“We might have to expand,” Barry said, visualizing the borders of the Pederson ranch and trying to figure out which parts needed to be shored up and which could be left alone. “But I think all of us are going to need to band together if we are going to survive this.”
“Back to the Middle Ages?” she asked. “Building fortresses, are we?”
“By your leave, milady,” Barry bowed, laughing. “I always knew my major in Renaissance history would come in handy,” he said. He’d spent most of his career in a state bureaucracy, as far from his college training as was possible. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Office politics were quite Machiavellian.
“I’ll take the bike,” he said. Moments before, he’d wanted nothing more than to curl up and shut out the world, but now he felt an unexpected eagerness to do something.
“I don’t think you should go alone,” Jenny said.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. He realized he meant it, that he was every bit as confident as he sounded. Before he’d used the motorcycle to escape the Tuskers, he’d only ridden one a few times in his life. He vaguely remembered driving a friend’s bike in the hills above his hometown as a teenager. Turned out, when it came to the crunch, he was a natural.
Barry had rigged a sheath for his shotgun on the bike, and he strapped a holster with a 9mm automatic pistol in it to his belt. He was far cry from his cubicle days, or his fat, lumpy early retirement. He felt like a warrior. He looked over at Jenny, and she was smiling, as if she knew what he was thinking. She saluted him ironically. Or maybe not so ironically. He saw the respect in her eyes, and it gave him a thrill.
He started the bike while still in the garage, and the loud roar was satisfying. He couldn’t help but grin. As an old retired fart on his back porch, which was exactly what he’d been just a couple of years before, this was the kind of noise that would have made him shake his fist angrily. An old man’s “Get off my lawn!” attitude.
Barry noticed Felix poke his head out from behind the blankets in back and waved to him. Then he motioned the guards to open the doors and zoomed out into the yard and away down the dirt road.
Chapter Eighteen
Day of the Big Pulse
Barry’s eyes watered from the acrid smoke long before he reached town. Houses were burning down everywhere. The newer subdivisions surrounding the town appeared deserted. He drove down the dark paved road without seeing a soul. A few miles from town, he came across a battlefield in the middle of the road, and the strange sight of a disabled limousine in the middle of it. Bodies of Tuskers were strewn about the road, along with what looked like the remains of a man. He passed on by.
As he passed the long-abandoned remnants of Barbara Weiss’s house, a deep regret at her loss overcame him. She’d been the bravest and strongest of them all. Without her sacrifice during the first Aporkcalypse, none of them would have survived.
A crude barricade blocked his way when he reached the outskirts of town. Several men and women manned it, armed with rifles. A few days before, these people had been housewives and insurance salesmen; now they had grim expressions and heavy weapons, as if distrusting any strangers, even those with two legs.
He pulled up, putting his hands out at his sides to show he came in peace. A tall man climbed to the top of the barrier. Barry recognized the mayor of the town, Herb Jensen. “Mayor” was pretty much an honorary position, but apparently Herb had taken it upon himself to use it as position of leadership in a crisis. Barry felt a sinking feeling.
It was a small world. Herb had actually gone to the same classes at the University of Oregon at the same time as Barry, though they’d never been friends. As Barry explained it to Jenny: “He was always in the front of the class, his head halfway up the professor’s ass, while I was in the back of the class, barely noticed.” For some reason, Barry had always been wary of Herb, and Herb in turn had ignored him. Until today.
“What’s this about?” Barry asked. “This barricade won’t keep out the Tuskers, and you should be welcoming any people who come.”
“Tuskers?” Herb asked, raising his eyebrows. “Is that what you call them?”
“Some of them,” Barry said. “The smart ones.”
The mayor looked down at him, intimidatingly tall, but so skinny a strong punch to the midsection would bend him like a twig. Strange I should think that, Barry thought.
Herb was bald, with a hooked nose, and looked a little like a vulture staring down at him. “I’ve heard rumors about you and Lyle Pederson,” he said. “Some kind of paramilitary encampment out there. So I figured you were somehow in the middle of all this.”
It sounded like an accusation, as if “in the middle of this” really meant “responsible for this.”
“Lyle was smart enough to see it coming, that’s all,” Barry said, feeling offended for his mentor’s sake. “I was just lucky enough to meet him right when it all started.”
“Lucky?” Herb said. “I suppose you would think that…you got rich awfully quick.”
We should be banding together, Barry thought. Not fighting. Still, he couldn’t keep the defensiveness out of his voice. “Lyle wanted me to prepare, and I’ve done my best.”
“So you did know it was coming,” Herb said. “Why didn’t you warn us?”
“I didn’t know anything,” Barry said. “Besides, would you have believed me?”
Herb didn’t answer, and the silence was obviously meant to unsettle Barry. He decided he’d had enough of this.
“I’m heading into town,” he said. “We’re running out of supplies.”
“The town is closed for business.”
“Under whose authority?” Barry asked. “Harvey Johansson is at the Pederson ranch. He told me to get whatever I need.” He reached into his pocket to pull out the keys the owner of the hardware store had given to him.
Herb leveled his rifle at the quick movement, and Barry could see his finger tightening on the trigger. He finished pulling out the keys and dangled them. These men are on edge, he thought.
“How bad were you hit?” Barry asked. That was the right question, and he was a little ashamed he hadn’t asked before. Herb Jensen just rubbed him the wrong way.
Herb grimaced. “The electricity went out first. Not long after that, we got attacked. Coyotes and javelinas mostly, and some of those…Tuskers. Those people who were out in the street…they didn’t make it.” The mayor hesitated, then asked, “And you?”
“The Pederson ranch was attacked in force,” Barry said. “We barely made it.” He didn’t mention that he hadn’t been there when the battle started. Herb would want to know why, and there wasn’t time to explain.
“Who is ‘we’?” Herb asked. “How many people you got out there?”
“As it happens, most of your planning commission took shelter with us, like I said, Harvey Johansson; also, Jerry Olsen, Fred Carter, Tony Lawrence, and Bart Hoskins.”
“How convenient for you,” Herb said. “The most important men in town. Or I should say, they used to be the most important people in town. I’m not sure it matters now. Things have changed.”
“How so, Mayor?” Barry thought he knew. Herb Jensen was using this catastrophe to grab for power. Such people always seemed to rise when the world was falling apart. Men and women who were innocuous before, sometimes barely noticed, somehow found a ruthlessness within themselves that other, more ‘important’ people couldn’t summon. “How have things changed?”
Herb ignored his question. “Who else is out there?”
“My wife, Jenny, along with Enrique and Alicia Flannigan, and their son, Felix. Some of Enrique’s Army buddies.”
“You said Alicia and Felix Flannigan. What about Flaco?”
Barry looked down. “He didn’t make it.”
There was a strange expression on the mayor’s face. Between Lyle Pederson and Flaco Morales, most of the valley was off-limits for development. Which was a thorn in Herb Jensen’s side.
“You gonna let me by?” Barry asked.
“Like I said,” Herb said. “Things have changed. Your money won’t do you any good now, Barry. Everything in town has been requisitioned. It is being rationed out to those who need it most.”
Barry was surprised by the speed at which Herb had taken control, but maybe he shouldn’t have been. The fabric of civilization was thin; it didn’t take much to tear it. The EMP had set them back a century and a half, to a time before electricity and combustion engines. Perhaps farther back than that, to a time when the strongest took what they needed.
Though perhaps that time never really ended. Perhaps it was only hidden.
Barry nodded to the crude barricade in front of him, which had open space on both sides of it. It might be effective at keeping out cars, but not much else. “You trying to keep out pigs? Or people?”
“Just playing it safe,” Herb said.
“You can’t defend yourself here,” Barry said. “The terrain is too open; it’s too big a space. It would be better if you joined us. Given enough manpower, we can build more defensible perimeters. Until then, the Pederson barn is a fortress. We can probably fit most of the townspeople inside. We’ve already survived two attacks.”
“I think you have that backward,” Herb said. “You should be joining us. I’ve heard about your barn. It sounds like you have arms and equipment we could use.”
So this is the way it’s going to be, Barry thought.
The men and women came out from behind the barrier, holding their rifles at the ready. Barry doubted any of them had ever fired a weapon in anger. He could probably get the drop on them, even though they outnumbered him four to one. At the least, he could probably zigzag away on his bike, and there was a good chance they wouldn’t hit him. He was conscious of the Glock on his belt, but the shotgun strapped to the bike would be more effective.
What am I thinking? Have things really gotten to the point where I’m ready to kill someone?
“All right,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “I understand you need to conserve your supplies. Perhaps we can do some trading…if we’ve got things you need.”
“Hey, Herb,” one of the men said. “We’ve got plenty of ammo, but we could use a few more firearms.”
“That might be doable,” Barry said. Guns without ammo were useless, after all.
He could see the men and women backing up Herb relax at his response, but the mayor looked like he wanted to continue the confrontation. Then he looked around, got a gauge of how the others were reacting, and also relaxed. A smile came over his face: a politician’s smile, worthless.
“Sure, that sounds great. Bring in a few weapons and we’ll give you the supplies you need.”
One of the men suddenly whipped his rifle to his shoulder and fired into the air. A raven came twirling down, one of its wings blown off.
“Save your ammo for the Tuskers,” Barry said. “The others are just cannon fodder. The Tuskers are controlling them.”
“Controlling them,” Herb repeated. “The pigs are controlling other animals?” He looked around at the others as if to say, Get a load of this guy. Unfortunately for him, the others looked as though they believed what Barry was saying.
Barry started the bike and turned it back the way he’d come. He looked over his shoulder. “Don’t treat the Tuskers like they’re just pigs,” he said. “They may be smarter than you are. Or Herb. Or me.”
He was speaking to the people behind Herb Jensen, because there was a chance he could get through to them. They looked puzzled rather than alarmed. With that, he roared off, his back feeling terribly exposed, as if the mayor was taking aim at him. He breathed a sigh of relief as the road twisted around a corner, out of sight of the town.
Chapter Nineteen
Day of the Big Pulse
After Barry roared off on his motorcycle, Enrique began to envy him. He was stuck inside the barn with a wife who wouldn’t speak to him and a son who didn’t understand why his Granda wasn’t home.
Enrique brooded in the corner for a while, then got up and made a circuit of the barn, inside and out. It was like when he’d been in Afghanistan. He could never sleep, never rest, was always patrolling the perimeter. There were no live Tuskers to be seen, only dead ones.
The hillside was covered with bodies. Enrique rousted some of his men, and they gathered the dead bodies of the coyotes, ravens, and javelinas and piled them outside the fence. Miraculously, only one of the humans was killed in the battle. Which got Enrique thinking about the men he’d left behind. It had been a desperate retreat. They’d left the bodies of their comrades behind, but made sure they brought all the wounded. Until Flaco disappeared.
Enrique had no doubt that his father-in-law had done it on purpose, sacrificing himself for the greater good. But it didn’t look like Alicia was ever going to accept that, and Felix shouldn’t have to.
As he walked to the entrance of the barn, he veered to one side, where Flaco’s old pickup was still parked, untouched by the battle. Enrique grabbed one of the trail bikes that the old man had been smart enough to buy and threw it into the back of pickup. He was putting his rifle on the seat next to him when one of the guards came around the corner.
“Do you need help, sir?” the man asked, eyeing Enrique’s preparations as if he wanted to object.
“I’m bringing back the bodies of my men,” Enrique said.
The soldier straightened up and nodded, as if that was an answer he could understand. “Do you want some backup, sir?”
“Stay here,” Enrique ordered. He knew it was a dangerous and foolish mission. The thought of losing another man was just too much.
The guard looked ready to object, which would have been pretty unusual. Most of the men under Enrique’s command had continued their military habits even after leaving the service.
“Take care of my wife and son,” Enrique said, starting up the truck. The man saluted. Enrique drove off before anyone could see him and try to talk some sense into him.
As he headed north out of the valley, he began formulating a plan. He would search the entire area around where he’d last seen Flaco. Enrique figured he had just enough gas in the tank to reach the spot where Flaco had vanished and make it back to the Pederson barn, if he didn’t make any unnecessary side trips.
He never made it that far.
He reached the border between Arizona and Utah, which was marked by a sign but otherwise was the same barren desert, when he saw the first of the victims of the virus. Enrique didn’t know what was wrong with the man, but it was clear he was ill. The man was stumbling down the middle of the highway, trailing one foot that seemed to be barely attached. His right arm was gone, and his throat was torn out. Enrique recognized the signs—the Tuskers had gotten to this man.
But how was he still ambulatory? Enrique had seen mortally wounded men carry on fighting as if nothing was wrong—but this was something else. He stopped a good distance away and watched the man approach, fighting the urge to get out and rush to his side and help him.
There was something off about the stranger. It wasn’t just that he was a physical ruin: his movements were both slower and yet more jittery than anyone Enrique had ever seen. When he got a look at the man’s soulless eyes, Enrique locked the door and rolled up the window.
Just in time, because the man didn’t stop a polite distance away but staggered straight into the door, his forehead clunking against the window, his hands beating on the metal. Blood and gore made the glass semi opaque and seemed to magnify the madness in the man’s eyes. They were wide with terror or anger, and yet there was nothing behind the emotion: no thought, no plans, just the mindless impulse to strike.
Without thinking about it, Enrique drove away. The back corner of the pickup caught the man and spun him around. He fell face first onto the asphalt, and his head seemed to break apart. Enrique stopped, looking in the rearview mirror, guilt overwhelming him. But when
the stranger got up again, his head split down the middle, Enrique roared off, shouting wordlessly, filled with horror and anguish.
After that first encounter, he understood that the impossibly wounded humans he saw alongside the road were not truly alive, but somehow reanimated. He didn’t know how, but he had a strong suspicion it was because of the Tuskers.
Barry had always expressed a doubt about exterminating the Tuskers. “It’s genocide,” he would argue, and Jenny backed him up. Even Flaco had seemed less than convinced that it was necessary to wipe out the entire species.
Enrique hadn’t really had a position on the matter, except to protect his family; he would do what was necessary to do that. He hadn’t really thought beyond that. Now he realized that he’d been simply following orders, letting Barry take the lead. It was what he’d been trained to do, what he was good at.
But Barry had underestimated the Tuskers. The humans had been thoroughly defeated, despite being heavily armed. Enrique decided that he needed to make his own evaluation of the situation and plan accordingly. The threat assessment needed to be completely thought out. These new menaces only reinforced that reaction.
They needed to institute a strict quarantine at the least, as well as a curfew, among other measures he knew he might get some opposition on. Didn’t matter. His men would follow his orders, and his men were the ones trained in warfare.
The countryside began to be packed with more and more mindless creatures. A few miles later, he hit one of the things by accident, sending it flopping over the pickup and into the cliff on the side of the road. The creature kept moving, but couldn’t quite regain its feet.
Enrique turned the corner into the valley where he’d left Flaco. He was going to have to hurry. He reached over to grab the gun so that he would be ready to open the pickup’s door, grab the bike, and take off. Then he slammed on the brakes.
There in the road ahead was a mob of the creatures, milling about. But what kept Enrique from plowing into them was that it wasn’t just humans. There were Tuskers among the clotted pack of creatures—and the Tuskers and humans weren’t attacking each other.
The Omnivore Wars Page 13