“So we shouldn’t eat it?” said James, looking at the liver with worry on his face.
“No, it’s fine. Polar bear liver happens to have much more vitamin A than liver from a deer or cow. But too much of it, and you might get some symptoms. It’s so much richer in nutrients than muscle meat that we can all split it up. It’ll give us all some extra strength.”
“I’ll start cooking it, then,” said James.
He showed the liver to Max, who nodded his approval. “Your mom’s right, you know,” he said. “About the liver. It’s much more nutrient dense than muscle meat.”
“Just because of the vitamin A?”
“Well, there’s more than that. It has concentrations of all the fat-soluble vitamins, and there are even some nutrients in there that have never been isolated and identified by scientists. And I doubt that’ll ever happen. Not any time soon, anyway, considering the state humanity is currently in.”
James nodded, and started sharpening a stick that he could cook the liver on.
Soon enough, the fire was roaring, and James helped Max move his mother closer to the fire so that she could get warm.
The sun was looking low in the sky, even though it was only early afternoon. The sun would set fairly soon, and it was looking like it was going to be a cold night.
James worked on the liver, holding the spit just above the flames.
“I can’t believe how good that smells,” said Sadie, who didn’t take her eyes off the liver even for a second.
“I thought you hated liver,” said James.
“I thought so too,” said Sadie. “But I have a feeling I’d be willing to eat just about any organ that deer had right now.”
“That’s what hunger will do to you,” said Max.
Suddenly, a strange look swept across Max’s face.
“What is it, Max?” said Sadie.
“Where’s Mandy?”
They all looked around.
Mandy was nowhere to be seen.
They’d all been so busy working on their projects that they hadn’t noticed that Mandy hadn’t been there for some time.
“She went to get water, right?” said Sadie.
“But that was at least an hour ago,” said James.
“Maybe she had to walk a ways,” said Sadie.
Max didn’t say anything. His hand was already reaching for his Glock.
23
John hadn’t yet been able to shake that feeling. The feeling that something had changed inside him. He couldn’t shake the images of Tom’s distorted body, bleeding. He couldn’t get rid of the memory. He felt hollow. Different. Not in a good way.
“I can’t keep carrying this,” said John, gesturing to Dale’s pack. “Not if we want to get out of here fast.”
“Let me help you,” said Cynthia, starting to open the pack, pulling gear and food out and throwing it down on the ground. “We’ll divide it up as best we can.”
“We’re going to have to leave a lot behind,” said John. “Our packs are already mostly full.”
“It’s not a bad problem to have,” said Cynthia. “I’d rather have too much gear than too little.”
“Same,” said John.
He was still feeling shaken from what he’d had to do. Somehow, killing Tom like that had been harder for him than the others he’d killed. He doubted he’d ever forget Tom’s screams, or the look on his face when he’d said, “Please.”
“Maybe we don’t need these,” said Cynthia, gesturing to some of the contents of her own pack. She pointed to what were essentially very thin pads, used as mattresses. “These are just a luxury, right? I can’t believe we’ve been carrying these around. I can sleep on the ground, no matter how rough.”
“It’s getting colder,” said John. “And these might just keep us from freezing to death in the winter.”
“That’s if we’re staying here for the winter,” said Cynthia. “What if we end up heading south? It’ll be easier to survive, just like we’d talked about.”
“Nothing’s certain,” said John. “Look how much trouble we’ve had so far, just covering short distances. It’s likely we wouldn’t be able to get very far south before the winter. Who knows what we’ll come up against. Plus, it’s a hell of a walk just as it is.”
Cynthia nodded. “Good point.”
In the end, they had to leave a ton behind. They kept most of the food, and they had to leave a lot of guns behind. They opted for ammunition over carrying the extra guns taken from the dead men who’d been torturing Tom.
“Hey,” said Cynthia, her voice sounding strange. “Where’s Kiki?”
“Kiki?”
Then it hit John. He hadn’t seen Kiki since…
He didn’t know when. Before the whole thing with Tom being tortured.
“Shit,” muttered John, looking around.
“Kiki!” called out Cynthia.
John called out too, but there was no Kiki. She didn’t come running along. She didn’t bark, the way Dale had trained her to do when she was called.
Cynthia gave a loud whistle, using both her hands.
But still no Kiki.
“You think she got scared off? By the violence? The shooting?”
John shook his head. “She isn’t a normal dog. Remember, she’s Dale’s dog. The fearless Dale…”
“And look where it got him.”
“My point exactly.”
“What do you think happened to Kiki then, if she wasn’t scared?”
“She showed she was loyal to us after Dale’s death. If she could have helped, she would have.”
“Something must have happened to her before Tom ran to the building.”
John thought for a moment. “Whatever happened,” he said, “it doesn’t bode well for us.”
“For us? What about Kiki? Aren’t you worried about her?”
“She’s a dog,” said John. “Yeah, it’d be a shame if something happened to her… but frankly I’m much more worried about us. The people from the compound are already hunting us. Once they see what we did to those four guys… Well, we’re going to be in a hell of a lot more trouble than we were.”
“How will they know it was us?”
“It’s a pretty safe assumption.”
John had his gun out, and he kept his eyes moving, scanning the forest around them constantly for any signs of movement.
“What I’m worried about,” said John, speaking quietly, “is that Kiki’s disappearance means we’re much closer to trouble than we’d thought.”
“You keep watch. I’ll get this last stuff packed into the bags.”
Many of their belongings were still scattered on the ground. The bags were both still open. They weren’t in any position to leave just yet.
John could hear Cynthia at work.
“Hurry up,” he said, still scanning the forest. He was crouched down to make himself less of a target, and to give himself more stability if he needed to fire. His instincts had him going right for his handgun, which was what he held now. But he knew that it wasn’t the ideal weapon for such a situation. Without taking his eyes off the forest, he unslung his rifle from his back and got that into his hands instead, settling the handgun back into its holster.
The rifle didn’t feel quite right in his hands. He and Cynthia had spent most of their target practice with handguns. He wasn’t yet comfortable with anything bigger than a handgun. But he hoped that the gun’s longer range would make up for his own inexperience, and still provide an advantage over the handgun.
“OK,” said Cynthia. “I got it. I wasn’t sure about packing the…”
“Forget it,” said John. “We’ve got to move. No more time to worry about what we’re taking.”