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  Chapter One

  Having scattered themselves to every quarter of what used to be the United States of America, the survivors of the Aquila, in their two groups, were gradually drawing closer to each other.

  Jim, Heather, Carrie, Kyle and Sly had seen the amended billboard for the Acme Coyote Trap, a little way north of the Bolinas turnoff. They saw it as potential encouragement for their unguessable future.

  At the moment that the other group—Nanci Simms, Jeff Thomas and the McGill family stopped to stare at the same billboard, they were less than fifty miles apart.

  The highway had been completely blocked by a massive landslide at Tomales, sending Jim and his group on a detour to the east, toward Petaluma. But they were able to cut north again before they'd lost too much time and distance. They were traveling in two four-bys, with Jim driving one and Carrie the other.

  "Must've been a big quake," observed Kyle.

  Carrie was at the wheel and she nodded. "Sure must. That crack across the highway was a good fifty feet wide in places."

  "Was it the San Andreas?"

  "That went macro at the end of the nineties, didn't it? Lot of folks chilled in San Francisco and around."

  Sly had been dozing in the back and he came awake with a start. "Where are me?"

  "We're just moving on to that place where we might find us some new friends," replied Carrie.

  He grinned, the smile lighting up his entire face. "Sly looked forward to that. Dad'll be there, won't he?"

  Kyle turned around to face the boy. "No. Remember that Steve's gone to a special place. He can see and hear you all the time. But you can't see him."

  "Not as never and ever, amen?"

  "No. But there should be some more children in Aurora, Sly." He turned back to raise his eyebrows at Carrie. "If we ever get there," he said.

  THE NEXT MORNING, after a late start, they carried on through a torrential storm. The wipers worked overtime, but visibility dropped to less than twenty yards. With dumped and wrecked cars everywhere, it became impossible to drive much above ten miles per hour. Even then, Jim nearly crashed into a burned-out Army half-track that had been left slewed halfway across the median line.

  There was another fierce shower a little later, heralded by strong gusts of westerly wind.

  They were going up a steep incline when Carrie encountered more evidence of recent quake activity. Half the highway had slipped yards to the right, and she suddenly found to her dismay that the rear end of their truck was going a whole lot faster than the front end. It took all of her skill behind the wheel to correct the skid and bring everything back on line.

  "That was fun," she said once her breathing had slowed a little. She and the others were silent most of the day, anxiously intent on the road and weather conditions.

  They didn't wait until nightfall to look for a secure campsite. They'd taken an unmarked cutoff that wound toward the coast, down a narrow lane with high banks of dirt. The quake had shifted some of it, but heavy rain had washed much of it away, leaving a layer of fine sand and orange mud that was less than a foot deep. Treacherous, but drivable with care.

  They passed a number of small cottages, every single one with broken windows and smashed doors. Most of them had tumbled roofs, opening up the rooms to the elements.

  Eventually, with the leaden surface of the evening Pacific visible beyond a slope of dead bracken, Jim Hilton spotted a larger house. It stood alone on a bluff, looking relatively undamaged by either the quake or by looters.

  "Spend the night there," he shouted, pointing toward the building and receiving a wave in response from Carrie at the wheel of the second truck.

  As they drew closer, he realized that the appearance had been deceptive.

  The high, gabled roof had lost most of its shingles, which lay around the sides of the house like a shower of fallen leaves. The attic windows on the landward side were mostly broken, though those that stared blankly out over the sea were salt-stained but still whole. Dark green shutters dangled from their shattered hinges over the first- and second-floor windows of the abandoned house, and the large double front door gaped open like a sucking, toothless mouth.

  "And whatever walked there, walked alone," said Kyle Lynch as they stood together at the front of the building.

  "Sure looks haunted," agreed Carrie. "Still, there might be some dry floors, and we can find plenty of wood to burn. Going to be cold tonight."

  "Ghosts," said Sly, shivering and hugging himself with a delighted grin. "Steve told me all 'bout ghosts and lampirons and stuff."

  "Lampirons?" Jim looked at his daughter, knowing that she was the best at interpreting the teenage boy's occasional linguistic oddities.

  "Don't know, Dad," Heather admitted, then asked Sly, "What's a lampiron?"

  "Me thinks it's a bad man that looks like a bat and drinks blood."

  Everyone got it at the same moment, chorusing together, "Vampire, Sly. A vampire."

  Silently they filtered into the building, Jim going first in case some threat awaited inside. The desolation inside made them look around in wonder. "Looks like it was empty before Earthblood came along," said Kyle.

  "Yeah. Stripped."

  There wasn't a drape or a carpet or a stick of furniture anywhere in the building.

  An ominous crack ran down the northern wall, so wide that it was possible to put four fingers deep into it. Kyle was a fan of horror novels and vids and he remarked how it reminded him of some real old story.

  "Great big house alongside a black lake, bottomless. Crazy lives in it, with his sister, who's dying. Think it was Vince Price played the madman. Decides he's buried his sister alive, and she comes back to life and they die together. The wall splits and the whole mess slides into the pool." He snapped his fingers. " 'Course. Stupid of me. It's Poe. 'The Fall of the House of Usher.' My memory's getting worse."

  "We going in?" asked Sly, who'd been ignoring the conversation about the melancholy house.

  "We are in," snapped Heather.

  "Oh, yeah. Me means we going t'eat?"

  "Good question." Jim grinned, ruffling the boy's hair. "Get a blaze started and then we can have some supper. You and Heather go and pick up as many of those wooden tiles off the roof as you can and carry them in here," he said, pointing to a wide carved fireplace.

  MUCH LATER THAT NIGHT, Jim leaned across and ran the tip of his tongue down the angle of Carrie's shoulder, tasting the salt of fresh sweat. He continued across the swelling top of her breast, finding the shrunken nipple and kissing it softly, laughing quietly with sheer pleasure as it roused at the touch of his lips, hardening against his tongue like a tiny animal.

  "Man your age should be sated and sleeping by now," she whispered.

  "Woman your age shouldn't rightly be copulating with a man my age. And me your commanding officer, as well, Second Navigator Princip."

  "Copulation!" Her hand slid between their bodies and grabbed at him, making him wince. "I think that I'd really much prefer it if you called it 'making love,' Captain Hilton." She gave him another squeeze, more gentle. "Sir."

  She gave her slender body generously. In return, Jim drew on all his experience and resources to repay her sexual kindness, taking great care to ensure that Carrie's pleasure came before his own urgent need. Finding restraint came much easier the second time around.

  He eased himself up on one elbow, disentangling the long strands of her blond hair from his face. He ran his tongue over his lips, savoring the taste of the young woman, then glanced at the chron on his wrist.

  "What's the time?"

  "Quarter past midnight."

  "Bright moon," she said, her voice slurred with sleep. "Pray the Lord my soul to keep."

  "These days it's up to you to keep your own soul, Carr
ie. Lord's turned his back on us."

  There was no answer, and he realized that she'd slipped away from her half-waking world.

  "Must take a leak," he said to the empty, silver-lit room, wriggling out of the double-quilted bag, trying not to disturb her again.

  The dusty wood-block floor was chilly to his bare feet, and Jim wished that he'd kept his socks on. The hall held an armory of angular shadows, and there was a heart-jumping fluttering from far above him, where a pigeon in the exposed rafters was shifting its position.

  Jim had pulled his shirt on and was padding toward the stairs, feeling for the balustrade and finding the large carved acanthus at its head.

  He picked his way slowly down to the first floor. There was a cool wind coming through one of the broken windows in the large room to his right.

  For a moment he paused on his way to the open front door, imagining that he'd heard the sound of movement somewhere from within that room.

  "Lampiron," he breathed, smiling at the memory.

  His smile disappeared as the sound was repeated, not a product of his imagination anymore.

  Jim Hilton clenched his teeth, bitterly angry with himself for leaving the Ruger Blackhawk Hunter up in the bedroom, alongside the sleeping woman.

  He froze there, halfway between the front entrance and the stairs, aware of a tall figure appearing, silhouetted in the doorway to the right.

  "Please don't try to do anything stupid," said the voice.

  Chapter Two

  "Someone's trying to flag us down," said Jeff.

  "I see him." Nanci tapped on the brake pedal of the four-by-four they'd stolen from the Hunters of the Sun, warning the two vehicles behind her that she was slowing down. In the jeep and the Phantasm were the McGill family—Henderson McGill, his first wife, Jeanne, and Paul, Jocelyn, Pamela and Sukie.

  "Do you think it's a trap?" Jeff asked.

  She didn't reply at first, but watched her mirror to make sure that Jeanne McGill, at the wheel of the Phantasm, had spotted the signal. "Doubt it. Road's wide open. Can't see any way there can be an ambush around here."

  "We stopping?"

  "Why not? Get that .38 cocked and ready for use, Jefferson. I'll pull up a little short. Get your window down and cover him."

  There was a cool evening breeze blowing in off the Pacific, less than five miles to their left. Wraiths of mist clung in the dips in the switchback blacktop. They hadn't been back on the coast highway for long after the detour where a bad quake had blocked their way.

  The man wore a plaid shirt and working jeans tucked into hiking boots. He held a brakeman's flag, waving it slowly across his body. Nanci had spotted an automatic of some sort tucked into the broad leather belt, and a hunting rifle was slung across his shoulders. His long dark hair was tied back from his ruddy face with a green bandanna.

  The four-by-four stopped twenty paces short of the stranger, and Nanci wound down her window. "Don't come any closer," she warned. "State your business from where you are."

  Jeff Thomas was ostentatiously showing his own handgun through his window.

  "Sure thing, lady. Glad to see folks taking some serious care of themselves. We seen some seriously stupid people passing this way."

  "Yeah. What do you want? Warning us of a roadblock?"

  He laughed, revealing a fine set of strong white teeth. "Hell, no! In a way it's the opposite. We got a community settled down near the beach. Every now and again one of us comes up here on the chance of seeing outlanders coming through."

  "You see many?" called Jeff. "Particularly, have you see any sign of—" He stopped dead as Nanci leaned across and casually laid a hand in his lap, gripping so hard that the words choked in his throat.

  His face turned gray, and sweat burst from his forehead at the pain.

  "Quiet, Jefferson," she warned him, holding a big smile for the benefit of the man with the flag. "Never, ever talk when you can keep your mouth shut."

  "Didn't hear you?" shouted the man, taking a couple of steps toward them but halting when Nanci waved a finger at him. "Sorry, didn't mean to. Listen, you folks'd be real welcome to come down and join us. There's some old huts and cottages and a few tents down there. Not like a real village. 'Newtown' is what we call it." He shrugged and grinned boyishly at her. "Not very original, is it? We got food and some fuel and we want decent people to think about joining us."

  "Why?" asked Henderson "Mac" McGill. He'd jumped down from the Phantasm and now stood alongside Nanci's truck with a SIG-Sauer P-230 in his hand. His son Paul had joined him, holding one of the Winchester Defender 1700 12-gauge shotguns.

  "You mean what's in it for you, mister?"

  "Yeah."

  "Safety in numbers. How many you got in your party? Around a dozen at the most. Time'll come there's no more gas to steal from isolated places. Then you got to settle down. Better amongst decent God-fearing people than some murderous rabble. Unless you all got somewhere better to go?"

  Nanci answered him. "We're just moving on. Lot of sense in what you say. How many in your community?"

  The man tucked the flag into the waistband of his pants. "Around thirty at the moment. Eight are little ones, under ten. Most are married couples."

  "How do you eat?" asked Paul McGill.

  There was a heartbeat's hesitation that only Nanci Simms noticed.

  "Fish is plentiful. We send out groups to scout the hills inland, and they bring back good things for us. And the Lord Jesus provides."

  "What d'you think, Nanci?" asked Mac. "Worth the risk of staying a night?"

  "Maybe. It's just that when I hear someone talking about the Good Lord providing, I tend to reach for my scattergun. Still, we can leave a guard on the vehicles, specially the gas. And keep our eyes wide open. We can try it." Then she raised her voice, speaking to the stranger. "Glad to visit with you, down in Newtown."

  "Hey, that's good! That's real good. Everyone'll be so happy to see so many strangers."

  IT WAS THE BEST TIME any of them had enjoyed since the beginning of Earthblood.

  Newtown was just as the flagman, whose name was Jed Harman, had described it. An easygoing assortment of old cottages and huts clung to the top of a steep cliff above a bleak and rocky beach. There were two good fires burning at the center of the community, and everyone came out to welcome the arrival of the group of strangers and their three vehicles.

  Despite Jeanne's warnings, both Sukie and Jocelyn disappeared with a group of other small children, whooping away into the gathering dusk.

  The rest of them were ushered into the biggest of the huts, where most of the adults pressed them for news of where they'd been and what they'd seen.

  When suppertime came, they were served a rich stew flavored with a mix of herbs and spices that rather dominated the taste of the meat. Jeanne licked her lips, turning to the young woman next to her.

  "What's in it?"

  "The stew?"

  "Yeah. Is it pork?"

  The woman nodded. "Right. That's what it is, Jeanne. Finest pork."

  After they'd eaten, Nanci managed to catch Mac's eye while they were sitting around the blazing fire, drinking some kind of coffee substitute flavored with a bottle of brandy that Jed Harman had produced with a flourish from his own cottage.

  "Got to do…do you have some sort of outhouse?" she asked the older woman next to her. The woman pointed toward the cliff. "That way. Find your way by your nose."

  "What if I go up the other way?" asked Nanci. "Beyond where we parked the vehicles?"

  "No!"

  "All right, all right."

  "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to snap. But we place a lot on keeping the whole of Newton clean and sweet. Anyone starts taking a dump in the wrong place, and we're off to hell in a hand basket. See what I mean, Nanci?"

  "Sure."

  "I could do with pumping ship, as well," said Mac, standing up and stretching.

  He and Nanci began to walk off together into the cool darkness beyond the fire. Three of the
Newton men also rose and began to follow them.

  But they had a slight lead, and Mac whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "What?"

  "Just an uneasy feeling. No more. Said they got a lot of fish. I haven't seen a boat around, and you couldn't do anything off those rocks at the bottom of the cliff."

  "Guess not. What are—"

  "Watch careful, Mac."

  The three villagers caught up to them, and they all walked amicably along together.

  Nanci had been ready for some kind of attack as she squatted among the dead brush, but nothing happened.

  "All right?" called Mac.

  "Sure. You all go ahead. Find my own way back. Can't miss the fire."

  She waited a couple of minutes longer, until she was sure that the three other men had returned with Mac. Then she pulled up her panties, fastened her trousers, and took the Heckler & Koch P-111 from its holster and began to move.

  She didn't head directly along the well-trodden trail, but skirted the outlying buildings toward the part of the community that the woman had seemed so keen for her to avoid.

  Someone by the fire had begun to sing with a sweet, clear voice the ancient ballad "The Wagoner's Lad." Nanci ghosted through the dry, dead bushes, the barrel of the gun probing at the air ahead of her like the tongue of a hunting rattler.

  "Now his wagons are loaded, and he's pulling away," the singer went on.

  The vehicles were to her right, safely parked and locked. Beyond them a narrow trail, forking off the main road into the community, was just visible in the half light of the cloud-masked moon. Nanci glanced behind her and chose the least-taken path.

  The wind was rising and the high tatters of cloud were moving quickly, bringing patches of darkness and then moments of brightness. Nanci sniffed, catching a smell and wrinkling her nose in distaste.

  She paused. The ground opened ahead of her in what might have been an old quarry or some kind of refuse pit. But it lay in deep shadow like a black lake.

  The song had ended behind her. Now there was an a cappella chant that she didn't recognize.

  Nanci took a deep breath. The short hairs at the nape of her neck were prickling, and every nerve was tense with the realization that something was grievously wrong.