A Time to Die

by Mark Wandrey

  The woman she’d seen raced at her, just feet away. Somehow Kathy had possessed the presence of mind to stuff the gun back into her waist band and not just drop it when she ran. Her right snatched it back out, stabbing it towards the woman she stroked the trigger. Boom! The .38 bucked in her grip and the woman staggered to her knees just feet away. She looked up, eyes that were once beautiful staring hate at her, blood dripping from her lips, breasts hanging down loosely. Kathy put the next one into the top of her head and tried the bike again. It sputtered and almost caught.

  “Come on!” she screamed and sitting the gun on her right thigh she gave it a little gas. It started with a grumbling roar. Her right foot dropped it in gear as her left grabbed the gun and her right smashed the gas. A young woman raced up in front of her. Kathy screamed as she rode her down like a dog in the street. The bike and trailer combination were a half ton of steel and plastic. What was a hundred pounds of meat and bone? A fleshy speed bump.

  The girl made a halfhearted sweep of a hand at Kathy’s face. She saw painted nails. They were green specked with blood. Then she was pulled under the bike which jumped and bumped as the life was crushed out of her. “Stop it!” Kathy screamed. A man dove in from her left and jumped onto the cargo rack behind her, grabbing at her. She pulled the gun out with her left hand and awkwardly reversed it behind her. “Never shoot at what you can’t see,” her dad had admonished her.

  “Sorry Dad,” she cried as she pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times until the man let go. She smelled blood, shit and Gatorade. To her left a thin man was racing towards her on an intercept course. Kathy felt amazingly calm as she aimed off hand, despite the panic she felt grasping her. He was only a foot away when she blew the top of his head off. Another was just behind him. She pulled the trigger and nothing happened. She stuffed it back in her waistband without another thought, trying to ignore the way the hot barrel burned the delicate skin near a very sensitive area.

  With both hands on the handlebars Kathy bared her teeth and held on, crashing through and over several people. The trailer bounced and flew up in the air several times. She was terrified it would upend and take her with it. Then, just as suddenly as the attack came, it was past and she was careening up the trail. The headlight was knocked slightly askew and coated in thick blood casting the trail into red relief and it was hard to control the bike. Kathy struggled with herself and finally managed to let up on the throttle, slowly bringing the rattling, ill-running machine to a stop.

  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” she kept saying over and over, getting off the bike and stumbling to her knees. She pulled the Smith & Wesson out and with her hands shaking badly she clicked the cylinder release, rotating it out, tipping it back, and pressing the ejector rod. The six empty brass casings tinkled to the rocky ground and she reached into her left jeans pocket to find a speed loader. There were two there. One went into the cylinder. She took several tries to get it to line up before it slid in place. She twisted the release, tipping the gun barrel down and the rounds fell into place. The speed loader fell, forgotten as she locked the gun closed once more. “Jesus, what have I done?!” She looked down at the gun and wondered how it got reloaded.

  A growl and the sound of footsteps brought her to her feet and looking back down the trail. There was still just enough light to see dozens of figures racing after her. “Leave me alone!” she screamed at them. They responded with a unified roar and came at her fast.

  Kathy considered just standing there and letting them get her. What the fuck difference did it make? The Army couldn’t stop them, it looked like nothing could stop them! A few moments of pain and it would all be over.

  Just like reloading the gun she had no idea how she ended up back on the bike and speeding away. At least speeding as fast as the messed-up bike would let her.

  * * *

  It all came to an end less than an hour later. She’d been driving along the increasingly hard to follow trail, around cactus and across washouts. It cut back and forth constantly and always there was the howling behind her. Kathy knew that unless she suddenly stumbled across a paved road or wide open stretch, there was no way she would open up any real distance. Not only were they insane cannibals, they also seemed to possess superhuman endurance.

  Just as she reached the top of a low hill the bike shuddered, made a clanking sound, and stopped. She pressed the starter and it just clicked. The gas gauge said there was a little left in the tank. Click, click, click. Nothing.

  Howls behind her, louder still. She jumped off and looked at all the equipment. What to take? She grabbed her pack off the rear cargo deck and saw liquid pouring out of it. Holding it up to the moonlight she could see several holes through it. She’d shot the pack multiple times when the crazy had jumped on her from behind. It was also covered in blood.

  “Raaah!” a voice screamed and feet came running. She drew the gun and turned. The man was only a few yards away when Kathy fired, the first shot hitting him in the hips and sending him spinning to the ground. Kathy shot him twice more before slinging the pack over her shoulder. She started to run up the trail, then stopped to snatch the GoPro from its mount first, then moved off as fast as she could.

  Her legs were like burning bands of steel from two days of riding the bike, the flesh between her legs raw and wasted. Every single step hurt. In moments she couldn’t make her legs run any more. The hill peak continued on for some time. She could see a black line ahead, probably another creek bed, and strangely what smelled like wood smoke.

  More footsteps behind. She turned and fired at the shadow rushing towards her. It stumbled and she fired again. The shadow toppled. Another came up right behind it. She was breathing hard, her mind racing. There were no more options available. She aimed carefully and fired. The dim impression of a head rocking back and someone falling.

  She stuffed the GoPro into her belt then fished out the last speed loader, opening and emptying the revolver then slamming the quick loader home, all the while backing down the trail. She stumbled once and almost fell over backwards, heart hammering in her chest. The speed loader slammed into the cylinder, shapes coming out of the dark for her, eyes shining in the moonlight, mouths open, and teeth snapping.

  She flicked the release on the speed loader and finished reloading, slamming the chamber closed and bringing the gun up as hands stained dark with blood reached for her. Boom, boom! The gun roared and bucked, and the creature screamed and fell back. That was how she had to think of it. Not as a man with very good facial features. It was no longer human. It was a monster.

  She turned and hobbled a few more feet, turned, found a target in the dark and fired. Another target, fire again. Keep shooting, keep moving. Turning again and firing into one of them who was crawling at her. Hadn’t she shot that one already?

  A hand on her shoulder. The other direction! Up the trail! They’d somehow gotten ahead of her. “No!” she screamed, spun and pulled the trigger. Click. This is how I die, she realized.

  But the hand didn’t pull her in to tearing teeth and death. It pushed her aside, almost gently, but with surprising power. “Get the fuck out of the way, Kathy!” a familiar man’s voice said and instant before a gun exploded just over her shoulder. She’d thought her pistol was loud, but this was like the crack of doom next to her head. She fell sideways more from the muzzle blast than from the push. Boom, boom, then a click and three more incredibly close together, no more than a split second apart. “Down!” the voice called. “Get behind me.”

  She was only dimly aware of the continued shooting. After a second it stopped. She heard a metallic click followed by a clank hitting the rocky ground. She saw an arm move, something was shoved upward and the mechanical sound of metal sliding on metal. Then the firing returned. Measured shots. She was behind the man on one knee, a huge black rifle held up by a strange handle under the foregrip. On top of the rifle was a massive sight. She could see green light glowing on his face. That face. It had belonged to a man who’d held
her, kissed her, loved her. So long ago. So very, very long ago. Impossibly, even with the unending explosions of the huge rifle, she fell asleep.

  * * *

  “Kathy, shit, Kathy!” Someone was shaking her rudely. She pushed the hand on her shirt away. “Get it together girl.”

  A name floated up from her fatigue filled mind. “Tobey?”

  “Yeah girl, let’s move.”

  “But you’re in Texas.”

  “So are you,” he told her. She opened her eyes and saw they hadn’t moved. He was still kneeling there, big gun with its weird green light scope up to his face, sweeping it back and forth

  “But how?” she asked.

  “I was tracking you,” he admitted.

  “Asshole.”

  “Fine, I’ll be going then.”

  “No!” she screamed and found she had the strength to get to her feet. It had been a hollow threat, he continued to kneel but cast an appraising eye towards her. “Where were you, then?”

  “Lost you a day ago,” he explained, getting to his own feet, still scanning. “Been sweeping the southern edge of my property. Knew you were heading this way.”

  “I don’t understand, if you weren’t behind me, how were you tracking me?”

  He held up a device. On it a screen glowed and displayed a map. “Little GPS toy we used in the Rangers. But you either lost or destroyed the tracker a few hours ago.”

  She thought back to when she’d shot her pack and nodded. Her anger was turning to gratefulness with incredible speed. “Are they all dead?”

  “No,” he said and pointed with a knife hand off to his left. “There are a bunch thataway, but they’re onto something. A deer, I think. The others behind you are feeding.” He assessed her again with a critical eye. “That was some pretty good runnin-and-gunnin’, girl.”

  “Yeah?” she asked and looked around. “My first firefight.”

  “You don’t say,” he said with a wry smile that made her a little annoyed. He quickly stooped and retrieved her .38 and handed it to her. “Any more ammo?”

  “In my pack,” she said and started to take it off.

  “No time for that,” he said and reached behind his back. He pulled out a handgun and gave it to her. It was nothing like her old S&W .38, this was one of those sleek black pistols, half plastic. It looked deadly. “Round in the chamber. It’s double action only, just like that revolver. Just pull the trigger. Ten shots, .40 caliber.”

  She stuck it in her waistband, an action that was quickly becoming natural to a woman who not long ago had had a less than favorable opinion on guns. He held out his hand again and there were to magazines in it. “Mag release under your right thumb, slide release above that. If you forget, just pull the slide back and let it go over a full mag.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  “Let’s GTFO,” he said and turned.

  “Wait, my bike.”

  “Fuck it, let’s roll.”

  “No, there’s something important I think you’ll want. And I want the rest of my SD cards.”

  “Are you fucking insane?” he asked, but she was already trotting back down the trail. He cursed and raced after her, gun at low port and sweeping back and forth.

  “How can you see with that?” she asked as he caught up to her and passed, using the rifle to scout out the trail.

  “NVG,” he said, “night vision gear. It’s a third-generation ACOG I got from my battalion when I retired. I used it to shoot ‘yotes, until tonight.”

  “Handy, she admitted.

  His head nodded then he spoke. “Firing,” and the gun boomed twice.

  “What is that gun?”

  “HK-91, .308 cartridge. Belonged to my dad. I’ve tacticaled it up a bit. If the ATF gets their hands on this, I’m going to have a long stay in Club Fed.”

  She didn’t know what that meant, and didn’t care. She was just glad he was there. “I know how you followed me know, but not why.”

  He slowed as he approached the bike. She could just see it through the dark, but obviously he had perfect visibility. There was a still twitching body next to the machine, obviously the one he’d just dispatched. “You left in such a hurry, I was worried about you.”

  “Worried enough to get up in the middle of the night, before I left, and put that tracker in my bag?” He was quiet, obviously caught. “I never thanked you for that night.”

  “Thanked me?” he chuckled. “Lady, that was incredible.” He was quiet for a moment as he circled around the bike, moving in a strange start-stop action. “That was the first time I’d been with a woman since…”

  “It’s okay,” she said and despite the bodies all around her she smiled. He’d been slow to warm to what she had in mind for him, but quickly got into it. One could even say he went at it with a gusto. Several times, if truth be told. Not that she was complaining. It had been quite some time since she’d been so thoroughly laid by an alpha-male. It was fantastic. He stopped, squatted a bit, and fired twice more, bringing her out of her reminiscence and back to their dire situation.

  “Get your shit and lets di di mau,” he said, “get out of here,” he clarified.

  Kathy opened the cargo compartment and found the plastic cases of SD cards, putting them into the blood-soaked backpack after first verifying that the compartment she was using was still intact. She took note that all but one of the bottles of water were empty, shot through. “I lost most of my water.”

  “Got that covered. You done?”

  “You want this?” she asked, and pointed to the trailer.

  “What is it?”

  “A gun of some kind.”

  He swept around quickly and let the gun hang on a sling before moving back to the trailer. He glanced at the box and did a double take. “No fucking way,” he said and dropped to one knee. A tiny flashlight appeared in his hand. She was about to warn him against using it when the light came on red, not white. This guy had his shit together. “An M-240?!” he said incredulously. “How in the hell?”

  “A helicopter crashed,” she explained. “A soldier told me to take it.”

  “Crashed? Where? Can we help them?” he asked quickly.

  “There are no survivors.”

  Tobey nodded solemnly and looked at the gun with its other boxes. Clearly he was conflicted. Then he made a decision. “Here,” he said, unslinging the gun and looping the sling over her head.

  “Whoa, whoa,” she complained as it settled on her shoulders, unconsciously she took the thing in her hands. It was hot, and heavy. It felt like death.

  “No choice,” he said. Then he reached around her hands and deftly dropped the magazine. He pulled out one from his vest that she saw was full of them. This one looked even bigger than the others. “My only twenty-five round mag,” he said and slammed it into the gun. He gently took her thumb and moved it to a lever. “Flip that down, pull the trigger. It’s that easy. Look through the sight.” She hefted the gun, grunting a little. The tiny TV screen showed a square wire box with a little white cross hair in the center and a line going up and down from the crosshair. There were tiny cross lines with numbers next to that line. “Just center it on their chests and pull the trigger.”

  He didn’t give her time to complain, instead turning to the trailer. With sure movements, sure because it used to be his, he unhitched the trailer and pulled something from his back. It looked like an extra sling. It went over his head and he somehow attached it to the trailer. “Wish you hadn’t killed my damn bike.”

  “It was mine, I paid for it,” she said and turned to use the NVG to sweep behind them. A ways down the hill she could see a group of them, huddled over a pair of bodies. People she’d killed, she realized. Even over the distance she could hear the sounds of ripping and tearing flesh. They grunted and snapped at each other as they fed. One looked up at her, its eyes shone with an ethereal white glow in the scope. It stood and regarded her. “One of them is standing.”

  “Kill it,” he said, working with t
he improvised strap arrangement.

  “But it’s just standing there looking at us.”

  “Don’t think about it, Kathy, shoot it.” She hesitated. “You weren’t hesitating earlier,” he reminded her. “If you’d had another round in that revolver I’d be dead right now.”

  She was forced to admit he was right. She took a breath and let it out, just like her father taught her. As it sighed through her lips the crosshairs settled on the creature’s breast bone, just about half way down. It cocked its head, and she fired. The recoil was significant, but less than she’d been expecting. She recovered and found that she’d killed it with one shot. The others noticed the new addition and set upon it, just as another dozen came lopping up the trail. Most joined, a few looked their way. “More company,” she said.

  “Ready,” Tobey barked. She glanced over at him, difficult because everything looked a little darker after the relative brightness of the scope. His sling was arranged over his neck and one arm, leading down to just over his butt where the trailer’s tongue was attached to it. He pulled and the whole thing followed. She could see the cords standing out on his neck from the exertion. The thing had to weigh hundreds of pounds. But she’d felt those muscled legs and knew he was up to the challenge. “Lead, I’ll follow,” he ordered.

  “Like hell,” she said, returning to the scope. A pair were running towards them. Boom…boom, boom. Both hit the ground. “I got this.”

  “I hope so,” she heard him grimace as he pulled the trailer up hill and over ancient ruts in the trail. After a minute he called out. “Check left!”

  She spun the rifle, looking. There were a pair of them racing in, low and fast. Two women, both wearing some kind of sports uniform. She killed them without thinking. Her first shot caught the leader in the center of the chest, the second nearly decapitated the second one. She was amazed at the amount of damage the rifle did.