Devil At the Crossroads (Pt. 2)

“After the world's end there will come a spirit which will show its

misguided survivors the way home.”

“It will live in the land of unfurled dreams and still trapped daemons.”

“It will call out to each good soul in kind and in a voice only they will hear.”

“From the trees full of monsters, it will call out, and only the righteous shall answer.”

Her voice sounds further away now than she really is, but he spits in the dirt at his feet and frowns in the direction of the pale woman in brown. “I came to you for help, woman. Not riddles.”

“I am helping, you just have to have the eyes to see it, and the brain to put it all together. Do you?”

“Do I what? Have eyes? A brain? Sure, and it's telling me to get the hell out of Dodge. What the hell is going on here?”

“Well, boy, you said you came here for help finding someone, and help is what I aim to give.” There's a smile creeping across her face and he can see it start in the center of her mouth and work its way out. It looks backwards, like the look you'd get if you asked someone who'd never seen a smile to try to make one on the fly. “I do know who you're looking for, and she's alive too.”

His eyes narrow and his mouth goes dry. Maybe Alex was right about this lead. “How the fuck do you know that?”

She laughs and it's the rattle of dried bones. Dried bones hanging in a morgue not touched for centuries, miles underground and forgotten. “Oh, when you get to be my age you know all sorts of thing son. Shame you won't ever make it that far.”

“And what does that mean? Are you threatening me?”

“Well, aren't you full of questions now.” Her smile is gone in an instant and suddenly she looks fierce and determined. A gust of wind blows against the asphalt, kicking dust into the air between them, and suddenly her face is inches from his. “And I ain't gonna answer 'em all, but I'll answer you three. I'm done playing around, so get to it.”

From far away she looked youngish, late thirties tops. Cropped bleach blonde hair under her hat like an 80's rock star. Now he can see that she's older, but that the age hides a beauty that must have been deep. There's a feeling he gets that twenty years ago she would've been a bombshell, but those numbers don't add up. The presence she puts off, the . . . aura, feels older. He takes a deep breath and tries his best to be nonplussed. “I need to know where Rita is.”

“She's on up in the jungles, round South Vermont way. Thought you knew that.”

“But I was just there!” He knows he sounds like a petulant child, but he can't help it. It's been six months since his sister disappeared and for the last two, since the agent from the old government contacted him, he's been up in the jungles of what was southern Vermont, searching for his sister, searching for any sign of the caravan she'd been leading through the jungles. He'd been outside of the ruins of Boston, trying to find a safe way to the remains of M.I.T. when the scout had found him and delivered the message. For almost a year, off and on, he'd been searching for a way to get to the old research facilities. One long and frustrating year that seemed to stretch on and on. He'd heard rumors and stories of a project that was being developed at the Institute when the bombs dropped. A reference here or there was all he had to go on but if such a thing could exist as what they hinted at, he have to find it. Even now he can't bring himself to even think more on it, for fear of jinxing the chances of the project's existence, but he has to know, as soon as he finds his sister.

The scout had found him, pouring over a pile of books in a tent off of an abandoned stretch of I-93, and he'd been so distracted that he'd thrown the envelope to the side, not reading it until three days later, when it occurred to him that it might involve Rita. He knew she'd been working for what was left of the old government’s diplomatic corps for the last couple of years, but he hadn't seen her in at least three. Turned out she gotten a job as a guide through the jungles of Vermont and New Hampshire. Word had gotten round that she'd grown up there and someone needed to help the diplomatic envoy get through, so she took the job.

“Is she . . .” He stops mid sentence when he realizes he's already been told she's alive. “Safe?”

“Ha! Depends on what you mean by safe! Boy, I done told you she way alive, and that's all I'm giving you on that front. Will say I wouldn’t dilly dally on finding her, was I you though.”

The letter had been short and concise and signed by the Mitchel Hernandez, the man who they liked to call the Vice President of the United States, though if there had ever been an election for this administration, Reese had never heard of it. Rita though, probably hadn't cared. Probably hadn't asked many questions either, and no doubt that had been a strong mark in her favor. She'd always been the great outdoors woman, slinking her way through the forests back in the days before the forests became jungles and a time when the only predators to worry about were game wardens, whereas he'd always been the bookish one, spending his time in research and more excited about a new academic paper being published than finding a new trail through the White Mountains. Damn if I don't know a lot about backpacking now though.

Whether Rita asked any questions or not though, the letter likely would have answered them for her, as they'd answered them for him. She'd been hired to lead a crew north from the compounds in Virginia where the government survivors were holed up in, on through to some new “kingdom” up in Maine. Evidently someone had thought it would be easier to skirt way around the cities than to go direct. Nothing but good advice honestly as the whole area north of New York City was anyone's guess. Lawless and dangerous were words that couldn't scratch the surface, and the very fact that they were trying marked the mission as something special. Evidently some firebrand up there by the name of Kahl had started carving out a nice little potentate in the state mostly untouched by nuclear fire, calling it, quite unimaginatively enough, Kahlandia. Not the first or the only person to throw together a group of followers and try to start a country in the remains of the big empty U. S. of A., but evidently one which the federals would like to speak with, and soon.

When it had turned out that government scouts, searching for all of four months, couldn't find a trace of the convoy or his sister, they'd come to him, obviously desperate for help any way they could find it. And willing to pay out the ears for it.

It takes everything he has not to shake her like a dog for answers. “Fine. I get one more question then, right?”

“Ha, only if you hurry boy. I don't have all night.” Another deathly chuckle and a long pause.

“So, how do I find her?”

“You look!” In a flash she's back at her original distance and he's disoriented. That vague uninterested look has returned to her face but she speaks once more. “The second half of that prophecy will lead you to her, boy, nothing else but. But be careful though, them Green Mountain Boys don't play around!”

And she's gone. The space where she stood is empty and there are no footprints, though he'd been looking at her the whole time, focusing on her face for any clue she might give. Hoping against hope that she wasn't just some insane wanderer of the Capital wastes. Hoping that finding his sister would be as simple as asking for help. He's lost in thought, still standing in place when he notices a slight tremor in his hand and thunder claps in the distance. Fat, wet raindrops begin to fall from the sky. It'll be a long walk back and he has too much to think about on the way.