by Tes Hilaire
“Must have been someone else. I was a bit preoccupied at the time.”
“With the impending change.”
“Yeah.”
I stand, planting my hands on my hips. “What did you do after?”
He turns his face away, as if he can’t bear looking at me.
I reach up, placing my fingers along his jaw. He allows me to turn his head back but I see the pain buried deep within them. “John?”
“I ran. As far and as fast as I could. And then I hunted.”
I furrow my brow in confusion. “Hunted what?”
“Sheep, actually.”
I feel the corner of my lip twitch. I figure he means the big horn sheep native to the desert mountains, but the image of the wolf hunting the sheep is too much. “Really, and was it yummy?”
“Damn it, Eva, it’s not funny.”
“Why not?”
“Because I ran! Don’t you see? You guys were in trouble and I had to run.”
His guilt hits me in the chest like a sledgehammer. Of course. Of course he’d see that as a failure. The silence stretches between us as I try to think of what to say. I can think of only one thing.
“You saved me.” It sounds almost like a question coming out, like you did save me, right? Or perhaps, more importantly, why did you save me?
He reaches up, his hand cupping mine along his chin. “I’m not going to ask what you were still doing here. When I was on the hunt I swear I saw the convoy truck hightailing it across the desert.” His eyes narrow. “That was them, right? They did make it out of there, didn’t they?”
“Yes. They’re all good.”
He takes a deep breath, dropping his hand. It seems the signal for me to drop mine too, so I do. He places his hands on his hips, staring down at me with disapproving eyes.
I know what he’s thinking, and fold my arms across my chest, glowering back. “You said you weren’t going to ask.”
“So why don’t you tell me instead.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you’re my teammate.”
“So?”
“And for me, my team is my pack.”
His words make my guts cramp. Eh tu, Johnné? It’s obvious what he’s saying between the lines. Does he honestly think I’m that self-serving? Does he think I might have abandoned the others when the going got too tough? Or worse, that I might have been attempting to take off for parts unknown so I could hook up with the very vampires that had attacked Nellis? These were the things I expected from Convict, not John.
I swallow, turning my face away. “And you need to be able to trust your pack. I get it.”
He grabs my arm, his grip firm, almost bruising. “No, I don’t think you do.”
I snap my head back, blinking up into his fuming face. I’d say he’s really angry, but again, the smell is not quite right. Something is going on here, something I don’t understand. He has that same intense look on his face as the day we sparred in the training room. As it was then, I’m not sure how to deal with it now. So I go for what I know best. Turn the tables.
“Did you have a pack besides your team?” I ask.
The question has him blinking in confusion. He answers, though I suspect it’s more an automatic response than that he’s on the same page with me regarding the subject change. “Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
He drops his hand, looking at the ceiling of the cave. Immediately his eyes widen.
“Shit. We’re wasting time.” He jerks his head toward the narrow tunnel that leads out of the cave, his mouth turned down in a grimace. “Come on, we can talk while we walk. We’re actually further from the helicopter than we were at the storage facility.”
And isn’t that just great. I follow him out of the cave. There’s a lot of grunting, groaning and swearing as he shoulders his way out, leaving behind a couple swaths of skin, but pretty soon we’re popping out into the fading evening light.
“This isn’t too bright for you, is it?” There is real concern in his voice.
“You made me walk for hours during the day thirty-six hours ago and you’re asking me this now?”
“Sorry about that. I was preoccupied at the time. And Brice was right, we needed to get the intel on Nellis back to base.”
I wave his apology off. “As long as the sun isn’t shining on me directly, I’ll be fine.”
“And if it does? What then?”
“It burns me like it would an albino on the beach. Plus any prolonged exposure will lead to severe dehydration.”
“That’s it?”
“Isn’t that bad enough?”
“I guess I expected a lot worse.”
“Like instantly turning into ash?”
“Something like that.”
I shake my head. “I would become comatose. After I’d gone through the dehydrated mummy stage, which, I’m told, is akin to walking through the fires of hell.”
“Okay, that does sound bad. Let’s try to avoid that.”
“Good idea.”
We take off down the same valley we’d killed the wolf-zombie in last night. The scavengers have already found it. Small rodents, large winged vultures. I avert my eyes and try to keep up with John. His comments about my superior healing ability aside, he seems to be making a rather remarkable recovery now.
“So, you were going to tell me about your pack,” I say as I scramble over another boulder.
He glances out the corner of his eye at me. “I told you, my team is my pack now.”
“And that’s it? No other pack? No pack before you joined up? What were you, born packless?”
He sighs. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
I wing my brow up in answer, a silent, “would you?” His answer must be no, he wouldn’t let it go, because the silence between us is not the tense I’m-not-going-to-tell-you silence, but the hold-on-while-I-gather-my-thoughts kind.
“First off, I wasn’t born a werewolf.”
I nod. I’d figured as much.
“It happened after the outbreak, but I guess to really understand you have to understand my before.” He glances over at me, his eyes narrowed as he considers me. “I told you how I was in BUDS training when the outbreak hit, right?”
“Yes. You said it was the same time as the stuff with the S-strain in San Francisco.”
“Exactly right. I guess I’m wrong, all you really need to know about before is that BUDS is intense. Your team, how well you work together, it’s the difference between your success or your failure. They are your brothers. Your thin thread on your sanity. They’re your life.”
“Wow, intense.”
“You have no idea.”
I curl my lip back. “And you tell me that a lot.”
“Sorry.” He shrugs, but I don’t feel like he’s sorry. I don’t say anything about it though because he goes on. “So here we are, going through BUDS and the whole zombie apocalypse is going down around us. Things were bad, then went to worse. We weren’t even done with the training when we were being yanked onto active duty. Normally SEALs work in small groups. But personnel was stretched beyond thin. It was just the four of us; me and my BUDS, our own little fire team. Of course, four seemed fine given how easy the mission sounded. All we had to do was extract a small group of survivors holed up on the top floor of one of the government buildings. We even had full air support.”
Easy, all we had to do. Yeah right. “Where?” I ask.
“San Francisco.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah. What we didn’t know was that some of the people we were retrieving had already been bitten, but weren’t showing signs yet. We loaded the first group on the helicopter. They took off and we headed back for more. Another helicopter was supposedly due to touch down in five. Then all hell broke loose over the com. Screaming, yelling, gunfire. The first helicopter went down, ball of flames. Control wouldn’t send in another. They’d already lost the high level official in the crash. And at that tim
e they didn’t know what the S-strain was, ergo, they didn’t know the parameters of this new strain. Mission was compromised.”
“They left your team there to die?” All through his story my stomach has been sinking lower and lower, but now it turns into a ball of fiery fury.
His jaw tightens, the muscles bunching all the way down his neck and into his curled fists. “The official’s secretary was infected, had bitten one of my team. She acted afraid, remorseful. Stupid us figured she had just been scared and carried her out anyway. As per protocol, the wound was reported the moment we delivered her to the helicopter. When the helicopter went down two and two were put together and… well, let’s just say the guy in charge decided we were expendable. “What happened then?”
“We fought our way into a corner. Eventually we ran out of ammo and had to take to the ducts, finally reaching a room in the basement with a heavy metal door we could brace. Longest night of my life. We knew we couldn’t hope to make a break for it until day when the residents would go into slumber. Gary made it until three am. His last request was that we kill him quickly.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nods curtly. “So then it’s daybreak and we’re trying to sneak out. They’re all asleep. Unlike your average schmuck of a citizen, we can move like cats so we slit as many throats as we can without slowing down. We were hoping to get out of the city by nightfall, find an isolated spot somewhere to hole up, then press on until we were past the infected area. We weren’t the only ones with the idea. There were others out and about trying to get out of the downtown. Problem was we didn’t know who to trust, and who was already infected.”
“That really… sucks.”
“You said it. Long story short, we didn’t get out of there that day, nor the next. And by the time we did make it out, it was to learn that the entire west coast was compromised. We made a b-line for Beale Air-Force base, figuring that further north and inland would be the best option. They might have had time to get the proper safety parameters in place.”
“But by then the established safe zones weren’t letting anyone in,” I say, filling in with the history that I knew. “They were already afraid someone they let in would be carrying the slower strain and spread the pandemic inside.”
“Exactly.”
“So there you were, in the thick of things, thousands of people all desperately in need of help, and you didn’t know if you could or should help them.”
“It was ripping us apart. Mike and I couldn’t stand leaving all those desperate people behind, but José had gotten to the point where he’d rather slit their throats than try and help one only to have them turn again.”
“So what happened?”
“We met a man. He said he could tell who was infected and who wasn’t.”
“A were?”
“Yup, though we didn’t know it then. He just told us that he could smell the virus on them. Some “vaccine” he’d taken had heightened his senses, making it possible for him to distinguish the difference, even if they weren’t showing visible symptoms yet. The guy, Rick, stayed with us for a couple days, long enough to prove he could. And then he told us the how and the why. Once we got past the shock factor, we asked for more info. It seemed, if not a perfect solution, a solution nonetheless.”
“Only?”
“Only not everyone makes the transition. And of those that do, it tends to amplify your inherent characteristics. Mike didn’t make it. Just José and I. I was angry and upset but knew Mike would want us to press on. We went with the man back to his pack in the Tahoe National Forest. They were collecting human survivors. Those they thought could handle the change they offered to do so to, those that couldn’t they set up in a safe area or passed along to another pack who were said to be taking the survivors out of the area.”
“Sounds admirable, kind of.”
“Kind of, is right. By then there were no safe areas. The other pack was taking them and using them as virtual slaves. When I found out I was pissed. Rick said it was part of a territorial deal. The other pack was stronger. We couldn’t afford to rock the boat. José agreed.”
“But you couldn’t do it. So you found a way into Marine’s circle of influence and signed on.”
“Not right away. But yes, eventually. Regardless, that is why I don’t really have a were pack. And why you and Brice and the others are it.”
I shake my head, unable to make the link from no pack to a pack of humans. I mean, it isn’t like my team could ever be my hive. A hive is intense, in an intrusive and extremely personal kind of way. Convict and the others? No matter how different each of their personalities might be, being with them just seemed so… basic. How could that ever compare? Not that I wanted it to, but, “I guess I don’t understand.”
“Why not? It’s simple, Eva. Your pack mates are the ones you can trust. Your pack will fight alongside you, work for the same goals and be there by your side when the shit hits the fan. But most of all, when you have a pack, you will never find yourself alone.”
All of a sudden where I’m placing my feet becomes enormously interesting.
Yeah, okay, I get the message. John had obviously overheard the conversation between Blaine and I in the warehouse and is trying to tell me something. What I’m not sure of is whether he’s suggesting that I’m being pigheaded in my refusal to turn Blaine, or if he’s telling me that I’m not alone, and therefore should stand by my principles and not give in to manipulations. I’m about to ask him when he speaks, practically making me jump out of my skin.
“Tell me about your hive.”
“Why? I mean, what do you want to know?”
He shrugs. “I’m curious about the power structure. How big it is. How many others there are. Things like that.”
“You’re asking the wrong person. I wasn’t part of it long enough to get all the finer details.” Nope, I’d only been there long enough to learn my place—or, should I say, learn where the queen thought my place should be.
“You said something about a queen once.”
“Yes. There is a queen. She rules all within her hive.” I have to force the words past my chest. Just speaking about her is difficult. A betrayal. Even though I’ve already done it, some instincts are hard to break. And not betraying your queen is ingrained in the DNA of every vampire who ever lived.
“I get the impression your queen and you didn’t get along.”
I curl my mouth up in a rueful smile. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“So why is that?”
“Lots of reasons, number one being she’s a self-serving sadistic killer. And that’s on her better days.”
I clear my throat, and try to steer the conversation away from the queen and my particular hive. “I got the impression our hive was a fairly small one for the amount of area it covered. And because of the large area, I’m really not sure how many or how big the others are. Maybe they ran into each other more before, but in the short time I was there, we didn’t have many visitors. Frankly, I got the impression they’ve all taken on a wait-it-out attitude regarding the whole zombie apocalypse thing.”
“Didn’t seem to be the case at Nellis.”
“No. Not at Nellis.” I frown, thinking again of the mutilated bodies, the tuft of fur I’d found on the woman. I spin around, grabbing his arm. “Wait! Your story about the were that turned you and what the pack was doing with the survivors…”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“Would they ever work with someone else? You know, to harvest more slaves?”
“Harvest. That’s what you were talking with Brice about. How the vampires were harvesting humans for herds so they’d have a supply of food?”
I swallow, nodding.
John looks thoughtful. “Crap, I bet you’re right. I wondered why a pack of weres would ever band together with vampires, but that makes sense. They’re splitting the spoils. Neither one is probably strong enough to take on a base like Nellis on their own, but together…”
He doesn’t answer. Duh. Of course he knew. Just like I knew there had also been vampires. “Did you tell Brice this?”
He shakes his head. “I couldn’t figure it out. I thought… I don’t know what I thought.” He swears, paces a few steps away, comes back, stopping before me. “We need to tell Commander Derwood.”
“Yeah, good idea. Just one problem.” I stare pointedly at the seemingly endless desert.
He looks at the sky, marking the path of the waning moon. “We better hurry.”
With new urgency clipping at our heels, we press onward. I don’t remember much about the first trip from the helicopter to the storage facility other than that it was hot, windy, and I was fading fast. This mandatory march isn’t much better. It’s not nearly so hot—downright cold in fact—and the wind has died down, but bloodbath or not, the amount of bleeding I’d done during my fight with the wolf-zombie has taken its toll.
I trust John knows where he is going. I didn’t even know we were passing by the storage facility until I’d looked behind us once and saw the dots of warehouses glimmering like a mirage in the distance. And he seems confident of where he’s heading.
So it’s alarming when he slows down and then finally stops altogether, spinning in a circle as if to get his bearings.
“Are we lost?”
“No, not lost. I just wanted to be sure.”
“Be sure of what?”
“That this is the spot.”
“The spot?” I scan the barren sea of sand around us. “The spot for what?”
“The spot where we left the helicopter.”
Cold seeps down my spine and into every extremity. “John, there is no helicopter.”
“I know. They must have come for it already.”
Come for it. As in come and gone. Without us. “So.” I swallow, staring out across the miles and miles of barren desert around us. “How’s that pack theory holding up for you now?”
John’s lips thin, but he doesn’t say anything as he begins to walk a grid across the area where the helicopter had been. I think he’s crazy, or maybe mad, the way he’s shuffling and kicking his feet in the sand. Then all of a sudden he crouches down, his hands working to brush away the sand from a small lump on the flat desert floor.