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  On day five he came across a herd of rollers and claimed one for his own. It took less than an hour to bend the creature’s will to his, and another twelve days to ride it across the desolate plains and into the rolling hills just east of what was once known as the Rocky Mountains. He’d come across three packs of cannibalistic humans along the way­­—ABZE clients he’d released back into the world from their cryogenic slumbers—and steered clear. Given the opportunity, they would’ve pulled his roller down and eaten it to the bones. Lothair didn’t want to kill his own kind. They were of much better use to him murdering the dolts and misfits of this abysmal thirtieth century world.

  There had been other obstacles—eyeless creatures similar to humans with pale yellow hides and curled claws where finger nails should’ve been. They made an awful howling noise, but couldn’t match the speed of his roller. Lothair had seen mangy things trotting along dried-up riverbeds on four legs that may have been the descendants of timber wolves. What fur there was left on their hulking backs sat in clumps of brown and black. Their snouts seemed too long for wolves, almost crocodilian.

  He rode around or fought his way through them all. West was where the Lawman had gone, and Lothair followed.

  He began to feel a presence in his mind on the outskirts of an ancient rusted city. Someone was reaching out, searching. It was garbled, nonsensical and weak, but somehow familiar. Lothair directed his roller through skeletal orange girders and around mountains of fallen concrete grown over in mats of wild grass. He steered south a half mile, down a now nameless street of rubble. The voice was getting stronger in his brain, directing, drawing him closer like a radio signal. Lothair swung back west and travelled another full mile through the ruined city.

  Words were forming in his head. Here. Pain. Help. The signal pulled him in like a magnet. Lothair picked through the rubble, weaving this way and that. The roller began to slow, stumbling on its massive hooves in the treacherous ruins. The tug on Lothair’s brain became insistent, frantic. He jumped down from the beast’s back and ran the rest of the way.

  Lothair found the girl’s body laying in a shaded area amongst concrete and weeds.

  “Jennifer.”

  There was a black hole in the center of her forehead an inch above the brow line, big enough for Lothair to plug his thumb into. A trickle of blood had run from it down her nose, across her lips and chin, and dried like a jagged line on some ancient road map. The girl’s eyes were raised slightly and crossed in, as if she were trying to peer up at the wound. But whatever intelligence remained inside her damaged brain no longer had the ability to do much more than that. Some of the blood on her chin had dried a muddy pink where the drool from her open mouth had mixed with it.

  Lothair cradled the back of her head gently and lifted her into a sitting position. He could feel bone fragments against his fingers and a patch of soft skin at the back her skull where the bullet had torn through and begun to heal over. “Oh, child, how many times did I tell you they couldn’t be trusted? You should’ve stayed with your own kind.”

  He expected her head to loll over to one side when he pulled his hand away, but surprisingly it remained in place, the eyes still fixed in at the area between her eye brows. Saliva that had been collecting for days inside her mouth leaked out between her lips.

  “Like mother, like daughter,” he muttered. “Both wonderful brains damaged, but perhaps not beyond salvation. You’re not in such a vegetative state as you look, are you, child? You reached out for help with that mind. You can be saved.” He lifted her carefully from the moss-encrusted ruins and cradled her gently against his chest. “I forgive you… there is no other choice. You are the last of the Eichbergs, you must carry on.”

  Lothair carried her through the ancient streets and found his roller waiting a half mile away. He cleaned Jenny’s face with dirty water from a rain puddle, and bandaged her wound with some cloth he’d taken from a family wandering east of the city. They no longer needed the clothes since he’d killed them all. He hoisted her up onto the creature’s back and slid in behind her. He squeezed the cluster of nerves in the roller’s neck, and it started moving to the west. “The Lawman put that bullet in your brain, and you will be there to see him pay for it.”

  Chapter 44

  Agnan was as old and decrepit as the Lawman had described, perhaps even more ancient-looking than any of his traveling companions had imagined. She could’ve been Dirty Gertie’s mother or grand-mother, Cobe supposed, she was that wrinkled and toothless. There were only a few wispy strands of white hair stuck into liver-spotted scalp, and a grey mole at the tip of her chin had sprouted even more. When she spoke, any more similarities between her and the inbred hag from the hills ended. Her voice was unnaturally soft and calm. It had a soothing effect, and all the passengers now seated in her narrow, long boat needed as much soothing as they could get. Another river serpent sliced through the water next to them, its black, oily scales glistening in the light.

  “Nothing to be a-feared of, my friends,” Agnan assured them. “Not once in all my days have they ever attacked. It’s the size and shape of the boat, you see. They think we’re one of them.”

  Willem stared into the creature’s eye as it slipped back under the water. “What would happen if you wanted to take a swim?”

  “It would be a short dip, indeed.” She smiled as the boy sank further into the middle of his seat, and continued paddling slowly with her oar. “It’s been a very long time since your last visit, Lawson. What has brought you back to the island after so many years?”

  “I’m figurin’ it might be time to settle down some.” He saw Sara’s back straighten in front of him. “Maybe a slower style of life on the island is what I’m lookin’ fer.”

  They traveled the last quarter mile in silence. When Agnan’s boat thudded gently into the sandy shore, each passenger stepped off, handing her their battered books as the Lawman had instructed. She thanked each of them in turn, nodding deeply. The pile of weapons they’d brought with them remained in the boat. Agnan promised she’d return them to the shore at the bottom of Boom Reach. The Lawman’s two handguns stayed inside the holster around his belt. Those, he told her, went with him, rules or no rules. She grabbed Lawson’s hand at the end and whispered. “You’re not the settling type, never have been, never will be. What is your true intent on the island?”

  Lawson squeezed the skeletal fingers. “You’re gettin’ suspicious in yer old age, Agnan. It’s a peaceful visit. And now I got a question of my own.”

  “You’ve given me books for the Gods. I’ll answer any question you ask.”

  “There was another one with us. A man with strange clothes and white pallor. Did you bring him over a while back?”

  Agnan nodded. “A hard one to forget.”

  “Has he taken well to island life?”

  “Taken is the appropriate word. They came for him on the first day.”

  “He ain’t here no more?”

  She pointed to the ground with a gnarled finger. “Not on the island… beneath it.”

  Lawson winked at her. “Thank you much for the ride over, it’s good to see you haven’t aged a day in the last few handfuls of years.”

  “You’re a terrible liar, but it is good to see you again.”

  He gave her one more heartfelt smile and caught up with the others who had already started for the village at the island’s center.

  “This all there is?” Angel asked as they trudged along a worn trail at the edge of a field. “Thought this place would be bigger, busier.”

  A farmer waved at them and returned to picking weeds from his rows of peas and potatoes.

  “Not sure what you were all expectin’,” the Lawman said. “But I can guarantee what the place lacks in crowds and excitement, it makes up fer with friendly neighbors and peaceful coexistence.”

  Trot looked at him questioningly. Cobe chuckled. “He means the place is boring.”

  “Boring is good,” the simpleton replied
. “Boring is safe.”

  A young man, not much older than Kay and Angel, came to meet them on the trail. He smiled at the prettier of the two girls and held out his hand. “I’m Joshua, my Pa is Victory Island’s town leader. We seen you crossing the lake with Agnan, and I was sent to offer our greetings and hospitalities.”

  Kay shook his hand and returned the smile. He was very handsome.

  “Joshua,” the Lawman repeated the name. “I remember a baker here by the same name.”

  “My father,” the man replied. “You can be whatever you choose here and still hold the title of town leader. It’s not a demanding role, you can probably guess.” He was still holding Kay’s hand. “You’re very pretty.”

  “How old are you, Joshua?” Sara asked.

  “I’m twenty-three.”

  She separated him from her daughter. “A little too old to hold hands for that long.”

  Joshua appeared confused, and then a little annoyed. “Age isn’t important here, procreation means everything.”

  Lawson pulled Sara back, preventing her from breaking the young man’s nose. “If it ain’t no problem, me and my friends would rather explore the town on our own.”

  “What the hells is wrong with that kid?” Sara whispered as they walked away. “Why would you let him get away with saying something like that?”

  “Things are different on Victory Island. Their approach is to keep family lines growing so there’s never no shortage of workers.”

  “Like in the hills closer to home,” Trot added. “Dirty Gertie wanted her kids to keep banging so she could have all kinds of grand-children.”

  “No, not like the hills,” Lawson replied. “Things are more orderly here. They ain’t quite so crude as Gertie and her kin.”

  “I can’t see much of a difference,” Sara said, glaring back at the young man. “I swear, if he touches Kay again…”

  “I can take of myself,” the girl said. “Besides, it isn’t that awful a thing. He is good-looking.”

  Willem interrupted the family discussion. “If makin’ babies is so important to them, why ain’t there more people on the island?”

  They were standing at the town’s edge. It was less than half the size of Burn, with no more than a hundred buildings and houses clustered together in the center. Tiny plots of farmland ringed the village all the way to the shore. There were maybe a dozen people milling about, a few in the fields, and the rest walking about the almost-empty town streets.

  “Maybe they’re all inside right now,” Angel offered. “Making babies.”

  Lawson led them into the town center. He pointed to a large three-storey building on the corner. “That there is what the locals call a hotel. It’s where newcomers live until they decide whether they’re stayin’ or leavin’. Stay here while I see if they got rooms to give us.” He left the six standing on the street and went inside.

  “I could get used to this,” Trot said, looking about. “Not many people to make fun of me.”

  “Doesn’t feel right to me,” Willem replied. “Too gawdamn quiet.”

  Another handsome boy holding a girl’s hand approached. The two smiled at the newcomers and welcomed them to the island as they passed by. “Willem’s right,” Sara said. “It’s too quiet, and they all smile too much.”

  “What’s wrong with people smilin’?” Angel asked.

  “People grinning all the time generally got things to hide,” she answered.

  “What’s this thing?” Kay had wandered away from the others into the middle of the street and was standing in front of the only metallic structure in the entire town. It was a square steel platform raised six feet off the ground. She climbed the rusted steps and peered down the center where an even more rusted ladder descended into an open dark tunnel.

  Cobe climbed up the creaking steps behind her. “This thing is older than the whole town. Must be important for them to build everything up around it.” He leaned against the interior railing and looked down. “And I don’t like holes that go into the ground. We all got a pretty good idea what might be waiting down there.”

  “Another gawdamn Big Hole,” Willem said. The younger boy refused to join them. He even took a few steps back from the structure. “I thought Victory Island was a safe place, somewhere folks could go to keep away from them monsters.”

  “That there is a watering hole,” the Lawman announced, strutting back from the hotel. “Nothin’ more than a clean water source for the town folk.”

  Sara didn’t agree with him. “The lake can supply the people here with all the fresh water they need. Why would they need to dig down for any more?”

  Lawson scratched the side of his skull. “Well I just always assumed that’s what the thing was fer. Now that I think on it some, I guess it don’t make much sense.”

  Cobe was still leaning over the railing, staring down into the shadows. “Another gawdamn Big Hole, just like Willem said. You didn’t bring us to the safest place in the whole world… you brung us to one of the most dangerous.”

  Chapter 45

  “I shouldn’t be here with you, not after how my Ma warned me.” Kay glanced around the almost completely empty streets. A few Victory Island residents were strolling about in the early evening, but none were paying them much attention. She reached for Joshua’s hand. “But then again, I ain’t never met anyone like you. All the boys I ever knew acted more like children.”

  “I’m not a boy, I’m a man.” He pulled her farther away from main street and deeper into the shadows of the alley next to the old hotel. Joshua pushed her up against the building and pressed his lips against hers.

  Kay pulled her face back after a few moments. “You sure don’t kiss like a boy.”

  “There’s lots of things I’m good at that boys don’t know nothing about.” His hands moved from hers, up to her shoulders. He gripped hard, pinning her to the wall. Joshua started kissing her again, more forcefully. His lips travelled to her neck.

  Kay squirmed beneath him. “Slow down, I ain’t used to this.”

  “Quit talking.” He started undoing the buttons on her shirt. “You don’t need to say anything while you do what were gonna do.”

  Kay had kissed one or two boys in her life, but none of them had ever been so forceful. They had been shy and awkward. “I’m not doing what you think we’re gonna do. I’ve never been with a boy like that, and I sure ain’t gonna be tonight, not like this, not out in the open up against a wall.”

  “I told you to quit talking.” One of his hands grabbed at her breast and squeezed. “I’m real good at this. Already got four different girls pregnant. Two of them miscarried, but the other two had healthy, fat babies, just like the townsfolk want. You’re gonna have number three.”

  “Like hells I am.” Kay drove a knee up into Joshua’s testicles. His hands fell away from her and cradled his crotch. He dropped to his knees, gasping. “What kind of townsfolk you got here that allow the raping of women and girls?”

  He clutched at her ankle and dragged her violently down to the ground. “It isn’t rape.” Joshua climbed on top of her, forcing her flat against the dirt under the weight of his body. “It’s how things are done here. You take what I give you, and you give to the town. It’s how things have always been here, always will be.”

  He had one forearm pressed into Kay’s throat, keeping her flat against the ground. The other hand was working on the belt around his pants. Kay felt something hot press against her abdomen. She tried to scream but the arm pressed harder into her throat. Kay was having enough trouble trying to breathe, never mind fighting him off.

  Joshua’s head suddenly snapped back. The arm against her throat pulled away. Kay’s mother had a hand buried in the man’s hair, and she was pulling him back, hard. Joshua wasn’t finished. He swung back, connecting an elbow into the woman’s thigh. Sara staggered and pointed one of the Lawman’s handguns into his face. “Get off of her and put that prick back in your pants.”

  “Guns aren�
�t allowed… on the island,” Joshua gasped. He’d crawled off of Kay completely and was headed for Sara. “You folks don’t care much for rules. I’ll teach you, I’ll teach both of you.”

  Sara pulled the trigger. The top half of Joshua’s face and skull disappeared. He sank into the dirt, his body twitching. Brain matter and bits of bone dripped from Kay’s dress as she stood. “I didn’t do nothing bad, Ma. I just wanted to hold hands is all, maybe a kiss or two.”

  “Holding hands and kissing a bit ain’t an open invitation to what he was about to do. You did nothing wrong.”

  She sank shakily into her mother’s arms. The gun Sara was holding fell with a thud next to Joshua’s lifeless corpse. “Now I got us both into deep trouble,” the girl said. “They’re gonna kick us off the island, or worse.”

  Lanterns were being lit in the hotel windows. A few people had come out from their homes and were slowly converging towards the two. Lawson, Cobe, and Willem came around the corner of the hotel. Angel and Trot followed a few moments later.

  “Gawdamn!” The ugly girl said. “What did you up and do?”

  “I stopped a man from violating my daughter,” Sara answered without a trace of remorse in her voice. “And I’d do it again if anyone else tried it.”

  Lawson scooped his gun up from the ground and dropped it into his holster. “Never gave you permission to touch my guns.”

  One of the Victory Island residents stepped forward. “Those guns are no longer yours to give. Those weapons have committed murder, and they belong to us now.”

  The Lawman’s hands settled protectively around both handles. “They belong to me, island rules or no. Anyone tries to take them from me will have to answer fer it.”