The Redemption Trilogy

by A. J. Sikes

  The sucker face snarled and gave a sharp bark, then reared up and howled. The smaller ones around it all joined in, braying to the sky.

  “McKitrick,” Jed said. “You got the 203 loaded, right?”

  “Rah, our only HE round,” she said.

  “Do it; then we run.”

  McKitrick fired into the mass of monsters. As the squad ran with all they had, the round erupted behind them, sending a gust of heat over their backs, followed by the shrill barks and growls of the monstrous horde that chased them down the street.

  — 13 —

  Emily and Danitha waited in the silence. Night sounds filtered into the cab through the broken window. Danitha snugged herself closer to Emily as the last slivers of light faded from the sky.

  “She left us here,” Danitha said. “Run off with that gun of hers and left us here.”

  “She’ll be back.”

  “You think? And what if she ain’t? What if that gun she left you ain’t got any bullets left in it? Let me see it.”

  Danitha had the pistol out of Emily’s hand before she could blink. Fatigue had come for its due; Emily’s hands were lead spoons in her lap.

  “Dani, please,” she said, hoping the woman would settle down. But Danitha’s anxiety was equal to Emily’s exhaustion. She aimed the pistol out the window and pulled the trigger. The gunshot cracked loud in the confined truck cab, and both of them jumped with fright. Danitha put the gun on the dashboard and leaned back against the seat.

  Another gunshot sounded in the night, followed by two more. Emily clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms.

  A shape emerged from the trees at the edge of the yard. It moved slowly, and at first Emily couldn’t think to do anything but stare at it. Then Danitha had the pistol in her hands again, and was pointing it toward the figure in the darkness.

  “Dani, no!” Emily shouted, pushing the gun aside.

  Angie appeared at the driver’s door, lugging something behind her. She opened the door and leaned halfway into the cab.

  “Y’all get spooked at something? What’d you shoot for?”

  Neither of them answered, and Angie shook her head at Danitha. “Be careful with that thing. Should be the professor holding it anyway. It’s her gun, remember?”

  Danitha took a shuddering breath and lowered the gun into Emily’s lap. She took it, making sure to swivel the safety catch down. Chava had shown her how to do that on the same day he’d shown her the magazine for his rifle. She found it odd the things she remembered now, with so much of her life gone and so much of his around her every second. Danger, fear, worry, and threat.

  “Can we go inside?” she asked Angie.

  The girl nodded.

  “Got us a gator for dinner. Just a little one, but the tail’s got at least two pounds of meat on it.”

  They got out of the truck and followed Angie into the house. She led them through a maze of debris, occasionally lifting aside a tree branch or a chunk of broken roof that lay up against the house.

  Inside, she brought them to the fireplace, which stood in the middle of the house, against a rotting kitchen wall. Parts of the upstairs floor were missing, and metal ducting had been rigged up to exhaust the fumes through an upstairs window.

  “Chimney’s blocked up by birds. Took me a while to figure out how to vent the smoke,” Angie said, as she dragged the dead alligator across the floor. “But this place is safe, so long as you stay with me and don’t go wandering around the rooms.”

  Emily met Angie’s eyes and did her best to communicate she understood, but the words faded from her thoughts before she could utter them.

  “Y’all look about ready to fall over, so why don’t you do that?” Angie said.

  She pointed at two mattresses that stood out amidst all the filth and wreckage. They weren’t clean, but they looked like actual beds with sheets and pillows piled on them.

  “Got those from upstairs. Go on and catch a few winks. I’ll wake you up when food’s ready.”

  Emily was already on the mattress, sitting. She felt Danitha sit down beside her. Seconds after her head sank into the comfort of a real pillow, she let sleep carry her away from everything she had suffered over the past two days.

  When Emily awoke, it was to the smell of roasting meat. The room was lit by a warm glow, and a mild, tangy scent wove through the odor of charcoal and crackling fat. Emily put a hand out to push herself up when a familiar chittering filled the night air outside. She froze and searched the room for movement.

  Angie sat beside the hearth, where a small fire burned, sending smoke pluming into the metal ducting.

  “Did you hear that?” Emily asked. “The bats are outside.”

  “Yeah, I know. They’re always out there eatin’ bugs. Between them and being covered in mud, I haven’t been bit by a mosquito in months.”

  Emily wanted to believe her, but she couldn’t shake the fear that the bat monsters would swarm into the room any second.

  “They never come inside?” she asked.

  “Nah. Not enough for them to hunt in here. Bugs get in, sure, but there’s plenty more outside.”

  Emily wondered if that was the reason, or if it was because the bats simply hadn’t found Angie hiding in here yet.

  “You hungry?” Angie asked as she stirred the fire beside her.

  A chunk of meat sat above the flames on a spit. Angie turned it once, then shaved some off with her knife. She put it on a cloth napkin she lifted from her lap and handed it over to Emily.

  “Regular picnic, ain’t it?” Angie said, with enough of a smile that Emily let herself feel relieved they had found the girl. Or that she had found them. Maybe the bats outside were just bats. Maybe they’d found safety after all.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the food from Angie. Danitha sat up next to her and leaned forward to inspect the meal Angie had made.

  They ate in silence at first, until Emily felt ready to speak.

  “You’ve survived this way for months now?”

  “Yeah,” Angie said. “Actually, glad I ran into y’all. Didn’t realize how lonely I was after—”

  Emily waited, letting Angie find the strength to continue.

  “Was only supposed to be at that gas station for one night. Sat down to clean my rifle when them guys in the Humvee showed up. I had to bug out fast and forgot to grab my magazine. Guess that was fate playing with us.”

  “Maybe God had a plan for us,” Danitha said.

  Angie sniffed at that. “Hope it’s better than the one he had making that virus.”

  Emily said, “Where did you go? When those men came?”

  “Refinery. Not the one we went through. Farther up the road. I had a hide up there, under the pipes. Got the truck wedged in so good nobody could spot it. I was worried they’d find me because they had a dog with them. It was making all manner of noise and racket, and one of them yelled about it not obeying proper. He shot it and then they left in their Hummer.”

  “It wasn’t a dog,” Danitha said.

  “How do you know?”

  “It was the ones after us. Same as we saw in that last town. They had a Humvee, too…”

  Danitha paused and looked to Emily for support. Angie looked between them.

  “Go on and do your telling,” she said.

  “They are using them as dogs,” Emily said. “But they’re not dogs anymore. They’re like the monsters from the refinery. The virus has changed them.”

  Angie stared at her, chewing on a chunk of alligator meat. She shook her head.

  “No way. I been out here long enough, I’d have seen one. Hell, I’d be dead by now probably. I don’t know what y’all saw or what came chasing us in the refinery, but it wasn’t the monsters.”

  Emily couldn’t tell if Angie simply didn’t want to accept it, or if she really thought Emily was lying. But it wasn’t worth fighting about. Not now. They’d had some sleep, and they were filling their bellies for the road ahead. Their water woul
dn’t last for long, but with luck they’d find more.

  “We should get to Galveston as fast as possible,” Emily said. “I don’t know how long my brother will be there. But it’s only been a week since I heard from him. I have to trust that he is still there.”

  “Trust’ll get you far in the Aftermath,” Angie said. “Unless you trust wrong. Then it’ll get you dead. Or worse.”

  “How about we forget the worse talk,” Danitha said, “and get on with how we gon’ get to Galveston. We ain’t even halfway there yet.”

  “Truck only has another few miles in it. We use it up, then we walk until we find another ride. Shouldn’t be long, but we’ll want to get an early start. Leave before sunup, and that ain’t too far off.”

  “What time is it?” Danitha asked.

  “Almost five now. I let y’all sleep a good six, seven hours. You needed it.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  They ate some more, quietly passing the napkin back and forth until the alligator tail was gone.

  After they’d finished, Danitha asked again about their plans to reach Galveston. “How do you know we’ll find another truck after that one outside runs dry?”

  “I don’t. Might be a car, or a van. Or a damn tractor trailer. Only thing that matters is the gas ain’t rotted yet. We’re spoiled for choice in case you ain’t noticed. Cars up and down the roads all around—”

  She stopped and put her food down. Angie moved so fast Emily could hardly tell what she was doing. She reached up into the chimney and pulled something. A large metal mixing bowl dropped down, and Angie caught it, placing it over the spit and glowing coals. Wisps of smoke curled around the edges of the bowl.

  Angie turned to them as she grabbed her rifle. She put a finger over her lips, then pointed toward the front of the house. Emily and Danitha sat still and watched as Angie left the room, stalking forward with her rifle up.

  A shrill whistle sliced into the room from outside, and was followed by a snarling and screeching, then a shout.

  Danitha flew backwards, away from Emily, and plastered herself against the wall beside the mattresses.

  “They found us, and they brought them things. They brought the dog things.”

  “Maybe they brought dogs, but that don’t mean they’re gonna get us,” Angie said. She was at the windows in the next room, looking outside. She lifted her rifle and fired two quick shots, then dropped to her knees and crawled out of view. Gunfire exploded outside, crackling and sending bits of wood and chips of glass flying into the room that Angie was in. Emily grabbed for the pistol on the floor, and pointed it toward the windows, but the trigger wouldn’t move.

  More gunfire peppered the night. Every time the house was struck, Emily jolted, fearing the eventual pain of being hit herself.

  A snarl sounded outside, and then a bark that mixed with a screech.

  Angie shouted something, then fired again. A man’s voice cried out in pain, but was quickly drowned out by more gunfire.

  Bullets sprayed into the front room, and some came through the doorway into the room where Emily and Danitha hid. Angie came crawling in from the other side of the room, from a doorway that led to the kitchen.

  “Y’all want to get killed? Get down!” she yelled at them.

  Emily nodded, and pushed Danitha to a prone position, then moved to lie down beside her. Angie was shooting again, as more bullets ripped into the wood around the windows. Splinters and dust rained into the room, mixing with the trails of smoke still curling from under the metal bowl covering their cooking fire.

  A fiery hot pain shocked Emily’s arm and she rolled away from it, fearing that somehow the fire had been spread and they would all burn alive. Then she felt the wet heat of blood soaking into her clothing.

  She screamed and clutched at the hole in her coat where a dark stain rapidly spread, and the pain threatened to consume her.

  “Put pressure on it!” Angie shouted from where she crouched by the windows. “Keep it covered and put pressure on it! Stop the bleeding!”

  Angie lifted up and fired again, then twice more. She was by Emily’s side a second later, pulling some fabric out of her pocket and slicing it with her knife. She wadded up a piece and pressed it over the wound in Emily’s arm, then used the other piece to tie the bandage on. Emily cried out, but forced herself to breathe as steady as she could. Danitha sat beside her, holding the pistol aimed into the next room.

  “You can relax,” Angie said. “I got ’em all.”

  Danitha lowered the gun and met Emily’s eyes. “You okay, Professor?”

  Emily tried to answer, but the pain in her arm turned her words into a strangled groan.

  Angie put a hand on her forehead, like a mother comforting a child. “We’ll get you stitched up later. Right now, we gotta go. Only three of them out there. Like I said; I got ’em all. But they had to get here somehow, and that means they brought us our next ride. So let’s go.”

  Emily nodded, and turned to Danitha. She’d sat back against the wall and was staring up at the ceiling. Emily followed her gaze to a hole in the floor above and her breath caught.

  A dog monster perched at the lip of the hole, staring down at them with its teeth bared and a sickly growl coming from its throat. Angie screamed a curse as the monster leaped forward with a hideous shriek.

  — 14 —

  Jed’s squad tore down the street, heading straight for the supply point. Gunfire rattled around them, mixed with howling, screeching, and screams. Somewhere out there, Jed knew civilians were being attacked by the monsters, but he had no hope of surviving unless he got his people to shelter, and fast. Garza was down to his last magazine, and the rest of the squad was burning through their ammo as well. They only had gas or smoke rounds left for McKitrick’s 203, plus a few frags between the rest of them. Jed felt the fear of failure creeping in. His squad was counting on him, and he’d ordered them to retreat. To run away.

  Can’t let doubt get in the way. Gotta return fire, find shelter.

  Mercer’s supply point was just ahead on the left. Jed risked a look over his shoulder as he ran. The monsters were still after them, but the horde had shrunk. He counted maybe a dozen or so on their tail. Smaller groups peeled off to the side, bounding over lawns, and into the remains of ruined houses. Some leaped onto rooftops and let out howls, while others raced forward, swarming the neighborhood with their screeches and growls.

  Jed fired at two of the monsters that had mounted a car parked in a driveway. He hit the car first, and the things jumped off, joining the group that chased the squad.

  They reached the supply point, but the garage door was closed.

  “Front door!” Jed shouted. “Stack on me! Garza, keep ’em off our six!”

  Jed raced up the front walk, and slammed his boot into the door above the handle. It flew open with a splintered crash and rebounded off something as Jed pushed his way into the house. He checked his near corner and ran his wall, pacing forward to post by a hall leading off the entryway. McKitrick and Parsons had come in after him and posted to his left by an overturned couch. She ran the wall to the far corner before flashing a quick thumbs up. Parsons stayed just inside the door, with his muzzle covering the space behind the couch.

  Garza and Mehta rushed inside, with Garza still firing in bursts. Mehta’s rifle cracked as he covered a zone to their right. Together, they picked off the last of the monsters that had been after them.

  Jed scanned the room they’d entered.

  The couch was against the front wall, beneath a large window. It had been pushed closer to the entrance, and had blocked the door from opening all the way when Jed kicked it in.

  “Get that couch. Block the door,” he said. Garza and Mehta came fully into the house, and closed the door. McKitrick and Parsons slid the couch across it, holding it shut.

  “It’s a poor man’s barricade, but it’ll slow them down. Keep back from the windows, y’all. Don�
�t let ’em see us in here.”

  The squad shrank into the corner between the entry and the hall that led deeper into the house.

  Straight ahead from the door was a larger room with the remains of a TV hanging off the wall. The back wall of that room faced onto the yard behind the house. Sheets of plywood had been used to partially cover the sliding glass door, but one pane was still intact. Jed could see muzzle bursts outside, in the yards between the houses. He was about to order the squad to move that way to help when screaming replaced the gunfire. The only sounds after that were snarling and growling.

  “Sergeant,” Parsons said. “I got blood here.”

  Jed turned to where Parsons was standing, beside the hallway. Thick splatters followed a trail into the darkness. A smeared handprint marked the wall as well.

  “Eyes up, everyone. Garza, Mehta; y’all got our six. Parsons, with me. Let’s go.”

  The hall grew dark as pitch the farther they moved into it, until Jed could only just make out the corner where the floor met the wall. Before the monsters were confirmed, he would have chanced using his flashlight. But now, it was better not to see than to risk being seen.

  As they moved ahead, Jed caught more sounds from outside. A door had to be open somewhere, because he could hear the crack of nearby gunfire mixed with screeching. Then, as before, screams replaced the shooting, and were followed by an ugly silence. Underneath it though, and closer, Jed caught the moaning of someone in pain.

  “Might have contact here, might have wounded. Keep sharp.”

  The squad continued, stepping slow, until Parsons gave a startled cry.

  Jed swiveled to this right, and found himself looking into the garage, at Mercer’s supply shelves. Weak light sliced into the garage through the narrow windows in the main door. Jed couldn’t see the person, but someone was in there, and they were injured. A weak groan came across the space, followed by a sound Jed hadn’t heard in over a year, a sort of sucking and snarling. It was a sound he had hoped never to hear again.

  He moved into the garage, going down a short step to stand on the concrete floor. Remembering their visit earlier, he knew that the shelves in front of him were stuffed with wet-weather gear. The next set of shelves to his left had the radios on them, with MREs on the other side. The construction equipment was on the last two sets of shelves, by a door that led outside. That was where the noises came from.