I leaned in and grabbed her on both sides of her face and kissed her on top of the head. “I knew you weren’t a complete coldhearted bitch.”
As I pulled back, she smiled, and then punched me right across the chest. It was aimed for my face, but I leaned away in time to make her miss, just barely. Still, it was going to leave a hell of a bruise.
She squinted at me and pursed her lips in anger. “Call me a bitch again, and you’re going to find out why they call me La Araña.” She turned to Gabby. “After he’s warned the settlers in the safe zone, make sure they know how to get to the facility.” Gabby nodded and ran off to gather her gear.
The captain was walking off down the hall before I could reply. I yelled at her back, “I didn’t mean ‘bitch’—I just meant that you aren’t completely bitchy!” She turned and threw a metal emesis pan at me that whizzed right past my head. I hardly noticed, because I was already headed out the door at a run. It was going to be a long, hard ride back to the safe zone.
- - -
[9]
HUSHED
I left the clinic on horseback with Bobby and Gabby running pace with me on either shoulder of the road. As I watched Gabby keep up with Bobby, a full-blown ’thrope, I wondered whether what the doc was saying about those treatments was on the up and up. By all indications to this point, Gabby was a completely normal preteen kid. However, as I watched her match the ’thrope step for step through rough terrain, keeping up with a horse that was galloping at a good twenty to thirty miles an hour, I had to consider that she might be telling the truth.
The thing was, her truth might not take into account what the long-term effects of such a treatment could bring. Not just for Gabby, or whoever else opted to become her guinea pig, but for the entire human race. I couldn’t see how a scientist could be so reckless as to let something like that out into the population, without any idea of what the long-term repercussions would be. Then again, if she was telling the truth about her background then she knew these creatures well, perhaps better than anyone. Her willingness to subject a few dozen people to these treatments might just be a sign of how desperate our situation was as a species.
After a few miles, I slowed the horse down to a canter so as not to tire it too soon. It was a good-looking dun mustang, and I knew it could run all day if necessary. However, I had no idea how well it had been treated by the previous owners, and decided to play it safe rather than kill the horse or cripple it trying to get to the settlements in record time. By following the roads and keeping up a reasonable pace, we could make it to the safe zone by the time night fell. That would have to be good enough.
Still, I pushed the little mustang as hard as I could while still taking frequent rests along the way. The Hill Country was dotted with streams and creeks, and this time of year most were running fairly strong due to the early rains that always came with the first push of cold air from the north. At each stop, I asked Bobby and Gabby if they needed more time to rest. Neither one seemed particularly tired, and I got the feeling that they could both outrun the feisty little horse. So, we pushed on through the afternoon.
About five miles out from the settlement, Bobby and Gabby both pulled up and signaled me to halt. Bobby was sniffing the air, and it looked like Gabby was listening to something off in the distance. A look between them must have confirmed their suspicions, because they each looked up at me and silently mouthed “punters” almost in unison. I turned the horse around and off the road, trotting a hundred meters back the way we came, using the grassy shoulder to mask the sounds of the horse’s hooves.
Once we were at a safe distance, I dismounted and asked them what was up. Bobby spoke first. “Punters, maybe a quarter mile up the road. Can’t mistake the scent.”
“How do you mean?” All I could smell was horse, the faint scent of cedar trees, my own nervous fear, and that crisp-air smell that says fall is coming on soon.
Bobby hesitated, so Gabby filled me in. “They’re cannibals, Scratch. You can smell it in their scent.”
I tried to avoid thinking about the potential repercussions and just focused on the task at hand. “How many?”
Gabby tilted her head. “Hard to say. At least a half dozen, from what I could hear.”
Bobby scratched his head, and then stifled a belch. “Sorry, wild hog always screws up my stomach.” He smiled at Gabby, who apparently was still of an age that scatological and digestive humor was amusing. Then he turned back to me, all humor gone from his young face. “So, boss, what’s the play?”
“Our main concern right now is warning the settlers, so we need to get past them without letting them know we’re here. Bobby, you carrying any weapons on you?”
He flashed a somber grin. “Only these.” His hand came up in front of his face, and like a magician flourishing a deck of cards, he spread his fingers wide. In a matter of seconds, his nails thickened and elongated, becoming wicked-looking inch-and-a-half-long spikes.
I nodded in respect. “Manicures must be a bitch with those things.” I looked at Gabby. “You hiding any super-powers, sweetheart?”
“I’m not a shifter, but don’t worry about me. What do you need us to do?”
“Silent sentry takeout only. We’re going to head 200 meters out to the north and south, take out any picket sentries we find, and meet 400 meters beyond their ambush point. If we do this right, they won’t know we got past them until we’re in the settlement and raising the alarm.”
Both kids nodded, and I motioned to the girl. “Gabby, you’re with me.”
She shook her head. “Seriously? That horse is going to be too loud for you to sneak up on anyone, and you know you’ll need it after we’re past. You should just let me go ahead and clear a path.”
I considered the ethical ramifications of sending an eleven-year-old ahead to do a man’s work, and realized it might be the most logical choice, if not the most moral. “You sure you can handle it?”
She pulled out her Kabar, and her eyes were hard as stone. “Don’t worry, I got this.” Then she and Bobby took off through the trees like silent death. I briefly reflected on the insanity of a world that could turn kids into killers so young, then shrugged off the thought and began walking the horse off the road on Gabby’s trail. Her sign was hard to spot, but she was moving fast so I could still see where she’d come through. About the time I came parallel to the suspected ambush point, I saw a bare arm poking out from behind a tree. I tied off the horse on a low-hanging limb, and stalked up to the spot.
I detected zero movement from whoever was on the other side; this person definitely wasn’t breathing. As I rounded the tree I saw a corpse staring out into space, with a look of surprise on his face that said he’d never seen it coming. There was some blood around the collar of the dirty brown T-shirt he was wearing under a plaid flannel long-sleeve. I tilted the corpse’s head forward to reveal a four-centimeter horizontal stab wound at the base of the skull. Clean. I wondered where she learned how to kill that cleanly and silently. I shook my head and went back for the horse, walking it ahead as quietly as possible until I was well past the dead sentry’s position.
Gabby and Bobby were waiting for me, right where we’d planned. “Any problems?”
Bobby shook his head no. “Not unless you count a close encounter with lice. Good golly, I hope I don’t catch them. Nasty.” Then he shivered and made a face like he’d just cracked a rotten egg.
I turned to the girl. “Gabby?”
She just shook her head in silence, and not a single expression of remorse cracked the hard exterior she’d donned the very moment she drew her knife. I’d worked with professional operators who showed more emotion and less nerve. It chilled me to the bone to see her sudden transformation from tweenie to assassin; not many people had the ability to flip the switch like that.
“Alright then, let’s get going. We have about four and a half miles to cover before we hit the settlement. I looked over to Bobby, who was sniffing the air again. “Another ambus
h?”
He shook his head and looked off ahead toward the settlement. “No, boss, smoke. I think the town is burning.”
- - -
Thanks to a warm front coming in from the Gulf, we’d had the wind at our backs the entire trip back, so it wasn’t surprising that we didn’t smell it sooner. However, as we got closer to town I could see a low cloud of smoke hanging over the settlement, and before long even I could smell the stench of destruction in the air. I pushed the little mustang as hard as I could without killing it, and feared the little horse might be crippled after tonight. However, the fear of losing Kara loomed over me like a summer storm that was ready to rain hell on everything in its path, and I’d sacrifice anything to prevent that from happening.
As we pulled into the settlement I could see we were already too late. The gates were torn wide open, and there were bodies strewn here and there as we entered town. The smell of death and smoke cast a pall on the town, but all the while I held on to the slim chance that Kara had made it through. I spurred the horse on and made a beeline for Kara’s house.
When I rode up, I knew that Kara wouldn’t be there. Her dogs were dead on the front porch, mutilated almost beyond recognizing, and the front door was hammered in and hanging from a single hinge like a marionette with all but a single string cut. I dismounted at a run and ran inside the house with my HK up, clearing rooms as I moved forward at a brisk, almost suicidal pace.
Despite my panic, I resisted the urge to call out. Gabby came in behind me, with Bobby on her heels. Gabby watched my six, while Bobby took the other side of the house. We met at the back of the house and he shook his head.
“Nothing, Scratch. I can smell someone was here, a female, but—”
“Wolves?”
He nodded once. “At least three. They came in through the front door after killing the dogs. I smell gun powder, and I saw some blood in the back room—wolf, not human—so I think she must’ve wounded one.”
“No human blood?”
“No, none. I’m pretty sure they took her alive.”
Gabby put a hand on my arm. “It’ll be okay, Scratch. We can track her.”
I slumped down in a kitchen chair, and let the rifle sag to the floor. “And what then? You think we can take on a dozen ’thropes, or ten, or even three?”
She stood silent, and looked down at the floor. Then in a small quiet voice, she spoke. “No matter what, I’m with you. We can get her back.” At that, she holstered her pistol and walked off to the front of the house.
Bobby pulled up a chair and sat down across from me. “We won’t have to track them.”
I looked up as if he were throwing me a lifeline. “What do you mean?”
“Because, I know where they’re taking them. It’s where they take all the humans—they have this compound in Austin. I don’t know what they do there, but I was there once before I escaped. They were prepping it for the humans back then, getting it ready to hold them there.”
“And you can find this place?”
“Sure, yeah I can find it. I mean, I’m pretty sure. It’s been a few years, but I remember it pretty vividly. It was like, some research place or something, on the north side of town. Yeah, I can take you there.”
I picked up my rifle and called out, moving fast for the front door. “Gabby!”
She was waiting on the front porch. She’d been petting the mutilated carcass of Kara’s Rhodesian Ridgeback, and wiped the blood off on the floor as she stood up. “I’m here.” She looked at me with a tear in her eye. “They fought, you know—they gave their lives trying to protect her.”
“I know. I wish I’d been here with them.”
She crossed her arms and tucked her hands in her armpits, as if to ward off a chill, but it wasn’t cold out at the moment. “You’d have died with them.”
“Maybe.” I scratched the back of my neck where I’d felt the hackles raise, just a moment ago at what she’d said. “How long?”
“To follow them?”
“No—how long does it take for the doc to do her thing?”
She rubbed her arms, slowly, taking her time in answering. “I don’t remember how long it took for me, because I was young when she did it. But I’ve heard her talk about it a lot. A few days, at most. Then weeks until the treatments take full effect.”
I slammed my fist on a support pillar. “I don’t have weeks!”
“I know, but from what I understand you’ll start noticing—changes—within a day or two. But you won’t have the full benefits for at least a few weeks.”
Still, that might give me the edge I needed to get Kara back. I nodded, because all I could do was accept it. “Let’s run a sweep of the town, check for any survivors. Look for fresh horses, ’cause we’re headed back the way we came.”
Bobby spoke up. “You sure you want to go through with this? I mean, Gabby here seems fine, but I can tell you from experience, there’s no going back from it once it’s been done to you.”
I ignored his question. “Be ready to roll out in a half hour.” Then I shouldered my rifle and took off for the back of the house. I needed more firepower, something with enough juice to take down a full-blown alpha ’thrope, and keep him down for good. Thankfully, I had just the tool in mind. God help those ’thropes, because I was coming after them like Wyatt Earp, and bringing hell with me.
- - -
This concludes Episode 2 of THEM Season 1...
Continue the story with Scratch, Gabby, The Doc, and Bobby in Episode 3!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M.D. Massey has been a soldier, an emergency room technician, a fitness trainer, a truck driver, a martial arts instructor, a cook, a consultant, a web designer, and a security professional. He also spent six weeks in law school before deciding that, if he was going to lie for a living, he’d do it honestly as a fiction writer. M.D. lives in Austin, Texas with his family and a huge American Bulldog who keeps him company while he writes the sort of books he likes to read.
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THEM (Season 1): Episode 2 Page 7