The Dream Widow (21 page)

In the center of the rug Flora stared at the ceiling, her mouth gaping. Her arms were twisted at wrong angles like a dropped doll. Blood covered her neck and chest and had soaked into the tan rug under her body.

Dark blood dripped from an arm dangling from Delmar’s bed and pooled in a thick, uneven mess. Delmar lay sideways, eyes open and face as pale as an old candle. A slit black with clotted blood crossed his throat.

Kaya ran to Delmar and hugged his limp body, sobbing. She heard the ugly dog growl and a voice spoke from the corridor.

“Dear Kaya ... what’s all this screaming?”

Tran stepped into the light. The ugly dog barked and growled louder.

“You monster,” said Kaya. “Don’t try to lie––you killed them!”

Tran shook his head. “You did. We were promised to each other, and you broke that promise.” He pointed at her. “You killed them, not me.”

“That’s insane!”

Tran raised his hands and took a step toward Kaya. The ugly dog jumped between them. It lowered its misshapen, mangy head and bared yellow fangs.

“I’m only trying to protect you,” said Tran. “The Circle is going to win. Hausen, Wilson and the others will soon be dead. They won’t be able to lord it over us any longer. You and I can be together again. We’ll create a new village and a new family here. Together.”

Kaya wiped tears from her eyes. “Go to hell.”

Tran pulled a knife and the ugly dog leaped, knocking him backwards. The knife clattered across the concrete as Tran fought off the sharp-toothed, snapping jaws. He kicked the dog away and fled into the dark.

Kaya ran through the twisting underground corridors in the opposite direction, the shining eyes of the ugly dog behind her.

TEN

“H
ot tea,” murmured Parn. “Fresh tea.”

He wandered along the dark trenches with a wrapped tea kettle and offered the men drinks from a wooden cup.

Tran met him in the central plaza. “Did you serve everyone?”

Parn nodded. “Just about.”

“What about the blockhouse?”

“I went there first. Everyone had some.”

“Even your father?”

Parn hung his head. “I didn’t know what to tell him.”

“It’ll be fine,” said Tran in the dialect. “Things are going to get very sticky, very soon. Stay close.”

BADGER YAWNED.

“Cat’s teeth, I’m so sleepy.”

“Don’t talk like that,” said Mast. “It’s time to head outside. The cold should wake you up.”

Badger rubbed her face. She walked away from the stove and curled up on the floor.

“Aw, come on,” said Mast.

He leaned over Badger and shook her arm. Something thumped behind him and he saw a tribal man lying near the stove. Muffled sounds and shouts came from the floor of the second story above. The rest of the tribal men in the room took a few steps, rubbed their faces, and slumped to the wooden floorboards.

Mast looked at Simpson. “What the hell?”

The old hunter checked the pulse of a fallen tribal. “They’ve been drugged. That tribal boy, what’s his name with the tea.”

“But we all drank it!”

Simpson grabbed his rifle from the wall. “We’re protected by the founder’s implants, don’t you remember?”

The entrance door cracked open and a pair of olive-green cans bounced inside.

Simpson pushed Mast away from the door. “Get back!”

The room exploded in flame, scorching Mast’s face and knocking him off his feet. He stuck his face into his jacket and crawled through the smoke to Badger.

The door and opposite wall burned with a ferocious white flame that threw brilliant sparks throughout the room. Mast swatted burning particles from Badger’s jacket and pulled her away from the heat. He reached the stairs and carried her to the second story as another blast seared the air.

A half-dozen Station men watched smoke curl from cracks in the wooden floor.

“Out the windows,” yelled Mast.

With Badger in his arms he swung one leg then another out the open window. Mast breathed deep and chanted for a few seconds as flames hotter than a furnace scorched his back. He jumped and landed on his feet. Only when he’d sprinted a safe distance away did he stop and lay Badger in the snow.

The blockhouse burned like a giant, crackling torch.

HAUSEN HEARD A SIZZLING POP and crawled from his fortified corner of the trench. A brilliant fire roared from the blockhouse, bright enough to light the entire valley. Tiny figures, some covered in flame, leaped from the second floor of the structure.

“Yishai! Where’s Yishai!”

He searched the nearby trench. The large, bearded tribal was fast asleep and Hausen couldn’t wake him. All the tribal men were in the same sprawled and unresponsive sleep.

Hausen left Carter in charge and ran toward the blockhouse. Halfway there he heard a handful of rifle shots crack from the trenches. A throng of black figures ran from the pass and across the frozen, snow-covered ground. The few defenders that hadn’t been drugged fired at the Circle desperately.

“Hausen!”

He turned. Something heavy and wooden smashed into his face and knocked him to the ground. A warm liquid dripped across his face and mixed with the freezing snow in his ear as the world spun circles. A hand pulled on his shoulder and turned his chin to the sky and the upside-down face of Tran. The fire shone on a long blade in his hand.

“Look at me,” said Tran. “I’m the last thing you’ll ever see.”

Hausen wanted the little bastard to be wrong. He wanted to stand up and rip out Tran’s heart with his fingernails. Instead, he closed his eyes and dreamed of his daughter, until he couldn’t.

KAYA SPRINTED THROUGH the empty tunnels, her gasps loud on the concrete. One braid of chestnut-colored hair had come loose and whipped back and forth as she ran. The dim panels along the walls were her only light.

She heard the babies crying while she and the ugly dog ran through the connecting tunnel to Barracks.

Tribal women and children packed the low-ceilinged cafeteria. Some had curled up on the floor while others slumped against the walls. Infants bawled beside slumbering women, and toddlers tried to wake their mothers or had curled up in sleep themselves. Brownie and the remaining dozen or so Station women shook the drowsy refugees, trying to revive them.

Kaya stepped over a sleeping woman and touched Brownie’s shoulder.

“What happened?”

“They drank something, tea with sleeping poison,” said Brownie. She turned and stared wide-eyed at Kaya. “You’re covered in blood!”

Kaya wiped her eyes and gulped. “Delmar’s dead and Tran ... it was Tran.”

“Are you okay?”

Kaya shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We need to get everyone to the Tombs.”

Brownie waved a hand around the room. “Look at them! How long are they going to sleep?”

“Brownie, we’ll have to leave them. We’ll carry the children now and come back for everyone else.”

The wide Brownie folded her arms. “Young lady––I don’t see why we have to separate these babies from their mothers and go right this instant.”

Back in the corridor the metal entrance hatch squealed. A Station boy in charred, muddy clothing ran into the cafeteria.

“The blockhouse is on fire!”

Brownie raised her arms and hushed the nervous chatter. “Calm down, calm down! Let’s take the children first.”

Some of the tribals hadn’t drank the tea. Along with the Station women who hadn’t been affected, they picked up infants in blankets and led other children by the hand.

Kaya ran through the entrance tunnel and opened the outer hatch. The clouds above her head were covered with a riot of noise and light. She walked up the steps with the ugly black dog at her heels.

In front of her, the blockhouse burned like a festival candle and crackled with strange white flares that hurt Kaya’s eyes. To her right the defensive trenches were covered in smoke. Figures moved inside the haze and the strange Circle rifles popped in rapid yellow flashes.

She gave a thumbs-up and led a procession of women and children across the snow. Many of the women turned away from the glare of the fire or shielded the children’s eyes with their own hands.

Near the entrance to the Tombs she found Mast kneeling over Badger in the snow and trying to wake her.

“Something’s wrong with her,” shouted Mast over the roaring fire.

“I know. Take her underground,” yelled Kaya.

The muscular teenager nodded and hefted Badger’s limp body over his shoulder. He followed Kaya and Brownie through the snow to the rusty fence marked “Restricted” and the concrete tunnel into the mountain.

At the keypad Kaya stopped and waited. She looked at Mast.

He shrugged. “What?”

“What’s the code?”

“I thought you were supposed to know it!”

She tapped in a few numbers. The door beeped but didn’t open. “I kind of forgot. It starts with three ...”

“... four seven two zero five three ...” mumbled Badger from behind Mast.

Kaya typed in the code and the door rumbled across deep channels. Brownie led the line of women and children into the crimson light of the entrance room. The ugly dog followed with a tap of his claws and curled up in a far corner.

Mast pulled a lever on the inside. The door had almost closed when Kaya squeezed through the gap and ran up the steps. “Going back for more!”

“Wait!”

He would have gone after Kaya but still had Badger over his shoulder. He walked to a spot near Brownie, who waited near the stairwell door, and lay Badger against the wall.

“Same code,” said Badger, drowsily.

“Three four seven two zero five three,” said Brownie as she jammed the silver keypad next to the stairwell door. It scraped open over the concrete. “Someone should write that down.”

The ugly dog waited patiently next to the massive, shut door of the exit. When Mast pulled the lever the dog squirmed through the growing crack of concrete.

Mast walked outside to a freezing night full of yells and rifle shots, but Kaya was already gone.

BULLETS WHIZZED ABOVE THE TRENCH like mad hornets. Robb pushed and kicked the tribal men laying in the frozen mud.

“They’ve been poisoned, stupid,” yelled Alfie from farther down the trench.

Robb stood and fired his rifle at the swarm of soldiers running toward him, then pulled back the bolt arm on his rifle and reloaded. The wooden butt kicked his shoulder as he pulled the trigger and a Circle trooper tumbled face-first into the snow.

He glanced at Alfie, who was also standing and firing his rifle at the soldiers. The young boy’s head suddenly snapped back and he slumped to the bottom of the trench.

“No!”

Robb scrambled over the sleeping men to Alfie. A round circle in his temple oozed blood. He lifted Alfie’s blonde head, covering his fingers in crimson blood. The boy gasped a few times and his chest stopped moving.

He touched his forehead to Alfie’s for a second and breathed a prayer. Robb pulled his knife, leaped out of the trench, and sprinted through the attacking soldiers, snow flying like tiny bombs with each step.

He carved a whirling path through the army and made half a dozen scream from stab wounds. Still using his speed-trick, Robb ran past the third trench and stumbled over a soft mound in the snow. He fell and rolled for ten meters, his head narrowly missing the concrete wall around the entrance of Office.

Robb sat up from the snow and wiped his bloody hunting knife on his trousers. He crawled back to see what he’d tripped on and found Hausen’s bloody corpse.

The Circle were in the trenches now. Robb crouched on the steps of Office and used the concrete wall for cover. He aimed at the muzzle flash of Circle carbines and shot the rest of his rifle shells.

Under the noise from the fire and the trenches he heard the sound of crying infants. Robb watched a line of women and children run past the burning blockhouse and into the darkness.

Out of shells, he crawled to Hausen and searched the dead man’s clothes. In a belt pouch ten rounds clinked like golden coins.        

Using the body as cover, Robb aimed for the upper torso of his targets. He shot five rounds and dropped the hot brass in a pocket of his jacket.

Bullets smacked into Hausen and snow sprayed Robb’s face. He used his Runner trick and ran across the plaza to the mouth of Barracks, farther from the snapping bullets.

From the cover of the concrete stairs he watched the mottled brown-and-green soldiers clamber over the top of the last trench. One of the soldiers yelled in the tribal dialect and waved the others forward.

“Chop the head and kill the snake,” said Robb.

He centered the three posts of his sights on the soldier and pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked his shoulder hard and the soldier fell backwards into the last trench.

“Leader or not, you’re a hero now.”

He waited for any more of the animals to stand up and give commands. Instead, dozens of the Circle climbed out of the last trench and rushed the plaza en masse.