“What happened to them?” The words were colored with uncertainty.
Nowen looked back over her shoulder. “Do you really want to know?”
Suzannah just stared without answering.
Chapter Ten
They crossed into Montana three hours after leaving Douglas, and an hour after that the city of Billings rose out of the prairie before them. Anton and Suzannah talked quietly in the front seats. Nowen tuned them out and watched the landscape fly by, her mind in turmoil. She endlessly debated her decision to spare Suzannah’s life until she tired of the thoughts and shoved them ruthlessly away. She’s not trustworthy, but neither is Anton. I let her live; it’s over and done with. She rubbed her aching temples and looked at Sage.
The girl was turning something over and over in her hands, but her dark brown eyes were staring at Nowen. Nowen stared back, and the girl looked down at the object she was holding. I should say something. Right? “What do you have there?” Nowen asked awkwardly.
Sage held her hand out. Balanced on her flat palm was a small snow globe. A tiny deer in a tiny forest stood in the midst of a miniature snowstorm. Diamond-white flakes settled slowly to the forest floor, and when the water had cleared Sage gave the globe a gentle shake and set the snow flying again.
“Oh, that’s nice. And pretty. Did you get that back at the motel?”
Sage nodded and drew the little souvenir back. She held it up to her face, her gaze tracking the bits of glitter as they drifted around the globe. Now what? Nowen cast about for something else to say. “I bet you don’t get much snow in Texas, huh?”
Sage gave her a look, a mix of pity and humor. “I’ve seen snow before.”
“Ah.”
“Two years ago, when I was visiting Uncle Fernando in Amarillo, it snowed so much everything closed. That was fun.”
“I see.” They looked at each other, and Nowen thought that the girl wanted to talk about as much as she did. But it’s not right, is it, to just ignore her? Think of something to say! She cleared her throat and said “Do you like school?”
Again the pitying look. “Yes. But there’s been no school for awhile.”
“Oh, right. Right.” I’d rather face down a rampaging horde of fast Revs. “Well, do you like to...read?”
Sage tilted her head to one side. “You’re not very good at this, are you?”
Nowen surprised herself by laughing, something she’d not done in months. She smiled. The girl gave a small answering smile. “No, I’m not too good at this. I thought it wasn’t right to share this space with you and not try to talk. But if you want me to shut up and leave you alone, just say the word.”
Sage’s face grew serious. “Can I ask you something?” the girl said, so low it was almost a whisper.
“Sure.”
Her dark brown eyes seemed to spear right through Nowen. “Did you eat those men last night, after you killed them?”
Without warning there was a loud, flat ‘bang’ and the car swerved violently to the left. Sage was thrown from her seat and slammed into Nowen, who automatically wrapped her arms around the girl’s slight body and held on. The car slewed back to the right, and only by the judicious planting of her feet against the edge of Sage’s now-vacant seat did Nowen keep the two of them from tumbling across the interior. From the front Anton cursed, Suzannah screamed, and the brakes screamed back as the car juddered to a halt. For a moment, they all sat in stunned silence. Then Anton cursed again as he turned off the engine and opened his door. He stepped out and the rest of them followed.
Anton kicked the right front tire. It looked shredded, bits of rubber marking the car’s trail for a hundred yards behind them. “Shit. Look at that! What the hell did we run over?”
“Well, you have a spare, right?” Suzannah asked.
“Uh, no.”
“What?! Why the hell not?!” she shrieked.
Anton turned to the redhead angrily, and as they fell to arguing Nowen surveyed their surroundings. During her abortive attempt at conversing with Sage the highway had become more cluttered. Evidence of the chaos from a year ago, when the citizens of Billings had fled their city and the risen dead for the safety of the highways, was everywhere. The all too-familiar sight of vehicles, abandoned or wrecked or burned. The detritus of civilization, scattered across the pavement; a weathered suitcase, a leather-bound photo album, a pet carrier that held a small skeleton still wearing a red belled collar.
The remnants of what used to be the source of authority were here, too. Police and state trooper cars, drab green military trucks and a lone ambulance. There were very few bodies. Months of weather exposure and animal scavenging had broken down most of them into drifts of bones. A lot of people had massed here, and a lot of them had died here.
And a lot of them had not stayed dead.
Nowen watched the Revs that wandered along the highway. She did a rough head count. Twenty. Maybe thirty. But slow-moving. The wind was blowing towards her, carrying the stench of the Revs’ rotting bodies and decaying clothes. They hadn’t noticed the living people yet. Instead, they stumbled or staggered or swayed in aimless patterns.
Nowen turned to re-join the others and nearly fell over Sage. The girl took a tentative step back. She still held the snow globe; the sun flashing through the glass threw faint rainbows on the ground. Sage looked past her, and her dark brown eyes widened at the sight of the Revs. Nowen leaned down and, taking one of the girl’s grubby hands, led her back to the car.
Anton stood by the open trunk. Suzannah stood near him, and Nowen could tell by their steadily-rising voices that they were still arguing.
“I took it out to fit more supplies in! Anyway, it was one of those small tires! It wouldn’t have gotten us the rest of the way!” Beneath his white-blonde hair Anton’s face was flushed.
Suzannah’s pale face was flushed redder than her hair as she yelled back. “Well, fuck, it would have still gotten us to some place safer! What the hell are we supposed to do now, jackass?”
“We walk.” Nowen said, and the other two glared at her.
“Walk?! In this fucking heat?!” Suzannah crossed her arms across her chest. “Uh-uh. No way.”
Anton waved a hand at the mass of cars that surrounded them. “Let’s just take another car.”
Nowen looked at the vehicles. Most were damaged in some way; flat tires, shattered windshields, crumpled front ends. “Even if we find one in good shape, will it still work? Doesn’t the battery die after a while? Or the gas go bad?”
Anton’s face fell. He ran a hand across his sweaty forehead and stared off into the distance. “We just can’t walk there. We still got miles to go.”
Nowen caught his gaze. “Where is this place, Anton?”
“Bozeman. It’s near Bozeman. That’s, like a hundred and fifty miles. Look, let me look around, see if I can get one of these other cars going. Ok?”
Suzannah opened the driver’s side door of the silver car. “Yes! Fine! Go do that! But give me the keys, so I can turn on the air.” She caught the keys that Anton tossed to her and sat down in the driver’s seat. The engine rumbled to life and Suzannah slammed the door shut.
Nowen glanced down the highway. The ambling Revs seemed not to have heard the noise. She relaxed a little and turned to Sage. “You want to get in the car, stay cool?”
Sage looked pensively at Suzannah, who could be seen bobbing her head along to music. The girl shook her head and inched closer to Nowen. In the sunlight her hair shone russet through the dust and dirt.
“Damn!” Anton tugged on the door handle of a pickup parked not too far away. “Locked. Who the hell locks their door in the middle of an apocalypse?” He headed toward a sleek black police car. Nowen turned and looked back up the highway in the direction from which they had come.
From behind her Anton screamed, a cry of surprise and fear. Nowen whirled around to see the beefy blonde man staggering back from the car. The door hung open and a Rev in a uniform was crawling free from the in
terior.
Time seemed to slow down. Nowen saw Anton pulling a handgun from the pocket of his jacket. She started running, drawing her knife with one hand. The other hand was outstretched, as if she could reach across the distance and stop what was going to happen.
She had taken only a couple of steps when Anton pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed through the Rev’s head, sending a spray of greyish fluid across the pavement, before it whined off the road. The loud, flat report reverberated among the parked cars. Nowen looked down the highway as she ran.
Every single Rev was looking in her direction. There was a spare moment of silence, and then the Revs moaned. As one they began to lurch their way toward the source of the sound. Nowen’s gaze was drawn to one of the creatures near the back of the pack. A middle-aged woman, leaf-yellow eyes bright under long, straight, deep-red hair, was watching her. She’s only recently been turned and the woman’s head jerked sharply to one side. Her hair floated around her like a bloody tornado as her head swung sharply back the other way. The pale grey lips opened in the mold-colored face and the Rev shrieked, a spiraling banshee cry.
Nowen roared at Anton to run, and then, without waiting, turned on her heels and dashed back to the car. Sage stood wide-eyed by the trunk. Nowen threw open the driver’s side door. A wave of cold air washed over her, and Suzannah looked at her, startled. “What the hell-?” she started to say.
“Get out of the car!” Nowen shouted.
“Why? What is it? What’s going on?”
No time. Nowen could hear the undulating moans of the Revs, pierced by the shrieks of the faster undead woman no, no, there’s more than one of them shrieking now and pulled Suzannah out of the car by her tank top. The other woman opened her mouth but whatever she was going to say was swamped by her scream as she saw the horde of Revs approaching. She shoved past Nowen and ran down the highway, back the way they had come just a little while before.
The mass of Revs were maybe twenty-five feet away but advancing steadily. Darting through their slower brethren were five or six fast-moving creatures.
While she had been dragging Suzannah from the car Anton had made it back. Now he called her to the trunk, and when she joined him he tossed one of the duffel bags at her. “Carry this!” he shouted and pulled another bag out of the trunk. Nowen slipped the carrying strap over her head. The heavy weight thumped against her back.
She grabbed Sage’s hand and the two of them ran away from the Revs. Anton joined them, panting under the weight of the duffel bag he was carrying. Suzannah was further ahead, running down the middle of the highway. Nowen glanced back over her shoulder. The Revs were closer, and the faster Revs were outpacing the mass of the horde. They shrieked as they came, and the fine hairs on Nowen’s arms rose.
“We can’t outrun them!” she shouted at Anton.
“Can...you...fight...them?” he gasped.
Nowen shook her head. “Too many. Guns?”
“Not...loaded!”
“Drop the bags-we can go faster!”
“No! Supplies!” Anton shouted.
Suddenly Sage tripped and nearly fell. Nowen tightened her grip and yanked the girl back to her feet, but the near-accident cost them momentum. There was an ear-splitting scream right behind Nowen and one of the Revs slammed into her.
They fell, all three of them. Sage screamed and pulled free of Nowen’s hold. The child scrambled backwards and then Nowen lost sight of her as the Rev climbed up her back. The rank smell of rotting organs and flesh flooded her senses. The Rev’s jagged nails scraped along the duffel bag. She heaved upward, dislodging the Rev for a moment, but the fast-moving creature was back on her in a second. Its weight slammed her head into the rough pavement, and skin peeled from her cheekbone as the Rev fought to bite her neck.
Violently Nowen pushed up and off the highway. The Rev tumbled free. Nowen scrambled to her feet and turned to see the dead woman with the unnaturally-red hair reaching for her. She hooked her leg behind one of the Rev’s and knocked the Rev back down. The creature fought to rise, limbs thrashing like a bug that had been flipped on its back. Nowen leapt forward and brought her feet down on the woman’s head. The skull cracked beneath the force of her jump and black blood sprayed over Nowen’s sneakers.
The blast of a shotgun roared over her head. She looked up to see that the mass of Revs was closer now, and she whirled and ran toward Anton. He still had his gun drawn and as she passed him he fired repeatedly at the crowd. Sage stood just beyond him, her small hands pressed to her mouth and her eyes open but vacant. Nowen scooped the girl up as she ran, cradling the slight body across her chest.
Anton moved up next to her. “Took...out some...of the fast...bastards!” he managed to say between breaths. Nowen just nodded and kept running.
The Revs moaned behind them, and she knew they had to find shelter or they would die. Already her arms and legs were growing weak. Her lungs drew in the hot air desperately, her throat burned from lack of moisture, her heart pounded in her chest and made her dizzy. The Revs could keep moving almost forever. Whatever aspect of Flux gave them life after death took away the need for rest, for air, for water.
It was not a fair fight.
But still she ran.
Someone was shouting. Through the haze of weariness Nowen realized it was Suzannah, and she looked up to see the red-haired woman waving at them. She was pointing at something just out of sight, and Nowen redoubled her efforts, finding some last bit of speed. Beside her Anton, too, ran a little faster.
They reached Suzannah. “Here, here!” she shouted, and then darted between two moving vans. They followed, running down a passageway created by the vans and emerging onto a grassy sward. Wordlessly Suzannah pointed at a two-story building, a nondescript beige-colored structure. The twenty feet from where they stood to the building’s front door seemed like a mile as Nowen and Anton staggered through the knee-high grass.
Suzannah shoved through the door and disappeared. Damn it! Did she check to see if it’s safe? But there was no time; Nowen was on the edge of collapse, and so she plunged through the door and Anton followed.
The dark, musty stillness of the interior enveloped them. Nowen leaned against a wall just inside the entrance and, closing her eyes, sent the wolf’s senses out. She couldn’t keep up her concentration that long but was relieved to find that there seemed to be no immediate danger.
The click of the door locking broke the silence. Anton moved slowly past her, deeper into the building. She looked down at Sage, still held in her arms. The girl seemed more aware now. “Can you walk?” Nowen asked, and Sage nodded. Nowen set her on her feet and together they went in search of the others.
Anton and Suzannah were sitting in a large, open area. Several deep-cushioned chairs and a sofa were here, all in coordinating colors of maroon and dark green. Nowen led Sage to the sofa, and the girl stretched out and almost immediately fell asleep. Nowen joined the other two, gratefully shrugging off the duffel bag and sinking into a chair.
Her desert-dry throat wouldn’t let her relax. She pulled her bag over and unzipped it. A gleaming black mass of weapons met her gaze. “Anton, can you get me a bottle of water, please?” she asked as she looked at him.
He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I...didn’t grab the food bag.”
Nowen stared at him. “So, we just have guns, and nothing else.”
He dipped his head sharply.
She was too exhausted to yell at him. She closed her eyes and laid her head on the back of the chair. She ran her thick tongue around the inside of her mouth, trying to work up some saliva. Soon. Soon I’ll get up and look for water.
Chapter Eleven
She walks down an empty hallway that stretches on forever. The walls are an unassuming beige, and the bland color is broken by soft pastel paintings, black-lettered signs, and smears of bright-red blood. A large swath of red runs for twenty feet along one wall. On the opposite wall, splotches of blood march across a fair reproduction of Cassatt’s ‘
Summertime’. On the floor beneath her bare feet a series of very small handprints bleed up through the off-white tiles.
Someone is crying somewhere, soft and low and achingly lonesome. She walks faster, looking for the source of the anguish, remembering when a young woman with blonde hair and pale blue eyes cried in the same way. Where was that woman?
No matter how fast she walks the end of the hallway never gets closer, and the crying goes on and on and on-
Nowen jerked awake. For one startling moment she saw plain walls splashed with blood, and then she was sitting in an open area filled with chairs and a sofa. The mad dash up the highway came back to her. With a shake of her head she sent the last strands of the dream flying.
She looked around. The tinted windows in this seating area made it difficult to tell how late in the day it was. She didn’t think she had been dozing for very long, but she had been deeply enough asleep that Anton and Suzannah had disappeared and she hadn’t noticed. She felt more than saw the wolf grin. Yeah, yeah, you’re more alert than me.
The sound of muffled sobs drew Nowen to the sofa, where Sage was laying. The girl was on her side and looked to be still asleep. She murmured something and her whole body jerked and then stilled. Nowen leaned closer but whatever the girl was saying, she was speaking in a language Nowen didn’t understand. Tears tracked down the girl’s hollow cheeks.
Nowen reached a hand out and then paused as she remembered the question that Sage had asked her right before they had to abandon the car. She pulled her hand back and stood. She saw something last night. The wolf. If she’s having a nightmare, waking up to see me looming over her might not be the best path. Nowen watched Sage for another moment as the girl continued to cry in her sleep. Then she turned away and went in search of the others.
Wolf Hiding (A Wolf in the Land of the Dead Book 2) Page 7