“Running out of ammo!” one of the men shouted. Andy had brought extra clips, and he threw the man one. Before long, he’d used up the extras. The bows were effective with a few zombies, but the men weren’t proficient enough to use them under such and onslaught.
Soon they were down to handguns. Then, just as the guns started clicking on empty, the tide tapered.
“Fix bayonets!” Andy cried, and when he was sure they had all done so, he motioned them forward. The canyon walls were barely visible; in every direction the zombies had them surrounded. Everywhere they stepped were bodies of the dead and undead.
He kept stabbing, taking a step, shoving the blade forward, rearing back and using the rifle stock to batter the zombies into a smelly pulp. He stabbed, again and again, until he could barely lift his arms. And then…it was air. There was no movement except his men beside and behind him.
Andy turned on his heel, striding to Seth’s side. Amazingly, the young man was still alive. His legs were piled with zombies, but his arms were free, and he held up his rifle to Andy, who reluctantly took it.
“I can’t move,” Seth said. He sounded mildly curious about it.
“We’ll build a stretcher,” Andy said.
Seth pushed aside one of the dead Tuskers, revealing his legs. Blood gushed from his thighs, spurting with every beat of his heart. His face was pale.
Andy pulled off his belt and cinched it around Seth’s thigh. The blood slowed, but didn’t stop.
“Take my backpack,” Seth said.
Andy gently set it aside.
His mouth set in a grim line, Seth reached for his revolver and checked the chamber. “I have one shot left, Andy.”
“Seth…you don’t need to do that. We’ll get you out of here.”
“Fuck, Andy! There’s no hope! I’m not putting the rest of you in danger when it’s hopeless!” Seth said.
Andy didn’t answer. He wasn’t going to lie to a dying man.
Seth leaned back with a sigh, the sand cascading down around his shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice. He stared at the dead zombies littering the landscape. “Damn,” he whispered. “I wish I had the camera. Kathy would like to see this.”
“Kathy would be proud of you,” Andy answered, somehow knowing that’s what Seth wanted to hear.
When Seth turned his face to him, Andy flinched. He was bone white, his eyelids drooping. “Sherry…” he managed to say.
“I’ll take care of her,” Andy said. “I’ll…tell her.”
Seth sighed and closed his eyes. Then he summoned a last surge of willpower.
“Do you mind leaving?” he asked calmly, his face set with pain.
Andy searched Seth’s face, realized the young man was right. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Seth didn’t answer. He was raising the pistol with some difficulty to his shoulder, He let it rest.
“Go,” he said.
They climbed up out of valley, finally reaching the top of the mesa.
There was a single gunshot. No one looked back.
“Now can we go home?” Herb said.
“Hell, no,” Andy snarled. “We aren’t leaving until we’re sure every one of these fucking things are dead.”
“Dead?” Herb echoed.
“You know what I mean.”
"Most of our ammo is gone...”
Andy grabbed him by the tapered lapel of his tailored suit. “You fucking question my orders one more time and I’ll blow your head off.”
No one said a word as they moved further down the ravine and started hunting.
To his surprise, a few minutes later, Andy heard a tiny grunt. He almost thought it was his imagination.
“Wha—Where…?” Herb began.
Andy motioned him to silence. There was a small cave on the other side of the ravine. The pile of zombie bodies was deepest there, almost obscuring the opening. Another tiny snort emerged from the dark hole. Andy crept forward, revolver in hand.
At the entrance of the cave was a single female Tusker, her nipples enlarged, her muzzle wide open, in what sounded like a scream. Several piglets stared up at Andy from behind her, too stunned to react. These aren’t zombies, Andy thought in amazement. The piglets’ eyes were intelligent, as if the little creatures were weighing their options for escape. The sow grunted loudly, and the piglets darted into the cave—all except a small pink one, who looked up at his mother with round blue eyes. She grunted again, insistently, and the piglet followed his brothers and sisters into the darkness.
They’re trapped, Andy thought. All that lay between them and death was the sow.
She seemed to grow in size, puffing herself up, her grunts challenging and frenzied.
In the end, Andy almost hesitated too long. The sow charged and he tried to bring his gun up, but a tusk knocked it out of his hand. A single shot came from behind him. He turned. Herb had his pistol extended in one shaking hand.
The Tusker fell over with a last squeal ending in a sigh.
Andy heard the tiny grunts of piglets in the darkness.
“You going to use that gun or not?” Herb asked.
“They’re just babies,” Andy said.
“In six months they’ll be having their own babies. If you can’t do it, give it to me. I’m out of ammo.” He held out his hand for Andy’s revolver.
“No,” Andy said tiredly. “I’ll do it.”
He crawled into the sandy hole and made his way carefully back into darkness. The piglets might be tuskless and small, but they could still bite. He wondered at the silence all around him, except for the low murmur of his men behind him. Were the little shits frightened into silence?
He would do it. He would kill them. He couldn’t allow them to live, not when they were so close.
But for some reason, he felt a great reluctance. He’d killed many men before, but never children.
These are pigs! he thought. Bacon! I cooked bacon in my diner every day for years!
The walls of the cave narrowed, and he crawled around a bend, glimpsing the warm glow of a second entrance somewhere ahead, filling him with relief. He wouldn’t be a baby killer this day.
We’re going to regret them getting away someday, he thought. The look of knowing he’d seen in the blue eyed piglet was shocking.
He resisted the lure of the closer entrance and worked his way back out the way he came.
“What happened?” Herb asked. “Why didn’t you kill them?”
“They got away. There was another exit.”
The patrol spent the rest of the afternoon searching the canyon, as if calculating how long it would take to reach the top and if there was any chance of catching the piglets.
“Well, I’m too fucking tired to go after them,” Herb said. “We’ll get them next time, if nature doesn’t kill them first.”
As one, the men turned to Andy, but he felt empty, defeated. “Let’s head back,” he agreed.
With that, the men seemed to relax and a few smiled. They started talking softly among themselves.
Andy walked back to the entrance of the cave. There was a bed of grass there, matted down. There were the remains of a rabbit nearby, as well as some kind of tuber that looked gnawed on. The meal of an omnivore.
One thing still bothered him.
Why were live Tuskers living among zombies?
Chapter Thirty-One
Napoleon felt a surge of fear from Marie. Then nothing.
He turned and ran.
Columbus was the first to appear on the horizon, his little paws eating up the ground underneath him. Columbus couldn’t quite form words yet, so Napoleon could only sense his great fear. Isabella followed after, tripping in her haste, grunting in the effort to get to her father as fast as she could. As the others appeared, his apprehension grew until Napoleon wanted desperately to turn away, to hide from his own children. Leonardo came last, helping his brother Loki along as he usually did.
; Humans come, Leonardo’s thought was clear, like that of an adult, though he was only weeks old. Mother…. He stumbled with the rest of his thought. It was too much for his young mind to understand or communicate. The fear and grief was unmistakable, even without words.
Killed everyone, Loki said. It was cold, matter-of-fact. All the thought-less ones. Then, emotionless, almost as if it was an afterthought: Mother, too.
It staggered Napoleon. His thoughts vanished, replaced by a deep and hollow void, that echoed with the small grunts of his offspring as they came near and tried to nuzzle him.
Perhaps only Loki’s dispassionate words could have penetrated, because all other thoughts disappeared, as if removing them could remove the reality. He came back to himself slowly, uncertain how long he stood in silence. His children were clustered around him, all but Loki who sat to one side, watching curiously.
The thoughts returned, bringing with them the need to move, to run, to destroy the humans who did this. Grief, but also worry for the living. Napoleon wanted to run with all his might toward the cave, but he held himself in check long enough to direct his thoughts at both Leonardo and Loki.
Take care of the others, he directed. Wait for me here. Hide!
He ran, knowing that he was powerless against the humans, knowing that he approached his death. But he had nothing to live for without Marie. His own offspring could not survive without her milk.
The Tuskers were cursed from the beginning when First Mother had become aware of herself inside the gestation cage of the humans. Nothing ever went right for their race; the humans defeated them at every turn.
By the time he returned to the cave, the humans were gone, leaving only their scent and carnage behind, even above the reek of the zombies. He tumbled down the hill, rolling, and when he tried to rise, his legs barely supported him. He staggered to the entrance of the cave.
Marie lay on her side. He stopped several feet away, unwilling to go any closer, unable to look into her lifeless eyes.
Her back right hoof twitched, and he rushed to her side, licking her muzzle, feeling the warmth of her still-living body.
You’re alive! he thought toward her, hoping for an answer.
There was nothing but a gray awareness. She opened her eyes, and they were dull, without the spark of Marie in them. Blood was streaming down her forehead into her eyes, and part of her brain protruded from her skull.
Marie? he tried again, but there was no answer, just an animal grunt. Trembling, she rose, squealing in terror and tried to run but he blocked her, nudging her with his snout. At his touch, she calmed, sat back on her hindquarters and…
…simply waited, without thought, alive only in that moment.
The Marie he had known and loved was gone.
Epilogue
Marie was content with her existence. She had her mate, her offspring. She was content in the present.
But Napoleon’s hate grew every day.
He had been wrong. He’d thought they could escape to the north and hide, survive until the humans finally accepted the Tuskers.
But now he knew the humans would never accept them. No matter what they did, the Tuskers would battle for survival. Napoleon would hide his family in the north, as he planned. He would raise his brood and care for Marie.
Instead of seeking ways to live in peace, he would build an army. He would call forth every living Tusker and teach them to command the zombies. They would gather the force of all the living and the dead into an army that the humans couldn’t resist, despite all their cunning and all their weapons.
The humans would learn what it was like to be hunted and trapped. They would learn what it was like to be meat, to be eaten by another omnivore. Napoleon would come out of the north with his horde.
The Omnivores Wars had only begun.
About the Author
I've lived in Bend, Oregon my whole life (which is becoming increasing rare in this boom town.) After the U of O, I wrote Star Axe, Snowcastles and Icetowers.
While trying to write full time, I started filling in at a local book/comic book store, Pegasus Books. Eventually, I became full time, and then manager, and then 30 years ago I bought the store.
I have two sons, Todd, an artist, and Toby, a chef, and my wife opened her used bookstore, The Bookmark, ten years ago and is also writing these days. She has a book online called Telling Tree, which is wonderful, and will publish her the second book of her trilogy, Once on a Blue Moon.
So my writing career took a back seat while I tried to keep the store alive and raise a family, but in the last few years the store has become stable enough that I've been able to come back to writing, and I've been writing like crazy. I've sold a four book deal to Books of the Dead Press with the first book, Led to the Slaughter: The Donner Party Werewolves, released in eBook and print in February of 2014. I also have a trilogy called “The Vampire Evolution,” also from Books of the Dead Press, which consists of Death of An Immortal; Rule of Vampire; and Blood of Gold. Tuskers is my latest series, which is available from the Ragnarok Publications imprint, Angelic Knight Press, and it’s currently planned as three books, the next two of which are creatively entitled Tuskers II and Tuskers III!
Hey, you can find me online on Facebook, Twitter, and on my blog. Hope you look me up. I love to chat. And please, if you like my work, consider posting reviews. Thanks!
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