LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (18 page)

The memory shot into my brain like a torrent of electricity. My leg. The rebar.
 

I allowed my head to fall back to the earth, still trying to scan behind me for the source of the noise.
 

“I’ve seen worse.” It was a thick, gruff voice that sounded like it was attached to a gravel mixer. Amidst several heavy footfalls near my head, the speaker appeared, his grizzled head appearing upside down as I stared up. A thick gray beard that had never met a comb or a razor jutted out of a firm jaw underneath bright blue eyes. A camouflaged trucker’s cap topped a rangy mane of silver hair, and the dark green fatigues he wore over a thin frame seemed to hang too loosely.
 

“You’ve done worse to yourself shaving, you blind fart,” a woman’s voice interjected, not unkindly, from beyond the fire.

“Quiet, devil-woman,” the man said, pulling up a small log and sitting down next to my head. He cocked his head slowly and continued to stare. He pursed his lips as if thinking, then whistled suddenly.
 

A red blur shot from the other side of the fire and I was covered in slobber, Romeo’s thin body shaking with happiness and relief, his short tail moving at nearly the speed of sound.

“I thought I lost you,” I said quietly to the dog, leaning my face into his and feeling the vibrations of his body through his darting head.
 

The man grunted once, as if satisfied with something.
 

I looked up at the sky.

“What … what time is it?”

The man shrugged.
 

“After midnight.”

“My friends,” I managed, my throat raspy. “I had friends …”

“I heard gunshots back about eight hours ago or so. Lots of ‘em. Even some fifties. Coulda been them, I guess.”
 

I let my head drop back, still trying to wrap my mind around where I was and how I got here.
 

Eight hours.

Shit. They could be anywhere.
 

And fifty cals? If that had been near them, they had found some help. But I wasn’t naive enough to believe that anyone with a fifty caliber machine gun was necessarily altruistic. Especially around an attractive woman and a young girl. I needed to get back to them.
 

“Ask him, Ethan. You’re not gonna be satisfied ’till you do.”
 

“I’m getting to it, Rhi,” he replied, stressing her name as if in doing so, it contained some power over her. Some power to make her leave him alone.
 

“Doesn’t sound like it,” she answered quietly. The slide of a rifle being charged shot through the small space and I realized that she wasn’t knitting on the other side of the fire.
 

The man leaned forward and grabbed Romeo’s harness gently.
 

“Okay boy, come here,” he pulled the dog back, and Romeo licked his hand once before laying down closer to the fire. I suddenly noticed how cold I was and shivered involuntarily. The sun had fallen behind the mountains, and the night was far colder than it had been in the week preceding.
 

It wasn’t just the coming of winter, I realized. The volcanoes were having an instant effect on the temperature in the region, as the ash and smoke blotted out the sun’s rays.
 

A gentle breeze stirred the trees above us and a gentle dusting of ash fell to the ground, adding to the thick blanket around us, as the man spoke.

“I guess you can figure out, we found you like this, all messed up. You was passed out on the side of the river, half covered in water with that piece of pig iron stickin’ out of you.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the offending piece of metal, which was sitting near the crackling fire. A log burst in the flames and sent a shower of sparks into the crisp air.

“If it weren’t for your friend here, sittin’ next to you shiverin’ and whinin’ like he had lost his best gun, we wouldn’t have stopped. One more wounded asshole by the side of the river ain’t shit these days. But this one,” he gestured toward the woman across the fire, “She thought that if the dog liked you, mayhap you were the decent sort.” He grunted as if he thought her too kind-hearted.
 

The woman was now standing and moving across the shadows cast by the flames. Her wrinkled face was serious and she carried a small carbine that had just been oiled, and glistened in the fire light. Short gray hair framed a face that might have been friendly once. Dark pants and a thick black sweater covered a body that looked like it had lost a lot of weight in a short period of time. She carried a .9mm pistol on her hip.
 

“You had the bearing—and the weapons—of someone who mighta been in the military, so we thought we might take mercy on your ass. But we don’t brook no funny shit, and we can leave you out here in a blink. Hundreds of those things around here—the earthquake and the eruptions got ‘em all stirred up.” His hand strayed to a .357 strapped to his hip.

“So, how about you tell us a little bit about how you ended up here, and we’ll decide how we want to play this.”
 

He scratched Romeo’s ear absently, and I sighed. My vision was still clouded and I shivered again, looking into the fire as I considered my options.
 

“Okay,” I said finally. “But could I get a drink of water? This might take a bit.”

***

It took me a full thirty minutes to recount as much of the story as I could without getting into details. I glossed over the mental ward and stuck with the more conventional pieces, including the vaccine and the events in Seattle. But the minute I talked about the vaccine, their eyes got hard, as if shutting out the possibility of hope because it was too hard to be let down. I finished as my throat started to rasp in the dry heat of the fire. I blinked several times in the silence as I waited for a response.

“Shit, boy.” The man, Ethan, spat into the fire and looked into the darkness. “We’re supposed to believe that story? You musta hit your head something fierce on your way down the river.” He rose from his wooden perch, knuckling his temple with his left hand, as if working away a headache.
 

“If you think I believe that, I got a story I wanna tell you about this fish that got away yesterday.” He guffawed slightly at his own joke, and the woman, Rhi, interjected.

“Son, how the hell are we supposed to take you seriously with you spouting off crazy crap like that? We did you a solid pulling you from that water, and bandaging you up. And you come at us with this cockamamy bull flower?” She shook her head as if truly disappointed. I watched her as she walked closer, eyes questioning.

She was still on the hook. For some reason, she wanted to believe me. I took a chance.

“My leg. Take the wrapping off my leg. Remember, one of the side effects of the vaccine I mentioned—healing. Take the bandage off and look.” I looked up at her, watching her dubious eyes shift to my bloody leg and back to my face.

“Cut me some slack here,” I groaned plaintively. “If I were making up a story, couldn’t I just have easily picked something more mundane? I could have been a commuter trapped in a car, or a guy who escaped from his office building. Instead, I told you about a grand adventure across the continent, complete with a super-hero creating vaccine. I swear to you I am not making this up.” I paused, watching her face.
 

Behind her, Ian guffawed again, as if amused by the conversation. He shuffled forward with concern, however, as Rhi approached.
 

“If you try anything …” she warned, hand on pistol.
 

“Ma’am, I am far too tired to try anything right now. I can barely speak. Please. Just check.”
 

I wasn’t lying. My head felt like someone was beating an anvil against my temple, and I was shivering from head to toe.
 

They were right about one thing. Superpowers be damned, I would have died without their help.

I winced as the bandage came free from the calf, her calloused hands working quickly and avoiding the bloody areas with a judicious efficiency.
 

The cold air hit the wound and I bit my lower lip, hoping that there was evidence of healing. Hoping that my blood loss wouldn’t delay the process. Hoping that there was something to show.
 

She stared at the wound, pulling a small flashlight from a holster on her hip and shining it on the punctured area. Her eyes moved up and down the leg for nearly fifteen seconds before moving to my face, her look unreadable.

Ethan took a large swig from a flask that had emerged from his pocket, guessing at his wife’s conclusion.

“Sorry son. I think maybe you should start thinkin’ about how you might be able to survive out here with a gimp leg and no weapons. We can’t risk…” he cut off abruptly when her gaze shifted to him.

“Come look at this, Ethan. You saw how it was when we pulled him up. Looked like he’d lose the leg at least. Ragged and full of dirt as it was. That hole was three inches wide and ugly as sin. Look at this now.” She flashed the light on my leg, and the man rushed over, staring incredulously.

His gaze flickered between my leg and my face, until I gave up on the show and laid my head against the tree. My vision blurred briefly and I blinked away the multiple branches above me. The fire spit another shower of sparks into the air.

“That’s just not possible,” I heard the man’s voice from a distance, as if from the end of a tunnel. “No one can heal that quickly. I’ve seen more ugly wounds in my time than I have a stomach for, but this is the first time … ” He trailed off, biting his lower lip in thought.
 

His tone was almost regretful. As if he had been rooting for the alternative.

It was so nice to be adored.
 

“I think it’s—“ Her voice changed abruptly. “Hey, Mike. Stay with me. Hey, look here.”

The voice was concerned now, as if our relationship had changed in the last ten seconds. But it was too distant for me now. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The sparks were fusing them shut. The fire wouldn’t stop talking to me about sleep. I had to succumb.
 

The last thought I had before letting sleep take me was of Kate’s hair swaying over her shoulders as she gathered it into a ponytail.
 

I’m sure the smile on my faced freaked out the old folks. And I’m glad for it.

They pressed through the forest as quickly as they could, at first hugging the rising river as carefully as possible. But soon, rocks and fallen trees pushed them into an unwilling zigzag that herded them closer to the road. Kate had spotted at least twenty of the creatures that had made it deep enough into the woods to be a concern, but they hadn’t penetrated deep enough en masse to pose a significant danger.
 

Until the gunfire started, it looked like their flanking maneuver was going to work.

But as any good soldier knows, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
 

As they were passing a tangle of torn trees that had fallen in a complex web of branches and ash, it was the falling limbs that made them fall to the ground first. Assuming it was another tremor, they hit the ground instinctively. Then, the sound of automatic gunfire cracking in the distance reached their ears. A bullet whistled through the air near Kate as she hunched back down behind a thick fallen tree.

“What the hell?” she muttered.

“Who is that?” Ky asked, moving to peek over the tree. Kate’s hand grabbed her harness and pulled her back down.

“Stay put! They might not know we’re back here, and you’re in the line of fire!”
 

Another volley sprayed into the woods as they heard the sound of yelling coming from the road. A large engine revved loudly and the gunfire intensified.
 

Bullets flared into the surrounding woods and slammed into the tree trunk behind them, shredding the wood and thinning their only protection.

“Shit,” Kate said, closing her eyes and realizing they had to shout out or risk getting killed in a volley of automatic fire.

“How do we know if they’re … I don’t know … good or okay or not rapists and murderers?”
 

“We don’t,” Kate began, but another burst of bullets tore into the tree, spitting wood chips into the air around them. “But either we let them know we’re out here, or we’re going to lose this cover and be shit out of luck.” She nodded her head forward, signaling the rapid increase in the river level, which had been following them steadily. It was within twenty feet of them now, having risen thirty or so feet in the last ten minutes.
 

“Okay,” said Ky, her tone doubtful but her eyes intent on the encroaching water.
 

There was no good option. The odds of this armed group being friendly were virtually nil. The odds that they weren’t rapists and murderers seemed only slightly better. The most they could hope for was a group that would let them go their way—with our without their weapons. While they had some … advantages … they wouldn’t last long without protection. Even if they could circle around to their packs, these woods were thick with zeds.
 

Kate’s hand tightened on her rifle and she pointed it up and away, firing toward the river so as not to send the wrong message.
 

Three rounds left the barrel and almost immediately voices rose in surprise and another engine revved. The gunfire intensified briefly around their position until a single voice silenced the shooters. The same voice, now amplified by a megaphone, cast out into the woods.

“If you want to make it out of those woods alive, you can come out right now, hands up and away from weapons, and head toward the road. We have fifty guns here, and you have about three minutes. Make your decision.” Gunfire intensified again, this time pointed away, toward what must now be the rear ranks of the large herd.