Our next story, which is set in the same milieu as Boneshaker, is an alternate reality in which the American Civil War has stretched on for nearly two decades and which has seen the development of all manner of incredible steampunk machinery. In the novel, an inventor’s ill-conceived scheme to tunnel for gold beneath Seattle ends up releasing a toxic gas that turns much of the city’s population into shambling corpses called “rotters.”
If just the thought of “steampunk plus zombies” has you quivering with joy, this next story should be right up your alley. The author says, “I’d been reading a lot about the Civil War, and something that nabbed my attention was how boys were occasionally sent off to fight while still horribly young. Thirteen was fairly common, and boys as young as eleven are rumored to have fought. I wanted to tell a story about one of these kids ‘all grown up’ and trying to move on-moving west, to make a life for himself away from the front lines. I thought such a boy might make an excellent character to dump into the creeping danger of a zombie story because he wouldn’t necessarily face the steep learning curve that ordinarily whittles down a survival party; his instincts and battle experience would give him an edge.”
Walter McMullin puttered through the afternoon sky east of Oneida in his tiny dirigible. According to his calculations, he was somewhere toward the north end of Texas, nearing the Mexican territory west of the Republic; and any minute now he’d be soaring over the Goodnight-Loving trail.
He looked forward to seeing that trail.
Longest cattle drive on the continent, or that’s what he’d heard-and it’d make for a fine change of scenery. West, west, and farther west across the Native turf on the far side of the big river he’d come, and his eyes were bored from it. Oklahoma, Texas, North Mexico next door…it all looked pretty much the same from the air. Like a pie crust, rolled out flat and overbaked. Same color, same texture. Same unending scorch marks, the seasonal scars of dried-out gullies and the splits and cracks of a ground fractured by the heat.
So cows-rows upon rows of lowing, shuffling cows, hustling their way to slaughter in Utah-would be real entertainment.
He adjusted his goggles, moving them from one creased position on his face to another, half an inch aside and only marginally more comfortable. He looked down at his gauges, using the back of one gloved hand to wipe away the ever-accumulating grime.
“Hydrogen’s low,” he mumbled to himself.
There was nobody else to mumble to. His one-man flyer wouldn’t have held another warm body bigger than a small dog, and dogs made Walter sneeze. So he flew it alone, like most of the other fellows who ran the Express line, moving the mail from east to west in these hopping, skipping, jumping increments.
This leg of the trip he was piloting a single-seater called the Majestic, one could only presume as a matter of irony. The small airship was hardly more complex or majestic than a penny farthing strapped to a balloon, but Walter didn’t mind. Next stop was Reluctance, where he’d pick up something different-something full of gas and ready to fly another leg.
Reluctance was technically a set of mobile gas docks, same as Walter would find on the rest of his route. But truth be told, it was almost a town. Sometimes the stations put down roots, for whatever reason.
And Reluctance had roots.
Walter was glad for it. He’d been riding since dawn and he liked the idea of a nap, down in the basement of the Express offices where the flyers sometimes stole a few hours of rest. He’d like a bed, but he’d settle for a cot and he wouldn’t complain about a hammock, because Walter wasn’t the complaining kind. Not anymore.
Keeping one eye on the unending sprawl of blonde dirt below in case of cows, Walter reached under the control panel and dug out a pouch of tobacco and tissue-thin papers. He rolled himself a cigarette, fiddled with the controls, and sat back to light it and smoke even though he damn well knew he wasn’t supposed to.
His knee gave an old man’s pop when he stretched it, but it wasn’t so loud as the clatter his foot made when he lifted it up to rest on the Majestic’s console. The foot was a piece of machinery, strapped to the stump starting at his knee.
More sophisticated than a peg leg and slightly more natural-looking than a vacant space where a foot ought to be, the mechanical limb had been paid for by the Union army upon his discharge. It was heavy and slow and none too pretty, but it was better than nothing. Even when it pulled on its straps until he thought his knee would pop off like a jar lid, and even when the heft of it left bruises around the buckles that held it in place.
Besides, that was one of the perks of flying for the Dirigible Express Post Service: not a lot of walking required.
Everybody knew how dangerous it was, flying over Native turf and through unincorporated stretches-with no people, no water, no help coming if a ship went cripple or, God forbid, caught a spark. A graze of lightning would send a hydrogen ship home to Jesus in the space of a gasp; or a stray bullet might do the same, should a pirate get the urge to see what the post was moving.
That’s why they only hired fellows like Walter. Orphans. Boys with no family to mourn them, no wives to leave widows and no children to leave fatherless. Walter was a prize so far as the Union Post-and absolutely nobody else-was concerned. Still a teenager, just barely; no family to speak of; and a veteran to boot. The post wanted boys like him, who knew precisely how bad their lot could get-and who came with a bit of perspective. It wanted boys who could think under pressure, or at the very least, have the good grace to face death without hysterics.
Boys like Walter McMullin had faced death with serious, pants-shitting hysterics, and more than once. But after five years drumming, and marching, and shooting, and slogging through mud with a face full of blood and a handful of Stanley’s hair or maybe a piece of his uniform still clutched like he could save his big brother or save himself or save anybody…he’d gotten the worst of the screaming out of his system.
With this in mind, the Express route was practically a lazy retirement. It beat the hell out of the army, that was for damn sure; or so Walter mused as he reclined inside the narrow dirigible cab, sucking on the end of his sizzling cigarette.
Nobody shot at him very often, nobody hardly ever yelled at him, and his clothes were usually dry. All he had to do was stay awake all day and stay on time. Keep the ground a fair measure below. Keep his temporary ship from being struck by lightning or wrestled to the ground by a tornado.
Not a bad job at all.
Something large down below caught his eye. He sat up, holding the cigarette lightly between his lips. He sagged, disappointed, then perked again and took hold of the levers that moved his steering flaps.
He wanted to see that one more time. Even though it wasn’t much to see.
One lone cow, and it’d been off its feet for a bit. He could tell, even from his elevated vantage point, that the beast was dead and beginning to droop. Its skin hung across its bones like laundry on a line.
Of course that happened out on the trail. Every now and again.
But a quick sweep of the vista showed him three more meaty corpses blistering and popping on the pie-crust plain.
He said, “Huh.” Because he could see a few more, dotting the land to the north, and to the south a little bit too. If he could get a higher view, he imagined there might be enough scattered bodies to sketch the Goodnight-Loving, pointing a ghastly arrow all the way to Salt Lake City. It looked strange and sad. It looked like the aftermath of something.
He did not think of any battlefields in east Virginia.
He did not think of Stanley, lying in a ditch behind a broken, folded fence.