James Robert Smith, page 28
Kicking the back door open, Thompson strode out, his long legs taking him down the pair of steps that led to the back yard. One of the trio of sheds behind the house was standing open, the double doors wide. “Melissa?” He called her name. “Are you in there?” He reached into his pocket and drew out the small flashlight stashed there. He flicked it on.
He could see that a trap door had been carefully uncovered in the earthen floor of the shed. A neat stack of firewood had hidden it, and now that stack of wood had been neatly placed to the rear of the shed. On the floor of the shed were metal casings lying in arranged rows. Although he was not versed in such material, even he knew what they were. “Bomb casings,” he whispered. What was Uchino doing?
“Melissa?” He called her name, shining his light into the revealed hiding place in the floor. There was nothing but more of those same metal shrouds that had once covered the guts of bombs. Roland stood up and turned, the sudden movement causing his head to swim. Uchino had caught him a good one. It seemed appropriate that the man would be martial arts expert in conjunction with all of his other talents. Thompson strode out of the shed again, shining the light here and there, trying to see if his companion was still around, or if Mr. Uchino was waiting for him. But there was only his surroundings and silence.
His light speared the ground, and he looked to see what he could make out. And there, obviously, was the track made by two people fleeing upslope, toward the town, their way marked by flattened stems in the grass. Roland followed it, calling out to Melissa. Ahead, on the next street over, there was an alarm bell mounted on a post. He would stop and ring it. Help would come.
It was at that point that he heard Melissa call out to him, and saw her running to meet him on the slope of the hill.
“Goddamn,” he said. “I was getting worried.”
She reached out and took her rifle from Roland. “I know where he’s going. We have to catch him.” And without another word she turned and began to race uphill.
“Where?” he asked, moving to keep up with the powerfully built woman.
“His kiln. He’s assembled something in his kiln.”
Roland thought of the brick structure. Ten feet wide and twenty feet long and five feet high. He’d had it built a year ago and was using it to train people in pottery making, glazing, even glass blowing and metallurgy. Uchino seemed a depthless cauldron of arcane and practical knowledge.
“A bomb,” Roland said.
“Yeah. Perfect place,” she continued, panting, all but running. “Right next to the armory. Across the street from all of our administration buildings. Half a block from the goddamned hospital, for Pete’s sake.”
“Shit,” Roland added, and actually passed her as he raced along. Ahead, he saw the post on the street. “We have to ring an alarm,” he gasped. And the pair stopped. Without pausing, Roland reached out to find the rope. It had been cut, and was lying on the ground in a loose heap. He looked up, the brass bell dangling impossibly out of reach on an iron hook a dozen feet over his head. They’d placed it that high so that the sound would reach a maximum area without being muffled by nearby walls. “Devious bastard,” Roland said. And he aimed his rifle into the air and squeezed off three shots, one after the other, in slow succession.
They knew that patrols would arrive soon, but they turned left again and headed on, determined to meet Uchino where they knew he was headed.
A minute later they were rounding the corner of the town square, and were looking down on the lot where Kenji Uchino had built his wonderful kiln, where he had been teaching his students many lessons. Where is wonderful kiln had been closed for the past two weeks for reasons unknown to his various apprentices. Roland and Melissa heard steps moving their way from two directions, and looked to see patrols jogging toward them, two groups of three; classic, well-drilled buddy groups. And in seconds they were all together, eight people armed and ready to defend.
They stood as a unit and without a word Roland led them down to the space of ash and dirt surrounding the low brick oven that Kenji Uchino had so carefully directed. They spread out in an arc, weapons drawn, ready for battle.
An electric light went on.
A small spotlight had been erected beside the wall of brick and mortar where the main body of the kiln rose like a low dome. Kenji Uchino was there, calmly sitting crouched at the door where clay had been fired in previous months. Now the opening was for something sinister.
Roland Thompson motioned for his companions to hold tight. They obeyed while he walked forward, his rifle ready. The barrel was aimed at the earth, but he was prepared to fire into Mr. Uchino without warning.
“What are you doing, Kenji?” The night was quiet. If the people nearby had been alarmed at the warning shots he’d fired, you wouldn’t know it. They were all quiet, composed, without obvious panic. Houses were dark and quiet all around the city center.
“I’m waiting for the sign,” the man said.
“What kind of sign? What are you talking about?”
“The Minister told me to wait for a sign,” he said. “So I’ve been waiting.” He looked up at Roland and for the first time Thompson could see that Uchino held something in his left hand; wires ran from his partially closed fist into the kiln. Just inside he could see the bulk of something large an ominous there in the shadows.
“What have you got in there?” Roland said.
Kenji Uchino turned his head, slightly, one eye on Roland Thompson who stood over him with that annoying rifle. “Enough ordnance to destroy the center of this town,” he said calmly. “I’ve been disassembling JDAMMs and moving the explosives up here for days.” He smiled. “Had the raw materials stashed under my house.”
“Don’t do this, Kenji. Put that down and stop this. It’s crazy,” Roland told him, his voice all but a whisper.
“It’s too late,” came the answer. “The signs are all around. God is speaking to us. I’m just waiting.”
Roland moved closer, two steps. Kenji put up one hand, palm up. With the other he raised the simple circuit and showed it to the soldier. “Stop. One more move and I’ll set it off. I’ll take that as a sign from God.”
“Why are you doing this, Uchino? They chased you out of Ruth. Your wife told us how you were persecuted for your Shinto religion.”
Mr. Uchino spat at the ground. “Shinto. A sad pagan monstrosity,” he said. “We’ve always been followers of Jesus. Since we were kids,” he admitted. “And you idiots.” He waved his bare hand, indicating the city of Sparta. “God is all around you. The world is filled with the love of Jesus. And you ignore it all.” He scowled. “You have to either submit or go.”
That was it. Roland had no idea what Uchino had stashed in the kiln. But whatever it was, he knew it would do damage. That was just the way this man worked. Whatever he built, it was made to work. He raised the barrel of his automatic a few millimeters. But he saw that Kenji detected the threat. The seated man showed him the circuit again, the wires leading into the shelter of the kiln.
Roland was trying to decide. Fire now, or try talking to the fanatic. What was the mad man waiting for? Was it a bluff?
From the low country far away, from the direction of the cities beneath Sparta, the sky suddenly went yellow and white. Despite everything, Roland and Melissa and the patrolmen who had come to their aid, all of them turned their heads from Kenji Uchino to see.
The clouds reflected an awful light. A vast mushroom of yellow and stark electric blue highlighted the heavens. The ridgeline just to the south of town was a black, tree-fanged mandible standing up to the spaces above it. And soon, to punctuate the sight, a rumble spoke, bellowing over the vastness that separated Sparta from City of Ruth.
“What the fuck?” The phrase came from several in the group of civilian patrolmen.
Roland said nothing, but thinking of signs, he aimed his gun at Kenji. But it was too late. He watched at Uchino’s thumb hit the depressor. The circuit was closed. Roland waited for oblivion.
Nothing happened. He stared at Uchino, lit by not just his makeshift spotlight, but by the sudden illumination of the impossible explosion coming from the distance. In Uchino’s hand, the wires dangled. One of them had come disconnected.
“Shit.” It was the first time anyone had heard Kenji Uchino utter anything like profanity. The man twisted, reaching for the dangling wire that had come loose and prevented the massive bomb in the kiln from being detonated.
Roland hesitated. He was not comfortable with the AK47 and worried that an odd bullet might miss its intended target and, instead, set off what he knew were the explosives just behind Uchino. But his finger tightened on the trigger.
But a sudden explosion halted him; a shot was fired.
He recognized the report of the 30.06.
Melissa Warner had not hesitated. Her aim was true. Uchino’s skull exploded in a shower of pink and crimson. His wonderful gray matter was suddenly spread over the roof and walls of his kiln-turned-bomb.
To the south, 3,000 feet below, the City of Ruth was a conflagration that one could see for a hundred miles. In the white-yellow glow of that funeral pyre, the eight surrounded the body of Kenji Uchino.
“Don’t touch anything,” Roland said. “Sound an alarm.” He turned to Melissa and one of the young faces in the patrol. “Get everyone out of the city center.” He peered down at Uchino’s twitching body. “And for God’s sake get someone over here who knows something about military ordnance. We have to disarm and disassemble whatever this bastard built in there.” And with that he knelt to see the explosive monster Uchino had assembled, fatally flawed, in that perfect hiding place.
“Damn,” someone said from behind Roland. It was a kid. He didn’t even know the youth’s name, nor did he recognize the voice. “We dodged a bullet, didn’t we
Mr. Thompson?”
Roland Thompson nodded his head. “You got that right.”
The shock wave from City of Ruth, like a puff of wind, rolled through Sparta and was forever gone.
One Final Turn:
Maya’s small, soft hand was gripped firmly in her that of her mother’s. From time to time, as they rushed up the steep slope of the road, Tilly would glance back, allowing the bright moon to reveal what, if anything, stalked them.
Each time she looked, she would see that same form, that thing that had once been her lover, who had taken her to bed whenever she could steal time from her smothering husband. And Rick—Rick was dead, now. She was sure of it. The one glace she’d allowed herself as she pulled her tiny children up the incline had been of the two dogs tearing at Rick Nuttman’s throat, silenced at last. Tilly choked back a laugh.
And in the light of her torch, she had been certain that one of the dogs was BC. Why not? It made sense! It must have been BC who’d led her old lover this far. There couldn’t be any other explanation. Nothing else seemed logical.
Now all she could do was struggle along, holding off until the last minute before she would turn and fight. She had no doubt that it would lead to that, but she wanted to wait until the last minute. She held the heavy flashlight in her right hand. It was very well made—the best. It was the kind of thing that had been denied her in City of Ruth. That was one of the reasons she’d taken it when she had the chance. Not only did it provide light, it would make an extremely effective bludgeon. She would need it for defense very soon, she was certain.
The children were very quiet. Not even Little Rick complained as the trio fled up the roadway. “Help Mommy keep an eye out,” she’d whispered to Maya. “I’ll check behind us, and you check in front. Okay?”
Maya had nodded her approval, but had saved her breath for running. Her little brother was doing a very good job of keeping up and his grip had never wavered on his big sister’s hand, and he had not been much of a burden along the way, despite the pace. He was tough for a six-year-old.
Tilly was afraid that the children were going to ask if their daddy was going to join them. She didn’t know what they’d seen when the dogs attacked. Hopefully, they’d been spared the worst of it. At least Maya had not said anything, if she had seen her father go down beneath the two dogs. And if the girl had recognized BC, she hadn’t said so.
From time to time Tilly peered at the buildings and houses that they passed as they walked and trotted. While the road had been cleared and was open and unobstructed, the structures around it were another matter. The houses that she saw were overgrown and not in good shape. To retreat into them would be a terrible mistake. Doors stood open, and windows were shattered. And she knew from some of the brief walks she’d taken this far out of town that many of these buildings were falling in from neglect and rot, some with completely collapsed roofs. She would duck into one of them if she had to, but from what she figured, to do would be likely be to put herself and her children into a dead end.
To the rear, there was the incessant sound of plodding feet. Tattered shoes scuffed along the patched asphalt roadway. Every few seconds there was a groan, a truly hideous sound that she’d almost forgotten since they’d found their way to the velvet-lined prison of City of Ruth. Ned was getting closer. No matter what, she could not outrun that dead-meat robot. Not with the kids. Pausing for just a second, Tilly thumbed the switch on the flashlight and shined it back the way they’d come.
Ned Waters had closed the gap. There was less than a dozen feet separating her from that thing, now. His face was alternately pale white and purple with suspended rot. His eyes were wide and staring, his mouth wide, teeth showing stained in that black hole. His hands were reaching, reaching.
Then, from far behind, from the direction of City of Ruth, there was a sudden eruption of light. A massive explosion had been triggered. Something—perhaps one of the ammunition dumps, or one of the tanks of liquid natural gas had gone up in a massive detonation. The sky was lit, almost as bright as day. Then the shock wave hit, and by that time Tilly had draped her body over the children. She felt it force its way toward her, a huge fist of air and sound. For a moment there was nothing…just the force of the blow and something that seemed like total silence.
When she could hear again, Tilly realized that the sound she was hearing was her own screaming. Beneath her torso, sheltered from the worst of it, Maya and Little Rick lay curled in fetal postures, waiting, whimpering.
Only belatedly did she think to check on the dead thing that had been pursuing them. When she turned the flashlight back in that direction, it shone full in the face of Dead Ned. His face was all but touching the glass lens of the torch. He had his hands on Tilly’s long, black hair, on her right arm.
Standing, grunting, pushing with what strength she could muster, Tilly shoved at Ned. Using her left hand to steady herself, she drew back her right to deliver as powerful a blow as she could muster upon Ned’s slowly decaying skull.
And with a sudden, great ease, the Ned-zombie slid past her attempted grip, and his jaws closed effortlessly on the fingers of Tilly’s left hand, and he bit down.
Tilly screamed. She was, she knew, as good as dead. With fear and horror and total revulsion she brought the torch down on Ned’s brow, but the blow was a glancing one and it merely skidded off his greasy skull and bounced away. But the lens shattered and the bulb behind it popped and the light went suddenly off. Now it was the ruddy glow of the sudden fires burning in City of Ruth that offered more light than the moon.
Ned had his arms firmly around Tilly’s torso, now. He had her and he was not going to let go. His mouth was opened in a black hole, only his dingy teeth offering a contrast against that pit. This was the source of what remained of his desire. He was going to have it. His entire being vibrated with the decaying germ of the thought of having her.
“Maya! Take Little Rick! Run! Run uphill! Run to Sparta! Ruuuuuuuuuuun!” She screamed this over and over, all the time struggling with the heavy, inexorable figure of Ned. And Ned, for his part, bit her again and again, tearing off bits of Tilly’s upper arms and shoulders as his jaws snapped down on her flesh over and over, in concert with her commands to Maya.
“Run! Just keep running! Take care of Little Rick!” Tilly had risked one glance in the direction of the children, but they were no longer there, and she heard—above Ned’s groans of pleasure and her own labored breath—the little footsteps of her children vanishing into the night, heading up the road, away.
Away, she thought. They got away.
That was when Ned’s teeth finally found her throat and tore a chunk of it away. Her blood sprayed, coating Ned’s hideous face. He kept biting, kept eating.
For Tilly, the world went away.
***
BC continued to worry at Rick’s corpse long after life had fled it. He bit and ravaged the body until, some minutes later, as it was cooling in the night, as even the blood was beginning to congeal into pools of black pudding. Only when that corpse began to twitch with the dead-life that was bound to animate it did the collie cease to rend that torn and useless, inedible flesh.
At that point, he backed away and watched as the thing that had once been BC’s pack leader struggled to a standing position and without so much as a glance at BC or New Hound began to plod away. It was headed down the road, back toward the flaming ruins of City of Ruth. For what, BC neither knew nor cared.
Then BC raised his nose to the slowly moving air. Beyond, up the road, there were old familiar scents, and he had unfinished business.
***
Maya had done as her mother had asked her. She ran. Tilly had told Maya that this day might come. Maya understood it. There would be time for tears later, her mother had said, if the dead people caught up to her parents and…and killed them. The child choked back a sob that emerged as a hiccup. Her little brother, his hair light in the moonlight, in contrast to her own raven hair, looked up at her and did not seem alarmed: he was with his big sister.
The night was growing cooler, and sometimes as the two struggled up the dark road, she would look back toward City of Ruth. Mainly, she wanted to see if somehow her mother was coming after them, hoping she’d been able to fight off the dead man who had caught her. But she knew it hadn’t happened. She’d seen the dead man bite her mother, and she knew what that meant. Tilly had told her what that would mean. “If it happens, and you see me…after. Then run. Run away from me.”
