Righteous Apostate: Raptor Apocalypse Book 3

by Steve R. Yeager

  “You think we can ever trust you again?” Cory asked.

  “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t.”

  He pulled the blade an inch away from her throat and left it there. She touched the blade and weaved past it, dropping to her knees next to Jesse.

  “We need to—” Jesse said.

  He was cut off when an alarm began clanging inside the compound.

  Eve propped Jesse up. “I’m…so…so…sorry,” she said. “This is all my fault.”

  “Damn right, it is,” he whispered. He pictured knocking her over and stomping on her. Breaking bones. He blinked to clear the vision. It vanished in an instant.

  “Your fingers,” she said. “Oh God, I wish—”

  The spotlight came back on. It swung erratically and landed on the three of them. Cory waited with his sword drawn. Jesse leaned against Eve for support.

  “We should get out of here,” she said.

  The alarm ceased. The glare of the spotlight continued to blind Jesse.

  Then all went quiet.

  “Eve,” a voice shouted from the direction of the compound.

  “I thought you killed him?” Cory said.

  “I did.”

  Noah’s voice came again. “Eve, return to me, and I’ll let you live.”

  Jesse held his hand up against the glare of the light. “Looks alive to me.”

  “But I killed him,” she said.

  “Eve, you must return,” Noah yelled. “I promise you will not be harmed.”

  She shifted against Jesse, repositioning him against her upper body. Jesse felt his right arm being raised in the direction of the compound. He looked up at it absently. Lit by the spotlight, his single remaining cartoon-sized middle finger was flipping everyone off.

  “My answer,” she whispered to him as she lowered his arms and wrapped them around her torso.

  Jesse said nothing.

  “Eve,” came Noah’s shouted voice.

  The light switched off. Noah was lit by twin torches to either side of him. He was holding someone—a woman. Noah’s arm moved rapidly crosswise over her neck. The woman’s hands went to her throat. She pitched forward over the wall and landed heavily in the dirt. She did not get up.

  “Eve! See? She is gone now. Come back to me. All will be forgiven.”

  “Je-n-ny,” Eve stuttered. “He…killed her? He just killed her.”

  “Come back to me, girl! Leave them. Step aside. Come back!”

  Vague shapes stormed from the gate side of the compound, heading in Jesse’s direction. Now would be a good time to run, he thought vaguely. The spotlight flicked back on again, wavered, and steadied on them.

  “Help me,” she said to Cory, shifting Jesse’s weight and holding onto him with both arms.

  An arrow landed ten feet away with a thud and stuck in the dirt, shaft twitching. Another followed, missing by less than a yard. Then another went whistling past and struck the post Jesse had been tied to.

  “We gotta go,” Eve said.

  “Just let go,” Jesse whispered. “Get going. Go.” He pushed away from her, took three steps backward on his heels, and fell on his ass. “Go,” he repeated.

  Eve shook her head and rushed to him. Cory approached from the other side. Jesse found himself lifted between them.

  Another two arrows landed a few feet away.

  “Leave me,” Jesse said. “I can’t…”

  “Like hell we are,” Eve said. She grunted as she attempted to lift him. He did his best to stay on the ground.

  “Go,” Jesse said. “I’ll catch up.”

  “No,” both Eve and Cory said together.

  Jesse found himself lifted between them. “Just leave me. I have some unfinished business with that man.”

  Neither Cory nor Eve said another word. They forced him to march. Jesse was in no condition to fight back. If he did, he might get them killed, so he did his best to remain on his feet, letting them carry him toward the first copse of trees.

  “What about the raptors?” Eve asked.

  Cory shifted his sword to his left hand and continued to support Jesse with his right. He raised the naked blade. It gleamed in the light cast by the spotlight. That same bright light made it difficult to pick out which shadows in the trees ahead were dangerous and which were not.

  Another arrow whizzed past. Two more skipped off the dirt to their right.

  “Keep going,” Cory said.

  “Eve,” Noah’s voice shouted from behind. “You are dead! Dead to me! You hear that! I will find you! I will kill you! I will—”

  His voice cut off and three more arrows struck the dirt by their feet.

  Kaaa! One of the trees they were approaching splintered. He heard a distant report. Then another crack, the supersonic shockwave of a bullet, probably coming from his captured Winchester.

  “Lower,” he said, trying to pull both Eve and Cory to the right.

  They continued toward the saplings growing on the clearing’s edge. A chaotic mess of shadows moved and shifted inside the approaching bushes. Shapes darted between the trees, but it was too difficult to tell where they had come from or where they were going.

  Another supersonic crack.

  “Ow,” Eve said. She stumbled and let go of Jesse. Her left hand brushed her right pant leg. Jesse could see blood.

  “He shot me,” she said. “He shot—”

  “Keep going,” Cory said.

  She did, first kneeling to help pick up Jesse.

  Ten more feet to the tree line.

  Five.

  With both Jesse and her limping along together and being supported by Cory, they broke past the first few trees before Jesse heard another rifle shot. The sapling to his right shivered as the round struck and exploded splinters out the trunk’s backside.

  They continued weaving deeper into the woods, down a gentle rise, and into a depression.

  Raptors screeched.

  Movement.

  “Keep going,” Cory said, letting go of Jesse.

  A raptor came at Eve. Cory whirled on it and stabbed his sword into the creature’s vitals. Another came from his left. He spun and cut. The stroke hit the raptor, but only sunk partway into it. The tip of the blade had become lodged in a tree trunk. Cory wriggled the blade free just in time to ward off another attack from behind.

  He fought while Jesse helped to guide Eve out of the path of the flowing sword and around another charging raptor. The sprinting creature went streaking past and disappeared into the brush behind Cory. Jesse could hear rustling as the thing righted itself.

  “Which way?” he asked Eve.

  “There,” she said, pointing.

  With her helping to guide him, he pushed forward in the direction she had indicated. Cory was directly behind them, sword in hand, high stepping and crashing through the bushes.

  A snarl. Jesse heard it before he saw it. A raptor sprang from the trees at them, claws outstretched, jaws opened wide. He barely had the foresight to knock Eve to the ground before the impact hit him square in the chest, driving him onto his back. He reached out for the thing with both hands instinctively, and was rewarded with blinding pain from his right arm. He continued to roll, too weak to do much else. The creature’s own momentum forced them both over. Jesse ended up on top. He grunted as he drove his elbow down hard against the raptor’s snout and knocked its head sideways.

  But the blow had been weak.

  The creature shuddered, sloughing off the blow, and prepared to counterattack.

  Before it could, Cory ran it through with the tip of his blade, shoving the steel straight down the creature’s gullet and pinning it to the ground.

  Winded, nearing total exhaustion, Jesse rolled over onto his elbows and wrangled himself to his feet.

  He could hear nothing else. No more crashes, no breaking of branches, no more rifle shots. But that could mean the raptors had only given them a partial reprieve. Cory understood this too and was already turning his head to listen for stray noise
s. Jesse tried to hold perfectly still, which wasn’t easy to do.

  “This way,” Eve whispered. “Hurry.” She held one hand on her upper thigh where she’d been shot and started waving frantically with the other.

  -33-

  LET SLIP THE DOGS

  JESSE GRUMBLED NONSENSE under his breath.

  “Hold still,” Eve said as she applied a cold compress to his forehead.

  Back propped up by cushions taken from the furniture upstairs, Jesse stared at the all too familiar pipes and exposed floor joists above him. He’d seen them in so many of the places he’d sought shelter over the years. Between the joists, cobwebs laced with dust hung down and caught the morning light leaking in from the dozen or so slatted windows topping the concrete walls on all four sides of the room.

  Stumbling, staggering, and grinding forward, they’d made it out of the barrier of trees alive, traversed several neighborhoods to the south, and finally discovered a relatively intact, indistinct suburban home where they spent the night huddled together in the musty basement.

  Eve had rewrapped the bandage on Jesse’s right hand and added about a dozen more to his face and arms. Everything about him felt crusty, as if he were made of Spackle and cracking plaster. At least the horrible, shooting red pains he’d felt earlier had turned to a mild throbbing and general numbness.

  Small favors.

  He figured he should be angry with Eve, but he was just too damn exhausted to hold onto that anger for long. No matter how hard he tried to see through the senseless betrayal in her actions, he could not wrap his mind around the underlying motivations. His wife had been much the same way. He never could understand what drove her either. Maybe it was just how things were meant to be. On the positive side, Eve could no longer represent a danger of betrayal with Noah, if she could be trusted, that was. She still might be lying to them, but he suspected she wasn’t. Not anymore. There was no real going back for her too, only forward. Which made them allies of sorts. But, there was always the possibility she could do something else stupid and get them all killed. He’d have to watch for that—when he wasn’t so damn exhausted.

  “Feeling better?” she asked.

  He grunted. Cory had been sitting on the bottom steps leading up to the basement door. His sword was resting on his knee. The black T-shirt he wore was nothing more than a torn rag covering half his upper chest. And, as Jesse looked down at himself, he was one giant patchwork of bandages and torn clothing. Frankenstein’s monster, kind of. Eve was the only one who appeared less scathed, though a deep black bruise ran around her right eye, and her lips were swollen and lined with ragged cuts and yellowed skin. And she had another long bandage wrapped around her leg. The bullet that had hit her had merely grazed her, leaving a red line of torn flesh, but no real damage.

  She returned the rag she had been holding against his head back to a bowl filled with water, soaked it, and twisted it to wring it out.

  “What now?” she asked.

  He had been considering that for most of the morning. He hadn’t slept, or didn’t think he had. The engine between his ears was in low gear, barely creeping along, but it was engaged.

  “Return to the city,” he said.

  “What about Noah?”

  “What about him? You didn’t tell him where you’d actually stashed it, right? Kate should be safe until we get back.”

  She placed the rinsed cloth back on his forehead. “He’s smart. Maybe he’ll figure it out on his own.”

  “Eve?” Jesse asked questioningly. He reached up and pulled her hand away from his forehead. “He doesn’t know, right?”

  “He might.”

  “How?”

  She tried to put the cloth back on his forehead. “He just might, that’s all.”

  “What does he know?”

  “Okay,” she said, avoiding eye contact with him. “I didn’t want to, but…he forced me to tell him, and—”

  Jesse pulled himself up and tried to stand. Cory left the stairs and looked about questioningly.

  “What did you tell him?” Jesse asked. “The truth now.”

  Eve said nothing.

  But that did not matter. Jesse had already figured out where it was. He knew exactly where she had stashed it.

  “We have to go,” he said. “Now.”

  “No,” Cory said. “Not yet.”

  “I don’t care what you think. We have to go. Kate’s alone. We’ve got to get to her before he does.”

  “You think he will go there too?” Cory asked. “You think he is even capable?”

  “Does he have a choice?” Jesse asked. He winced as he tried to move the fingers on his right hand. He lifted it and started removing the wrapping with his teeth.

  “Don’t,” Eve said. She pushed closer and reworked the damage he had done.

  “We still have to go. Today. We have to get going today.”

  “You are in no shape to travel. You’ll die along the way,” Eve said.

  “I’ll die if I stay here.”

  Eve glanced at Cory, and then they both looked at Jesse.

  “One day.”

  “No,” Jesse said.

  Cory nodded slowly. “Okay. Let me check the house, scout the neighborhood first.”

  “Fine,” Jesse said. “Hurry.”

  While Cory ascended the stairs, Jesse stumbled about the basement, looking for anything useful they could take. Beside the thermoses and water bottles they had found stored in a pantry earlier, there was nothing else of much use. Maybe a hammer, but that was not a good weapon against raptors, especially if Jesse had to wield it in his left hand. He did find some duct tape, which was something from which he could make just about anything. He sat down and wrapped the first few strips around his right hand to keep from tearing the damn bandages off. Upstairs, he heard Cory stomping around. There was no need to be silent.

  Cory left through the front door. Jesse heard it slam shut.

  “We should stay another day,” Eve said. “Kate will be okay.”

  “Can you be sure? After where you sent him?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Not after what he did.”

  “Who was that girl he killed?”

  “Jenny.”

  Jesse couldn’t look at her. She was responsible for Jenny’s death, directly or indirectly.

  “I… I hated her,” she said. “I was wrong. I was so wrong.” She wiped a newly formed tear from her cheek. “She helped me escape. I couldn’t have done it without her. She was just protecting…” She trailed off. “And now she is dead because of me. Do you know how that feels? Do you know how much that hurts?”

  Jesse said nothing. He could have said a lot.

  Her crying increased. She inched toward him and wrapped her arms under and around his chest. She rested her chin on his shoulder. “I’m so very, very sorry.”

  Slowly, he reached up. His left hand hovered unsurely over her back and her neck and her head. Then, swallowing, he touched her high on her shoulder and held her steady while she cried. She readjusted to hug him tighter.

  It hurt like hell, but he endured.

  Cory returned a few minutes later. “All clear,” he said.

  She let go and turned to Cory. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “If I wouldn’t have—”

  “What is done is done,” he said.

  “Find anything?” Jesse asked.

  “No,” Cory replied. “Nothing.”

  “We good to go then?”

  Cory nodded.

  “All the way, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Save Kate. Whatever it takes. You are not going to do anything stupid?”

  “No.”

  Cory was hiding something, and Jesse knew it. He had to be. He now carried the means to destroy the raptors within him. With the virus back with Noah and the other component stashed in the city with Kate, Cory might be looking for a way to sacrifice himself.

  That was not something Jesse was going to let happen.
>
  “I really need your help,” he said. “We’ve got to get there before they do. Do you have any problems with that?”

  “No,” Cory said.

  “Good,” Jesse replied slowly. “After that, Noah and I have some unfinished business, and I’d like your help there too. You good with that?”

  Cory slid his sword blade a few inches from its sheath and rammed it back in forcefully. “I am,” he said.

  “Okay,” Jesse said, nodding. He held up the duct tape. “How about we go make a few weapons.”

  Cory nodded back his approval.

  “We still have a few days, right?” Jesse asked. “Before you become active or whatever.”

  “A few,” Cory admitted.

  “Then let’s make the best of the time we have.”

  Eve went to fetch something from a pile of rags she’d been using to make bandages and dressings with. She pulled out a leather case, returned, and unzipped it.

  “Maybe this will help?”

  Cory grabbed the case from her. He held it up, opening it with a rare smile cracking his face. Inside were multiple leather loops. Most were empty. But under one loop was a single vial with a white label with black text printed on it. Next to that was a hypodermic needle.

  “I think that might open up a few possibilities,” Jesse said.

  -34-

  DISTRACTION

  JESSE FLATTENED HIMSELF against the rough, exposed rock aggregate of the wall and slid around the corner.

  Noah had been here.

  A pair of legs stuck out from the bottom of the elevator shaft. Only legs. The rest of the man’s body had been crushed by the enormous weight of the elevator car. It had all been part of the trap Jesse had made nearly a year ago. He was quite surprised it had actually worked. And because it had worked, he knew well who had sprung it.

  Kate.

  He stooped and dipped his fingers into the bloody trail leading away from the elevator car. Unfortunately, the trap had not taken them all out.

  “He’s here?” Eve asked.

  Cory joined Jesse, crouching to examine the various footprints in the dust that led first to, then away from the elevator shaft. Jesse rose and trotted off to the bank’s main entrance, following the trail until he was back outside and in the sun. He counted the footprints along the way, sussing out which prints belonged to which man. Stopping to listen, the loudest sound became the thumping of his own heart.