Wasteland Blues (16 page)

“Boy, you’re a bigger fool than I thought,” said Youslus. “You try a stunt like that again, I’ll give ya both barrels.”

Behind them, Teddy regurgitated a good portion of the water he’d drunk. Mixed with blood and bile, it formed a dark puddle on the ground before it quickly evaporated. Leggy crab-walked himself over and helped Teddy with the canteen.

“Move Stone Biter and its generator away,” ordered Youslus, toeing the unexploded TNT stick with a frown. “It’ll come in handy if there’s other bunkers around here.”

Derek dragged the devilish machine away from the hole and over to where his friends were nursing Teddy. He had to pull with all his might. He couldn’t believe his brother had single-handedly worked the massive thing. Teddy caught sight of the machine and cringed, squeezing his eyes shut to the thought that he might again be forced to wield it.

“Whee!” Youslus squeeled. “Okay boys, you stand back now. I’ll do the honors.”

He removed coils of fuses from his satchel and strode over to the jam-packed TNT. He put the shotgun on the ground and carefully twisted his fuses into the caps at the end of the sweaty sticks.

Derek looked up at Leggy. “Now?”

“Now or never,” said Leggy.

Derek sprinted across the pit. With surprising speed Youslus whirled round, scooped up the gun, and clubbed Derek across the side of the head just as he closed the distance. Derek fell hard, clutching his bloodied jaw.

“Dumb, dumb, dumb,” said Youslus. “Now you’re gonna miss what’s inside.” He cocked a hammer and pointed the gun.

As he did, a dog barked above them. Its echo bounced back and forth between the walls of Youslus’s excavation. Everyone looked up.

Magdalena stood at the edge of the pit, flanked by her two dogs. She held her rifle in her arms.

“Why Hello, Maggie,” said Youslus. “Nice to see you again. Have you brought me some eggs? I do love Mother Morgan’s eggs. I’m just about to take care of some business here, and then I’ll greet you properly.”

The woman pivoted toward the sound of the old hermit’s voice and raised the rifle.

“Don’t shoot,” cried Leggy. “There’s dynamite—”

The blast of the rifle echoed through the pit. The bullet exploded into the rock just behind Youslus’s right shoulder. Everyone in the pit, Youslus included, flung themselves to the ground, hands over their heads, waiting for the blast that would blow them skyward.

It never came.

Youslus peeked out from behind his hands. “Hee! That was a close one.”

As he pushed himself off the ground, a long dark shadow fell over him. A terrible mechanical shriek split the air.

“Bad man! Bad man!” shouted Teddy, towering over his cruel taskmaster and holding Stone Biter high above his head. The evil machine thrummed with life, vibrating and screaming bloody Hell on earth. Teddy brought it down—he brought it down hard.

Stone Biter writhed and convulsed and almost seemed to laugh as it burrowed into Youslus’s belly and legs. Blood and gore spattered the walls of the pit. Youslus screamed.

Then Teddy turned the machine on its own motor. The hammer punched into its own heart as eagerly as it had Youslus’s. The pounding turned into a scream, high and shrill. Shards of hot metal slashed the air as the thing devoured itself. In seconds its cacophonic shriek died to a whine. The hammer-blade slowly came to a stop. The generator was obliterated. Stone Biter was dead.

Teddy heaved its twisted remains across the pit, and then turned to his brother.

Derek recoiled, fearful of what he saw in Teddy’s eyes—unbridled fury, incomprehensible anger. It was his brother’s face, but the eyes that looked down on him were his father’s, the man’s only legacy, bequeathed to both brothers. Derek knew that anger well, he’d felt it himself, even basked in it. But he’d seen it on Teddy’s face only once before—the night that Teddy had murdered the man who’d passed on that birthright of all-consuming anger.

He’s going to kill me next,
thought Derek.

“He’s gone, Teddy,” cried Derek. “He’s gone and can’t hurt you anymore. It’s just us now, Teddy. Just us.”

Teddy flinched, as though he’d been slapped. The terrible anger drained from his face. He peered down at his brother quizzically, and then looked all around him.

“He can’t hurt you anymore,” said Derek.

All was silent but for the ringing in their ears.

***

Derek staggered to his feet and retrieved his shotgun.

Leggy stared up, open-mouthed in awe, at Magdalena, who still had her hands pressed over her ears.

John pulled frantically at the chain around his ankle. “Undo me, dammit,” he shouted. “Undo me!”

Leggy blinked. This was first time he’d ever heard John swear.

“John,” shouted Magdalena from the top of the pit. “Are you okay?”

“The keys.” John strained to pull the length of chain from its anchor in the stone. “Where’re the keys?”

“Shit,” said Leggy. “Youslus had ’em.” He turned to look at the remains of the old man. “It’s gonna be a bitch tryin’ to fish ’em out.”

Miraculously, the old digger was still alive. Everything below his waist was decimated. Both legs were missing, blood and flesh and bone painted the ground all around him. His face was a mask of madness. Propped against the wall of his cherished bunker number two, one hand was absently trying to shove entrails back into his torn bowels. The other hand reached into a pocket sewn into his robe and retrieved a thin wooden match. The mad hermit struck it against the rocky floor of the pit.

“No, oh no,” whispered Leggy.

The others turned to see.

Youslus stared at the flame for a moment, and then touched the match to the fuse. The line hissed to life, and a maniacal spark raced down the wire.

“Crack…that…fucker,” Youslus said with a grin, his mouth full of blood.

***

“Run,” screamed Derek. He raced for the rope ladder, but his brother grabbed him by the shirt.

“Teddy what—?” shouted Derek, and then he was in the air, the world twirling underneath him. Teddy had flung Derek out of the pit. He crashed on hard stone and looked up to see Leggy in the air, the man’s arms and stumps flailing. Before the old man landed, Derek was on his feet. He raced to the edge of pit. The fuse was more than halfway gone.

Down below, Teddy was straining to pull John’s chain from its anchor.

“John,” shouted Magdalena, her rifle at the ready, “tap the chain.”

“What?” screamed John, his eyes wide with panic and confusion.

“Tap the chain!”

John grabbed a rock and hit the chain as if he were trying to strike sparks. “Again,” shouted Magdalena.

The ringing echoed around the pit until it was silenced by a sharp crack from Magdalena’s rifle—and he was free! John and Teddy tumbled backward, the chain broken about halfway down its length by the blind woman’s bullet.

The spark had nearly run its course. The flame was inches from the sweating sticks of dynamite. Teddy braced himself and flung John out of the pit.

John landed on his belly, the length of his chain dangling over the edge. Derek grabbed John’s arms and pulled him up over the lip of the pit. Teddy’s oversized hands appeared next, his weak and trembling fingers grasping for purchase. Derek let go of John and seized one of his brother’s hands. He pulled as hard as he could until Teddy came up out of the pit and tumbled down on top of him.

“The cave,” screamed Leggy.

With superhuman effort, Teddy untangled himself from his brother, snatched up the legless hauler under one arm and Derek under the other. John grabbed Magdalena’s hand. They raced for Youslus’s shelter.

They were nearly to the cave when the TNT went off.

A massive fist of hot air punched them from behind. Teddy was thrown forward, spilling his human bundles. Derek sprawled onto his face inside the cave, head ringing. He felt the stone floor tremble and wondered if the whole side of the mountain would come down on them. A fiery wind roared inside the cave, scorching their ears and coating them with dust.

The roar of wind was replaced with a pattering sound like rain as bits of stone, concrete and steel fell to earth. The patter was punctuated by crashes as larger chunks tumbled from the sky.

When the inferno had begun to subside, Derek and Leggy left the cave to see what damage Youslus’s dynamite had wrought. The ground everywhere was coated with grit, which crunched beneath Derek’s boots and dimpled Leggy’s palms as he pushed himself along on his hands. They had to detour around several car-sized hunks of smoldering concrete skeined with rebar.

As they approached the edge of the pit, Derek felt a rising excitement. They were alive, Youslus was dead, and the old man’s treasure trove was blown wide open. Whatever might be inside—food, weapons, strange artifacts of power—was theirs.

***

They stopped at the lip of the pit. Smoke and dust still swirled around the blast site, but they could see that Youslus’s dynamite had done more than its intended job. A huge hole had been blown out of the face of the bunker, big enough for three to walk abreast straight through.

Derek began to smile, but then faltered. He scrambled down the rope ladder into the pit. He pulled his shirt up over his mouth to block the dust and smoke, and shimmied through the jagged mouth of the blast hole. He stepped inside and walked five or six feet, reaching out a hand.

Three yards in, a large steel door blocked any further passage. It was smoothly fitted into a steel frame. The frame itself was set into the granite of the mountain. The door had no handles, and Derek could find no hinges, nor any gaps of any sort that might show how the door opened. The way was barred to them.

Its metal face was scarred and pocked from the blast, but otherwise unaffected. He put his palm to it. The steel was cool. Derek thought he felt a slight vibration, a tiny ripple of force from powerful engines churning somewhere deep within the bunker. He rapped it with his knuckles, but the steel was so thick he could tell nothing about what might lay on the other side.

He stepped outside and climbed back up the ladder. Derek sat down at the edge of the pit, his legs dangling over the side. Suddenly he felt more tired than he ever had in his life. So tired, that he thought he might never move from this spot.

“Well?” asked Leggy.

Derek sighed, summoning the energy to speak. “There’s another door,” he said. “Made of steel.”

“Closed?” asked Leggy.

Derek nodded and spat into the pit.

“Fuck me,” said Leggy.

“Yup,” said Derek. He cupped his hands behind his head and lay back on the ground. The stone was warm against his back, and the sky above was cloudless. For a long time he stared into blue oblivion.

Chapter Twenty

John sat up in the cave and found himself eye to eye with a sleek German Shepherd, Sheba. She licked his face. The dog wore a harness, and holding that harness was Magdalena. Her blind eyes were aimed straight at John.

“You came,” he said.

“Yes.”

“How did you find us?” he asked. “And why did you come?”

Magdalena’s cheeks reddened. “My dogs knew the way. We’ve been here before.”

“Huh?” said John, rising to his feet and brushing dust from himself. “What do you mean?”

“Mother Morgan sent you this way on purpose,” said Magdalena. “She sent you into his hands.”

“She knew about this guy?” exclaimed John. “She knew he’d put us to work?”

“We both did.”

“But Magdalena, why would you do such a terrible thing?”

“Mother Morgan and the old man, they’ve known each other for years,” she said. “They had an arrangement. If she sent him travelers, he would bring her things he’d uncovered from his dig. Tins of food and such.”

“Is that why you came then?” John asked. “To collect your reward?”

“No,” she said, tears welling in her blind eyes. “I…I wanted to help you. I came to free you, if I could.”

“Free us?” shouted John. “We were trapped here for weeks!”

Sheba growled and bristled her teeth at John. Magdalena pushed the dog’s snout aside. “Please,” she said, reaching a hand out to John.

He batted it aside.

“Please. I was a prisoner myself.”

“What do you mean?” asked John.

“Mother Morgan. She knew I wanted to go after you. She could see it in me. She trapped me in the house.”

“Then why did you come now? Did she think we’d be dead?”

“No. I escaped,” she whispered. “I ran away.”

“How?”

Magdalena put her hands over her face. “I killed her.”

John felt his knees buckle. He steadied himself against the cool wall of the cave and crossed himself. For a moment he thought about running, running without stopping and never looking back.

“You don’t understand,” said Magdalena. “You don’t understand what she did to me. I was scared, John. Terrified. There were four of you, and you were armed. I was scared that maybe you hadn’t been captured.”

“What?” cried John. “You
wanted
him to catch us? He worked Teddy nearly to death. He would’ve done the same to us if—”

“Listen,” said Magdalena. “I was scared that I’d come here and find you already long gone. But I came anyway. Because I had to know.”

“I don’t understand,” said John.

“If you were his captives, I would’ve tried to help you escape,” she said. “And if you were gone, I would’ve killed the old man and followed you.”

John’s head reeled. Who was this girl that he’d thought he’d fallen in love with? She was as cold and vengeful and as full of killing as Derek.

“Why?” he asked.

She wouldn’t answer.

“Please,” said John. “I have to understand. I can see that he was a bad man, a crazy man, but why kill him? Especially if he weren’t keeping us captive?”

Hot tears of shame flowed from her eyes.

“Magdalena,” said John.

“She sold my body to him,” said Magdalena. “The old woman sold my body to him. The first time was when I got my bleeding. That was six years ago. But that wasn’t the only time. She used me, used me as trade.”

John sat down on the dusty stone floor of the cave. Ever since leaving San Muyamo, he’d felt as if he’d been descending into Hell. Every turn on this journey uncovered some new horror, some new human cruelty. Back home the Judges said God had abandoned the world, and now John understood why. Because all its people were wicked.

“I came for you,” said Magdalena. “But maybe I shouldn’t have. Now that you know what I am.”

John could hear the pain in her voice. Part of him wanted to hurt her more, to drive his shock and disgust into her like a stake. A voice spoke to him, the voice of Elder Hale. The voice was full of righteous condemnation.

This woman was a fornicator, a liar, a killer. Perhaps even possessed by demons.

If John valued his soul, if he loved Jesus Manchrist, he would turn his face away from her. Avert his eyes.

But he didn’t turn away.

He looked. John saw her misery and sorrow and felt the anger wash out of him. He went to her and put his arms around her. She put her face in the hollow of his neck, and he felt her tears against his dry skin.

“It’s okay,” he whispered to her, stroking her hair. “It’s okay. We’re safe now. You found me. And I’m glad.”