Glass shattered from Moraine’s left. She turned as Charles threw back his head, his teeth contorted in a rictus. He fingered his security holster straps, drew his handgun and pointed out the truck window.
Charles no longer controlled the steering wheel. The Hummer sped up as his foot jammed the gas pedal to the floorboard.
Moraine glanced black fur through the driver’s side passenger window. Blood splashed the windshield, obscuring her view.
Charles groaned, convulsed until he slumped over the center console. His left arm, minus everything below the elbow, swept upwards, painting the Hummer's cabin a vibrant red.
Moraine grabbed the blood slick steering wheel. She struggled to control the Hummer with Charles foot stuck on the gas pedal. Unstoppable, the truck blasted ahead, bounced out the parking lot, and struck a crowd fleeing the dogs. The Hummer crashed into a high curb, jouncing into the air.
Moraine sensed them launch into an airborne tumble. Screams rose, glass and bodies collided inside the spacious truck. A rider flew out a window. She hated the helplessness at not being able to reach out and hold Casey in a protective grasp.
The Hummer moaned, a metallic beast on the cusp of death. The noise emanated from the powerful engine as Charles foot came off the pedal. The metal behemoth settled hard on its rooftop, slammed into a brick wall and spun into a crosswalk.
Moraine grunted. Her rifle butt cracked against her nose. Charles head glanced off the dashboard, landing on the Hummer ceiling. His weighty body pinned her to the passenger door. Blood ran into her eyes.
A whistle howled through her ears as if a locomotive headed straight for them. She found her breathing labored and forced herself to relax.
She strained to catch Casey’s crying. Her body, with head pressed against the Hummer ceiling and legs curled, resembled a new yoga position. Moraine wanted the space to move and see the backseat.
Anger rose in her. Red and hot, fueling the motivation to not become an injured victim. She refused to succumb to shock.
Moraine fought against her cramped spot in the front seat. She shoved at Charles's frame, her face turning to his. His glassy gaze lost beyond the world and to a state she did not want to visit.
She screamed, her mind ablaze with Casey and Erik’s faces. Her butt slipped against the passenger backrest until she landed flat on her back. With her hands she wiped the sticky blood from her face. White pain flashed through her nose. She accepted the bumps and bruises as par for the course. She needed to stay alive and go beyond her hurts to make sure her family survived.
Moraine scrambled from the wrecked Hummer, staggered a few steps and stumbled to her knees. Several growls surrounded her. She shifted her head as pit bulls closed in, fangs bared, their muzzles soaked in blood and bits of gore.
She reached for her holstered weapon. Her fingers brushed against leather and air. Her stomach flinched. To her front Bill laid on the ground face flat on the macadam. A blood splatter haloed his head, streaking in a crimson sunburst. His pant seat stained in dark brown.
Moraine’s nostrils flared, inhaling the dog’s musky stench. Their fumes reminded her of unwashed bath towels. Their smell collided with the scalding antifreeze and singed oil, the dead Hummer’s leaking lifeblood. They moved toward her. Savoring the moment.
Moraine, too weak to stand, braced for the dogs ready to rip her apart.
Barking exploded in a harsh series. The pit bulls halted their torturous approach. She noticed red tinted drool sliding from their maws.
Moraine remained on hands and knees, her arms trembling as the dogs backed away, whimpering. She couldn’t understand their hesitance. They didn’t fear her. Her weakened state made for an easy kill.
Foot falls padded against the warm concrete. Shadows stretched from around the wrecked Hummer, pausing not too far from her.
Moraine lifted her heavy head, staring into Black and White’s faces. The two Belgian collies gazed at her for a moment. The perfect opportunity to kill them both sat before her, and she lacked the strength to carry out her self-assigned task.
“You can turn yourselves in,” Moraine said. She stared at their fur, once clean, now dirty and littered with sticky burrs, ticks, and fleas. “Or die.”
Black and White exchanged glances between each other, an act filled with silent but mutual understanding. Moraine, excluded from the inner circle, waited for her sentence. They appeared so human she almost grinned at such an absurd thought.
A tan boxer trotted out before Moraine and stood a foot away. The dog’s obsidian eyes regarded her with indifference. A simple worker doing what the bosses ordered.
Moraine lowered her head, blood dripped from her twisted nose. Tears steamed her eyes, pain throbbed a steady white beat behind her forehead. When she raised her battered head, the boxer lunged, slamming its stubby nose into her face. Moraine saw a bright flash dancing with yellow and purple spots, and then darkness.
26
Pure white pain flashed behind her eyes. Her stomach lurched, pushing a lumpy bitterness up her throat.
Moraine vomited. Inhaled. Her breath stopped as if corks plugged her nostrils. Her hands thrashed amongst yellow light edging with darkness. Scream, she told herself. In her mind she screamed and reacted, bolting up as vomit projected from her nose.
Sudden sleepiness punched her head, making it heavy. Chills tingled her muscles joined by a pounding headache.
She moaned, her eyes opened to confront a graveyard silence. Darkness enveloped her. A crow cawed close by, its dismal cry poking her with loneliness and finality.
Moraine passed a hand over her face, removing excess vomit and whatever else stuck to her flesh. She craned her neck; it creaked with a painful stiffness. She noticed the Hummer. The truck rested on its rooftop, the black wheels unmoving, resembling a dead dinosaur’s upturned legs.
She focused on the Hummer’s dark innards. Casey and Erik once huddled within the truck’s plush leather interior. She prayed they found a safe place to hide.
Moraine tried to shout out their names. Her throat tightened, her thick tongue didn’t want to work. A metallic whiff of blood graced her nostrils. She spat, but the gloom hid the contents.
With effort she summoned her anger. The emotion snapped forward, a blue spark from a lighter containing little fluid. Her rage flailed and in its place stood utter exhaustion. She crept forward on hands and knees, weary and aching.
Moraine inched her fingers into the battered Hummer’s milky blackness. She brushed against cloth, pressed against a broad back.
Caustic thoughts seeped from hiding, gathered where she confined her most vicious memories. She remembered the dog attack, being surrounded by pit bulls. Black and White dominated her imagination.
Moraine struggled to breathe. She blew through her nostrils, pain flared up the ridge. She stretched her mouth open, forcing a scream. With shaking fingers she reached up and patted her nose.
Her nose twisted to the left. The nose didn’t matter. She lived. For reasons unknown the dogs decided not to gorge themselves on her white flesh and strong bones.
Anger sputtered, and this time blazed so quick she thought a whoosh of flames ignited her soul. From her throat emerged a growl, so deep and threatening she expected a canine to emerge from the night to challenge her. She discovered the growl originated from her as she crawled towards the back seat.
Moraine touched something soft. She yanked her hand away quick. With caution she eased her face to where her strong fingers rested. Dorothy’s face bloomed into view. She placed her ear to Dorothy’s mouth in hopes warm breath tickled her earlobe. Nothing.
Moraine’s heart thumped so hard the pulse in her temple gave off a steady drumbeat. She pushed passed Dorothy, waved her hand around the emptiness before her. No other human graced her fingers, just leather and canvas seatbelt straps, crusted blood. No Casey or Erik.
She wanted to scream but again she conjured up a frustrated growl. She shoved aside the pain, meager compared to her Afgh
anistan wounds, and crawled around in the Hummer. Fear didn’t commandeer her heart. Anger took over instead.
Her M4 rifle sat tangled in the shotgun seat seatbelt. With little effort she pulled the weapon free. She concentrated on finding Erik and Casey. Since the dogs didn’t kill her she hoped they spared her family.
Moraine crawled from the passenger side. She stood, her back aching as another moan escaped her cracked lips.
Moraine moved ahead slow, fingering the flashlight connected to her rifle handguard. The beam bloomed bright and white. She poured the light across the ground expecting to see ripped bodies.
Instead the bright light revealed empty vehicles with smashed windows snarling the parking lot. Dried blood smeared their metal. A bloody handprint stamped a car hood. Shredded clothes, sunglasses, trash, and other items dropped in haste scattered the ground. Strange fur in patches, or strands of brown, blond, black, and red decorated the macadam.
Pink fleshy ropes shown underneath her weapon light beam. Rats squeaked, scattering from the bright glow thrown over them.
Moraine’s stomach flip-flopped. A blond patch sat near a white ball, bringing on a familiar sense. She leaned over the object, tapping the ball with her foot. The head rolled with a hollow coconut rustle. Vacant eye sockets glared at her.
“You’re alive.”
Moraine started from the voice. She swept up her rifle barrel, slipped her finger over the trigger. The weapon light washed a figure leaning against the flipped Hummer. Her heart drummed fast in her chest until a low ache registered.
“Who’s that?”
“Robert,” he said, hands raised to shield his eyes against the brightness thrown by the halogen.
Moraine lowered her weapon, exhaled. Robert relaxed his hands. “Why are you still breathing, Robert?”
Robert surveyed his surroundings with glassy eyes. The softness in his face vanished. He appeared hardened. His once full lips, now tight, enhanced the wrinkles rolled on his forehead.
Moraine eased toward him. His shoulders trembled as he cried. She didn’t pity him. The Damascus Chips proved itself to be a terrible weapon. A weapon he wanted to drop on another country until fate released the devices into his world.
“Moraine, I did this,” he said. He beat his fists into his thighs. “I did this.”
Moraine took a breath. “You can make it right. Maybe.”
“People are dead because of me. I saw Casey and Erik. The dogs took them away.”
Moraine’s body chilled. “Took them,” she said. “So they are alive?”
Robert nodded, wiped snot from his nose. “The dogs herded the survivors away.”
Moraine grunted in anger. She redirected her volatility at the dogs. Black and White operated with a human callousness she deemed frightening. They either carried off hostages or detained them as food.
“How many hours ago?”
“You’ve been out for ten hours.”
Moraine gazed off into the empty darkness. The chirp of crickets, the errant squeaks from bats and rats filled her ears. She strained her hearing, hoping to pick up a bark or growl.
Robert knelt to the ground. “They didn’t eat us.”
“What?” Moraine said, pulling back from her auditory recon.
“They ate the ones they killed, but the dogs left the team alone.”
Moraine saw Robert hunched over Bill’s body. “Where were you? How did they not catch you?”
“I hid in the trunk. Casey scooted out the Hummer and Erik ran after her. That happened after the Boxer knocked you into a ten hour slumber.”
Moraine urged herself to concentrate on what she needed to do to save her family and kill the dogs. She reckoned if Black and White died, the canine army might dissolve.
Robert delivered Bill’s corpse a visual once over. He signed an invisible cross over his back.
Moraine maintained her professional calm. She considered her decision in taking her family on the hunt ignorant and arrogant. Casey and Erik should have gone east to his parents until the madness ended.
Erik and Casey kept her going when she returned from Afghanistan. They balanced her, creating a path to normalcy. Shopping at the grocery store turned into a fearless activity. She no longer concerned herself with who lurked the aisles with a bomb strapped to themselves.
Moraine's family's safety fueled her with a new purpose in life. Her chase for Black and White extended beyond a mere day trip to search for two mutts altered by science. Her journey became a mission where the stakes took on a delicacy she could not ruin.
“Can you shoot?”
Robert looked at Moraine with a hint of incredulity. “No.”
“I will teach you how to shoot, Robert. Do you accept responsibility for this mess?”
Robert stood from Bill’s body and locked eyes with Moraine. “I do, Moraine. If I die hunting those two dogs, my death will not be in vain.”
Moraine let her rifle hang from the strap. She walked over to the Hummer rear seat, dropped and low crawled inside to remove Bill’s fourteen pound OICW.
She slid from out the Hummer hefting the weapon up to Robert. “This is yours now.”
Robert took the rifle. “Ok.”
Moraine realized Robert lost his dumb lamb look. He saw things powerful enough to shock him. The catastrophic event made him understand. Moraine recalled a saying soldiers used for those who experienced death's whisper. Robert came to Jesus.
Robert stared at the rifle for a few seconds. “I’ve never held a rifle, Moraine.”
“You’ll learn.”
Robert contemplated the night skies. “God, what a mess.”
“I need to kill them, Robert.”
“We will, Moraine. But we need Jenny Chow.”
“Why?”
“She must answer for what she created.”
Moraine remained silent. Eventually, everyone answered.
27
Black pushed both humans and canines to their limits. He marched them south, away from Milpitas, shifting the entire army into the hills averting San Jose.
He and White discussed their next move, and both wanted to avoid any populated areas. The Milpitas battle proved difficult. They suffered several casualties. Yet despite the many deaths, their numbers ballooned into the thousands, and this included the captured.
Black walked beside White, stealing glances at the large army trailing them. Dust billowed up in thick clouds from the mass of bodies. Barks and growls sifted into the air, joining screams and shouts from the captives. The hiking path transformed into a highway crowded with victors, victims, and death.
Pride swelled his heart after the battle. Both he and White became flush with excitement. Their army conquered soldiers armed with rifles. They captured one, the others White executed as an example to any human eager to continue the fight.
Black figured Julius Caesar experienced pride after beating the Gauls. Yet he cautioned himself not to let victory blind him and send them off their path to reach Los Angeles.
The subdivision became a learning experience, an appetizer for war. Milpitas turned into a battle neither he nor White expected to happen. Their purpose for Milpitas focused on a recruitment drive for more canines, not a fight for power.
Molly did an excellent job. Her speech motivated the other dogs to shake off their handlers. A few dogs stayed with their masters. Turncoats against their kind, they died horrible deaths. How could a canine resign himself to live in years of servitude to humans?
Black knew White maintained his own thoughts. He wanted to take on San Jose for another recruitment drive but without the battle. Molly and her team once again entered unknown territory to assemble soldiers and scholars for the new canine regime.
The defeated humans considered them monsters. A few told them so before their warm blood soaked the earth. Black and White ignored the angered theatrics, only a few begged for mercy. Black found himself sympathetic, granting the conquered their wishes to stay alive.
The
two canines recognized one human they respected. Moraine Baxter, the security guard who refused to shoot them as they escaped the Lawrence Livermore National Labs.
When Black discovered her outside the big truck, he took her in with awe. White questioned aloud what made the female human disobey her superior’s orders, allowing for their escape. The answer stumped them, so White spared Moraine and her pack. White ordered Joe Boxer to knock Moraine out. Black carried off Moraine’s family as hostages to guarantee their safety.
Humans died from exhaustion as the army moved to higher ground. Each hour distanced them from any city able to engage in another fight.
Day flowed into night into morning. The march became a nonstop mission, part escape, and part journey to their final destination.
“How do we train the older humans,” Black said to White.
White remained silent for a few seconds before answering. “The younger ones are easier to train. Molly's team are superb at getting them to do what we want.”
“The young ones love the cuter dogs. It’s the adults that worry me. Their strength will come in handy. Maybe.”
White sniffed the ground, held his head towards the fresh blue splashed above. “We will dominate them the way they once dominated us.”
Black contemplated White’s words. Domination appeared a good idea, joined by killing those more stubborn souls. He knew the humans believed in warfare to a point akin to madness. Black wanted peace and searched his mind for the word and meaning lodged in his head.
He craved a place where dogs lived on their own in peace, free from the pestering of other species on the planet. The possibilities he played with became an endless list.
“Dreams of glory, Black?”
Black yapped high in his voice, a quick laugh, he wagged his tail. “Thoughts of peace will keep us going. Do you think the humans might ever bow to us, lick our paws?”
White bared his teeth. “Never. They will die first.”
Baxter’s War Page 10