Crucible Zero

  I tapped on Abraham’s door with the pads of my fingers.

  He opened the door. He was dressed for travel, though the lack of weapons covering every inch of his body seemed a bit out of place.

  “Where’s Foster?” I whispered.

  “Getting a vehicle. He’ll meet us in the alley. Did you get the dust?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me lead.”

  We snuck down the hallway and out the door. I cringed when the hinge creaked, but Abraham adjusted his grip on the latch and lifted the door to ease the hinge.

  The cool day had turned into a cooler night, and a cloud cover hid the moon. The night was dark, although here and there down the street a watery lantern burned.

  Abraham and I jogged away from the house and down a street, where I made him wait while I put on my boots. That done, we hurried, hugging the shadows on the way to the alley.

  He made a low, soft bird whistle that was answered from the end of the alley.

  Foster.

  We jogged down to him, and he kept walking, down another street and another. Every street we passed ticked up my worry. I had no idea what kind of alarms or sentries the compound employed. Surely they had something in place that would spot people sneaking around.

  After the fifth block, Foster walked up to the driver’s side of a boxy vehicle that looked like a cross between a van and a tank. The front of it was fitted with a wedge of metal that reminded me of the old cowcatchers on antique steam-engine locomotives.

  He got in the van. Abraham ducked into the passenger’s seat, so I took the back.

  The sound of the engine roaring to life made sweat break out across my entire body, even though the night had moved on from cold to shivery cold.

  “We have two choices,” Abraham said while Foster navigated the streets as if he knew the place. “Stop for our weapons here and trigger the alarms, or stop somewhere a few hours from here and reprovision.”

  “Where is somewhere?”

  “Better you don’t know. But there are stashes of gear hidden in the wilds between civilizations. I know one that should be untapped.”

  I bit my lip, thinking it over. I liked my knives and gun. Abraham and Foster treated their weapons better than I’d seen some people treat their family members. But we needed speed and stealth.

  “Let’s get to that stash,” I said.

  “Foster,” Abraham said, “take the back door.”

  Foster turned left and left again, and we were headed for the east end of town.

  We hadn’t come in this way, but I expected every road into the compound to be guarded just like the road we’d come in on.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The gate in the wall here must have been one of the originals. No towers above it; no guard shack beside it. Just a plain metal doorway large enough to drive two buses through, side by side.

  It was closed and, I assumed, locked.

  I certainly didn’t have the key.

  Foster slowed the van and brought it to a stop. Abraham jumped out and strode to the gate. There were no lanterns here, so I couldn’t see exactly what he did. There was no chance he had the key. I guessed he was going to bust the lock.

  It took him a minute, two, before he tugged on the gate once, hard, then slid it to one side. He had to put his shoulder into it to make the old thing roll across the tracks, and I realized it hadn’t been locked; it had been welded shut.

  Foster eased the van through and then waited while Abraham set the gate back in place. I didn’t know if he did that to cover our tracks or to make sure ferals didn’t run wild through town. Probably both. Even though the wait was interminable, I agreed that our actions shouldn’t bring any more harm to House Earth.

  I already felt responsible for the bomb and the people who were dead and injured because of it. And while I knew that Slater would have bombed them even if I had decided to turn myself in, it all somehow felt like I was the one who should have stopped this, who should have stopped him a long time ago.

  A lifetime ago.

  Abraham swung back into the van. “Go—we’re clear. I don’t suppose you already found us a few weapons while you were stealing this van?” he asked Foster.

  Foster grinned at Abraham like a kid. “In the back.”

  “Foster, my friend”—Abraham patted him on the arm—“you are the most loyal, steady, and quietly devious man I’ve ever met.” He twisted back toward me. “Can you bring the weapons up here? We won’t get far without them.”

  I worked my way around the one bench seat into the back of the van, while Foster drove at speed down a road that was rough and full of holes. The van swayed and bucked, and I hit my shoulder against the sidewall a couple times.

  A heavy blanket lay spread across the floor and was folded over once. I pulled that back and took stock of what Foster had gotten his hands on.

  He must have left the inn quite a while before we did and broken into an armory.

  Machine guns, rifles, grenades, knives, machetes, and two bulky tank-and-trigger hose setups that looked like flamethrowers nestled next to three splitting mauls and a bundle of rope.

  Nice haul.

  I tried to add up the value of what we’d just liberated from House Earth, and decided we’d left nearly the same value in the weapons they’d taken from us.

  Not exactly a fair exchange if you threw in the van, but, then, we were trying to save their lives.

  That had to be worth something.

  I threw the blanket back over the collection, then tucked up the ends and brought the unwieldy bundle over to the bench seat and lifted the whole thing over the back, to set on the seat itself.

  “Well?” Abraham asked.

  “Other than squirt guns, I think we’re covered.”

  He braced sideways in his chair, his shoulders filling the space between the front and backseat. “Have you ever traveled at night?” he asked.

  “I have. But not around ferals.”

  “Then I’m going to tell you what you need to do. If you follow my instructions, we’ll get through this. The cache isn’t far off, and we can reload there.”

  “We’ll need to reload?” I asked, glancing down at the pile of weapons.

  “Those ferals back at the cabin?” he said. “Child’s play. Out here there’ll be many, many more. Different types. Some with thick hides bullets have a hard time penetrating. The sound of the van’s engine will call them from miles around. The night’s going to be swarming with them real quick.”

  “All right. What’s the plan?”

  He unwrapped the blanket, then planted his hand on the back of the seat as the van rocked. His gaze quickly took in our inventory.

  “We’ll start with the automatics. I’ll take the back; you’ll take the front. Shoot only if you can make the shot count.” He glanced at me. “This is going to be bloody.”

  “I can handle blood,” I said. “So, shoot, but don’t waste bullets. Any kill shots besides eyes?”

  “Eyes are best. Next is neck. Some of the beasts have reinforced skulls, so head shot isn’t always a guaranteed kill.” He bent and squeezed through the space between the seats, then around back to where I knelt, holding on to the back of seat for stability.

  He reached over the back of the seat and plucked up one of the machine guns, two extra magazines, one rifle, a handgun and clip, maul, machete, and one of the flamethrowers.

  “Do you know how to use these things?” he asked as he attached everything to his body. His coat was worked with a clever set of hooks and bands all meant for carrying weapons. I suddenly wanted one.

  “Nothing here I haven’t seen before,” I said. “Is there a coil lighter or striker for the flamethrower?”

  “Van should have a coil lighter in the dash. Don’t use the flamethrower unless you have to.
We’ll need it for when we’re on foot outside the van.”

  “Got it. Good luck,” I said as I squeezed around him. The van bucked, throwing me backward into his chest. Abraham caught me with one hand around my waist, and we held there a moment too long.

  “Ready?” he asked, his mouth low by my ear again. I wanted to kiss him. Wanted more. But we had a nighttime drive to survive.

  I nodded, not trusting my voice, and his hand released me, palm brushing warmth alongside my waist before pulling away.

  I made my way up into the passenger’s seat and got my breathing in order. That man did things to me. Very nice things.

  When I glanced back, Abraham had already set the weapons he couldn’t carry on the floor in the back of the van next to him, as if he’d done it a million times before. The back doors were fitted with slot windows that could be opened and closed and were just the right size for the barrel of a gun.

  This vehicle had been made for exactly this sort of thing: to drive at night when ferals were attacking.

  So maybe we had a good chance of getting through this alive.

  “We’re hot,” Foster said over the growl of the engine. Abraham set the machine gun at the slotted window and scanned the darkness.

  I turned with the automatic and rolled the window down a notch or two, aiming the weapon forward and bracing against the seat.

  Cloud cover choked the light out of the night, but the van was equipped with low lights that gave some hint of what was in front of us. It wasn’t a road so much as a rutted trail through an open field. From the glimpses of posts speeding by on either side of us, I figured this was a grazing pasture in the day.

  But in the night, the entire landscape seemed to move, and all of it was made of teeth and eyes and claws.

  “Shit,” I breathed. They were coming right at us. Like locusts, a swarm, a herd, an undulating wall of muscle and fur stretched over twisted bone and spine. The wolflike ferals were mixed in among squat squares of muscle the size of crocboars, and furred bearlike things the size of our van that didn’t appear to have heads and instead articulated like centipedes. The ferals galloped toward us so many, so fast, we’d be buried by them if we slowed down.

  Gunfire interrupted my moment of shock. I pushed away the very real fear of drowning.

  I aimed and made the bullets count.

  Just before the leading edge of ferals hit the van, closing in on us from all sides, Foster floored it.

  The van plowed through the nightmare beasts in front of us, throwing and crushing them as Foster drove right through the mass. The impact shook off the creatures that pounded against the side of the van and threw off a few that had reached the roof.

  I fired until the magazine was empty. Reloaded and kept firing. The beasts kept coming.

  If we ran out of bullets or fuel, or if one of the beasts hit us hard enough to tip the van or make us lose a tire, we would be torn apart, beaten, and eaten in a manner of seconds.

  No matter how many rounds I went through, more and more rushed the van, falling out of trees, squirming out of tall grasses, and pouring out of shadows.

  “How far to the cache?” I asked.

  “Twenty miles,” Foster said.

  Twenty miles? I didn’t think we were going to make it another twenty blocks.

  “Running low on ammo,” I shouted back to Abraham.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  He scrambled up through the van and handed me two grenades.

  “Not going to do a lot of good with how fast they’re coming,” I said.

  “Flash bomb. Don’t throw it in front of the van.”

  Like I would. He pushed his way to the back again, and I rolled down the window, pulled the pin, and chucked the flash bomb as hard as I could to the right.

  I turned my head and closed my eyes. The night burned bright as a desert sun.

  Beasts howled and shrieked. I opened my eyes, my vision fouled, even though I’d done my best to protect them. The ferals were losing ground, less of them following us.

  I opened the door, leaned out, and heaved another grenade over the top of the van to the left. “Flash!” I yelled as I slammed back into the van and covered my eyes.

  The world went white behind my eyelids.

  Foster grunted, but somehow kept the van on the road.

  “Will that hold them off?” I asked.

  “No.” Abraham strapped on the flamethrower. He kicked open the back of the van.

  “I thought you said we’re saving the flamethrowers.”

  “I lied.” He swung out of the van doors. For a single horrifying moment, I thought he’d thrown himself to the beasts following us. But then I saw his boots as he heaved himself up onto the roof.

  “Sonofabitch,” I said. “Crazy. He’s crazy.”

  Yes, he was galvanized. Yes, he couldn’t be easily killed. But there were enough ferals out there to take him down and tear him to shreds until he was dead.

  The night lit up with a blast of orange. Ferals along the side of the van backed away from the fire, blinded and burned.

  A distinctive pop sound cracked out, and a neon pink flare exploded above us.

  “A flare?” I asked Foster. “Who is he signaling?”

  “Maybe friends.” Foster drew a handgun from his hip, rolled down his window and shot a feral in the head. Then he flicked on the windshield wipers, scraping the thick blood and gore to the edges of the window.

  Maybe friends?

  “What about the weapons cache?” I asked.

  “They are the cache of weapons.”

  “What maybe-friends is he signaling? There isn’t anyone out here. No one could survive this. We’re not going to survive this.”

  The corner of Foster’s mouth curled up, and he glanced over at me. “Have faith, Matilda Case.”

  And then I heard it: the sound of engines. The sound of guns. Someone was out here, and they were coming our way.

  15

  My personal opinion? There should be only one reality—the reality wherein Slater is dead.

  —W.Y.

  In my very short time traveling outside at night, I had learned several valuable lessons.

  One: ferals never stop coming. There are not enough bullets, not enough flame, and not enough pain in the world to turn them away when they are in a hunting frenzy.

  Two: ferals are always in a hunting frenzy.

  Three: only crazy people go out in the night.

  Four: Abraham Vail was absolutely insane.

  He stood on the top of the van, even though I was having a hard enough time keeping my aim steady from the inside of the van, as we rattled down the road. He bathed the space around us in flames, and from the bleed of orange over black, I saw our real situation.

  The dead ferals were just drawing more ferals who, once they heard the engine and saw the motion of the van roaring down the road, turned away from dining on their fellow creatures to take off after us.

  I don’t know what combination of radiation and disaster had given rise to these beasts, but there were more mutations than I’d ever be able to wash out of the nightmares I’d be having for the rest of my nightmares.

  The light from the flamethrower kept some of the more visually sensitive ferals back a bit, but as soon as the flame paused, they all rushed at us again. It was like digging a hole in the sand while the walls were collapsing in on us.

  Only these holes had teeth and claws and a strong desire to kill us.

  I was down to a handgun, the rope, a splitting maul, a knife, and the other flamethrower.

  I leaned out the window, taking out the closest beasts I could get a clear shot at. Foster had run over so many, the windshield was covered in a mess of blood and gore the wipers couldn’t clear, and bits of fur and bone and other body parts were stuck in the welds of the van
. I was amazed the van was still going, but the way it was constructed kept the most vulnerable parts of the vehicle out of the ferals’ reach.

  The engines were coming closer, though I didn’t know how adding more vehicles, which would draw more ferals, was any kind of a good idea.

  My gun was out of bullets, so I grabbed the splitting maul. It was weighted, but I braced one knee against the seat of my chair and one foot on the floor, and stuck it out the window.

  The speed of the car meant that when my maul hit a feral, it was a hell of a jolt, both for my arms and for the unlucky beast.

  But I was strong.

  And angry.

  The ax cut down several ferals until it buried so deep into one of the articulated, giant-bear ferals that I lost my grip and it was ripped out of my hand.

  “So, these maybe-friends of yours?” I said as I rapidly rolled up the window. “Any idea when they’re going to get here?”

  “Next bend.”

  He sounded really sure about that.

  “Are you sure about that?” I picked up the flamethrower and grabbed for the coil lighter out of the dashboard so I could light the damn thing.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” I rolled the window down and sent a blast of flame out, then caught a back draft of gas and burnt fur that set me coughing.

  Worth it.

  “That’s where the world always ends,” he said.

  Right. I’d somehow forgotten that Foster was just as mad-bat crazy as Abraham. I didn’t know why I thought he’d want to make sense at a time like this.

  Then we turned the corner.

  “Foster,” I said, frantically rolling up the window again.

  “Yes?”

  “What is that?”

  “What?”

  “All the nothing out there?”

  “The end of the world.”

  And it might sound cheesy, but that was when the clouds broke enough that between the pale silver glow of the moon and the light of Abraham’s flamethrower, I could see the vast nothing that we were driving perilously along the edge of.