Forged From Ash (17 page)

The Half Breed started to whine like the wounded animal it was. However, the longer it cried out, the more its voice grew stronger and hungrier. Rico responded with a voice of his own, but allowed his gun to talk for him. The Sig barked several times, bucking against his palm to spit its rounds into the Half Breed at close range. He kept firing while walking forward. Although he wasn’t as well-versed in using the gauntlet in his left hand, he was more than able to form a row of short, edged knuckles along the top of the weapon like small teeth growing from its surface. As soon as he was close to the creature, he started pounding his left fist into its face. Bones snapped and were driven into softer matter below as Rico destroyed the portion of its head that he’d already shattered with gunfire. Before turning the wounded animal’s skull into paste, he reined himself in and took a few breaths.

The Half Breed was dead. No matter how many evolutions they went through, there was no mistaking the shuddering, grateful breaths marking the end of their agonizing existence. Rico waited for the thing to become still and then lifted what was left of its head up so he could get a closer look.

“This is new,” he said as he stared at the lower jaw that now hung loosely from the lower portion of its face. He tucked the Sig back into its holster under his arm so he could use both hands to hold the creature’s head and tilt it back and forth. At certain angles, he could see spots at the tips of its fangs that looked to have been rotted away. “Did you live long enough to get cavities?”

Still gripping one of the werewolf’s ears in his left hand, Rico dug into a pocket for a small flashlight. The narrow beam of light was more of a hindrance at first, but when he pointed it down into the Half Breed’s throat instead of right where he wanted to look, the glare became less of a problem. Most of the fangs toward the front of the Half Breed’s mouth were chipped and cracked open at the tips. The longest ones were split the widest, and some of the blood that had been smeared onto them was being soaked up into the fangs through the cracks.

“Daniels is gonna want to get a look at this,” Rico said as he flipped the flashlight around so he could use it to knock out a few of the teeth. Pausing, he grunted, “Eh, to hell with it. More is always better.” He then let go of the Half Breed’s ear so he could form one single bladed edge along the side of his gantlet that effectively turned his hand into a hacksaw.

After he’d gotten what he was after, Rico took his souvenir back into the tattoo shop where some bottles of isopropyl alcohol and a few lighters were waiting next to a pile of black and gray t-shirts. Rico picked up one of the shirts and held it so he could get a look at the design on the front. The phrase “Never Too Tatted” was scrawled in jagged lettering above a mascot that could have been perfectly at home on the cover of any Iron Maiden album. The endearingly gruesome character grinned while several oversized needles drilled into its arms, chest and legs.

“Niiiice,” Rico said as he found two of the largest shirts. One of them was used to wrap up the grisly cargo he’d brought from next door, and the other was draped over his shoulder. The rest of the shirts were doused in alcohol and tossed through the hole in the wall.

After soaking another t-shirt, Rico lit it and threw the flaming rag on top of the rest. He stayed just long enough to watch the flames spread and then left through the front door. Haley was outside, standing amid a pile of old gym bags with a shotgun propped over one shoulder.

“Might wanna get farther away from here,” Rico warned.

“Are there more of those things around?” she asked while bringing the shotgun down into a two-handed grip.

“I don’t think so, but the smell of that smoke will be enough to put a skunk onto its ass. Nice t-shirts by the way.”

When he started walking through the parking lot, Haley placed the shotgun on top of one of the bags, scooped them up and hurried to follow. “What’s that?” she asked while pointing at the bundle wrapped in a t-shirt that hung from Rico’s hand.

“You don’t wanna know,” he told her.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to find a phone that works. You know where I should start looking?”

“There’s one back there,” she told him.

Rico stopped and turned to face the strip mall. Flames could be seen behind the shattered windows of the diner to create a flickering display inside. It was his experience that a lot more fuel was needed to burn a Half Breed den to the ground. Most of the time, they were located inside caves or pits in the dirt which weren’t exactly fire hazards. Now that Half Breeds also had their choice of buildings, they tended to cover the floors and walls with anything ranging from dirt and mud to blood and excrement. Although those didn’t burn very easily either, the smoke created by any good-sized blaze would suffocate a werewolf just like it would a human. At the first sign of a fire in their home, Half Breeds tended to bolt and find somewhere else to lay their heads. Since none had emerged from the diner yet, Rico could assume the place was clear.

“Guess I should have asked about the phone before I torched the place,” he said.

“No,” Haley quickly told him. “Not there. There!” She pointed to one of the other stores in the strip mall; the one at the end on the opposite side of the tattoo shop.

Rico couldn’t see much apart from a few narrow doors and some windows that were completely blocked by faded paper and cardboard. The only legible sign to be found was a little square advertising hours of operation from the days when the place used to be open for business. “You sure there’s a phone in there?” he asked.

“Yes. We used it all the time. Not that there was a lot of people to call, but the phone still worked. The guy who ran that place kept everything locked up real tight, even before the packs started running through here.”

 Now that she was stringing more words together, Rico could detect a drawl in her voice that wasn’t as syrupy as a Georgia accent and less twangy than one from Texas. It was as distinctly West Virginian as the tree-covered mountains to the east. “I’ll give it a look.” He started walking back toward the strip mall when he heard her once more.

“You hungry?”

“Just about every exit on the highway has a sign for Biscuit World. I don’t suppose any of those are still up and running?”

“No,” she replied. “But I can scrape up something.”

“Don’t bother. Just go find somewhere safe for the night.”

“But…there ain’t anyone left. I’d just be fending for myself.”

“Join the club,” Rico grunted.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Iowa

F
ort Dodge was like many other towns across the country or around the globe. A few years ago, it had been home to some and was able to stand on its own well enough to earn its space on the map. When the Full Bloods howled loudly enough to be heard across the world and the packs started to run, it became a shell of what it once was. Mailboxes, bike racks, light posts, street signs and anything else left in the open were torn down or swept away by rampaging beasts. Such things weren’t exactly crucial to survival, but they gave a place its identity and made it a functioning part of the larger world.

Without names, the streets were just paths of pitted cement.

In a short amount of time, the town looked like an incomplete project that was slapped together by a child who only wanted to knock it down.

Next to be hit were the larger structures. Buildings were scratched, windows shattered, bridges scraped down to their support beams, towers clawed until layer after layer was peeled away. But Fort Dodge didn’t have much by way of towers. It was a small town filled with survivors hardened by the coming of the unthinkable. Now, years after the world had been thrown to the wolves, this town would be hit once again.

As the sun was on its way down, bathing thick layers of clouds in a burning light, a flurry of paws slapped against the street. Claws sparked against specially treated sheet metal that had been laid down for that specific purpose. Seconds later, the sentries watching for those sparks from nearby rooftops activated sirens that had previously been used to warn of approaching tornados. The low wail rose and fell in a tone that was repeated and echoed throughout town. It wasn’t long before the werewolves surging in from the desolate surrounding land added their voices to the mix in a rising and falling howl as if to mock the humans.

One of those sentries was Jack Hendricks. Unlike many of the residents stranded in Fort Dodge, Jack stayed in town because he was too stubborn to leave. He’d grown up there and wasn’t about to abandon it in the hopes of finding somewhere slightly better to hide. Jack didn’t like hiding, which was why he’d organized the Fort Dodge Street Watch. His hand had been first to hit the button for the sirens, and his voice was the first to shout through the walkie talkie on a channel used by the Street Watch central listening post.

“We got a pack tearing through from the east,” Jack said. “Looks like a small one, but they’re moving fast.”

Another voice chimed in on the same frequency. Jack didn’t recognize it. “I see some sparks along the river to the north. Lots of sparks!”

“I want all watch posts to report in,” said a voice that Jack recognized immediately. It came from Street Watch Captain Carly Sprigh. She was doing a good job of keeping her calm, but Jack could hear her resolve straining at the seams.

“Still the one pack here,” Jack said. “Already moving through.”

“There’s more coming from the north,” a scout near the river said. “So many of them. Jesus!”

“None here,” reported a scout from one of the posts in the most populated residential area. Since many families, including Jack’s, were huddled there he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Where are the gunners?” Carly asked.

All five gunnery teams responded in clipped tones with a minimum of syllables to report that they were in position. Those who volunteered for gunnery duty were mostly ex-military and members of Fort Dodge’s police force. Some were active military on loan from the National Guard until they were needed elsewhere in the state.

“Fire as soon as you have a target in range,” Carly said.

Jack’s post was on the fifth floor of an office building that had been one of the first to be repurposed after the troubles started. Ironically enough, its main tenant had been a large insurance company. These days, high ground and open communication to accurate shooters were the best insurance anyone could have. He put his binoculars to his eyes and stared toward the residential section. So far, every house had followed procedure by switching off any lights when the sirens went off. They were supposed to get inside and cover their windows as well, but Jack couldn’t see well enough to know if that was being done. His interest was focused on a two-story house on a corner. From his vantage, he could only see the roof which he’d re-shingled with the help of his brother in-law a month before the world ended.

“Come on you bastards,” he whispered as he panned his lenses back and forth to study the streets of his neighborhood. “Keep running through. Ain’t nothing to see here.”

Fort Dodge hadn’t always been such a small town. Out of necessity, the residents had drawn in tighter around the city’s center and relocated to the most strategically viable locations available to them. Terminology like that had become commonplace since advisors from the Army and IRD were the ones to make the rounds and pass orders and instructions along to organizations like Fort Dodge’s Street Watch.

Every now and then, Jack would turn his attention to the street directly below his window. Treated sheet metal was placed down there as well, intended to spark like tinder against the scraping of any Half Breed’s claws. The simple idea belonged to a former bank manager in Des Moines, and word of it was still spreading. Since he didn’t see any sparks, Jack shifted his binoculars back to the part of town where his family sought refuge.

Gunshots cracked from one direction and then another. Jack knew which posts were doing the firing, but the houses he watched were still surrounded by calm. His stomach knotted as he waited for his next orders to arrive through the walkie.

“Hit the water towers,” Carly said.

Another innovation that had been passed around recently was the use of a mixture of ammonia and antifreeze to repel Half Breeds. Some cities had fire trucks equipped to spray the stuff wherever it was needed while smaller communities simply kept buckets of it at key intersections. Fort Dodge had half a dozen water towers scattered throughout their neighborhoods that were rigged to blow at the press of a button.

Jack picked up the handheld radio and asked, “Which towers?”

“All of them,” Carly replied with panic creeping into her voice. “Hit all of them. Do it now!”

The duffel bag near Jack’s feet contained everything he needed to do his job or survive on his own for up to three days. One of the most vital pieces of equipment was a small box with two sets of switches. The detonator wasn’t much to look at, but the emergency warranting its use made it feel heavy in his hand. He toggled the safety switches to the off position and hit the main switches below them. Moments later, a muffled explosion thumped through the air as the water tower under Jack’s control was obliterated by a Claymore mine left behind by one of the first Army advisors to roll through Iowa.

Almost immediately, howls filled the air in a disorganized cacophony. The haggard keening started down the street from where Jack was stationed. Soon, more Half Breeds cried out less than half a block away as the mixture’s stench hit their noses and ammonia burned their sinus passages. Before long, the wailing voices seemed to be coming from much closer.

“What in the hell?”

Jack twisted around so quickly to look toward the sound of those closest barks that he cracked his binoculars against the window pane. Every time he’d checked that direction before, he’d been looking for sparks. Even though he’d been too distracted to look directly at the sheet metal before checking his neighborhood again, he should have been able to see the flicker of claws against flint. The sheet metal was set down in strips all down the street. He still didn’t see any sparks, but he could see movement between two of the smaller buildings in that direction.