From their vantage point in the guard tower they could see for miles. The only things poking through the hard-baked ground were smatterings of low scrub and tufts of some type of hardy savannah grass clumped here and there. Adding contrast to the ochre dirt, yellowed lace-like tumbleweeds bounced across their shooting range. And though the guards had already cleansed the perimeter of the dead that had been drawn by the commotion caused by the vicious outbreak, there were still a few random Zs lurching about on the horizon. Only three of them were close enough to engage with any chance for a successful hit.
“OK... see the taller one with the necktie fluttering in the wind?” Why the thing had been dressed for success at the onset of the outbreak was anyone’s guess. But Brook decided that using generic descriptors like body size or type of clothing the flesh eater was wearing would convince Raven they were less human and more like a walking mannequin. Monikers like male, female, adult, and especially kid were removed from her lexicon when Raven was within earshot.
Raven put her cheek to the smooth polymer stock and her eye near the rubber-ringed glass lens as her mom had demonstrated. “Got it,” she said with an air of confidence that belied her age and physical stature.
Good job, Brook thought, and then in order to shore up Raven’s four and a half foot frame, braced her knee against the girl’s bottom, reached around her shoulders and gently gripped the rifle to lend a little extra support.
“Remember, we do not jerk the trigger... we s-q-u-e-e-z-e the trigger. Whenever you are ready, sweetie.”
Pow!
Smiling, Raven glanced at her mom.
“Very good. Now try three in a row.”
Pow! Pow! Pow!
Though the short-barreled M4 offered very little recoil, the consecutive shots jolted both of their bodies. Then, slowly, as Brook sensed Raven becoming more comfortable with the rifle, she eased up on the pressure entirely and backed away.
Geysers of soil erupted around the shambler’s bare feet.
“Aim for its head, right in the center.” She didn’t want to say between the eyes... it just sounded a little too macabre.
Dragging her aim up slightly, Raven paused for a second, barrel wavering, and then ‘squeezed’ the trigger like Mom had instructed.
Pow!
Raven remained standing. The decomposing first turn did not. The monster collapsed to terra firma convincingly in a puff of russet dust, knees jutting skyward, its cratered face staring vacantly at the blue Colorado sky.
“See sweetie, it doesn’t kick as much as you feared. A little more than the .22, but Mom needs you to get used to it just in case.”
“In case of what, Mom?”
In case Mom or Dad dies, Brook thought to herself. Yet another eventuality that needed to be covered but would have to wait.
“We’ll sit down and talk about it after we shoot.” Brook traded Raven the smaller Ruger 10/22 rifle that she had procured for her a few days prior for the Colt M4. Though Raven had balked at the time, Brook had a feeling that the Ruger would be more to her liking after being exposed to the substantial kick of the M4.
Raven regarded the rifle for a second, then, displaying what she had already learned about the workings of the 10/22, removed the magazine, inspected it closely, and then seated it into the well in front of the trigger guard. She pulled the handle located on the right side of the rifle to chamber a round and double checked, making sure the safety was on.
Good girl, Brook thought.
Finally, Raven looked coyly over her shoulder at Mom and flashed a lopsided grin as if to say, ‘See, I got this.’
Fantastic, thought Brook, noting that her daughter had practiced safe firearm handling by keeping the barrel pointed down range as she went through the motions.
“See if you can hit that one with your rifle.”
Raven said nothing and shouldered the Ruger. At only four and a half pounds, the polymer-stocked varmint rifle was still not a feather in her grip. Then, without further prompting, Raven squeezed off ten rounds—about one a second—until the gun went silent.
The fallen cadaver had twitched slightly after each good hit.
Six out of ten, Brook thought to herself. Certainly room for improvement, but the major hurdle had been cleared—Raven had stepped to the plate and swung for the fence. So far so good. But as hard as it was for Brook to contemplate, the nagging question remained—if push came to shove, when any one of their lives were in jeopardy—would Raven be able to use the weapon against a hostile human being? It was a question Brook didn’t want to have answered. Her heart fluttered and she felt her throat go dry, tightening like an invisible ligature had been placed around her neck. Hot tears welled in the corners of her eyes. Hell, this wasn’t supposed to be happening, she told herself. School was supposed to start back up in a few weeks, and holding to their annual ritual they should be gracing the doors of Old Navy and the Gap right about now—not blowing away walking corpses in the high desert of Colorado. She fought off an overwhelming tide of nausea and swiped away fully developed tears.
“OK, good shooting,” she said, but in her own head the words sounded hollow and distant. “Now reload and see if you can hit the two smaller ones in the distance.”
“The kids?” Raven asked.
“The two smaller walkers,” Brook said. Can’t sneak one past you, is what she didn’t.
Though the undead pair shuffling towards the fence were still roughly thirty feet away, to the human eye the damage they had suffered prior to reanimating was clearly evident. Both had wounds to the forearms and hands—defensive in nature—indicating they’d fought off attackers. Both had bites around the face and neck telling that those efforts had failed them.
Brook brought her rifle to bear, not to put the kids out of their misery—she would leave that up to Raven if she could get past the fact that they had once been kids around her age. Brook merely wanted to examine them, up close, one at a time, using the 3x scope. Her crosshairs found the boy first, displaying the ghastly wounds in vibrant detail. Nearly every scrap of flesh was missing from the left side of its neck between the partially exposed clavicle on up to its constantly snapping jaw. On the opposite side of the Z’s face, the skin and subcutaneous tissue had either been chewed off or rent from its skull by brute force. Brook swallowed hard, and felt her finger willingly moving towards the trigger.
“Mom... why don’t you just call them what they were before they got bit,” Raven said impassively. She paused to insert a full ten-round magazine into the Ruger. “Those were kids... a boy and a girl,” she added. Then, without hesitation, she lined up the iron sights, fore and aft, drawing a bead dead center on the male creature’s stark white forehead.
Pow! A single shot from the M4 rang out, causing Raven to jump and lose the lined up shot. A millisecond later, she witnessed the left half of the boy’s face dissolve in a gale of putrid flesh and ivory bone flecks. Then, after regaining her composure, the pig-tailed girl shot her mom a sidelong look, sighted on the other Z, and sent a single .22 long rifle round into its cranium where it bounced around, carving furrows through the impulse-sending gray matter. Instantly, like someone had cut its legs, the rotting shell of a young girl that was once someone’s daughter collapsed face first onto the sunbaked earth.
Brook grimaced. Her eyebrows hitched up an inch. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, she mused. She turned her back on the twice dead trio then sank to the plywood floor.
Raven engaged the safety and propped her rifle in the corner, then joined her mom on the floor where they sat shoulder to shoulder, lost in their own thoughts. Meanwhile, behind them, out of sight but light years from being out of mind, what may have been three-fourths of a complete family festered in the sun.
Though Brook had planned to lead up to her bombshell admission with a heart-to-heart talk full of hope and encouraging verbiage, instead, she kept it simple by sticking only to the facts. “I lost the baby.”
There was silence, except for the
wind passing through their perch.
“I knew,” Raven replied softly.
“Oh honey... I’m so sorry,” Brook said, the tears returning. Only this time around she made no attempt to stem the flow. “I should have told you. But with all of the bad stuff happening and your Dad gone again, I kept it from you—”
“I understand Mom... I’m twelve... not six. I’m not mad at you but I’m still a little sad. I wanted someone to teach things to. To take care of.”
“Someday,” Brook said. Though in her heart she had a feeling that in her mid-thirties the window for a safe pregnancy was on its way down, and if her family’s genetics had any say in the matter it would probably slam shut sooner, rather than later.
Raven put a finger vertical to her lips and shushed her mom—usually a cardinal offense in the Grayson household. But these were different times and called for different rules. Brook had learned to choose her battles differently—and most of those as of late had not been with the living—let alone Raven.
“Mom... is that what I think it is? Do you hear it?”
Brook shushed back, then turned her head towards the direction the high pitched yapping seemed to be coming from.
Like a prairie dog, Raven popped up and scanned the horizon. “It’s a dog!” she squealed.
A medium-sized mutt sat on its haunches, equidistant from the three unmoving Zs. Its coloring could easily be described as calico—reddish brown and black spots peppered its predominantly white coat.
Warily Brook forced herself to stand, to see what type of canine had gotten her daughter so riled up. She shouldered the M4 to scrutinize the animal through the scope. “Looks like some kind of shepherd,” she finally declared. “I’m guessing it’s an Australian Shepherd.”
A blur descending the thirteen-foot ladder, hands and feet blazing over two-by-four rungs, Raven was on the ground in less than three seconds flat. She rushed headlong to the fence and stood on her tip toes, fingers poking through the openings, head craning. “Can we keep it?” she called out. Then to further complicate things, she added. “I think he probably belonged to those three out there. So... it’s sort of our duty to take him in. Right?”
Who am I to say no? Brook thought. She cleared her throat. Not because of the dry air but because she needed a minute to think. “What does duty mean to you?”
Looking back at her mom, Raven answered slowly. “It means I’m supposed to help... no matter what. You’re talking about taking care of him... right?”
“Maybe,” Brook replied.
“Duty also means it’s the right thing to do.” Raven knew the hook was set. Still, she tried to hide the sly smile.
Sounds like something Cade would say, Brook thought to herself.
“Please Mom. Can we keep it?”
“If it’s infected, no way. But I’m pretty sure only humans are affected by the Omega virus,” Brook said, casting a sidelong glance at her daughter. “And come to think of it I haven’t seen a cat or a dog since before the outbreak.” She turned her gaze on the dog, and then considered the ramifications of traveling with the animal. On one hand if it was a yappy thing they could find a muzzle, or heaven forbid and PETA be damned they could forage around and find one of those shock collars. The sort that some pasty faced necktie peddled on late night infomercials. On the other hand, the dog might earn its keep, she reasoned. It seemed intelligent—most shepherds were. And though she didn’t realize it now, she was insentiently rationalizing keeping the thing for her own personal reasons. What if Cade decided to renege on his promise and insisted they stay at Schriever? She doubted it. Something monumental would have had to have happened to make Cade Grayson go back on a Scout’s Honor after he had already proclaimed it. After all, he had been an Eagle Scout long before Army Ranger School, the Special Forces, and Delta. Besides, she told herself, shepherds have worked and lived alongside humans for tens of thousands of years, so he won’t be any sort of a hassle. “Yes, you can keep it,” she said, instantly regretting the five little words.
Clapping her hands rapidly, Raven did a little happy dance, spun a few circles then froze completely and slowly panned hear head up, taking in the enormity of the twelve-foot high double fence.
“Mom?”
“Yes honey,” she answered.
“How do we get to him?”
“Don’t look now, but I think he has it all figured out,” Brook added, a broad smile creasing her face.
A fountain of red soil spewing between its hind legs, the industrious canine furiously tilled the hard-packed ground, front paws clawing a mile a minute.
After a quarter of an hour had passed, the dog had tunneled under both rings of fencing. The dirt-covered stray sidled up to Raven first and then sniffed at her hands and legs.
At least he’s not a crotch hound, Brook thought. Then with a free and easy gait, the pooch approached her, padded twice around the pair, and then leaped into the back of the golf cart.
Brook made a face. “I guess he’s keeping us,” she said. Mission accomplished, she thought. The mother-daughter talk she had so dreaded wasn’t as big a mountain as she had built it up to be. Raven had taken the official news about her not becoming a big sister better than she could have imagined. The thing that kind of gnawed at Brook, though, was her daughter’s complete one-eighty—the girl had tolerated the shooting better than the last time, and for lack of a better word she had seemed to have enjoyed their outing.
Mom and daughter piled into the Cushman cart.
“What are we going to name him?” Brook asked as the propane-powered engine chugged to life.
“How can you be sure it’s a boy dog?” Raven fired back.
“So you think I don’t know my stuff?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what you’re telling me is that it is time for the birds and bees... boys and girls talk?”
“Forget I asked,” Raven said.
“Check his collar,” Brook countered.
“It’s OK boy. I just want to see if there is a tag here.” She parted the matted fur and grasped the steel disc hanging from the worn leather collar. “You were right, Mom. It says right here... his name is Max.”
At the sound of his name, as if confirming what he already knew, the dog let out a short yelp and licked Raven’s hand.
Chapter 13
Outbreak - Day 15
Schriever AFB
Wilson would never forget the look that had frozen on his sister’s face when he and Taryn abruptly left her all alone in the mess hall. Suddenly at a loss for words, the fourteen-year-old’s jaw hinged open, her freckled nose crinkled up, and her eyes narrowed under a hard set brow. Framed by her scarlet mane of curls, her features seemed to be having a meeting in the middle of her face. It was as if the words Taryn had just hurled at her held some kind of weight—a motherly, listen to me or else type of weight. It was the look of utter disbelief when the mind fails to process new information fast enough to come up with an appropriate response. He had seen that look on her face only one other time during the last two weeks—the day a disheveled looking CNN news anchor, wearing a similar expression on his face, finally confirmed that the dead were walking the streets. Wilson wished his words had the same effect on Sasha, but ever since Z day when their mom had gone missing during a forced stopover in Washington D.C., things hadn’t been the same between them. Lost was the position of authority vested in him and fully backed by his mom. Sasha’s respect for him also seemed to have mostly disappeared somewhere between Denver and Colorado Springs less than a week ago.
***
After leaving the mess hall, Taryn and Wilson stayed to the white concrete footpaths which crisscrossed the base. As they strolled side by side, only a few short inches separating them, Wilson tried not to obsess over how warm and silky her suntanned skin had felt pressed firmly against his thigh. That she had purposely taken the initiative further confused the twenty-year-old, setting off a chain reaction of feelings and emotions that
up until then had been suppressed and completely numbed by the reality of surviving these last two horror-filled weeks.
Ignoring the real reason behind her decision to ask Wilson to go for a walk, Taryn instead brought up everything but her nine days in Hell on Earth. “So, Red... what’s your favorite sports team?”
Wow, he thought to himself. This girl is getting cooler with each passing minute. “Colorado Rockies, of course,” he replied. “Todd Helton hasn’t failed me yet. How about you?”
“Don’t like organized sports. I hated playing them... couldn’t take to being yelled at by someone else’s failure of a father. And millionaire men fighting and carrying on like spoiled brats in front of thousands of people. That’s just wrong on so many levels.”
“Baseball’s not so bad—”
“Lie to yourself, not to me, Red. No way... never seen a dugout-clearing brawl... ever.”
Touché, he thought. Then, struggling to find some more common ground, he tried a different approach. “So what was your favorite television show? Or let me guess... TV too bourgeois for you?”
“Bourg— what?”
“It means conformist. Look at your piercings... your tattoos. You don’t have a bourgeois bone in your body.”
“What’s that got to do with TV?” Taryn asked.
“Just trying to figure you out... that’s all.”
“OK. I’ll play along.” She looked over her left shoulder—paused theatrically—then did the same on the other side. “L.A. Ink,” she whispered.
“Wow.” He thrust his arms skyward like he’d just finished a marathon. He spun a tight circle, boots scuffing the path. “She likes reality television no less,” he called out to no one in particular. “What... did you like L.A. Ink cause of Kat Von what’s her name?” Come to think of it, Wilson thought to himself, Taryn does share an uncanny resemblance to the show’s brunette star. But, in his obviously biased opinion, Taryn was much younger, prettier, and had way better tats than the dead and gone, long-locked reality star.
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