Succinct (Extinct Book 5)

by Ike Hamill

  She smiled back and her reluctance dropped away. They walked together under the overpass, weaving between the small camps that people had staked out. Everyone was busy with a task. The people who weren’t going back into the bunker to carry stuff out were trying to forge a temporary living space. Some were gathering wood for the bonfires. Robby and Ashley found Jackson on the far side, helping to make a tent out of some tarps and poles they had recovered from the trucks.

  “Jackson?” Robby called. He came trotting over and smiled at Ashley. She ducked as he reached out to tousle her hair.

  “Let me guess, you want me and Merle to go get his Mom’s truck running?”

  Robby’s eyebrows went up. It wasn’t a terrible idea, but not what he had in mind.

  “Tomorrow, yes,” Robby said. “Tonight, I was hoping that you could put together a couple of watches. Maybe have some sentries on either side of the overpass.”

  Jackson considered and nodded. “Yeah, definitely. We’ll run shifts until dawn. There are a bunch of us third-shifters who just got up.”

  “Great,” Robby said. “Let me know if you need any help with that.”

  “Not a problem,” Jackson said.

  Jackson went one direction and Robby led his daughter back the other way.

  “Now, hunting,” Robby said.

  “Merle was going to lead a party,” Ashley said. “He was going to head north into that patch of woods that’s between this road and the river.”

  “Take your brother and sister,” Robby said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Please. They have a ton of energy and they could use the experience. Down in the bunker, it seemed like they lost any ability they had to move quietly. They’re like elephants, the way they stomp around.”

  Ashley laughed.

  “But I want you back no more than an hour after sunset, okay?”

  Her smile faded and she gave him a serious nod.

  “Got it.”

  She started to trot away to where Jim and Janelle were helping Lisa set up the tents.

  “Ashley!” Robby called. She stopped and turned. “Don’t let your brother give you any problems. He is a handful ever since he started to get so tall.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s still my little brother.”

  Robby smiled as he watched her go and collect her siblings. She still looked the same age as the last time he had seen her, but she had changed. The way she looked at the world around her was so much more careful than it had been. Her impulse had turned to caution.

  Chapter 117: Ashley

  “I thought we were going north,” Ashley said. She was keeping pace with Merle easily, even though his stride was long. He had always seemed so rugged and worn, spending all of his time outdoors, facing the elements. Now, he looked pink and tender from all that time underground. Merle had always been the oldest and boldest of the young people. Ashley had no doubt that, given a month or two, he would come back stronger than ever, but for the moment he was diminished.

  “Change of plans,” Merle said. “Lisa said that there’s some predator to our southeast, so we’re going to check that out.”

  “And I thought you were leading a whole party.”

  Merle glanced around. It was just him, Ashley, and her brother and sister.

  “We’re a party, aren’t we?” Merle asked.

  Ashley shrugged. Jim was carrying a sharpened stick. Janelle was carrying a paperback book.

  Merle paused and lowered his voice.

  “When we push through those trees, we’re going to be on top of a little slope that leads down to the road. There should be a small stream between us and the shoulder. Jim, you circle west and stay downwind. Janelle, you’re the bait. You stay on this side of the stream. When you hear my signal, make a noise.”

  “What kind of noise?” Janelle asked.

  “Try to sound small and frightened,” Merle said. He pointed for them to go.

  “Wait, wait,” Ashley said. Merle gestured again and the kids left anyway. “This is a terrible plan. You can’t use her for bait—we don’t even know what we’re up against.”

  “Lisa said it lived in a culvert. At worst, it’s a yearling bear. It’s not going to be a problem.”

  Ashley threw up her hands and let them fall.

  “What’s the plan for you and me?” Ashley asked.

  “We’re going to run west, cross the road and come up the other side,” Merle said. “We’ll ambush the thing while it’s checking out Janelle.”

  “Then what about Jim? He’s not even…”

  “He’s not part of it,” Merle said. “He has more courage than sense or skill—I just wanted to keep him out of it.”

  “Oh,” Ashley said. That was the first thing that Merle had said that made perfect sense. She nodded and let him lead the way.

  They pushed through some bushes and circled the perimeter of a small marsh. A rocky outcrop gave them good cover from the road. She had to admit that he had a perfect sense of the terrain, even though he hadn’t even been outside in forever. Merle just seemed to have an instinct for moving around the landscape.

  Staying low, they crossed the road in a quick jog. Up on the hill, they saw Janelle putting herself into position. Yearling bears ran fast when they attacked. If Merle was right, they didn’t have much time to get into position. Once they were on the other side of the road, Ashley didn’t wait for him. She ran as fast as she could along the side of the ditch, counting her paces. When she reached the right place, she paused to wait for Merle. He had almost kept up with her.

  They locked eyes and gave each other a nod.

  Creeping quietly, they ascended the bank. Merle threw a rock that sailed across the road and hit the middle of the trunk of a rotting tree. The thunk was the signal to Janelle. She started crying for help a moment later.

  They were too low to see her on the opposite bank. Ashley was almost convinced that her sister had really gotten hurt and was stuck. A big part of her wanted to jump up and sprint toward the sound, but Merle was still stalking forward with confidence. Ashley did the same.

  He paused and then moved a little to the east. A moment later, a breeze washed through and Ashley caught a scent. It was a damp smell, thick with decay. Merle had been wrong—the thing under them wasn’t a yearling. It was old and dying.

  She saw the thought cross Merle’s face. He picked up his pace. A desperate creature wouldn’t be slow and cautious.

  Sure enough, just before they crossed through the tall grass, Janelle’s cries for help changed. She had spotted the thing and understood the danger.

  Ashley sprang up to vault the guardrail and run to her sister.

  Merle was right by her side.

  The ground fell away and Ashley kept her legs pumping in the air so they would meet the ground and continue her forward momentum. One leg touched down and caught on the grass. Ashley spun forward and turned her fall into a roll. The big shape was charging up the hill toward Janelle. Her sister was scrambling backwards, trying to get up to the trees.

  Back up on her feet, Ashley sprinted after the beast. Its smell was thick in the air. The gait didn’t match the shape of the thing. It should have been bunching and hopping as it climbed. Instead, the top line of the animal was steady. It was sprinting more like a wolf than a bear.

  Ashley let out a scream as she ran, trying to distract the animal. On her right, Merle yelled as well. The animal wasn’t distracted from its attack. It kept tearing at the hillside with its claws as it climbed.

  Janelle stopped running as the predator approached. She threw her book at it and screamed, making herself as big as possible by putting her arms in the air. The trick might work on some animals. This one was undaunted. Ashley realized that they weren’t going to catch it in time. The monster was going to tear into her sister before they could stop it. Janelle was going to bravely stand there and let it happen as she tried to stare the animal down.

  Ashley’s scream tore through her throat
and she forced herself to run faster.

  The bushes at Janelle’s right shook and Jim forced his way through the brush, suddenly standing next to his sister with his sharpened stick braced against one shoulder. The two of them stood in defiance of the charging animal.

  Finally, the beast’s confidence wavered.

  It slowed just enough for Ashley to catch it.

  She thrust her knife up, toward the monster’s backside as she noticed the long tail. Her knife barely made contact before it was spinning and turning to face her. She pulled back and lost her balance, tumbling backwards down the hill. Merle was right there to meet the animal’s lunge. He drove his knife into the place where the animal’s shoulder met its neck. Ashley rolled to the side and managed to find her feet again while Jim and Janelle distracted the beast from above.

  They pelted it with rocks while Ashley and Merle tried to wet their knives with its blood.

  Ashley could barely breathe through the stench of it. It’s brown and black coat smelled of infection and its blood stank of sulfur. The animal slowed quickly as its blood spilled out. Between the running attack and the cuts, its burst of speed faded fast. Merle slipped a killing blow between its ribs. When it was still somehow on its feet, Ashley thrust her blade into its neck.

  It died twitching, on its side.

  Jim and Janelle approached cautiously as Merle and Ashley stood over it.

  “Dress it?” Ashley asked. She knew his answer before he spoke.

  “No,” Merle said. “The meat would poison us anyway.”

  “What is it?” Jim asked.

  Merle only shook his head.

  “It’s not from here,” Janelle said.

  Ashley wiped her blade on the animal’s wet fur.

  Chapter 118: Robby

  Waiting for his kids to come back was slow torture. Robby could barely believe that he had let himself slip back into that madness again. For so long, he had worried about his oldest daughter. Now, he had let the three of them go off on some hunting expedition. He realized that it was always going to be like this, to some extent. Part of him was always going to worry about them.

  When he heard Lisa’s voice call, Robby knew immediately who she was talking to. He spun and saw the silhouette of them coming over the hill. Their shapes were as familiar as his own reflection in the mirror. All his kids were together. Robby’s heart rested again.

  “What did you get?” Lisa asked.

  Jim was carrying the sack. He ran toward Lisa, who was minding the fire. Robby smiled as Jim produced the game they had hunted and brought back for the group. Ashley approached with her head lowered.

  “Successful trip?” Robby asked.

  “Eventually, yes,” she said. “We found the thing that frightened Lisa before. It was a strange monster. We took care of it, but it was pretty dicey for a moment.”

  “As long as everyone is okay,” Robby said. He didn’t want to think about it. Ashley was generally pretty cavalier about hunting. If she thought something was dicey, Robby didn’t want to know about it. He still remembered the murder he had seen in the eyes of the mountain lion. Animals were supposed to hunt for necessity—they weren’t supposed to have that kind of anger in them.

  “I’m going to get cleaned up,” Ashley said. “Not that I should care, but my shirt stinks.”

  He saw the way she glanced at Merle. She didn’t say a word about him, but her eyes tracked where he was going. Robby smiled to himself.

  Janelle wandered over to him next.

  “Ashley said you guys took out the monster?”

  She nodded. “I lost my book though.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sure you can find another copy somewhere.”

  “That’s okay. It wasn’t that good. Too predictable.”

  “You could make up your own ending,” Robby said. He tried not to push his daughter—Janelle was too strong-willed to be pushed—but he wanted to nudge her in that direction.

  “I might,” she said. “Speaking of stories…”

  “I know,” Robby said. He had been anticipating her request ever since they had been reunited with Ashley. “Tonight.”

  She nodded and accepted his answer. Around their camp, most people were either settling in for the night or still preparing food. The shelters had been set up and the rest of the possessions had been hauled out from the bunker. Liam was the last person still underground, and he had promised to go no deeper than the stairwell.

  Robby wandered over toward the overpass. A tarp, hung from just inside the bridge, created a tent on the edge. Underneath, tables had been set up with maps. Corinna and Carrie were consulting over the largest.

  “What’s the verdict, Robby?” Carrie asked him. “Are you guys headed back to Gladstone or are you going to set up in Donnelly?”

  Robby shook his head. “I don’t know. I think we would have to track down Romie and the others.”

  “She said to ask you.”

  “Oh,” Robby said. “Can I get back to you?”

  “Of course. We’re thinking we’ll start small when we return. Corinna says that there are still a couple of big buildings we can use for storage and housing, then we can branch out a building at a time.”

  Robby nodded. Part of him wanted to recommend that they all head somewhere else. It might be less traumatic if they just chose a brand new location to colonize instead of trying to rebuild what they had. Comparing reality to their expectations would be demoralizing. On the other hand, they already knew so much about Donnelly that it might be easier to survive there.

  “They don’t understand how dangerous the sun is,” Corinna said. “They’re going to learn the hard way.”

  Robby nodded at that as well. The topic reminded him that there was another conversation that he needed to have with his daughter. He had already heard Lisa’s side of the debate, but Ashley might have a different perspective.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I just remembered that I have to ask my daughter something,” he said.

  They waved him goodbye and went back to their planning.

  She was drying her hair with a towel next to one of the fires when he found Ashley.

  “You’re going to smell like smoke for a month,” he said, sitting next to her.

  “I already did,” she said. “The four of us were pungent when we were camping in the jungle. You could have smelled us a mile away. Penny was probably the cleanest of the lot until we got to the river, then she was muddy all the time.”

  Robby smiled and took a moment before he asked his question. He waited until he had his daughter’s full attention.

  “You told me about your observation and your research, but you haven’t said much about your conclusions.”

  Ashley looked down at the fire, chewing her lower lip.

  “You think that the strange phenomena are through?” he asked.

  After reflecting on his question for a minute, she said, “I honestly don’t know.”

  “But you came back anyway.”

  “Yes. We had to, I think,” she said. “In the end, our conclusion was that it didn’t matter if the phenomena were over. It was clear that we had to live our lives either way. There was no benefit to trying to hide. The red spots are gone for now and it seems like things are relatively normal. Who knows how long it will stay this way.”

  “So you think it’s coming back?”

  The way she glanced up at him with guarded eyes, he had the real answer.

  “There’s no way to know. It appears that the phenomena came from the sun. It was a byproduct of solar activity that humans may have never encountered before. Perhaps it was related to the embryo from when you were a kid, perhaps not. Some of the entries in the journal suggested that the embryo came because there was some sign that the solar activity would increase. Others thought it might be a coincidence.”

  She punctuated this thought with a shrug.

  “And the exact cause of the strange occurrences? T
he properties of water changing, the electrical interference, and the madness?”

  “Completely unknown. Frankly, if the scientists at the observatory couldn’t figure it out, our chances are fairly low.”

  Robby nodded. He had been thinking the same thing.

  “Can I ask you something, Dad?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why do you think that the area beyond the Outpost was so different. The language and the buildings were so foreign.”

  Robby raised his eyebrows and sighed. “I wish I knew. This world seems to be a patchwork of different realities. My best guess is that the churn swirled us all up. When we put an end to the churn, there was an assumption that everything was back to the way we remembered it, but that was probably wishful thinking. We were only seeing a small piece of the whole. What was around us and under us didn’t have to be from the same origin, and it turned out that it wasn’t.”

  “The people who built the bunker and the people who lived out near the observatory seemed to know more than we do. It almost seemed like they were ahead of us, chronologically.”

  “Maybe they were,” Robby said. “I’m not sure there’s any way we could know.”

  Ashley slumped down, propping her chin on her hands and staring into the fire. She had come back with a wealth of information and even more questions. It was all beyond him to explain.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t decide what to do next,” she said.

  “What to do?”

  “I mean, there has to be some way to figure out who built this bunker. If I can track that down, maybe I could find out what else they knew about the world, right? It could all lead to a better understanding of what might happen next, you know? If they really were ahead of us, then maybe they documented what’s coming.”

  Robby smiled. “I think you already answered that question.”

  She looked at him.

  “As you said, it doesn’t matter. We have to live our lives either way,” Robby said.

  Ashley looked back at the fire and sighed again.

  “I guess.”