“Shit,” I muttered to myself. Now he could try his ambush bullshit again on me. I sat down against one of my truck’s rear wheels and leaned my head back. With any luck, I could evade the asshole and get back to the farm. Once I did that and resupplied, I meant to come back and hunt his ass down. Jackie and the dogs would be a big help, or maybe I could get some support from the CDC folks.
Maybe I’d just have to admit to myself that staying in this area was a bad idea.
I wasn’t ready to accept that just yet, though. While my hearing slowly returned, I carefully retrieved what I could from the Dodge, reloaded the rifle, and headed off in the opposite direction of where the man had retreated. The radio, as I feared, was trashed. It hadn’t stayed in the truck as it rolled and was scattered along I-85 for a hundred feet or so.
Taking the shotgun, too, and all the ammo I’d carried, along with the bug out bag I kept in the truck’s boxes, I headed across the median and into the woods on the southernmost side of the interstate. My first objective was to find another vehicle, somehow, and then run the backroads to Opelika and the farm.
Nothing Jackie said had suggested that anyone had found the farm, so I figured the crazy man in the Kenmore hadn’t located it. If he kept to this area, though, it was only a matter of time.
Farms and other residences were scattered along the roads out of view of the interstate, and it didn’t take me more than an hour to find a suitable replacement. I broke into a garage and came face to headlamp with something rare and wonderful.
It was a motorcycle the likes of which I was familiar with, simply by the fact of living in Alabama. The prominent ‘C’ logo on the gas tank meant one thing and one thing only. This was one of the few limited edition cycles built right here in Alabama, in the Confederate Motorcycles plant in Birmingham.
The particular model I’d found was a steel gray, overall, with a saddle seat made of stitched, ochre-colored leather. The broad rear wheel was mounted in a free-floating suspension that almost looked like something out of science fiction. I’d seen it in catalogs and on the web, but I never expected to run across one in this part of the state. Of course, stranger things had happened, and there was a good deal of both old and new money hiding in modest homes on large acreages of land.
The Hellcat Speedster before me was something of a dream machine for me, and I guessed this particular one was a few years old, judging from the mileage and wear on the seat. Still, these bikes cost, on the average, two or three times what my Dodge cost new. They were works of art, and now, I had one.
It took me a while to find the key, and I stayed wary since it was always possible the nut job from the interstate could have tracked me somehow. Once I had a way to get the Hellcat moving, I didn’t waste any more time. I slung the rifle and shotgun so they wouldn’t interfere with my riding, started the bike, and headed out.
The thing rode like a dream, and I imagined it looked pretty badass with me on it, although I probably looked like a bruised mess following the accident. Still, though, this was a bit of an improvement over the low point of my day.
I wondered who the guy was as I sped along the back roads with the motorcycle rumbling beneath me. It had a full tank of gas, and I counted my blessings for that. Night was starting to fall, and I didn’t want to get home too late on an unfamiliar vehicle, only to have Jackie shoot me dead in front of the house.
That wouldn’t be good for either of us.
While I did continue to mull over the attack from the Welcome Center, I paid a lot more attention to the road and my surroundings. All was quiet, though, which did help a bit with my screaming nerves. Unfortunately, though, the adrenaline rush from the wreck wore off, and I was a bruised, aching mess. My chest and hips were extremely sore to the touch across where the seatbelt had rested and kept me safely ensconced in the Dodge’s cab. Pain, at least, meant that I was alive, so as unpleasant as it was, I welcomed it.
So how could I track the son of a bitch? I pondered that puzzle as well. Had he made the Alabama Welcome Center his base, or was I just a chance encounter? Maybe he’d seen me driving and camped out there, waiting for me to come back. What the hell had he wanted? I’d have shared food and know-how if he’d just asked, but he hadn’t known about that, and I doubted he really cared. You didn’t ram someone with a truck if you wanted to ask them friendly questions.
I was far from happy with the situation, but I was almost home. Twilight darkened all the colors, and the sky was, as it tended to be, a beautiful panoramic of blue and rose and yellow. I smiled to myself as I turned onto the road leading to the farm. It had been too long, and I was looking forward to a meal, a bath, and bed, probably in that order.
Of course, Jackie would fuss over me, but that was fine. I was just happy to be back. Still, though, I wanted very badly to hunt this guy and make him pay for trying to kill me. I wasn’t all that kosher with that.
30
It was fully dark when I turned down the dirt driveway leading to the farm. The Hellcat took it like a dream, and in a few moments, I braked to a stop in front of the main house. Maggie and the other dogs made it to me first as I shut off the bike and dismounted. They surrounded me, barking happily, tails wagging, and I couldn’t help but smile.
Jackie took a bit longer, but she appeared in the shadows of the door after a moment, shotgun in hand, and peered out at me through the darkness. She was only dimly backlit for a moment as she slipped out the door, then disappeared in the shadows of the porch.
“Who goes there?” she demanded.
“It’s me,” I replied hoarsely. “Hi, Jackie.”
“Henry!” she exclaimed, then practically flew into my arms. When I winced and hissed, she stepped back quickly. “What happened? Where’s your truck?”
“Long story,” I answered. “Let’s get inside. I need to warm up.”
“I’ve got a fire going,” she said and took my arm. Her worried face searched mine for a long moment, and then we headed inside together. I breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind me and allowed myself to relax at last. The dog pack would warn us if anyone approached, and we had everything we needed.
A thin cry sounded from the direction of the bedroom, and Jackie sighed. “Excuse me a minute, someone needs a change.” Without waiting, the young woman darted off, leaving me to set aside my weapons and sit down gingerly on the sofa in front of the fireplace.
She had a small fire going, but it was a hot one, and I sighed and closed my eyes as I leaned my head back and stretched out. My whole body felt like it had been tenderized. At least nothing felt broken. I probably would have known earlier, when the adrenaline started to ebb, but now was the time to take sort of an internal inventory of injuries.
My neck ached a little, my chest and my hips a lot. I felt like I’d been punched in the face on top of that. Warm and comfortable in front of the fire, though, I must have dozed off as I blinked awake to Jackie saying my name.
Her face was a few inches from mine, eyes full of worry.
“Thank God,” she said when I opened my eyes and smiled at her. “I was afraid you weren’t going to wake up. You didn’t hit your head, did you?”
“Maybe?” I replied. “My face hurts.”
“You look like a raccoon,” she said, frowning. “Did Estelle stay behind?”
“Yeah,” I replied, not wanting to move.
“Just when we could use a doctor,” Jackie huffed. “Okay, Henry, I need you to get undressed while I get the first aid kit. Then you can tell me exactly what happened.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I acknowledged.
She leaned in and gave me a light kiss on the lips, then hurried off to get one of the many first aid kits we’d scrounged up. I leaned forward and shrugged carefully out of my coat. Both shoulders joined the chorus of pain, but I pushed through it and had finished stripping to the waist and removing my boots by the time my nurse came back with water, Percocet, and the kit.
The painkiller and water were first. T
hen she put the rest down and went to get one of the battery-powered camp lanterns.
“Jesus, Henry,” Jackie exclaimed when she finally got a look at me in the light. “This all looks like bruising, but I have no way to tell if there’s anything internal or not. Is there any way to get in touch with Doctor White or anything?”
“I’m fine,” I muttered. “Nothing’s broken.” Was it okay to take Percocet on an empty stomach? I certainly hoped so.
“Fine,” she groused. “But if you turn yellow or start bleeding from somewhere you shouldn’t, I’m going to drive you to Atlanta at a hundred and twenty, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said again. My head felt fuzzy, and it was hard to think. I needed to tell her what happened. “Jackie, listen up.”
She looked me in the eyes, then started carefully running her fingers over the bruises. The coolness of her hands felt good, and I smiled a bit.
“What?” she asked softly.
“Some son of a bitch rammed me with a semi,” I replied. “Over at the welcome center. Rolled the Dodge, but I don’t think I lost consciousness for more than a few seconds. He was going to ram me again, but I ran him off with the Creedmoor.”
“So we do have a bad survivor,” she said flatly. “Damn it.”
“Looks that way. He blew up his truck, too, and ran. I mean to go back and hunt his ass down when we can.” I felt suddenly dizzy and just lay back on the couch.
“Well,” she started working on my belt. “At least Tommy’s going to be okay. Irene and I have an understanding, and she’s been very good. Plus, I shot a coyote while you were gone and saw the coy-wolf.”
I blinked as I tried to parse all that, then got distracted as she made me lift up so she could pull my pants down and off. In just my skivvies, I sat there looking blankly at her. At least the pain was fading, but I was too.
“So much for my evening plans,” she said with a soft sigh, then sat down beside me, legs tucked up beneath her. “I’ll welcome you back properly once you feel better.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I said. “So you saw the… coyote-wolf thing?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “He was gorgeous. I tried to shoot to scare him off, but one of the other coyotes got in the way. Maggie and the other dogs scared off the rest of his pack, and he took off in a different direction. That was the first day you were gone.”
“Day?” I looked at her sharply. “Aren’t coyotes nocturnal?”
“Opportunists, really,” she said. “They’ll hunt or scavenge day or night, depending on what they think they need to do.”
I nodded.
“If you need to contact the folks at the CDC,” I said after a moment’s silence. “They’re listening on the frequency we picked.”
“That makes it easy, then,” she said, reaching over to stroke my brow lightly and drift her fingers back into my hair.
“Do I really look that bad?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, Henry,” she replied. “But, yes, you do. I was really afraid you’d gotten hurt a lot worse than it seems like.”
“That’s why I’m telling you about the CDC,” I said. “Call them if you need them. There’s a guy there, Bruce Gassler. He can make the run out here if you can convince him. Crazy bastard drove all the way to Atlanta from Arizona.”
“Wow,” she said with a laugh. “That’s determination.”
“Yeah,” I chuckled as well. “He certainly has enough of that.” My eyes closed for a minute, or maybe an hour. The painkiller had taken hold, and I felt a good bit better, just tired as all hell.
“Something happened when I was leaving,” I started to say, a bit reluctantly, maybe, since it felt weird to admit kissing another woman.
“What?”
“There’s a soldier, a guard, named Angela,” I said slowly.
“Did you kiss or sleep together?” Jackie asked, completely breaking the ice.
“She kissed me,” I admitted, blushing a bit.
“Love,” she said as she leaned over to look me in the eyes, “I told you I’m not the jealous type.” Then she grinned, kissed me again, and asked, “Is she cute?”
“She’s pretty good looking,” I admitted. “Kind of thick in that physically fit way that a lot of military girls get. Now before you ask, no, I’m not going to compare the two of you.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” Jackie shifted a bit closer and nestled gently against me. “What’s she like, otherwise?”
“Maybe a little too active duty,” I mused.
“What does that mean?”
“I got the impression that she works hard and plays hard,” I said thoughtfully. While my head was a bit fuzzy, the clarity I got from being relatively pain-free balanced the scales a little. “Of course, there’s not much opportunity for that, now. I was probably the closest thing to her ‘type’ that she’d seen in a while.”
“Think you’d be interested in getting serious with her?” Jackie asked.
“Why all the questions?” I asked, giving her a sidelong glance. “I’m perfectly happy with you.”
“Henry, listen,” Jackie murmured in my ear. “We aren’t in a position, as a species, to restrict ourselves to one, or maybe even two people. I’m perfectly happy with you, but I understand how populations and genetic diversity work. Eventually, everyone is going to have to start having kids with everyone else, or we’ll end up looking like toothless, swamp-dwelling, inbreds.”
“You really think of weird shit when you’re alone, don’t you?” I asked, blushing. She had a knack for cutting straight to the bone and wasn’t embarrassed by much of anything. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have figured her for my age or older. Maybe there was truth in what the new agers said when they called someone an ‘old soul.’
“I had an infant for company,” she replied. “What do you think?”
“Are you looking to have a kid?” I asked. Maybe I shouldn’t have been having this conversation on Percocet.
“Me? Not yet,” she replied. “But I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
“What’s that?” I wanted to know.
“I want to have my first one with you.”
Somehow, I’d expected that answer. I just nodded slightly and closed my eyes. She was right on pretty much every count. There were so few people left alive that we would need to do our best to breed like rabbits if we wanted our species to survive.
Did we, though? Humans hadn’t exactly been the best caretakers of the Earth for the brief time we’d lived here. We were directly responsible for the extinction of numerous species, had destroyed large swaths of forest and jungle in the name of progress, and that didn’t even touch what we’d done to the air and water.
Maybe our time was up.
“What if this disease is just the Earth telling us that we need to sit down and shut up?” I mused. “I mean, the Christians have the Rapture, but that wasn’t supposed to leave corpses, right?”
“Oh,” she said, cocking her head like a curious dog. “That’s a creepy thought. The thing is, I don’t think the Rapture is a real thing. I mean, there were almost as many interpretations of Revelations as there were people. It’s weird to think about, you know?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m more inclined to blame this on either some kind of natural thing or maybe a bio-weapon that got out of hand.”
“Me too,” she said, then slowly shifted and rested her head on my left shoulder.
It ached, but I didn’t say anything. I liked having her leaning against me. She was warm, and her hair was soft and smelled kind of like strawberries, or maybe blueberries. It was distinctly Jackie, and that made me happy.
Of course, there was still one major problem facing us.
“How do you feel about helping me hunt down this crazy bastard that tried to kill me?” I asked.
“I feel strongly,” Jackie said. “That we should deal with him before he figures out where the farm is, provided he hasn’t already.”
“I don’t thin
k he has,” I opined, closing my eyes and leaning my head against hers. “But I don’t know.”
“Should we ask if any of your friends from Atlanta want to help?”
That was an interesting question. I was fairly sure that Bruce, at least, would be up for helping, if for no other reason than he’d get to prove his survivalist cred. The man knew his shit, but I suspected he had a little buried sliver of insecurity. Angela would probably want in, too, and Estelle might come to be a voice of reason when we saddled up the posse.
I really didn’t like the idea of hunting another man down, but he’d already made one attempt on my life. Or maybe it was two, if you counted blowing up the semi. That meant he had some kind experience with improvised explosive devices, which made the man a danger all on his own.
Maybe he had been military, too, or SWAT. Maybe he was something like Bruce and a survivalist, but from a less peaceful camp, like one of the many right-wing militias we had floating around. There were compounds in Alabama and Georgia that I knew about. Some of the people were even hardcore Klan.
That didn’t make the thought of hunting him any easier. We were too few now, and every life was precious.
Of course, he had already shown that he didn’t care nearly as much as I did.
“Shit,” Jackie muttered and sighed.
“What?”
“We’ll need to find someone to watch the baby,” she said with a sigh.
“Oh, hell,” I said. “You’re right. She’s so quiet, and I’m so stoned, that it slipped my mind.”
“Maybe it’d be better for us to just turtle up,” she suggested. “Or see if we can figure out a way to draw him in and deal with him that way.”
“You may be on to something, love,” I said thoughtfully. “I will call Atlanta in the morning, though.”
“You do that,” she said sleepily. The warmth and closeness were getting to us both. Sleep wouldn’t be much longer in coming.
31
The next day was worse. I could barely make it out of bed, and Jackie had to help me get dressed and move from the bedroom to the den. She brought out Irene for me to see, since I’d barely had a look at the baby since we’d found Estelle.
After The Virus (Book 1): After The Virus Page 21