bug enough, and you haven’t been infected yet. Those people back in Sullivan managed by sheer chance to avoid contamination for so long because they were isolated from the rest of the world.”

“Do you think I introduced the bug to them?” she asked. “I may not be infected, but I might be a carrier.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. In fact, I’m certain they infected themselves.”

“How?”

“One thing the people of Sullivan ate plenty of were fresh fish. For months fish had been feeding on bodies that had been washed into the lake.” I looked at her. “It adds up, doesn’t it?”

“Agreed. But not everyone will be infected with Jumpy.”

“No, a few will survive. They’ll wander from place to place, scavenging food. But the town’s as good as dead now.”

“Greg?”

“Michaela?” I smiled.

“Slow down, boyfriend. Remember what we’ve got in the back.”

I glanced at the cases of dynamite stacked in the back of the Jeep. I eased off the gas. On this rutted road the boxes were hopping about in a way that was too lively for us to be comfortable with.

“So,” she said, “how do you use dynamite?”

“Search me, I haven’t a clue.” I shot her a smile. “We’ll figure out how one way or another.”

Her face broke into a slow grin. “Yeah, we’re Vikings now. We can do anything, right?”

“Right.”

We drove back the way we came, along roads that cut deep gullies through the forests. In the distance we caught glimpses of rivers and lakes. The afternoon sun had been buried behind a big, dark funeral mound of cloud. A flock of white birds glided along the valley to our right, over shattered houses and villages that lay bitched and broken with their living hearts torn out.
Yeah, Valdiva. We’re Vikings now. Warriors of the wasteland. Lords of Chaos.
We’d inherited a ruined planet.

Ahead of us by a few yards rode Tony, Ben and Zak, in a line of three, the bikes eating up mile after mile of road. I guessed they were taken by surprise by how easily we’d gotten hold of the dynamite in the end. Within thirty minutes of me shooting the bullhorn from Crowther’s hand the townspeople piled the cases of explosives outside the gate. Tony and Ben rode up in the Jeep and loaded it; then we were away in a swirl of dust with the Jumpy-raddled people of Sullivan watching us go. Only when I was five miles from the place did the muscle spasms ease in my stomach.

When I thought about it later, it all added up. I’d been downwind of them in the ditch. I’d smelled their aftershave. I’d smelled the infection, too.

Zak rode with the cowboy hat on his head, the brim flapping in the breeze. He grinned back at us. We’d be back at the cabins within the hour.

What happened next must have been fast. Only it seemed to roll in at me in slow motion. One minute there was open road, the banks of trees on either side of us. Then figures swarmed onto the road. Braking, I swerved to avoid them. I saw one aim a swing at me with a baseball bat. It smacked against the windshield. A white star appeared in the glass. Michaela shouted a warning. I swerved again, this time not to avoid the hornet but to use the car to smash his legs to crud.

I looked to my right to see Ben’s dirt bike in the grass at the side of the road, the wheels still spinning like fury. I braked hard. Zak and Tony wheeled the Harleys ’round and raced back toward the hornets. There were maybe twenty of them. Not a huge pack, but there might be more nearby. What’s more, they’d managed to topple Ben off the bike.

Zak and Tony, like old-time knights on horseback, charged the mob, the pair of them firing their sawedoff shotguns from the hip. The scattering buckshot dropped three or more of the bastards with every shell. I saw them go down kicking on the blacktop. Blood spurted from wounds in their faces.

I reversed hard. Smashing the legs of any that got in the way. One old girl went down with a screech beneath the back wheels.

“Greg, the dynamite!” Michaela shouted.

I looked ‚round. More hornets piled into the road from the forest. With sticks and iron bars they struck at the car. Some beat at the boxes of dynamite, sending a flurry of splinters into the air. I lurched the car forward. A stick caught me on the shoulder, but I kept powering away from the mob. I looked back again. Zak and Tony rode in a circle ’round Ben, back tires ripping up the sod into a green blizzard that filled the air. They were keeping the hornets at bay as Ben hoisted the bike upright. Thank God the engine still fired. I could see the exhaust hazing the air behind the muffler. Hornets tried to rush him, but the ever-circling Zak and Tony kept them back with a few well-aimed shotgun blasts. A moment later Ben climbed back on the dirt bike. With a twist of the throttle he wheelied right out of there, Zak and Tony following. Zak fired back as the hornets ran after them, turning one guy’s face into a mess the color of crushed strawberries.

“Damn, that was a close one,” I said to Michaela as I accelerated away. Then I glanced at her. Her head rolled to the rhythm of the wheels. Her eyes were shut. Streaming from the gash in the top of her head came what seemed to be a whole river of blood. Not a trickle, but a gush of blood that ran into the soft hollows of her eyes, down her cheeks like crimson tears, then down her throat to soak her T-shirt.

“Michaela?” I shook her shoulder as I drove. “
Michaela, can you hear me? Michaela!”

A rush of air tore the words from my mouth. “Michaela?” I kept calling her name. But as the red stained her chest my voice slowly died.