“My friend, you must excuse me,” the leader had apologized. “It’s true that in the past I’ve interrupted you far too often, but this time forgive me my excitement and continue. Tell us if you will the rest of your news…the best and by far the most important part of your news!”
“Yes, yes!” the other had responded. “I’m coming to it! But first let me take a chance and risk my reputation one last time—though this time I have reason to believe that such a risk is minimal. For as I was about to say: it seems the farther north we trek the more these atmospheric anomalies appear to be working in our favour! In spite of their vacillations and however gradually, the levels of both ultraviolet and background radiations are finally—dare I say ‘definitely?’—becoming more acceptable! Oh, they swing this way and that, but each high is never as high as the last, and the lows are always lower!”
At which the almost breathless silence of the crowd had at last been broken by the sound of pent sighs, gasps, other small but audible exclamations…then some shouted, barely articulate queries…and finally a gathering storm of raised voices! Until:
“Now hold!” Big Jon’s cry as he rose to his feet had risen above all else. “Hold on, I say! For the man’s by no means done and the best is still to come!”
Falling silent, still the people had pressed closer, and in the forefront Garth had felt their excitement almost as a tangible force at his back.
“The very best, yes!” Fielding had nodded his head vigorously. “For while I’m the so-called ‘head’ technician, my colleagues are no less worthy and all have worked at least as hard, if not harder, than I myself. And now I’m talking about Earl Jones and Glenn Garrison—my radio men!”
On hearing that last the hush that had fallen was suddenly utter: a total silence from a gathering that might only be described as hypnotized. For surely the small tech’s final revelation could have meant only one thing?
And in corroboration: “It seems a very long time,” Fielding had continued, his voice suddenly tremulous, “since last we had communication with anyone outside the clan or beyond the Southern Refuge. But this morning when I was out and about, Earl and Glenn achieved precisely that! It was one of those old radios—fallen apart and scrapped—salvaged and fitted with makeshift parts that were never intended for such use—written off time and time again only to be revamped, reassembled, reconstituted. And finally this morning when an all-too-frequent hiss of meaningless static suddenly went away, finally there were voices—real human voices…and…and a message!”
But that had been all from the head tech. Emotionally overcome, trembling in all his limbs, Fielding had been helped down from the iron flank of Big Jon’s vehicle and a path cleared for him through the assembled clan folk.
Then before the stunned crowd could react again, the leader had reached down, offering his hand to a man years younger than Fielding—Earl Jones, who for all those years might have reckoned himself a radio operator, if only the radios had operated!—and hoisted him aboard the rauper. For it was tech Jones who had heard and recorded the all-important message, and head tech Fielding had left it to him to tell the rest of the story:
How while searching pensively, almost idly through the wave bands, as he had done on a hundred previous occasions, suddenly he had picked up a repetitive signal, and a voice so very faint it might have been coming down from the stars! Scarcely daring to touch or interfere with the radio’s unlikely jumble of wires, tubes, and fuses, he had finally managed to adjust the gain and make a scribbled record of the message; which was a tired, even forlorn-sounding request, almost as pensive as Jones’ own mood: that if anyone was “out there” listening, he should try to make contact on the more viable wavelength which had then been specified.
Feeling he needed help and someone to corroborate, validate what was happening, Jones had called out for Garrison to attend him. Sleeping close by in a trundle where much of the technical equipment was stored, Garrison had started awake, quickly joining Jones where he had already tuned in to the other wavelength and was even then talking to some fantastic, incredible other!
At this point in the story Glenn Garrison had been eager to join Jones and the leader on the rauper’s deck, and between the two techs the details of the unique, exciting event had quickly been filled in:
They had indeed been in communication with a more northerly band of nuclear survivors—a group that for years had searched the airwaves for others, hopefully to expand a small population depleted by fly-by-night depredation and so freshen and fortify diminishing gene pools; not only theirs but also those of their surviving animal species… And yes, while certain technicians and craft specialists continued a semi-subterranean existence—primarily for the maintenance of “the sanctuary,” as a precaution against any possible future disaster—the majority of “the kindred” were now living their lives above ground, in farms and a small village they had gradually been rebuilding and renovating for close on a decade!… As for the fly-by-nights: following the massed attack that decimated the population of the sanctuary, the survivors had begun a campaign, venturing out during daylight hours en masse into the nearby village and countryside around to seek out and destroy the vampires where they hid from the sun… The ruined village, with its cellars and other dark places, served as the swarm’s main roosts; the vengeful kindred had hunted them down, burned them out, cleared off the area all around while setting booby-traps and installing advance warning systems… All of this made possible by the fact that the ozone layer in their more northerly latitude had slowly settled down, replenished itself, until now the region was totally safe above ground—from the sun at least—and comparatively free of the monsters; though there was still the occasional, however ineffective raid, always from the south: the very region into which the clan’s convoy was now about to venture…
Then, as the two techs approached the end of the story, Big Jon Lamon had cut in on them. Determined to have the last word, he had begun to bring the meeting to a close with the following statement:
“Now hear this:
“I’m aware that there have always been those among you who had doubts—who believed there was small chance that we would make it even this far—but I also know that all of you, each and every one of you, has put his or her heart, body, and soul into our great adventure. Moreover you should know that I have not been without doubts of my own, but that I now feel as if a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. And since it is my fervent desire to witness this relief that I feel reflected in you—to actually see it written in your faces, the weight lifted from your shoulders—I have kept the very best of the news to the last so that I might report it to you personally.
“So then, what is this wonderful news I’ve been holding in reserve? Simply this: that these sanctuary people, the kindred, are a clever lot who have either developed or retained from the olden days a means of radio triangulation; by which I mean that they have located us, this very convoy, at a point no more than a hundred miles due south of their refuge! Moreover, if we keep in regular touch and as we draw ever closer, it’s their intention to send out a strong party to meet and guide us in! People, my friends, we’re almost at the end of our trek!”
At which, after a brief pause to let that sink in, someone in the crowd had cheered, thrown his hat in the air, and done a little dance; which in turn had set the rest of them off: laughing, shouting and back-slapping.
Big Jon had let it go on for a moment or two before bellowing: “Now listen! Go and prepare. We have rested up here—most of us—but now it’s time we moved on. I was thinking: perhaps we should stay on here another night. Ah, but I learned a valuable lesson in that damned town back there! Namely, that if we stay in any one place too long, the fly-by-nights are bound to smell us out! So now, with all this good news buoying us up, I reckon it’s time we got underway again; and we will within the hour. Why, there are people waiting for us, and even coming to meet us! And it seems only right that in our turn we should do our be
st to make that meeting happen as quickly as possible.
“So, we’ll ride the rest of the day and coming night, then sleep tomorrow from dawn till dusk. But with any luck tomorrow will be the last time we rest up in daylight, and if the ozone layer will only quit its wobbling for good we may even be able to dispose of some of the lead that’s weighed us down all this terrible time! Now, what do you say to that?”
The clan folk had been with Big Jon all the way; but thinking to remind him of something, the chief mechanic, Ian Clement—a man with grease-smudged features, calloused hands and ragged oily coveralls: the hallmarks of his trade—had called out, “Big Jon! As you are aware, all that bad sludgy fuel we’ve been using has knocked out a couple of motors, making them irreparable. Now every trundle—and indeed every vehicle—will have to he packed to the gills with people and gear; which will put an even greater strain on the motors and slow us down more yet. Moreover and even worse, the one thing we can rely upon is that there’s bound to be at least a few more breakdowns!
“Now you know I’m not trying to put a damper on things, but these good people must understand that we’re not out of trouble yet; no, not by a long shot! Let’s face it, the best speed this convoy has ever achieved is something less than ten miles in any twenty-four hour period! Which I suppose is as much or more my fault as anyone else’s, me being the one who cares for these cursed engines! But now—what with fuel problems, earlier its conservation, and more recently its poor quality; and the lousy roads if and when there are roads, not just potholed rubble and cratered dirt; plus the fact that we’ve regularly had to detour to find safe harbour during daylight hours, while going with extreme caution through the badlands at night; and now the breakdowns, which can only get worse—well, I just don’t know what to say any more! But one thing for certain: while there’s nothing we can do about all this, still it makes that hundred miles seem one hell of a long way!”
“Ian, you’re quite right,” the leader had at once replied. “Which makes it all the more needful that we get underway with as little delay as possible. At least we know there’s no longer any requirement to be so frugal with the fuel and water. On the other hand, and where frugality is concerned, from now on we’ll need to be sparing with our remaining handful of domestic animals. Meaning that other than any wild game we may trap or shoot—assuming the fly-by-nights haven’t had them all—there can be no more roast suppers from the flesh of our caged creatures! No, for the kindred need our beasts’ genes to invigorate and reestablish the quality of their own animals: which is to say our animals, or humanity’s animals, as they will become in some far future time. And that’s not to mention our human genes—which are perhaps the future of humanity itself…!
“All of which to say, that having come this far we’re not about to let a handful of fouled-up, clapped-out vehicles stop us now—neither them nor anything else!”
And at last, as Big Jon swept the crowd with his eyes full of hope—such hope as the clan had never before seen lighting his face—finally he had nodded his satisfaction. And climbing down from his vehicle’s iron flank, he had commanded them:
“Now off you go and make ready. Another hour and we’ll be gone from here, and a long afternoon, evening, and night ahead…”
IX
All of which had taken place eleven days and ten nights ago.
Since when, as the convoy crept ever northward, the clan’s experiences had become increasingly eventful. Mercifully during that time there had been no more fly-by-night attacks or skirmishes; though at each day’s end, when Big Jon called a halt and the mechanical groaning of overloaded vehicles subsided into uneasy silence, and night’s long shadows began to shroud the land, the presence of vampires out there in what were once dead and crumbling radioactive wastelands—indeed “the badlands,” which now as often as not seemed magically transformed by improving local conditions into burgeoning grass and woodlands—was far more than merely suspected.
All too often the shrill, whistled alarms of the sentinels would be heard, their red flashes of warning light glimpsed out there on the perimeters; and the standby teams would ready themselves for action and prepare to ride out and engage the undead enemy. But unfailingly—and oddly—on each such occasion, as endless, breathless moments passed in deafening silence, eventually the flashing red beams would change to green, accompanied in short order by a long oh-so-welcome blast on Big Jon’s whistle as the leader signalled yet another all clear.
But so many alarms—three or four each night, and so often false or seemingly unjustified—that the people were actually becoming accustomed to them! While familiarity breeds contempt, however, they had never been contemptuous of the fly-by-nights; and thus the alarms continued to make for long, nervous nights.
The days, on the other hand, were glorious!
Unused to such balmy days and warm, benign sunlight—with the hinged lead shutters folded back and tucked away overhead—the people tended to forget the discomforts of cramped trundles and farm vehicles but perched wherever they could face outward, their legs swinging to the jolting, rocking rhythm of the lumbering transports. And for the very first time in their comparatively short lives, the pallor of their previously subterranean existence was beginning to be replaced by the pinks, then reds, then browns of skin tones coloured by the sun.
Ian Clement’s predictions, however, as they became reality, were causing problems; Big Jon’s optimism in respect of the unnecessary conservation of water had proved premature; even the hopes of head tech Andrew Fielding’s radio men, with regard to continued contact with the kindred, had been dashed to smithereens along with the radio, when the transport carrying most of the technical equipment had turned over in a ditch.
Big Jon considered this last as bad a problem as any other, if not a disaster: that the voices on the other end of the airwaves—as static-plagued as the reception often was—had been shut off forever in the irreparable tangle of wires, fuses, and shattered glass.
But in fact the other problems were just as bad, if not far worse, especially the trouble with the water. During the second night following the convoy’s departure from the wooded site in the lee of the cliffs—the first night of so-called rest, despite frequent disturbances by the real or suspected presence of nearby fly-by-nights—the old rust-scabbed bowser had sprung a serious leak. With its source directly under the huge tank, the trickle of precious water had not been noticed until first light when an area of soaked earth had revealed the full extent of the loss: at least two thirds of the clan’s reserves.
While chief mech Clement had stopped up the leak in double-quick time, the very next day there was nothing he could do for a seized-up trundle engine, or on the day following the wrecked tech transport’s broken axles. And all the time the increasingly cramped conditions in the rest of the convoy’s vehicles were making difficult times all the more problematic.
As for Garth Slattery, the outrider teams (now more commonly called the “night-watch squads”), and the unusual inactivity of the fly-by-nights:
Since the slow, lumbering column now proceeded only in daylight, Garth and his squad—along with the other squads—were on duty every night forming an oval perimeter around the entire length or cluster of the stationary convoy; which meant that the watch-men could at least attempt to sleep for seven or eight hours in the noisy, jarring trundles each day, and have the evenings to themselves when Big Jon called a halt and the column paused to rest and take stock. And so Garth was at last able to spend at least some time with his new wife, but rarely quality time and never a lot.
Layla knew that something was bothering him. His nightmares were worse than ever, when after only a few hours rest he would begin muttering to himself—then start awake with an inarticulate cry, clinging to her and shaking feverishly. Sometimes he would mumble her name; other times the name of someone else…someone Layla remembered only too well!
At first she believed she understood this well enough, and despite the disruption i
t caused accepted it as a natural consequence of the mutual animosity that had existed between Garth and that loathsome other. At least Layla accepted it as such—but not Garth, not entirely. He wouldn’t, however, speak of his concerns in any detail; to do so would only have worried Layla more yet, most likely needlessly. Thus he kept his own counsel—his doubts and indeed his fears—to himself. For not unlike Layla, albeit to a lesser degree, Garth was wont to reason with himself, trying to rationalize and perhaps minimalize his “problem.” But that was only in broad daylight, with the sun warming his face. Never at night, out there on the perimeter.
And so things went…
Around mid-afternoon on the fourth day, however—when the convoy had halted to make urgent repairs to a trundle’s failing suspension, and when once again Garth, only poorly rested, came shouting awake—Layla saw how he was actually starting to look enervated and even somewhat gaunt. At which she determined that later, when he was fully awake and responsive, she would definitely speak to him about it. But for the moment…
…While he washed sparingly from a mugful of water, shaved using the dregs and got dressed, she went off to a hastily arranged teaching appointment with some of the clan’s smaller children—which was where Zach Slattery happened upon her, only to find her looking more than usually tired, worn, and worried.
During a break, when the kids were allowed to play a simple game without supervision, Zach took her aside and spoke to her.
“Layla, while I know it’s none of my business—” he began, but she stopped him at once, saying:
“You are Garth’s father and you love him, so of course it’s some of your business!”
“Ah!” he said. “So you’re more concerned about him than because of him? Well good! It’s just that you’ve been looking so down, so tired and stressed out yourself, this last day or two. But as long as there’s no trouble—er, you know—between the pair of you…?”