by Sam Sisavath
Run.
Gaby stood still and stared at the teeming mass—there had to be a dozen of them, maybe more—as they covered June’s struggling form until there was just writhing black flesh and clacking bones as the creatures fought one another to get at the prize underneath the pile.
Run. What are you doing standing there like an idiot? Run!
But she didn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to turn away from the sight, and at the same time was too afraid to fire for fear of hitting June underneath. Or maybe she was terrified that they would notice she was still there if she pulled the trigger again and finally turn their attention to her.
Run.
For God’s sake, run!
This time she obeyed the voice, forcing her legs to move—first to turn, then to rise and fall, again and again, until she was racing through the woods.
Faster!
Run faster!
She thought she could hear June screaming behind her, begging for help, but maybe that was all in her mind. After all, she could barely hear anything except the wind against her face and her runaway heartbeat in her ears.
She didn’t know where she was going, just that she had to get away.
Far, far away.
Faster.
Faster!
FASTER!
Fifteen
Sunlight assaulted her eyes even before she opened them…and almost fell out of the tree.
She reached back and grabbed desperately at the tree trunk behind her and at the same time lost her grip on the rifle. Thank God she had the sling over her shoulder because the AR didn’t go very far. She pulled herself back onto the thicker part of the branch that she was perched on and had been all night.
Morning was a welcome relief, its warmth caressing her face and aching muscles. Gaby raised her legs and stretched her arms, and looked out across at a group of buildings in the near distance. She was a good twenty meters or so in the air, and it was easy to make out the varied colored rooftops.
Not houses, exactly, but…
An RV park. She could make out the long rectangular shapes of recreational vehicles parked in their private lots. Now where had that come from? She hadn’t seen it last night, but then it was so dark and she was so tired and just happy to be off her feet that she hadn’t done more than a cursory glance of the surrounding area before fatigue finally overcame her and she nodded off, despite telling herself to stay awake all night.
State Highway 359 would be somewhere on the other side of the RV park, but Gaby couldn’t make it out despite being high up in the tree. That was her goal: Get to the highway. From there, she could proceed south and search for a way to contact Black Tide Island.
Stay alive. Report in. Then figure out what to do next.
She wondered what her friends were doing now. Danny and Lara would have already known about what had happened to Lightning Two. If not the exact details, then the fact that the chopper hadn’t returned after making contact with her. That would have told them that the rescue hadn’t gone as planned. Knowing the two of them as she did, Gaby wouldn’t be surprised if there was a search party out looking for her right now.
She glanced over in the direction she’d come—west. She could easily make out the calm waters of Lake Mansfield almost a football field away, glistening under the harsh sunlight. There were no signs of Buck’s men anywhere on the ground, in the woods, or on the lake. No signs of any kind of pursuits whatsoever. That should have pleased her, but it only increased her paranoia.
Then again, it’s not paranoia if they’re really after you, is it?
She checked her watch: 8:19 a.m.
Darkness, and everything that thrived within it, had yielded to sunup more than two hours ago. She could hear the animals in the trees around her and spot the occasional land critter on the ground below. But there were no signs of the creatures on two legs that carried guns that she was most worried about.
Gaby spent a few minutes getting her joints ready to move before actually slinging the rifle and crawling down the tree one branch at a time. She wasn’t the most proficient tree climber on Black Tide, but she’d learned a few tricks that made scaling the big elm a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. There was, after all, a few benefits to spending most of her time on an island with a lot of trees and plenty of free hours to spare.
She hopped the last five feet to the ground below, landing in a crouch and immediately readying the AR. She kept her ears open while she scanned the immediate area, looking and listening for threats that never emerged. Under the comforting lens of morning, the woods didn’t look nearly as menacing, and she started to relax.
Then Gaby stood up and headed toward the RV park.
The place had looked deserted from up high, and it probably was, given the lack of life this morning and lights last night. She didn’t for one second believe the vehicles she’d seen would yield anything worth salvaging—anything this close to Fenton would surely have been looted to within an inch of its life by now—but there was no harm in looking anyway. After that, she’d need to find State Highway 359 and get the hell as far away from Fenton as possible.
Stay alive. Report in. Then figure out what to do next…
There were about ten parking spaces in each row, and fifteen or so rows in all. That should have come out to a hundred and fifty abandoned recreational vehicles (give or take), but not every available slot was occupied, and sometimes instead of an RV there was a pickup truck.
The place was long abandoned, though there was plenty of evidence that people had picked over its carcass over the years. Many of the vehicles had their doors left open, some with broken windows, and anything of value—food, supplies, even spare tires—had been stripped. It was an auto graveyard, just as she had feared.
Gaby walked past a damaged sign with Fenton RV Resort written in white letters, next to a manager’s office that was really a singlewide mobile home, but minus the wheels. Every RV she peeked inside had been thoroughly trashed: upholsteries were slashed and graffiti covered more than one vehicle. The place gave off a bad stink that made her move quickly through the rows, trying to get to the other side—and beyond—as quickly as possible.
Halfway through the park, she angled right to get out of the lot faster, because continuing to walk forward would force her to go through another seven or so rows, and the smell was starting to get on her nerves—
Car engines!
It was loud and getting louder, which meant it was also getting closer.
Gaby hurried to the nearest abandoned RV and leaned against it. She listened to the car getting closer and closer. She crouched to glance under the vehicle and found plenty of space down there. Gaby lay on the ground, ignored the chunks of gravel poking at her palms, and rolled underneath the undercarriage until she was almost exactly in the middle.
The truck—cherry red with mud-caked tires—appeared up the same row of abandoned cars where she had been walking seconds ago, sending careless waves of pebble and dirt into the air.
Gaby grabbed her shirt and pulled it over her mouth and nostrils.
Sunlight glinted off a machine gun mounted in the back of the moving vehicle as it passed her by, and kept going.
But not for long.
It stopped somewhere down the row and idled, the smell of diesel fumes reaching back to where she lay.
Don’t stop, keep going.
But it didn’t. Doors opened and slammed.
Dammit.
Gaby crawled forward until she was lying between two of the RV’s big rear tires, in a part of the vehicle that was covered in shadows. It was the best camouflage she could find, and Gaby turned over onto her back so she could rest the carbine on her chest, hands gripping it in case she had to use it—
A deformed skull lay next to her, hollowed out eyes “staring” back at her. It wasn’t connected to a body, but not more than a few feet to her left, nestled against one of the tires, was a twisted femur bone partially buried in the ground. If
there was more of the ghoul around, she couldn’t spot it, though her mind couldn’t help but conjure up the imagery of the creature seeking shelter down her from the sun, only to succumb anyway.
She turned away from the skull and listened as the truck resumed moving after a few minutes, only to stop again. And again, the sounds of doors opening and slamming, followed by male voices.
They’re searching the park. Gee, I wonder for who?
She couldn’t tell what they were saying with the technical’s engine running in the background, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out they were searching the RVs one by one. She just hoped they didn’t search every single one.
Gaby gripped the rifle and tried her best not to move, and was relieved when the searching party kept moving farther away from her. They might have been taking their damned sweet time, but with any luck they’d be gone—
Shit, she thought when the technical got suddenly louder…as it came back in her direction.
Luck my ass.
She kept the shirt over her mouth and nostrils as she listened to them stopping and moving, car doors opening and slamming, over and over again. With each passing minute, the voices grew louder as they neared her. They were backtracking, determined to look into every single one of the vehicles in the lot before they gave up.
Disciplined bunch of assholes.
Gaby changed up her grip on the carbine and slipped a finger into the trigger guard, then maneuvered the rifle until the muzzle was pointed in the direction of the approaching voices.
Should have kept going. Should have kept right on going.
Diesel fumes tickled at her nostrils underneath the shirt, and the heavy crunch-crunch of boots on gravel got louder as two men climbed out of the truck that was parked about ten meters away and walked over.
She counted two pairs of feet approaching.
But how many in the truck? In the front seats? In the back with the machine gun?
It was bad odds regardless of how many were actually out there right now. The only bright spot was that she was hidden from the head down to her waist by the RV’s big tires. The bad news, unfortunately, was that her legs were sticking out from cover, and if the two that were walking toward her spent a second to look underneath the vehicle…
Don’t look under the RV.
Don’t look under the RV.
Don’t look under the RV.
Bang! as someone slammed one of the doors on the RV above her.
“Anything?” someone asked.
“Nah,” someone else said.
They sounded tired and bored. She could hear it clearly because they were standing almost right next to her.
“How many’s left?” the first one asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe five more rows,” the second one said.
“Shit. That’s a lot. We’re gonna be here all day.”
“What, you got something better to do?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Well, too fucking bad,” the second one said, and laughed.
“Come on, we’re wasting daylight!” a third voice shouted, trying to be heard over the running engine.
The first one grunted, and Gaby watched their boots turning and walking away.
Praise Jesus! she thought, and wanted to laugh, but of course didn’t.
Instead, she watched them disappear out of her limited view, but didn’t abandon the park completely. She was somewhere in the middle of the lot, which meant they were going to be here awhile if they were actually intent on going through every single vehicle.
Works for me, as long as they don’t come back.
Gaby allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief and relax her grip on the AR. Her fingers had turned a ghostly white, and she had to rub life back into them.
Buck’s men continued down the row, the technical burning fuel the entire time.
Where are they getting all that fuel?
The question tugged at the back of her mind, along with a dozen others concerning Fenton, but Gaby didn’t spend too much time thinking about them. Not as long as the truck kept fading into the background. That was all that mattered.
She glanced down at her watch. 10:33 a.m.
Take your time, boys. Take your sweet time, just as long as you leave when you’re done.
She turned her head to look at the skull next to her.
Looks like I might succeed where you failed, buddy.
The bleached white skull, missing its lower jaw, “glared” back at her.
Gaby put her hands over the carbine and closed her eyes, and waited.
It took them another excruciating two hours or so before they went through the rest of the RV park. Gaby couldn’t tell if they were going slow on purpose or if they really were just that thorough, but finally Buck’s men climbed back into the technical and drove away.
She listened to the sound of their car engine fading and didn’t let out her first full breath until she couldn’t hear it anymore. By then, Gaby’s legs were stiff and she had to crawl back down the length of the RV before rolling out from underneath it. She stood up and stretched, and made sure there wasn’t anyone else out there before jogging out of the lot and back into the safety of the woods.
After the last few trying hours, being surrounded by trees and thick crowns was a welcome relief. She took her time, listening for signs of people—car engines, voices, heavy footsteps, anything that didn’t belong—but there were just the critters in the branches and what might have been a fawn or two running off when they smelled her presence.
It took her another careful hour of stopping and continuing before Gaby was finally through another long stretch of woods and she could see a flat gray two-lane road beyond the tree lines, with yet another solid wall of trees on the other side.
She was either looking at State Highway 359, the same one that June had mentioned, or a good replacement. Either way, without a map or any ideas of where she was exactly, the road would have to do. If nothing else, it would take her south and, more importantly, away from Fenton.
She could have reached the highway faster, but Gaby had elected to stay away from the dirt road that extended out of the RV park. That had meant going around some of the thicker sections of the woods, and at one point (or was that twice?) she was certain she had lost her way and had to regroup.
The road, whether it was the 359 she was looking for or not, was asphalt with white lines and a yellow divider in the center. There were no cars or signs of one for a mile in either direction she looked, not that she allowed the absence of metal to drop her guard. After all, Buck’s men would have come through this same terrain not all that long ago in order to reach Fenton RV Resort, and there was no telling how many more of their friends were out there right now, looking for her.
Gaby spent a few minutes looking north, which would take her right back into Fenton. Or the main city, anyway. Lara would want her to get as much intelligence as possible on what Buck and his people were doing up there, and Gaby was pretty sure what she had managed to glimpse last night under the cover of darkness was nothing compared to what she would witness in the daylight.
In the end, she had decided to head south, sticking to the woods while keeping the roads to her left, just behind a meter or so of thick trees.
Right now, Lara and Danny would be looking for her, and they didn’t know what had happened. To her, to her team, even to Lightning Two. Right now, Black Tide had to know about what Buck and Fenton were doing out here. Right now…
Wow, you almost convinced yourself that time.
Just say it. You don’t want to go back to Fenton because you might die.
But death was just one possibility. She might not even die like her team members or the crew of Lightning Two. There were worse things than death these days. Like the prisoner in that shack, or what had happened to June…
Was she scared? Yes, she was. Gaby had learned a long time ago that fear was a part of life, and it was fear that made you f
ight your hardest to survive. The only people who weren’t scared of death was the dead.
She was doing the right thing. The same thing Will would do.
“Stay alive. That’s your job. Dead men can’t do anything or help anyone.”
So why did she feel like such a coward—
Snap! Snap! Snap!
She darted toward the nearest tree and slid up against it, rough bark pricking at her back through her clothes, but the slight pain never registered because she could hear and smell them in the woods with her.
They were all around her.
Men.
Sixteen
How many?
Too many…
She didn’t know the exact number, but there was definitely more than one. Maybe more than two or three, with the possibility of there being even more than four or five.
Or more.
Gaby closed her eyes and calmed down her breathing.
In and out.
Her pulse was already racing at a few hundred beats per minute, and just getting it to slow down to a point where she didn’t have to worry about hyperventilating was a task.
In and out…
There. Not quite where she wanted it, but it was better than before. At least she couldn’t hear her heartbeat echoing in her eardrums anymore.
In and out…
She opened her eyes.
They were close, but they weren’t going to stumble over her. Not yet, anyway. There was at least one to her right and another one to her left. And a third directly behind her, on the other side of the large elm tree she was hidden in front of at the moment.
At least three…
Probably more.
Snap! as they broke twigs, and crack! as one of them batted at a low-hanging branch and knocked it loose from the tree. Heavy boots crunch-crunch! dry leaves on the ground. They weren’t exactly being quiet about their movements, but they weren’t in any hurry, either. Just like the ones at the RV park…
They’re hunting.
Gaby clutched and unclutched the AR-15, her palms suddenly wet again. Where was all the sweat coming from?