“Capture.” She whispered.
The wolves sprang on the boy so quickly, he didn’t have time to scream before he was driven to the ground and had his throat in the vise like jaws of Zero. River and Meadow each had an arm and Valley had one of his legs in their jaws.
“Don’t fight them.” The wolf girl said, close to his ear. “They won’t kill you unless I tell them to.”
Mike felt the sharp teeth punch through his skin but they stopped, they didn’t rip and tear and shred him to bits. Blood trickled down his neck and the breath he was going to use to scream came out in a whimper. He could feel his whole body vibrating, coming from the deep rumble of their low growls. He felt the hot breath of the wolf on his face, felt the teeth sink in a little deeper when he tried to move.
“Shhhh.” Swan said. “Be still. You’re making them nervous.”
Mike squeaked and tried to be very, very still.
“I have questions for you.” She said. “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back.”
“Hold.” She told her pack and repositioned the grip on her tomahawks.
She eased over to the corner of the trailer, looked back at her pack and issued the command again.
“Hold.” She told Zero, sternly this time.
She didn’t want him getting excited and killing the guy because she wanted a few words with him first. She only needed to talk to one, her steel would talk to the other guy.
Swan sprinted around to the front door, shouldered it open and ran for the bathroom where she could hear the other boy retching. She kicked it open and nearly gagged. He was sitting on the toilet and throwing up into the bathtub. Last night’s whiskey and the macaroni soup breakfast was coming out of both ends. She nearly threw up herself and at the very last possible second, just as she was swinging the spikes to bury them in the back of his head, she turned the hilt and slammed him with the flat sides. He collapsed in a boneless heap and fell off the toilet, still spewing foul smelling liquids. Swan gagged and backed out of the room, her stomach heaved and she covered her mouth. Something creaked behind her and she spun just in time to see the stock of a rifle smash into her face.
Shaggy stood shakily over her, his whole world reeling. He’d been laying on the couch with a blinding hangover, too sick to join the other two on the deck. When she smashed through the door he wanted to yell at her to stop making so much noise but realized who she was before he opened his mouth. He stood over her and tried to get the hallway to stop tilting when he heard a four-wheeler pull up in the drive.
“I got one of them!” He said in a yell that hurt. “I got one of the brats! Help me with her. The others must be close!”
Cowboy hopped out of the side by side, hurried inside and they drug her out, looking over their shoulders the whole time. They’d been at the massacre last winter, they knew the kids could be hiding in the woods. The psycho kids riding the polar bears could be anywhere.
“Where’s the others?” He asked as they tossed her in the back of the four-seater.
“She killed Skull.” Shaggy yelled as he climbed in. “I don’t know where Mike is. Probably killed him, too. Let’s go, man. We’ve gotta go!”
Zero had been waiting for a command. He heard the machine pull up, he heard voices of the enemy but he didn’t hear his wolf mother. He growled and listened and waited. Drool ran over his lips and dripped on to the boy clamped in his jaws. She’d never made them hold this long before and he quivered in anticipation.
“Flame!” Cowboy shouted, half in the quad, hesitant to leave anyone behind. “Come on man, the kids are here!”
Mike shook in terror and said nothing. Maybe the wolves would let him go, maybe they would go see what happened to the savage girl.
Swan moaned from the backseat and tried to sit up.
“Zero?” she called, her voice thick and uncertain.
The wolf ripped the boys’ throat out and spun away as he gurgled and gasped for air. The cubs released and joined him as he ran towards their mistress.
Cowboy yelped when he saw them come around the end of the trailer, blood on their muzzles and snarls in their throats. He dove in and floored the buggy. Swan was thrown to the floor as the boy bounced through the ditch and hit the road in a squall of tires. Four growling wolves were right on their tail.
Swan pulled herself up and tried to roll out but Shaggy hit her over and over, cursing and screaming with every punch. She tried to fend him off but she could barely see, both eyes were swelling shut and her nose was smashed flat. He grabbed a handful of her hair and slammed her head against the roll bar until she stopped moving then he heaved his guts out over the half door. Whiskey and fear poured out of him, splashed down the side of the rig and left a trail on the road. Cowboy kept the gas pedal buried all the way back to Smiths Landing.
Zero whined in confusion. Her scent was gone. She’d been carried away by a loud animal with the dirty smoke smell. It was too fast for him to catch and its spore disappeared on the breeze. He couldn’t follow it. The cubs sniffed at the foul smell in the road left by one of the men but that was all there was. Her smell simply stopped.
33
Gordon
Gordon felt a thrill unlike any other he’d ever felt. Swan lay on the floor in front of him, trussed up and unconscious. Matted blood caked her hair and streaked her face. They had done a number on her, both eyes were purple and swollen and her nose had a definite lean to it. He propped his feet on her still form and leaned back in his chair. The voice that sounded like his father congratulated him, then berated him for only taking two from the tribe.
“Shut up, old man,” he muttered under his breath. He sipped from a crystal highball glass filled with two fingers of seventeen-year-old Scotch while he smoked a cigar. The Scotch didn’t do anything to silence the old man but at least the alcohol numbed the scratching sounds that plagued him. He nudged the immobilized girl with his foot. She didn’t move. This was where she truly belonged, at his feet. He vowed to break her mentally and physically before he put her out of his misery. She was too dangerous to leave alive. He smiled at the thought of her head mounted beside his other pretties on the fence or maybe wandering around in the pool.
It was a little early in the day to start boozing it up but the capture of Swan called for a celebration.
“Gentlemen, the bar is open, and the ladies are hot and ready for you. Good work, boys. We struck a lethal blow against our enemies and now, we’ll pick them off at our leisure. Two down, nine to go. Trish, get over here and top this off.” He held up his glass. “Misty, you and Sasha get this trash off of my rug and clean her up. She smells like a wet dog. Nobody touches her until I say so. She’s our guest of honor and I want her wide awake for what she’s got coming.”
Cheers went up from the boys as they made their way to the bar and the three women moved quickly to carry out Gordon’s orders. They kept their heads lowered, their eyes averted and hoped the gang would pass out before they got drunk and mean. The boys were downing shots as fast as they could, Gordon didn’t let them drink very often.
Misty and Sasha struggled with Swan’s limp form and tried not to hurt her any more than she already was. The poor girl had just entered the bowels of hell.
34
Pursuit
The endless miles were wearing on Donny, but he kept his pace, he didn’t stop and he didn’t slow. He’d been running for hours without rest. He had to catch her, not to stop her but slow her down so they could finish this the way they started. Together. The tribe against the world. He could feel the blisters starting to form on his heels and took a moment to tighten his boots and share a piece of smoked meat with his panther. She knew they were hunting Swan, she sensed the sadness and urgency. When Donny couldn’t track her on the roads, Yewan could. He’d never been this deep into her hunting grounds, they respected each other’s boundaries. He dragged his spear in the dirt, left a distinct marker and pushed onward. When they came to asphalt, he’d slash the trunks of trees or make
arrows from fallen branches to signal which way he went. His heart ached for Murray and Swan. He’d never had friends before the outbreak and Murray was gone forever. Swan too, if he faltered. She was outnumbered and outgunned and she thought she was invincible. She took too many chances. He was angry at her for running off, but he understood. He felt the same way but he had learned from a lifetime of hard knocks that rash decisions had harsh consequences.
He found the pond where she had refilled her bottle, rested and eaten the cattails. He let Yewan drink her fill then they pushed on. His legs ached and the blisters were getting worse. He was gaining on her though. This was the third spot he found where she’d taken a break, had sat and ate berries or mushrooms. He didn’t have the luxury of rest, he had to catch up. It was late afternoon, he’d been running all day and he knew he was closing in on her. He hoped more than anything he’d find her sleeping in a barn or something. He picked up the pace when they hit asphalt again and ignored the wetness in his socks as they filled with blood from the busted blisters. He was close, he could feel it.
He ate up the miles, ignored the fatigue in his limbs and the pain in his feet. He slowed as he neared a wrecked Polaris, wary and watching. The other cars or trucks he’d passed had the long-abandoned look of heavy dust, flat tires and piles of leaves mounded against them. This one was fresh, it hadn’t been there for long. It was in the ditch where it had hit the culvert and broke the front wheel. It was bent at an odd angle and the tire was shredded. His worry ratcheted up a notch. Had she caught up to them, caused one of them to crash? He didn’t see any of her arrows or blood trails but Yewan led him off the road, into the woods. Hatred and anger filled his heart as he imagined all of the hell he would bring down on anyone who’d harmed her. He found her path and saw where she’d stood for a while, apparently watching a mobile home that had been decrepit years before the fall. Yewan flicked her tail back and forth and he knew she sensed something was wrong. Maybe Swan was inside. More likely some of Gordons gang waiting for someone to come get them. He stoked the midnight fur of his companion, readied his spear and crouched low to hide in the waist high grass. Her and the wolves trail was easy to follow and he smelled death before he saw it. The pack had savaged one of Gordons men, the body was splayed out in the dirt next to a garden shed, its throat ripped open. Somebody had thrown a tarp over the dead boy but it had blown off. Ants and other insects covered his skin, each taking tiny little bites and carrying it back to their nest. They would feast for months.
Swan wouldn’t bother covering a body of her enemy and Donny’s stomach dropped. Either she hadn’t been the winner in this fight or she was gone when they came back for their stranded buddy.
Something clattered in the trailer and he froze, still hidden in the weeds. He heard mumbled curses and glass breaking. More indistinct muttering and then something that sounded like sobs. He eased up the weather-beaten steps to the back door, wincing every time one creaked, and peeked through the louvered glass on the door. He saw a young man sitting at a table, a bowl of cold soup broken on the floor. He had his head in his hands and his shoulders shook with each sob. His long, greasy hair was crusty with blood. Donny tapped his ring on the spear, come, and kicked open the door.
The boy screamed then grabbed his head in pain. He toppled over backward and started mewling when the panther landed on his chest, bared her long fangs and snarled in his face.
“Go ahead.” He blubbered. “I deserve it. I know I do. Go ahead.”
Donny dashed through the trailer, made sure there was no one else and came back to the crying boy with the panther still crouched on his chest, claws dug in and hot breath snarling in his face.
Donny clicked his ring and the panther gave one last menacing growl and reluctantly hopped off. His head was bleeding again where he’d been hit. He didn’t know what happened, he’d woke up on the bathroom floor in his own filth and vomit with his head busted open. Shaggy was gone and he found Blind Mike with his head half torn off. The zoo kids must have found them. He didn’t know why they hadn’t killed him, maybe they thought they had. His head was throbbing white pain. He was still having headaches from the battle last winter when the boy with the Warhammer had nearly caved it in. He pushed himself up against the refrigerator and answered any questions the silent boy wrote out. He had a hard time reading them, everything was still blurry. He knew he must have a concussion again. Why did those kids like bashing people’s heads?
Skull told him everything about Smiths Landing. How to get in, where Gordon was headquartered and the best way to get at him.
“We used to just have fun before he came along.” He said. “We didn’t really hurt nobody, we just stayed bombed out of our minds most of the time. He changed everything. We thought he’d learned his lesson last winter, we sure did. Nobody wanted to mess with you kids again but something set him off a few days ago and he’d shoot anybody that didn’t do what he said.”
Donny heard the tale and listened for lies. He was pretty good at spotting them but the boy only seemed sad, resigned to his fate.
“Burning that crippled kid was too much.” Skull said and wrung his hands. “That was too much. He never shoulda done that.”
When Donny was finished with his questions he stood over the boy gripping his spear, the inky black panther at his side.
“I’m real sorry about what happened.” Skull said and met Donny’s eyes. “And I don’t blame you one bit. Go ahead. I know I got it coming.”
He lowered his head, started sobbing again and waited for the death blow.
Donny struck quickly.
He went back through the filthy trailer, slower this time and found Swan’s tomahawk in the hallway. He found a few of her arrows laying in the driveway and the tracks of another four-wheeler tearing through the yard and out onto the road. In the distance he saw her pack trotting towards him and he sighed. They had lost the scent if they were coming back. He glanced at the sun and wondered how far behind Kodiak and the rest of the tribe were. The bears wouldn’t get tired, they could run all day. They were fast for short bursts of speed but if they paced themselves, if they didn’t stop and refuse to go any more, they shouldn’t be too far behind. Maybe only an hour or so.
Thanks to the boy lying in a puddle of blood on the kitchen floor, he knew where Smiths Landing was and an easy way to get in around back. Part of him wanted to continue, keep charging after her, but he knew if he waited for the tribe, they’d have a better chance. They were close, only about five miles away, they could be there in an hour. It was late afternoon. Skull seemed to think Gordon would want to parade her around for a while before they did anything. He’d want to break her and that would take a while. He bent and consoled the wolves, they whined and seemed to urge him to find their mistress.
Donny sat on the front deck with his boots off. He’d tended to his feet as best he could, found clean socks and some Band-Aids. A small horde had come down the road, no more than ten or twelve and they had killed them quickly. He had all the food that was left in the cupboards set out on the deck, the pans were clean and the grill was ready to start. By the time he finished what he needed to do, he didn’t have to wait long until he saw Bert’s tall neck coming down the road. He slipped his boots on, laced them up and fired up the grill.
A weary Kodiak jogged in, swung Caleb from Otis’ back and started asking what was going on. Why were the wolves here? Where was Swan? Otis lumbered over to the plastic wading pool Donny had found two trailers down and filled with fresh pond water. The other animals joined him, lapping it up then flopping down. They’d rode hard all day following Donny’s trail and they were exhausted.
They gathered around as he flashed out what he’d found and why he believed Swan was alive. He showed them the boy he’d tied up and Swan’s weapons. He hadn’t been able to kill him but he’d had no qualms adding another lump on his head. He’d gone down like a sack of potatoes.
Analise rummaged around through the cabinets, found the salt and pep
per and went back outside to tend the pot luck simmering on the grill. Vanessa found cans of paint in the shed and started decorating her ostrich with Zulu war sigils and everyone else joined with their own animals. Red or blue hand prints on flanks, Viking runes and lightning bolts across massive bear chests, circles and arrows in bright colors on the foxes, wolves and panther. They were preparing for war, one where there was going to be no retreat and no surrender.
They ate a light meal then saddled up the animals. They needed to push on. It was only five more miles, they could be there shortly after dark.
“What about him?” Tobias asked.
“I don’t know.” Kodiak said
“He doesn’t deserve to live.” Tobias answered his own question. “We should kill him.”
“Probably should.” Kodiak agreed.
The older boy sat tied in the chair in the living room and looked miserable. He didn’t try to talk them out of it, he was tired. He’d done some bad things; he didn’t know how it got so out of hand. He hadn’t meant to; he just went along to get along. He did whatever Richard or Gordon told him. He couldn’t go back to the Landing; he couldn’t live in the wild on his own and there was no place else to go. Maybe a spear through the heart would be quick and wouldn’t hurt too much. It was better than getting eaten alive and turning into one of the undead.
The Feral Children (Book 2): Savages Page 20