So far he’d seen no signs of his pursuers. When he’d first started running, it had been like something out of a nightmare. Jeeps full of the dead had come roaring out of the breeding complex. The first two hours of the chase had been the roughest, ducking in and out of the trees, zigzagging his path, eluding both those chasing him and the normal patrols in the area. He hadn’t seen or heard a jeep or dead man in the past seven hours though, and he couldn’t force himself to go any farther at this point. He needed rest desperately.
Scott wiped the vomit from his lips and rolled over onto the ground, stretching out. The noise of a rifle chambering a bullet snapped him out of his thoughts.
A woman stood over him with the barrel of a .30-.06 aimed at his chest. She was covered in blood that wasn’t hers. Long red hair was matted to her face and shoulders by sweat, blood, and dirt. She appeared healthy and well fed, but every inch as tired as he felt.
“Hello?” Scott greeted her weakly.
“Are you a doctor?” she asked in a voice filled with both anger and deep sadness.
Scott’s mind raced. What the hell was he supposed to say? “I know a little,” he answered quickly, lying very still so that the woman didn’t feel threatened.
She took a step away from him. “On your feet. My husband and son are hurt. They need help.”
“Okay.” Scott pushed himself up, despite how much his whole body ached.
The woman led him about a fifth of a mile east. He knew instantly something wasn’t right, even before they entered her makeshift campsite. He could see a young boy gagged and tied to a tree, straining against the ropes; the body of a man lay stretched out nearby.
Scott wondered if the woman had kidnapped the child—until he saw the massive gunshot wound on the boy’s chest and began to realize just how much trouble he was in. He forced himself not to stare at it as it twisted under the ropes, tearing its flesh as it tried to get free.
Scott knelt down beside the man, who was alive, just barely.
“Can you help them?” the woman pleaded, the barrel of her rifle still aimed at Scott.
He doubted very much he could fool the woman into letting her guard down. She was too on edge. “Why did you gag the boy?” he asked, hoping to lead her mind back to Earth.
Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. It was clear she couldn’t rationalize her behavior without admitting her son was dead. “He… he was just gibbering. Saying horrible things. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Was he really your son?”
“Yes,” she answered, not bothering to correct the word “was.”
“And this is…?” Scott placed a hand on the man’s arm.
“Riley. He’s my husband, Riley.”
“He’s going to die just like your son did,” Scott said, staring down the madness in her eyes. “He’s lost too much blood. There’s nothing we can do for him out here.”
“Liar!” The woman’s finger tightened on the trigger as she shoved the barrel of her .30-.06 closer to Scott’s face.
“Whoa!” He raised his hands high in the air. “Careful there! I’m sorry, lady. I just call them as I see them.”
The woman hesitated, lowering the rifle’s barrel slightly. Scott grabbed for the weapon. Too bad for him, Hannah was faster.
12
Hannah smashed the butt of her rifle into the man’s face as he took a swipe for it. He fell backwards, cursing and bleeding from his nose. The things he’d said had cut through her illusions like a razor, exposing the truth: her son was dead and her husband was dying. She’d be damned if this filthy punk was going to take her dad’s rifle too.
She snapped the rifle’s butt back up against her shoulder and braced it. The weapon barked as the shot smashed open the skull of the thing which had once been her son.
The man cringed away, as if she were more dangerous than ever. He raised a bloody hand to stop her from hurting him. “Please.”
“What’s your name?” Hannah asked.
“Scott.” After a second, he added, “Ma’am, I don’t mean any disrespect, but your husband just quit breathing. I don’t suppose you’d be kind enough to shoot him too?”
“Riley!” Hannah cast her rifle aside and threw herself over her husband’s corpse.
Its eyes shot open.
“Watch it!” Scott pulled her off the body and shoved her aside as the dead man sat up and reached for his arm. Scott pulled a .45 from the corpse’s own holster and gave it a reason to lie down again. The shot seemed to echo in the air.
Hannah turned her face away from the gore, sobbing, though she had no more tears. Scott made no move to comfort her.
He popped the magazine out of the handgun and took stock of the number of rounds left, then snapped the magazine back inside the gun. He also sorted through a backpack, which appeared to have belonged to the child. Whoever this woman was, her family had been well supplied.
He opened a granola bar from the pack and tore into it, unable to control himself. Scott couldn’t remember the last time he’d had real food, and it tasted like heaven, stale or not. “Where are you from?” he mumbled through a full mouth.
Hannah ignored him.
Scott finished the granola bar in a second bite. “How have you managed to stay alive this long?”
“What does it matter?”
“Well for one thing, you have food. You’re well armed. Hell, I even saw some antibiotics in this pack. If you’re from some kind of settlement or shelter that survived, I’d sure as hell like to know about it.”
“Where are you from?” Hannah shot back.
“Trust me lady, you don’t want to know.” Scott snickered and ripped into another ration bar. “I’ve been locked up by the dead in a camp straight out of Hell.”
“A camp?” Hannah was stunned. “Why didn’t they kill you?”
“Where have you been, sister? How do you think the dead get their food these days? There aren’t enough of us left out there for them to just round up and slaughter for dinner anymore. They’re trying to breed us like cattle so that they’ll always have food.”
Hannah stared at him in horror.
“Yeah.” Scott nodded. “It’s all that and worse. I still want to know where you came from. You sure as hell weren’t in a camp.”
“My husband and child are dead.”
“I’m sorry.” Scott twisted the top off of a canteen and helped himself to some water. “Seen a lot of people die. One of my friends died just so that I could make it out of there. It looks like your husband died trying to take you to greener grass too. Better get used to it, people dying. That’s how things are with the dead ruling the world. Speaking of which…” Scott closed the canteen. “We need to get moving. Staying in a single spot for a while can be suicide. Who knows who or what heard those shots.”
13
Luke was anything but your typical engineer. Long black hair with spots of gray hung over his purple flannel shirt. He sat crouched on the knees of his worn blue jeans, fiddling with a homemade torpedo casing. He heard O’Neil enter his workshop, but made no move to stop fine-tuning his current project. “I’ll have two more live ones by tomorrow morning,” he said.
O’Neil sat on Luke’s unused workbench. “Why do you always work on the floor?”
Luke smiled. “The freedom,” he answered simply. “It helps me think.”
O’Neil grunted. “Whatever works, I suppose. As long as you don’t blow a hole in the bottom of the ship.”
“You didn’t come here to talk about my work habits, Mr. O’Neil. What’s up?”
“The captain’s planning to raid a port in South Carolina tomorrow night. I’ve got the usual crew ready, and I’ll be in command of the operation. I thought I’d stop by and see if you’d come up with anything new.”