Thick Black Theory: A Symbiont Wars Book (Symbiont Wars Universe)

by Chogan Swan

  “Bernard, send the two people left over back to me. You decide who, but it would be handy if they had medical training so other people know where to come if anyone gets hurt.”

  Bernard paused at the door and nodded. “Roger and Wilco, Sheriff,” he said with no trace of sarcasm or irony.

  Kaitlin turned to the store.

  Might as well start an inventory here.

  But first, she went to check on Bernice. Kaitlin frowned as she passed the woman the alien girl had put to sleep. Hopefully, her sleep was free from dreams.

  Chapter 13 — Ashes and Bones

  Monday, June 13th 2022—Day 3 After Pulse

  The sun was well up, promising more of hot and dry. Wind stirred the ashes of last night’s pyre. A few volunteers from The Freed—Kaitlin didn’t know who’d started the name—packed the cremated bones of the human traffickers into eighteen plastic storage cartons found in one of the sheds in back of the store.

  As sheriff, Kaitlin kept an ordered list of the names of the dead so the bones wouldn’t be mixed together. And now she was taping the driver’s licenses on the inside lid of each container.

  She’d decided to make a point of displaying the remains.

  Since rain was unlikely today, they’d left the bones next to the ashes with the container tops open to the sun to complete their desiccation.

  Not to be confused with desecration.

  Kaitlin tensed her lips in a grim snarl. For these, death was a step in the right direction, but it was not yet enough to quench her anger at their crimes.

  She stood and dusted off her hands then picked up the permanent marker. With quick, clear strokes, she labeled each carton top with the name matching the license and added, ‘Slaver and Rapist, executed 6/12/2022’ underneath.

  The sound of a far-off vehicle, coming from the west, snapped Kaitlin’s head up. Nothing was in sight yet, but she capped the marker and set off toward the store. No one had come down the road all day. By the time she’d walked the twenty meters to the parking lot, she’d spotted a pickup cresting the rise a kilometer away.

  “Bernard, we’ve got company. Take cover, everyone.” she called. Bernard came out of the store at a dignified trot, sliding to cover behind the silver BMW. The seven firearms-trained volunteers, five men and two women, started filtering into the parking lot,

  “Sentries need to stay on duty,” Kaitlin shouted. “This might be a distraction.”

  Four of them turned, all sharing a similar wide-eyed realization of their mistake, and ran back to their posts.

  Kaitlin walked to a blue Subaru wagon, still parked on the lot, and leaned on the rear wheel well, watching the battered green truck as it wove through the gauntlet from the west.

  “Remember, don’t show yourselves until I say so or until shots are fired,” Kaitlin said, pitching her voice to reach everyone.

  Instead of continuing down the road, the driver pulled into the parking lot and jumped out. It was a woman in her thirties wearing tight blue jeans and a crop-top blouse. Dark tattoos of demons covered her arms. A small-caliber, compact handgun in the holster on her belt showed a flash of pink enamel coating as she strode toward the store like she had an appointment. The boots she wore, calf-high Doc Martens, crunched on stray bits of gravel on the asphalt. “Ricky,” she called. “I got the ammo, baby.”

  Kaitlin pulled the Colt 45 from its holster with the economical motion developed from the hours of draw and dry-fire practice she’d invested in since yesterday and rose from her crouch. “You’ll need to stop right there, Janet,” she called.

  The woman wheeled around and spotted her. “Who the fuck are you?” she snarled, “And where is Ricky?”

  “I’m Kaitlin, and Ricky is over there by the fence.” Kaitlin nodded toward the row of green containers.

  Janet turned to glance at the fence. “What the fuck are you talking about? There’s nobody over there.”

  “He’s in the container... the one on the far left.”

  Janet’s mouth fell open and her eyes went wide. She took a step back and unsnapped her holster.

  Kaitlin brought the Peacemaker up, braced it with both hands and fired. Another shot fired from behind the BMW. Janet’s head snapped back, and she crumpled to the ground. Kaitlin trained the iron sights on body center and stepped closer. Two steps brought her close enough to see the entry wound an inch to the left of the bridge of Janet’s nose. Kaitlin fought her sudden nausea.

  Don’t you dare waste good food over this one.

  With one hand, she removed the gunbelt and slid it away from the growing pool of blood leaking from the secondary chest wound. Next, she holstered the 45 so she could use both hands to untie her Docs and yank them from Janet’s feet before the blood reached that far. She stepped back and sat the boots down. Bernard appeared at her side, and Kaitlin took a shaky breath.

  “Kaitlin, are you okay?” Bernard’s voice sounded shaky too.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said clenching her teeth. “Don’t forget, people are watching. They need to see us being strong. It’s the only security they have.” She stepped forward and pulled a thin wallet from Janet’s back pocket, then turned and picked up her boots. “Burn the body,” she said as she walked back to the fence.

  She placed her boots on the tailgate and opened the wallet to the driver’s license. The wallet was still warm from body heat and damp from perspiration.

  Kaitlin pulled another container from the bed of the pickup and wrote:

  Janet L. Kincaid, Born 4/14/1989 Shot resisting arrest 6/13/2022 Slaver and Boot Thief

  End of Part I

  Part II

  Chapter 14 — Gone huntin’

  The hollow scream of fighter jets hugging terrain tore across the sky from east to west, and Kaitlin covered her ears to protect them from the noise. She’d been lucky this time. The military bases around Dallas flew patrols through the area two or three times a day now and—often as not—they pushed past the speed of sound, and the sonic shock wave came without warning.

  She settled the pellet rifle more comfortably on its sling and moved on down the banks of the shallow creek that cut through the dry scrubland and pine forests around the Freedom Store. It was midafternoon. So far, she’d taken three fox squirrels, one gray squirrel and a black-tailed jackrabbit she’d spotted where it was hiding under a bush.

  Although she’d never hunted with a gun before the pulse, she could hit most anything she could reach with a wrist rocket and had plenty of practice moving through the woods. Already familiar with the habits of small animals, her reach for taking them for food tripled after Bernard taught her how to use the heavy, break-barrel pellet rifle the store owner had kept in his truck.

  It had a scope that Bernard said was as good as any he’d ever seen, and it was almost impossibly accurate out to seventy yards.

  Kaitlin blessed the man, recommending his soul to God every time she put food on the table.

  If supper was a wild dog she’d needed to use the Colt to put down, then she blessed him for the pellet revolver that had allowed her to practice her speed draw. She sometimes used the pellet pistol to dispatch small game within twenty yards, but she didn’t care to use it past that distance because she couldn’t be sure of a killing head shot on squirrels and rabbits. Besides that, the pistol used CO2 cartridges and the rifle didn’t. She tried to be economical with the CO2 even though there were still two big cases in the store she hadn’t even broken open yet. The best use for those was to keep practicing, and she’d been putting in the hours at that.

  The pellet revolver was almost a perfect replica of the Colt 45. She just hoped she didn’t get them mixed up if she found herself in an unexpected gunfight.

  God, I recommend to you the soul of our benefactor Harlin Johnson. For the good he has done us, have mercy on his soul, whatever his faults.

  She’d found herself talking to God like that a lot over the last week since the pulse. She wasn’t sure if anyone was listening, but if nothing e
lse, it helped her as she tried to work out her decisions. The town of Wet Gulch—Kaitlin suspected Bernice as the source of the quirky new town name—might be shrinking as people moved on, but she still needed a sounding board for her thoughts. People were counting on her, and Bernard wasn’t always around.

  A rustling in a nearby pine tree announced more food for supper, and she dropped to the ground and wrapped the sling high around her arm. She leaned the rifle’s balance point over the crossed sticks she used for a bipod, found the squirrel in her scope and focused.

  Fifty yards. Breathe deep. Let out a little. Hold it. Squeeze.

  The rifle bucked, and the squirrel fell from the tree. The only sound it made was when it brushed the leaves it passed through on the way down.

  Kaitlin listened for a few moments, checking to see if any other game had come within range of her rifle. When satisfied all was quiet, she rose and walked to the squirrel with the quiet woodland steps that came so naturally after three years of wandering.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Dusk was two hours away when Kaitlin finished cleaning the rabbits and squirrels. Bernice and Sammy had almost finished getting the coals ready for roasting the meat.

  The town’s population had dwindled to ten, but it was a comfortable ten, everyone pitched in, whether the job was dirty or not. They all knew it wasn’t a permanent location. Kaitlin had made it clear she would be leaving as soon as the mysterious Daniels came. She didn’t know what was taking him so long, but Kaitlin didn’t see the point of worrying about it.

  The tin-can and fishing-line alarm bell went off, announcing that Jerry Willis, an ex-college sophomore via Texas A&M had spotted something from the lookout stand they’d put in a tall tree overlooking the highway in both directions. Three slow clanks, a pause and then three more meant someone was coming from the west. Kaitlin waited. When the bell clanked again, only once, she rinsed Blondie then picked up the scoped AR-15 from the selection on the table. “Sammy, go tell the sentries someone is coming and they need to stay alert,” she said, chambering a shell and shoving another into the magazine tube. She tried to insert another, checking to be sure it was fully loaded. Satisfied, she tucked the rifle through her arm and crossed the parking lot to the cover of the cars pushed there for that purpose alone.

  The sun was perfectly placed for blinding her, so she pulled her hat brim down and moved her sunglasses from her pocket to her eyes. Now the view was clear. The woods bordering the north side of the road rose higher than the scrubland to the south. With safety still on, Kaitlin ran the scope along the treeline to see if she could spot her sentries. But, even though she knew where they were, they remained well-hidden. She hoped they’d maintained the cover on the other side of their blinds as well. Bernard had the stand closest to base, so she felt good about her nearest backup sniper. The other two were still hit or miss, with miss being the majority vote.

  The occasional gusts of breeze cooled the sweat on her shirt. And, in between those, she heard the unmistakable clop, clop, clop of shod horseshoes on pavement at a quick walking pace. Someone was traveling old-school.

  The world has turned retro.

  The rider swung into view a minute later. Kaitlin regarded him through the scope. A weathered, palm-straw cowboy hat shaded the man’s even more weathered face. He looked to be in his forties, but he’d been so beaten by the sun he could have been younger. Her riflescope must have flashed in the sun because he looked straight at her and pulled his horse to a stop. He put the reins on the pommel of his saddle and raised his hands, waiting.

  Kaitlin took a few seconds to look him over. He had a revolver in a tooled-leather holster that looked as though it had been made by the same person who’d done hers—that is, the one she’d inherited from Ricky. That meant her visitor was probably a member of the local cowboy-action shooting club, so he probably knew Ricky, but that didn’t necessarily mean he liked him.

  Kaitlin waved her arm, motioning him to come closer, but didn’t step away from her cover. After a moment, the rider nudged his horse with his heels and came forward, guiding with his knees and keeping his hands high and away from the gun at his side and the rifle in the holster attached to his saddle.

  “That’s close enough, for now,” Kaitlin called when he was about fifty yards away. She always thought in terms of yards when it came to shooting.

  “Whoa, horse,” said the rider, and his horse halted, snorting. The man sat quiet for a moment, regarding Kaitlin with an appraising stare. Kaitlin returned his gaze, noting his worn and dusty boots, the dark-grained wooden pistol grip which looked well-cared-for, but often-used and the jeans that showed telltale fraying on the legs from working around barbed-wire fences.

  Kaitlin waited to see if he would speak first.

  “Well I reckon he is dead after all then,” said the man.

  Kaitlin considered this a moment. “What makes you think so?”

  “Because I doubt that son-of-a-bitch would let anyone else wear his hat, and yet there it sits like the parting of the Red Sea. There’s been some strange news goin’ round. Did Harlin shoot him then?”

  “If you are talking about Richard Sedgewick AKA ‘Ricky’, no Harlin didn’t shoot him. Ricky and his crew killed Harlin and were setting up operations here. They’re all dead now, but they weren’t killed by anyone from around here.... Most of them anyhow.” She frowned. “Are you planning on introducing yourself any time soon? You can skip the formalities and leave your hat on if that’s what’s keeping you.”

  “Jordan Tate. My ranch is west of here and Harlin was my friend. I was hoping the rumors about his death weren’t true, but I’m glad to hear his killers paid for it.”

  “I’m sure you weren’t half so glad as those of us Ricky had captured in his post-apocalyptic business venture.” Kaitlin frowned. “But what I can’t figure is why you would come out here if you didn’t know Ricky was dead. You had to know he was a mad dog, sociopath.”

  Tate shrugged. “Like I said, Harlin was my friend. I tried to get the police to come with me, but they didn’t want to risk their necks since nobody was paying them. Hell, they didn’t want to mess with Ricky and his bunch when they were getting paid. When Ricky sent Janet to collect a tribute of ammunition from the police, and they paid it, I knew it was only a matter of time before he took over the county. And, I’d be damned before I let him take my ranch. It was only a matter of time, and the longer I waited the harder it would be. I figured I might get lucky and get a shot at him.”

  “Well, props for your civic-minded motivation and selflessness, Jordan, but it was still a pretty stupid idea to think you could take them all on by yourself like it was the OK Corral and you were bulletproof.”

  Jordan chuckled. “I suppose if that had been my plan, you’d be right. But, excuse me, I never gave you the opportunity to introduce yourself. Who might you be if you don’t mind me asking so late in the conversation?”

  “Kaitlin Sannhetsdottir. Also known as the Sheriff of Wet Gulch.”

  “Wet Gulch? Where’s that?”

  “You crossed the city limits about a minute ago. Didn’t you see the sign?”

  “Maybe I was too busy watching for snipers.”

  Kaitlin snorted. “How many did you spot?”

  “Just you and that one over there.” He pointed to Bernard’s tree stand, still keeping his hands above his shoulders.

  “I guess you can’t always count on scope reflection, can you?” said Kaitlin. Behind her, the faint sound of a bell, announcing visitors from the south and then the two remaining bells announcing others made her tighten her lips. “Do you have a way to call off the folk you have surrounding my town, Jordan? Or is this all going to end in tears?” She snugged the AR-15 into her shoulder, but didn’t bring the scope to her eye. Not just yet.

  “They won’t move in until I give the order,” Jordan said.

  “Or until one of my sentries shoots one of them,” Kaitlin said. “That’s the problem with a reconnaissance in force
.”

  You idiot.

  “If you’ll let me reach in my saddlebag for my walkie, I’ll tell them to back away.”

  “Far away,” Kaitlin said with a cold voice.

  Jordan nodded, reached slowly into the pouch on his saddle and pulled out an army green walkie-talkie. “My brother was big into prepping and we kept a bunch of these in them cage things,” he said, pushing the power button. “Ya’ll back away three hundred yards and head back to the ranch. Ricky and his crew are dead. I’m going to stay awhile and chat with our new neighbors.”

  Three voices responded, one after the other with some version of acknowledgement and ‘will comply’. Kaitlin waited until the sentry bells said all intruders had withdrawn before letting the rifle come down from her shoulder.

  Jordan turned off the radio and put it back in the saddlebag. “I talked to a few who said they’d been through here, and one who y’all had kicked out. I had a hard time believing their stories. And the guy you kicked out had obvious personality issues. I would’ve paid no mind to it if their stories didn’t all hang together. So, is there really a tiger girl who drains the blood of miscreants into bottles?”

  “Yes, but we haven’t seen her since. Maybe she only comes around when she’s needed—like Wonder Woman with a tail.”

  It was a useful notion for a folk tale. That’s what her job used to be after all, before the digital print medium evaporated in a nuclear storm. Maybe word-of-mouth would take its place now in making miscreants less ambitious in their schemes.

  Jordan ventured an uncertain smile. “Do I need to put my hands back up? My fingers were losing touch with their natural function.”

  Kaitlin put on a thoughtful expression. “We’ll see how it goes. Tell me, are you one of those neighbors who makes it a habit to drop by at suppertime?”