As he moved down the street, the murmuring wind sang a haunting tune. It was the only sound he could hear other than the soft crunch of gravel. His practiced gaze constantly roamed over every detail, darting at hints of danger, a shifting shadow, a flicker of white. Thoughts of leaving the girl again passed through his mind. When he tried to squelch them, they only came back stronger. Given how everyone in his past had ended up dead, he figured she would be lucky if she lasted more than a week with him. She’d probably be better off on her own. His life had been one long series of losses and illusions. The girl seemed real enough, though, but it was only a matter of time before she too would vanish. But what choice did he have? What choice did she have? No, she should stay with him. She needed to stay, and he needed to do whatever he could to keep her safe.
He stepped off the sidewalk and into the intersection of the four-lane roadway. Next to him was a burned-out Peterbilt truck that had crashed into a light pole. The paint on the truck’s cab was flaking off where the metal was crumpled, leaving behind large spots of rust. In the building across the street was the entrance to his shelter. To get to the fourth floor where it was located, they would need to traverse a broken revolving door, run across an open lobby, and climb a rope inside one of the building’s two elevator shafts. It was a relatively easy climb for him. But for the girl? Could she make it? If she couldn’t, he could always attach her to the rope and pull her up after him if it came to that, although, that would take time. Time he didn’t have.
The way ahead seemed clear. He slowed, letting his fingers slide along the fender of the truck. The area he would have to pass through was a wide-open expanse of about fifty feet. There was no cover at all until they reached the building on the other side. Leaning out past the end of the truck, he peeked around it. He saw—
What was that? He quickly ducked behind the cab and froze in place. The girl bumped into him from behind.
“Hold up,” he whispered. Tilting his head, he listened, seeking any stray, telling sounds. He heard something. A faint, crackling, like a plastic water bottle being crushed.
The noise stopped. Slowly, he stretched out his arm, shielding the girl behind him. With his other, he brought up the shotgun, raising it to level while he inched forward to take another look. He continued to listen, straining his ears to catch the tiniest of sounds.
Nothing.
He sniffed the air.
Nothing.
Then he heard a new sound from his right, a faint scrape. He turned toward it, shifting the girl behind his back. A scent, barely perceptible, came to him on the breeze. It was foul, like rotting meat.
Raptors.
He spotted a flicker of movement to his left where he thought he’d seen something earlier. He turned. A raptor came sprinting from the shadows. It leapt on top of a sedan about thirty feet away. The car rocked under the thing’s weight. Pack leader, he thought. Big, ugly, and deadly. He rescanned the shadows, asking, “Where, oh where, are your pack mates?”
He saw nothing new.
“Listen,” he whispered to the girl, not wanting to take his eyes off the creature. “Follow me closely. Very closely.” Forgoing a response, he took off sprinting for the entrance to the towering building. When he reached the revolving door, he looked back for the girl.
Damn! She still was in the middle of the street, gazing at the large raptor. It stared at her, cocking its head from side to side, dragging a hooked claw over the car’s surface. The paint on the roof peeled back in curls, and the sound made Jesse’s skin crawl. The girl started backpedaling away from the thing. Jesse ran back to where she stood, grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her forcefully along beside him. He held the shotgun up with his finger extended and rigid next to the trigger, ready to blast the thing if it came any closer. All his senses remained stretched to their limits. His pulse hammered in his throat. He tightened his grip on her arm and yanked her off balance. “I told you to follow me.” He shook her. “Do you want to die? Listen!”
She returned a look of quiet serenity as if she didn’t understand the danger she was in.
“You need to stay with me, goddamn it! They will eat you. Understand?” He yanked her along to the building entrance, a broken revolving door. She hesitated at first but eventually fell into step alongside him. As soon as they had climbed through the shattered glass of the revolving door, he directed her behind his back and angled the shotgun to fire at anything coming from the street.
The large raptor atop the car scratched at the roof, peeling up fresh new curls of the car’s silver paint. Jesse swiveled his shotgun at the beast while scanning for others. He could smell them now. So, at least a few were upwind, but it would be wrong to assume that they all were.
“Where are you?” he whispered. “Where the hell are you?”
He watched the large raptor on top of the car rise to its full height. It was a male and must have weighed at least two hundred pounds. It let out a long, wailing screech. The high-pitched warbling note rose in volume and echoed from the surrounding buildings. A fleshy, blood red comb ran from its bony forehead and along the back of its neck, marking it as an adult male, probably two or three years old. The hideous thing opened its jaws wider, bellowing again. Bits of tattered flesh clinging to its dagger-like teeth quivered in its mouth along with an arrowhead-shaped tongue. Jesse cringed at the sound. He’d heard the same scream before, many times. It was some sort of command to its pack mates, some sort of signal. The large raptor stopped, closed its jaws. It lowered its head and scraped its claws once more. Judging by the color of the flesh that he’d seen hanging around its exposed teeth, and its red-splotched face, Jesse knew it had eaten recently. Maybe even feasting on the other raptors he’d shot and killed earlier. If that were true, then it had been stalking him ever since, and if it had been tracking him this far, then so had the rest of its pack.
Not. Good.
Competing packs would have likely followed the first. They would be lurking nearby and waiting to see whether this one failed to make a kill, or seeking an opportunity to steal away any scraps. He swallowed hard and fought back the spike of panic racing straight down his spine. Be calm, he told himself, calm. You’re still okay. You can do this.
A second raptor appeared behind the one on the car, then another crept from the shadow of the building behind it, and another came running out of an alleyway. Then another, and another. Soon, he counted seven in total. More were probably hiding in the shadows. Controlling his panic, he began assessing his options. Given his limited supply of ammunition, survival meant a lot more running and a lot less shooting. He didn’t have nearly enough shells for the shotgun, or decent enough cover to take them all on. He backed inside the building entrance, knowing where he had to go. Something tugged at his shirttail. The girl. Not wanting to take his eyes off the raptors in the street, he waved behind himself for her to stop. The tug came again, harder. He chanced a glimpse at her, intending to scold her for the interruption. Then, he spotted why she had been pulling on his shirt. A raptor was inside the building. It was slinking in the shadows and making its way along the bottom entrance to the escalator that led to the second floor.
Shit! Distraction and flanking were two of their favorite tactics, part of their pack behavior. Somehow, he’d missed it. Slowly, he pulled the shotgun up to his shoulder, not wanting to make any sudden moves and spring the trap they had set for him. They seemed in no particular hurry to get at him, too, so he decided to play it out on his terms, not theirs.
“Just a few more seconds,” he mumbled.
The raptor inside the building was still too far away for an effective shot. The only way to kill it would be to draw it in closer. However, once he moved from the entrance, the others would stop their slow, deliberate stalking and charge. He let the one inside the building creep nearer.
Closer it came.
Closer still.
Now, he was ready.
“Remember what I said,” he told the girl in a whisper. �
�Stay with me or you are dead.”
Leveling the shotgun, he spun on his heel and accelerated straight toward the raptor inside the building. The creature charged him, shredding musty carpet with its talons. When he was still a couple of steps from it, he raised the shotgun to his shoulder and fired directly into the raptor’s opening mouth. The shot ripped through the thing’s skull, tearing it away in a large chunk of flesh and bone. The pieces spun off in a hissing spray of red. Maintaining his forward momentum, he slammed into the dying raptor like a linebacker smacking down a skinny wide receiver. The creature flew backward and skidded across the carpet. He stumbled forward, leaping over the fallen creature. He cocked his gun and spun, readying for a second shot, but the girl was blocking his line of fire toward the building’s entrance. If he pulled the trigger now, he’d shoot her.
“Move!” he snapped.
She did, but not fast enough. Not wanting to risk hitting her, he turned and ran straight for the nearest corridor at the far end of the lobby. A quick glance showed that the girl was following closely behind. Good, she had listened this time. He also saw the main entrance to the building. That was even better. Raptors were trying to squeeze through the bent steel and broken glass of the revolving door. They were coming in all at once and becoming entangled in the twisted metal of the door frame. They bit and snapped at each other.
All this was buying him the few extra seconds he needed. But with a sudden stab of panic, he realized that might not be enough.
-16-
DINNER BELL
THE DOOR TO the house banged opened. Cory sat up with a jolt in the back seat of the Prius and peered out through the broken side window. At some point during the night, he had fallen asleep. He scolded himself for that. It had been stupid to do so. He must have been more exhausted than he thought. A man with choppy brown hair hung limply between two grim-faced, expressionless men. Blood ran freely from the limp guy’s mouth, and his face was a puffy patchwork of dark bruises. The pair dragged the unconscious man down the porch, heading for the front gate. One of the guy’s legs bent at an odd angle. It was trailing uselessly behind him, leaving squiggly marks in the dirt. Cory had seen the two men before. It was Ryan and Matt. They were same two who had been shadowing him all evening. By dozing off, he’d missed an opportunity to escape. He would not do so again.
They dragged the man to the front gate, where a group holding torches opened it for them. From there, the two dragged the crippled man through and into the darkness outside. Cory kept still, staring at the gate, puzzled over to what to do next. Escape? Stay put? Or? Were they doing this as a warning aimed at him? Were they doing this to prove some point? If that were the truth of it, doing something rash now would only get him noticed, and he might end up joining the guy. The two men soon returned through the open gate. They looked in his direction, wiping blood from their hands onto rags pulled from their back pockets. They wanted to play games? Fine, he would play his part. He wriggled himself into a comfortable position and again tried to settle down. Sliding the katana out of its sheath, he balanced it across his stomach and covered it with his leather jacket. Again, he closed one eye, keeping the other slightly open. He would be ready if they tried anything.
His mind continued to whirl. He could not stop thinking about the guy they had dragged outside. This had to be a test. Maybe to see how he would react. See if he would try to save the guy. But why? Why would they do that? Why would they go so far just to test him? The person he was a year ago would have let that man die without a second thought. He had let millions die, so what was one more? He had once thought there were always more. More to tell him what to do. More to get in his way. But the world had changed in a significant way. He had changed. Now he had a purpose. A renewed purpose. That meant having to stay alive to fulfill it. And that meant it was time now to leave. He began the mental preparation to engage in a short skirmish followed by a quick escape over the wall. He would have to stay away from the bows and use available cover to his advantage. Maybe use a distraction. He might even need to kill people. Whatever it took. First, he would sneak behind the tents to cut some ropes, rattle something, and make just enough noise to be interesting. He could lure his two guards after him. That would buy him enough time to double back, leap on a car, and hop the fence. The darkness outside the walls and his black jacket would give him cover if he moved fast enough. Once he reached the tree line, there was no way they would dare follow him. Easy enough.
Then he heard something that changed everything.
A solitary raptor cried out in the distance. Another joined the first. Its tone was longer, wavering. Then another note, this one deeper, came from a different direction. Sitting up inside the car, he listened to the warbling song. Over time, he had learned the meaning of some of their vocalizations. It was some kind of communication. They were preparing to attack. Perfect, he thought. An attack would cover his escape. Sliding the katana carefully back into its sheath, he pushed his pack down into the space behind the driver side seat. He might need to leave the pack behind. That was not something he wanted to do, but it would not be the first time he had been forced to start over from scratch. As long as he had his blade and his jacket, he was good.
After squeezing out through the broken side window of the Prius, he pulled on his jacket, pressed his hands into the small of his back, and stretched as if he had just completed a pleasant nap. Watching those watching him, he reattached his sheathed sword, and then positioned it so it could be drawn quickly. Yawning, he tilted the collar of his jacket up to cover his neck and partially obscure his face. He was ready to go.
A bell attached to the overhang on the front porch began to clang in alarm.
Damn.
People started running and crisscrossing each other as they moved about the interior of the compound. Some grabbed weapons and went directly to the walls, while at the house they started shuffling people inside. Then that inward flow suddenly stopped and out came Noah. He stepped onto the porch. He was dressed in tan-colored military fatigues. He smiled at those around him, tousled the hair on a few children headed inside, and then surveyed everyone as if he were the rock they should cling to in a storm. Solid, unyielding.
Cory’s former guards moved to stand near the silver-haired man while the last few children filtered into the house. Men with compound and recurve bows scrambled onto the platforms facing the eastern walls. Others scrambled to the tops of the rusting cars. Of all the weapons present, Cory did not see a single gun. Like most of the groups he had encountered, these people had resorted to using primitive weapons, bows and spears, mostly, maybe an ax or two. Bullets were more precious than cigarettes and alcohol. And even cans of peaches.
A few of the men and women standing atop the cars held short ropes with rocks tied to the ends, the name of which escaped him, but he instantly knew their purpose. Others held long spears made from sharpened steel pipe, ready to stab anything that jumped up at the walls. However, no one was carrying a sword. He found that somewhat puzzling, since he thought the sword was the best weapon to use against raptors. A sword never needed to be reloaded, had medium reach, and did not become easily entangled like a spear or ax could. He felt anything other than a blade lacked a certain dramatic flair, which was something LaPaz had drilled into him long ago. It is not if you can kill, it is how you kill that defines you, the man had once said.
After climbing onto the roof of a wrecked sedan near the eastern wall, Cory stood and gazed out over the side. From his position, he had a good view of the clearing surrounding the compound, but clouds covered the moon, making it too dark to see much of the field. Opening his eyes wide, he could barely make out the even darker patch where the tree line began. He saw movement. Everyone around him went silent.
A spotlight made from a bundle of car headlights clicked on and threw a shaft of light off into the gloom. The spotlight swiveled wildly then zeroed in on something. Light reflected back from a pack of raptors emerging from the trees at the far
side of the clearing. Maybe a dozen or so, but Cory was not sure how many just yet. A large raptor moved through the middle of the pack to the front. The rest cautiously shifted behind it. All were heading straight for the compound. Then they stopped about a hundred yards out. The lead raptor began circling the group, occasionally stopping to scratch at the dirt. Its head darted left and right then snapped at those it circled. Some snapped back, making growling and huffing noises.
“More. Ten o’clock,” Noah called out, breaking the silence along the wall. He was atop the nearest platform holding a pair of binoculars.
The spotlight swung left. Cory looked where Noah was pointing. The beam locked onto another group emerging from the trees. That pack was smaller than the first and seemed to have no leader, or one had not shown itself yet. Another sound shifted Cory’s attention. Off to his left was the beaten man they had hauled out earlier. The spill of light from torches lining the walls lit the man. He had been fastened to a pole with his hands interlocked above his head and tied to a ring. The man groaned. Cory shook his head in disbelief. He knew now why they had put him out there.
The guy suddenly came awake with a muted cry and started thrashing against his bonds. Bait, Cory thought with disgust. Studying the faces of those around him, he watched a few glance nervously at the man outside then quickly avert their eyes and look in Noah’s direction. But they never looked directly at him. Their faces held frightened expressions as if they were stuck between being horrified by what they saw and not wanting to do anything that could lead to them joining the man on the pole. A select few stared at the squirming man, watching him struggle. They were enjoying themselves.
“I’m innocent!” the tied-up man pleaded. “I didn’t do it. No. Please, Mr. Noah. Please! Don’t! I’ll do whatever you want. Please!”
Cory spotted Eve standing on the roof of another rusting sedan. She was gazing at the raptors and trying to ignore the man’s pleas. He watched her for a moment. She was uncomfortable with what was being done, but she did not do anything about it either. Jumping down from the car he was on, he made his way over to her. She might be as crazy as the rest, but she had already proven she would speak with him. That was if she was not still upset by what he had said earlier.
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