Turning Point (Book 1): A Time To Die

by Wandrey, Mark

  “Fucker!” she yelled and pulled away, hair tearing. She screamed in pain. His hands were grabbing at her neck. Kathy rolled away, desperately trying to get to her feet. Her breath came in gasps and panic-filled whimpers. This wasn’t happening! She wasn’t going to let a cannibalistic Mexican in the middle of the desert kill her! She was a reporter; this kind of thing happened to other people, damn it!

  His hand shot out, and she felt him grab her ankle. She tried to stutter step, but her other foot caught on a root and she went sprawling again, face first this time. She tasted dirt and blood as her chin ground into the rock-hard desert soil. He landed on her, most of his weight crashing down on her hips, shoving her pelvic bone into the ground. She felt something hard press into her groin and wondered dimly what it was. His hands grabbed her shoulders, and she felt teeth on her back. She threw an elbow back, and it contacted the side of his head. Then she felt the telltale hardness of an erection against her ass, and her panic reached a whole new level. He was going to eat her and fuck her.

  She was able to partially throw him off, and she rolled away. When she came up on her hands and knees, she saw what had been biting into her. The blued shape of a revolver lay there, dislodged from where she’d had it in her waistband. The crazy man jumped at her as she dove for the gun. He went over her head as she scrambled for the weapon and tried to roll away. He landed on her legs and bit ineffectively at her boots. She kicked and felt his teeth give with a satisfying crunch.

  She rolled again, ending up on her butt, with him on all fours spinning to face her. She raised the gun and, just like her father had taught her, lined up the front post with the back. It was like shooting those silly zombie targets at the range. One was a zombie cheerleader, another a zombie chef with a human hand instead of a cleaver. Only this wasn’t paper snarling at her with jagged, broken teeth. The post lined up on the center of the nose, she pulled the trigger with a smooth motion.

  Even outdoors in the desert, the report made her jump as the gun boomed. The recoil of the little Smith & Wesson was deceptive. She remembered the first time she’d fired it, marveling, even then, how something so small could kick so hard! A tiny hole appeared just under the man’s left eye, the hydrostatic shock blowing it out of the socket. The hollow point bullet expanded, sending most of his brains, and a significant portion of the back of his skull, flying out into the desert sand. He dropped like a felled tree, one foot twitching spastically.

  “Holy fucking shit,” she gasped, almost dropping the gun. She’d just murdered someone in cold blood. “Holy fucking shit!” she screamed to the desert. “What is going on?!”

  Inhuman, barking, chuffing voices answered from all around her. Her eyes wide as dinner plates, she stood and spun around. There were 10 or 20 of them, maybe more. She saw a woman, half-naked, crouched by a saguaro cactus, watching her with dead eyes.

  Kathy turned and ran from the scene of death. She ran as fast as she’d ever run in her life. The desert was alive with sounds all around her and closing fast. Is this how a deer feels, she wondered, knowing the hunters are tracking it?

  She didn’t mount the ATV so much as vault onto it, smashing painfully into the padded seat. Kathy didn’t give it a second thought. She’d ridden the bike long enough her fingers worked automatically. Turn on the key, flip the kill switch to start, flick the shifter lever up into neutral with the right foot, and stab the starter with the left thumb. The engine whirled and coughed, but didn’t start. She’d meant to shake out the filter but hadn’t had time. “No,” she moaned and hit the starter again.

  The half-naked woman raced at her, closing fast. Somehow, Kathy had possessed the presence of mind to stuff the gun back into her waist band and not drop it when she ran. She snatched it back out, and, stabbing it toward the woman, she stroked the trigger. Boom! The .38 bucked in her grip, and the woman dropped to her knees just feet away. She looked up, eyes that were once beautiful staring hate at her. Blood dripped from her lips, and her breasts hung loosely. Kathy put the next bullet into the top of her head, then tried the bike, again. It sputtered and almost caught.

  “Come on!” she screamed. She gave it a little gas, and it started with a grumbling roar. She dropped it into gear and smashed the gas. A young woman raced up in front of her. Kathy screamed as she rode her down like a dog in the street. The bike and trailer combination were a half ton of steel and plastic. What was 100 pounds of meat and bone? A fleshy speed bump.

  The girl swept a hand at Kathy’s face, but fell under the bike, which jumped and bumped as it crushed the life out of her. “Stop it!” Kathy screamed. A man jumped onto the cargo rack, grabbing at her. She took the gun in her left hand, and awkwardly reversed it behind her. “Never shoot at what you can’t see,” her dad had always told her.

  “Sorry, Dad,” she cried as she pulled the trigger twice and the man let go. She smelled blood, shit, and Gatorade. To her left, a thin man raced toward her on an intercept course. Kathy felt amazingly calm as she aimed, despite the panic she felt grasping her. He was only a foot away when she blew the top of his head off. Another was just behind him. She pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. She stuffed the gun back into her waistband, trying to ignore the hot barrel burning her delicate skin.

  With both hands on the handlebars, Kathy bared her teeth and held on, crashing through and over several people. The trailer bounced and flew up in the air several times. It terrified her to think it might upend and take her with it. Then she was past her attackers and careening up the trail. The ATV’s headlight was slightly askew and coated in thick blood, and it cast the trail in red relief, making it hard to see where she was going. Kathy struggled and finally managed to let up on the throttle, slowly bringing the rattling, ill-running machine to a stop.

  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” she kept saying, over and over as she got off the bike and stumbled to her knees. She pulled out the Smith & Wesson and, with her hands shaking badly, clicked the cylinder release, rotated it out, tipped it back, and pressed the ejector rod. The six empty brass casings tinkled to the rocky ground, and she reached into her left jeans pocket to find a speed loader. There were two, and one went into the cylinder. It took her several tries before she got it to line up, and it slid into place. She twisted the release, tipping the gun barrel down, and the rounds fell into place. The speed loader fell, forgotten as she locked the gun closed once more. “Jesus, what have I done?!” She looked down at the gun and wondered who’d reloaded it.

  A growl and the sound of footsteps brought her to her feet, and she looked back down the trail. There was just enough light for her to see dozens of figures racing after her. “Leave me alone!” she screamed. They responded with a unified roar and came at her quickly.

  Kathy considered standing there and letting them get her. What the fuck difference did it make? The Army couldn’t stop them; it looked like nothing could stop them! A few moments of pain, and it would all be over.

  She had no idea how she ended up back on the bike, speeding away as fast as it would let her.

  * * *

  It all came to an end less than an hour later. She’d been driving along the increasingly hard-to-follow trail, around cacti and across washouts. The trail cut back and forth constantly, and she continued to hear the howling behind her. Kathy knew that, unless she suddenly stumbled across a paved or wide-open stretch of road, there was no way she would achieve any real distance. The insane cannibals seemed to possess superhuman endurance.

  Just as she reached the top of a low hill, the bike shuddered, clanked, and stopped. She pressed the starter, and it clicked. The gas gauge said there was a little left in the tank, but every time she tried, she got nothing.

  The howls behind her grew louder. She jumped off the bike and looked at the equipment. What to take? She grabbed her pack from the rear cargo deck, and saw liquid pouring out of it. Holding it up to the moonlight, she could see two holes in it. Apparently, she’d shot the pack when the crazy jumped on her from behind. It was als
o covered in blood.

  “Raaah!” a voice screamed. She drew the gun and turned. The man was only a few yards away when Kathy fired, the first shot hitting him in the hip, sending him spinning to the ground. Kathy shot him twice more before slinging the pack over her shoulder. She started up the trail, stopping to snatch the GoPro from its mount, then raced off as quickly as she could.

  Her legs felt like burning bands of steel from two days of riding the bike, the flesh between her legs raw and wasted. Every single step hurt. At times, she thought she couldn’t make her legs run any more. The peak of the hill was still in the distance. She could see a black line ahead, probably another creek bed, and she smelled wood smoke.

  There were more footsteps behind her. She turned and fired at the shadow rushing toward her. It stumbled, and she fired again. The shadow toppled. Another appeared right behind it. She was breathing hard, her mind racing. She could think of no other options. She aimed carefully and fired, and had the dim impression of a head rocking back and someone falling.

  She stuffed the GoPro into her belt. Then she fished out the last speed loader, opened and emptied the revolver, and slammed the quick loader home, all the while backing down the trail. She stumbled once and almost fell over backwards, her heart hammering in her chest. The speed loader slammed into the cylinder. She saw shapes coming out of the dark for her, eyes shining in the moonlight, mouths open and teeth snapping.

  She flicked the release on the speed loader and finished reloading, slammed the cylinder closed, and brought the gun up as hands stained dark with blood reached for her. Boom, boom! The gun roared and bucked, and the creature screamed and fell back. That was how she had to think of it. It wasn’t a man with very good facial features, it was no longer human. It was a monster.

  She hobbled a few more feet, turned, found a target in the dark, and fired. She found another target, and fired again. She had to keep shooting, keep moving. She turned again and fired into one who was crawling toward her. Hadn’t she shot that one already? She fired again and it stopped moving.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder. They’d somehow gotten ahead of her. “No!” she screamed, spun, and pulled the trigger. Click. This is how I die, she realized.

  But the hand didn’t pull her into tearing teeth and death. It pushed her aside, almost gently, but with surprising power. “Get the fuck out of the way, Kathy!” a familiar man’s voice said an instant before a gun exploded over her shoulder. She’d thought her pistol was loud, but this sounded like the crack of doom next to her head. She fell sideways. She heard two shots, then a click and three more shots incredibly close together, no more than a split second apart. “Down!” the voice called. “Get behind me.”

  She was only dimly aware of the continued shooting. After a second it stopped. She heard a metallic click followed by the clank of something hitting the rocky ground. She saw something shoved upward, and heard the mechanical sound of metal sliding on metal. Then the firing resumed with measured shots. She was behind the kneeling man who held a huge black rifle by a strange handle under the foregrip. On top of the rifle was a massive sight. She could see green light glowing on his face. That face had belonged to a man who’d held her, kissed her, and loved her very long ago. Impossibly, even with the unending explosions of the huge rifle, she fell asleep.

  * * *

  “Kathy, shit, Kathy!” Someone was shaking her rudely. She pushed the hand on her shirt away. “Get it together, girl.”

  A name floated around in her fatigue-filled mind. “Cobb?”

  “Yeah girl, let’s move.”

  “But, you’re in Texas.”

  “So are you,” he told her. She opened her eyes and saw they hadn’t moved. He was still kneeling there, the big gun with its weird, green-lit scope up to his face, sweeping it back and forth

  “But how?” she asked.

  “I was tracking you,” he admitted.

  “Asshole.”

  “Fine, I’ll be going then.”

  “No!” she screamed, and found she had the strength to get to her feet. It had been a hollow threat. He continued to kneel, casting an appraising eye toward her. “Where were you, then?”

  “Lost you a day ago,” he explained, standing and scanning. “Been sweeping the southern edge of my property. Knew you were heading this way.”

  “I don’t understand. If you weren’t behind me, how were you tracking me?”

  He held up a device with a glowing screen which displayed a map. “Little GPS toy we used in the Rangers. But you either lost or destroyed the tracker a few hours ago.”

  She thought back to when she’d shot her pack and nodded. Her anger was turning to gratefulness with incredible speed. “Are they all dead?”

  “No,” he said, and pointed to the left. “There are a bunch that-a-way, but they’re hunting something. A deer, I think. Those behind you are feeding.” He assessed her again with a critical eye. “That was some pretty good runnin-and-gunnin’, girl.”

  “Yeah?” she asked, and looked around. “My first firefight.”

  “You don’t say,” he said with a wry smile that annoyed her a bit. He stooped and retrieved her .38, and handed it to her. “Any more ammo?”

  “In my pack,” she said, and started to take it off.

  “No time for that,” he said, and reached behind his back. He pulled out a handgun and gave it to her. It was nothing like her old S&W .38. This was one of those sleek, black, half-plastic pistols. It looked deadly. “There’s a round in the chamber. It’s double action only, like that revolver. Just pull the trigger. Ten shots, .40 caliber.”

  She stuck the pistol in her waistband, an action that was quickly becoming natural to a woman who, not long ago, had had a less-than-favorable opinion on guns. He held out his hand again, and there were two magazines in it. “Mag release is under your right thumb, the slide release is above that. If you forget, pull the slide back and let it go over a full mag.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  “Let’s GTFO,” he said and turned.

  “Wait, my bike.”

  “Fuck it, let’s roll.”

  “No, there’s something important I think you’ll want, and I want the rest of my SD cards.”

  “Are you fucking insane?” he asked, but she was already trotting down the trail. He cursed and raced after her, gun at low port, sweeping back and forth.

  “How can you see with that?” she asked as he caught up and passed her, using the rifle to scout out the trail.

  “NVG,” he said, “night vision gear. It’s a third-generation ACOG I got from my battalion when I retired. I used it to shoot coyotes, until tonight.”

  “Handy,” she admitted.

  He nodded his head, then spoke. “Firing.” The gun boomed twice.

  “What is that gun?”

  “HK91, .308 cartridge. Belonged to my dad. I’ve enhanced it a bit. If the ATF gets their hands on it, I’m going to have a long stay in Club Fed.”

  She didn’t know what he meant and didn’t care. She was glad he was there. “I know how you followed me, but not why.”

  He slowed as he approached the bike. She could barely see it through the dark, but he had perfect visibility. There was a twitching body next to the machine, obviously the one he’d just dispatched. “You left in such a hurry, I was worried about you.”

  “Worried enough to get up in the middle of the night, before I left, and put that tracker in my bag?” He was quiet, obviously caught. “I never thanked you for that night.”

  “Thanked me?” he chuckled. “Lady, you were incredible.” He was quiet for a moment as he circled around the bike, starting and stopping. “That was the first time I’d been with a woman since…”

  “It’s okay,” she said, and despite the bodies all around her, she smiled. He’d been slow to warm to her plan, but eventually bought into it. Several times. Not that she was complaining. It’d been quite some time since an alpha male had thoroughly laid her; he was fantastic. He stopped, squat
ted a bit, and fired twice more, bringing her out of her reminiscence.

  “Get your shit and let’s get out of here,” he said.

  Kathy opened the cargo compartment and found the plastic case of SD cards. She put them into the blood-soaked backpack, after verifying the pocket she’d chosen was still intact. She noted that all but one of her bottles of water were empty, shot through. “I lost most of my water.”

  “Got that covered. You done?”

  “You want this?” she asked, and pointed to the trailer.

  “What is it?”

  “A gun of some kind.”

  He swept around quickly and let his gun hang on its sling before moving to the trailer. He glanced at the box and did a double take. “No fucking way,” he said, and dropped to one knee. A tiny flashlight appeared in his hand. She was about to warn him against using it, when the light came on red, not white. This guy had his shit together. “An M240?!” he said incredulously. “How in the hell?”

  “A helicopter crashed,” she explained. “A soldier told me to take it.”

  “Crashed? Where? Can we help them?” he asked, quickly.

  “There were no survivors.”

  Cobb nodded solemnly and looked at the gun and the other boxes. Clearly, he was conflicted. Then he decided. “Here,” he said, unslinging his gun and looping the sling over her head.

  “Whoa, whoa,” she complained as it settled on her shoulders. Unconsciously she took the thing in her hands. It was hot and heavy. It felt like death.

  “No choice,” he said. Then he reached around her and deftly dropped the magazine. He pulled a fresh magazine out of his vest, which was full of them. This one looked bigger than the others. “My only twenty-five round mag,” he said and slammed it into the gun. He gently took her thumb and moved it to a lever. “Flip that down, pull the trigger. It’s that easy. Look through the sight.” She hefted the gun, grunting a little. The tiny TV screen showed a square wire box with a little white cross hair in the center and a line going up and down from the crosshair. There were tiny cross lines with numbers next to the line. “Center it on their chests and pull the trigger.”