by Dirk Patton
“I’ve got to learn how to do that!” Scott said as Igor drove the vehicle to the waiting helicopter.
43
Rachel was shivering again. Sitting with her back to the lake the fire warmed her front, but a breeze had sprung up. It was blowing across the lake, striking the part of her body that wasn’t turned to catch the warmth of the flames. She wasn’t about to turn away to warm herself.
A bone-chilling howl warbled into the night, making her jerk and look in the direction she thought it had come from. The pack of wolves, she was now certain it was a pack, had been howling for half an hour and she was unnerved and on the edge of panic.
The voices of the animals were all around her, only the open lake to her rear remaining quiet. The dark forest that pressed in was menacing, holding unseen terrors. Rachel was shivering as much in fear as she was from the weather. Pistol firmly gripped in both hands she constantly tried to see beyond the fire, but the flames that were keeping her safe were also preventing her from seeing beyond the small ring of light they cast.
Rachel’s breath caught in her throat when a sleek grey form seemingly materialized at the edge of the light on the far side of her camp. The wolf stared at her with intense eyes that flashed yellow in the firelight. She raised the pistol, dismayed to see how badly her hands were shaking.
As she watched the wolf, wanting to pull the trigger but afraid she would miss and waste precious ammunition, another suddenly appeared out of the darkness a few feet to the left of the first. Slowly standing, Rachel struggled to control the shakes as the new arrival growled and curled its lips away from sharp teeth.
The primitive, instinctual part of Rachel’s brain screamed at her to run. To flee. Her fight or flight response went into overdrive and a massive amount of adrenaline flowed into her system, calming her hands and sending her brain into warp drive.
She recognized that neither of the animals facing her were the wolf she had first encountered and repelled with the flare gun. Both were smaller, perhaps females, and hadn’t learned the painful lesson the other one had. Instincts still telling her to run, Rachel fought the impulse. There was nowhere to run, and she had no doubt that if she moved the wolves would attack and bring her down before she took three steps.
The animal that was growling took a partial step forward, moving ahead of the other and farther into the firelight. It was no more than twenty feet away on the far side of the campfire. Rachel aimed for its chest and concentrated on a slow, steady pull of the trigger, just like John had preached to her over and over.
Like most new shooters she tended to jerk the trigger, which pulled the muzzle to the side and caused her to miss what she was aiming at. He had done everything he could to correct her error, telling her that she should almost be surprised when the weapon fired. “Squeeze and don’t anticipate the kick. That will cause you to flinch before you even shoot,” he’d told her repeatedly.
John’s words ringing loudly in her head, Rachel was surprised when the pistol roared and bucked in her hands. Both wolves jumped at the loud report, but the growler let out a yelp and stumbled sideways. Swiveling, Rachel intended to fire at the second one, but it had already vanished into the darkness.
The animal she had shot had only taken half a step before falling to the ground. It now lay there, twitching as it died. Blood was pulsing onto the snow around its chest, the hot, red liquid melting and mixing with the pristine white. Shock, terror, and relief all flooded through Rachel, warring with boldness to be the supreme emotion of the moment.
Emboldened won out and she opened her mouth and screamed a guttural cry into the night. She had killed a wolf! They would be afraid to approach the camp again!
She remained standing, pistol up, ready in case any other members of the pack approached. Her breath was coming fast and deep with the surge of adrenaline, but as time passed it calmed and she lowered the weapon. The fire was still burning brightly but Rachel picked up several more dead branches and after knocking snow off of them, tossed them into the flames.
An hour later the only sign of the wolves was the dead animal on the far side of her camp. She was both surprised and elated that she had defended herself. But she also acknowledged that she must have gotten very lucky with the shot. The bullet had to have pierced the wolf’s heart to put it down so quickly. She didn’t want to think about the odds against her making such a shot, or the odds of her doing it again if they returned.
Not if, she corrected herself. When they returned. She didn’t believe for a second that the predators had been driven off, afraid to return simply because of a loud noise and the death of one of their pack. What did she do next?
Continuing to shoot at the wolves, hoping for more kill shots wasn’t practical. The Air Force issue pistol was a Beretta 9 mm and had only held fifteen rounds. She had already fired almost half of them and there wasn’t any spare ammo in the survival pouch. Perhaps there was some on Bill’s body, and she thought about going to check when the sun came up.
Rachel realized that she needed to begin moving as soon as it was light. She needed to get out of the mountains before either the weather or the wildlife killed her. Not that conditions in any town or city she might find would be any better because of infected, but at least there was the possibility of shelter.
But which way to go? She didn’t have any idea which direction to even begin walking and was afraid of heading deeper into the rugged country. Sitting there, she tried to think of any city in the state, hoping that would trigger something in her mind about the geography of the region.
Try as she might she couldn’t come up with the name of a single town in the state. Reluctantly she acknowledged to herself that until a day ago Idaho had been as foreign to her as any place on the opposite side of the globe. Except for potatoes! Didn’t most of the potatoes in America come from Idaho?
That meant there must be flat farmlands somewhere in the state. And wherever they were it was probably warmer there. But where? She had no idea which direction to even start walking. Part of her wanted to hang her head and cry. Give in to the situation and sit there until the cold or the wolves took her. Only faint hope that John was alive and on his way to save her prevented her from completely giving up.
Stomach grumbling from hunger, Rachel wiped away a tear and picked through Bill’s survival pouch, finding one of the two MREs. It was a hot meal with a chemical pack built in that would heat the food once activated. She set about preparing it, devouring every bite as soon as it was ready. Taking a long drink from the lake she settled back onto the small tree trunk she had been using for a seat and waited for the wolves to return.
44
I stepped hard on the gas and we roared out of the truck stop and back onto Interstate 80. We were seventy-three miles west of Laramie Wyoming now. At least two dozen dead females were scattered around the parking lot we had just left. Apparently they had been trapped inside the building and until we came along hadn’t been motivated enough to smash their way through the plate glass window to escape.
We were still moving fast, faster than I had expected. The sun had set before we reached I-70 in Kansas and on the narrow, rough two-lane highway I’d been forced to reduce our speed so I would have time to react to any obstacles that suddenly appeared in our headlights. But two things had let me push back to the Dodge’s top speed of 140.
I hadn’t thought, but police cars are normally outfitted with additional lighting for the officers’ safety after dark. Katie, bored, began fumbling around with all the knobs and switches in the Charger. She played with the siren, the red and blues and then turned on a brilliant bank of lights built into the roof-mounted beacons.
They reached significantly farther down the road than the headlights, letting me see well ahead as I drove. Between the extra light and the smooth pavement of I-70 I pegged our speed back at one forty and held it there.
We made a couple of fuel stops then had to slow to use smaller highways to get around the Denver metropolita
n area. Jessica warned us well in advance that the freeways in the city were a jumble of wrecks, and there was also a fairly large population of infected wandering around.
There had been a few close calls with infected as we worked our way around the city. The roads were narrow, hilly and crowded with abandoned vehicles, yet were still passable. Occasionally we’d crest a rise or come around a curve to see one or more males just standing in the road.
I had managed to avoid all of them, not damaging our car. But the tradeoff had been reduced speed. At times we were forced to move as slow as forty miles per hour to safely negotiate stretches of road. By the time we connected with Interstate 25, north of Denver, I was exhausted from maintaining such a hyper-alert status for so long.
But I was able to resume our top speed, which was a relief until we reached Fort Collins, Colorado and had to stop for gas. Infected were in the area in large numbers, thankfully mostly male, but we still had a few harrowing moments while we were stopped. It had been a small, no name gas station I’d spotted after bypassing the truck stop Jessica had found for us because a massive semi trailer was on its side on top of the storage tank access.
At the small station we’d repeated the process that was now routine to us. Katie and Dog kept watch while I pumped the fuel and checked over the engine. But this time both males and females had begun appearing out of the surrounding streets and alleys before I even had the pump connected.
“Do we find another station?” Katie shouted as she began shooting females approaching at a sprint.
“We’re on fumes now,” I shouted, rushing to get the fuel flowing.
She didn’t answer and as I worked I could hear her suppressed rifle firing at a steady pace. I had quickly checked the oil, dumping another quart into the engine while the pump did its job. As I finished tightening the oil filler cap a running female that had come in on Katie’s blind side tackled me to the ground.
Dog was on her in a flash, sinking his teeth into the back of her neck and dragging her off of me before I had a chance to do anything. I left him to finish her off, jumping to my feet and raising my rifle.
Katie and I kept the infected back but burned through a lot of ammo in the process. Her aim was improving quickly as old training came through. She knew how to shoot, just hadn’t done much of it in the past several years. Well, she was getting a crash refresher course now.
The Dodge’s tank had filled and was overflowing when I had a half a second to glance over. Apparently it had been full for some time as there was a lot of fuel spreading across the pavement and into the gutter at the side of the road. Switching to pistol, I kept fighting as I shut down the pump one handed, slamming the hood.
I gathered up everything as best I could. It was difficult to drain the hoses of fuel with one hand while firing a pistol with the other, but I managed. With every pull of the trigger I winced slightly, expecting the fumes to be ignited by the burning powder in the round, but I finally got everything loaded and the trunk closed without blowing myself up.
Katie had stuck with her rifle and had a rather respectable body count in a large semi-circle around her. Dog had watched our backs, taking out several females that had escaped our notice. Without him we probably wouldn’t have made it out of Fort Collins.
Continuing north I’d had to slow for the terrain as we left I-25 and moved onto a state highway that would take us up into Wyoming. The Rocky Mountains loomed over us, just to the west and it seemed as if I could feel their presence even though they were invisible in the dark. Moving slowly through their foothills we finally passed out of Colorado and the road flattened out as the countryside opened back up.
“Damn, that was Colorado,” Katie said when we passed a sign welcoming us to Wyoming. “Why didn’t you stop? Pot’s legal there!”
“I think it’s legal everywhere now,” I said, unintentionally killing her attempt to lighten the mood.
We blasted through Laramie, Wyoming, seeing nothing other than the empty pavement brightly illuminated by the Charger’s lights. Our next fueling had been at a large truck stop, seventy-three miles west of Laramie. A large diner with floor to ceiling windows looked out on the apron and a group of females had crashed through the glass when we pulled up and got out of the car.
We had put all of them down before they reached us, refueled, added oil and were back on the road after taking a moment to relieve ourselves while the other kept watch. Dog had taken full advantage, finding at least four places that needed his mark.
Once we were back on the road I had Katie call Jessica for an update.
“The Bradley hasn’t moved and I’m having some issues with the archival stream. I still haven’t been able to determine what happened to them,” she said as soon as she heard my voice.
“What about Idaho?”
“No change, sir. Just one target next to a fire. Only thing new is there are now only eight other thermal signatures in the area where there were nine before. I don’t know what happened to the ninth.”
“Is the weather supposed to clear? Any idea when you’ll get a visual?” I asked, steering a little to the left to avoid a small piece of debris on the pavement. Even something as small as a Ping-Pong ball had the potential to be disastrous at our speed.
“I’ve asked sir, but don’t have an answer. I’ll ask again.”
“OK, good. What about a cold weather gear outfitter and a new vehicle? How’s that coming?”
“I’ve got you a Jeep dealer in Twin Falls, Idaho. That’s right at the base of the Sawtooth Mountains. Zoomed in and spotted you a sweet ride that looks like it’s set up really well. Outfitter is a different story. Without the Internet to find a specific store, well, it’s a challenge. I did find a large sporting goods store in Ogden, Utah, but it may not be a good place to stop. Lots of infected in and around the area. But I haven’t stopped looking.” She said.
“You’re doing great,” I said to encourage the young woman. “I’m sure you’ll find me something. How’s the road ahead?”
“You’re wide open, sir. But you’ve got mountains off and on for the rest of your drive. The worst will be coming into Salt Lake City from the east. There look to be some pretty steep grades and sharp curves. You’re going to want to pay attention to the warning signs on the side of the road. You try to go through there the way you’ve been driving and you won’t make it.”
“Yes, mother,” I said, laughing to let her know I was being sarcastic and not offended at her advice.
“Sorry, sir,” she said with a giggle.
“Keep at it, Jessica. And thank you for everything. Call me with any news.” I broke the connection.
45
We were passing through the mountains, approaching Salt Lake City, when the satellite phone began ringing. Katie picked it up and looked at the screen, frowning.
“Blocked number.”
“Go ahead and answer.” I said.
She pushed the button to accept the call and after a pause there was the hiss of an open circuit.
“Yes?” I said.
“John. Lucas.” My friend said.
“Hello, mate. What’s the word?” I asked, glad to hear from him.
“That matter you called me about is taken care of,” he said. Just like me, he was used to being very circumspect when speaking, but who the hell was left to overhear and care what he was talking about. Old habits die hard, I guess.
“Was I right?” I wanted to look at Katie to see how she was reacting but the mountain road at night, at high speed, was taking every bit of my attention.
“It appears so,” he said then paused. “Can we speak freely?”
“Katie’s with me,” I said. “And there’s a good chance Pearl Harbor is listening in, but they already know what’s going on, so go for it.”
He was quiet for a minute before continuing.
“OK then. This wanker had gone off the deep end. He’d murdered his co-worker and stuffed the body in a closet. And he’s definitely been in t
ouch with the third party we were concerned about. He had set up a feed for them from one of your internal networks. No idea what they were watching, it all looks encrypted now, but the feed was still live when I got to him.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said, then realized something. “Lucas, if I remember right you know about as much about the tech shit as I do. How do you know there was a feed set up for the Russians?”
“I’ve got some friends who came along for the party,” he said in a tone that told me he wasn’t going to expand on the topic, but it still told me all I needed to know.
“What about the subject? What’s his status?” I asked, this time sparing a glance at Katie. She was listening intently, staring straight ahead through the windshield.
“He’s having a conversation with some blokes I’m acquainted with,” Lucas said. “He won’t be causing you any more problems.”
“Lucas, I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No thanks necessary, mate,” he replied. “Anytime. You know that. So, are you about to wrap up whatever you’re dealing with?”
“I hope so. I’ll know in a few hours.” I didn’t have a problem telling him what was going on but it was a very long story and there wasn’t time to tell it right now.
“Right, then. I’ll ring off and let you get on with it. Don’t forget my offer. I’ve got more land than I know what to do with. Plenty of room if you can find your way.”
“Thanks, Lucas. For everything.” I said and ended the call.
“You OK?” I asked after several minutes of silence.
“Yes, I’m fine. I had just been hoping we were wrong about Steve. He was a good man. Once.” She replied, staring out the side window at the dark countryside rushing past.
I almost said something, but decided to let it go. There was nothing I could add that would be productive. I didn’t even know the guy, only ever having met him once when he showed up on our doorstep late one night wanting to talk to Katie.
