The Raven Read online

  Because if we can’t survive, we don’t want anyone else to either.

  It was probably this sort of selfishness that motivated the Bastards from Baltimore – that’s what many called them, and I suppose it’s as good a name as any for the people responsible for the transformation or the slaughter of all but a handful of the world’s population.

  Uh-huh. I know you caught those words in the above paragraph: ‘…responsible for the transformation or slaughter of all but a handful of the world’s population’. Slaughter you understand. Everyone understands that.

  But what, you ask, do I mean by transformation?

  Four Winds Aerospace prided itself on research. In fact, shortly after the bombs flew but before the Internet was knocked out for good, Jason Oates – the leader of the colony – looked up Four Winds Aerospace and printed out all the information he could. One particular paragraph from FWA’s front page struck me so powerfully that I recall it verbatim, despite the fact that I read the article years ago:

  ‘Progress remains liberated from governmental shackles and must, as a matter of course, embrace experiments and risks.’

  To your eyes, that passage might seem innocuous. Admirable even. But to my eyes, eyes that have witnessed horrors no one would have dreamed possible, the words are absolutely chilling.

  Experiments and risks. What images do those words conjure? Laboratories and test tubes? Petrie dishes and beakers?

  How about the manipulation of human genetics?

  No one saw their plot coming, which meant the human race was uniquely unequipped to deal with the fallout once it began.

  Here’s something no one else knew: The reason why the same legends show up in all cultures is that the legends aren’t really legends.

  Vampires.

  Werewolves.

  The Wendigo.

  Satyrs.

  Psychic powers.

  Even the myth about a cannibal’s superhuman powers.

  They were all based in fact.

  You’re probably laughing. Or, at the very least, cocking an eyebrow in disbelief. Which is what the rest of the scientific community would have done had the Bastards shared their research with anyone.

  But they didn’t. All they did was unravel the mysteries of human DNA.

  And human nature. You see, it all makes sense in retrospect. We’ve been around for quite a while, we humans. And for as long as we’ve been walking upright, we’ve been discriminating against those who are different than us.

  In unlocking the mysteries of genetics, the Bastards learned that, long ago, the creatures you hear about in horror novels were all pretty much real. But because of these creatures’ defects – the vampires’ lust for blood, for instance, or the satyrs’ overwhelming desire for sex – the creatures were either hunted down, forced into hiding, or had their tendencies suppressed.

  Do you take my meaning?

  All of these creatures were human beings.

  All species are hardwired for survival, and humans are no different. But what separates us from other animals are our sophisticated methods of justification, our ability to commit evil acts in the name of virtuous pursuits.

  Long ago, there were humans with vampiric tendencies, others with the ability to transform into werewolves. Some possessed the talent to manipulate objects with their minds, others the power to plague their enemies with curses.

  Yes, I’m talking about witchcraft.

  But as mankind grew and its population doubled and quadrupled, procreation and persecution either bred the aberrant tendencies out of people or diluted them to the point that no one sprouted horns or fangs anymore. No one feasted on the flesh of other men in an attempt to acquire power. Or at least they didn’t do so where their cannibalism might be discovered.

  Over hundreds of thousands of years, monsters disappeared entirely, though some – like the Wendigo-like Children and what we now call the Night Flyers – simply went underground, where they dwelt for eons.

  Until the Four Winds.

  By the time the monsters disappeared from the Earth, their genetic codes were so altered that anyone experiencing an unnatural desire would, if he were smart and civilized enough, overcome that desire and keep his ignoble urges to himself. By the time the twenty-first century rolled around, every unwholesome whim could be explained away by psychology.

  Not that I can relate.

  I’m what’s called a Latent. This means I have no extraordinary powers. The term itself is rather ridiculous, of course, because it implies there are powers within me that haven’t yet been expressed. When the truth is that if I had any powers they would have revealed themselves by now.

  So ‘Latent’ means ‘Powerless’. Which is why, when a Latent utters the word, it’s always in a tone of shame. When a monster uses the word, it’s spoken with a sneer.

  I need to get moving. The shadows are elongating, and dusk is approaching. I need to find a safe place to hole up for the night. Shelter is what you miss most when you go on the move. Well, that and food. As you’d imagine, food is a constant source of anxiety.

  Even so, when you have a reliable place to sleep, one where the creatures can’t scent you and the elements can’t batter you, the constant hunger isn’t quite as soul-sucking. What meager sustenance you scrounge goes further and tastes better when you have a place to hide for more than a night. You also figure out where the fruit trees are, where the animals like to water.

  I haven’t settled in one place for going on seven months now. Yet I know I’ll have to locate a safe haven soon. When our bunker was discovered, it was March. Yes, it was cold then – March is almost always cold and miserable in Indiana – but it wasn’t full winter.

  But it’s late October now, and that means winter is coming. There’s no way I can keep wandering through the end of the year, much less the brutal months of January and February.

  I’ve always despised the cold.

  Now I fear it.

  Enough. I have to go. When I sat down to write a couple hours ago, I was certain that Stomper and Paul were far away, that they’d decided not to pursue me.

  Now?

  I’m not so sure.

  Time to move.

  Chapter Six

  The Peach Grove

  Dez shouldered his backpack, shimmied his other arm through the strap, and inhaled deeply when he felt the crossbow compressed between his leather jacket and the pack. He could feel the weight of the books and journals in there, but he’d be damned if he’d get rid of them. Better to be slightly encumbered than bored. Depression could be as lethal a killer as the monsters, and the first step toward depression was boredom. Idle time.

  Dez made it a habit to keep his mind occupied. Like now. Yes, he was leaving the thicket of spruce trees in which he’d eaten his pitiful supper of overripe apples and what was left of the squirrel, but he was also scanning the forest for signs of life, be it food or foe. He rummaged through his memories of this area, which were admittedly few. The country between the tiny burgs named Brookston and Battle Ground had been sparsely populated before the bombs. Now the land seemed entirely desolate. If not for his encounter with Gentry and the others, he would have assumed no one was alive in this stretch of countryside.

  Descending a hill, Dez furrowed his brow.

  The cannibals’ attack had been troubling on a number of levels. Witnessing the brutal slaughter of Rikichi and Kenta had been horrific. Even though he’d seen it happen on numerous occasions, he never got used to seeing people eaten.

  Yet nearly as troubling as this were the ramifications of the attack.

  Cannibals rarely lived alone. Like some monsters, they favored communities. This was likely because they were lesser monsters and prone to becoming prey themselves. Though fearsome, a cannibal was no match for a vampire, a werewolf, or one of the Children.

  Dez smi
led ruefully as he reached the bottom of the hill and made his way across a stretch of lowlands. So many horror authors in the old world had written about battles between werewolves and vampires. How would those same writers feel now that their fiction had been vindicated?

  Not too wonderful, Dez judged.

  He began the slog up the long incline. The October leaves were changing colors rapidly now, the forest a riot of red and yellow and tangerine, with only occasional smatterings of green. From overhead came the fretful twitter of a finch.

  Movement to Dez’s right made him whirl and grasp the handle of the Ruger.

  A rabbit.

  He compressed his lips and cursed his skittishness. Granted, wildlife was plentiful now that most of the humans were gone – the Bastards from Baltimore would have been delighted – but rabbits were still rabbits and never easy to catch. The one that’d just escaped was a plump specimen, worth three or four meals.

  Dez paused, unshouldered his pack, and extricated the crossbow. Climbing hills would be awkward with the bow in hand, but he couldn’t afford to let more meals elude him. The squirrel scraps and cidery apples sat uneasily in his stomach, and the prospect of his belly growling all night didn’t do much to cheer him.

  Dez repositioned the backpack and continued up the slope.

  One thing he hated about being alone was the lack of another opinion. When Susan had been with him, she’d been his voice of reason. He tended to be more capricious than she did, to make decisions on impulse. She’d enjoyed pointing that out, the fact that their roles were inverted, that stereotypically, it was the woman who’d choose a campsite based on a whim, and the man who’d have to point out the flaws in her logic.

  But that was his nature. Passionate. Irrational at times.

  He often joked to her, not really joking, that he wished the world had ended ten years later, after all the immaturity had been knocked out of him, that he’d gladly trade a slower body for a sounder, more reliable mind.

  Of course, that had been seven months ago, and in that seven months he supposed he’d aged the equivalent of ten years.

  Being alone in a hostile world tended to do that.

  At least the urge to cough he’d experienced the night before had disappeared. Maybe, he mused, his experience with the cannibals had scared the sickness out of him.

  Dez’s Achilles tendons began to ache, a product of last night’s terrified flight, but at least he could rest when he wanted to. One of the positive aspects of being companionless.

  Dez experienced a rush of guilt, as he always did when such thoughts invaded. But the truth was, there were several advantages to solitary travel. The most profound, of course, was that he was considerably less nervous most of the time. Oh, he still spent moments in mortal terror, but because it was his own skin he was worried about, the constant fear was more manageable.

  When Susan had been with him, he’d been perpetually certain he’d fail her. This led to a torturous cycle of doubt, paranoia, and guilt. He knew she deserved a better protector, yet she viewed him as capable of not only providing for their needs, but of fending off the numberless threats to their safety.

  Dez hadn’t felt capable. He’d felt hapless and small, uniquely unsuited to the role of protector.

  A fear borne out by later events.

  Teeth clenched, he continued up the hill. He’d been a reader his whole life, as well as a movie lover, and one thing that had always driven him crazy was the lovelorn hero, the brooding figure unable to let go of his true love, the woman dead or married to someone else.

  Now, to his dismay, Dez had become that figure.

  But there were advantages. God help him, there were.

  Gone was the insecurity over his inability to protect Susan. Gone was the need to scrounge up enough food and fresh water for two people.

  Gone was the belief that his story would have a happy ending.

  Oh yeah? a voice asked. If that’s the case, if you’re so fucking resigned, what are you doing now? Why are you trying to make it to the Four Winds Bar?

  Dez sighed, scanned the approaching ridge. He had no answer to these questions, at least none he wanted to admit. His Achilles throbbing, his chest burning from the exertion of scaling the precipitous rise, he crested the incline, gazed down the other side, and beheld what had to be the peach grove that Gentry had mentioned.

  This both pleased and alarmed him.

  On one hand, he was excited to eat fruit other than apples, which he’d been devouring for several weeks. On the other, it meant that Gentry knew this area better than Dez had believed, which meant the cannibals’ base was close enough that Dez was in danger.

  Images of Stomper and Paul strobed through his head. Rikichi’s wails. Kenta’s futile attempts to stave off the archer’s killing knife stroke.

  Ghastly.

  So block them out, he told himself.

  The advice was about as effective as it always was. Dez had been wary of doctors since childhood – considering what his mom had gone through, he figured his mistrust could be forgiven – so he’d never undergone an examination for what his ex-wife claimed were rampant obsessive thoughts.

  Deep down, he knew it was a problem.

  Frustratingly, it had grown worse in the past few months. It seemed to Dez that spending so much time alone would have decreased the self-flagellation and the suffocating guilt. If he wasn’t in contact with anyone, how could he wrong someone and wallow in guilt over it?

  Apparently he needed no new issues; the old ones simply grew more corrosive in his isolation. The bad decisions he’d made with Susan. His wife and son. The manner in which he’d spoken to his father. His failure with his little brother. Most of all, the things he hadn’t said and done.

  Dez ground his molars and trudged down the leaf-strewn hill. He knew he shouldn’t mistreat his teeth the way he was. He often woke with a headache from grinding them so incessantly. If and when they wore down to nubs, there’d be no dentist around to fit him with crowns. He supposed he could rustle up a set of dentures from somewhere, but the prospect of wearing a dead man’s teeth didn’t particularly excite him.

  Remember the look of Joey’s teeth?

  Dez moaned. He shook his head, trying to rid his mind of Joey’s bloated corpse, his little brother having succumbed to drug abuse and depression, and Dez discovering him, realizing he might have prevented it had he only paid more attention, had he not been so wrapped up in his career, trying to start a family.

  Joey was your family. Joey and your dad.

  I know that.

  And you abandoned them.

  I didn’t—

  Not in any dramatic way. There was no falling out. But you saw them less and less as you went through your twenties. Barely saw them at all by the time you reached your thirties.

  I’m sorry!

  But the slithery, sadistic voice broke in: Sorry doesn’t cut it, Dez. They’re both dead, and maybe they didn’t have to be.

  Dez turned and spat, his whole body shaking.

  He reached the bottom of the hill and moved into the peach grove. He eyed the shriveled twists dangling from the yellow-leafed trees, the desiccated brown peach corpses dotting the grass.

  Fuck.

  If he knew more about botany he’d be able to identify the type of peaches growing here, but whatever they were, they were decidedly not edible anymore. He thought of Gentry and wondered if this were some sort of final insult from beyond the grave.

  He should have known there’d be nothing here to eat. Other than corn, what grew in October? Before the world ended, Dez hadn’t exactly been the agricultural sort. Now, it seemed, he was paying for that ignorance.

  His stomach rumbled.

  Dez winced, pressed a hand to his belly. Maybe there’d be rabbits or squirrels nearby. Deer that used the overripe fruit for foraging. Maybe…r />
  …maybe there was an old man watching him from the far end of the row.

  Dez froze and stared at the old man.

  In contrast to Gentry, this wasn’t a guy who looked old because he didn’t take care of himself. No, this was a senior citizen, certainly over seventy.

  Instinctively, Dez moved his fingers toward the Ruger.

  “No need for that,” the old man said. The voice was scratchy but friendly enough. The man stood thirty yards away, his plaid shirt a combination of mustard yellow and navy blue. The man wore blue jeans, quite faded, and had a longish white growth of beard. Though the man’s general appearance was a bit ragged, in this terrible new world he was an exemplar of good grooming.

  This should have reassured Dez, but its effect was the opposite. True, if the man were wild and unkempt like Gentry had been, it meant he was desperate to survive. Desperation made people do hideous things.

  But the ones who didn’t look desperate were almost certainly monsters.

  Monsters didn’t need to worry about surviving.

  The old man regarded him in silence. No weapon that Dez could see. No sign of confederates, but that didn’t mean anything. If you weren’t deft at sneaking around, you were either at the top of the food chain or you were dead.

  The old man asked, “You a maneater?”

  Dez hesitated. “Are you?”

  “I own this grove,” the old man said. “A hundred-and-sixty acres in all.”

  When Dez didn’t speak, the old man added, “Was over a thousand before I had to sell some off.”

  “Am I supposed to feel bad for you? Want me to organize a benefit concert on your behalf?”

  Unexpectedly, the old man broke into a grin. “It’d be you and me sitting on my front lawn drinking moonshine and munching on popcorn.”

  Though it made him feel pitiful, Dez’s saliva glands responded to the thought of popcorn. He imagined his old life, a movie theater tub, yellow and glistening and wet as hell with all the greasy shit they pumped over it. Half a tub invariably gave him a gut ache, and invariably, he ate it down another couple inches before stopping. Then he’d smuggle the dregs home with him and devour those before bed and wake up at three a.m., dehydrated, the sodium count in his blood approaching toxic levels and his mouth as dry as a blighted cornhusk.