Surviving the Dead 03: Warrior Within

by James N. Cook

  So.

  What to do.

  I began to ease my weight backward, preparing to shift my feet and reach for the door. My boot made a noise on the ground, and the tiger lifted his head to look at me. I froze.

  Bright golden eyes regarded me for a few heart-stopping moments. He licked blood from his chops, lazily and slow, making loud smacking noises. There was a languidness to his movements, a confident ease. His posture was relaxed, and his expression seemed … placid. Calm. Like there wasn’t a thing in the world for him to worry about. There was no distrust, or warning, or hostility in that alien gaze. He was just looking at me like he would look at a tree, or a rock, or some other inconsequential thing. His muscles did not tense, and I sensed no imminent attack coming from him.

  “Hi there,” I said.

  The tiger tilted his head to the side, an oddly doglike gesture. I kept still, not wanting to startle him.

  “You’re a big one, aren’t you? Must be why you’re so hungry.”

  The tiger gazed a few seconds longer, then lowered his face and went back to eating. My pulse began to slow down, the coldness that gripped me receded, and I loosened my grip on the rifle. The frantic, panicked voice urging me to flee went silent, and the locked synapses in my brain began to fire again, allowing me to think.

  What the hell was an animal native to Southern Asia doing in Western Tennessee? He must have escaped from a zoo, or maybe he was once some wealthy eccentric’s pet.

  I remembered a newscast I saw during the Outbreak in which police had gone into a zoo to stop the zookeepers from letting the animals out. It had become clear that the walking dead were too much for the military, and the people responsible for the animals wanted to give them a fighting chance. It started with one zoo, and soon spread to hundreds of others. Maybe this guy’s presence was the result.

  When I thought about it, it made sense. It would explain why this tiger had followed me, and why he didn’t seem to think I was a danger to him. If he was a zoo animal, then he would be accustomed to the presence of humans. Maybe he’d even been born in a zoo and raised by people, fed his meals by them. Could be that’s what he thought this was, me dragging out the buck. Feeding time.

  I took a few tentative steps forward, making sure the tiger could hear me, and keeping my rifle at the ready. The big cat ignored me.

  A few more steps. He kept eating.

  My feet seemed to take on a mind of their own, and I got closer, and closer, until I was just a few inches outside of arms reach. I leaned over, muttering nonsense words to avoid startling him, and reached out a hand toward his rear flank, my pulse quickening, amazed at my own audacity.

  The tiger’s fur was thick, and surprisingly soft. He stopped eating for just a moment to look back at me, licked his face a few times, and then went back to his meal. I ran a hand along his back and felt the iron-hard muscles beneath his thick skin. The vitality within him was electric, a high-voltage, humming radiance that made my breathing shallow and caused a sweat to break out on my forehead.

  The voice in the back of my head started sending out warnings, but I ignored it. Beneath my hand was one of the most highly evolved killing machines that nature had ever created, and I was scratching his back like he was a house kitty.

  A few minutes went by, me moving my hand along his flank while he munched on dead deer, until finally he swung his tail and swatted me on the leg. I looked over to see him watching me. He made a chuffing noise and shifted his backside into my hip. It was just a slight motion for him, but it nearly knocked me on my ass. The message was clear.

  Stop bothering me.

  I’m eating.

  *****

  I watched the tiger finish his meal from the window above the furniture store. He ate a hell of a lot of meat. Must have been ravenous.

  As I watched, I sat in the leather chair and pondered the conundrum I had on my hands. I no longer wanted to kill the creature—not after getting up close and petting him—but I didn’t want him following me around either. He wasn’t interested in killing me right now, which was good, but he was still a wild animal. I did not want to spend my last seconds screaming in the jaws of yon massive beast.

  So what was I going to do about it?

  I took a piece of jerky from my pack and chewed on it, thinking. The tiger stopped gnawing away at the deer, wandered over to a patch of sunshine between the shadows of two buildings, and stretched out on the concrete. He spent a few minutes preening before he laid his massive head down and heaved a deep, satisfied sigh. He napped for a while, then got up and wandered off. Probably thirsty, going out in search of water.

  That made me thirsty, so I took a sip from my canteen, and turned my mind to the business of reasoning this problem out.

  There was no way I could shake the tiger from my trail without resorting to violence. I did not want to do that, so the only option I had left was to just accept the situation. He could follow me if he wanted to and, if he attacked, I would defend myself. But I wasn’t going to kill him for no reason.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around and searching through the few buildings that didn’t look like they were about to collapse. I found some interesting things, but nothing that I could carry with me. If I survived the destruction of the Legion, assuming of course that it actually happened and I wasn’t just throwing my life away, I would definitely be coming back to this place.

  There were things here that the Legion might not have had much use for—furniture, nice clothes, jewelry, art, scrap metal, dishes, cookware, etc.—but I knew plenty of other people who did. This place was worth a fortune in salvage, even without the weapons cache.

  As the sun was disappearing again, I sat on a bench in front of what had once been a police station and thought about what the future might hold for me. Was this to be my next career, places like this? Was this what I would do for a living when I got to Colorado, run a salvage operation? I could just imagine it, written on a big hand-painted sign over a chain-link fence—Eric Riordan: Junkman.

  The theme to “Sanford and Son” played through my head, and I laughed until my ribs hurt. Until I almost fell off the bench. Maybe Gabe could go into business with me, and I could exclusively refer to him as You Big Dummy.

  I laughed harder.

  A crow seated on an awning across from me tilted his head quizzically, decided that being close to an armed man with a few screws loose was not conducive to a long life, and flew away.

  *****

  Scar and his pack showed up at some point during the night.

  I awoke to the sound of them growling and ripping into what was left of the deer carcass. It was cold, so I didn’t bother getting up to go to the window. Even if I had, I doubted I would have been able to see them; it was too dark outside.

  From where I lay, I could see the silver light of the moon obscured through a thick bank of clouds that must have rolled in at some point during the night. The space between the furniture store and the building across the street was pitch black. The kind of darkness where you can’t see your hand in front of your face.

  I lay still, moderately warm in my layers of clothes and blankets and the sleeping bag. I listened to dogs grunt, and tear, and eat. It was strangely comforting.

  I went back to sleep.

  *****

  It was time to move out.

  I had woken up with the dawn, and outside the wind had picked up. It howled over the tops of buildings, blew detritus around on the street, and whistled an eerie refrain through broken windows. It was going to be a cold, blistering day, but there was nothing for it. I had already lost enough time. I had to get moving.

  I packed my gear, checked my weapons, and climbed down from the loft for the last time. I left the grill behind, as well as the crossbow. It would have been nice to bring them with me, but when the Legion eventually captured me I didn’t want them to know that I had found their cache. That probably wouldn’t go over too well.

  The tiger was back. H
e sniffed at the remaining scraps of deer meat left on cracked bones and walked away. He sat down on the sidewalk with a disappointed sigh.

  “Didn’t leave you much did they, big fella?”

  He looked at me blankly, then went back to staring at the remains. Giving him a wide berth—he was hungry, after all—I ducked between two buildings and headed due south. I had gone maybe a hundred yards from town, and just entered the edge of the surrounding woodland, when gunshots rang out behind me.

  I stopped and whipped around, rifle at the ready. More gunshots sounded, and with the gunshots, came a scream.

  The tiger. Had to be. Nothing else could have made a sound like that. It wasn’t quite a roar, or a growl, but higher in pitch, keening and agonized. Almost like the moans of the infected, but a hundred times more powerful. It tore at me, raking around the inside of my skull and stabbing into my ears. I had to resist the urge to clap my hands to the sides of my head to block it out.

  More gunshots. Lots of them, from automatic weapons, and with a distinctive sound. There is only one rifle in the world that sounds like that.

  AK-47.

  And there was shouting. A lot of shouting. At least three voices, maybe more. I ducked behind a tree, dropped my pack and the Ruger, and waited.

  A few more shots. Semi-automatic, more focused, directed. The screaming stopped, and I went cold. The startled panic in me subsided, washed over by the icy current spreading outward from my chest. Before I knew what I was doing, I was moving.

  AK-47s meant the Legion. The fact that they started shooting so soon after I left meant that we had missed crossing paths by a narrow margin. They must have approached from the highway, or from the other side of town. If I had hung around just a minute or two longer, they might have seen me and gotten the drop on me. But they didn’t, which meant that for the moment, I had the advantage. An advantage that would last until they discovered their ransacked weapons cache, and the still-warm grill that I had cooked my breakfast on. Then they would know that I had been there, and would start searching for me.

  I couldn’t let them capture me, not here. They would find Grayson Morrow’s map that I was still carrying, and they would put two and two together. I wouldn’t live long enough to regret it.

  I unbuckled the belt on my web gear, took off everything but the CZ and the spare ammo, put the belt back on, and moved westward. My shoulder hit a wall two blocks down and a couple of blocks over from where the gunshots had come from. From what I could tell, all the shots had sounded from the same place. It started with one rifle, then others had joined in. Probably one or two guys spotted the tiger, panicked, fired upon it, and alerted the others who added their guns to the fray.

  Sons of bitches.

  I pied on the corner, saw nothing, and moved up. There was a narrow street connecting the buildings around me with the buildings going through the central part of town. I looked one way. Nobody. I looked the other way. Nothing. I darted across the street and took cover behind a large green dumpster, eased around it, and worked my way forward until I reached the corner. I looked east, away from the sound of the gunshots. No one there.

  Again, I pied my way out, moving in tight little increments, exposing as little of my head and shoulders as possible, keeping my gun trained in the same direction as my eyes. There, at the intersection in front of the furniture store, standing over the twitching, convulsing body of the tiger.

  Five of them.

  Five dead men.

  I slipped back, went to the end of the building, and used the side street to get close. First one block, then another. I leaned into a corner and listened. I could just make out what they were saying.

  “… scared the shit out of me.” A nervous laugh. “Big motherfucker, never seen anything like it.”

  A different voice. “Think that’s why we found them goats the way we did? Maybe this thing did it?”

  A third voice. “Could be. Didn’t look like nothin’ no dog could do.”

  “It don’t fucking matter.” Fourth voice. Older, deep, rough. “We’re here for ammo. Mark, go get the pull-cart out of the post office. Dave, take Aaron and start staging the crates in the restaurant. Don’t forget about them goddamn booby traps, I don’t want to be scraping your asses up with a squeegee. Me and Red are gonna go up on lookout. Keep your eyes open, and watch out for the dead. They might’a wandered in while we was away. Go on, get movin’.”

  This guy had the voice of authority. Like someone who was used to giving orders and having them followed. He would die last. He had things to tell me. But I had to move quickly. As soon as they stepped around the corner, they would see the infected I had killed. Fresh corpses among the bones of the long dead would put them on alert. I couldn’t let that happen.

  While they were talking, I eased my way out. I could see four of them, including the leader, all standing in a cluster around the dead tiger. Stepping out, I crouched down on one knee, steadied my aim, and let off the first shot.

  I didn’t have any optics, but I had spent plenty of time practicing with iron sights, and my aim was good. The shot took the first one in the side of the head and penetrated straight through. The man beside him was shorter, so the bullet missed him, but the side of his face went red from the splash of blood that erupted from his friend’s head. He had a half-second to register shock before my second and third shots hit him center of mass, right in the chest. He doubled over, choked out a scream, and took a few running steps away. I shifted my aim and nailed a third one with another two-round burst, one in the chest, and one through the throat. He coughed out a spray of blood and fell down.

  “Fuck!” The leader spotted me and raised his AK, but I was already moving.

  Unlike what you see in the movies, when an assault rifle as powerful as an AK-47 opens up on a brick wall, the bricks disintegrate. You don’t want to be standing behind them when that happens, especially at close range. I ran to the other side of the building, checked the corner, then turned it and sprinted toward the street.

  When I reached the edge, the leader had stopped firing and was shouting at his last man, pulling on his arm. The other man’s face was blank with shock. He stood still, his attention fixed on his choking, dying comrades.

  “Dammit, Red, come on!”

  Red was facing me while the leader stood to one side, out of my line of fire. I pictured a white line running from the base of Red’s throat, all the way down to his belt buckle. Centerline of the body—a bad place to get shot. Lots of vital organs and big arteries there, and behind them, the all-important spinal cord. Put enough rounds through the centerline, and they’re dead before they hit the ground. So sayeth Gabriel, world without end, amen.

  I stitched four rounds up Red’s middle, starting down just below his belt, and ending at the hollow of his throat. He didn’t even scream, just toppled over like a felled tree. The leader turned to me, and tried to lift his rifle again. I let out half a breath, shifted the front sight, and fired a single shot at his right arm. The bullet slammed into his deltoid, probably breaking the bones beneath, and he dropped the rifle.

  I stepped out of cover and approached. The leader was screaming, high pitched and pleading, like a child with his finger caught in a door.

  “Shut up!” I yelled at him.

  He fumbled for the pistol at his belt. I raised my rifle again.

  “Don’t.”

  He did anyway. I stopped, took aim, and put a bullet in his other shoulder. He cried out all over again, louder this time. How do you like it, you fuck?

  I shifted my aim downward and pulled the trigger again, this time putting a round in his leg. I kept my aim outside, making sure it didn’t hit the femoral artery. I didn’t want him to bleed out. Not yet.

  He fell, screaming nearly as loudly as the tiger had. I stood over him for a moment, staring down.

  “How many others?”

  His eyes were wide, bulging, panicked. Face pale, going into shock. “What?”

  “How. Many.
Others. Was it just you five?”

  “Fuck you.” He spat the words out at me, a flare of defiance in his eyes. I smiled at him, and whatever he saw there dimmed his fire.

  “I still have plenty of bullets, friend. You don’t want to know where the next one is going. Now, I’ll ask you one more time. How many others?”

  “What … who … who the hell are you?”

  I shook my head. “You’re not listening.” Slowly, I began moving the barrel up his leg, toward his torso. Smoke curled from the flash hider as it inched upward.

  “How many others? I won’t ask you again.”

  The barrel stopped just over his groin. If he could have jumped out of his skin, he would have. I’d already killed all of his men and shot him three times. There could be no doubt in his mind that I was more than willing to carry out the implied threat, but he wasn’t acknowledging it. Didn’t want to believe it. He was in denial. This couldn’t be happening. Just a minute ago, less than a minute ago, everything was fine. He was on a mission. He was in charge. He was in control. And now, he was lying on the ground, probably bleeding to death with a loaded M-4 pointed at his balls. Must have been a hell of a shock. The poor guy couldn’t get his head around it.

  “It’s just us,” he said, breathing rapidly. “There’s just the five of us.”

  “There were five of you.” I corrected. “What’s your name?”

  “What?”

  “Your name, asshole. What is it?”

  “Carson. Mitchell Carson.”