Armageddon’s Children

EIGHT

ALTHOUGH LOGAN TOM hadn't expected to be able to track down the slave camp–hadn't even been certain, in fact, that it was there–he stumbled on it almost without trying. Daylight was failing and darkness closing all about the countryside as he drove west out of Iowa into whatever lay beyond–he couldn't remember and didn't care to stop long enough to check maps that no longer had relevance–when he saw the glow of the watch fires burning on the horizon like a second setting of the sun. Crimson against the pale shading of twilight, the glow drew his attention instantly, signaling its presence in a way that all but invited him in for a closer look. He had seen this glow before–in other times, at other camps–and he realized quickly enough what it was and drove toward it.

Darkness had fallen completely by the time he arrived at a dirt road that led in from the main highway, driving the S-l 50 with the lights off and the big engine idled down to a low hum. As he approached, the watchtowers and the barricades took shape and the slave pens became recognizable. The glow emanated from a combination of lights powered by solar generators and pillars of flame rising out of fire pits. The latter gave the landscape a hellish and surreal look, as if devil imps with pitchforks might be prowling the countryside. The camp was huge, stretching two miles across and at least as deep. It had been a stockyards once, he guessed, that had been turned by the once–men and their mentors to a different use. The odor of cows and manure and hay was strong, although he knew that the smell could be deceiving and its source something else entirely.

By the time he cut the engine, still well back from the watch–towers and their lights, he could hear the mewling of the prisoners. He sat motionless in the AV, ashamed and enraged by the sounds, unable to stop himself from listening. He could make out shadowy forms moving back and forth behind the fences in the hazy glow of the lights, a listless, shuffling mass. Humans become slaves, become the living dead, made to work and to breed by the once–men and their demon masters. It was the fate decreed for all who weren't killed outright during the hunts. It was the punishment visited on humans for their foolishness and inaction when the collapse of civilization began, and it was horrifying beyond imagining.

But, then, he didn't have to imagine it. He had seen it so often that it was burned into his memory. It haunted him in his dreams and in his waking. It would not let him be.

He wondered for the first time what he was doing here. He had come looking for the camp in the way he had looked for such camps for years, a Knight–errant in search of injustice. He had done so without thinking about it because this was what he was given to do, all he knew to do to try to set things right. He would attack the camps and free those enslaved. He would kill the once–men and their demon masters. He would disrupt the breeding operations and destroy the slave pens. He would do whatever he could to right just a little of what had been turned so terribly wrong.

But his purpose in coming to this particular camp was unclear to him. He had been given a task already, one monumental importance. He was to find the gypsy morph and identify it, then serve as its protector as it led a small band of humans to a place where humanity would rebuild itself in the wake of an approaching cataclysm that would finish what the demons had begun. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with that task; Two Bears had made it clear that the future of humanity was riding on whether or not he was able to carry it out Such responsibility did not allow for deviations or personal indulgences. He could not afford to risk himself in an attack that was in essence, both. However terrible it was to do so, he must pass by this camp and continue on.

Yet how could he? How could he abandon these people and still call himself a Knight of the Word?

He tried focusing on the reward Two Bears had promised him. If he did as he'd been asked, the demon responsible for the murder of his family would be delivered up to him–that old man in his gray slouch hat and long cloak, that monster with his knowing smile and his eyes as cold as death. It was a bold promise, but he believed the Word would not have made it if it could not be kept. He wanted that demon more than he wanted anything. He had searched for it for years, thinking that sooner or later in the course of his struggle he would find it. It seemed impossible to him. Even Michael, who had a knack for predicting how things would work out, had believed that eventually they would find that old man again; that they could not avoid doing so.

But he had never seen the demon again, not once, not even the barest glimpse.

Still, he knew it was out there. He knew it the way he knew that the promise would be honored. He knew it the way he knew that the finding of that demon was the end purpose of his life.

He sat staring into the distance, wrestling with his conscience, then started up the engine on the AV once more, turned it around, and drove away from the camp and its smells and its sounds. He drove until he could no longer see its fiery brightness, until the horizon behind him was just a hazy glow. By then he was back near the main highway, alone on the flats in the darkness. He parked in the shelter of a copse of withered trees, set the perimeter alarm system on the AV, ate because he knew he should, and settled down to sleep.

HE STANDS WITH the others in the shadows that fill the gullies that crisscross the terrain at the rear of the camp. It is nearing midnight, and the world is a black hole beneath a heavily overcast sky. A light rain is falling, something of a minor miracle in this farmland become desert. No wind blows to stir the silt; no breeze cools the stifling heat. Save for the moans and cries of the imprisoned, no sounds disturb the deep night silence.

He looks down at his weapon, a blunt, short–barreled flechette called a Scattershot. Michael has given it to him to carry, trusting him to use it wisely and safely. He is familiar with weapons, having been trained to use them since Michael took him from the compound on the night his parents and siblings died.

The Scattershot fires a single charge that sweeps clean an area of up to twenty feet; it is a weapon meant to create a broad killing ground. He has been told that it will help against the things that will come at him, but that his best protection lies in keeping close to his companions.

"Do not stray, boy," Michael has warned. "This is a dangerous business. If I did not think you needed to learn from it, I would not have brought you at all. Don't make me regret my decision."

He does not wish to disappoint Michael, whom he loves and respects and to whom he owes his life. He has dedicated himself to making certain that Michael never regrets having rescued him that first night. He grips his weapon tightly, waiting for the signal to advance. They have come to attack and destroy this camp, to free the humans imprisoned within, to disrupt the work and breeding programs set in place by the once–men who wield the power of life and death over those brought here from the compounds.

It is his first time on such an expedition. He is twelve years old.

"Stand ready," Michael whispers to those he leads, and the word is passed up and down the line.

When they attack, they come out of the gullies and shadows like wolves, howling and crouched low against the open ground, racing to gain the fences before the guards have a chance to stop them. Logan stays close beside Michael, shadowing him as he charges through the smoky haze of the fires, weapon leveled, safety off. He howls with the others, then cringes as automatic weapons fire sweeps through the darkness in a deadly rain. Most of the bullets miss, but a few find their targets, and men go down in crumpled heaps. In the towers and at the gates, once–men surge forward to repel the attack.

But the defenders are too few and too slow. Michael's command is well trained and battle–hardened, and they have done this often. They know what to expect and are not deterred by the efforts of those within the camp to stop them. They gain the fences and cut the wires and are through. They gain the gates, set their explosive charges, duck aside as they detonate, and are through. They gain the masses of concertina wire rolled across gaps in the earthworks that serve as loading ramps, throw mattresses across the deadly spikes, and are through.

In a determined rush, Michael and those closest, himself included, burst through shards of wood, scraps of iron, and ribbons of wire, weapons firing.

There is no attempt at this point to distinguish targets. It is assumed that anything moving outside the confines of the pens is an enemy. From within the pens themselves, the moans and cries turn to recognizable pleas: Help me, save me, free me! The cries are raw and desperate, but the attackers ignore them.

They know what they are doing and how best to do it. Responding to the prisoners is a mistake that will get them killed. To succeed in what they are attempting, they must first eliminate the enemy.

They do so with a single–mindedness that is frightening. They stay bunched in their attack units, protecting one another's backs as Michael has taught them to do, surging forward into the heart of the compound, destroying the once–men as they go. If they should encounter a demon, they will stand their ground and attempt to drive it back; if that fails, they will turn and flee. They do not expect to encounter one this night. Scouting reports say the resident demon is absent. Michael takes a chance that the reports are accurate because he has no choice. Encounters with demons are a part of the risk they all take.

They are lucky this night. No demon surfaces to challenge them.

There are feeders everywhere, but he doesn't yet know what feeders are and can only sense their presence as they rush in a maddened frenzy through the dead and wounded, savoring the taste of pain and death and fear. Now and again, he catches glimpses of them from the corner of his eye, swift and shadowy, and he shivers.

The once–men are driven steadily back until all are dead or have fled into the darkness. When the camp is secured, one set of liberators begins to free the prisoners while another follows Michael. As instructed, Logan stays close to his mentor. He pounds through the darkness toward the cluster of cabins isolated in the middle of the camp while the pens around him are pulled down and the men and women imprisoned within are released. He glances down once at the Scattershot and finds that the metal of the weapon is cool against his skin. He realizes in surprise that he has not fired it.

Michael reaches the first of the cabins and kicks in the door. There is movement within, but Michael does not fire. Other men go to the other cabins and kick in their doors, as well. An eerie silence settles over this section of the camp, all the noise and furor suddenly gone elsewhere. The men who have come here with Michael lower their weapons and, one by one, step inside the cabins they have assaulted. Michael waits until they are inside, glances back to where the boy stands, and beckons him forward.

Together, they enter the cabin in front of them. Logan thinks he is ready for what he will find, but he is wrong. He stands in the doorway openmouthed, his throat so tight he does not think he can draw another breath. There are children in the cabin, dozens of them, packed close as they huddle together in the darkness, pressed up against the farthest wall. They are dirty and ragged.

They are disgusting to look at. Most wear almost nothing. Their bones protrude from their emaciated bodies like sticks bundled in sacks; they are held together by little more than ligaments and skin. They have the look of skeletons, of corpses, of ghosts. They are all ages, many younger than he is. They do not know what is happening. They stare at him in shock and terror. Many are crying.

They begin to beg for their lives.

"Look carefully, Logan," Michael tells him. "This is what we have been reduced to by our enemies. This is our future if we do not find a way to change it."

Logan looks at the children because he cannot help himself, but he wishes he had never seen them. He wishes Michael had not brought him here, that he had been left behind. He wishes he could sink into the floor and disappear. He knows he will never forget this moment. He knows it will haunt him forever.

"They are kept alive for various reasons," Michael says softly. "Some for work. Some for experiments. Some for things I cannot bear to speak about."

Logan understands. He draws a long, slow breath and exhales. He thinks he will be sick to his stomach, and he fights it down. He swallows and straightens.

Michael's hand closes on his shoulder and tightens. "We shall set most of them free and hope that some will survive." He pauses. "Most of them, but not all."

He moves to the farthest corner of the room, the corner that is darkest.

As he nears, a hissing, mewling sound rises from the shadows.

What happens next is indescribable.

LOGAN WOKE SWEATING and disoriented in the backseat of the Lightning, thrashing beneath the light blanket as if jolted by a charge from an electric prod. The dream of the slave camp, of what Michael had brought him to see, was right in front of him, painted on a canvas of darkness and air, blood red and razor sharp.

Madness, he screamed in the silence of his mind and was filled with sudden, ungovernable anger.

It happened then as it always happened, a sudden shift of emotions that took him from simmer straight to white–hot. The canvas of the dream expanded until it was all he could see. Memories of every atrocity he had witnessed since his boyhood surfaced like a swarm of angry bees from the dark place in his mind to which he had consigned them, and a quick, hard burn of rage tore through him.

He was suddenly unable to focus on anything but his horror of the slave camp he had passed by only hours before, unable to think with anything remotely resembling dispassion, unable to bring reason or common sense to bear. His rage was all–consuming. It swept through him in seconds, took control of him completely, and left him with a single thought.

Destroy it!

Without stopping to think about what he was doing, he crawled into the driver's seat, shut down the perimeter alarms, started the engine, and wheeled the AV about. Forgotten was his promise to himself that he would not let anything jeopardize his search for the gypsy morph. Abandoned was the quest that had brought him to this place and time. His rage washed all of it away, swept it aside as if it were unimportant and replaced it with an inexorable determination to go back to that camp and do what he knew was needed.

Because there was no one else to help those imprisoned in that camp.

Because he knew what was being done to them, and he could not abide it.

He took the highway back to the cutoff, back to where he could see the glow from the fires of the camp, and turned toward them, anger flooding through him like molten lava. He switched on the AV's weapons, setting them to the armed position. His rune–carved staff rested on the seat beside him, ready to employ.

He might have taken time to make better preparations, but his rage would not allow for it. It demanded that he hurry, that he act now. It demanded that he cast aside reason and let impulse rule.

He blew over the flats toward the now–visible camp like an avenging angel, his inner fire a match for flames that burned in the perimeter pits. He had reached the walls almost before the guards could comprehend what he was about, too close for them to bring their heavy weapons to bear. He attacked the towers with the long–barreled flechettes that elevated from their fender housings, shards of iron cutting apart the walls and occupants that warded them as if both were made of thin paper. He swung the AV around after taking down two, left it in idle, and sprang to the ground before the fencing and rolled razor wire, his staff in hand. They were shooting at him now with their automatic weapons, but he was already shielded by the magic of his staff, an impregnable force of nature. He strode forward, his staff sweeping along the fencing and wire in a line of fire that melted everything it touched. Inside, the prisoners were screaming and crying, thinking it was they who were under attack, they who were meant to die. He could not stop to tell them otherwise. He could only act, and act quickly.

He was through the fence in moments, a Knight of the Word in full–blown frenzy, as savage and unpredictable as the creatures he hunted. Feeders appeared as if by magic, swirling all around him, hundreds strong, hungry and expectant.

Cringing prisoners scattered before him in all directions, howling in fear.

Once–men came at him in waves, firing their weapons, trying to bring him down.

But ordinary weapons were no match for his staff, and he scattered them like leaves. He moved deliberately from fence to fence, from tower to tower, from one building to the next, sending everything up in flames.

He kept his eyes peeled for a demon, but none approached. He was lucky this night, but then luck was a part of what kept him alive.

The once–men were falling back, losing heart in the face of his wildness and seeming invulnerability. Their mad eyes and sharp faces lost their hard edge and turned frightened. Soon they were fleeing into the night, seeking shelter in the darkness. The camp's prisoners flooded through the shattered fences after them, hundreds of men, women, and children. Strange skeletal apparitions, they fled through the brightness of the flames without fully understanding what was happening or where they were fleeing. It didn't matter to the Knight of the

Word. It only mattered that they run and keep running and never come back.

When the camp was in flames and the pens emptied, he turned his attention to the isolated cluster of cabins that sat deliberately untouched at the very center. He stared at the ramshackle structures, and his rage drained away with the slow onset of his horror at what must happen next. He hesitated, a mix of almost unbearable sadness and disgust welling up inside him.

Then Michael's voice reached out to him from the long–ago.

Don't think about it. Don't try to make sense of it. Do what you must.

He took a deep, steadying breath and started forward.

'COME LOOK, BOY. Come see what hides here in the darkness."

Michael stands waiting on him near the shadows from which the hissing and mewling issues, his face carved of granite, his words hardedged and commanding. Nevertheless, Logan hesitates before advancing knowing he should flee, that what he is about to see will scar him forever. But there is no running away from this, and he comes forward as bidden.

As he does so, the things hiding in the darkness slowly begin to take shape.

His breath catches in his throat and his chest tightens.

They are children, he sees. Or what once were children and now are something bordering on the demonic. Their bodies and limbs have turned disproportionate to their bodies, made long and crooked, and their hands end in claws. Their backs arch like those of cornered cats as they twist and writhe angrily. Their faces are distorted and maddened, cheeks hollow, chins narrow and sharp, noses flattened to almost nothing, ears split as if with knives, eyes yellow slits that are mirrors of their souls, mouths filled with needle–sharp teeth and tongues that protrude and lick the air. They are manifestations of evil, of the monsters to which they have fallen prey.

He tries to ask what has been done to them, but words fail him. He cannot speak, cannot do anything but stare at these creatures that once were children like him.

"They have been changed by experimentation," Michael tells him. "They cannot be saved."

But they must be saved, the boy thinks, looking quickly at the older man for a better answer. No child should be allowed to come to this! No child should be consigned to this hell!

Michael is not looking at him. He is looking at the demon children, at the monsters huddled before him. There is such blackness in that look that it seems those upon which it is cast must succumb to its intensity and weight. Yet they continue to arch their backs and hiss and mewl and crouch in the shadows, little nightmares.

Michael points his weapon at them. "Go outside now, boy. Wait for me there."

He does as he is told, moving on wooden legs, wanting desperately to turn back, to stop what is about to happen, but unable to do so. He reaches the door and looks out into the night. The fires of the camp burn all about him, their flames a hellish crimson against the smoky black.

Dark forms rush here and there, faceless wraiths in flight. He hesitates for a moment, realizing with new insight what has become of his world.

Madness.

There is a burst of automatic weapons fire from behind him and then silence.

HE SET FIRE to the cabins when he was finished, working quickly and efficiently, shutting off his emotions as he moved from building to building, taking refuge in the mechanics of his work. The feeders went with him, frenzied shadows in the red glare of the flames, mirrors of his soul. He tried to ignore them and couldn't. He wished them dead, but that was pointless. Feeders were a force of nature. Only when he was done and walking away did they abandon him, content to frolic in the carnage. He glanced back once to be certain that the cabins were burning, that what lay lifeless inside would be consumed, then quickened his pace until he was through the collapsed fence and moving back toward the AV. Neither the prisoners he had freed nor the once–men that had held them captive were in sight. It was as if both had disappeared in the smoke and flames.

He climbed into the AV and sat staring at nothing. The rage that had earlier consumed him was gone. His wildness had dissipated and his emotions had cooled. He felt detached from his dreams and purged of his madness. He could barely remember having come here. The events that had transpired were a hazy swirl of unconnected images that lacked an identifiable center. His staff was a quiet presence at his side, emptied of magic, cleansed of killing fire.

But as he shifted in his seat, metal fastenings scraped against the door and suddenly he could hear anew the hissing and mewling of the demon children.

He started up the AV's engine and wheeled away into the darkness, accelerating back across the flats toward the westbound highway. The roar of the Lightning's big engine drowned out the sounds that had surfaced in his mind, but the damage was done. Tears filled his eyes as he drove, and the momentary peace he had found was gone.

How had Michael endured this for as long as he had? No wonder it had consumed him. It would consume anyone sooner or later even a Knight of the Word.

One day it would consume him. He wondered if that was what happened to all Knights of the Word whom the demons had failed to destroy. He wondered if it would happen to him, and then he wondered if it mattered.

He had asked it of Two Bears, and now he asked it again of himself.

Was he the last of his kind?

He could provide no answer. Dispirited and weary, he drove on through the night and the silence.