Angie burst into tears and laughter, holding her daughter closer than she ever had.
THIRTY-FOUR
January 13—West Chico
Skye was facedown, the weight above her savaging her back with broken nails. She couldn’t fight this way and refused to die in this position. Putting all her power under her, she pushed up and rolled. The Hobgoblin was thrown for an instant, but then it scrambled back onto her. It was heavier than Skye, but she was more fit, and strong. Unfortunately her energy was all but used up, and the creature seemed tireless.
Straddling her, it shrieked its wildcat noise in her face and came at her with ragged claws. Skye threw up an arm, only to have it wrenched away. The thing’s smooth, crimson face was twisted into a mask of insanity as it darted in with its head, teeth snapping.
With her other hand, Skye smashed it in the side of the head with the butt of the machete. It reared back for an instant, and she drove her other palm into its chin. It snapped, barely missing her fingers, then lunged back in for a bite. The creature began slashing with the broken nails of both curled hands, ripping at her clothing and body armor, catching flesh and digging red grooves. Its milky eyes were filled with an intelligent yet inhuman fury, and viscous black spittle sprayed past its clicking teeth.
It pinned Skye’s left hand to her chest, leaning in as she swung the machete blade. The last time she had done this was on a street outside an Oakland church, and the zombie had gushed vile liquid into her face, heralding the slow burn. What would this thing’s fluids do?
The blade bit into its shoulder instead, cutting to the bone. The Hobgoblin appeared not to feel it, but instead twisted its body sharply. The move tore the weapon from Skye’s hand and sent it clattering across the pavement. The Hobgoblin caught her other wrist and pinned it to the asphalt, both her hands immobilized now. Its jaws widened and it lunged. Skye grunted and slipped a knee up between its legs, raising it high and planting the knee hard against its chest.
The Hobgoblin’s teeth snapped but came up short. It couldn’t get close enough to bite with Skye’s knee between them, and it howled. Skye choked on the sour reek of the thing, the tainted air from gray, rotting lungs rising and seeping from its mouth. It squeezed her wrists at the same time and she screamed, waiting to hear the bones crack.
Then suddenly the Hobgoblin released her arms and clamped its cold, powerful hands to the sides of her head. Skye’s eyes widened as in an instant she remembered Mr. Sorkin’s decapitated head resting on the lab box outside the medical office, twisted off by this very creature. Skye screamed again, and the thing howled with her as the muscles in its arms bulged.
P-P-POP.
A three-round burst hit the Hobgoblin in a tight cluster just above the bridge of its nose. Its howling face disintegrated in a blast of bone and black ichor, the top of its skull sheared off. In that second the pressure against the sides of Skye’s head vanished. The body went limp and heavy atop her, and with a disgusted grunt she pitched it to the side.
Combat boots scooted across the pavement beside her, two pairs, and she rolled over again, coming up to her hands and knees. Two men, both in gray-green military uniforms, each with a shoulder patch depicting a coiled snake under an American flag, ran up almost on top of her. One, a young black man with a severe Mohawk, leveled the muzzle of an M4 at the dead Hobgoblin. The second man, older and with sergeant stripes pinned to his uniform blouse, advanced and with his own machete took what was left of the creature’s head off at the neck.
Skye blinked. “Thanks,” she muttered, noticing that the sergeant was a corpse, or at least looked like one at first glance. His skin was completely gray, mottled with irregular patches of white, and he was hairless, including his eyebrows. He looked at her for a moment with eyes that held no color other than the black pupils, a startling, reptilian stare. Then he turned without a word and jogged back up the street.
The black soldier’s name patch read MOORE. “Let’s go,” he said, turning to run after his sergeant. Skye stood slowly, collected her fallen pistol and machete, then trotted after them.
The neighborhood dead were closing on all the noise, and they surged up the street past the swallowed tractor-trailer in a pack of more than a hundred, quickly flowing through the narrow space between the two houses that had fallen toward each other. Their moans echoed through the ruins. More drifters staggered from a side street and out of tangles of brick and broken wood, joining the mass.
As she ran, trying not to cry out because of her ankle, and now the new claw marks on her chest, Skye could see four more men in the same uniforms assembled in the center of the road ahead, all with packs and rifles. One of them, a man about ten years older than Skye, with captain’s bars on his uniform, gave some hand signals to his men. Without a word they formed a single-file line and began running up the street, away from the surge. The pale sergeant with the machete fell in behind them.
Moore grabbed Skye by her combat harness and gave her a sharp tug. “If you can’t keep up, we’ll leave you behind.”
“I can keep up,” she said, glaring at the young black soldier.
He nodded and turned. Then there was only running.
• • •
The captain kept them moving at a steady running pace for more than half an hour. Skye thought her legs were burning before. The officer led at the point, followed immediately by the pale sergeant and then a soldier with a belt-fed machine gun hanging across his chest by a strap. They moved out of the neighborhood, avoiding a sprawling, built-up area of what looked like university dorms, then down a long two-lane road dotted with motels, gas stations, and cheap diners.
Other than a few solitary drifters, they left the dead behind.
When they reached the turn-off for the Ranchero Airport, it occurred to Skye that these men must have gotten here somehow; perhaps they had a plane or a helicopter waiting. But there was nothing on the tarmac other than a burned fuel truck next to the blackened framework of a small private plane. The soldiers ran for a hangar, checked inside before entering, and then pulled the rolling doors closed behind them.
Bedrolls, equipment, some spare weapons, and a cluster of packaged food and bottled water were collected at the near end of the hangar, maintenance equipment occupying the rest of the space. Two of the soldiers took guard positions at the front and back as the others settled in and immediately began breaking down their weapons for cleaning. The captain gestured for Skye to sit in a folding chair near the gear. She did, and the sergeant with the bleached skin knelt in front of her with a small medical pack, quickly unlacing her boot and pulling it off.
“I’m fine,” Skye said, trying to pull her leg away. “I’m not bitten.” The sergeant trying to tend to her glared with his pinpoint eyes.
“No, you’re not,” said the captain, as the wound was revealed. “I saw you limping. Hopefully it’s just a sprain. Let Oscar look at it.”
Skye relented, watching as the sergeant held her calf and turned her foot, inspecting the ankle. Skye hissed. “Go easy, okay?” The sergeant said nothing and produced a cold pack, crushing it in his hands and rubbing the plastic vigorously. He wrapped it around the ankle and secured it with a bandage. Skye gritted her teeth, refusing to let the man hear her cry out a second time. Then she looked up at the captain. “You’re not worried I’m bitten?”
“You’re a burn victim,” the captain said. “Survived a fluid exposure, right?”
Skye nodded.
“Then you’re immune. Just like him.” He nodded at the sergeant. “But if you can’t walk, you’ll be just as dead as if the virus took you.” The captain waited while the sergeant pressed two white pills into Skye’s hand. “Advil,” the officer said, and offered her a canteen. Skye washed them down.
“Captain Lee Salinger,” he said, extending a hand. “U.S. Army Rangers.”
Skye shook it, watching the sergeant pack his medical gear, looking at his pale, blotchy skin and those frightening eyes. He glanced up once from his
work, lifted his lip in what could have been a sneer or an attempt at a smile, then moved away to join the other men.
“I’m Skye Dennison,” she said. “And thanks for killing that thing. What the hell was it?”
“We’ve never seen anything like it before,” he said.
“I saw it once, a couple of days ago. It ducked my rifle. It’s smart.”
Captain Salinger stood with his arms folded, looking at his guest. Then he nodded slowly, making Skye wonder why.
THIRTY-FIVE
January 13—Saint Miguel
Leah was belted into the co-pilot’s seat of the Black Hawk, clutching a battered Wawas and wearing the oversized earmuffs of a radio headset. She stared at Vladimir in wide-eyed wonder as he held the aircraft in a hover thirty feet above the baseball field. Hooked into his safety harness behind them, perched behind the port door gun, Halsey tracked the M240 left and right, searching for live targets. He wasn’t interested in the dead things wandering below; they couldn’t shoot at the chopper. He saw no one.
“I have a little boy your age,” Vladimir said, and Leah blinked when his voice came through the headset she was wearing. She patted the earpieces and smiled.
“His name is Ben,” said the pilot. “You will meet him very soon.”
Leah bit her lip. “Is he a bad boy?”
The Russian smiled and shook his head. “No, little one. He is a very good boy.”
“I want my mommy and daddy.”
Vladimir patted her knee with a big hand. “They are coming.”
• • •
On the ground, Angie stalked across the open field with the Galil to her shoulder, watching left and right, moving steadily toward the church. Most of the dead had been drawn to the noise and motion of the helicopter hovering to her rear. When she neared the corner of the building where Dean would be, she slowed, suddenly afraid that she would find a drifter crouched over him, feeding.
She found three drifters.
They were dead, lying crumpled on the grass a dozen feet from her husband, each with a head wound. Dean was slumped against the wall, the Glock in his lap.
He opened one eye. “Leah.”
“She’s safe,” Angie breathed, kneeling beside him. Dean closed his eye and nodded slowly. He was so very pale. “We’re going to get you to the helicopter,” Angie said, slinging one of his arms around her shoulder and lifting. Dean got to his feet with a groan, favoring his bloody hip.
They moved slowly back toward the baseball field, and then Angie lowered him gently to the ground. “Give me a minute,” she said, then unslung the Galil and her bandolier of magazines. She worked for ten minutes, aiming and shooting, firing in all directions, dropping empty magazines and loading fresh. Dean lay on the grass, propped up on one elbow, watching their backs as his wife finished off every drifter within a hundred feet of the helicopter.
“You made that look easy,” he said as she lifted him once more.
“I’ve had a lot of practice the last few months.”
He chuckled, his voice soft. “I’ll bet.”
The Black Hawk settled in front of them, and Halsey was there to help them aboard. In the front seat, a little girl looked back and cried, “Daddy!”
• • •
Groundhog-7 flew slow circles above Chico for an hour, all eyes looking down, searching for Skye. Of their friend, there was no trace. Finally Vladimir spoke over the intercom.
“Time to leave. It is a matter of fuel.”
Angie stared down at streets where only the dead moved. There were no waving figures, no signals, only a city that no longer belonged to the living. Skye had left them on a one-way trip, and because of it, Angie and Dean’s little girl was safe and with them once more.
Thank you, Angie thought, her tears whipped away in the wind from the rotors. “Vlad, take us home,” she said into the intercom. The Russian banked his Black Hawk to a southwest course and quickly put Chico behind them.
“Daddy,” Leah said, looking back into the troop compartment from her seat up front, “we’re going on a boat.” Her mother had told her about the Nimitz, at least as much as a three-year-old could understand. Dean smiled and winked at his daughter.
“That’s right, honey,” Angie said. “We’re going someplace safe.”
THIRTY-SIX
January 13—Ranchero Airport
Skye stood with the Rangers on the tarmac outside the hangar, one boot off, leaning on the soldier Moore’s shoulder. Everyone watched as the Black Hawk, already tiny, became a distant speck and disappeared completely. They had no radio, no flares. No way to make contact.
“There goes our ride,” Moore said. The other soldiers nodded.
Captain Salinger had told Skye the only reason they had come across her battling the zombie hybrid was that they had heard the helicopter over the city and were trying to get close enough to signal it. He also told her he and his team had been on the outskirts of Chico for days, ever since their own helicopter had been shot down.
“Your own helicopter? How—where did you come from?”
“Long story,” Salinger said. “We’ll have time to tell you the whole thing. I’ll bet you have a good story of your own.” He mentally caught himself, regretting the words. The haunted look in this girl’s one good eye said she had a story, but there was nothing good about it.
“In the meantime,” he said, clearing his throat, “we’re headed back to base, and it doesn’t look like we’re flying. Best make sure your boots are laced tight. It’s a long walk to Reno.”
Skye looked at him, confused. Moore handed her a bandolier of magazines, followed by an M4. “Ever seen one of these?”
Skye snatched the weapon from him, ejected the magazine to ensure it was full, then reinserted and armed the weapon. “We’re old friends.”
“That’s good,” the captain said, “because it looks like you’re with us.”
• • •
They set out within the hour, six Army Rangers walking east, a young woman with an eye patch and an assault rifle walking last in line, wearing a new backpack. Captain Salinger said they would be looking for vehicles soon, something to get them into the mountains. At least until the snow forced them to go ahead on foot.
Skye had questions, but for now she kept them to herself. Her heart was aching, for Carney, for her friends, but she used the silence of these serious young men to help wrap the pain away. In that, she found a measure of peace.
• • •
The Hobgoblin had red hair, reborn in this new form under a midnight sky outside Saint Miguel. Now she kept out of sight as she stalked the small party on foot, her hybrid mind a dark jumble of sensations, the strongest of all being hunger and a craving for violence.
She stayed half a mile back, and unerringly followed their trail.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank my editor, Amanda Ng, for her critical eye and skillful collaboration, her ability to stand her ground when changes had to be made, and yield when her author wouldn’t. I didn’t make it easy for her, but as a result of her guidance, I came out the other end of this project a better writer (I hope) and delivered a better novel (I know).
Special appreciation goes to Jennifer for her continued support, and to all the wonderful people at Berkley for making this possible. Finally, I want to thank my family, friends, and readers for believing in the story, and the writer.
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Omega Days (Book 3): Drifters Page 31