Wayward Pines: Nomad (Kindle Worlds Novella) (5 page)

He went even faster, dodging limbs and branches. The sun was already dipping below the horizon. It wouldn’t be much longer now before he lost the sunlight completely. Vaulting over a fallen tree, he almost twisted his ankle but managed to stay upright and kept pushing forward.

Beth’s screaming had changed into crying. Begging the monsters to let her go. It was useless on her part, and Tobias suspected she knew as much, but she didn’t seem to care. She knew what the abbies planned to do with her once they returned to their den, or nest, or whatever the fuck it was they called home.

The trees opened up ahead of him and he saw them there in a clearing. Four abbies and Beth. Two of them were dragging her, the others keeping pace beside them. It was now or never.

Tobias skidded to a stop. Crouched down, held the rifle up, settled in behind the scope. The distance was maybe 300 yards. More than feasible under the circumstances. Except the abbies were moving quickly.

Beth was struggling against the two dragging her. The sunlight was almost gone.

Tobias took in a breath. Let it out. Took in another breath. Put his finger to the trigger. Let out the breath. Squeezed.

The Winchester kicked against his shoulder and the ground just beside the cluster of abbies coughed up dirt. Damn it.

Tobias turned the bolt handle up, jerked it back. The spent cartridge spat out and clattered to the grass. He shoved the bolt forward, locked it down, took aim again.

The four abbies had paused momentarily to look back the way the gunshot had come. In the middle of them was Beth, or what was left of Beth, her clothes torn to pieces, blood oozing from her wounds.

He settled the crosshairs right on her head. Right on the spot between her eyes. She seemed to know it, too, staring back toward the trees as if she could see him.

In his head, he heard Carl’s voice.
If not for her, then for our…for the baby
.

He tilted the rifle down just a bit and squeezed the trigger. The Winchester kicked against his shoulder again and the spot in Beth’s belly instantly opened up with red.

She cried out, her body jerking, and the two abbies holding her let go. She slumped to the ground onto her knees. Holding her bleeding belly.

He ejected the spent shell, jacked a new cartridge into the chamber, locked down the bolt. Stared back through the scope at Beth staring back at him.

She closed her eyes, nodded once, and he squeezed the trigger again.

Her head snapped back a half-second after the Winchester kicked against his shoulder and the report echoed across the clearing.

The four abbies, first confused by the gunfire, suddenly went wild. They started jumping around the dead body, screaming and screeching their outrage.

Tobias felt in his pocket for the other rounds he had brought. Three more. Those plus the rounds still in the rifle might be enough to finish the rest of these abbies if need be. Assuming they didn’t charge at him all at once. Assuming there weren’t more on the other side of the clearing, just waiting to join the swarm. His best bet, he knew, was to make a break for it while he still could.

Standing up, he stared once more into the clearing, at Beth dead and bleeding on the ground, at the four abbies circling her body, and turned away.

Carl stood directly behind him. In his hand was a pistol.

Tobias thought,
Shit
, and began to raise his rifle up in defense.

But Carl lowered the pistol to his side. He nodded his head once, just like Beth. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“We need to leave.”

“No. You go. I…I’m going to stay.” He lifted his other hand, showing Tobias what was there. “Go,” Carl whispered. Tears were still in his eyes. “Just…go.”

In the clearing behind Tobias, the tone of the abbies’ screams and screeches had changed. He glanced over his shoulder and saw them coming now, charging for their location.

Tobias didn’t say another word. He stepped past Carl and started running. He only glanced back after a couple seconds, moving backward, watching Carl walk out through the trees into the clearing.

Carl fired the pistol at the approaching abbies, but the shots were wild and none of the creatures went down. That didn’t matter, though, because what Carl had in his other hand was what would do the trick.

Tossing the empty pistol aside, Carl pulled the pins from the two grenades, one after the other. Still walking forward, slowly, as the abbies charged at him. Twenty yards away. Fifteen yards. Ten yards. Five.

Tobias turned away at the last moment. The blast was deafening. And then…silence.

Still not looking back, Tobias shouldered the Winchester and kept moving forward.

No lanterns were still lit inside the shelter. If Tobias wanted to descend the ladder and venture down the tunnel to retrieve his things, he would be doing so in complete darkness.

The stink wafting up from down below was almost too much to bear. If he waited until morning, the stink would become a stench, and there was no telling just how much it would soak into his stuff.

The night had come on fast and strong. The sky was clear, and above the trees the stars sparkled in the void. An owl hooted somewhere close by. Crickets chirped.

Tobias shouldered the Winchester, turned and placed his foot on the top rung of the ladder. Waited a beat, and then made his descent.

He took short strides. More of a shuffle than anything else. He had the rifle back in his hands, aimed at the ground. If anything moved, he would shoot it.

Past the dead abbies, down the short tunnel, the darkness thickened. Fortunately the space wasn’t too large.

He started toward the right, where Carl had been going through his backpack.

His imagination told him he wasn’t alone in the dark. That one of the abbies wasn’t completely dead. That another abby had stolen down here while he was gone and was waiting in the corner to make its move.

Shuffling forward, leaning down, he kept going until he found the backpack.

Searching for the zipper, finding it, opening the backpack, he began rummaging through it for his flint and steel. He couldn’t seem to find it, and then remembered his pipe and tobacco were in the front pouch of the backpack along with a book of matches.

He let out a sigh of relief when his fingers found the book. Tore a match from the book, struck it against the coarse strip, telling himself in the instant before the flame caught that there was nothing down here with him, nothing at all.

He held the match high and surveyed the room for one of the lanterns. There was one in the other corner, and soon he had it lit.

He packed the Kelty with all the supplies that had been taken from it, as well as the rest of the supplies Carl and Beth had that were worth taking: an extra blanket, extra ammunition, another book of matches, and a pocket knife. Now what?

He could stay here for the night. Close the hatch and lay in the corner and try not to think about all the other nomads who had lost their lives in this space, their limbs cut off one by one to feed two people who had once been innocent in their past lives.

He used the lantern to lead his way back through the tunnel. This time he had no trouble stepping over the dead abbies. He blew the lantern out at the base of the ladder, set it aside, climbed to the top, and closed the hatch.

He ended up in a pine tree nearly sixty feet tall. Slipped into his bivy sack, used a rope to tie himself to the trunk, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.

Despite his exhaustion, sleep did not come. He listened to the forest sounds around him and watched the stars. He thought about the satellites that once orbited the earth, all those hundreds of satellites, and wondered how long it took before they began falling out of the sky.

At one point he dug in his backpack for a strip of beef jerky and made himself eat it even though he wasn’t hungry. Nearly a whole day had passed since he had eaten, and he still wasn’t hungry.

He closed his eyes and saw Beth with the abbies and the slight nod she gave him. Then he opened his eyes and stared out at the stars and thought about the woman he loved. He thought it would make him feel better, bring some kind of warmth, but all he felt was cold.

It rained sometime during the night.

Tobias had dozed and woke completely soaked. How long he had been out was difficult to say, but the sun was already peeking up over the horizon and the sky was beginning to clear.

Again he had no appetite. He ate the rest of the beef jerky stick he hadn’t finished, but it didn’t seem to make any difference.

He pulled the journal from his backpack and opened to the first page.

When you come back—and you will come back—I’m gonna fuck you, soldier, like you just came home from war
.

The words that usually created so much warmth in his heart this time left him cold. Christ, it had only been four days since he’d left. Had so much really changed since then?

Tobias knew exactly what Beth had meant when she said you became a different person outside of Wayward Pines. The reality of it had hit Tobias almost immediately after walking through the gate. No longer was he the man who shared a bed with the woman he loved. No longer could he remember his past and how he wanted to make every wrong right. He had done things in his past he wasn’t proud of, decisions he’d made that still haunted him, but what was done was done. Nothing could change it. The only thing now was the task he had been given, the mission Pilcher had sent him on.

He flipped past the first few pages until he came to a blank page. He put pen to paper and began to write. He told her everything. Every single detail. What it was like waking up in the shelter. The staleness and musk. What the man and woman planned to do with him. The stink of the dead abbies. The sound of their war cry.

He stopped writing when he got to the part of the abbies dragging Beth through the clearing. This wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Wasn’t what she needed to hear.

He tore the pages out, one by one, and was surprised to find the whole narrative had been condensed to three pages. He’d thought he could fill the entire journal.

Tobias balled the pages up and put them in his backpack. He would use them later for kindling. Make sure some good came out of his wasted time.