“We’re heating water,” the man said. “There’s a tub in the owner’s apartment.” A smile crossed his gray face. “You get the first bath.”
Skye smiled back, touching his arm. “I don’t remember the last time I had a real bath.”
“I found a bunch of soaps and bath oils up there,” he said, “girly stuff. I put it all next to the tub with some clean towels. Lit some candles too, so you’re not in the dark.”
“Thank you.” Skye was sure she saw a hint of blush in the older man’s ashy face.
“I’m getting tired of your smell, is all,” he said, clearing his throat. He walked over to the couch where the captain was sleeping, sedated from Bracco’s pain killers. They had pulled the man closer to the fire to make him more comfortable.
Skye watched him go, shaking her head and smiling. A bath! Before the world ended, it was an experience she’d always taken for granted. Now it was like finding a unicorn.
Rooker was up in the kitchen preparing a hot meal, and Bracco sat at a table in the lobby cleaning the squad automatic weapon. Skye had already cleaned both her M4 and the .357 (even though she hadn’t used it) and the corporal gave her a smile as she walked by. The young woman put her hands in her pockets and made a slow tour of the hotel lobby as she waited for the water to heat.
The walls were done in knotty pine and covered in skis and snowshoes from the 1800’s, a bear skin, assorted rifles from that time period and antique mining tools. There was more history here as well, most of it in the form of framed, sepia-toned photos of Truckee in days gone by. She saw images of men on horseback, automobiles from the early twenties parked on a dirt street, scenes of logging and hunting and photos of the railroad. An acrylic-covered plaque displayed the image and story of a serious-looking lawman named Teeter, shot down in a violent gunfight, and another told the tale of how all the Chinese who had built the railroad had been subsequently thrown out of the community once their work was done. Skye stared at the rows of soon-to-be expelled, stone-faced immigrants in their cultural attire lined up before a locomotive that wouldn’t even have been there without their labors.
She made her way around to the fireplace and sat down beside Cribbs on a heavy coffee table in front of Sallinger’s couch. “How’s he doing?”
The master sergeant tucked a blanket in around the sleeping officer. “It’s a bad break. The bone didn’t come through the skin, but he’s not going to be walking any time soon.”
“Is he in pain?”
“Bracco’s drugs hit him pretty fast. He’s not feeling anything right now.”
Skye tucked in a flap of blanket that had pulled loose.
“He would’ve gotten bitten if you hadn’t jumped in,” Cribbs said. “Thanks for that.”
“You don’t ever have to thank me for killing them,” Skye said softly, staring past the couch into the shadows of the lobby. “I hate them.”
“I know you do.” He looked at her. “I’m thanking you for saving his life. He’s pretty important to me.”
“He’s your friend as well as your boss, right?”
A nod. “For a long time now.”
Behind them, Corporal Bracco began carrying heated pails of water upstairs to the owner’s apartment, and Rooker came down from the kitchen, setting hot food on the table where Bracco had been cleaning weapons.
“What does this do to your plans?” Skye asked.
“It sets us back a bit,” Cribbs said, “but only for a couple days. I want him to have a chance to rest while we prep for the final push over the mountains.”
“How can you go with him like this?”
“Just because we take casualties doesn’t mean we abort the mission, and the mission is to get back to Reno. Truckee should have everything we need to make that happen.” The Ranger shook his head. “And there’s real medical attention at the base. I’m afraid if he doesn’t get it soon, he’ll never walk again.” Then he looked at her. “I’m going to need your help.”
“Of course.” Skye looked at the flushed, sleeping man on the couch, at Rooker setting plates on the table and Bracco coming down for more buckets of hot water. She thought about Cribbs, how he no longer spoke to her as if she were less than a person. It was going to be hard to let them go on without her. Against her judgment, she’d allowed herself to like them, to care about them, and that was exactly why this had to end. That, and because of what was happening to her.
“Bath’s almost ready, Miss Dennison,” said Bracco.
Skye rose and left before she could tell Cribbs what she was planning.
The owners of the Coburn Hotel might have lived in a rustic building, but they’d enjoyed their personal comforts, and the private bathroom off the bedroom reflected this. It was spacious and done in warm woods and earth-tone tiles, complete with double pedestal sinks, a free-standing shower and a large claw-foot tub resting beneath a panoramic window that would have provided a spectacular view of the mountains had the curtains not been closed. As promised, Master Sergeant Cribbs had lit candles and placed them around the room. The lighting, a stack of fluffy towels and bath soaps waiting beside the tub and steam drifting off the surface gave it all a spa-like quality.
All I need is some soft music or whale noises.
Skye set out clean clothes on a padded stool before stripping off her weapons, combat gear and filthy fatigues, the fabric damp with sweat and the fluids of butchered zombies. She stuffed them into a wicker hamper, making a face, glad to see them go, and dropped her eyepatch into a sink. It needed to be washed as well. Searching luggage and closets in different rooms had provided her with a new wardrobe; clean underwear and a couple of sports bras, thermal long-johns and designer jeans that fit her curves well, some flannel shirts and a heavy white turtleneck. A new pair of black leather, knee-high, lace-up boots were waiting to replace her combat boots. They had deep, heavy tread and a bristle of chrome spikes at the toe, something a Goth chick would wear with a short, plaid skirt, she decided. The high leather would protect her from bites, but she liked the tread and spikes most of all. The boots looked like just the thing to stomp the living shit out of a drifter, and that was the real reason she was trading in her current footwear.
Naked and encrusted with streaks of dried gore, she took a partially filled pail of hot water into the free-standing shower, sponging and scrubbing away the filth, swirls of red and black disappearing into the drain between her feet. She rubbed a washcloth at her face until she was sure her gray skin must have turned pink, then shampooed her head and scrubbed her nails vigorously at the bristles of what was starting to look like a crew-cut.
Suddenly she cried out and jerked her hand away from her head. The pointed black protrusions at the tips of her thumb and first two fingers were more pronounced, making the taut skin tender. She finished up with only her right hand after that, digging clots of fluid and tiny bits of rotten flesh out of her ears. Then she stepped to the tub and lowered herself into it, hissing at the temperature. It was almost too hot, but she forced herself in, her skin tingling as every pore seemed to creak open. She let out a long sigh and leaned back, resting her head on the porcelain rim and closing her eyes.
So this is what human feels like.
Skye decided to forgo the bath oils and scented body wash Cribbs had left out for her, tempting as it was to just feel female again. The shampoo had been an extravagance, for she had long avoided fragrances of any kind, concerned that it might make her easier for the dead to detect, and she wanted every advantage. But God had she needed that scrub, and now being able to simply soak in the near-scalding water, able to let her guard down for a short while, safe in the knowledge that the men downstairs would not let anything get to her, was more than enough. Heaven, in fact.
She slid down until her chin touched the surface of the water, breathing in the steam. Heaven. Her muscles relaxed, and within minutes she was drifting in a comfortable half-sleep.
Skye dreamed of graduating from Berkeley, her parents whole and happy
, waving from the front row as she accepted her diploma. She didn’t know what field she’d majored in, but she was happy, too. Whatever her degree, she’d put it to good use. Carney was in the crowd as well, standing to her mom’s left. He wasn’t smiling – he almost never did – but the familiar glitter in his eyes told Skye he was proud of her.
Had she introduced him to her parents? How had they reacted to him being so much older than their daughter, and a convicted killer as well? She couldn’t answer. They must know, and it appeared that they were fine with it. If not, she would make them understand that she loved him. She loved him very much.
Dead people.
She saw Crystal in the crowd, not rising from the dead in a campus office but laughing and blowing kisses. There were friends from high school, Sergeant Postman, that girl Meagan from the Nimitz.
They’re dead. You’re dreaming of dead people.
Then she saw TC and that crazy preacher who had tried to blow up the aircraft carrier. TC smirked and waggled his tongue at her. He tapped one finger on the exit wound at the bridge of his nose, left there by Skye’s bullet when she’d shot the sick fuck in the back of his head on the flight deck.
Her body went cold and she felt her joy draining away.
No! I am happy! They can’t…can’t…
No happy endings for you.
It’s not fair! I want a life! I want to marry Carney, have children. I’m a woman, I just want to be that!
No, you’re a monster.
The water of the bath exploded in red, and as the most devastating pain she’d ever known wracked her body, Skye let out a scream that threatened to split her head down the middle.
The scream got Cribbs, Bracco and Rooker moving in an instant, and even made the sleeping captain call out in his sleep. The Rangers grabbed their weapons and thundered up the stairs and down to the owner’s apartment, Bracco in the lead. It wasn’t a single scream; it was ongoing, high and wild and piercing as if a living person were having their skin stripped away a layer at a time.
Bracco was first through the bathroom door, and in the candlelight saw Skye thrashing in the tub, arching her back and screeching, eyes wide open.
“She’s convulsing!” he shouted, dropping his rifle and seizing her, heaving her gray, naked body out of the bloody water, pinning her arms to her sides and wrapping her flailing form in a great bear hug.
The girl’s screaming face was looking over the corporal’s shoulder, and Rooker saw her left eye, no longer blind, now a blazing amber with a pinprick pupil. “Fuck me,” he gasped.
Cribbs moved in to help the corporal, and caught sight of her left hand. It was swollen, dripping blood onto the hardwood floor and it looked as if three, jet-black, gleaming talons had erupted through the split flesh at the tips of several fingers.
“Hold her, Bracco,” the master sergeant shouted, wincing at the screams still coming from her gaping mouth. Her eyes were open but unseeing, and the older man palmed her head, pinning it to the corporal’s chest, afraid that her violent thrashing would snap her neck. His other hand locked firmly around her left wrist, immobilizing the lethal-looking talons.
Just as abruptly as it had started, Skye’s screaming stopped and was replaced by silence. Her body went limp as if it had no bones, and her breathing dropped to a shallow, barely perceptible movement of her back and shoulders. Now the two men had to keep her from collapsing to the floor.
The Rangers stared at each other, breathing hard. Then Cribbs said, “Get her into the bed and dress those wounds.” He glanced at the bloody talons. “Rooker, go get Bracco’s medical kit.”
The young man simply stood there, staring at that clawed hand. “What the fuck, Top? What is she?”
Cribbs wheeled on him and grabbed his collar, shaking him. “She’s your fucking teammate, Ranger! Now move it!”
Rooker vanished, and the two men carried the unconscious girl into the next room.
TWENTY-FIVE
Fat and happy. That was how her daddy would have described Pepper’s present state of contentment. Although fat was far from accurate, and the latter adjective was a matter of degrees, the metaphor worked. Pepper Davis sat in her tour bus, munching on Spam and Wheat Thins, relishing the food as if it were a banquet.
The bus generator gave off a soft hum down below, and the interior was a toasty seventy-five degrees. She was wearing clean khaki pants with lots of cargo pockets (a belt that was much longer than it had been last summer cinched them tightly around her narrow waist – they were sized for a man) and a forest-green, long-sleeve mock turtle with CHP in gold letters at the collar. A clean, blue wool blanket was draped about her shoulders like a shawl.
Scott sat in the seat across the table from her, rigid in his dress uniform and staring out the bus window. Between them was heaped the gear Pepper had salvaged from the California Highway Patrol vehicles, and on the kitchen counter nearby were stacks of food she’d taken from the travel center (yesterday? The day before? She couldn’t remember) and had been subsequently torn from her grasp.
“I got it all back,” she told her brother around a mouthful of – she supposed it was meat – and crackers. She pointed to the empty backpack and pillowcases on the floor.
Scott said nothing.
“We’re going to make it,” she said, touching first the shotgun resting in the seat beside her, then running her hands across all the gear on the table. “Nothing can touch us now.”
After returning from the CHP vehicles late last evening, Pepper had spent the night alone and shivering, anticipating the dawn. When it had at last arrived, a muted pink coming up behind gray eastern clouds, she’d used the short, flat pry bar to crack open the roof hatch and climb onto the roof. The fiberglass had broken a bit, but there was duct tape on the bus and she could repair the worst of the damage. Two hours on her hands and knees, pushing and scraping snow from the solar panels in the numbing cold, had prepared them to once again soak up whatever daylight they could find.
Then it was back into the deep snow outside the bus, stomping to where she thought the backpack and other scattered supplies would be, her shotgun leading the way. Two more hours of searching uncovered it all, as well as the trucker zombie, who exploded out of a wall of snow with arms raised.
Pepper didn’t scream or panic.
She put a close-range buckshot blast into the trucker’s chest, knocking him down. As he floundered snarling in the snow, Pepper racked another shell, put the muzzle to that blue-white forehead and finished him with a second blast.
“Gonna make it,” she repeated, slicing off another piece of Spam and putting it on a wheat thin. She’d decided that Spam was better than any exotic cuisine she’d sampled during her wide-ranging trips abroad.
“You really believe you’re going to make it,” Scott said, looking at his sister.
“I do.” Pepper chewed and pointed the little spreading knife toward her brother’s dour expression. “We’ve got heat, food, and now we’re armed. I’ll be able to safely move supplies from the center to the bus all winter long.” She patted the shotgun again. “When the snow melts, we’ll get away from this place. If we can’t find a way to drive out, then we’ll damn sure walk out.” She smiled.
Scott didn’t. He looked at her and shook his head.
Pepper stopped chewing. “You’re coming with me, right?”
Another head shake. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to die here, only now it’s going to take longer.”
Pepper slammed a fist on the table. “Why? Why do you have to be like that?” She was yelling. “I’m happy for the first time in…in forever. Why do you have to spoil it?”
And she had been happy. Ever since her victory at the CHP vehicles, fueled by the triumph of recovering her food from the snow, she’d been on a high. Her daily grind and depression had given way to…hope. For months she’d wondered why she bothered to go on each day. Now, for the first time since the world and everyone she’d ever known had ended, Pepper k
new why. It was the idea of a tomorrow. A real tomorrow, not simply a repeat of every numbing, gray day that had gone before. She’d even played her guitar a little, something she hadn’t done in weeks.
She pointed the little knife at her brother again. “You’re not going to spoil this for me. I will get out of here.” Pepper looked at the gear. Two shotguns with extra shells, a pair of black, automatic pistols with spare magazines, flashlights, first aid kits, flares and blankets, tool kits, Windbreakers and spare clothing identical to what she was wearing. The firepower would protect her from the dead, ensure that nothing would get between her and food, allow her to scavenge on the move.
“No,” she said again, shaking her head. “I’m getting out as soon as the snow melts.”
Scott looked out the window again. After a while he said, “And go where?”
She’d already thought about this. “Reno,” she said. “It’s not far, and from here it’s all downhill. It’s a big city. Someone will be there.”
“No one will be there,” he said.
“You don’t know. You can’t know.”
He nodded toward the glass. The absolute blackness of night in the mountains pressed against the window, snowflakes blowing hard against the bus as a storm descended. “What you’ve seen out there…the dead and silence…that’s the world now. Reno will be the same, only it will have more of both.”
Pepper glanced at the window, then back at her brother. “You can’t talk like this,” she said, her anger draining away and her voice starting to crack. “You’re the strong one, and I need you.” Tears welled in her eyes. “We can do this.”
Omega Days (Book 5): The Feral Road Page 25