The moon had come up, and it gave the street below a silvery sheen, making the lighter-colored sidewalks pop against the grayness of the asphalt. The riflescope’s 40mm objective amplified the low light and delivered it to his eye better than he could see unaided. It wasn’t nearly as good as daylight, but the small boost gave him what he needed to get the job done.
The first squeeze of the trigger let out a sharp crack. He took his finger off the trigger and flexed his hand while the sound rolled away into distant echoes. That initial shot had hit low, about a foot below a solitary raptor’s center mass, but it had crashed into its leg bone, throwing the running creature off its feet. He worked the rifle’s bolt. The spent shell casing clanged and came to rest against the edge of the rooftop. He didn’t bother to look after it, instead keeping his right eye an inch behind the scope, watching as more and more raptors gathered around the first one he had shot. They began to tear into it mercilessly.
Good, he thought.
He took his eye away from the scope and clicked the dial on the side to make a slight adjustment. Then he lined up and fired again. This time the bullet slammed into the closest raptor it came across. The raptor dropped like a stone, throwing up a dark mist against the silvery backdrop. He worked the bolt again. Fired again, and again. And again. Raptors died, and he made them pay a price for stopping to feast on the corpses of the dead.
Then they scattered, moving into the safety of deeper, blacker shadows.
Jesse held his breath and shifted the end of the barrel just a hair. He fired again. This time he hit one on the run, sending it cartwheeling. He continued to fire until the last working of the bolt stopped loading rounds. He took one final look through the scope and raised the gun.
Eve was standing behind him, slightly to his left. She had her fingers in her ears.
“Is that such a good idea?” she asked, repeating what Andrea had asked earlier.
He grunted and rolled to sit with his rear to the building’s edge. It felt damn good to be back on top the food chain again after all this time. He opened the box of ammo at his feet and loaded another set of rounds. Each was probably worth a fortune. But it just felt so good to be killing raptors again that he couldn’t stop.
He finished reloading and went back to killing.
With the next shot, he saw something different. Maybe it wasn’t just a shadow. He’d seen a brief image of the man he had shot a few weeks back. The man was holding up his hands in surrender. Jesse pulled away from the scope and looked past it, trying to clear the image from his mind.
He was just tired, he thought.
Settling in again, he lined up another shot on a raptor attempting to come out of hiding. He squeezed the trigger, and when the shot hit the creature, he saw another image: a man with a raised bat coming up the stairs toward him and the new hole on his chest, spouting blood. So much blood.
He closed his eyes, and the image went away.
He shifted one more time, took aim and fired. This time it was the brief image of the men he’d shot in the conference room. He’d just gunned them down without a second thought.
They were nobodies. They meant nothing.
But when he returned his eye to the scope, he could no longer hold the gun steady. His finger shook on the trigger.
“Damn,” he said, sucking air through his teeth.
He set the gun against the raised lip of the rooftop and squatted on his knees. He counted at least a dozen dead raptors, and more that would soon be. When the sun rose, they’d be able to collect what was left and have plenty to eat for the next few days, if the other raptors didn’t drag off the corpses first, a distinct possibility.
Eve, he noticed, had returned to sit against the opposite side of the building alongside Andrea and Cory. Kate was standing close by, gazing at the dead raptors, occasionally raising the Glock he’d given her and shutting one eye, aiming the gun at any raptors still alive and running in the street. He could hear them scratching at the sides of the building, trying to find a way up to him, and when not finding one, screaming out with an occasional shrieking call. The sound was one he was familiar with, and one he almost enjoyed hearing again. He got to his feet and returned to the stash of ammunition to grab another box of twenty. When he got there, he changed his mind. Instead, he went to where he had stashed the alcohol and grabbed a bottle. He and Andrea had wanted to start drinking as soon as they’d set up camp on the rooftop, but Jesse figured it was better to hold off for a bit. Now he was ready. Maybe it would clear up the sudden flashes he’d been seeing.
“Doc,” Jesse said. “Join me?”
She nodded and adjusted herself under her blanket. Her hand came out to accept what he was offering. It might have not been the best container to drink from, but it would have to do. He filled a coffee mug with a picture of a dog on the side with priceless whiskey. He picked up another mug and held it out for Cory.
“No,” Andrea said. “Not yet. That might kill him.”
Jesse smirked.
“And what about you?” she asked. “You’ve been up for at least a day, maybe two. You need sleep. If they can’t get to us, why kill them? Come on. Have a drink with me and get some sleep.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” he said.
She did not respond.
Cory came alongside and took Jesse’s offered mug. Jesse had figured him for an alcoholic, but, what did it really matter? They would run out soon enough. No better cure than that. Kate produced another mug and came near. Jesse set the bottle down and reached for the canteen at his belt and filled her mug with water. She frowned.
“Sorry,” he said, grinning wryly.
Eve came near holding a glass of her own. He ignored her and filled his own mug, draining what was left in the bottle. He smirked at the slogan on the side of his cup. It read “World’s Greatest Boss” in black lettering.
He raised his cup in salute.
“We’ve made it this far,” he said.
Andrea raised her cup and was the first to take a drink. He followed. The whiskey was so smooth he hardly noticed the burn or the taste, but a warmth immediately began to spread through his mouth and down his throat and seep into his very soul. He held his cup up again, marveling, savoring the sensation.
He clinked cups with Andrea, did the same with Kate, did the same with Cory. And, hesitating, he raised it toward Eve.
“I want you gone,” he said to her, suddenly frowning.
Then he tossed the empty bottle at the milling raptors, raised his middle finger, and flipped them all off.
-16-
THE HANGOVER
THE SUN ROSE on yet another day, bringing with it something new. Pain, stabbing pain. Jesse raised his head. The edge of the rooftop in front of him swam in his vision, going in and out of focus. Had he smacked his head against something? Was he delirious? No, that wasn’t it. He licked his lips. His tongue was swollen, and his brain was pounding so hard he could feel it squeezing against the backs of his eyeballs. Sheltering his eyes with his fingers, he blinked the world into focus. Andrea rested nearby with a bottle in her lap. Her mouth was hanging open, and she was snoring loudly.
And then he remembered.
He had brought this pain on himself.
Grunting, he staggered to his feet, causing an empty bottle to fall off the blanket covering him, clinking as it rolled away. He swayed dizzily to the edge of the motel’s rooftop and tightened his new heavy sheepskin jacket to keep out the cold before relieving himself over the edge.
He scanned the area below.
Damn.
Everything hurt so much. He felt as though he’d been repeatedly stabbed with an ice pick. Though, what he saw in the streets below made him smile, just a little. Dead raptors littered the street. He groaned at the sight of them. They looked a lot like breakfast, but at the moment he was in no mood to consider the grisly work of all the cleaning, butchering, and cooking of them.
A scream split the silence.
T
he fine hairs on his neck tingled. He turned toward the sound. It was not coming from the motel, nor the parking lot. It was coming from across the street, somewhere inside a series of small connected storefronts. He zipped up and stumbled over to where he’d left his rifle leaning against the inner lip of the rooftop. He opened the breach and checked the chamber, making sure that in his inebriated state he’d bothered to reload it. He had. He lifted it and peered through the scope at the buildings directly across the street from him.
Nothing.
He spun, wobbling on his feet, and reexamined the pile of blankets behind him. He saw shapes that were Andrea and Cory, but no Kate or Eve.
What he’d said to Eve last night came back to him in a flash, pushing through the headache that was causing his right eye to twitch spastically. He’d told her to leave, hadn’t he? No, that wasn’t it. He’d told her he wanted her gone and hadn’t spoken with her since. Gone in his mind didn’t necessarily mean leave and leave didn’t necessarily mean gone. It was all too confusing to contemplate right now.
He grabbed the rifle and started for the steel ladder that would take him down from the rooftop. He heard another scream as he put his hand on the ladder. He hurried down to the street and ran across to the opposite sidewalk.
The screaming had already stopped. He paused in the middle of the sidewalk. Looked around. He could tell where the sounds had come from, and was certain they had come from Eve. Where was she? Where was Kate?
A gunshot went off inside the store. He saw a brief flash in the darkness. The sound echoed as he raised the rifle and stepped toward the store. Then he heard another noise behind him, which turned out to be Cory, who stopped alongside him. Cory seemed to have recovered far better than Jesse felt, or thought possible. Grimacing, Jesse could still taste rum and whiskey on his swollen tongue.
“Over there,” he said. “I think.”
Cory nodded and headed past a lamppost and to the building Jesse had pointed out. Vision still blurry, Jesse watched Cory draw the katana over his head and step into the storefront. Snorting, Jesse eased himself forward, stumbling up a lumpy knoll of piled debris near the building’s entrance, hands out for balance. Something was definitely moving inside the store, but all he could see were fluttering shadows.
The gunshot had to have come from Kate. But it had only been one, and then he had heard Eve scream again. He started forward once more, only to have vertigo hit him hard. He doubled over at the waist and vomited across the grit-covered sidewalk while still trying to move forward. Frantically, he prayed for it to cease. He had to help Cory, help Kate. Another wave overtook him, and he pitched forward on his knees and further emptied his stomach, smelling the sour blend of whiskey, tequila, and rum he’d consumed the night before.
Shifting the rifle out of the way of the remaining snot dripping from his lips, he continued to struggle against the heaves. They slowed, then ceased. Panting, he fought to regain his sense of balance.
Without warning, a two-foot tall raptor came bursting out of the storefront, sliding past him and into the street. A long gash had been opened in the creature’s abdomen, and its insides were bubbling out of the wound in a gray and pink mass. The raptor shrieked when it entered a pool of sunlight, pivoted, and came running off kilter directly at Jesse.
He fell back on his heels and fired at it from the hip. The shot boomed. He winced and landed on his ass, bracing himself with one hand while holding the rifle up with the other.
Even though it had been a guess, the blast had caught the raptor in the head, blowing it into meaty chunks. It rapidly stopped its St. Vitus-like dance and crumpled to the asphalt. Jesse reworked the bolt, loading another heavy .308 round. He rose to his feet and staggered through a broken window at the front of the store.
Sensations of pain seemed doubled, maybe tripled. Every other sensation was halved. It was difficult to sort out anything in the darkness, giving that his eyes were not adjusting properly. His heart was ramming hard against his ribcage. Momentary panic began to overtake him, and he fought to pick out images, any image telling him what was going on, but could gather nothing until he started seeing brief flashes of Cory, who was there with his blade out and slicing at two raptors unfortunate enough to have gotten too close to him. Three more were behind him, fanned into a rough arc. He cut, followed through, and spun around. There was no way he could get all of them in time before they got him.
Jesse raised the rifle and shot from the hip again. This shot went wild and hit the tile wall behind the raptors, creating an explosion of shrapnel and dust.
Cory ignored it and sliced at another raptor. His sword arched down at an awkward angle, but he still was able to strike the damn thing. He twisted the blade and tried to free it in time to attack the other raptors closing on him.
But he was running a millisecond too slow. The raptor moving behind him knocked him to the ground. It leapt on top of him, drew back its head, maw opening, teeth gleaming, and tried to lunge at him. He was barely able to get an elbow in the air and twist, which blocked the first attack going for his neck. The raptor pulled its head back like a snake making ready to strike. Cory tugged at his katana, trying to free it from the other creature.
Jesse shot from his knees and ran in closer. He put his gun against what he was sure was raptor’s head, and began to squeeze the trigger.
Then he looked at his target.
It was only a pale-white plastic mannequin. Cory, he quickly discovered, was covered in a pile of mannequins. Some were half-clothed.
A second ago, Jesse could have sworn it had been a raptor he’d seen. But, no, he was about ready to blow the head off a plastic mannequin. He stared at it while Cory disentangled himself. It had looked so real, yet…it wasn’t.
The pounding in his head seemed to notch up to the next level. He couldn’t seem to think straight. Then, with a suddenness that caught him mid-breath, he was slammed from behind and driven to the floor. He landed next to Cory ungracefully. Something raked at his mid-back, and he felt as if his flesh were being torn off. He arched his back in pain, too shocked to scream out anything greater than muffled grunt.
Whatever had hit him was now tearing at him frantically. He could hear the snarling and heavy breathing hissing in his ears. He scissored his legs and struggled to turn over, but could not get his arms under him and became entangled in the sleeves of his jacket, which had ridden up and wrapped around his shoulder blades, trapping him. He let go of the rifle and sought to roll over again. He was still pinned. Using every bit of strength his savaged body possessed, he pushed again, feeling claws cutting into his sides and trying to wrap around his ribcage and tug hard enough to open him up.
Then it just stopped. The pain lessened, and the beating of his heart and frantic breathing were all he could hear. Clarity returned. He could see discarded clothing in front of him. In the slight breeze of the morning, bits of fabric fluttered like a thousand butterfly wings.
Silence.
Then he heard a gunshot. A shifting mass. A wet sucking sound. A slap.
“Too close,” Cory said.
Jesse let out a long sigh and managed to roll over and push himself up on his elbows. Cory was already rushing to the far corner of the store. It was dark, but Jesse could still see people-shaped shadows. One was the shadow of a small person holding up an automatic handgun. Kate. She was hovering over the corpse of a raptor that she must have just shot.
Cory knelt next to a slumped figure by the wall.
Eve.
Fighting through the pain, Jesse dragged himself over to where Cory was situated on his knees. He checked himself, pulling up his jacket to make sure nothing major had been damaged. He’d been cut, but nothing deep enough to require immediate attention. The pain had mostly been in his head, he realized, a remembered pain of the giant raptor in the city.
Blood had pooled on the floor where he now stood. It was Eve’s blood. Her head was slumped to one side and her eyes were wide and frightened.
&nb
sp; “Jesus Christ,” Jesse said.
Kate was already working on her.
“Is she going to be all right?” Cory asked.
Kate said nothing as she worked quickly and efficiently. She indicated she needed someone to hold a makeshift bandage against Eve’s arm. Jesse did so while Cory hovered nearby.
“Check for more raptors,” Jesse said. “We don’t need any more surprises.”
“A familiar situation,” Cory said as he walked away. “I hope she does not die.” He added that when he was halfway to the front entrance.
Jesse watched him leave thinking this was the first time he had heard Cory speak nicely about someone else. It made Jesse realize how wrong he’d been last night. He’d been a complete and utter asshole. She’d screwed up. So had he. Forgiveness was not something that came easy for him, but as he looked at her now, wondering if she was going to die, he decided then that he could forgive her.
“Sorry,” he said to Eve as Kate continued to work on her. “I may have said some things…” he trailed off and couldn’t continue.
Eve looked at him, then at Kate. She was holding something in her hand. She pushed it at him. He did not take it. Instead, he kept his fingers firmly around her arm, feeling the wetness and warmth of her seeping blood.
Eve opened her lips to say something, but her eyes rolled back in her head, and her neck slumped sideways, causing her to drop what she was holding.
He stared at it.
It was a bag of Starbuck’s coffee, still sealed.
“That was for you,” Kate said.
-17-
BUNKER 12
THIS WAS THE place. Jesse slowed the Humvee to a stop. The diesel motor rattled as it dropped to idle. To the left and to the right, all he could see were trees, dense and thickly regrown after fire had ravaged them years earlier. Brambles of twisted greenery interspersed with deadwood covered much of the roadway. Dried needles, brown and hair-like dappled the asphalt in-between. Ahead, the two-lane road twisted in the near distance, eventually being pinched off by overhanging trees. The day was growing late, and this wasn’t quite the indicated spot on the map, but it did look promising. If it weren’t, then he would have to turn the Humvee around and return to the motel with their tails tucked firmly between their legs.
Righteous Apostate: Raptor Apocalypse Book 3 Page 12