The Breaking

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  Al steered onto Dickerson Avenue and headed south. His route would bring them to Route 3, through the main stretch of town, and back north to complete their circuit. More Half Breeds following them meant fewer of the creatures hunting the human survivors of Atoka. “There’s more of them than I thought!” Paige shouted.

  Milosh fired another round at a Half Breed that had leapt forward to grab the tailgate with both front paws. The bullet chipped its tusk and snapped its head to one side, but didn’t knock it down. The werewolf set one paw inside the truck before the next .50 caliber round knocked it back into the street. “We took too much time preparing,” he said.

  “We needed that time or else we couldn’t have done much of anything about these things.”

  “Then follow your own advice,” he said while clumsily fitting fresh rounds into the rifle he balanced against his knees. “Stop bitching.”

  No matter how much she wanted to, Paige couldn’t argue with that logic. Once her pistols were reloaded, she holstered the Beretta so she could grab the sickle she’d kept trapped beneath her foot. She braced herself to keep from sliding across the bed as the pickup took a hard right onto Route 3. The sudden swerve caused the Half Breeds climbing Milosh’s side of the truck to either drop off or fall into the bed. Paige shouted for him to drop, and he tucked himself into a fetal ball as she leaned forward to sweep the curved blade in a deadly arc. Even though she’d managed to log some impressive hours with the machete, the shape and balance of the weapon was finally restored to its former glory. The sickle blade sliced across the eyes of one Half Breed and dug a deep trench across the chest of another. As those two yelped and recoiled, a third pulled itself forward until all four paws were in the bed of the truck.

  Paige swung the sickle until her arm was bent across her face. Gritting her teeth, she sent the curved blade on a return path that drove its tip into the Half Breed’s shoulder. The edge that had been treated with fragments of the Blood Blade allowed the weapon to burrow several inches down, and the thorns in its handle kept the weapon in her grasp as the creature tried to attack Milosh. Its claws flailed wildly, scraping the Amriany’s shoulders and back to tear away layers of clothing before reaching his battered tactical vest. The wounds Milosh sustained were ugly, but nothing that the healing serums in his system couldn’t handle. Paige grabbed her weapon with both hands and leaned back. pulling at the Half Breed. The creature snapped its mouth shut within an inch of its meal before a charmed dagger punctured its forehead and scraped against the sickle blade within its skull. Milosh swore at it, twisted his dagger and then pulled it out.

  “Al!” Paige shouted. “See if you can shake these things off. They’re scratching your paint job!”

  She wasn’t sure which part of her warning ticked Al off the most: mortal danger to his partners or the damage to his truck. He shouted a string of obscenities while sending the pickup into a lurching series of turns that brought them careening up South Dunbar, around a tight corner, down Lincoln Street, and back onto Route 3. Since she and Milosh were already laying flat inside the truck bed, they were able to stay there while the Half Breeds were forced to struggle just to maintain their grip. Even with claws that could dig through metal, most of them were tossed to the street. The few creatures that tried to run in front of the truck were turned into living speed bumps that jostled Paige and Milosh even more.

  Paige had kept hold of the Half Breed she’d impaled with her sickle. After twisting the weapon to make sure the werewolf was dead, she finally let go with her left hand so she could grab one of the squeeze bottles. “Get ready on that tailgate,” she said.

  Milosh slid his knife back into its scabbard and scooted toward the rear of the truck until one foot was propped against the edge of the frame and the other was flat against the back.

  Paige dumped a good portion of bait mixture onto the dead Half Breed and then pulled the sickle free. “Hit it!”

  Milosh popped the latch and opened the tailgate with a solid kick. Then he pulled himself against the side of the truck bed so his body pinned the rifle in place and a path was cleared for her to shove the Half Breed out. She didn’t know where she got the strength to move the heavy creature, but her muscles barely protested as she pushed the carcass toward the back of the truck. The vehicle’s momentum and erratic movement went a long way in sending the dead werewolf into the anxious faces of the creatures running directly behind them. Knowing that some of the Half Breeds might try to jump up into the truck while it was open, she unscrewed the squeeze bottle and tossed it at the ravaging crowd so the rest of the mixture was sprayed across as many of the creatures as possible.

  Propping herself onto her knees, she swung her sickle out and down to hook the tailgate beneath its curved blade. All she needed to do then was fall back to lock it into place. Since Al was constantly checking his rearview mirror, he knew when to steady his course so as not to throw her out along with the carcass they’d just unloaded. She grabbed the side of the bed and watched chaos unfold among the Half Breeds.

  Most of the creatures swarmed the baited carcass. Others splintered into smaller groups to chase creatures with the mixture spattered on their coats. The newer breed definitely had a keener sense of smell than the previous generation and were driven beyond frenzy as they got closer to the mixture. One of the Half Breeds that had been sprayed by the water bottle ran in circles and flopped on its back like a dog trying to grind an itchy spot against the floor. It twisted itself into a pretzel in its attempt to gnaw at the bait and was quickly overtaken by its brethren as the overzealous werewolves ripped it to pieces. As the green pickup carrying Nadya and Jesse sped down a nearby street, more Half Breeds followed it onto northbound I-69 and led a couple dozen others in that direction.

  Even with the road momentarily cleared, Paige knew better than to celebrate. She flipped the sickle into the bed and trapped it once again beneath her foot. “Where are we headed, Al?”

  “Straight through town on Mississippi Avenue. Don’t know how far we’ll make it before one of those damn things shreds a tire.”

  Paige winced. She hadn’t thought of that. While making a suicide drive through a town infested by shapeshifters, getting a flat tire seemed almost too common a problem to consider. Even so, anything that brought the truck to a halt would be one hell of a serious situation. “How far is the reservoir?” she asked.

  “Just a few miles north of town. Getting there is still pretty sketchy considering how much we’ll have to plow through.”

  “Don’t think about that,” she told him while popping the top off another squeeze bottle. She sent it pinwheeling into some trees at the intersection where Liberty Road met Mississippi Avenue. Some of the Half Breeds peeled away from chasing the truck, but the ones that remained had their sights set on her and would not be diverted. To make matters worse, some creatures emerged from those same trees to either attack the container of bait mixture or replace the Half Breeds that had broken off their pursuit.

  Al turned to look over his shoulder. There was a maniacal glint in his eye when he said, “Give the gimp something to hang onto.”

  “What?” Before Milosh could fire back with anything more than that, he was tossed from one side of the bed to another. He and Paige rattled around as the pickup tore through a tight series of turns that sent it between groups of Half Breeds, over refuse scattered in the road, into the dirt beside the road, over a set of low bumps, and finally back onto northbound Mississippi Avenue. Once there, Al slammed his foot onto the accelerator and cranked the knob of his stereo. If he was going to drive into hell, there wasn’t any reason why he shouldn’t hear some Tom Petty along the way.

  It took a few seconds for her to reorient herself, and then Paige sat upright and grabbed onto the side of the bed. Most of the light in Atoka came from whatever spilled down from the moon. Even though it wasn’t full, the pale glow was especially dazzling. To many people in other parts of the world, it must have been a beautiful sight. From where she was
sitting, however, the moon made Atoka look like death frozen over. Many of the town’s lights were off and an overwhelming percentage of those that did shine were sputtering to stay that way. Smoke rose from fires in a few different locations, and whenever she spotted another human being in the distance, that person was cut down by the rampaging beasts that had overtaken the town. In some houses or beneath a few darkened stores, people were huddled just like the ones jammed into Waggoner’s panic room. For all she knew, the redhead with the Tupperware, those families, and even Waggoner were already dead. Even worse, they could have been among the Half Breeds being led to the reservoir.

  Paige reached over to help Milosh get back into a seated position with his back braced against the wheel well. Unlike the other times she’d tried to help him, the Amriany accepted her efforts. “We shouldn’t be leaving this place,” she said in a voice she thought would be too quiet to be heard over the truck’s engine and the snarling of her countless shapeshifter pursuers.

  Having reloaded the rifle and steadied himself so he could sight effectively along its barrel, he replied, “We aren’t going far.”

  “But there’s people who can still be saved. The Mongrels probably need our help.”

  “Plenty of people need help. There will always be someone to save. When you watch the news on television, all you see are those in need, and people like us are always thinking of ways to help them. You know what we have to do?”

  “What?”

  Milosh shifted and grunted as the heavy hunting rifle weighed down the tender stump of his left arm. “We need to stop watching the news.”

  She would have chuckled at that if she hadn’t been forced to hang on for dear life as Al swerved to avoid running into a wall of Half Breeds. The truck took the corner and headed north.

  “Did you ever hear of a village called Bruusk?” Milosh asked.

  Since the green pickup had helped take some of the pressure off them, Paige said, “No.”

  “They were being terrorized by Nymar, and three good Amriany refused to leave even when more and more of the villagers were turned.”

  “This had better be a quick story,” Paige said. “We’re getting close to the Full Bloods.”

  “All three Amriany, along with every last villager, died because none of them knew when to leave. How’s that for a short story? This is the case now. It is time to leave, and if we don’t, we die.”

  Paige hadn’t allowed herself to feel guilty over decisions she’d made for a long time. There were things that needed to be done, and she did them as best as she could. That’s all there was to it, and that was usually enough to get her through the night.

  It was going to take a lot more than that to get her through this night.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Nadya, Jesse, and Quinn waited for them alongside I-69, waving at the red pickup like a pair of pushy hitchhikers. Farther back on the road, the green pickup was completely covered in a writhing mass of knotted muscle, wiry fur, and gnashing teeth. Al skidded to a halt and Paige crawled across the bed of the truck to lean over Milosh’s side. “How many are left?” she asked.

  “We killed many of the Vitsaruuv, but there will be more coming once those get finished lapping up all of the bait we poured onto that truck.”

  “Waggoner’s going to be pissed,” Paige said.

  “I’ve got something to show you that might make up for it.” Nadya accepted her partner’s help in climbing up into the bed of the red truck. Although Milosh was working with only one arm, he’d offered it to her gladly and now allowed his body to be wedged against the metal wall as she pulled herself in.

  “Get in!” Paige said to Jesse.

  The man in the U of Texas shirt shook his head strongly enough to waggle his long beard. “I’m headed back into town. With you all dragging these things along, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “It only takes one to bring you down,” Paige warned.

  “If that’s all it takes, then I won’t do no good to you in that truck,” he snapped. With that, he held his rifle at hip level and dashed away from the road, disappearing into the trees.

  Milosh growled something in their native tongue when he saw the object in Nadya’s hand. She quickly silenced him and then looked at Paige to show her a long steel tube that resembled an ornate bicycle pump. “This is one of our tools that we guard closely. It’s charmed to attract the Weshruuv.”

  “Bait specific to Full Bloods?” Paige asked. “Nice. How does it work?”

  Gripping the middle of the tube, Nadya tapped the pump handle with her other hand and said, “Pull back to load the spring. Push forward to shoot.”

  “How many rounds?”

  “Just one. Make it count.”

  “Are we ready to go?” Al asked. “I don’t like sitting still this long unless we’re piling out to make our stand.”

  Quinn stayed on the ground and nervously watched the huge pack of Half Breeds. The dirt encrusted in her fur was thick enough to add some bulk to her frame and slick her ears back against her head. “My pack is keeping the Full Bloods occupied. Some of the wretches were diverted to deal with them, but that also means more of my kind will die this night. If those deaths prove to be in vain, you had better hope I’m counted among them.”

  “I speak for all of us,” Nadya replied. “They won’t be in vain. Thank you for helping to see us through this hell.”

  Bill watched them shake hands and let out a low, disgusted grunt from the back of his throat.

  “Tell your pack to bring those Full Bloods to us,” Paige said. “After that, you can all find the deepest hole you’ve got and hide in it until the howling stops.”

  Quinn nodded and then disappeared underground with an ease that made it seem more like she’d been absorbed into the earth itself. Everyone in the pickup took a moment to reload their guns in preparation for the thundering wave of shapeshifters that had taken a renewed interest in them. Inside the truck, Bill spoke in a tersely guarded voice that wasn’t loud enough for Paige to hear. Al responded only with an occasional nod as he gripped the steering wheel and stared at a little sign along the side of the road about seventy yards ahead. Paige stomped her heel against the bed of the truck and shouted, “Let’s go!”

  The truck’s engine roared, causing the vehicle’s frame to shake. Paige’s eyes were fixed on the road behind her, waiting for any sign of the Full Bloods. Dumping the last of the bait onto the side of the truck, she scooted back until her shoulders bumped against the cab, then drew her pistols. By the time the truck built up some speed, heavier paws thumped against the ground. Trees alongside I-69 shook, shedding their leaves in a slow tumble toward the ground as they were assaulted by heavily muscled bodies. Quinn and another Mongrel exploded from the woods, keeping low to the ground and their heads held high. Seeing the truck, they split up to race past either side of the vehicle while Minh charged after them.

  Now it was Nadya who told the driver to wait as she lifted the gleaming metal tube to point it over the tailgate. She drew back the pump handle, causing the mechanism inside to clatter and snap into place. Her feet pressed against the interior of the truck bed and her back stiffened as the Full Blood charged forward. Paige wanted to fire at the creature but choked back that instinct so the Amriany could do her thing.

  As soon as Minh came within twenty feet of the pickup, Nadya pushed the pump handle back into the tube. An oiled piston within the device shot a gleaming projectile out to trace a shimmering path through the air that ended somewhere between Minh’s left shoulder and upper chest. The Full Blood grunted, staggered, and then recovered while slowing to a trot. She snarled and nipped at the spot on her coat that was now stained with blood, but was unable to remove the thing that had been shot into her. In the distance, Liam’s distinctive howl rose above all the others. Minh’s crystalline eyes snapped at the truck, found Nadya, and then narrowed.

  “Go faster,” the Amriany said. “Go, go!”

  Al nearly jammed the ga
s pedal through the floor, causing the pickup to lurch forward in a burst of speed that sent all three of the passengers in the bed toward the tailgate. Bill reached out to slap the top of the cab gleefully while hollering as if to compete with the baying Full Bloods.

  Hanging on with one hand while using the other to tuck the engraved tube under her arm, Nadya said, “Now that the bolt has made contact with the blood of a Weshruuv, they will follow whoever carries this.”

  “How long will that last?”

  “Long enough. I also dipped the bolt into some of your bait, so she’ll have plenty to keep her busy.”

  Al steered toward a small access road on the left that led toward the reservoir. The exit was overgrown and barely seemed large enough for the truck. Paige could only hang on and watch as Minh tore up the road in her haste to keep up. Although she had the same frenzied look in her eyes as the Half Breeds, there was enough intelligence there to keep her from devolving into a mass of flailing limbs like her twisted brethren. Fortunately, that twisted mass was snapping at her, latching onto her coat and forcing her to slow down and periodically swipe at the Half Breeds clinging to her back.

  “Now that’s some damn fine teamwork!” Paige said.

  “Arvah,” Milosh said with a nod. “This is good.”

  Once she’d rid herself of enough Half Breeds to once again face the right direction, Minh caught up to the truck with only a few powerful strides.

  “This,” Milosh said with chilling calm, “is not so good.”

  Nadya fumbled with the FAMAS strapped across her back. Before she could swing the assault rifle around to use it, the entire truck was jostled by a nudge from the side of Minh’s head. The next impact lifted the truck off its back tires and dropped it down again with a powerful jolt that knocked the small of Nadya’s back against the wheel well and sent the pickup into a fishtail.