by Dirk Patton
I picked up speed as I ran into the valley. My tread was light, making almost no noise as I accelerated. Ahead, the females swirled around the base of the tree like a pack of hunting dogs, unaware of my presence. That was good, but it would have also been fine if they’d turned and charged. They were all going to die, either way.
Fifty yards out, one of them heard or scented me. I could smell their musk now, so it wasn’t a stretch to imagine they could detect mine. With a scream that alerted the others, she spun and charged directly at me. Over half the group followed, racing through the grass with screams of eager anticipation.
I didn’t slow or deviate an inch. Slamming into the lead female, my much greater mass sent her spinning away, but not before I drew the sharp blade across her neck with enough force to decapitate the bitch. Now, I was in the midst of the rest. Punching. Stabbing. Grabbing flowing hair with my free hand and jerking hard enough to snap necks.
Bodies slammed into me, but I was a pillar of granite. Unmovable. Slashing nails and snapping teeth came close, but couldn’t find me. My steel found them. Hands were amputated. Skulls were broken. Hearts were stabbed. I was in a mindless frenzy. The berserker was having a grand time. At one point, when the remaining females abandoned the tree and joined the fight, I began screaming at them as I hacked my way through their numbers.
Then… the last one fell. I stood in the middle of a killing field. More than twenty dead females. I was covered in blood, but could still smell the hot coppery scent of death as the infecteds’ essence soaked into the dry Australian dirt. I inhaled deeply, reveling in the sensation.
“John!”
My head snapped around in time to see a small figure drop out of the tree and race toward me. For an instant, the blade started to come around, then sanity returned and I ran forward to Mavis. I held my arms out to pull her in, seeing the condition of my skin and clothes. There was nothing visible other than blood.
“Wait!” I called, stopping her charge at the last second. “I’m covered in their blood.”
Mavis stood a few feet away, glaring at me as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I thought you were dead!” she shouted, stamping her foot.
I noticed that she only had one shoe. Wiping my hand as clean as I could, I reached into my waistband and held her other one out.
“Lose something?” I asked with a grin.
She ignored it, still glaring at me.
“What is wrong with you?” she shouted, still crying. “Why didn’t you shoot them? They could have killed you!”
With a start, I realized she was right. The Russian AKMS rifle was still slung along my back. I could have sat up on top of the hill and picked them off, one at a time. But the idea had never occurred to me, which was really disturbing. I’m a shooter first, unless there’s a compelling need for absolute silence. But I’d never wade into a hand-to-hand fight with a numerically superior enemy if I had a rifle at my disposal. But that’s exactly what I’d done. What the hell was I thinking?
53
More movement at the tree caught my eye and I raised the rifle as two figures dropped to the ground. Mavis looked over her shoulder then held her hands out toward me.
“They’re friends!” she said.
I could see two men, one of them with a long chain dangling from his hand. Both were dressed in jeans and leather vests, just like the bikers I’d seen in town. Slowly, I lowered the muzzle until it was off target, but not by much.
“Is that the guy we met in town?” I asked.
“He helped me.” She turned slightly and called to the two men. “It’s okay. He’s cool.”
The men exchanged a quick glance before cautiously approaching. I recognized the Aborigine biker that I’d saved from the infected. He limped slightly, either from the injury he’d sustained when we met, or something to do with crashing his bike.
“Bloody hell, mate,” he said, stopping a respectful distance away. “Never seen anything like that.”
I looked at him for a beat, then shifted my gaze to the other. He was an Aborigine also and stared at me with a distrustful glare. The heavy chain he’d used to crack open the female’s skulls was still gripped tightly in his hands.
“Why’d you leave?” I asked Mavis, ignoring them for the moment.
“I thought you were going to die,” she said, taking a step closer. “Thought you would be dead by now. That was yesterday.”
“What?” I asked, stunned. “Yesterday?”
I’d been out for twenty-four hours?
“Yes,” she said, moving close enough that she had to look up at my face. “I drove until the car stopped, then had to walk the rest of the way into town to find them.”
I wasn’t processing the words she was speaking. I didn’t understand how I could have been unconscious for a full day.
“You were burning up,” she said, worry creasing her small face. “I had to find help, but it took longer than I thought. When it took so long, well…”
She hesitated a moment, then unconcerned about the blood coating my body, rushed in and wrapped her arms around my waist. After a second, I let the rifle drop to the end of its sling and went to a knee to hold her tight. We stayed that way for what seemed a long time, but it calmed the demon inside. Standing, I looked at the two men who were watching us in apparent surprise.
“What happened?” I asked.
“She talked us into helping you,” the one I’d saved said. “We were on our way and got surprised by this group. Bikes went down and we fought our way to that tree. Broke heads when they got too close. Seemed like they were learning to stay clear of the chain, but they weren’t leaving.”
“How long you been up there?”
He shrugged before answering.
“Don’t know what time it is, but we crashed a little after sunset.”
I nodded and looked down at Mavis.
“You okay?”
She nodded, sniffing back the last of her tears. With a smile, I held the shoe out again and this time she took it and slipped it onto her foot.
“Thank you for helping her,” I said to the men.
“She bloody well weren’t takin’ ‘no’ for an answer,” Chain Man said.
All of us turned our heads to the east when the distant scream of a female floated in on the night air. A beat later, several others from different directions answered, then they all fell silent. I recognized rage and hunger in their voices, startled when I did. Frowning, I kept looking to the east as I spoke.
“We’d better get moving.”
“Can’t outrun ‘em,” one of the men said.
“Got a truck back at the road,” I said, turning and leading Mavis away. “You can ride along if you want.”
It wasn’t long before I heard them hurrying to catch up. Can’t say that I blamed them. I’d been in the middle of nowhere with females bearing down on me. It’s not a pleasant feeling.
“Where’d you get a truck?” Mavis asked as we hurried toward the waiting vehicle.
“Ran into a couple of nice gentlemen who lent it to me.”
“Uh huh,” she said after a moment’s thought. “I’m sure they were happy to help out.”
We were quiet for a minute, hearing the occasional scream in the distance. They didn’t seem to be coming any closer, but that was only the ones I could hear.
“That was really brave to go looking for help,” I said, glancing down at Mavis. She met my eye and smiled brightly, happy with the praise. “But it was also dangerous. What if you’d run into that group of females on your own?”
“I didn’t,” she said, invoking the logic of teens the world over.
“Gotta be smart,” I said gently, not wanting to hurt her feelings. “If something were to happen to me…”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you!” she said with absolute certainty.
I took a deep breath and let it out quietly.
“You don’t know that, Mavis. Something could happen just over the nex
t rise. It’s really important you think before you do something. That’s how you survive.”
She considered that, clinging tightly to my hand as she walked.
“You’re right about being careful, but I’m right about nothing happening to you.”
I started to shake my head and argue the point, but she interrupted before I could speak.
“You’ve changed. You’re not going to Baralku anymore. That’s how I know.”
I came to an abrupt stop, staring down at her in surprise. The two men, following far enough behind that they hadn’t been able to hear our conversation also stopped, concern on their faces. We ignored them.
“What are you talking about?” I asked in a whisper. “Do you see something different?”
“A new light,” she said, nodding. “It’s hard to explain. But you don’t belong to the world of the dead anymore.”
I looked at her in amazement, still unsure if I believed any of the mumbo jumbo. But it was hard to dismiss with everything that had happened. I glanced over at the men who were looking around nervously as they waited for us to start moving again.
“What about them? Can they see it?”
“Nigel can. He’s garratji, remember? What you’d call a medicine man. The other guy isn’t pureblood,” she leaned in and whispered softly. “Only pure descendants of the First People can see what I see.”
I frowned, shaking my head. “Are you serious?”
She shrugged her small shoulders. “Just telling you what I know. Don’t believe me, ask him if he sees anything funny about you.”
“What’re we doin’, mate?” Chain Man called when another series of screams sounded in the dark.
I scanned the horizon quickly, then turned to look at him.
“See anything odd about me?” I asked.
He paused for a beat then looked between Nigel and Mavis.
“She told you about the new light,” the one I’d saved in Sydney, apparently named Nigel, said when Chain Man didn’t answer.
I nodded as more screams sounded. These were closer. Chain Man looked like he was ready to bolt as he fingered his chain, making a gentle clinking sound.
“What does it mean?” I asked, to which Nigel only shrugged.
“Look, mate. We don’t got time for a bunch of fairy tales. They’re gettin’ too damn close!” Chain Man said nervously.
He was right. There would be plenty of time to discuss what had or hadn’t happened to me and which Aborigines could see it once we were safe. Until then, the conversation and my curiosity needed to be shelved.
“You’re right,” I said. “Let’s move. Still a couple miles to the road.”
Nobody argued and we set off at a fast jog. Mavis stayed right with me, holding my hand tight as if she were afraid I’d run off and leave her. Nigel ran with a pronounced limp, but he kept pace without complaint.
Covering the distance to the road, I brought us to a stop a hundred yards short. Figures were moving around the dark truck and jumping in and out of the ditch where the motorcycles were crashed. Females. And they were looking for a scent trail to follow.
54
Jessica startled awake and looked around the hospital room. There wasn’t a clock and she had no idea what time it was, but the window was dark so she knew she hadn’t slept long. Normally she could have never fallen asleep with all the blinking lights and beeping equipment that was keeping Admiral Packard alive, but she hadn’t been to bed in nearly seventy-two hours.
Sitting forward in the chair, she peered blearily at the monitors before looking at the Admiral’s gaunt face. A faint rustle of clothing from the far side of the room preceded Captain Black moving into view. It was thanks to him and Captain West that she’d been allowed to sit with the Admiral. Her very presence was out of bounds, protocol-wise, but in the new world, few, if any, people cared.
“How is he?” she asked.
“No change,” Captain Black said quietly.
Jessica nodded without taking her attention off the old man’s face. A face that no longer crinkled with laugh lines when he was talking with her. Now, it was slack and his skin was the color of parchment paper.
“You should talk to him,” Black said after several minutes of silence.
“What?” Jessica asked in surprise.
“Years ago, I was in a firefight in Iraq with a good friend of mine. Enemy dropped a mortar about ten feet from our position. A thick, stone wall is all that saved us, but the concussion of the blast screwed up his head pretty bad. I took some shrapnel in the leg.
“Anyway, we got evac’d to Ramstein in Germany. Docs said he was in a coma from the brain trauma. Didn’t know if he’d ever wake up. While I was healing, I’d spend every day with him. Talking to him. Reading books to him. There was this one long ass series about the apocalypse and a dog… well, that’s not important.
“What I’m gettin’ at is that he did wake up. Almost a year later. I’d already finished another tour in Iraq by then. He’d been brought home to Walter Reed Medical Center in DC and I stopped in to visit when I got home. And you know what the first thing he asked when he saw me was?”
Jessica shook her head.
“He wanted to know what happened to the characters in the book series. You see, I never got to finish it before I was cleared to return to duty. The son of a bitch may have been in a coma, but he heard every word I said. And he remembered! A couple years after that, I was being promoted to Captain. He was healthy as a horse and back in the fight, but managed to show up and throw me a hell of party. We got to talking and he told me my voice gave him something to hold on to. Said it guided him out of the darkness. Don’t really understand that, but he swears I’m the reason he’s not still lying in a hospital bed with tubes sticking out of him.
“So, talk to the Admiral. He loves you. Not in any creepy way, but I see how he brightens up whenever you’re around. Doesn’t do that with anyone else. Seems like you’re the one person that might get through to him.”
Captain Black shrugged when he finished, slightly embarrassed after telling the story.
“Sir, this isn’t a brain injury. It’s cancer!” Jessica said. “You told me what the surgeon said. He’s not going to wake up.”
“Bullshit!” Black said with some venom. “Goddamn docs are always covering their asses. Tell you the worst so they’re a hero when things are better. Besides, you ever know of the old man to give up? Too damn stubborn.”
Jessica looked at the Marine, unsure what to say. Could he possibly be right? Was the doctor painting the worst possible scenario, just in case?
“I’ll leave you with him,” Black said. “Need a shower and fresh uniform. Two of my men outside the door if you need anything, but I should be back in half an hour.”
Jessica nodded as he walked to the door. Hand on the knob, he paused and turned back.
“Talk to him, Chief,” he said firmly, then opened the door and slipped out.
Jessica sat staring at the Admiral for several minutes. She had no idea what to say, but eventually just began talking about nothing. Told him about a dog she’d had when she was a little girl. Her first boyfriend. Sneaking out of her parent’s house to go to parties when she was way too young to be drinking.
She was on a roll when the door lock clicked and Captain Black stepped into the room. He was turned out immaculately and smelled faintly of soap.
“Your CO,” he said, extending a phone.
Jessica hesitated, then took it from him and identified herself even though Lieutenant Hunt would instantly recognize her voice.
“Chief, I need you back. We’ve got stuff happening on the mainland and Lucas Martin keeps calling, wanting your help with finding Major Chase.”
She hesitated, taking a breath before responding.
“Sir, I’ve been on duty for three days straight.”
It sounded as lame to her when she said it as it did to the Lieutenant.
“Chief, our best view of the world is through the N
SA satellites that you hacked. You’re the one that cobbled together the code that gives us control. We’re trying, but you’re the maestro and I need you here.”
This time, Jessica let him hear her sigh, then instantly regretted it. He was her CO and she wasn’t being respectful.
“Sorry, sir. I’m on my way, but I’m at the hospital in town. It’s going to take me a while to get back, if I can even find a cab in the middle of the night.”
“Fast as you can, Chief,” Hunt said and disconnected.
“Couldn’t help but overhear,” Black said with a smile. Stepping to the door, he opened it and waved a Marine into the room. “Sergeant Perkins will run you back to Pearl.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, standing and returning his phone. “Please call me, if…”
“Of course.”
The ride back through the empty streets of Honolulu was fast. Perkins wasn’t a talker and drove in silence, ignoring the speed limit and pushing the Hummer. They breezed through the main gate and he headed for the secure building where she worked, but at the last minute she asked to be taken to her quarters. She’d been wearing the same uniform for three days and was in desperate need of a shower.
Telling him she’d be fine walking from there, he gave her a smile and wave before roaring off to return to the hospital. Jessica rushed inside and twenty minutes later emerged into the pre-dawn darkness, fresh from the shower and wearing a crisp uniform.
Setting off on the half-mile walk, she strode quickly, puffing on a cigarette as her mind swirled in worry for Admiral Packard. Normally, someone like her would never have become friendly with a four-star Admiral. But for some reason, the two people who couldn’t be more different had clicked. As much as he seemed to care for her, like a daughter she realized, the feelings were returned.