Vanessa sat astride Ziggy, her North African Ostrich companion. The pair were engaged in a game of tag with the three smaller children. Ziggy whirled and darted, always out of reach of the kids outstretched arms. Landon, Caleb and Clara fell in tangled piles of skinny limbs as Ziggy constantly outmaneuvered them. They laughed and continued the chase while the foxes darted in and out between them, eager to be included in the fun. All of them enjoyed the warm spring day and giggles filled the air.
There were still chores to be done. Eggs to gather, animals to feed, cows to milk, wood to cut and weeds to pull but it was a perfect day for goofing off. Sometimes they needed to be kids for a while. Kodiak kept silent and let them play. Even the serious twins, Tobias and Analise, were down at the river swimming with their polar bears. Quiet laughter could be heard across Piedmont and he wished he felt that carefree. He plucked a ripe tomato from the vine and bit into it. Sticky juice ran down his chin as he savored the taste. He’d never cared much for vegetables, even though his mom made sure he always had some on his plate. This, though, was different. This was his tomato. He’d toiled for it. He’d watched it grow from a tiny shoot poking its head out of the ground to a fine vine. He’d watered it and kept the weeds from overwhelming it, protected it from scavengers and had carefully made the cages that supported it. He’d helped nothing become something. He couldn’t remember anything that had ever tasted finer.
He watched as Tobias and Analise walked up from the river trail. Popsicle and Daisy were laden down with baskets and his stomach rumbled at the thought of fresh fish. The long winter of eating canned food and tiny portions of meat was a memory he was eager to forget. The twins laughed at a joke that only they shared. Even from a distance, their tattoos stood out in sharp contrast to their pale skin and white hair.
Donny and Yewan hadn’t made an appearance yet, but the fresh tenderloins that were waiting in the cooling chest told everyone their hunt had been successful. Kodiak figured they were tucked in one of their favorite spots sleeping after a long night of stalking game.
No one was sure where Swan was. She’d left with just a grunt and we’re going outside the fence when she and Zero took off the morning before with the wolf cubs. Swan had been spending a lot of time with the three rapidly growing wolves, teaching them the ways of the hunt and to follow her commands. Zero was quick with nips and growls to ensure they stayed in line and integrated into the pack mentality. He was Alpha and would brook no dissent from the cubs. She’d taken to wandering further and further from the normal hunting ground. She used the excuse that she didn’t want to overhunt the home grounds but everyone knew that was nonsense. Donny and Yewan brought in a steady supply of venison for the stewpot and the smokehouse and he said the wildlife numbers were exploding. There weren’t thousands of hunters stalking the woods culling their numbers. In addition, rabbits and squirrels were everywhere, stealing fruits and vegetables from the garden whenever they could. The small number of animals that the tribe harvested to feed themselves was no threat to the population. Kodiak suspected that she was increasing her range for two reasons. The first being the hyena. She wanted to kill him and extract revenge for the loss of Lucy. They’d seen nothing of the beast since that night when Diablo and his brother, Demonio, had killed her. No tracks and no weird laughing bark carried on the wind. Maybe the winter had gotten him or he’d died of his wounds. That would be best, but Kodiak had a nagging suspicion that Diablo was still out there somewhere.
The other reason was Gordon. She blamed Gordon as much as she blamed Diablo for the death of Lucy, maybe more. It had been his thwarted effort to attack the tribe that had brought the hyenas back inside the fences. They still had no idea where Gordon’s compound was located. Only the clues from his boasting and the fact they always rode in from somewhere up north. There’d been no sighting of him or his gang since the night of the battle. The scattered bones of the fallen riders and wreckage of the snowmobiles by the ruined church were the only indications that anyone besides the tribe had ever been there. Kodiak was concerned that she would find them eventually, take them on by herself and end up dead. Or worse. They were cruel and heartless. They’d beaten him for no reason other than they could. It wasn’t a schoolyard fight, they had left scars and would have killed him as casually as they killed zombies. He shuddered at what they would do to the pretty girl if they got their hands on her.
She had been different since the battle, short tempered and moody. She trained constantly, snow, rain or blizzard. Cooped up all winter, she had gotten on all of their nerves with the incessant thunk, thunk, thunk as she threw her tomahawks at wooden targets. She didn’t smile or laugh very much. She rarely removed her war paint or armor, even in the safety of the house and she was never unarmed. She braved the winter winds and the snow, the spring rains and the midday sun to work with her tomahawks and practice with the bow. She was driven, she was ready to fight under any conditions, any circumstances, at any time. If she read anything from the house library, it was stories of soldiers and battles.
2
Swan
Swan chased the wolves as they darted through the trees. Her long legs and runners’ body let her keep pace for mile after mile. Her chest was getting bigger and it annoyed her. A year ago, she would have been proud, maybe even helped the pushup bra with a little extra padding, but now they were a nuisance. She had to wear her armor tight or wrap her chest when she hunted. She ducked under a low hanging limb, swerved around moss covered rocks, leapt gracefully and dodged the obstacles in her path. She never let her eyes lose track of the pack. She couldn’t match their speed, but she was fast and cunning, always looking for the easiest path. If they did lose her, a few yips from her upturned face and Zero would answer. He might outdistance her but he would never leave her behind.
She caught a flash of white from the deer’s tail as it darted up a rise. The young doe ran flat out in a desperate bid to escape the pack. River, Valley and Meadow flanked Zero, their alpha and father, as they spread out wide in a semicircle pattern, narrowing the does chance for escape. Any change in direction by the deer would put one of the pack on an intercept course. Swan leapt over a rotted log, swift and sure footed, the bow in her hands. She could nock an arrow, draw, aim and release the instant the opportunity presented itself. She altered her course slightly to hit the less elevated side of the hill, anticipating the deer to veer to the right once it crested. Her pack ran silent like her, no tinkling collars, no metal on metal rattles, just padded feet and even breathing. The doe seemed to favor right turns from the moment the chase began. She was being corralled; the pack was driving her towards Swans deadly arrow.
She topped the lower portion of the rise, heard the crashing of brush and drew back the bow string. Instead of the deer she was expecting, a zombie burst through the brush and started keening in hunger. It moved fast, day one zombie fast. It had been indoors until recently, it wasn’t broken down and worn out. It was fresh and vicious and headed straight towards her. She whistled loudly for her pack, set the bow aside and focused on the zombie. The pursuit of the deer was forgotten as her blood raced in anticipation of battle. The hungry creature had once been a young man, but now it was just a vessel for the lethal virus that destroyed the world and a training tool for her pack.
It sprang down the hill for her as she reached for the sheath under her left arm and drew her right-hand tomahawk. She waited until the monster was two steps away; side stepped and used the curved lower portion of the blade to catch the zombie above the ankle in a sweeping motion. The zombie went down in a crash of limbs, keens and snarls. The creature’s noise sent flocks of birds cawing out of the trees, fleeing for the sky. She heard a bone snap as the zombie slammed to the ground. It showed no signs of pain, no fear and ignored the broken arm hanging at an odd angle.
Zero came bounding down the hill with the snarling cubs close behind and before they could rip the thing to shreds she barked a command.
“Capture!” she said to her wolv
es.
The zombie staggered to its feet, only to be met with the flying body of one of the young wolves. River tore a chunk of rotted flesh from its shoulder as the zombie hit the ground again. Before it could rise, Meadow was in the fight. The young wolf grabbed the creature by one leg and held on. The monster thrashed as Valley grabbed an arm at the wrist and dug his claws into the soft earth. River rebounded from his leap and grabbed the other arm, pulled it in the opposite direction. Zero padded over quickly and seized the immobilized and spread-eagled zombie by the throat. The wolf waited for Swan to give the command to snap its neck and tear out its rotten throat.
She looked on with pride as the creature thrashed in vain, struggled to break loose from the iron jaws that held it in place. It keened and wailed, gnashed its yellowed teeth so hard that they broke. Every struggling movement caused the wolf cubs to dig in and pull harder to keep it pinned.
She’d been working with the wolves since they were big enough to walk without tripping over their own feet. She taught them to hunt using the pelts from rabbits and squirrels, or the tails from the deer she and Donny killed. She taught them to follow commands, to protect the pack and themselves. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing them like she did Lucy. They were her cubs now and she loved them with a mothers love. They were growing fast and were slightly more than half the size of their father already.
The zombie struggled with inhuman strength. The wolves dug their paws into the blanket of rotted leaves to hold it in place. Vicious growls emanated from their throats. Fur bristled along their backs and claws churned up the forest floor as they strained against the unnatural strength of the dead thing in their jaws.
Good. She thought proudly. Too bad that’s not Gordon. She had no intentions of letting Gordon Lowery survive their next meeting. She planned to wipe out him and any of his remaining tribe, no matter what. Kodiak and the others might be comfortable with the unofficial truce, but she wasn’t. Gordon was a plague on mankind. He was worse than the undead because he still had the ability to make choices. The undead couldn’t help what they were.
With the wolves mastering the art of capture, all she needed was just one of Gordon’s guys or girls to find out everything she needed to know. She’d make them tell her where their stronghold was, their total strength and whatever plans for revenge Gordon was cooking up. She wanted to take the fight to him, put him on the offensive for once. Let him be the one living in fear of where and when a surprise attack would come. He had to be planning something, there was no way would he let the defeat from the previous winter go unanswered. No way would he live and let live. It went against his nature. She’d argued this point to the tribe until she was blue in the face but it didn’t change anything. Everyone acknowledged that he was probably still out there, but until he showed himself, there was nothing they could do.
She spun her tomahawk in her hand, so the spiked side of the blade faced down and buried it in the forehead of the undead man. The brain died instantly, and it ceased its struggles. The cold rotted flesh became still. River jerked at the arm he held, tested to ensure it was no longer a threat. It was unresponsive. He looked to his master but didn’t break his hold until the command was uttered.
“Release.” She told the pack. The wolves let go of the still creature and backed away, kept their eyes and ears attuned for any other threat to their wolf mother. She dropped to her knees and nuzzled each of them, whispered praise and love into their oversized ears. They were her strength, her pack.
They wouldn’t take a game animal today, but she was still satisfied with their results. This was the first capture outside of controlled conditions and the wolves had performed flawlessly. She’d practiced this move with them in the old lion enclosure, despite Kodiak and the others misgivings. She had Donny standing by just in case something went wrong but she used a catchpole and it was pretty simple to drag a deader inside the gates. All of those zombies had been slow and weather worn. The harsh winter had been hard on already decaying bodies and most of her test subjects were barely able to walk with all of their toes frozen off and many of them had been chewed up by the Savage Ones. This zed had been fresh and full of fight but still no match for the pack.
She looked at the sun halfway to the western horizon, estimated the time to be a little after three. A check of her watch indicated her guess was close. Three seventeen. It was important to be able to read the environment. She’d learned hard lessons about being unprepared. Mistakes she wouldn’t make again. Technology couldn’t be relied on anymore; it was gone and wasn’t coming back. Cunning and skill were the things that gave you an edge. Mother Earth was a harsh teacher but Swan embraced the lessons.
She’d hadn’t picked up her iPad in months and didn’t miss it. Her home was in the wild. Her steel and her pack would protect her, Mother Earth would sustain her. She loved her brothers and sisters at the zoo, would die to defend them, but she cared nothing for the farming they were doing. She’d taken her turn tilling the soil. She’d hauled buckets of compost, sowed the seeds and weeded the garden but her heart wasn’t in it. Even though she enjoyed the fruits of their labor, she was happiest in the woods. She and Donny would bring the meat, the others could toil in the dirt.
She whistled the pack to her side and struck off east. Their chase had revealed a farmhouse nestled in the woods far from the road she hadn’t explored. She’d taken to raiding abandoned homes for supplies and peering into the lives of those lost and forgotten. Sometimes, the houses still had zombies in them. She set them free and took them down with arrows as they spilled from the house, hungry and enraged. She returned their bodies to the earth and freed their tortured souls.
The zombies trapped inside were fast, as fast as the ones on that first day at the zoo. Once she’d had to pick them off from the safety of a tree she scampered up inches ahead of their grasping hands and snapping jaws. That was before her wolves learned to kill quick and move on to the next, not savage the thing long after it was dead. They sensed the unnaturalness of them and had a deep hatred for the undead things. She’d learned to be more careful, to peek through windows so she wouldn’t be surprised when a houseful of them came streaming out when she kicked open the door.
Sometimes, the houses held the remains of families who’d taken their own lives instead of facing the new reality where the dead roamed the earth. These homes she treated with the sanctity of a grave. She walked their empty halls, singing a song her mother had taught her to ease their soul’s passages to the other side. She took nothing from these homes, only a feeling of sadness. There was too much stuff out there to be disrespectful to those spirits. She paid a quiet respect to the fallen occupants, looked into the lives they once led and left the homes as she found them.
In the empty houses though, she would spend hours walking through them, munching on something from the kitchen, studying the pictures of families. She raided the pantries. Looked under the beds and in the closets for things the tribe could use to survive. She flipped through dusty photo albums filled with yellowing pictures of smiling parents and happy children before the virus wiped them all out. She still felt the pangs of the loss of her own family, but it was just a dull ache now. The more time that passed, the harder it was to picture her parent’s faces.
She could go home. She’d toyed with the thought many times. A couple of days and nights of swift footed travel would put her at the small eco-friendly homestead she’d shared with her mom and dad. She had no fear of the undead, of the wandering hordes that still migrated through from time to time. The sharp senses of the pack would allow her to avoid any large groups and she knew they could handle any small hordes quickly and quietly.
She was more afraid of what might be wandering around the house she once called home. Her last contact with her mother was a frantic call from the highway, but the man who doted on her and called her his little Pocahontas had been home that day. She knew in her heart he was gone but if somehow, he’d managed to survive would he even reco
gnize her now, with her war paint and budding chest that she tried to hide? His little girl was armed and armored, ran with a pack of wolves and bore the scars of battles fought and enemies vanquished. She was a killer of men. She wondered if he would be proud of who she’d become or appalled. Would he look at her with his kind green eyes and reassure her that she’d only done what she had to do to survive, or would he shake his head in disappointment knowing his daughter had taken lives? Both of her parents had abhorred violence of any kind. They couldn’t even stay in the room when she watched the National Geographic channel and a lion took down a zebra.
She shook off the thought. It really didn’t matter at this point. In this world, you were either the predator or the prey. Besides, if he was in their home, it wasn’t him anymore. Just another monster that looked like him wearing his pajamas. Some things were best left unknown and she abandoned the thought. She had things to do.
The Feral Children (Book 2): Savages Page 3