by Jon Fore
Within an hour he had fed himself and Fug, and could just now make out the grassy landscape, trees, and the death highway. He burdened the horses with their packs and mounted Lance. The light had grown enough now to see the still brownish grass and that was good enough for Gabriel. Once color began to show in the smokey contours, it was light enough to travel. Lance shouldn't have much of a problem finding his way now. He could see better then Gabriel in low light anyway. "Ready, Fugster?” He asked, then urged Lance forward and along Route 91.
The day was cold, colder than it should be this time of year, and Gabriel was glad he wore the hat. Wide brimmed and meant more for blocking sunlight, it was still a woolen shell over his head, keeping some of the warmth there. He had a watch cap in his bag, but it wasn't so cold as that. Still, he zipped his M-2 leather bomber's jacket up to the neck with his scarf wrapped around twice and tucked inside. His hands were cold, and he took turns holding the reins with one, the other in a pocket, then switching off. It was miserable as hell, but he had suffered worse just in training. The Marine survival school, a requirement to go to Sniper school, was held in a snow covered forest for seven days. That was cold. That was real cold. A far cry colder than this.
Fug seemed unaffected by the cold, and jogged alongside to keep up with Lance, his breath and drool trailing from his mouth in an entirely 'whatever' kind of way. Lance seemed strong but Big Guy, he wasn't going to handle this well. Gabriel knew he would be leaving this horse on the way, dead or dying. Big Guy just wouldn't make it. Too old, too tender, too soft for this kind of work. He just hoped it wouldn't be soon, because then it would be two colt revolvers and a faded picture of a boy dreaming daddy's dreams as mementoes. That would be all there was. That and he could only take such gear as Lance could carry.
He suddenly wished his dad was here, right now, leading this little expedition of survival. Gabriel didn't know what kind of training Pa got in the military, but it didn't matter. With all his survival and sniper and even basic training, he would still let the man take the reins and be done with it. He would do what Pa said, go where Pa said, even if his training cried different. God he missed his Pa. Especially now.
Then Fuggly began a low growl.
Gabriel looked down at the dog and found him in a fighter's stance, his teeth bared and his ass higher than his head. Gabriel turned and reined in Lance to find five wolf like abominations standing dead ahead, shoulder to shoulder, their mouths so grotesquely distorted and fang-filled that they hung perpetually open, dripping, releasing a panting vapor.
Gabriel's first thought was that these were scouts, sent out to find stragglers. The second thought was that these, if they were in fact scouts, were not the warrior breed. The third thing that rushed through his mind was that they were way too close for him to take all at once, even as fast as he was.
Gabriel pulled chrome and pushed lead as fast as the revolvers would work, yanking at the triggers with a speed his Pa would have been proud of.
The wolf things charged in the same instant, but two fell nearly where they stood. The remaining three loped once more and two more fell, then the remaining grotesque thing skidded off of Lances flank, not attempting to wound Gabriel or the horse, and rushed Big Guy. Lance fretted to one side, stomping his feet as if hoping to get a hoof on the beast.
Gabriel twisted in his saddle, hard enough to feel his spine crackle at the hip and brought the revolver up.
Big Guy was locked in terror, eyes staring wide until the monster was one lope away from his fetlocks, mouth gapping soundlessly. The big horse reared once and as the dog-thing lunged, he came down on its head and neck with both front hooves.
Gabriel heard the sickening sound of bones snapping, then the horse's knees buckled and Big Guy went down atop the dog-beast's body before skittering sideways, stomping the thing savagely with his hooves again. Big Guy snorted loudly, and then began to pant. The first two wolf things still scratched and pawed helplessly at the ground, and the one Big Guy smashed bit with its grotesque teeth into the grass over and over, the remaining parts of its body shuddering and jerking like the limbs of a marionette.
In the pallor of gun smoke, Gabriel silently cursed himself. He was better than this. He had to be better than this. This lack of attention to detail gets Marines killed. It almost ended here because some kid was missing his God damned daddy and not paying attention to the trail. Just one fucking year from the battle field, and he had gotten this soft. 'This is a battlefield Marine! 'The ever-present voice screamed in his head. He was never sure if it was actually his own, or the memory of his drill instructor. Either way, it didn't matter. Complacency had almost cost him his life, and his neck crawled with that knowledge.
He scanned the tree line slowly to make sure there were no other wolf-things waiting, then reloaded his revolvers from his bandolier as quickly as he could.
When the pistols were again stowed in their holsters, he dismounted to check Big Guy. He had no marks, scratches or signs of any bruising. He stroked the horse's neck and spoke softly in his ear until the horses breathing slowed. Gabriel realized the air had fell still, silent as before, and was now filled with the smell of rancid brine mixed with distant burned gunpowder.
He went to one of the dead creatures and felt his mouth fill with the wet precursor of vomit. The monster's mouth was in the form of a snout that took up the majority of its face. It was this that made Gabriel think of a dog at first. But unlike a dog, the teeth kept no regularity, no association with the others and they pointed in many different directions, giving the bottom jaw a jagged look. Inside lulled a nearly limp tongue, impossibly nestled within the dental chaos. Wafting from its mouth was the smell of death, rotted death, a smell Gabriel was all too familiar with.
Fug came up and sat beside him.
This thing must do its hunting by smell and sound. Its eyes were small, like a shrew, but nose and ears were big. It made sense. He looked at Fug. "You’re a good boy for watching out for us. We almost bought it there, huh?"
Fug leaned in, brushed his tail back and forth and waited for his chest rub. When Gabriel squatted to do just that, Fug licked the underneath of his chin, as if to say he was alright now, but frightened. Gabriel was sure the dog got more of the scarf around his neck with than his chin, but it didn't matter. It was how the dog expressed himself, regardless of the flavor.
Gabriel stood, his pulse working its way back to normal. Over the last few days, he had thought he was in his combat mode--his sniper mode. The near death proved otherwise. He survived the realization, and his flesh felt electrified.
In the desert the noobs that came to relieve their position, they learned the same thing in the same way. If you lived through that first 'Oh Shit' moment, then you never let yourself get there again. At least they tried. That bloody goat blocking the road, you didn't run that shit over. Chances were, that was a bomb. In fact, you kept away from that, called in the ordinance techs to come get rid of the thing. You never stood in front of a door you were opening, always to the side. You watched for shadows moving in the second floor window. All of these things registered automatically after that first 'Oh Shit' moment, like an inborn instinct.
"Let's move out.” He stroked the dog once more, patted him three times, then climbed on Lance and heeled him forward at a walk. But now, Gabriel kept his eyes ahead or into the trees, and a hand on a revolver no matter how cold it got: one hand for the reins, the other for the revolver. His eyes were for the tree line and straight ahead. The ears he used for everything else.
After an hour, the highway began to slope right, gently lifted on the closer side to help keep the fast moving cars on the road. The guardrail here lay twisted and torn, just now taking on the color of rust. Still there were the cars, cars that held the bloody violence of human murder. That and the stench of human decay.
Again Gabriel was impressed by the size of the force required to take all of these cars out. Take the head out, and work your way back, that's what they had to h
ave done. Make an accident ahead, the cars behind would pile up, choking the road, leaving all of these people ripe for the picking. Like a box store that sold humans for slaughter, and there was a big sale. After nearly two days of riding, he would have thought the accident that stopped traffic would have eased over the horizon, but not yet. Still ahead, maybe just ahead, maybe far ahead.
Gabriel pulled Lance to a stop and checked his compass. With the highway sloping to the right, towards the West, it was time for him to head into the partial wild, directly south again and away from the highway. Maybe these things scattered around were just watching the roads. Maybe they were spread out along the length of the highway, waiting for more cars. Like the insurgents. Cutting cross country just might take him out of the kill box. The idea of losing that feeling of someone watching him was very appealing to him right now.
Holding the compass up to his eye, and twisting until he was facing directly south, he picked a pair of smoke stack off on the horizon, some ten maybe fifteen miles away and standing sentinel in the forest. He would head straight for those, camp there for the night in the pseudo wild, the synergy or whatever mixture there might be between the wild and the industrial. Maybe he could find a roof to sleep under tonight, a shed or a loading bay, something large enough for the horses. Maybe there would be a better source of water than the foul smelling creek running next to the road.
Heeling Lance back into a walk, he steered him towards the distant smoke stacks, their red painted tops barely visible over the tops of the recently denuded trees. Gabriel knew he should pick a closer landmark, something not lost when he entered the wood proper, but he guessed the bare branches wouldn't be able to hide the hugely tall red-topped things. As long as he made it there before dark, that is. If not, it would be another night in the trees.
Normally, that wouldn't bother him all too much, but the wolves were perfectly unsettling. The knowledge that he could kill again, do what it was he was trained to do was liberating, but he knew, dangerous as well. These things weren't exactly helpless. Watching his ass had been a favorite past time in Iraq and later in Afghanistan, and he knew how to do it. Better than most. Still, those stealthy little voiceless dog-wolf-things were down right unnerving, to say the least, and being caught asleep by one could be an ugly end. A real ugly end.
The day warmed as he finally broke the tree line. The highway had fallen right, slid behind the slope of a hill and took with it the stench of the dead, at least mostly. The trees had their own fragrance. Not exactly dead, but nowhere near healthy. They were on their way to be something less living, and left a foulish odor in their wake. Gabriel knew this smell too, but couldn't recall from where. His life had thus far been a practice of ending other lives. From learning marksmanship to quick draw to rifling and hand-to-hand to the fine art of the sniper. Death from a distance was his credo, the blooming of the pink mist his heart's desire, only now the mist was blue. Killing was what he was good at. It was the only thing he had ever been good at. Gabriel knew he was completely without skills short of the kill, near or far, short or long, his life was for the ending of lives.
Now, Gabriel had something to hate.
Now, Gabriel could kill with a clear conscience and a clear mind.
Now, Gabriel had come back into his own.
If he could keep himself alive, get himself behind friendly lines, he could offer up his skills as they were and return to kill more. Whatever military force remained would have need of a well-trained soldier, a well-trained Marine.
Movement caught his eye and he pulled chrome again, beading on a squirrel before his eyes focused. The grey thing chugged its body up a grey trunk to his left until it flipped over and began twitching its tail in alarm. Gabriel thought of fresh meat, then remembered this little thing was the first wildlife he'd seen in days. Either it was a crafty son-of-a-bitch, or he was leaving the realm of the bugs, the area under patrol at least. Considering the squirrels' only defense was to hang upside down and twitch its tail like an idiot, he had to be leaving the bugs behind.
Lance never slowed, not interested in the gun yanking of his rider, and Gabriel searched through the tops of the trees to find the vague red patches indicating the smoke stacks, and the direction he needed to travel. They were much closer, but the sun was much further, the sky growing blacker in its darkness and the ground beneath him was becoming shadowed in a hurry. Lance didn't seem to notice, which was good, but Gabriel figured he had another hour, maybe a bit more before he would be in full dark. Then he would have to stop. Another night laying his head on the leather he farted into all day. Another night in the elements, open and exposed. Cold.
After a long while, he found the two red shafts in the tree tops again, and decided he would actually be there before dark, should be there before full dark, but not by much. He could trust Lance to take this little leg of the trip home. Then he could find a place out of the open, and maybe even sleep tonight. Something with a door, maybe a lock or latch or something to trip up an intruder or make a loud noise. That would be sweet, Gabriel thought.
It was a wonder, even to him, that he had made it this far. From a rural farmstead to the deserts and inner slummy cities of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan, back to the rural farmstead, now to the very end of the world. Not geographically speaking, but chronologically. Gabriel knew it would happen, sometime, just not in his time. Maybe his kid's time, if he ever had kids. But what can you do? Get on getting on was about it, and that's what he was trying to do.
Back in high school, there had been a girl named Penny, the one with the rich auburn hair, rich brown eyes and rich parents. That girl would have made a wife, that's for sure. She had eyes for him once, or Gabriel thought. No girl like that, though, would have given him the time of day. A near high school dropout, not one of the popular kids, not even a jock of any reputation, although he did run track and ran it well. If you weren't the quarterback on the football team, that or one of the lackeys of the idol high school heartthrob, you were no one. And everything with a dick wanted to date Penny.
Maybe if he had tried?
The trees broke before him and revealed a grassy, shrubby kind of landscape for what Gabriel guessed was a hundred yards or so. Distance and he had not gotten along too well. The military had introduced them, and Gabriel had become acquainted, but that was about all. Still, about a football field. Anything further than that and it was really enough to take out his range finder. It never hurt to practice judging distances.
In the center of this scrubby field was a small factory or manufacturing plant, if those two things were different. It had two oblong one story buildings huddled close together around the pair of smoke stacks, and one three story building all encased in a chain link fence, all the color of cigarette ash, all of it lightless and well abandoned. A single road led from it and back into the forest in two directions. The whole scene was hovered close by a dark sky nearly void of light, giving the place the feel of an old, angry movie.
Gabriel pulled Lance to a halt and Big Guy sauntered up on Gabriel's right and stopped. The air was colder now, and Gabriel was sure the horse was looking for the warmth of company. Fuggly trotted a couple feet in front of them and stopped, looked over his shoulder, then sat to stare at the dead buildings.
Gabriel couldn't see a thing, but there was something there, something almost tangible in his gut. It was like a stench emanating from the place, warning off spectators or the curious with brief waves of nervous nausea. Fug didn't seem to mind, or the horses, but the place just felt wrong to Gabriel.
A week ago, Gabriel would have ignored such a thing, chocked it up to battle jitters or juvenile boogyman fears, but not anymore. He had seen over the past two days as much impossibility as he could handle, and still keep a grasp on his sanity. Now those little vague feelings, that intuition the sane ignored couldn't just be disregarded anymore. He had to pay attention to them, didn't he?
Gabriel stared until the lack of light made that a useless activi
ty, and still saw nothing move. There was no glimmer, no shifting shadows, nothing in the bare windows. It was as dead as the place felt. Had to be. He looked down at Fug who decided to go ahead and nap while waiting for his paranoid master, then at Big Guy, the real chicken in the group, and then back at the building. Here goes nothing.
He nudged Lance into a slow walk, just a sauntering stroll towards the building. Gabriel rested his hand on the beast’s neck, his fist twisted in the reins. The other hand held loosely the butt of one of the revolvers, waiting. He kept his eyes locked on the darkness between the buildings, using his peripheral sight on the windows and foot paths between the disconnected structures. His spotter training, training he went through when he became a sniper, taught him that the center of the eye sucked in low light. Something about cones or rods or whatever. It was a something he couldn't remember. What was important was he knew he could see better around the center of his vision, and so reserved that light sensitive area for the buildings.
The sensation of wrong seemed to ease as he traveled closer, and wondered if maybe he was being tracked by one of those lizard or salamander color changer things. The feeling he was being watched was still there, but he could not tell from which direction.
At the corner of the first building he stopped again, and stared. He wanted to use his flashlight, his laser-like Surefire to illuminate the windows of the buildings or around its corners, but that would ruin his night vision completely. So he sat, stared, and used his ears more than eyes, but there was nothing. No sound, no rat scratching around, not even a wind passing nonchalantly through the scrub. He could hear his own breathing, the occasional shuffle of one of the horse's feet, even the furry thump of his own heartbeat in his ears, but nothing from the complex before him. It was stiflingly silent, as if the clutch of buildings were holding their collective breath, like some ambush predator waiting for the unwary human traveler.