“I am not her,” she said, “and she is not me.”
Jesse didn’t know what to think about what she’d just said. He stared back at her, running through the many possible things he could respond with. Kate seemed so tiny sitting there on the floor, but her size masked some deep, hidden intelligence he could not quite connect with. What was it? What was she hiding?
“Who are you?” he asked. “Where did you come from?”
She resumed her carving.
“You are not going to tell me, or you don’t want to tell me?” he said then wanted to take it back and rearrange the words because they didn’t make much sense.
Using her thumb, she tested the sharpness of one of her arrow tips. With a dawning awareness, he realized he was on the opposite side of the conversation from where he wanted to be.
“Why is it…?” he asked.
“Because you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said.
What the hell did she mean by that? Who could she possibly be? No child acted this way. No kid he had ever met, that was. Was he reading too much into this? He’d spent years in the city chasing Hannah’s ghost about, spiraling ever downward. Finding Kate and finding the others had lain that ghost to rest, but in the moment, Kate was making him question his own sanity.
“Kate,” he said carefully, as if he were afraid she might actually answer him. “Kate,” he repeated. “What does it matter if you told me? When you and I met, I was one step away from crazy-town. I can remember that day well. You were frightened and hiding and I was chasing… I was chasing her. I had thought you were her.”
“I’m not,” she said.
“I know. I have never really spoken to you about her. She was killed early on by the raptors. In a camp… And I…” He trailed off and glanced away. This had been the first time he had admitted to anyone what had actually happened. He hadn’t admitted it to Amy, and he had barely admitted it to himself.
He noticed he’d left his mouth open and shut it.
“Was she pretty?” Kate asked.
He closed his eyes and pictured his daughter dressed for Sunday school and playing on the front lawn on a spring day. He could hear her giggles of joy and his wife’s voice warning her to be careful and not to fall and get grass stains on her new dress before church. He was resting against the side of his truck and could see his old neighborhood so clearly in his mind. He could smell the hot Texas air, thick and wet with humidity that carried the smells of the newly blooming trees. When he opened his eyes, Kate was watching him closely in the observant way she had about her.
“Yes,” Jesse admitted. “She was beautiful. She was an angel sent from Heaven.”
“Am I…beautiful?” Kate asked.
It seemed a strange question to be coming from her. He watched her for some time. She seemed both fragile and strong, wise and innocent. Those strange dualities were paradoxes he just couldn’t wrap his mind around and reconcile.
Finally, he crouched back down on his haunches. “Yes, yes, you are.”
“But I’m not Hannah,” she said rapidly.
“No, you are not,” Jesse admitted, wiping the corner of his eye with his shirtsleeve.
-25-
GUN UP
“WE GOING TO have enough guns?” Cory asked as he dropped his pack on the conference room table next to Jesse’s assortment of neatly arranged weapons. He returned to shut the door then drew his katana, fell into a seat, and propped his battered and duct-taped Nikes on the tabletop. He held the katana up, inspecting it as if it were an extension of his manhood.
Jesse grunted an affirmation.
“How long?” Cory asked.
“Isn’t that long enough?” Jesse replied.
Cory didn’t seem to appreciate the joke.
“I’m ready to go whenever.” Jesse set down the rag he’d been using to rub a fresh coat of oil on the Winchester Model 70. The metal gleamed in the morning light coming through the venetian blinds behind him. Specular highlights waxed and waned as he inspected his handiwork. He set the rifle down next to his shotgun, which he had already disassembled, cleaned, oiled, and checked. He planned to reserve the big boom for any close in work. Next to that lay his Beretta M9, also freshly oiled and tested.
He was as ready as he was ever going to be.
“I borrow some of that?” Cory asked, pointing at the little plastic bottle of oil in front of Jesse. Jesse pushed the orange container toward him and tossed him a rag. Cory dripped oil on the rag and began to wipe the steel of his blade with it.
“So…you got a plan?” Jesse asked.
Cory set down his work, produced a folded piece of office paper, and tossed it in front of Jesse. It spun across the tabletop and lodged itself under the stock of the shotgun.
Jesse unfolded the paper and smoothed it with his palm. “This it?” he said, examining the simple, almost childish map that Cory had drawn.
“Yes, it is.”
Jesse eyed him for a few seconds before asking, “Are you out of your mind?” It was an obvious question given what he’d just read. The map showed what looked like a child’s drawing of a fort with a house in the center and a crude representation of trees along the right margin. A stick figure with a gun was behind the trees, and a dotted line led from there to another stick figure inside the compound. Standing next to the one inside the compound was a female figure, judging by the triangular representation. Jesse assumed that one was Eve. Then there was a guy with what appeared to be a cross hung around his neck. He had an X marked over his oval head.
“For someone who seems so smart, this is really…um, I dunno, not smart? Can’t see how this could work.” He studied it further. “This is me, right? The one with the rifle in the trees. Are you expecting me to shoot him?”
“You said you were a good shot.”
“What’s the distance?”
“About two hundred meters,” Cory said.
“Meters?”
“A little over two hundred yards. I keep forgetting that you are from Texas.”
Jesse smiled. “Still, shooting him? What’s that going to do?”
“You are not going to shoot him. I want you to scare him. I want him to think there are others hiding in the trees and armed with guns.”
Jesse nodded. Maybe. The plan was simple. Or maybe it was just simple minded.
“Scare him, huh? Okay, guess I could do that. But this is only a bluff. What’s going to happen if he calls you on it?”
Cory raised his sword and twisted it in the air. It caught the light and created lemon-colored bands on the ceiling tiles above his head.
Jesse asked, “You think they are going to just let you walk in armed with that thing?”
“They did before.”
“You are taking an awfully big chance.”
“I have other options,” he said.
“Like what?”
Cory did not answer. Instead, he reached into another pocket and produced a scratched and folded photograph. Jesse knew it well, as Cory often would bring out that photo at night and stare at it for hours.
“Are you thinking we might not make it back then?” Jesse asked. “I’d prefer it if I wasn’t walking into this one so blindly. But, hell, I promised to get you there. So, if you get inside and things go south…” He trailed off and just started packing his own bag with the ammunition he’d double checked and deemed safe, figuring he’d perhaps said too much already. Some things should be left unspoken. He’d keep his promise to get Cory there, but that was where it ended.
But, to his surprise, Cory spoke up. “My sister is still alive.”
That was new. “Sister?” Jesse asked, leaning closer to Cory. “What…? You have a sister? And she’s still alive? How—?”
“Idaho,” Cory said.
Jesse picked the picture up and examined it closer. It contained a young Cory standing next to a girl who must have been his sister. His mother and father were in the background. His father was a rather large man. His mo
ther was short and her image had been scratched out.
“How do you know for sure?” Jesse asked, pursing his lips and brushing under his chin with the back of his fingers.
“I just know,” Cory said.
“Okay.” Jesse knew he could give him a pass on this. He’d been chasing the ghost of his dead daughter for years. The fact that Cory was perhaps chasing his own ghost said a lot about the man.
“Sometimes, you just got to let it go,” Jesse said. He handed the photograph back to Cory.
“She is alive,” Cory said with absolute conviction behind his words.
“Then, let me ask you this, why the hell are you doing this? Why aren’t you going after her instead?”
Cory said nothing.
Jesse inhaled. “Okay, don’t answer. Are we done after this?” It was a simple question. One that deserved a simple answer. “Once we are done, are you going after her?”
But Cory remained silent.
“Then tell me this,” Jesse said. “Tell me about the virus one more time. I want all the important details. I want to know why we are doing this. I want to know everything, okay?”
Cory looked at Jesse for a long second and nodded. He spent the next ten minutes explaining what Andrea had told him, and the implications of the virus and the catalyst. He told him about how he and Noah were probably the last two on earth who could activate the virus. Jesse listened to the story, following most of it, but he still shifted in his chair occasionally, not quite believing what he was being told. He knew the past could not be changed. These people he’d helped to save were major player in the destruction of the entire human race. They were also humanity’s potential saviors. The scope of that, he figured, was beyond a simple-minded sheriff’s deputy from Texas. And, it did present an opportunity for him to at least try to set the world to right. That was if any of what he was being told were true, of which he still had his doubts.
Cory finished his explanation and pointed at the map on the paper. “Can you do this?”
Jesse rubbed at the stubbly growth on his jaw. It would probably end up being more gray than dark brown, and he felt almost naked without it. “Your overall plan is to walk into an armed compound full of others who survived this long, demand that this guy Noah hand over vials of a top-secret, hush-hush virus, somehow inject him with it, and then feed his ass to the raptors?”
Cory sighed and reached into his pocket for something.
“Well,” Jesse said, leaning back and snorting a derisive laugh. “That certainly does seem simple enough to me.”
Cory produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He tapped the pack and offered a cigarette to Jesse.
“No, thanks. Don’t want to get cancer.”
They sat in silence while Cory smoked. Jesse guessed the trip south would take them at least a day to make it to where Cory had indicated on the miniature map drawn in the upper right corner of the plan’s diagram. It was a simple trek up I-25. What resistance they would find along the way, Jesse had no idea of. And when they got there, he figured it would be best to show up as early in the morning as they possibly could. So, that would add at least another day, including time to find a place to hunker down for the night. From the drawing and from Cory’s description, the place they would have to infiltrate was some kind of old fort-type compound surround by wooden stakes. A place like that didn’t make much sense. It would not hold out the raptors for long. But, it could be that he’d been right about the raptors slowly dying off. Maybe that made the rural areas a little safer to live in now. Against thousands of raptors, nothing could stand. Against a hundred or less, maybe.
Cory had also mentioned that he’d not seen any guns. Eve had confirmed that fact. She thought Noah might be armed, but he was the only one. That left a few bows, arrows, spears, and some other weapons to deal with. Still, their lack of armaments was no real reason to walk in and boldly ask for what they wanted without some good leverage to back it up. It just didn’t add up right in Jesse’s mind. He glanced over at Cory, watching him smoke, watching the tip puff orange, and watching the smoke leak out of the man’s nose and mouth and form a hazy cloud around his head.
There were only two men left on earth whose deaths could stop the raptors. One must die, so the other can live. As Jesse looked at Cory, he wondered which one it was going to be.
-26-
ARMED AND...
JESSE AND CORY hid in the shade of a Hawthorn tree. Eve remained behind the trunk, staying as out of sight as Jesse could possibly make her stay. She’d almost given away their position twice already. Three times, and he would…
He didn’t quite know what he’d do.
Through his binoculars, he could see the solitary ranch house in the distance ringed by tall wooden posts, much as Cory had described it. It seemed a sturdy structure, but he was surprised even further than he had been before over how the entire outpost had lasted for so long.
It was too exposed.
Not much activity was going on inside the compound. Just people doing what day-to-day survivalists do: cooking, cleaning, and growing food. Jesse recognized the new sprouts of tomato and squash plants tied to stakes near the rear of the house. There were at least ten people working in the garden to get the spring planting in. It reminded him of the tasks he had ahead when he returned to his shelter. If he missed the narrow window this season, as he had the last, it would only make the winter harder to bear.
To the left of the house were dome tents with so many patches on them that they looked as if they’d been covered in quilts. Lazy trails of smoke drifted up from a fire nearby. A few of the inhabitants sat at what looked like card tables, passing the time with games of chess, checkers, or maybe some dominos.
But, of all the people he’d been asked to look out for, he had so far not spotted the man known as Noah.
Cory tapped him on the shoulder blade and indicated that he wanted to borrow the binoculars. Jesse handed them over and pushed his baseball cap up higher on his forehead. He took the rifle from where he’d left it leaning against a tree and pulled the .270 up high enough to peer through the big scope. Through the blurry edged circle of the objective lens, he scanned the compound, settling the crosshairs on each person he encountered and holding them in focus for a second before moving on to the next.
Cory whispered, “He is in there. He has to be. Probably the house.”
Eve came out from behind the tree, walking on her knees. She fell down to her elbows next to them. “Why don’t we just go in,” she whispered. “I know them all. I’m sure we can talk our way inside. You’ve been here too, Cory. Noah will let you in, I know it. He sent me after you, remember?”
Jesse considered her proposal. They hadn’t discussed the full plan with her, but she knew about the virus, and they did not want her to give it all away and get nothing in return.
There were at least thirty people inside the walls of the compound. Thirty verses two, Jesse thought, and he was the only one armed with a rifle. But, there were women and children in there too. He didn’t want to risk an errant shot hitting anyone, especially an innocent. So far he had seen no one armed with guns, which confirmed what Cory and Eve had said. Those around the walls were carrying compound bows with back quivers stuffed full of arrows. They looked almost bored, but it would be a mistake to think they would not come instantly alert at the slightest provocation.
“What do you think?” he asked Cory.
“Wait until we locate Noah.”
“No,” Eve said, shaking her head, moving enough to annoy Jesse. “It’s okay,” she continued. “They’ll be happy to see us. You’ll see. We can talk our way inside and just ask him about the virus. I think I might even know where he keeps it. We could confront him with that. He has this vault or room or whatever in the basement that is locked up and off limits. If he has it at all, I’ll bet he put it in there.”
“The basement?” Cory said. “Can you describe this vault?”
“Why? Why should I tell you
? There is no way you could sneak in there and get it without someone noticing. There are too many to make it through the house and get back out. No, no, no. Don’t. We should just go. I’m sure we can talk our way in.”
Jesse was feeling certain she wanted to lead them the wrong way. He sensed there was something subtle, yet important, that she was not telling them. She was pushing too hard about this. He again looked through the lens of the scope. He could make the shot if Noah stood on the porch. So, if Cory could get in close, he could stay here and do what they’d discussed when signaled. Though, it still wasn’t a very good plan, but he had nothing better.
“We’ll do it how we discussed it,” Jesse said. “You and Eve. Go do it quickly. Let’s be in and out and away before sundown.”
Jesse took his eye off the scope and glanced at Cory. Cory lowered the binoculars.
“I’ll keep you covered the whole time,” Jesse said. “If things suddenly go south, I’ll start shooting to confuse them, and you start running. Eve, you just duck and follow closely behind him. Sure you can both do that?”
Cory nodded.
“Good. Eve?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. “You are going to leave me behind then if I’m not fast enough?”
“If things go badly, I think Cory can get out. Not sure he can bring you along unless you really hustle. So…hustle.”
“Well, can you?” she asked Cory.
“We will see.”
She did not appear pleased.
Jesse opened the bolt and rechecked his weapons. He took the extra boxes of shells for the Winchester out of his bag and set them next to him in a neat little row in the dirt. He opened the boxes so the rounds would be easier to extract and load. He had four boxes with twenty rounds in each, giving him eighty shots.
Plenty.
He scooted his backpack into position in front of him and rested the gun on top of the bag. At least Cory had gotten this right. The position on the hill by the trees was nearly perfect. It allowed for coverage of all three guard towers and most of the compound. Jesse could even cover the porch down to the top step. Maybe he could even put one or two good shots into the metal barrels to either side of the front door. That should scare Noah when he stepped out of the house and let him know he could be shot at any time, even if he ducked. Cory had accurately guessed the range to be about two hundred yards, which would take the bullet about half a second to travel to where it was needed. That would add a slight delay Jesse would have to adjust for, but he’d been shooting moving raptors at this distance for so long it was instinctive now.
Righteous Apostate: Raptor Apocalypse Book 3 Page 18