A Shrouded World (Book 5): Asabron Read online

  My face, if I were given a mirror, would have been twisted into a mask of sheer terror, my eyes as huge as saucers, my mouth skewed to the side, my forehead wrinkled so badly it looked like speed bumps for off-road vehicles, my nostrils flared so wide they hurt. I was hoping to land on an Abe’s Mattress Emporium delivery truck, or possibly Sam’s Shipping Bubbles freight trailer; instead, it looked to be the windshield of a car being towed. I didn’t have much time to ponder my fate as I twisted my body and put my best face forward—or ass, in this case. The contact was a sharp pain that rocketed up my spine; I was thankful the glass gave out, shattering into a thousand pieces. I hit the top of the front bucket seat and came to a hard rest in the back. My body was going to make it abundantly aware of what it had been through later tonight, if I made it that long. But right now, the shock was that I hadn’t seriously injured anything, I think.

  Jack was at the window and pulling the door open. He gave me a quick once-over—he looked surprised to see my eyes open and not in a dull blank stare.

  “You okay?” He was reaching in and grabbed my hand before I could protest. I wasn’t sure being wrenched up violently was the best idea in the world just now; I kind of wanted to take my time and assess any potential damage. That was overridden by the crashing of cars behind us. The semi or semis were blasting through everything in their way. I didn’t know if at any point the debris would be too much for them to push through, and I didn’t want to stay and find out.

  Jack picked up his bike and I got on behind him. In hindsight, this might be how we should have escaped in the first place. Now that I wasn’t worried about my life—at least not immediately—I was acutely aware of just how fucking cold it was, like this was some science fiction world where the sun had long since burned out and the remnants of the world’s inhabitants were doing their best to survive in a snow globe. We weren’t doing much more than thirty, but the wind chill was worse than could be expected in Wisconsin, in January.

  “Can’t go much further,” Jack said. With some difficulty, he extended his arm to point to a truck.

  If I didn’t think my lungs would freeze by letting the extra air in, I would have laughed. It was a box truck that, according to the side, contained the finest Buckeye Feather-filled pillows on the planet. Where the fuck was that truck when I needed it? My tailbone ached in sympathetic response. The crashing noise had, at some point, subsided and ceased. I don’t know when; there’s even a chance I couldn’t hear it because the tiny bones in my ears had frozen. Jack had difficulty unfurling his body from the bike; he looked like a flag that had been caught out in an ice storm.

  I helped him off. He was bent over standing next to the bike as I rolled up the cargo door to the truck, which was piled high with boxes.

  “Come on.” I grabbed his shoulder and with some effort got us both into the back. I grabbed my knife and tore into the side of one of the boxes; true to their word, it was full of pillows. “Welcome home,” I told Jack as I made the hole big enough for him to crawl in. I was shivering so violently by the time I went to close the door that I was having a difficult time getting a grip on the handle. I knew leaving the bike out there was not the wisest course of action, but to stay out and move it far enough away as to not give away our position and be able to get back was not in the cards. Any heat I had accumulated through the day was long gone and I was doing my best to not freeze in place. I thought that the plastic wrap encasing each pillow would drive me nuts, but I was so far down the “just barely surviving road,” I hardly noticed. My shivering was so violent I sounded like a vibrator stuck in a bag of potato chips.

  It was a good long while before my body heat in the tight and enclosed area began to make a difference. The feeling of not having every muscle in my body contract with force was wonderful. The box I was in was large enough that I could slowly stretch out of the fetal position. I hoped Jack wasn’t going to pull me out, because I was in the process of removing all my soaked clothes. The noise was deafening; if there were any whistlers within fifty yards, they were bound to hear. Against all odds, I fell asleep.

  “Motherfucker,” I heard Jack say when his hand grabbed my bare calf. “Talbot, are you naked in there?”

  I sat up quickly, happy to bounce off soft objects. “Just like it was my birthday,” I told him. I was sweating, the plastic I was in contact with now allowing me to marinate in my own juices. There were loud, squelching noises as I began to extract myself. “Might want to turn away,” I told him. He had his flashlight trained on my exit point.

  “Already done.” The light moved away.

  I quickly dressed, not at all thrilled that my clothes were still very much damp.

  “Whistlers?” I asked as I was finishing up.

  “I haven’t heard anything, and didn’t want to check until we were ready to go. You ready?”

  “You can look now.”

  “You’re not setting me up, are you?”

  “I’m all for a good prank, Jack, but this isn’t one of them.”

  Jack turned slowly. “Ready?” He bent down to grab the handle.

  I checked my rifle and nodded to him; he clicked his light off and slowly opened the door. The sun was once again shining. Whistler bodies were less than a hundred yards from where we’d rested.

  “The weather?” I asked.

  “I don’t see any blood, so that’s as good a guess as any,” he replied, gingerly hopping down.

  “Great, all we need to do is figure out how these arctic blasts are happening and then direct them to those bastards and we’ll be all set. Wait … do you think this is a weapon?”

  “I suppose that’s a possibility,” Jack said as he tactically approached the bodies.

  I got down and was advancing with him, my rifle raised. “Who’s doing it?”

  “Not exactly the time for questions, Mike.”

  “Where are the rest of them?”

  He turned to look at me like my mother used to when I was doing something she didn’t approve of, which meant I got this look a lot … I’m talking a shitload-lot.

  “You do realize that I was in the truck with you, right?” he asked as he toed the closest body. An arm cracked off as he moved it.

  “That’s fucking gross,” I told him.

  “Just making sure they aren’t playing dead.” He relaxed slightly.

  “That’d be pretty impressive if they were. Talk about going above and beyond. Masters of their craft, really.”

  “Mike.”

  “Sorry.” I had to choke back the fifty other questions I wanted to ask. A good number of whistlers had followed us into the storm and paid dearly for it. Had to have been over eighty of them, but that wasn’t a quarter of the force following us. Where they’d gone was pretty important to our survival.

  I was leaning against a car while Jack felt the need to check on the majority of the bodies, though I noted he stopped touching them. They were as brittle as old plastic left out in the weather for a few years. I’d seen enough body parts, including heads, detach in that half hour than I care to remember. When he came back, his hue let me know it had affected him as well.

  “Ready to go?” he asked, walking past. I watched him for a few feet, debating whether to grab one of the dozens of bikes strewn around or ride bitch with him. I grabbed my own—yeah, I had a better chance of making it with Jack at the helm, but still, being a master of your own destiny carries a lot of weight in the decision-making process.

  I started the bike and slowly threaded my way through the debris, both biological and manmade. The traffic jam cleared up after a few miles and we were once again on the open road. It was on the cooler side as the wind evaporated the moisture on our clothes, but it was a more pleasurable experience than an uncomfortable one. Jack was ready to get out of this shithole we were in; I could tell he wanted to open his throttle up, but out of concern for me he kept it closer to sixty-five. Every once in a while, he would take off and then slow down as I chugged toward him. On the next
such occasion, I found him standing by his bike and looking off into the distance. I saw the same thing he did.

  “Military blockade,” I said, needlessly. “I don’t see any activity.”

  “Me neither. But I can’t shake the feeling we have crosshairs leveled on us.”

  I looked at my uniform for a telltale red dot, from a laser I was slightly happier not finding one, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t under the scrutiny of a high-powered scope attached to an even higher-powered weapon. Jack tapped my shoulder and motioned with his head. We got back on the motorcycles and slowly approached.

  It was an unnerving experience, like we were waiting to be shot. Jack was right—something was watching us. That often neglected sixth sense in the pit of your stomach that tells you something is off was pinging. We usually attribute it to paranoia—that’s all fine and dandy if you’re in a public area, surrounded by what you hope are friendly or even indifferent people, but in this case, with an enemy at seemingly every turn, it’s not wise to ignore it. Jack again stopped, this time turning the bike off. We were twenty yards from the blockade. He half raised his hands. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen something or was being overly cautious. I reluctantly followed suit.

  A loud “Hello!” boomed out. The piss that wanted to flow down my leg immediately turned to relief. Well, not the urine—that would seem like I wet myself—I didn’t, if that’s not clear. A jubilant and giant Kalandar stood up.

  It was good to see him, but still, he was not one you rushed up to and hugged in a tearful reunion. Our approach wasn’t quite as cautious, but we were still on alert. The big red giant demon had plenty of time to let us know he was there—that he waited until we were in his midst could be the sign of a trap. I mean, how much did we know about him? Sure, we fought together, but that was when we had a common enemy—that didn’t necessarily make us friends. He looked happy enough, but who knows what makes a demon happy? Maybe the thought of eating temporary allies.

  “Where’s BT?” I asked, doing my best not to look like I was going to start shooting.

  “The fat one?” he asked.

  “I’m not fat!” BT yelled, and then came around the corner wearing a purple jumpsuit.

  “He looks like a pimp,” Jack said softly, though not enough so.

  “I heard that!” BT yelled. “Is that a racist thing?”

  “No,” I answered. “It’s because you’re wearing a crushed purple velvet suit. All you need now is a hat and a cane.”

  “Then he’d be just like Pudgy Bear,” Jack said with the first smile I’d seen on him in a good long while.

  “Please tell me that’s a reference to Huggie Bear,” I said, thinking of the old Starsky and Hutch television series.

  Jack stuck his fist out for a bump, which I gladly reciprocated.

  “That’s hilarious! You have no idea what I’ve been through!” BT was not a happy camper.

  “You all right?” I asked, moving closer and extending a hand. It was good to see him. I was hoping that some of the ice that had developed between him and the other Mike would have finally thawed—I got my answer when he looked at my hand but did not offer to take it.

  “Yeah, just fine. Stuck in some alien world riding on a demon’s back like an infant, being swept off to fuck knows where and then having to run and fight zombies!”

  “I am the one who did most of the running and fighting,” Kalandar said.

  “There wasn’t much I could do from my swaddle!” BT groused.

  “What’s with this getup?” I asked.

  “You got a problem with it?”

  “BT, I’m asking; come on man, you’ve got to admit it’s a little strange, right?” I asked.

  He flipped me off before walking away.

  “We ran into a very strange storm,” Kalandar said.

  “Cold or hot?” Jack asked.

  “It was cold to the human. I hardly felt it.”

  “Must be nice,” I intoned.

  “His clothes were soaked, and if you think he is angry now, you should have heard his squeaks of protest then. ‘Chafe this,’ ‘chafe that.’ We came across a blockade on this roadway; further back there was a truck filled with donated clothing. Even with a large vehicle full of garments, the options for one as rotund as he were not many. We found this in a box marked ‘costumes.’ It was humorous. The first one he tried on was a red devil suit.”

  “So, he really is dressed as a pimp?” Jack asked quietly, not wanting to rile the man further.

  “The package said ‘man of the night.’” BT had paced back.

  “Looks good on you, man,” I told him.

  I could see him trying to remember that I was not the man he knew. He let his head drop a bit in embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” he said as he met my gaze.

  “About what, man? I don’t blame you at all for being angry about being here,” I told him.

  “About everything, I guess. I’m … I’m scared, and at first, I thought I was out here with the person I could stand the least in my life. I know now that’s not the case—it’s just not easy.”

  “We’ll get through this. We will. I’ll get you home, and if you want to punch that other Mike, I say go for it and tell him why. You might be surprised that he’s not so thick he can’t learn a lesson—become better for it.”

  “You think he’ll believe me, that he himself gave me permission to punch him?” BT had a strange gleam in his eye.

  “Sure, why not,” I told him.

  “I’ve got some good news,” BT stated.

  “All ears. We could use some, been a rough few.”

  Jack nodded; I thought he was going to say amen to that, or something along those lines. It would have been fitting.

  “There’s a helicopter back there,” Kalandar interceded. BT looked like he was going to have an aneurysm.

  “He’s a demon, you’ve got to expect him to do demon stuff,” I said.

  “That was shitty,” BT said, turning to Kalandar.

  “I know not what you mean.” Though truth be told, I was pretty sure he knew exactly what he’d done.

  Jack looked like he’d swallowed a whole lemon. “Did I tell you how much I’m looking forward to getting in another one of those? And not to state the obvious, but if we hit another cold front like we’ve done twice now, I’m not sure how well a helo will do.”

  “Didn’t sound obvious until you said it.”

  “Extremely dangerous, actually.”

  “Any chance you’re overstating this because of your last flight?” I asked.

  “It’s no lie, I’m not overly familiar with helicopters, and I’m zero for one in this world. But I’m being serious—if we hit one of those cold fronts, I’m going to have a perfect crash record.”

  “I wish we knew why the chopper was so fucking important.” I was thinking about Trip’s note. It was a mystery wrapped up in an answer. Kind of like a street burrito—who the fuck knew what they stuck in those.

  “So, we’re going to get it?” Jack asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I apologize in advance if I kill any of you,” Jack said so dryly I think he was serious.

  “This is swell,” complained BT.

  We walked for a couple of miles—no zombies, night runners, whistlers, or angels, only present-company demons, no hot or cold spells or armies trying to kill each other. It was damn near boring and blissful at the same time.

  I looked to Jack when we came over the next rise, and up ahead was our prize.

  “Yeah, that doesn’t look suspicious,” he said to me.

  There was the flying machine, sitting in the middle of the roadway, and from what we could tell, there wasn’t anything or anybody else around—like a helicopter delivery service had dropped it off especially for us and left before we could sign the paperwork.

  “You could have mentioned that,” I said to BT.

  “I wanted to, but Kalandar cut in.”

  “I meant that it was sitting there
all by itself.” We had all stopped about a quarter-mile away, just looking at it.

  “I don’t like it,” Jack said as he started moving forward again.

  “He’s kind of like my mother,” I said; he stopped and turned.

  “Well, since you started the damn story, you might as well finish it.”

  “My mother used to eat frozen hot dogs.”

  “What? How is that like this?” Jack asked.

  “Wasn’t finished,” I added.

  “I can’t wait,” Jack said, stopping and folding his arms.

  “She used to tell me she hated them but she kept eating them anyway.”

  “How does that figure here?” He turned back and was again heading toward the helicopter.

  “Sounded better in my head.”

  “Sometimes, things are better left unsaid,” BT replied.

  “I’m just saying he says he doesn’t like it and he’s still heading toward it, that’s all,” I pleaded my case.

  “Uh huh.” BT was following Jack.

  “Ah, I understand.” Kalandar had been deep in thought. “It is like when a bludgeon feasts on the soul of the yurendale.” Then he laughed, deep and rumbling.

  “Yeah, just like that. And somehow they think I’m the crazy one.” I jogged to catch up to the other two while Kalandar continued to bathe in the pool of mirth he had created.

  We got slower and more tactical as we approached, except for BT—pretty tough to be tactical while you’re decked out in purple like a giant grape.

  “Way too coincidental,” Jack said as he peered inside the machine.

  “Naw, this kind of shit happens all the time.” He looked at me disapprovingly. “Trip could have been foreshadowing,” I added weakly as Jack, confident that there were no nasty surprises waiting inside, got into the pilot’s seat. The helicopter had two rotors like the Chinook, but other than that shared trait, it was much sleeker and modern-looking in design. BT and I would fit comfortably inside—the big red beast still chuckling as he came down the roadway, not so much.