* * *
From coast to coast, winter had taken its toll on the foamers. Most of the creatures that lived in a cold region and did not belong to a pack were unable to survive. The largest packs were situated in areas of high population density before the fall of society. Almost all of the cold-zone packs had survived by seeking shelter, either natural or man-made. However, when they were caught in snowstorms, the foamers would survive by pressing the entire pack into one single body.
Due to the abundance of vacant buildings, shelter wasn’t the greatest hardship they’d had to endure. Most animals carry an evolutionary instinct to avoid the scent of humans. Though foamers weren’t fully human, they still carried the same scent. Because of this, in the beginning, hunting had been a difficult procedure for even the strongest of packs, causing most to cannibalize their weaker mates to survive.
Winter eventually gave way to spring, and as time passed the foamers grew better equipped for the cold and the hunt. Some packs mastered communication among the ranks faster than others, and once the foamers could coordinate their hunting strategies, their survival rate increased drastically.
Alpha’s pack had suffered its share of losses through the cold months, but overall his pack had swelled in numbers. There were now twenty-three foamers total in his pack. During Kade’s research he would name the foamers, but amongst themselves they seemed to recognize each other by sight. A short stocky foamer that Kade called Beta had survived the winter as Alpha’s number two, along with Pepper, who was named for the bird shot stuck in her cheek.
Because of the size of his pack, Alpha had come to not fear outside foamers, but he was wary of any foamer under his command. He had been challenged for leadership on more than one occasion but had never come close to losing his hold on the troop.
Alpha had taken to sleeping under the short deck of a vacant house. Pepper always joined him in the dark space that gave him an advantage over any would-be challenger. So far no foamer had succeeded in getting more than a few strides under the deck before Alpha awakened. At that point, it wasn’t even fair. Alpha would have perfect night vision while his attacker was unable to see more than a few inches into the darkness.
Soundly asleep in his nest under the deck, Alpha was dreaming about something that didn’t make any sense to him. He was sitting not on the ground, but on a raised device he had seen in some of the shelters they had slept in. His legs were bent at the knee over the device, while his back was flat against it. Over his legs was a flat top that had food on it, but it was strangely colored and wasn’t bloody. Instead of digging in with his claws, he held two shiny things in his hands. In fact, he didn’t even have claws and was hardly even hairy. Plus, he was covered in the colored things that he remembered from before winter, the things that had made it harder to relieve himself.
The strangest part was that he wasn’t alone. There were two females, one large and one small. The small one had gray eyes and often spread her lips wide at Alpha, but she had no red foam around her mouth. Neither did the large one. Sounds came from their mouths, but there was none of the guttural emissions he understood. It was just noise.
Under the deck, without his knowledge, his hands worked an invisible fork and knife while he slept soundly, curled on his side. Pepper nudged his face. He awoke to a mass of red hair, and she nodded toward the one open end of the deck.
Alpha rose on all fours and stared at his attacker, who didn’t realize the sleeping beast had awakened. Charging the opponent, Alpha came under his arms, pinning them in his grasp as he wrapped the creature up around the waist. Their momentum pushed them out from under the deck, but not before his opponent’s head thudded loudly off the wood.
When they landed in the morning light, his opponent was stunned beneath him. Red foam gurgled out of Alpha’s mouth as he sank his teeth into the foamer’s exposed neck. He bit down hard, feeling his enemy’s blood flow into his mouth. With his teeth deep inside the usurper’s neck, Alpha thrashed his head from side to side, ripping apart the side of his opponent’s throat. As the life drained from his foolish attacker, Alpha kept his lips suctioned securely to the wound. He swallowed a large mouthful of blood before separating to allow Pepper to drink her fill.
Alpha’s eyes scanned the area for other threats, then reared back, beating his chest as he howled. With the exhilaration of the kill rushing through his body, he forgot everything that had to do with his dream.
Chapter III
The Rescue Party for the Rescue Mission
X’s room had changed from just a simple dorm layout to a fully customized living area. A dartboard, perforated by throwing stars, had been attached to the wall. The dresser was filled with blue jeans, black socks, V-neck undershirts, and boxer briefs. His closet was packed with a wide variety of winter gear, and he had mounted a pull-up bar across the doorframe. What stood out as unusual was the mannequin he called Manny. Manny had once been in an upscale secondhand store, but the torso mounted on a metal stand was now home for his duster, cowboy hat, and weapons belt.
X was undressing Manny when Ashton came into the room. Her face was scrunched, meaning she was pissed, but since she wasn’t already yelling, it wasn’t at him—at least not when she came in. When he put his duster on, she went off.
“Oh, hell no. You aren’t going after Jem and Mick. You don’t even like them.”
Crossing the room, X took her in his arms and kissed her. His eyes shot open as she bit down on his tongue.
“Et oh,” X attempted.
She released his tongue and stood with her hands on his hips. “That shit might work for Tiny and Kade, but you can’t shut me up by kissing me. There’s no reason for you to go. I don’t bitch when you disappear for a week on your grocery runs. I get it. Playing house isn’t something you are engineered for, but I won’t stand by while you risk your life in a situation that has already been handled, and that you aren’t equipped for.”
Not equipped for. Not equipped for. Did she forget when he fought off half a dozen foamers by himself to save her life? Or when he led all of Alpha’s troop on a goose chase so she could escape? Or the time he got the draw on the Wilson brothers and ended the Mexican standoff? Or the time he broke into jail to free Mick?
Ashton moved closer and put her hand on his chest. “Look, I love you. I understand when you need to get away for a few days. But please, there’s no reason for you to go along.”
“This gives me a chance to earn back a white hat.” X let his eyes wander over her freckled face, then he walked past her.
She kept after him, but he tuned her out as he made his way to the third-floor exit. The ladder was already hanging out the window. Without pausing, he descended the rungs. His shoes sank into the soft ground, and Ashton landed behind him. He went toward the road where Tiny and Kade waited.
Ashton grabbed two handfuls of his duster and reined him around to face her. “Fine. Don’t listen to me. Don’t stay for me. Go. But even if you earned that black hat at some point in your life, you’ve been nothing but a white hat in the Primal Age. And if you expect me to just be the good girlfriend watching the horizon for your return, you better think again.”
She took him by the back of the neck and pulled him in for a long kiss, then shoved him away with such force he almost lost his footing before she stormed off toward Lambian. X felt like someone had tightened a noose around his heart and dropped the gallows door. She climbed the ladder while he suffocated in his panic. The reality that she might not wait paralyzed him. He didn’t think there was anyone else in the group she would leave him for, but if he lost her, he had no reason to come back at all. She had long disappeared through the window when he made up his mind to go after her.
“X,” Kade called.
X swung his attention toward the road and heard engines in the distance. One perk of the end of the world was that any human noises were easy to distinguish among the ambient sounds of nature.
He migrated back toward the other two while trying to
convince himself that Ashton was her normal explosive self and wasn’t being serious. She had been mad at him plenty since Kade had assigned her to X’s car in the convoy when they’d first decided to come to Lambian. Yet a sliver of doubt was taking hold.
Kade and Tiny had donned their combat gear and were decked out in weapons and hiking packs. A Humvee came into view on the other side of the bridge. Though Kade’s group had left the bridge unblocked, the vehicle still had to swerve through the obstacle course of cars.
X touched his palm to the handle of his pistol, grounding himself in the moment and blocking out his emotions. The Tribe’s vehicle crossed the bridge and came to a stop in front of Lambian. X hadn’t noticed at a distance, but the Humvee was in fact a Hummer, the civilian model. He wondered if they had captured enough of their military vehicles to put a dent in their arsenal, or if Henson just didn’t want to risk another combat vehicle.
The passenger door opened, and all X could see was a pair of dress shoes. As the man they belonged to came around the door, X was surprised not only by his fancy attire but by his looks. The man was dressed in a vest, tie, and suit coat—Old World attire. Based on his gray hair, X put him in his midfifties. The affluence he exuded should have appeared weak in the Primal Age, but the man oozed power.
The back doors opened. X was still concerned this was a trap and kept his guard. However, he relaxed when a woman who looked like she had done her time in the Primal Age filed out. From the other side of the vehicle, Victoria emerged, looking anything but happy at the homecoming.
The driver’s window descended, revealing a man in an army uniform wearing lizard-eye hologram sunglasses.
“Zack?” Tiny said, rushing to the door and bouncing with a giddiness X had never seen from her before.
“That can’t be you, Doc,” Zack replied, lowering his glasses down his nose.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
Kade cleared his throat. “I’ll take the newcomers in and round up Drew, if you want to brief the Tribesmen on the situation.”
Tiny waved a dismissive hand at Kade. “Got it.”
Kade introduced himself to the people who’d come from the Tribe and led them toward the dorm. X stayed with the vehicle since he doubted Ashton wanted to see him. He watched Kade ascend the ladder and take one look toward the Hummer before he climbed through the window.
* * *
Mick paced in his cage, which was more like spinning in circles because he didn’t even have enough room to lie down. There was a double row of cages that had twelve different cells, but only two others were occupied. He had been to DC a few times as a kid, but he had never been in the Smithsonian Castle before. The building had been the information hub for all the Smithsonian buildings, but due to its fortress-like nature, it was now a prison.
There was a tiny woman with short-cropped black hair framing her face doing pull-ups from the top bar of her cage. The other cage was occupied by a man who looked like a skeleton wrapped in skin with overgrown curly hair and a beard. The man appeared quite sickly, and Mick could smell the death emanating from the cage. Both the man and the woman wore plain one-piece jumpsuits that looked like they used to belong to custodial staff. Neither appeared interested in talking, and Mick didn’t plan to start the conversation, so he paced. His best guess was that Jem had been gone four hours. He had no way of knowing for sure. It might have just been a half hour that felt like forever, but he doubted this was the case because of the pressure building in his bladder.
Once he started thinking about his bladder he couldn’t stop, which only made the time drag on more. He looked for a bucket, or a guard he could ask to let him out.
The woman dropped from the bars and stretched her arms. Mick was tapping his foot and growing desperate for a solution.
“Excuse me,” Mick said.
“I don’t talk to cops. Did they think putting a different uniform on would get me to spill something?” the woman said, grabbing the bars they shared. He could feel her sizing him up as she swayed from side to side. Against her fragile features, her different-colored eyes stood out even in the low light. One was a bright green, while the other was a dark brown.
“I just wanted to know bathroom protocol,” Mick said, squeezing his legs together.
“Get as far away from my cage as you can, and do your best to get it outside of your bars. They only clean our cells while we’re with Cunningham.”
Mick gave her a polite nod, then darted to the side of his cell, where he abutted no others and relieved his bladder. He turned back around to find the woman still staring at him.
“Who’s Cunningham?” Mick asked, trying to break free of her trance-like stare.
She shook her head, sending her black hair swooshing side to side. “You aren’t one of them, are you?”
“I’m not sure who them is,” Mick replied.
“I’m Yuzuki, that guy is Anquan, and you’ll know Cunningham,” she said, and turned her back to Mick.
A set of doors opened at the top of the short set of stairs leading down to their cells. A soldier entered the room, dragging a barely conscious Jem by a jumpsuit that matched the other two prisoners’ attire. His body bounced down the steps until the soldier reached the cages and tossed Jem into the one beside Mick. He sealed it with a keyed Master Lock, then left the room without a word.
Mick dropped beside Jem and tried to get some sort of response from him. What parts of Jem he could see had all been bloodied and damaged, and some wounds had even been stitched.
“He knows Cunningham,” Yuzuki said flatly.
* * *
Kade climbed through the window after the other three. Fenris and Rex were the first to greet the newcomers with sniffs and licks. In the entrance room, John was waiting for them with Drew and Number Five. Number Five took her name from being the fifth test subject during the Feline Flu vaccination trials. She had been the only one from Damian’s test group to survive. In an effort to not get close to her, Damian had continued to call her Number Five. The name stuck once Damian and Number Five joined up with the group.
Kade hadn’t expected to see Number Five when he came through the window since she was rarely outside the science building, but she had a pack on her back as though she were planning to come along with them.
“Five?” Kade asked.
“I’d like to be more useful. I’m not really such a good lab assistant, and Damian has enough blood samples to last him a lifetime without me. I escaped DC with the rest of them, so I can help get them out,” she replied.
“Lab assistant?” Victoria asked, looking at Kade.
Kade gave Victoria a nod, then said to Number Five, “Have you ever handled a weapon before?”
“Don’t worry about me in that department,” Number Five replied.
“All right. Drew, Five, head on down. I’ll meet you in a few,” Kade said.
Drew and Number Five climbed down the ladder. As Number Five’s chestnut hair disappeared beneath the window frame, Kade realized just how little he knew about her.
“Sorry about that, folks. This is John. He’s going to be showing you around and getting you guys situated. John, this is Emma, Wright, and an old friend of ours, Victoria. Take care of them until I get back,” Kade said.
Kade tried to size up the newcomers. Wright had a power and charisma to his presence that reminded Kade of his own father, who had been a businessman. The doctor carried himself like he was negotiating a business contract and gave no hint of the person behind the façade. Emma was the exact opposite. She was frail and had a nervous twitch about her, like a trapped animal. Even her voice sounded shaky.
“You guys can come with me. I’ll show you to your rooms and give you the tour,” John said, heading out. Wright and Emma followed him, but Victoria remained.
“Can we talk?” Victoria asked.
“How about after the—” Kade had a sense of déjà vu and changed his mind. “Sure.”
She took off her librarian
glasses and secured them in the top buttonhole of her shirt. “Thanks. I thought you should have a heads-up on what you’ve accepted.”
Kade could not stop looking at her face. Images of her at Thanksgiving dinners and family gatherings clashed viciously with her in a ballistic mask, calling for his death. Now here she was, claiming to be forewarning him of some other danger.
“You mean, besides you?”
Victoria ignored his volley. “Emma is a British exchange student. She tried on several occasions to rally a group into Canada to see if she could find out some information. After the third time she was locked up because it cost the lives of four Tribesmen. At some point she’s going to try to go.”
“I don’t see why she shouldn’t be allowed to go,” Kade said.
“The issue isn’t if she goes—it’s what she takes with her. Now, Dr. Wright, I don’t like.”
“I’m guessing he’s not so bad then.”
Victoria shook her head. “He’s different. Goes on like the Old World is still a thing. I can’t tell if he’s detached or not, but he was dumb enough to try to get support to take over the Tribe. Besides, he’s a shrink—I know how much you love those.”
After he had been tested for Huntington’s, Kade had been forced to see more shrinks than he knew existed. It had become his least favorite profession, and he had made two of them cry. Once that happened, Kade’s father had decided to let him be.
“We’re a lot farther from Canada than the Tribe, and I never asked to lead this group, so if Dr. Wright wants to challenge me for it he’s welcome to,” Kade said, then added, “Thanks for the heads-up.”
Victoria smiled at him and pulled her glasses out of her shirt. “Damian is here?”
“He is.”
“Does he know what I did?” she asked. Her eyes glossed over for just a moment, before her composure returned.
“He does.”
Victoria put a hand on his chest. “By the way, I’m not happy to see you either, but I’m glad you’re alive.”
Strays Page 5