Treaters: Book One of the Divine Conflict.

by CJ Rutherford

  I shrugged. “There’s always Plan B.”

  Jennifer snorted. Plan B had been a private joke between us for weeks, that if we ever got stuck out in the middle of nowhere at night, we’d dig ourselves a hole in the ground and jump into it. The plan had originated the night I told Jennifer about crashing into the plowed field and almost burying the jeep in the soft muck.

  Shit! Could it be that simple? Jennifer caught the look on my face, or maybe she’d tuned in on my thoughts again.

  “You have something, don’t you?” she said. “Another one of those crazy, whacked-out theories?”

  I shook my head and grinned widely. “Darlin’ you have no idea.” I paused long enough to have her shrugging her shoulders in impatience. “Remember the jeep in the field, and how Tray and I spent most of the night with Treaters nearby, but survived.”

  “Yeah, because the jeep was buried in the mud. You already told me this story, and after the last few nights, we know they can’t sense us when we’re underground.”

  “But I wasn’t underground, Jennifer.” I gave it a second to sink in. “The jeep was buried up to its tires and one of the front fenders, but the rest of it was above ground. It was covered in mud from the impact.”

  Comprehension dawned, replaced by a smirk that became a wicked smile.

  “Umm…Jenn?” For a second, she didn't look a hundred percent sane.

  “All this time getting down and dirty with you, and now we have to literally get down and dirty to survive? Oh, the irony.” She burst into laughter, her giggles interrupted now and again by her adorable piggy-snort.

  I sat wide-eyed for a second before joining in. It was another one of those semi-maniacal moments where we were hugging each other and laughing uncontrollably. Tray, of course, jumped up on our legs, barking excitedly to join in the fun.

  When we finally settled, I walked over to my backpack and pulled out the plastic-coated map of California I had procured from a road-side service station a few days ago to replace my dad's torn and battered maps. “If we need to get down and dirty, as you seem to delight in calling it, your worship, then we need to find some mud.”

  I flipped the map open and spread it out on the hood of a minivan and looked at it while taking in our surroundings.

  “I’m right, and I always am…”

  Jennifer thumped me on the shoulder.

  “Ow! Then we are here.” I jabbed at a point on the map about five miles outside Davis. “And the nearest water is this river right here.” I indicated a blue line on the map, about two miles from our current location. Unfortunately, it was all cross country, unless you wanted to ride about twenty miles further up the road we were on for it to intersect with a bridge, and I didn’t want to risk that. Twenty miles was easily doable on the bikes with a clear road, but I had no idea what we’d run into.

  “You up for a little stroll in the country, your worship?” I hoisted my pack onto my back and crooked my elbow for Jennifer.

  “Mr. Solo, you are the perfect gentleman, as always.”

  It took us about two steps to snort and slap each other’s hands away. We joked and play-fought for around half a mile before settling into the journey hand-in-hand. The terrain was rugged, but we made good time, reaching the fast-flowing river around 5:30 p.m. There was plenty of time to scout the area for a place to lie low, and time enough to perfect our camouflage techniques.

  That night was the most terrifying night of our lives.

  ***

  Jennifer lay beside me, and even though I could feel her, feel the warmth of her body pressed tight against mine, I couldn’t see her unless her eyes were open. And when she closed them I might as well have been lying alongside a mossy log. I’d done a good job with her camo, my training in the Marines being put to good use, and, with her artistic eye, she’d done a better job on mine.

  Tray’s fur was literally caked with mud, and thankfully she seemed to sense it was for her own safety and didn’t try to shake or lick it off.

  We’d each rolled in the deepest mud patch we could find, smearing each other’s blind spots on our backs and faces as thickly as we could. Then we’d walked the short distance to our pre-selected hiding place in a hollow beneath a thick bush. I was surprised to see some foliage still on the trees surrounding the hollow, and the bush still had a few of its leaves, which was my main reason for choosing it.

  I beckoned for Jennifer to lie down first, placed Tray beside her, and then covered both of them with dead leaves. This served a dual purpose, both to further camouflage us, and to stop the mud from drying out fully. We were in for a cold and miserable night, but hopefully it’d be a night we would live through.

  It didn’t take long after the sun went down for us to realize something was terribly wrong. As the dusk turned to full dark, the forest awoke around us. The nightmares came out.

  Jennifer shook in my arms as, hour after hour, the shuffling sounds mixed with snarls and sniffs not of this Earth grew closer. I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were talking to each other, in some sort of vile, guttural language. The sound of the words, if that’s what they were, grated against my mind like the squeal of brakes with no pads left. The sounds were all around us now, as if some sense had drawn them from all around the forest to this one spot. I spent the long hours with one arm holding Jennifer and my other hand on Tray's trembling body second-guessing myself. How had they found us? Had I been that wrong? Had the mud dried out too much? I was pretty certain mine was still pretty moist, but was Jennifer’s? Was Tray’s? Had I fucked up, and now we were all going to die because of it?

  I swallowed as the quarter moon illuminated a shape peering over the lip of the hollow in which we hid. I felt Jennifer restrain a gasp. My pulse raced, and I felt her heart galloping in her chest.

  No way. I wasn’t going to let her die. I wasn’t going to break another promise. I leaned in and gently brushed my lips against her neck, whispering, “I love you.” I felt her stiffen in my arms, but before I could do anything, Tray wriggled out from between us and dashed into the darkness, barking and growling, and generally making as much noise as possible.

  I felt Jennifer’s lurch upward, but pressed her hard to the ground. She tried her best to suppress it, but I heard her sob.

  I don’t know what forced me into action. Maybe it the way Jennifer had looked at me when I was about to kill Tray back in Deadwood. In any case, I was up and running, my shotgun in my hand and specials in my pockets. I had no idea how many Treaters were around. By the cries and the sounds of branches breaking and heavy footfalls as they raced after Tray, there had to be more than I could handle. Her barks and yips were growing fainter as she raced away, much faster than I could follow. Maybe even fast enough to avoid the fuckers, in the forest, at least.

  I put on another defiant burst of speed, as much because of adrenaline and battle frenzy as for any silly notion of avenging my dog. That had nothing to do with why I ran. I knew I couldn’t help Tray, but I’d take a few of those fuckers with me, I vowed, as I ran in the direction of Tray’s final, mad dash.

  My heart was racing so fast I thought it might burst in one massive coronary, but I kept going, for all the good it would do any of us. To my left and right, I could hear them racing through the undergrowth, but they weren’t coming any closer, content to … herd me. Fuck that! The bastards were playing with me. Well, two could play, motherfuckers. I jumped over a fallen tree trunk and ground to a halt, kneeling to bring the shotgun's stock into my shoulder. There was already a round in the chamber, so I steadied my breathing as best I could and waited.

  As I waited for the first Treater to catch up to me, I prayed to a god I’d never believed in to keep Jennifer safe. I thought back to the moment I’d first caught sight of her, as she sprinted out of that emergency exit. I’d run after a little girl, but I’d caught a young woman. It was at this moment, this moment before my death, I realized I’d been madly attracted to her from first sight and probably in lov
e with her the moment she smashed my balls up into my tonsils. The weeks afterward had been a careful exercise in denial.

  It seemed to be taking the Treaters an age to arrive. Tray's yips had stopped suddenly, and the realization made me sick to my stomach. At the same time, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for the time I'd shared with Jennifer. A few days ago, Jennifer had said she felt like the luckiest girl alive. I smiled. If I were going to die here and now, I would die the luckiest man who had ever lived.

  A rustle to my left, and I swung the barrel, but whatever had made the sound took off in another direction. I looked to my left and right, my ears straining to pick up the tell-tale sounds of the flanking creatures returning to feast, but all I heard was a distant thrashing of branches, like they had simply carried on running in the direction they’d been going.

  The fuck?! This didn’t make any sense. I was here! Why weren’t they coming for me? Another rustle to my right had me jerking the barrel in that direction, but again, whatever it was missed me by at least ten yards and carried on. I knelt, completely still, barely breathing as the forest grew gradually silent around me.

  I lowered the shotgun and collapsed with my back against the trunk of a tree. What the fuck had just happened? They had us. They were there, just about to rip us to pieces as we lay helpless in the hollow…weren’t they?

  I played the memory back over and over in my mind. Yes, the Treaters had been there at the hollow. I distinctly remembered seeing one peek over the lip. I had seen its eyes for an instant, before slitting my own closed again. It hadn’t attacked. We’d been surrounded, but instead of attacking instantly, as was their standard procedure, it had hesitated. They must have known we were there; they had to have known. They’d been all around us when Tray ran.

  I sat still, running it all through my mind, collating what I knew. After losing Tray in the forest – at least, I hoped that was what had happened. The other option was not acceptable – they’d turned around and run after me, but they hadn’t attacked. They ran me down like a wolf pack would run down a deer, but there was never a direct attack, as wolves used when harrying a deer to exhaustion. Why not? I looked down at my hands, barely visible in the moonlight. They were still caked in mud and leaves, and were hardly discernable against the forest floor, even when I knew where they were. Shit! Was that it? Was it that simple? They couldn’t attack me…because they couldn’t sense me?! When I ran, they could track the sound, but in a forest at night, tracking by sound is wholly inaccurate under the best of circumstances. I knew this from jungle training in the Corps.

  Think it through. They lost me when I stopped running. They couldn’t track me by sound and couldn’t sense my life force, or whatever it was they used to sniff us out. So, how had they found us in the hollow? Both Jennifer and I were camouflaged, buried under the same leaves, but they had homed in on us. Us. Us. The word played through my brain. Yes! They had found us, but they couldn’t find me. They found us because we were together, and whatever life force the two…three of us, if you included Tray…gave off in the one place had been too much to hide.

  My mind raced. It was slim – slimmer than a gnat's ass, Ted would have said, but it was possible. If I were right, and if Jennifer hadn't run, all we had to do was hide a short distance away from each other and we’d be safe. They can’t track single life forms when they are camouflaged. I was almost sure of it, but for now I prayed Jennifer would stay put until the morning.

  Tray’s receding cries and the sudden silence afterward echoed through my soul. I’d failed her, and a small part of me wished I’d ended it that day in Deadwood. If I had, all three of us would be dead by now, and we wouldn’t have to keep trying so damned hard to see another sunrise. My eyes burned as I realized Jenn and I would both be dead now if it weren’t for Tray. We were both alive because she had saved us. She’d run away at the last possible moment, when the Treaters were right on top of us, making as much racket as she could. She’d made herself a diversion.

  Damned, stupid dog! Tears ran freely down my face. God, I had grown to love that damned, stupid dog – even if she was a traitorous little mama's girl!

  I stopped, suddenly realizing something. Tray had been covered in as much mud and crap as I was. When she’d busted out of the hollow she’d barked and growled, making as much noise as possible, and she’d kept barking until she was far enough away I couldn’t hear her any more. Tray could be alive!

  ***

  Jennifer

  They were gone. First my mom and Jessica. Then my dad. Now Jaz and Tray. They were all gone, and I was truly alone for the first time since the world went – since Hell came to us.

  The forest around me was silent and still now, the creatures off running after Jaz and Tray. Stupid, heroic Jaz. I was certain that as soon as they finished feasting on him, they’d return to me for dessert. But they didn’t. Not soon enough, in any case.

  As the sky brightened in the east, I wished they would come for me. I’d cried through the night, listening for any sign that Jaz had survived. He’d taken Mr. Shotgun with him, and I knew he’d have gotten a few shots off if he’d been able, but they had taken him before he could. I prayed to God it had been quick. I hadn’t heard any screams, so I supposed it must have been, and I gave thanks for that. Yeah, right. Thank you, God, for allowing the man I love to be butchered in a relatively swift and painless manner. Big thumbs up on that one. The bitterness I’d felt after the attack on Halloween night returned with a vengeance. How could I pray to a god that allowed the world he created to be destroyed by abominations?

  As the first shafts of sunlight crested the eastern horizon, I sat up to look out on a truly empty world. I might or might not have been the last survivor. I was pretty sure there must be more scattered around the globe, but it didn’t matter. I was alone. I was cold, wet, hungry, and alone. I didn’t think I had any tears left, but they came anyway, and I sat on the, damp ground, shivering, hugging myself, and sobbing.

  I wept, half in grief, the other half self-pity. I heard the rustle of leaves, but I squeezed my eyes even more tightly closed. I didn't want to see it, just like I never wanted to watch when the I.V. tech drew my blood or the nurse gave me an injection. This was it then. There was still enough time before dawn; they'd come for me. I was glad. I held my breath, waiting for the talons to rip me apart.

  “Jesus, Jennifer, you are one sorry sight.”

  It was a dream. I was still asleep. It had to be. My eyes snapped open at his words. "You're alive?"

  “Last time I looked, yeah.”

  My aching muscles were forgotten as I leapt on him. I kissed him. I kissed every inch of his dirty, smelly, disgusting, lovely face. My tears mixed with his to run tracks down our mud-smeared cheeks.

  “Can you let go a little bit, hon?” Jaz grunted. “I didn’t survive the Treaters to be strangled by my girlfriend.”

  I hadn’t realized I had wrapped my legs around his waist and was squeezing his neck as hard as I could. I didn’t want to let him go. I couldn’t let him go, not ever again. I knew it, felt it in my bones. He was part of me now, as I was part of him, but…I supposed choking him to death might put a damper on any future relationship, so I eased off…slightly.

  I felt him relax as I lowered my legs to the ground, then anger rose up in me and I pushed myself away from him enough to punch him in the chest. “You ASSHOLE! I thought you were dead.”

  He shrugged. “To be fair, so did I at one point…actually, at more than one point, but let’s not get into that right now.” Then he grew silent, his expression darkening. “Tray didn’t come back?”

  I dragged his face down to kiss me, and I melted into him for a long moment before drawing away. “I know she’s gone, Jaz,” I said finally. “There was nothing you could have done.” We sat in silence for a while before I spoke, attempting to lighten the air of gloom surrounding us. “You know, you need a bath.”

  He snorted and held his hand up to his face like a cell phone. “Hi Pot, this
is Kettle. I called to let you know you’re black.”

  I jabbed him in the ribs and was rewarded by a huff of air. “You are a terrible person,” I said.

  “Maybe, but you love me.” His crooked grin had the butterflies in my stomach riding a rollercoaster.

  “Yeah, but you’re still an asshole.”

  He drew my head to rest against his chest, and we stood there for a while savoring each other’s existence before he spoke. “How about we head down to the river and clean up as best we can, and I’ll tell you why I didn’t come back last night.”

  I leaned back far enough to look him in the eye. “Is this the part where you tell me you’ve found another woman? It’s you, not me? I’ll be in your heart always?”

  “There was this little blonde I ran into while the Treaters were chasing me last night. Pretty little thing. Taller than you, but then that wouldn’t be hard…OOF!”

  My elbow connected harder than I’d meant it to. Good! “You deserved that.”

  He winced theatrically, but then smiled as he took me by the hand and led me to the river. I looked skyward and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Aw, Shit

  Jennifer

  The next few days, as Jaz and I walked west from the California city of Davis, life degenerated into a horror I’d never thought possible. We had spent the entire first day calling Tray's name and then trying to find her body to give her a decent burial, at least, but we found no sign, not even any blood. She had barely been a mouthful for those son-of-bitches, just as Jaz’s father’s dog, Buster, had been barely a mouthful for the giant catfish.

  Jaz had tried to comfort me by explaining that Tray had been smeared with as much mud as he had, and maybe the Treaters couldn’t ‘lock on’ to her, the same way they had bypassed him the night before. After a couple of hours of calling her name to no effect, I kind of gave up on that fantasy, even if Jaz persisted in believing she was still alive, but lost.