CRYERS (34 page)

Chapter 60

Lawson still
couldn’t understand what had possessed Eichberg to run down the stairs instead
of finishing them all off in front of the big metal door. When they heard his
screams in the distance, the lawman decided he didn’t want to know.

They still had
Leonard Dutz to deal with.

“Try it
again,” Willem insisted.

Jenny tapped
the six number combination into the keypad again. The door spoke back to her.

“Incorrect.”

“It doesn’t
make sense,” the cryer said, smacking the side of her fist against metal.
“548773—those are the numbers my Mom said, I’m sure of it.”

They were all
clustered around her, willing the giant surface in front of them to open.
Lawson crept back to the junction in the corridor and looked down on Leonard.
He was still sitting on top of the dead cryer, picking away at its face and
shoving the pieces into his mouth. He looked up and saw the lawman staring.

“Hurry up with
the numbers,” he called out to Jenny.

Leonard stood
up. “Why hasn’t Eichberg killed you yet?”

Cobe was
standing next to Jenny. “Try talking to your ma again.”

She shook her
head. “She’s gone. I think she’s dead.” Both of her parents were gone. Jenny
realized she was alone.
Both gone…
Both…Two…

“There are two
doors—my mother gave me numbers to
two
doors.” Her fingers went back to the keypad.

Leonard was
walking slowly towards Lawson. He could hear Eichberg crying off in the
distance. “What…What did you do to him? Why does he sound like that?”

Lawson heard
Sarah shouting for him. The door was opening. He wouldn’t make it back to them
in time. Leonard was less than ten feet away, his wet hands clenching and
unclenching. The lawman curled his into fists and considered how he would fare
against the creature.
Not well.
It
was like the Rites all over again—stuck in a hole and preparing to die.

Something made
a terrible hissing sound and a flash of orange dropped out from the wires over
Leonard’s head. It clawed into the skin of the cryer’s scalp, tearing away skin
in strips. Its yellow teeth sank into his skull.

That gawdamn cat followed us the whole way
down.

Leonard tried
batting it away with his fists. He tried grabbing into its greasy fur, but the
animal was too fast for him to get a grip on. Too fast, too strong, and too
frenzied. It clung to the front of his face as Leonard spun around in circles.
Claws sharper than needles burrowed into one of his eyeballs, and Leonard
howled.

Lawson left
them there and ran for the big door that had started to close back up on its
own. He squeezed through the last bit remaining open and it sealed shut with a
resounding thud.

“Leonard?”
Cobe asked.

“Our old
friend Smudge dropped in for a visit.”

Jenny had just
finished punching the other set of numbers into the second door’s keypad. There
was a click, and a metallic wheel with three spokes running out from the center
popped out of the door’s surface. She turned and rested her back against it.
“Spin that wheel, pull, and the door will open.”

“Get out of
the way then,” Willem said.

“The air in
there might make you sick…It could even kill you.
 
I don’t know how to explain it any better…I
just thought you had a right to know.”

“We didn’t
come down here to escape, did we?” Cobe said. “We’re bringing the whole place
down, aren’t we?”

Jenny nodded.

Lawson pulled
her away from the door gently. “Then it don’t make no difference if the air
makes us sick. Let’s get this over with.” He turned the wheel with both hands
and pulled. The door opened with a deep groan and the seven stepped inside.

Jenny expected
the air to be a creeping green fog. She thought breathing it in would burn at
her nostrils and throat. She had seen too many old movies as a child. The air
was clear and it smelled clean. The room was small and featureless, not some
sprawling center lined with dozens of control desks and hulking computer banks.
There was one chair, one desk, sitting in the center of an airtight
white-walled, white-floored, and white-ceiling room.

Jenny walked
up to the desk and pushed the chair off to one side. It wasn’t really a desk—it
looked more like a slab of solid white marble carved out from the floor into a
perfect cube sitting four feet high. They gathered around her and stared down
through a small circular window set flat into the surface. A black pea-sized
sphere hovered two feet beneath the glass. It appeared to be jumping around
slightly— side to side, up and down—as if cupped inside an invisible shaking
hand.

Willem sounded
disappointed. “
That’s
a nukebatt?”

“A nuclear
battery… a controlled black hole suspended in a field of anti-gravity… That’s
how my mother explained it.”

The word
OPTIONS
was printed under the window.
Jenny touched It and a small door slid open beside it. There were four buttons
to choose from:

POWER
DOWN
        
REMOVE
        
POWER UP
        
COLLAPSE

Jenny pressed
the last one and the little ball stopped jumping around. The light in the room
grew dim. A woman’s voice started counting down numbers.

“Five-hundred
ninety-eight… Five-hundred ninety-seven… Five-hundred ninety-six.”

Jenny went to
the chair and sat. She rested her face into the palms of her hands and waited.
Lawson put his arm around Sarah and held his other hand out to their daughter.
Cobe saw Angel staring at him. He wrapped an arm around Willem.

The boy looked
up. “I still don’t get it. What’s happening?”

Cobe knew two
things for sure. One: he knew how to count. Two: in less than ten minutes his
counting days would come to an end.

***

Edna had
barely emerged from her final encounter with Eichberg before the second arrow
could pierce her heart. She shifted the upper half of her bent body and it
struck her in a lung. She opened her eyes and saw the old hag called Gertie
leering down at her.

“You’re a
mess, girl,” she leaned down and spat in Edna’s face. “Uglier than ol’ Dirty
herself.”

A figure
emerged from the drifting smoke behind her, readying a third arrow into the
string of his bow. There was an obscene growth protruding from his neck. It
wiggled when he spoke. “She’s the last of ‘em, Ma. We been all through what’s
left of the town, and there ain’t no one left. They all been burned.”

Edna could
hear fire raging all around them; she could feel the rumble of it underneath
her. There was a cracking noise to the right and a dozen sparking embers
descended across her legs. The pain it caused was considerable, but turning her
head was agonizing. They were less than twenty feet away from a burning house
preparing to collapse.

“Put the last
arrow in her face, Boy.” The woman’s face was pink and dripping with sweat. She
placed a dirty finger nail between Edna’s eyes. “Plant it right here and we’ll
leave this town fer good.”

Edna jerked
forward and bit into it. Gertie screeched, attempted to pull her hand free, and
Edna clamped down harder. Boy dropped his weapon and tried pulling his mother
away. Edna could hear the structure next to them begin to groan. A blast of hot
smoke blasted into her face. She felt along the ground with her fingers and
found Boy’s ankle. Gertie fell forward onto Edna’s chest. The old woman wheezed
dryly in her ear, gasping frantically for a breath of clean air. Edna yanked on
Boy’s leg and he toppled down onto his mother.

The fight had
gone out of them now. Edna could feel them hitching for oxygen but their lungs
only filled with smoke and ashes. The house let out a final deafening roar and
came crashing down. A section of wall slammed into Boy, and Gertie’s hair burst
into flames. The old woman screamed soundlessly into her face.

Her dirty
green tooth was the last thing Edna would ever see. She closed her eyes and
went back to her daughter one last time.

***

“Five-hundred
thirty-four… Five-hundred thirty-three.”

Jenny shot up
out of the chair. “There
is
a way
out!”

She spun on
the wheel in the door and pushed. They followed her out through the second door
and rushed along the corridor, towards the stairway Lothair Eichberg had
disappeared down. The siren had been silenced and the red emergency lights
pulsed less frequently.

Lawson trailed
after the others. He peered down the long hallway where Smudge had attacked
Leonard and saw the glowing eyes of a dozen more ABZE clients running their
way.

Angel tripped
on the first step leading down and the lawman scooped her back up. “Watch them
feet of yers, girl. Another stumble like that will be yer last.”

They found
Lothair Eichberg at the bottom, sitting up against a door. His eyes were open
and vacant, a trail of drool hung from his chin. Jenny stared down at the
terrible man and tried to imagine what her mother had shown him. Cobe opened
the door and his body fell into the next room. They stepped over Lothair and
saw three hulking monsters sitting before them.

Chapter 61

“They aren’t rollers,”
Jenny explained to Willem. “They’re armored tanks, plugged into the main power
supply and left fully charged. They can only be activated in case the power is
cut or the nukebatt has collapsed. She went to the one in the middle and pulled
a cable thicker than her arm free from its recessed socket. The big green
machine rumbled to life. A door popped open from one side and twin lights on
the other end flooded a section of the underground garage in brightness.

Cobe saw a
rectangular section of wall forty feet away begin to rise from the floor in
front of the tank. A hole into utter blackness waited beyond.

“Four-hundred
ninety-seven… Four-hundred ninety-six.”

Jenny pulled
Willem and Kay towards the tank. Come on, this thing will get us out of here!”

Willem tried
digging his heels into the floor as she dragged him along. “How’s it goin’ to
do that? We supposed to ride on top of it like a horse?”

“You ride
inside
it.”

Sarah had
already climbed in after Kay and Angel. Cobe helped Jenny with his brother, lifting
the squirming boy into Sarah’s waiting hands.

Lawson was
still with Lothair. He’d dragged the comatose body all the way into the garage
and was bracing the door shut with his shoulder. His hands were gripped around
the handle, holding it in place. Something banged against the other
side—moments later a dozen more pounding fists joined it.

Cobe was
already stepping up into the tank; he hesitated when he saw the lawman losing
his battle with the door. Jenny pushed him all the way through. “He’ll make
it.”

Lawson’s boots
slid against concrete. The door was opening, and grey fingers had taken hold
along its edge. A nose was wriggling its way in through the crack.

“Four-hundred
eighty… Four-hundred seventy-nine.”

He gave it one
last mighty heave and pushed himself away. Lawson stumbled over Lothair and
crashed down. He was grateful Angel hadn’t seen him trip.

“Where is he?”
Willem yelled. “What do you see?”

Jenny started
pulling the hatch-door down. Cobe could hear the creatures screaming—running
wild throughout the garage. They thudded into the tank’s back end. He thought
he could feel the entire machine shift slightly under the weight of bodies
climbing on top. A grey-skinned face appeared in the last three feet of open
door. It bit into Jenny’s arm and she tried to dislodge herself by smashing its
skull into the thick metal frame.

The thing fell
away and Lawson started climbing in. Cobe and Sarah helped her drag him all the
way in.

“What’re you
waitin’ fer?” He said breathlessly. “Make this thing move!”

Jenny jumped
into the single-seat cockpit and studied the controls. She hated driving. A car
accident had started her down this path, and a thousand year gap between
joyrides hadn’t made her feel any better about it.

But this isn’t a car
, she thought.
This a tank and tanks don’t roll over.
I’m not a stupid, drunk kid anymore, and I’m not afraid.
She didn’t
need her mother to instruct her how to drive the thing. Once she got past all
the switches, buttons, and screens clustered around the front window, and
settled on the big steering wheel and gear-shift, Jenny figured she could
manage just fine on her own. She pulled the shifter into D and the tank jumped
forward.
  

Everyone else
settled nervously into the six bucket seats behind her. Lawson, Cobe, and Willem
sat across from the girls. They stared at each other and listened as bodies
continued to clamber over their heads.

Cobe started
leaning to one side. Willem had to grab a metal bar above his head to stop from
sliding into his brother.

“We’re headed
up,” the lawman announced.

“And goin’
faster,” Angel added. “How does this thing move?”

No one could
answer. They continued their ascent in rattling silence through the angled
tunnel. Jenny found it hard to keep the machine in place. The big steering
wheel seemed to have a life of its own, vibrating away beneath her fingers and
sending the tank dangerously close to the walls. There was a dull growl as the
metal side scraped against reinforced concrete. The tank lurched slightly but
kept climbing.

Jenny clutched
the wheel tighter and looked at the instrumentation around her. Something
beeped at her and a message lit up in orange on a screen above the window.

FACILITY
DOOR

OPENING

PROCEED
WITH CAUTION

A tiny sliver
of bright light appeared ahead. It grew larger as the second giant door opened
further and the tank climbed higher. Jenny couldn’t help herself, she giggled
for the first in she didn’t know how long. “I can see the sky! We’re going to
make it!”

They were less
than two-hundred feet away. The others left their seats and tried to see for
themselves. Cobe looked over his brother’s head and saw the light. It grew
darker before his eyes. Dry earth and slabs of concrete were tumbling in over
the door. When it had finally stopped, a small patch of grey light remained.

Jenny’s heart
sank as she pushed up on the shifter bringing the tank to a halt.

“What’re you
stoppin’ fer?” The lawman asked.

“Look at it,”
Jenny snapped back. “A small dog couldn’t squeeze out of there now.”

“We ain’t no
small dog. A bit of dry soil and cracked rock won’t be much trouble for this
thing, I’m betting.” He pulled the gear back down into drive and the tank
thundered on. He yelled at everyone to get back in their seats. Angel and Sarah
were the only ones that made it before the machine punched into the obstruction
and ground to a halt.

Jenny’s nose
had broken against the steering wheel. She wiped blood away from her lips and
stared out of the cracked windshield, waiting for the cloud of dust to settle.

“Did we make
it?” Kay asked, untangling herself away from the others.

Angel swore
somewhere beneath her. Cobe pulled Willem off of Sarah. The lawman was jammed
up against the hatch in an uncomfortable position. “I guess dry soil and
cracked rock can stop pretty much anything if there’s enough of it.”

Grey fog
appeared before Jenny’s eyes. A gust of wind blew it away and she could see a
sky filled with clouds. “Open the door—I think we can make it the rest of the
way on foot.”

Lawson’s elbow
was resting against the handle. He pulled up on it but the door only opened a
foot. Dirt spilled in over his shoulder. “Too much rock in the way. Can you
bust yer way out through the window?”

Jenny punched
it and the crack spread. She hit it again but the fractured glass remained in
place. Cobe could hear the distant echo of the automated voice counting down
outside the door.

“Two-hundred one… Two-hundred… One-hundred
ninety-nine.”

Something
scratched Lawson’s leg. He looked down and saw grey fingernails tearing into
his pants. “Gawdamn… Don’t these things ever quit?” He crawled away just as a
head popped up into the opening. The thing’s teeth sank into the leather toe of
his boot. The lawman kicked out with his other leg and shattered its jaw. More
faces appeared, covered in dirt and dust. Grey arms worked at the concrete
chunks, shovelling debris away in effort to open the space further.

“Try this,”
Willem said.

He was on his
knees near the back of the tank. A cabinet had opened during the collision and
a litter of weapons had spilled out onto the floor. Willem was holding an
assault rifle in his hand, offering it up to the lawman.

Lawson took it
and blasted the first grey face into red mist. The sound it made inside the
tank’s confined space was deafening. Cobe felt the following gun shots more
than he could hear them.
Thump. Thump.
Thump.
He kneeled down and helped Willem pick more weapons from the floor.
They shoved boxes of ammunition into the waists of their pants. The lawman
continued firing and the creatures kept coming.

Jenny had
broken through the window. She was climbing up into the jagged opening, pushing
more of the shattered material back along the way. Cobe picked one last heavy
hand gun up and shoved it into his armpit. He helped the others along and
climbed out of Big Hole for the final time.

Lawson exited
last. Cobe’s hearing had returned. He could just make out the sound of fingers
clawing against rock and dirt. The remaining ABZE clients still trying to dig
their way free wouldn’t make it any further.

They stood
together in a dirty, exhausted huddle away from the twenty-foot high pile of
collapsed concrete and dirt. The crater wall of Big Hole stretched across the
horizon two miles away. The exit-ramp bunker had stood there for centuries,
waiting to open its steel mouth in case the disastrous happened far below. A
hundred tons of wind-blown dirt had accumulated on top, and the whole thing had
caved in once the door started to open. It looked like a giant, smashed
gravestone dedicated to all those buried underneath.

“How much time
is left?” The lawman asked.

“Less than two
minutes,” Cobe answered.

Lawson looked
to Jenny. “How big of an explosion is that thing gonna make—do we have enough
time to outrun it?”

She didn’t
know how to answer. How did you explain to a group of people that had just
learned of the existence of an ancient Technological Age the difference between
an explosion and an implosion? Jenny had lived during that Age, and she barely
understood it herself. “I doubt it,” she finally replied.

“Hello?—is
somebody there?” A one-eyed horse poked its head around the rubble. Dust
stepped forward a little more and they saw Trot sitting on his back. The other
horses galloped up from behind.

“
Now
we have a chance,” Lawson said.