"I agree," Wesley said quietly.
"It should just be you and me," I continued. "I need Martin here. I'd rather be here myself, but I can't let you go out there by yourself."
Wesley nodded. "Agreed again." He sighed. For the first time, Wesley looked older than his forty-something years. I could see the gray in his hair, which was growing at a rapid pace from his military-style buzz cut. "I have a feeling that the moment we open the door to that mudroom she'll come rushing out. Should be a straight shot."
"Yeah," I said, nodding. What I neglected to say was, should be.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost four-thirty. Hopefully Alex would be in deep slumber by five and would not awaken until long after Wesley and I returned.
I sighed. "Let's get this going then."
Wesley and I rose to our feet and exited the radio room.
Seventeen
As we drew closer to Manning I felt my stomach churn with dread.
I was riding shotgun in Wesley's jeep, which he kept fueled and ready at all times. After making sure Alex was fast asleep in the living room on the sofa (helped by a dose of sleeping pills Tracy had slipped into a glass of iced tea), Wesley and I gathered our weapons: a bowie knife and a tomahawk for me, as well as my trusty .45 and the M4, a Glock 9mm handgun and a M4 for Wesley. We had enough firepower to take down a small city, but we knew we weren't going to need it. Our mission was to kill and dispose of one primitive-turned woman. In theory, that shouldn't be too difficult.
After snagging a map of the area, we set off. And the closer we got to Manning, the more my trepidation rose.
Of all the primitives I've killed—and that has to number in the hundreds as of this writing—I've never been bothered by any of them with the exception of this one. For some reason, this act of premeditating the murder of Alex's wife was having an emotional effect on me I could not deny. It was easy enough to kill primitives who were charging at you with their war whoops, bearing their crude weapons, ready to kill you. At that point, instinct simply took over.
But this one was different.
Until a few days ago—almost one full month after the end of the world—Naomi had been a real human being.
Had she turned and somehow managed to escape her home and never be seen again...well, we'd probably never come across her. Or if we did it would be during some battle between us and a band of primitives and we'd resort to killing her in self-defense.
That was a very different scenario than the one we were about to undertake.
Naomi was now confined to a single room in her home.
And we were traveling out there to put her out of her misery. Like shooting a horse that has a broken leg and can no longer run the Kentucky Derby.
And that bothered me.
As we approached the Manning city limits, I gripped the stock of my M4 and scanned the streets ahead of me. I had changed into a pair of jeans and boots, with a long-sleeve chambray shirt. Tracy had braided my hair and it now hung down my back. I grew tense, priming myself for what we were about to do.
Prior to falling asleep, Lori asked Alex where he lived. "On Wander Road, just past Mill Lane," he'd said, his voice drowsy. "Our place sits back about twenty yards from the road. Green house with white trim." He said something else we couldn't make out and then the sleeping pills took over.
"When we find Mill Lane we'll leave the vehicle there," Wesley said softly as he drove. "We'll make our way to the house on foot. Should be half a mile, and I don't want to risk alerting Naomi that we're coming."
"She'll probably hear something once we approach the house," I said.
"Yeah, but she won't hear a car engine," Wesley said. "That's key. The more an element of surprise we can achieve, the easier this is going to be."
I nodded.
"It sounds like there's a backdoor to the mudroom," Wesley continued. We were cruising through the north side of Manning now, and the sight of decaying bodies littering the streets was overwhelmed by the stench of carrion that lingered in the air. "She'll definitely hear us as we circle around the back. Once we verify her location, I'll take up position approximately fifteen yards back. You approach the door. You got his keys?"
I patted the front pocket of my jeans where Alex's house keys were. I'd pilfered them prior to our departure. "Got them right here."
"When I give you the signal, unlock the door, open it, and step out of the way. She'll probably come charging out and that'll give me a clean shot. If she doesn't rush right out, I'll try to bait her into coming out. If that doesn't work, we go in formation style. I'll approach the house and as I do, you step back from the door and cover me. Follow my lead."
"Okay." I could feel my heart start to hammer.
"Once she's dead we'll clean up, then make it look like she broke out. We'll carry the body back to the jeep and drive back through town. We'll stop on Route 7 and bury her there." In addition to our weapons, a first aid kit and some water, we'd packed a tarp and a pair of shovels in the rear of the jeep. "My goal is to be back by six at the latest."
I said nothing as we left Manning. We were entering open country again. The area was rolling hills with spots of forest here and there. I consulted the map and saw we had another mile to go.
Wesley made a right on the first road we came to and followed it. I could feel the pressure and fear of what we were about to undertake come down on me. It had been a month since I'd had to engage in any kind of armed battle for my life. In a way, that ride to Alex's house to put down Naomi was more nerve-wracking than the half dozen or so skirmishes I'd participated in the week following the collapse of civilization. Maybe it didn't seem as bad then because everything happened so suddenly and I didn't have time to think about it; I'd just acted on instinct.
I took a deep breath to calm myself down. Closed my eyes, fingered the trigger guard of my M4. Took stock of the situation. We would be okay. We had a plan, and we had superior weaponry and we were skilled killers (something I never knew I'd admit to myself). We had a technological and mental advantage. This was going to be easy.
But there was something in the back of my mind that didn't sit right with me.
It grew stronger as we reached Mill Lane. Wesley pulled the jeep over and killed the engine. I hopped out, reached into the back of the vehicle and pulled out the tarp. Wesley checked his armament and nodded. "Okay, let's go."
It took us less than fifteen minutes to make the half mile hike to Alex's home. As we approached, I listened for any unusual sounds—the howling of primitives, the crunch of underbrush beneath bare feet—and heard nothing. One of the biggest hindrances was the amount of cover this area had. While not as heavily wooded as the Sierra Mountains, there were enough trees and dense underbrush for primitives to hide themselves in. They could be sneaking up on the cabin at the same time we were, drawn by Naomi's crazed howling. They could be right at—
"We're here," Wesley whispered.
We were at the mouth of a gravel driveway that wound through some trees. At the end sat a green house with white trim, just as Alex described it.
Weapons raised, stocks against our shoulders, we stepped onto the driveway and made our way toward the house.
And except for the sound of birds twittering in the trees overhead, I didn't hear a sound.
We breasted the side of the house, heading toward the back. I had reached a sort of Zen state as I crept behind Wesley, rifle muzzle pointed at the house. I was light-footed and as sleek as a panther.
And I could feel something—call it what you want, a spiritual force, whatever. It was there, and it was heavy.
As we reached the rear of the house, a guttural howling rose from the back of the structure. There's no word in the English language to describe what that sounded like. Best I can describe was that it sounded like a cross between a large gorilla and a voice-over effect from a demonically possessed woman. Remember how Linda Blair sounded in The Exorcist when she became possessed? Think of that growl and you'll understand
why the hairs on the back of my arm rose when I heard it.
Wesley nodded at me and we stepped toward the back door of the house. As we approached, the thing inside the house continued howling. There were grunting and thumping noises. I saw a quick flurry of movement from a dirty window that sat about four feet from the ground, a window that would have been too small for a human being to squeeze through, then a hard thump that shook the door in its frame. Another growl, more primitive and insane sounding than before. My stomach plunged down an elevator shaft.
Wesley stopped and assumed the firing position, the stock of the M4 resting against the hollow of his shoulder, lining up the sights for his shot. I crept forward, slung the barrel of my rifle over my shoulder, making sure the safety was off. Then, I fished for Alex's keys, took them out, and approached the door.
Naomi's howls and thrashings grew more frenzied as I approached the door. I was still in that Zen state; it felt like I was floating ever so lightly on my feet as I reached toward the door and then, at Wesley's signal, quickly unlocked the door and wrenched it open.
There was a howl of anger from inside the mudroom and I felt something rush out the door. There was a burst of gunfire—perhaps six shots—and then I heard something heavy thump to the ground outside. I quickly drew my rifle up, and stepped away from the door.
Wesley was approaching the body that lay on the ground face down about ten feet from the now opened doorway. I caught my first look at Naomi and couldn't help but feel a trifle emotional. Even though I couldn't see her face, she had to have been a beautiful woman before the primitive nature gained control of her. I don't mean beautiful in the traditional sense that we've come to understand the word. I'm not talking about the flawless beauties of certain actresses and models. I'm talking about the beauty that comes from within one's soul. The woman who lay before me was not what one would call slim; she was verging on chunky, with matted brown hair. She was wearing a soiled pair of jeans and a filthy T-shirt that was rapidly turning deep red from the gunshots that had torn through her upper body.
As I stepped around to the other side of her, I got a good look at her face for the first and last time. Lying on her right cheek, her eyes forever open, Naomi struck me as being a plain, yet lovely woman, the kind you could joke around with at a backyard barbecue, who would always be quick with a joke, a word of wit and laughter. Her eyes were green. She had a small, perky nose, and a mouth that would have created dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. Her hair, while matted and filthy now, would have hung in wavy curls to her shoulders. She was wearing a necklace of slim gold around her neck. She did not look like a primitive at all.
She was human.
And we'd put her out of her misery.
"I know what you're thinking and while you're right, you're also wrong," Wesley said. He lowered the muzzle of his weapon.
"What do you mean?" I looked at him.
"She was human once, but she wasn't human when she charged out of that house." Wesley nodded at her. "She looked like one of those zombie things in 28 Days Later. When she charged out of that house she was a wild animal. The virus made her that way."
"Yeah, I know," I said. The mad urge to get the hell away from Naomi was now screaming at me. "And we're going to have a problem if this virus is able to infect those of us who were spared the first time around."
Wesley looked at the house. The brief staccato of gunfire had not created any kind of disturbance. If there were primitives in the immediate area they either never heard the gunfire, or they were retreating to higher ground.
Or they were heading our way, drawn by it.
Wesley sensed my urgency. "Let's check the house real quick."
"Do we have to?" I asked. The urge to leave was overwhelming. Who knows if the virus had mutated by this point? Perhaps that was why Naomi had turned nearly a month following the outbreak.
"We have to finish what we started," Wesley said as he made his way to the house. He stepped toward the open backdoor, rifle pointed at the house as if he expected another primitive to come leaping out at him. "This won't take long."
"Shit." I looked down at Naomi's corpse, then took off after Wesley.
When I got to the steps that led to the house, Wesley was already inside. "Oh my God," he said.
The smell was the first thing that hit me. A heavy stench of sweat and human waste that had been allowed to ferment in the closed-in space of this room. The second thing I noticed was the overturned table, clothes scattered on the floor and ripped to shreds, the washing machine on its side. A thin sheen of dirty water covered the floor.
Wesley was standing to my right, looking at the wall. I followed his gaze and saw what had taken him by surprise.
Drawn crudely in what appeared to be a mixture of feces and blood was a caricature of what I was now coming to know as the God of the New World. It took up the entire wall space; about five feet across and seven feet high. My mind flashed back briefly to the other depictions of the creature we'd seen on our journey to Montana, to Alex saying he'd never seen any weird drawings in Manning when he and Naomi made their trip out there (and I verified this by remembering I'd seen none on our drive into town just ten minutes ago).
"Jesus," I muttered, echoing Wesley's astonishment. "How the hell are they able to share the same...the same..."
"Image of this thing?" Wesley finished for me. "Fuck if I know."
"Do you feel the presence?" I asked him. While I felt something, it didn't feel like that same sensation of being watched that we experienced as we fled California.
"No," Wesley said, still looking at the figure on the wall. "Not really." He looked at me. "But I feel something."
From outside came a howl of anguish.
The suddenness of it startled me; I saw Wesley's eyes fly open in surprise as he whirled around, rifle raised, ready to shoot. I reacted in similar fashion and what I saw outside made my stomach churn.
Primitives were swarming the perimeter of the house. At first count it looked like over a dozen. Three of them were crouched near Naomi's corpse. One idly picked up her arm and gave a hooting sound. Another one made that howl of anguish, as if in mourning.
"AAAAaaaaarooooo!" A large male primitive, of African-American descent sporting a bushy beard and naked save for a dirty T-shirt and carrying a baseball bat, pointed at us as he howled. He was standing thirty feet from us. The three crouching around Naomi looked toward us at the sound of his war cry and sprang to their feet.
Wesley and I reacted on instinct. We pointed our weapons and sprayed bullets.
Wesley's initial shots took down the three that had stopped to examine Naomi's body. I fired a volley of shots toward the group clustered around the large male that had given his warning cry. The male primitive somehow managed to avoid getting hit as he charged at us. He was a fast blur as I brought my rifle around to fire at him, but he was faster. He darted right under Wesley's line of fire and slammed into me, knocking me on my back into the house.
My index finger squeezed the trigger of the rifle involuntarily, sending a staccato of shots toward the ceiling. Plaster and wood rained down on me, bouncing off the primitive's back as I held him off with my left forearm. He was howling, pushing his face at me to bite. His breath was horrendous. He wasn't very tall, but he was built like a linebacker with a heavily muscled chest and arms. His hands were grasped around my wrist, trying to force it away from my throat. His knee shoved up, connecting squarely with my inner right thigh, dangerously close to my groin. Pain exploded down there, fueling my adrenalin.
I heard a thump as I fought him, straining with all my might to shove him off of me. My handgun was digging into the small of my back painfully. I heard another thump, then another rise of howling from outside. Then, I heard Wesley say, "Oh shit."
I knew that wasn't good.
The primitive's knee hit my inner thigh again in the same exact spot, this time harder. I yelled in pain, and that blow was enough to temporarily weaken me. He shoved my ar
ms aside and I twisted in his grasp at the last moment. His descending jaws clamped down on my shoulder and bit down hard just as I saw Wesley bring the stock of his rifle down on the back of the primitive's head.
The force of the blow was enough to not only knock the primitive out, it drove the teeth of his lower jaw through my shirt and into my shoulder. I screamed and hit him with my left fist, not even aware that he was unconscious.
"Shit, oh shit, oh shit!" Wesley said. I heard a staccato of gunfire, heard the dying cries of primitives. I don't know how he managed to hit so many as I was still thrashing beneath the body of the primitive that was holding me down. I was just realizing he was unconscious when I felt my rifle being jerked away from me. Panicked, I grabbed the unconscious primitive by the throat and used him as a shield, expecting another one to slam into me. Instead, I heard more gunfire and Wesley screaming, "Die you motherfuckers! Die!"
I had to help Wesley get out of this. I shoved the unconscious primitive aside, ignoring the pain in my inner right thigh and shoulder. I grabbed the rifle Wesley had dropped and immediately saw what happened and what was going on: Wesley had run out of ammo and he'd grabbed my rifle to continue the defensive. He'd managed to kill a large swath of primitives but more were emerging from the trees beyond the property. Jesus, how many of them were there?
I ejected the spent magazine, found a fresh one from the stash I had strapped to my jacket and slapped it in. I fired, missing at first, but soon taking them down like ducks at one of those carnival shooting galleries. I leapt to my feet, shooting at everything outside that moved. The primitives that had moved in from the outer perimeter were now either dead, dying, or running away.
Wesley rearmed his M4 from a series of spare magazines strapped over his shoulder and jumped off the porch. "You okay?"
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