by D. Laine
“We’re in the middle of an apocalypse,” Ewing fired. “You don’t go taking other people’s only method of self-defense.”
“They also have no idea who we are,” Dylan reasoned. “Would you let six heavily-armed strangers under your roof without taking a few precautions?”
“They’re survivors but they’re human. They’re not the enemy,” Jake reminded us all. “We’ll get our weapons, and we may be able to talk them into parting with some food if we’re lucky. Then we’re out of here.”
“And go where, exactly?” Ewing growled. When Dylan didn’t supply an answer, Ewing folded his arms over his chest with a smirk. “Oh, that’s right. You have no idea, because we have no idea what we’re doing. We have no idea how to—”
“We’ll find Lucifer.” Jake’s hard eyes skimmed over me before coming to a stop on Dylan.
I was no dummy. My brother knew that, and that was precisely why he had a thick wall put up in his head right now. He kept me out for a reason. If that wasn’t enough to fuel my suspicions, the look that transpired between him and Dylan was.
They might not be planning anything yet, but they were on the same brain wave. I feared it would lead them to do what they had both told me they wouldn’t do: commit an act of lunacy.
MINUTES LATER, we stepped out of the veterinary hospital and straight into an alternate universe. We were in a small town that looked as if it hadn’t developed much since the year it was established. Narrow two-story buildings lined a quaint main street, all of which were surrounded by an imposing chain-link fence adorned with barbed wire. Beyond the fence, the sky was overcast. I had grown accustomed to looking at that. Walking over a thick layer of whatever rained down on us these days had become my new norm. I expected it.
Only I expected to see a whole lot more of it.
I lifted my foot and inspected the inch-deep imprint in what was left of the snow—all two or three inches of it. “Tell me I didn’t hallucinate a blizzard last night.”
Gathering from the surprised and confused faces around me, I hadn’t. Unless we all had. Considering the long list of strange things that had happened since this all started, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that we had fallen victim to some colorless, odorless hallucinogenic gas from Hell.
I gaped at my brother’s profile as he exchanged glances with Dylan. He had almost died. Some things had to have happened the way I remembered. Right?
Like a herd of spooked deer, we all whipped around at the sound of boots crunching over the snow, moving steadily in our direction. Not knowing what to expect, my hands curled into fists—the only weapons I had at my disposal. Trepidation rolled off of Jake in waves, and I glanced down to find him copying my actions. I didn’t doubt the others were poised and ready for anything, as we were. If the middle-aged man that approached us noticed that the six of us were coiled as tightly as a pit of rattlesnakes, he didn’t show it.
“Good morning.” His brief smile did little to alleviate my tension. He was dressed in Army fatigues, and carried an assault rifle over his shoulder along with an air of superiority. “I’m Lieutenant Anderson. I was on duty when you were brought in last night, though I doubt any of you remember me.”
His hand shot out in a warm invitation. Jake stood the closest to him, and stepped forward to accept his friendly greeting.
“Thank you for helping us.” Jake glanced at the ground under his feet. “My memory is a little fuzzy, but I thought we were walking through more snow than this last night.”
“You were.” The lieutenant swept a questioning gaze over the rest of us. “I’m sure you’ve seen some mystifying things over the past several weeks, or you wouldn’t be here.” No one answered his leading question, causing him to clear his throat uneasily. “I think it’s safe to say that last night’s storm was just one more thing to add to the long list of things we don’t understand about what’s going on here.”
“What do you know?” Dylan asked from over my shoulder.
“Not much,” Anderson answered dismissively.
“But you’ve managed to survive here,” Dylan pointed out.
“And there are others?” Jake added.
“Yes.” Anderson looked between Dylan and Jake, likely pinning them as the leaders of our group. “We’ve established a refugee camp here. Others like yourselves have been trickling in for weeks.”
Others like us? Not likely. But humans. Humans had survived.
I spotted glimpses of them when we followed Lieutenant Anderson through the small community they had created here. A few had gathered on the sidewalk in front of a sizable fire built in the road. Others stepped out from behind closed doors as we passed. Though I only saw a dozen or less people, I sensed that more were hidden out of sight.
“How many survivors are here?” I asked the lieutenant.
“Eight of us made it here from our base,” he answered. “When we arrived, we found most of the citizens either dead or missing. There are only three left from the original community. At last count, we’ve added twenty-one refugees. Twenty-seven, counting your group.”
“Your base?” Ewing asked the question we all wanted to know the answer to.
Lieutenant Anderson stopped and turned to face us. “United States Army, out of western Utah. Our base was overrun by flesh eaters five weeks ago. The eight of us were the only survivors. I’m the highest ranking officer here. I guess you could say I’m in charge.”
Jake’s gaze met mine at the words “flesh eaters” and his eyebrows shot up. It was an accurate description of the tags.
Dylan, on the other hand, passed right over that to focus on something else Anderson had said. “Western Utah? You mean Dugway?”
Now it was the lieutenant’s turn to look surprised. His stance shifted until he faced Dylan directly, the rest of us reduced to nothing but background. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “You’re familiar with the base?”
Dylan nodded once. “I know about it.”
I glanced at Jake, wondering if the wave of unease tumbling through me was coming from him, or from me. Or the situation in general, because the air suddenly grew thick with tension.
Anderson’s gaze lowered as if he were sizing Dylan up. Then he glanced at Jake, appraising him in the same manner. “You’re military.”
It wasn’t exactly a question, but Jake nodded anyway. His hand smacked Dylan’s shoulder gruffly. “We are. National Guard out of Salt Lake City. The flesh eaters hit before we could organize. We barely made it out with some of our family.” His head jerked over his shoulder toward the rest of us.
“Explains all the weapons you had with you.” Anderson’s shoulders relaxed, but he still eyed Dylan suspiciously. “I don’t know where you were headed, or what your plans are, but we could really use a few more able bodies around here. Don’t get me wrong”—he turned to resume our walk—“these survivors are a strong bunch, but they lack the discipline and stamina we need to make it long term. We’re living day-to-day . . .”
While Anderson pointed important locations out to us, Dylan glanced behind him to shoot a meaningful look at Sadie. A second later, he tugged at the tie holding up my hair. Letting it fall to my shoulders, he swept it around my neck. Not in a sweet or romantic or touchy-feely kind of way, but to hide the mark behind my ear—the one that broadcast what I was. In my periphery, I saw Sadie and Robbie do the same while Ewing hiked up the collar of his coat.
“We focused on getting the fence up first and collecting food and water,” Anderson continued, unaware of the growing apprehension around him. “Once we were confident we could protect ourselves, we started scavenging for extra supplies. Right now, we’re focused on surviving the winter, but we’ll start expanding when the weather improves. Hopefully more survivors will find their way to us by then.”
If the weather improved. With the ash cloud in the atmosphere blocking the sun, we were looking at years of cold temperatures. Assuming we weren’t overrun by Hell.
“Are there other bands of su
rvivors?” Jake asked the lieutenant. “Are you in touch with any other outposts like this?”
“Communications have been sketchy, at best,” Anderson explained with a grimace. “We’ve communicated with a few on the East Coast. Their comms are better, with not having as much ash cover to contend with, but the population of flesh eaters appears to be higher there. They’ve begun a counteroffensive, now that we all know their weaknesses.”
“Which are?” Dylan asked.
“Shooting them in the head is the only way to kill them. They also don’t like fire . . .” Everyone in our group nodded in unison, and the lieutenant’s lips curled into a small grin. “But it seems you already know that.”
“Have you learned anything else about them?” Jake questioned.
Anderson started walking again. “No.”
Dylan shot Jake a look impossible to miss. He didn’t believe the lieutenant.
“We keep in contact with another primitive camp of survivors dug in about forty miles east of here,” Anderson continued conversationally. “We trade supplies and help each other out. They don’t have a fence like we do, but they’ve managed to avoid the flesh eaters so far.”
“Where exactly are we, anyway?” I asked.
“Northeastern Utah,” Anderson supplied. “You must have been following I-40?”
Dylan glanced at Jake with a furrowed brow, and my brother shrugged his shoulders before turning toward Ewing—the last person who had been behind the wheel of our car before the snow buried it.
Ewing shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Anderson pointed over our heads. “We found you out there a few hundred yards from our fence. The interstate is about two miles on the other side of that plateau there.”
Dylan’s hand fisted at his side. “How close are we to Colorado?”
Anderson directed our attention toward the east with a nod of his head. We were surrounded by a flat plateau on all sides, with the occasional steep rock formation that rose out of the ground. Just visible on the eastern horizon was a long mountainous chain. “Those mountains make up the state border.”
Dylan and Jake shared another look, and I desperately wanted to haul them both behind one of these buildings to find out what kind of communication was going on between them. Jake was my twin—my connection—and I couldn’t get a damn thing from him.
“There’s not much around here,” Anderson continued. “It’s both a blessing and a curse. Fewer flesh eaters to worry about, but we have to travel farther to find provisions to keep us going. We were due to send a unit out yesterday, but decided to wait when the storm blew in.”
Like a man who had been given the gift of speech for the first time, he kept going with barely a breath before switching topics again. Pointing above a building that had once been a bar, he said, “Most of these have apartments above them, with one or two rooms each. On the next road over, you’ll find a few small houses. Most of the survivors here came in as individuals. We only have one family with a young child, and they are the three survivors that originally lived here. They’re still in their house. You’re welcome to take your pick from what’s left. We have plans to build better accommodations, but gathering food and water for the winter holds priority over assembling materials to build.”
Turning to sweep a gaze over our group, he concluded, “Everyone contributes around here. No one gets a free pass. It’s the only way we’re going to survive. If you stay—which I highly suggest you do—you’ll need to take on a job. We need everything from hunters and gatherers, to cooks, to laundry washers—no job is too small. Of course, most prefer to stay inside the fence. We have few volunteers willing to brave the dangers out there.”
He didn’t ask, but his voice rose with a hidden question, one I was sure we all agreed on the answer to. At least temporarily, until we figured out where to go from here.
Dylan’s chin lifted. “Where are our weapons?”
Anderson didn’t hesitate. “In storage. They’re yours when you want them.”
“If we’re going to do this, the six of us stick together.”
Anderson nodded once. “I’ll see to it.”
“No guarantees on how long we’ll stay.”
“Not a problem. We’ll take your help any way we can get it.”
14
DYLAN
Anderson showed us to their supply building, then left us to get reacquainted with our belongings. The instant my fingers curled around the butt of my pistol, I whipped around to take aim on Ewing’s forehead. The click-clicking of a bullet sliding into the chamber instantly snared everyone’s attention. The chatter died. No one moved.
A wave of panic rushed into my head, matching the ashen look I glimpsed on Sadie’s face. I hated for her to witness what I was about to do to her boyfriend—depending on the answers he gave—but I didn’t see that I had much of a choice.
Ewing’s hands wisely shot up into the air. He stared at me with narrowed eyes, waiting. Though he appeared calm, especially considering the up close view he had of the barrel of my gun, I saw his throat jump.
“Dylan!” Sadie shrieked. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Behind Ewing, Jake shifted closer to the door. Briefly meeting my gaze, he gave a stiff nod to let me know he had my back.
“I have a question,” I said smoothly. Glancing at Sadie and Robbie to include them, I added, “For all three of you, actually.”
“A question? A question!” Sadie barely refrained from launching herself at me. If it weren’t for the gun pointed at her boyfriend’s head, I suspected she would have. “Is this how the agency taught you to interact with your friends—”
“Friends?” I repeated bitterly. “Not hardly.”
She growled. “You can be such a—”
Thea snatched Sadie’s arm before her hand could connect with the back of my head. “Calm down. Let’s just wait to hear his question.” Thea peered at me with wide, confused eyes. “I think we all want to know what’s going on here.”
“Yeah.” I angled my head to the side, eyes narrowing on Ewing. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“What’s the source of your PMS this time?” Ewing’s lips twisted into a lazy smirk. Then he looked at Thea and I nearly shot him on the spot. “Can’t keep your girl happy?”
“Don’t look at her,” I growled. “And don’t tell me you didn’t know where we were.”
“Dylan, we—”
I cut Sadie off with a menacing step in Ewing’s direction. “You took over driving last night. You brought us here on purpose. You knew this town was here, didn’t you?”
“I had no idea where we were when the storm hit,” Ewing answered, emphasizing each word carefully. “We were driving east from Salt Lake City. It’s not hard to imagine we would end up in this area.”
“You’re going to pretend you didn’t know there was a refugee camp here, trading with your band of Preppers?”
I wasn’t an idiot. When Anderson mentioned another group in the area and our proximity to the Colorado border, I knew who he was referencing. I knew the Preppers were hiding in the mountains to the east of us.
I also noticed that I had dreamt of this town the last time the Watchers visited me. Their words to me now made sense. They said they were leading me to where they wanted me, like a pawn in their game. I hadn’t considered then that they meant an actual geographical location. Now I knew. I was here, in this town, for a reason.
The question was, why?
“Yes, we’ve traded with another group,” Ewing answered slowly. “But I never went on a trade run. I didn’t know who we were trading with, or exactly where they were located. All I knew was that they showed up a few weeks after everything started going south.”
I darted a glance at Sadie, then Robbie. Both nodded their heads.
“Calvin usually led the trips. He only took two or three others with him. None of us ever went,” Sadie confirmed.
“So you’re telling me that none of you knew
there was a military presence here from Dugway?”
Sadie took a deep breath. “We didn’t know.”
“I thought there were just a few lucky human survivors holed up nearby,” Robbie added breathlessly. “No one ever mentioned anything to me about military, or Dugway.”
“What’s the significance of Dugway anyway?” Thea wondered.
“They have the highest level of clearance in the country,” Jake answered. “No one knows a damn thing about what goes on there, and they’ve always been secretive about their base—even more secretive than we were.”
I had always been curious about what they were hiding at Dugway, but I never suspected it was related to the agency’s apocalypse prevention program—or rather the Lucifer-enabling initiative spearheaded by Agent Spence. Until now.
“You think they might have a hand in all of this?” Thea wondered.
“Considering we just realized they’re associated with Calvin and the Preppers, yeah. I certainly don’t think it’s a coincidence.” I stared at Ewing, daring him to give me a reason to pull the trigger.
“They’re not associated with the Preppers,” he insisted. “They simply found safety within the same forty square mile radius as the Preppers.”
“Okay. Let’s just pretend that I believe you. We still showed up here of all places.” My finger tightened on the trigger.
“The storm—”
“You are the ones who have insisted on us going straight to Calvin.” I split a hard glare between Ewing, Sadie, and Robbie. Nodding in Jake’s direction, I added, “We wanted more time. We wanted to do it—”
“You’re running out of time.” One side of Ewing’s mouth curled up. “Tell me. Are the Watchers talking to you yet? Do you feel them breathing down your neck? Do you feel yourself getting weaker? I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long. I thought for sure you would have caved before Maria. She must have been weaker than I thought.”
“You mother—”
Sadie jumped on my back when I lunged for Ewing. She held on to my neck like a baby gorilla hitching a ride on its mother. That didn’t stop me from slamming him to the floor with my bare hands. With my knee pressed into his gut, I pressed the barrel of my gun between his eyes. Jake flew into the fray from out of nowhere and pulled it out of my hand before I could kill the son of a bitch.