Skull's Shadows (Plague Wars Series) Read online

  Appearing to agonize over the decision, Skull finally smiled and stuck out his hand. “Deal.”

  “Well alrighty then,” Ed answered with an oversized grin on his face. “Let’s go on over to the office to do some paperwork and then we’ll get you on the road.”

  It took some convincing for Ed to accept a credit card, but once Skull offered to cover the transaction fees and it went through without a hitch, he was happy to oblige. It helped that Skull had a valid Florida driver’s license with his picture on the front in the name of Zach Ulser.

  Half an hour after closing the deal Skull headed out on the highway, crossing from Mississippi into Tennessee.

  Chapter 25

  Skull made great time the next few days heading east through Tennessee, the ground slowly starting to rise and become more mountainous.

  Stopping at a public library in a small town, Skull checked the secure email drop Vinny had set up what seemed like a hundred years ago. He wasn’t surprised to see a coded message for him from Spooky. Entering his personalized pass phrase, he opened the message.

  It was short and simple: Need sign of life - third question, most urgent, more information to follow, S.

  Skull shook his head and almost walked away, but curiosity got the better of him. The third bona fides question was the identity of Skull’s first pet. He composed a response: Still alive, a goldfish named Napoleon. S. After scrubbing the computer’s history and registry, he logged out of the anonymizer and rebooted the computer before leaving the library.

  The roads east weren’t as congested as those going west and Skull made good time on the Gold Wing. It rained on him only one day, though gently. The other days spread sunny and mild around him and Skull could almost forget he was living through…what, Apocalypse Light? He snorted to himself. Things sucked, but this was no End Times.

  He’d forgotten how motorcyclists were an informal tribe on the road. Whenever he passed anyone on a bike, whether young, old, black, white, Asian, tattooed, part of a club or gang, on a Harley or a rice-burner, they waved to him and smiled. Any time he stopped for gas, food, or a restroom break, other cyclists nearby would start up a friendly conversation. Their questions usually revolved around the venerable Gold Wing and Skull had developed a half dozen canned clichés about the bike. He had to admit to himself that it was a comfortable, reliable, and smooth riding vehicle, though the Harley riders exhibited a faint air of condescension.

  Skull was already driving into High Bluff before he consciously knew that was his destination. Although it had been nearly twenty-five years since the last time he had been there, the small town hadn’t changed much since his youth.

  Driving down the one real road, he passed the small grocery store where he had bought sodas on hot days as a boy. Beside this stood a combination gas station and repair garage owned by a boyhood friend of his. Up ahead he could see a church and thrift store. Mixed in among all these resilient structures were simple, rugged houses and dilapidated mobile homes, none of them looking like they had been built or even renovated since Watergate.

  Resentment, anxiety, and curiosity all warred within him.

  Why the hell am I here? he asked himself.

  Turning right off the main road resulted in a powerful sense of déjà vu. He had lived and played on this street and the house where he’d grown up at the end was still standing.

  Skull stopped in front and shut off the bike. The place was obviously deserted. The front door stood open and part of the roof was falling in. He couldn’t decide if he was relieved or disappointed that he didn’t have to face anyone.

  Sitting there for several minutes, he gazed around the yard and the adjacent houses. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but this emptiness, this nothing wasn’t it. His old house was dead as were any feelings he had about it. Best to move on.

  He cranked the Honda and turned around, heading back out to the main road, and now saw several suspicious and closed faces watching him from sagging front porches or dirty windows. They didn’t wave or smile and neither did Skull. This wasn’t his home anymore, and these were not his people.

  Turning down a side street, he swung through the parking lot of Saint Alban’s, where he’d gone to Mass every Sunday. Father James would be in his eighties by now, or more likely dead. He saw a young man in a clerical collar raise a friendly hand from the church steps. Skull waved back, but kept on riding.

  More nothing.

  Heading east again on the main road, a sign indicated he needed to turn left to get back to the highway, but instead he turned right onto a narrow gravel road that climbed steeply up wooded hills and hollows.

  These treacherous paths had changed even less than the roads and dwellings in town and Skull imagined there wasn’t much significant difference between them now and when Tennessee was cut off from North Carolina to become a state in its own right centuries before. The dark woods and large trees muffled sound and light, and this gave the forest a primeval air. The feeling of awe and smallness Skull had felt as a child returned.

  Turning down paths each narrower and in worse condition than the last, he finally came to a small cabin set back against the base of a rocky hill. Ancient oaks and a pecan tree hovered protectively over the structure. This was where the road ended.

  Skull had expected to see the cabin falling apart like his childhood home, but instead it seemed in good condition. He even saw what appeared to be a burgeoning vegetable garden out back. An ancient woman sat in a rocking chair on the front porch smoking a cigarette. When Skull pulled up she mashed it out in a saucer beside her and then casually reached over to pick up the pump shotgun nearby and lay it across her lap.

  Skull shut off the bike’s engine and removed his helmet. He couldn’t help but smile at Detta Denham, his grandmother.

  She stared at him suspiciously before realization began to dawn on her face. “Alan?” she said tentatively. “Is that you, boy?”

  He nodded, smiling, and then walked up to her.

  She stood slowly, tears in her eyes, reaching out for him.

  Stepping inside her embrace, Skull pulled her close. He tried to remember the last time he’d hugged another human being, but couldn’t.

  “Oh, Alan,” she said. “Why you been gone so long? Why didn’t you call or write? Everyone thought you were dead.”

  Skull stiffened and pulled away. Nearly two decades had passed since he’d talked to anyone in the family. Looking for a reason, he settled upon, “There was a woman.”

  “There always is.” Detta nodded as if this explained everything. “Well, come sit down,” she said, pointing to a chair next to her rocker, and then went inside. She emerged with a bottle and two glasses.

  “It’s a little early for drinking, don’t you think?”

  “My, you have been gone a long time,” she responded, pulling the cork out of the bottle of whiskey and pouring three fingers into each glass.

  Handing one of the glasses to Skull, she lifted the other herself. “To the return of the prodigal son,” she said clinking her glass to his, and then throwing back the brown liquor.

  Skull sipped his a little more slowly. “She died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It changed me.”

  “I can see that.”

  Skull’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. Eventually he said, “Her name was Linde. I killed her.”

  “Surely not.”

  Pressing the heels of his hands into his deep eye sockets, he could feel something unfamiliar threaten.

  Tears.

  “Negligent homicide, the court-martial said, and they were right. I was lucky they let me stay in. If it hadn’t been for Zeke…oh, God…” This time the tears did flow, for the first time in at least twenty years. He’d cried for Linde, but never for Zeke, until now.

  Still, he’d gotten out of the habit of emotional release and he clamped down now, shutting down the waterworks as he routinely shut down all his other passions.

  Dett
a waited patiently for him to finish and then refilled both of their glasses. This time she corked the bottle and put it on the ground beside her. She looked at the Gold Wing out front. “Nice ride you got there.”

  “It gets me around.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  “How you been holding out?”

  “Same as always,” she answered. “Taking it one day at a time.”

  That was as much of the pleasantries as he could stand. “Where is everyone?”

  She took another sip of whiskey before answering him. “You mean the family? All gone. Some dead. A couple in jail. More run off to Lord knows where. Just me here now.”

  Skull remained silent for a time. Guilt wasn’t a familiar feeling. “For how long?” he finally asked.

  Detta cocked her head, figuring. “Well, your grandfather died not too long after you came home for your father’s funeral. Your two younger brothers both went out to Los Angeles a few years ago and that was the last I heard of them. Pretty much the same for uncles, cousins, and the like. Denham men are a wild bunch that don’t typically live very long. The women don’t stick around long without ’em.”

  Skull grunted. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but this wasn’t it.

  “All except you,” she said softly. “You were different.”

  “How’s that?”

  She waved her hand at him. “You were always the quiet, gentle soul. That’s why you didn’t fit in. Why you left, I imagine.”

  Skull shook his head and snorted.

  “I’m right, boy,” she insisted softly. “You were always more intelligent and introspective than the rest. More controlled. I imagine that’s one reason you’re still alive.”

  Skull thought she may have hit on at least one truth there. “What do you plan on doing now?” he finally asked.

  Detta laughed heartily and lit up another cigarette. “What I been doin’. Keep on livin’ until the Good Lord decides to take me away. Best damn plan there is, I reckon.”

  “It’s dangerous here all alone.”

  The old woman nodded. “It is. That’s why I carry my shotgun. Already had to put down one poor fool of a thief.” She hooked a thumb toward the rear of the house. “He’s buried out back now in my vegetable garden. Best crop of tomatoes I’ve had in thirty years.”

  Skull took a small sip of the whiskey and looked out at the yard. He realized it was quiet and peaceful. “Have you heard of the Eden virus?” he finally asked.

  “You mean the miracle cure that heals you and makes you young? Yeah, I heard about it on the wireless set. Impossible not to.”

  “What if...what if I could get it for you? Would you take it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s real. I’ve seen it up close.”

  “I believe you,” she said, “but the answer is still no.”

  “But why?”

  She turned to him. “Why haven’t you? Heal your pain.”

  Skull looked away. “It’s complicated.”

  “It always is,” she laughed. “You cherish your pain. Just like me.”

  “I still have work to do.”

  “Work you can’t do if you’re one of them Edens?”

  Skull nodded.

  “Then maybe it’s not good work and you should just leave it be.”

  “I can’t.” He sighed.

  “Neither can I,” Detta said. “I’m alone, Alan. My husband and children and grandchildren are either dead or scattered. I don’t want to grow young again and start over. I don’t want another life. I’m happy with the one I’ve had and it’s about over. When the Good Lord takes me, I’ll go joyfully into His arms. Until then, I’ll endure and survive.”

  Skull stood to pace up and down the porch. “But you don’t have to die, don’t you understand? All the pain will be gone.”

  “Not all of it,” she said with a smile. “The deepest hurts you wouldn’t want cured even if they could be. They become old friends you can’t be without.”

  “What the hell are you even talking about?” Skull shook his head at her.

  Detta breathed deeply, and then let out all the air in a sigh. “I’ll make a deal with you, son.”

  “What deal?”

  “I’ll let you give me this miracle cure.”

  “If?”

  “If you take it too and agree to stay with me. I don’t want to live so long alone.”

  Skull felt stumped. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he finally said.

  “Makes perfect sense to me.”

  “That’s because you’re a crazy old woman.”

  “You’re not wrong,” she laughed, “but my condition stands.”

  “I can’t do that. Not right now, anyway. I need my pain.”

  Detta’s smile faded. “Because of this work of yours.”

  “Without it, I’d just...”

  “Be at peace?”

  “Run down. Like an unwound clock.”

  “Well, don’t expect me to do what you want to assuage your guilt,” she said, her voice hard. “I didn’t ask you to come back, but now that you have I’d like you to stay. I’ll even do what you ask, but don’t tell me to live forever by myself. I’ve already lived alone long enough and it’s not for me.”

  Skull stood on the steps, not meeting her eyes. Instead, he let his gaze wander over the woods. Finally, he said, “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “No, Alan,” she said. “You shouldn’t have waited so long to come here. You’re late. Way too late. That’s where you’ve gone wrong.”

  “Nothing I can do about that now.”

  “Nope,” she said, taking a long draw from her cigarette and blowing the smoke toward him.

  “Good-bye, Grandma,” Skull said, leaning down and kissing the top of her head.

  “Good-bye, Alan.” Detta reached up to pat his cheek before he straightened up.

  Skull walked back to the Gold Wing and put on his helmet, cranked the bike and drove away.

  His pace was deliberately slow and careful, but it still felt like running.

  Chapter 26

  Skull continued east, weaving his way in and out of the ancient wind- and rain-smoothed Appalachian hills. Occasionally he saw locals and was able to buy gas and food from simple, laconic people. Checkpoints and soldiers seemed a thing of the past, at least here, so deep into the low mountains.

  That suited Skull just fine. He’d been in a dark mood since leaving his boyhood home and worried he’d do something rash just to appease his demons, the ones that hungered for blood and oblivion.

  Those had been quiescent for some time, but no longer. They whispered in his ears, promising the peace he’d always reaped after sowing deserving death, but to seek an excuse for extermination would be indulgence, plain and simple.

  After the things that had diverted him thus far, he now felt the press of his chosen mission.

  Skull had just crossed into North Carolina when he rounded a curve and saw a steel cable stretching across the road. He was traveling too fast to turn away from the barrier, so he laid the bike on its side, sliding under the taut metal rope, sparks flying and metal screeching. Holding on tightly, he tried to keep himself atop the bike and off the pavement, but then the rim of the front wheel caught on something and he flew up and over into the air as the entire machine flipped. He pushed himself up and away, trying for a soft landing in the bushes.

  Below him the bike tumbled over and over again while Skull flew through the air at perhaps fifty miles per hour toward a distant bramble-covered road bank. Head down and feet in the air, he began to fall toward the surface. Tucking into a ball, he’d just got his feet under him when he hit the landscape and rolled.

  All Recon Marines go through Airborne School. It had taken Skull almost two dozen jumps to learn the secret of landing easily, a secret he missed at the parachute course despite all their drill. The secret was to ignore the ground and focus on pressing your feet and knees together as tightly as you could. This kept you from
reaching and anticipating an impact that could result in a break. A parachute landing fall, a PLF, was a barely-controlled catastrophe, yet one that allowed paratroopers to get out of the sky as fast as possible and land safely, sometimes bruised, but seldom seriously hurt.

  While hurtling through the air, Skull kept reciting the same thing he did while approaching the ground on a parachute jump. Feet and knees together, feet and knees together, feet and knees together, feet and—

  Hitting the ground with a crash, both knees were forced up and into his face, busting his mouth. Skull flipped headlong and began tumbling head over feet down the steep hill until he came to a painful and sudden stop against the base of a giant maple tree.

  Skull lay still for a moment, fearing the worst. He wiggled his toes. Well at least I’m not paralyzed, he thought, and then remembered that people who were paralyzed thought they were moving their extremities normally. He sat up and looked at his feet as he moved them.

  Spitting blood out of his mouth, he leaned and checked his body over, finding himself bruised and cut, but not badly hurt.

  “Holy shit,” said a voice from up the hill, “did you see that guy go flying? It was like Evel fucking Kan-Evel, swear to God.”

  Skull stood up, a rage cold as ice flooding through him. His demons gibbered, blessing Skull for setting them free.

  The people who did this were about to die. That was as certain as the fact the sun would rise the next day. Skull reached behind his back and found that the Glock and knife were still in place. The rest of his gear should be somewhere near his bike. He climbed obliquely up the hill to flank the original voice, which sounded like it had been joined by others, ignoring his aches and pains. Adrenaline filled him with energy, taking away his hurts and banishing all emotion except the desire to kill.

  Drawing his pistol, Skull climbed up from the wooded hill, jumped across the ditch, and stepped onto the road. His mangled motorcycle was twenty yards to his right, half-buried in an earthen bank. Three hillbillies in dirty denim overalls and wool shirts stood around the bike. They turned as one to look at him.