Boom! Laurie winced as her right ear immediately went numb. The dragon banked away. The wolf-creature whipped its head up as the dragon passed over the tree, dropping more objects from its clawed feet. The wolf leaped from the tree, but the awkward way it twisted in mid-flight suggested it had been hit. It landed on two feet, one wing drooping.
The dragon dived on it. Grimacing, Laurie shouldered the rifle again. She overtook the dragon in her sights and established a several-foot lead. Boom! Boom!
The dragon pulled up hard from its dive. Laurie didn't think she'd hit it, but it leveled off suddenly and shot from view behind the house. It reappeared a few seconds later climbing swiftly over a woods heading south. The wolf-creature, meanwhile, was hobbling off toward the nearest barn. Laurie picked up her bike. About half the spokes on her front tire had been crushed or severed by a tractor tilling blade.
Why had she intervened? What difference would it make to her if these creatures killed each other? For some strange reason, she was drawn to the winged-wolf. It seemed friendly to her, almost as if reaching out to her for companionship. Or maybe she just wanted to see it that way. She'd always liked wolves. On a bow hunting expedition last year, a huge timber wolf started to follow her around and act aggressively, springing down directly in her path eight feet from her, she'd drawn her backup .357 magnum and aimed it between his shining yellow eyes. But she hadn't pulled the trigger. A standoff followed. Might've been thirty seconds or five minutes. Then it had wheeled away and run off, not to be seen or heard from again. Her dad had told her she was lucky to be alive.
The wolf-creature is wounded. It felt like an opportunity, though she wasn't clear about what kind. Maybe she could go in and try to help it somehow? Wouldn't it know, with its obvious intelligence, that she'd helped it – perhaps even saved its life?
Laurie rolled her eyes at herself. Dad would probably kill me for even thinking about doing that. No way of knowing how the wolf would react. And being wounded didn't generally bring out the friendly side in an animal.
She strapped the AR over her left shoulder and started wheeling her bike toward home with a heavy step.
DIANA HEARD the rifle shots when she was pumping water into storage bottles from the hydrant in their backyard. The sound drew her eyes to the east – and to a pair of flying creatures. One of them was diving – or falling from gunshot wounds? – headed straight toward another, smaller creature that she suspected might be the winged-wolf she'd seen in town. Both of the creatures disappeared from view.
"I think I heard gunfire," she called to Penny, who was perched on a nearby tree limb thirty feet in the air. "I'm going to check it out."
"Can I come?"
"You'd better stay here for now. I'll be back as soon as I can."
"What if something happens to you?"
"I'll be okay." She slung her rifle over one shoulder and a canteen over the other. "Just stay put."
The girl dropped to the ground. Diana's jaw dropped as well – first in fear and then in amazement when the girl landed with no more than a deep knee bend that rocked her forward onto her hands. Then she was springing up and running over to Diana showing no awareness that falling ten yards and landing on her feet was anything special.
"You didn't answer my question," she said, stopping in front of her.
Diana read the girl's scowl and the fists formed at her sides. She was eleven or twelve and not much over five feet or ninety pounds, giving up probably eight inches and fifty pounds to the older woman – not to mention years of martial arts training – but from what Diana had seen she had no doubt the girl could injure or possibly even kill her with those small fists. But no way would she let this super-powered little sociopath push her around. She needed to establish without any question who was in charge here.
"There's plenty of meat in the freezers – one inside, the other in the garage," Diana stated coolly. "The stove will work for the foreseeable future since the propane tank is nearly full. Feel free to finish the steaks I grilled or help yourself to any food in the pantry."
"And then what?"
Diana decided to try some compassion, as she would with any normal person under these circumstances. "I don't know, Penny," she said. "You wouldn't die from lack of food or water. Do you have any experience with guns?"
The girl shook her head glumly. "No. Could you teach me?"
"We'll talk about that when I get back. Right now I need to get moving. We have a chance to find other survivors."
She resumed walking with a brook-no-interference stride, and Penny stepped aside with an air of aggrieved acceptance. Diana broke into a jog toward the area she'd seen the flying creatures disappear. Time was of the essence. The dangers she might be facing in her solo run didn't sink in until she noticed the large dog-like shapes which seemed to be pacing her in the woods adjacent to the open and mostly barren farmland she was running through. They looked like giant Airedales with bearish heads. Definitely not local. Only three or four of them, from what she could see. Diana resolved to stick to open spaces as much as possible.
Another guest approached in the air. The dragon that ate the Larsens' horses? Diana unslung her rifle. The dragon veered into a patch of trees a half-mile distant. So probably the same dragon, then, since it knew about guns. Diana hung the .308 back over her right shoulder.
The dragon settled down near the top of a tree, shifting about in the limbs until it found a stable place for its bulk, and eyed her like a giant, wary bird of prey as she jogged past. Oddly, neither the dragon nor the winged-wolf, both clearly deadly predators, scared her much. Her gut feeling was they didn't view her or other people as prey. The "Airedales" tagging along a quarter-mile on her left, however, didn't inspire such confidence. They were cautious but interested. The fairy-elves were bloodthirsty, but with weapons she could dominate them.
But the baboon-creatures...Diana repressed a shiver. So far, they were the "bad boys" of the neighborhood. While the dragon and the winged-wolf seemed more solitary, the long-limbed simians traveled in packs. They were intelligent and calculating – to a near-human extent, judging by how the leader had sent two underlings forward as test-subjects. If they decided to take her out, she simply didn't have the firepower to stop them, even in the open. One reason she needed to unite with other human survivors as soon as possible. Get a few people with firearms together and they would be the dominant force in this area...unless there was some deadlier creature she didn't know about.
Diana arrived at the outer buildings of a farm. Walking in, she considered shouting out "Is anyone home?" but there was no way to know who or what might respond. Several branches and leaves scattered on the ground beneath a tall oak caught her eye. A trail of dark splotches – blood? – led away from the tree to a nearby utility building's entrance.
She approached the utility building's open roll-up door, the M&P pointed ahead of her. For all she knew, a person was waiting, wounded, in the building, but if it was one of the "visitors," she couldn't expect a friendly welcome.
Diana peered in from one edge of the entrance. The blood droplets stretched across the cement floor. Skylights banished most of the shadows, but a pair of tractors and a combine offered good hiding places. Diana entered along the wall opposite the farm equipment.
Metal creaked overhead, and she looked up in time to see a massive fur-covered body with airplane-sized wings descending on her. She dived to one side, feeling the compression of air from the creature's wings as she tried to roll clear. Her rifle slipped from her hands, clattering a few precious feet away. The winged-wolf landed squarely on her rifle, pinning it to the cement with shiny black talons.
Diana rolled in the opposite direction and onto her feet. The winged-wolf advanced. She drew her pistol. One of the creature's bat-like wings unfurled and whipped toward her. She jumped back, but not in time to avoid an edge of the wing striking her hand, sending the Glock clattering across the cement floor. She noticed the gash on her hand and the claws arching out fro
m the edges of the creature's wings in almost the same instant.
Another swoop of the wolf-thing's wing – and Diana ducked to the floor as its barbed wing sliced through the air where her head had been. She lunged into a backward roll – a roll she'd learned in her beloved gymnastics class years before being informed she was far too large to be a gymnast – smacking into one corner of the building.
Her adversary drew in its wings until they were a few feet from its body, its gold-orange eyes taking cool measure of her. Diana glanced at a door on the wall about twenty feet from her. Doubting the wolf could squeeze its body through the seven by three-foot opening, she edged toward it. The creature shuffled sideways to block her. Their eyes met. Its green tongue lolled out, hanging several inches from the tip of its muzzle, slick with saliva. At least she assumed it was saliva. Diana drew her knife slowly. A USMC combat knife with a seven-inch stainless steel blade versus her opponent's rows of three to four-inch "knives" on its wings, four sets of talons, a mouthful of fangs, and perhaps three or four hundred pounds – very little of it appearing to be fat. Not a matchup made in heaven for her.
The wolf eased a bit closer, herding her away from the door. She was running out of options. The creature was close enough, she estimated, to reach out and "touch" her with its deadly wings. She had no doubt it could rip her open like a ripe watermelon or remove her head with one slice. Even if she managed to dodge a wing-strike, the creature could close with its claws and teeth. She might get in one knife-thrust – and then she'd be history.
As she envisioned her imminent demise, Diana noticed a bloody rent in the creature's right wing – large enough so that when the wolf-thing shifted the wing she could see through it into the room.
I have only one chance left. Its intelligence.
Diana sheathed her knife. The creature cocked its head at her, its eyes narrowing. Diana raised a bleeding hand – it would probably require stitches, but that was the least of her present concerns – and pointed to the wound on the wolf's wing, and then tapped her chest. She repeated the gesture with exaggerated slowness. She then made a compressing gesture with both hands and pointed to the wound again.
The wolf-creature's glowing orange eyes tracked her gesture to the rip in its wing. Diana nodded emphatically, touching her chest and pointing. The wolf, with some hesitation, reached across with one hand and touched the edge of the wound and pointed with that same hand at her. Its hand then squeezed into a fist.
"Yes," said Diana, nodding hard enough to make her neck hurt, scarcely believing the thing understood. No way it didn't have a human-level of intelligence. She squeezed her hand into a fist. "I can treat it. At least I think I can."
The winged-wolf cocked its head at her again as if hearing the doubt in her voice.
"I can do it," she said. "Trust me."
Could she? She'd taken Langley's EMT course – highly recommended for playing with violent folks. Nothing instilled trust and loyalty more than saving someone's life. That training had also recommended her for establishing realistic scenarios surrounding the various simulations of violent acts performed throughout the country over the last several years under the CIA's Operation Civilize. She just needed to get her hands on some medical supplies. Some surgical glue and antiseptic solution should do it, for both her injured hand and the wolf's wing.
What? Are you serious? Do you actually believe you can manhandle this thing without getting your head torn off? Besides, how the hell could she communicate that they'd have to go to the hospital?
The winged-wolf continued to stare at her, apparently waiting. If it understood this much, she thought, it had to understand that she didn't have the tools or supplies with her. She pointed southeast toward the Winneska Lake Medical Center, followed by pointing at herself and it. The creature glanced in the indicated direction. She pointed again at them and the hospital. After contemplating her for a long moment with its unnerving eyes, the wolf copied the gesture.
"Okay," she said. "Then we'll need to go back to town. And I'll need my weapons."
She pointed to the rifle and pistol on the cement floor a few yards behind the wolf. The wolf made a waving-off motion and pointed to the southeast. Diana shook her head, making a choking gesture.
"Without weapons, I might not survive the trip," she said. She attempted to present that idea with more gestures to herself and the guns.
The wolf contemplated her for several more unnerving moments before pointing to her and to its back. Diana blinked. So it understood her complicated message and was offering a ride on its back? That seemed impossible to believe. The implication, assuming her interpretation was right, was that it had given people rides before, which seemed pretty unthinkable.
The wolf stooped down and pointed to its back again.
"Damn," said Diana. "Am I imagining this? This thing really is okay with me climbing onto its back and riding it like a canine Pegasus."
She kept telling herself that as she sucked in her fear and made herself approach the creature one shaky step at a time. This is what it wants. It's given me permission. So what if I'm moving within reach of his teeth and claws. It could've killed me anytime it wanted to where it stood.
Diana jerked back as it fastened a restraining paw on her right arm. For a terrible instant, she imagined it was going to pull her into his embrace and sink its large fangs into her throat a la some werewolf horror movie. Instead, with surprising dexterity, it pried her Ka-Bar knife from its sheath and tossed it over to join her rifle and Glock on the building's floor. It understood what a knife was!
Wouldn't want me to plunge its blade into the back of your neck while flying, would you?
The creature assisted Diana's climb up his furry, muscular back with surprising gentleness in what was more like climbing a fur-covered mountain than mounting a horse. Luckily, she and Dean had done some rock-climbing in their earlier days, which she greatly preferred to horse riding. She'd never felt comfortable entrusting her life to an animal. And now she was about to go airborne with one. Could this get any stranger?
Diana leaned into him – for some reason she thought of the wolf as a him – wrapping her arms around his thick neck. Feeling the powerful muscles in his back reminded her of the time she'd climbed bareback on a friend's horse. She'd ended up face-planted in the dirt from five feet up. Falling would hurt a lot more from five hundred meters up.
The wolf-creature strode toward the roll-up door. Not so different from a human walk, but with more bounding involved – a non-human power in its stride, as if it could rise to the rafters with a single leap. Diana locked her hands around the creature's neck.
Her imagination proved inadequate: the wolf launched itself into the air as if fired from a circus cannon, breaking Diana's grip. She slid down its back, visions of a three-story fall flashing in her head before landing on something that halted her fall. She needed a moment to realize she was sitting on the creature's legs, which had curled up to catch her.
They leveled out in flight, no more than fifty or sixty feet up, and Diana was able to crawl back to its shoulders and re-establish her hold around his neck. She felt the muscles in his back and shoulders flex into steel bands as his long wings, accordioned out to perhaps twenty feet on either side, started to slowly beat. They picked up speed and angled into a gradual ascent. It reminded Diana of a glider she and her husband had flown in: the gentle hiss of the wind on the fuselage and wings, the sense of near-weightless suspension in the air.
She guessed they were flying twenty or thirty miles per hour at most – not much faster than a cyclist in good shape might manage – ascending and descending in what Diana saw as a rollercoaster ride through the air. The ascent phases were short, powered by a brief but powerful flapping of wings, followed by a gradual descent, the speedier part of the flight. Diana wasn't sure how hard her companion was working, or how much she was slowing him down. His breaths were long and deep, his motions economical and measured. He was more a marathoner than a sprinte
r, she decided.
Diana thought it was a miracle the wolf could even get airborne. The creature had to have spring-loaded pistons in his thighs to power his initial leap, especially considering her extra weight.
The hospital appeared in a couple of minutes. The wolf noted Diana's finger pointing down over his shoulder and began a gradual descent toward the building. Now it would get interesting. Would the winged-wolf be willing to wait outside while she searched the hospital for antiseptic solution and surgical glue? She'd soon find out.
The wolf set down in front of the entrance with no more impact than dropping off a six-inch step. Diana lowered herself cautiously down his broad back to the sidewalk. She motioned for the wolf to wait, but he responded with a dismissive wave and an inclusive gesture that made it clear they'd be going in together.
"All right," she said. "But you may not find it easy moving around in there."
Inside the lobby, the bad-meat odor had graduated to a sickly sweet rotten egg combined with a city dump smell. Diana held her nose, which provided only temporary relief. The winged wolf noted the tangle of dead bodies in the lobby as he squeezed through the front entrance doors but otherwise showed no response. A short distance down the hall, Diana encountered a door labeled Pharmacy, but of course, it was locked. She assumed she could find a key in one of the nurse stations without patting down their bodies.
The wolf noted her attempt to open the door, and when she moved away gave it a casual kick. The door blew off its hinges halfway across the room.
"Oookay," Diana murmured. Spring-loaded piston legs, indeed. She doubted a even large horse could've kicked the door out that easily.
She quickly located bandages, an antiseptic solution, and some antibiotic pills. The surgical adhesive required a few minutes of pawing through the oddly alphabetized inventory that had the glue placed under "suture materials." The wolf was waiting with apparent calm stoicism in a clear area near the blown-out doorway. Diana pulled up a chair in front of him and motioned for him to unfurl his wing. Instead, the creature pointed to her wounded hand.
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