CRYERS (28 page)

Chapter 48

The girl poked
her head up out of the hole and looked around in all directions. The sun was
low on the horizon and her skull cast a long black shadow against the cracked
earth.

“I think it’s
okay…can’t see nothin’.”

Anna pushed up
on her daughter’s boney rear-end. “Then make room, girl. Climb out so I can get
me some fresh air.”

Angel crawled
out and helped her mother. “What kinda monster you figure lived in that hole,
Ma?”

“What do you
mean
lived
? I reckon it’s still about
somewhere…Maybe watchin’ us right now and readyin’ to jump.”

Angel sneered.
The buck teeth slid over her bottom lip and dug into her pimpled chin. “Quit
tryin’ to scare me... You been scarin’ me ever since we left Rudd.”

Anna crawled
all the way out from the tight space and shook dry soil from her hair. “Gotta
keep you aware—make sure you’re lookin’ out fer yourself, and not relyin’ on
yer pa no more.”

Angel’s pa was
dead. The beating the old lawman had laid on him hadn’t killed Jakob, but it
had left him defenseless against the creatures that finished the Rites off for
good. Angel’s mother had made the decision to leave him behind in the madness
that followed. Angel hated her for that, but it had saved their lives. They had
fled from the pit and ran south.

Now the two
women were following the dirty brown river towards Burn—or where they hoped
Burn was. Folks there had to know. They needed to be warned of what Anna and
Angel had seen and the horrors they’d been through.

They trudged
away from the hole they’d burrowed into earlier that afternoon when a herd of
rollers had threatened to trample them flat. They had no food and the river’s
water was unsafe to drink. They had no flint to start a fire and nothing to
burn. Now the sun was setting and it was getting cold. Angel was thirsty and
hungry. Her pa was dead. She wished they could go back inside the animal hole
and die.

“Don’t wanna
rely on nobody. Don’t wanna go nowhere.”

“The Gods are
good, Angel. They give life, and they take it away. Be grateful fer what you
still have.”

Angel rolled
her eyes as her mother walked off on ahead. She was always going on about the
Gods and how they provided in the most desperate times.
Fuck the Gods
, Angel thought. What had they ever done for her?
She’d been born uglier than a pail of shit and had never kissed a boy. Hadn’t
even touched one. The only man in her life was dead, and still Angel’s ma
praised her kind and forgiving Gods.

She spoke out
without realizing. “There ain’t no Gods.”

Anna turned
and slapped her across the face. “Foul little thing. After all I done fer
you…Your father gave his life fer us, and that’s what comes outta yer dirty
mouth?”

Angel rubbed
her cheek. “I’m sorry, Ma.”

“You’d better
be. We’re still breathing air. We’re walking on our feet and moving forward
into better days. Folks in Burn will appreciate us when we bring word of what
we seen. They’ll be thankful and understandin’ of the hardships we been
through. I imagine they’ll even provide you with a man all of yer own—the best
they have to offer. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, girl? Being married to the
most handsome lad in Burn?”

Angel didn’t
answer. The last boy that had paid her any mind was the one they’d met a few
days before settling in Rudd—the tall, skinny one with the pretty blue eyes.
The one that had been traveling with the mean old bastard that pounded her pa
half to death. They were responsible for this. A part of Angel hoped they were
already dead—that the grey-skins had eaten them along with all the other poor
souls trapped inside the pit. But still—she had shared an apple with the boy.
He had spoken to her. They had made a connection, and Angel figured he might be
willing to show her more if they ever met up again.

Anna continued
preaching on about the Gods and how good things would be for them in Burn.
Angel took to walking backwards after a while and saw three white forms bobbing
along the horizon.

“I’ll see you
get the finest looking boy from the richest family. We won’t want for nothin’
no more…Who knows—maybe the Gods will see fit to give me a second husb—”

“Ma, we have
to run.”

“We won’t need
to run anymore, Angel. Once we’ve settled in Burn, there’ll be no more
running—no more movin’ from village to village. We’ll be respected. The Gods
will give us men and we’ll be happy.”

“Ma—we have to
run.
Now!
”

A shriek
echoed out over the plains. Anna stopped talking about dreams that would never
be. She looked past her terrified daughter and saw the howlers.

The hole in
the ground had belonged to them, Angel realized as she pushed her mother
forward. They had spent the better part of the day crammed inside it trying to
escape the heat of the afternoon sun. It had reeked of urine and something like
human sweat. The smell alone should’ve been enough to keep them away. Her
father would have known better. He never would’ve allowed them anywhere near a
howler hole. But her father wasn’t with them anymore. Angel and her mother had
to learn these things on their own now. At least they hadn’t been caught inside
the hole. Angel thanked the Gods for that one cruel miracle as she ran past her
mother. Anna was still in the long dress she’d worn to the Rites. The faded
white cloth caught at her ankles and gathered between her knees.

Angel looked
over her shoulder. The howlers were picking up speed, running on all fours. She
saw the grey gouges in their faces where the eyeballs had been ripped out at
birth. One of them screamed again—a blood-curdling wail that hurt her ears.
Angel saw its teeth, terrible yellow things filed down to sharp points.

Angel’s mother
made a wail of her own as she fell flat on her face in the dirt.
You shouldn’t have worn the dress, Ma.
The howlers were slowing, almost on top of her. Anna screamed at Angel. She was
probably pleading for her daughter to save her. Angel chose to believe she was
telling her to save herself.

Anna’s screams
were silenced, and Angel ran faster. She looked back one last time and saw the
creatures tearing into her mother’s flesh with long, grey nails. Two of them
took hold of her arms and started to pull her apart. They howled and spat at
each other, fighting for a greater piece of their prize. The third one had
disappeared up under the dress and begun to claw at the meat of her inner
thighs. The cloth turned red and one of her arms popped away at the shoulder.
Anna’s body flopped down to the ground again, twitching.

They don’t know I’m here. They can’t see…They
can only smell and taste Ma.

Angel turned
away from the last of her family and ran for Burn, or where she imagined Burn
to be. Maybe the Gods existed after all. Perhaps they had named her Angel for
something other than her looks.

Chapter 49

“How’s our
patient doing?” Lothair asked.

Sara continued
away from her house without answering, carrying the empty pail at her side.

Lothair set
after her. “Ignoring me won’t make us go away. You should be thankful you’re
still alive and free to walk the streets.”

Sara made a
wide berth around the thing called Aleea. She was sitting in the middle of the
road, chewing on a section of human leg. The rest of the corpse was splayed all
around her in pieces. “You call this free?”

“It’s more
than the others would’ve allowed. Granting you access to the well is very
magnanimous of me.”

Sara didn’t
understand half the words he spoke. These monsters from under the ground talked
differently. They looked different. And they definitely didn’t act like any
other people Sara had ever known. If these were actually ancient humans from a
lost age as Lawson had suggested—if they really had been human beings—how had
any of them survived? What race of people could live on the flesh of their own
kind?

“I asked you a
question,” Lothair said.

A woman Sara
knew burst out of a dilapidated house, screaming. She ran across the road in
front of them and fled down a back alley. The grey-skinned man with the white
beard strode out of the building and walked calmly into the shadows after her.

Sara could
hardly find her voice. “What?”

“Our
patient—how is the Lawman coming along?”

“He… He hasn’t
woken up. I don’t think he’s going to.”

“That would be
a shame,” Lothair replied. “I have so many questions that need answering. You
will
do your best to see he recovers,
won’t you?”

Sara had
reached the well. She looked at it dumbly, forgetting what it was, and why it
was sitting out in the middle of the street. She had gone to learning with that
screaming woman. Her name was Tammer, and she had a husband, children. There
was a stone sitting on the well’s wood base. Sara picked it up and dropped it
into her pail. She hooked the long rope tied to the bar above and lowered the
pail down. She imagined the water coming back up being dark red. Rudd’s streets
were littered with carcasses. Puddles of gore had begun to accumulate, and the
blood of her people was seeping into the earth. She prayed Kay wasn’t one of
them.

Lothair
Eichberg took hold of the rope and started to reel it back up for her. Sara
stared off into space. “Pull yourself together, woman. I want the lawman to
recover. I need my questions answered.”

The pail
reappeared, sloshing clear water over its sides. Sara removed the stone and
unhooked the rope from the handle. “I don’t understand…You’re killing everyone.
Why do need one man kept alive so badly—what do you expect to learn from him?”

“There are
more like us. Hundreds more still sleeping beneath the ground—thousands more
waiting to be awoken in a dozen installations throughout North America. I will
revive
all
of them. But I need to
know if this world can support us. I need to know where the villages and cities
are located to keep them sustained.”

“You think
Lawson will tell you where the towns are? You believe he’ll just lead you from
village to village and allow you to slaughter everyone along the way?”

Lothair took
the pail from her as she started back home. “It’s been a very long time since I
loved a woman—centuries have passed since I’ve felt anything. But I remember
what lengths a man will go to protect the things he cherishes, the sacrifices
he will make to protect those he loves. He will tell me what I need to know if
I promise to let you live—to let those others my great-great-granddaughter has
become attached to go free.”

Another scream
sounded in the still, evening air. Somebody was being eaten alive, or being
forced to watch. It sounded like Tammer. “Why Lawson? Why not get your answers
from someone else?”

“We’ve
questioned others. No one knows where the populations are. There is Burn to the
south, but beyond that? Your people don’t know much, Sara. They are ignorant
and stupid. The Lawman managed to find my facility. He equipped himself with
ancient weapons and very nearly killed my great-granddaughter. I believe him to
be well-traveled. He will show us to others towns. He owes me.”

They were back
in front of Sara’s home. The monster that had fed on Lode’s brains was sitting
on the step, picking at crud beneath his finger nails with the stubs of new
teeth. He spit something pink onto the ground.

“She
co-operating?” he asked. His orange eyes were locked on her. Sara looked away
from the ravaged remains of face Lode had beaten to a pulp.

“She will keep
the Lawman alive, Colonel. She has no other choice.”

Sara went
around him, spilling water along the way. She slammed the door shut behind her
but Strope kept his voice low. “This is bullshit. His injuries are severe, but they
aren’t life threatening. I’ve treated men in worse shape, and so have you. Why
are we letting this go on?”

Lothair
pointed to a clay bowl sitting next to the colonel. It was half-filled with red
liquid and blobs of purple-grey. “What is that?”

“Some liver
and lung. Go ahead, I’m full.”

Eichberg took
the bowl and poured the contents into his mouth. He licked the edge clean and
belched. He sat next to the colonel and they watched as Leonard Dutz appeared
from around the corner of the building, dragging the top half of a human corpse
in one hand and a dead dog in the other. Lenny spotted the two and grinned. He
sat in the dirt and popped one of the animal’s brown eyes out with his thumb.
Lothair recalled a cat he’d owned as a child that would present him with its
catch of the day—a mouse, a bird, whatever it could get its paws on. Leonard
reminded him of that cat. Proud and appreciative. He offered the eyeball out to
Eichberg and Lothair shook his head. Leonard tossed it into his mouth and
swallowed it whole.

“Let the woman
think she’s still useful,” Lothair said. “Giving people just the smallest piece
of hope can work wonders…believe me, I know. When the Lawman has recovered
enough he will show where more towns are. We’ll head west, thawing other cryers
in other facilities along the way.”

“Why are you
calling us cryers now?”

A look of
disappointment spread across Leonard’s face as he discovered the dog only had
two eyeballs to gobble down. He sucked at the last bit of juice in each socket
and turned his attention to the human corpse next to him. “There’s a secret
installation on the west coast Edna tried to keep hidden from me. I believe the
research conducted there may help us…make us stronger…make the takeover of this
new world easier.”

Strope looked
at him suspiciously. “Secret installation…tried to keep hidden. How would you
know any of this? Edna can hardly speak.”

“There are
other forms of communication.”

The colonel
was still eyeing him warily. Lothair felt he may have said too much to the man.
He was a soldier, he obeyed orders, and he still saw Eichberg as his superior.
Strope was following a thousand year old command from the military to protect
ABZE Corporation and all of its holdings. But how far could it go? When would a
centuries-old order no longer apply? And then there was Edna to consider.
Michael was a part of Eichberg’s family. Edna had been his lover. They were
emotionless and no longer human, but was the colonel’s obedience a certainty?
Lothair couldn’t trust him completely. He lied to the man. “I found the
information back in the computers on level
E
.
It wasn’t complete…some data was missing. But believe me, the facility exists.
It’s out there.”

The colonel
rose to his feet. “I’m going to check on Edna and Jenny.”

Lothair tested
his control over him again. “When you’re done, take a tour of the town’s
perimeter. Make sure we haven’t lost anyone in the moat.”

“All the
bridges have been knocked down except the one heading south. Aleea’s been there
most of the day. I doubt anyone’s desperate enough to drown in all that shit
and piss for a way out.”

Lothair called
out to him as he walked away. “Still…it’s good to be sure. I saw Aleea taking a
dinner break near the well. Walk the perimeter and check on the bridge until
she returns.”

Strope saluted
the air without turning back and marched off into the gloom. It was a
disrespectful action, one that troubled Eichberg even further. He watched
Leonard eat. The boy offered up half of the corpse’s heart to him. Lothair
shook his head again. For the first time in centuries he didn’t feel all that
hungry.