by Randy Henson
“I happened to be leaving The Compound the same time you and your brother were. You guys were heading in the same general direction I was and I figured there is safety in numbers.”
I glanced down at my brother whose head was still in my lap and who was still snoring.
“How do you know this is my brother?” I asked.
“I told you, I was at The Compound with you. Everyone at The Compound knows about Devil Girl and her brother Jack.”
This man was making me nervous. I didn’t like that he knew about Jack and me.
I cocked the pistol’s hammer and said, “I think you better leave.”
“If you insist, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. There are men coming this way and they have dogs,” he said as he turned his head to look over his right shoulder.
“What men?”
“I don’t know. But like I said, there is safety in numbers.”
“My brother and I will be just fine without you. Don’t worry about us. Now get going or I will shoot,” I said.
The young man laughed, “Oh, I know you will. I saw you shoot those two men at your camp.”
“You were there? I didn’t see you.”
“I was up on the ridge. I would have shot them for you, but by the time I got there the big one had a knife to your brother’s throat. I didn’t feel like I had the right to take that risk.”
“I handled it.”
“Yes, you did,” the young man said as he smiled and continued to look at me.
I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. Actually, that wasn’t true. There was a small part of me deep, deep down that liked it, a silly-vain-girly part of me that liked it a lot.
But I couldn’t take the risk of having him around. I had to think of Jack.
“Now get,” I said.
“Whatever you want,” he said as he turned and started to walk away.
Then I noticed the rifle on his back. I didn’t like the idea of having a stalker, even a cute stalker, sneaking around in the woods with a scoped rifle.
“Wait. Stop,” I said.
The young man who had called himself Orin stopped, hands still in the air, and half turned to look at me.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Place the rifle on the ground before you go. And do it slowly,” I said.
“I can’t do that,” he said.
“You can and you will, one way or the other,” I assured him.
“I’m sorry, but I already gave you two pistols and a box of ammo. I can’t afford to give you my rifle as well,” he said.
Then he turned, walked into a cluster of trees, and was gone.
“Wait!” I yelled, but he didn’t answer and he didn’t return.
Damn.
I really needed to work on my people skills.
I felt Jack’s head move in my lap and I noticed he had stopped snoring. My yelling must have disturbed him. Then I felt his hands tighten around my left hand.
“Jack? Are you awake?” I softly asked.
His head rolled from side to side in my lap, but his eyes didn’t open.
I returned the pistol to its holster.
Who was that man? He said his name was Orin. I had wondered who had left the pistols and ammo on my bunk. As far as I knew, I hadn’t made any friends at Atlanta’s Compound. Dr. Nichols, maybe. But I couldn’t see a physician giving someone a pair of guns. Certainly not Dr. Nichols. He didn’t believe in violence.
Now that I knew who gave me the pistols, I had a dozen knew questions. The biggest one being ‘Why?’ Why had he given them to me? I thought maybe it had something to do with the way he had been looking at me. If that was the case, then it was kind of creepy.
And sweet.
But mostly creepy.
Most guys would have left flowers.
CHAPTER SIX
Orin had half expected to catch a bullet in his back. He knew the girl had the stones to do it. Lucky for him she had decided not to. Good. That would have ruined his whole day.
He walked away from her and her brother’s position, all the while veering to the left. The plan was to circle around until he was behind them. The plan was to get between them and the dogs. The dogs worried him, but not as much as whoever might be with the dogs.
He slung the rifle around and carried it in his hands, just in case. He figured he was a hundred yards or so north of the girl and her brother. He continued to walk due west until he reached the field he had crossed earlier.
He could hear the barking clearly now, but he still couldn’t see the dogs. He stood next to a pine and peered across the field and waited. The barking kept getting closer and it seemed like a lot more dogs than he had heard earlier.
He didn’t have to wait for long.
He spotted movement along the far edge of the field. He brought the rifle’s scope up to his right eye and saw about a dozen dogs run out of the woods on the far side of the field. The dogs ran a third of the way across the field and stopped. Every one of them stopped barking and turned back toward the woods they had just left. Then they all sat down. A few of the dogs raised their muzzles into the air and howled.
Orin watched through the scope as men began to step out of the woods. Every one of the men held a rifle and they were all stepping cautiously. Orin stepped behind a pine and crouched as he noticed some of the men had scopes on their rifles and were sweeping the field with them. As the men approached the dogs, the dogs started barking again and turning in circles.
These weren’t hunters, Orin thought. They weren’t your typical hunters at any rate. They were all wearing some type of body armor. It looked like they were all wearing Kevlar vests, chaps, and sleeves. Orin also noticed they were all moving in formation.
Who the hell were they? Orin wanted to know, but not bad enough to stick around and ask them. So he turned and headed back the way he had come.
Should he head back to Jack and his sister? Or should he stay parallel to them? He weighed the pros and cons and decided to stay parallel.
If the men were after him, then he didn’t want to lead them directly to Jack and his sister. If the men were after Jack and his sister, then he would have the element of surprise if he needed to attempt a rescue. However, a rescue might be out of the question.
He had counted ten dogs and eleven armed men. He didn’t like those odds. He didn’t like those odds at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jack had started to snore again. I ever so gently lifted his head and pulled my legs out from underneath him. I set his head down on a bed of pine needles and then I stood.
I picked up my backpack and scissors and walked over to our bedrolls. I slipped the scissors into my backpack and set it to the side as I knelt and unrolled our beds. I took both our blankets and put them inside my sleeping bag. I then worked my sleeping bag inside Jack’s sleeping back because his was dark green and better camouflaged than mine which was light blue.
Once I’d managed to work my sleeping bag all the way into Jack’s, I rolled it all up and secured the bundle with Velcro straps that hung from the head of Jack’s sleeping bag. I then secured the Velcro straps to the hook strap on the back of my backpack.
Then I heard the dogs.
I stood up and cocked my head. Orin had been telling the truth. I had no reason now to doubt that he’d been right about the men as well. I couldn’t judge how close the dogs were to us, but the fact that I could hear them meant they were too close for comfort. We needed to get moving.
I knelt and dug inside my backpack looking for firecrackers. I only found two. That wasn’t good.
I had discovered a few months ago that I could get Jack to run after me if I set off firecrackers. I had no idea why this worked. I only knew that it did. The only downside being that it made a lot of noise and it also attracted others who were infected.
For some reason Categories One thru Four were attracted to loud pops, but not loud bangs. They ran toward fireworks, but away from gunfire. Category Fives didn’t
seem to pay much attention to any kind of noise.
I palmed the firecrackers and zipped my backpack closed. I then stood and slipped my arms through the arm straps as I slipped the firecrackers into the front right pocket of my blue jeans
I walked over to my brother and knelt beside him. I picked up his right hand and held it while I stroked his forehead.
“Jack, sweetie. It’s time to wake up,” I cooed.
Jack moaned and stirred as I gently rocked his head from front to back.
“Jack, sweetie. Naptime is over.”
Jack’s eyes shot open and I moved my hand away from his face and used it to gently stroke the back of his hand.
“Good, good, good,” I said.
Jack suddenly sat up and stared at me. He then pulled his hand out from between mine and scooted backward as he looked frightfully around.
“Jack, everything’s good. It’s good. You’re good.”
Jack looked back at me and said, “Good?”
I nodded and said, “Good. Jack is good.”
I pulled the locket from beneath my shirt and opened it. ‘Fur Elise’ started right up. I began humming along with it.
Jack sat up straighter and cocked his head at me.
I continue to hum as I stood.
Jack looked up at me for a moment and then he stood as well.
I turned around and walked away from Jack. I got about twenty feet away from him before he decided to follow me. I continued to hum as we marched through the woods.
I was glad I hadn’t needed to use the firecrackers to get him to follow me. Making a lot of noise right then wouldn’t have been ideal.
We marched through the woods until we came to an incline. I leaned forward as I made my way up the incline. Halfway up I turned and saw that Jack was still following me. He held his arms out to his side to keep his balance. I turned my head forward again and continued to climb.
When I reached the top of the incline I found myself standing on asphalt. I was standing on a two lane highway’s shoulder.
I turned and looked down at Jack who was still climbing the slope; his arms now out in front of him. He made it to the top and stood next to me looking up and down the highway.
I took his hand and he let me. I led him across the highway moving at a diagonal toward a dirt road that cut through the woods on the other side of the highway.
The dirt road wound left to right and I had no idea where it led. All I knew was that it led away from the dogs whose barking was getting gradually louder.
Jack and I made it a few hundred yards down the dirt road when we rounded a bend and I saw a farmhouse in the distance to our right. The farmhouse rested on the top of a small hill and there was a narrow dirt drive that branched from the road we were on and led up the hill to the house. I squinted and saw a beige pickup truck in front of the house.
I led Jack to the narrow drive and we were about to turn onto the drive when Jack suddenly stopped. He tried to jerk his hand from mine as he turned.
Jack cocked his head to his left and said, “Pup-pup?”
My jaw dropped.
Jack jerked his hand out of mine and took a couple of steps back the way we had just come. He cocked his head to the other side.
“Pup-pup?” he repeated.
I couldn’t believe it. During the last ten months Jack hadn’t said anything he hadn’t heard someone else say first.
When we were small children we had a family dog named Toni. It was a blonde cocker spaniel that Jack had refused to call Toni. He had always called her Pup-pup.
I reached into the pockets of my jeans and pulled out the firecrackers and my Zippo. I lit one of the firecrackers and tossed it toward the narrow dirt drive.
The firecracker went off and Jack jumped. He turned to look at me. I then pulled the locket out from beneath my shirt and opened it.
The locket started playing its tune as I walked backward and said, “Good, Jack. This way, Jack.”
Jack forgot about the barking dogs and followed me and the chiming locket up the dirt drive toward the farmhouse. I stuffed my last firecracker and my Zippo into the front right pocket of my jeans. I then slowed and held my hand out to Jack and he took it.
Then I heard an engine crank.
I turned around as I heard the engine rev loudly. Then the truck in front of the farmhouse began to move. It did a donut in the farmhouse’s front yard and turned onto the drive.
Then it headed down the drive toward me and my brother.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Colonel, you’re going to want to come take a look at this,” Lieutenant Hale said.
Colonel Lundy turned to see the lieutenant crouched on the ground. He was examining something he held between his left thumb and forefinger.
“What is it?” Colonel Lundy asked as he walked over to his lieutenant.
Hale stood and held the empty medicine pellet out to the Colonel.
Lundy extended his left palm and Hale dropped the spent pellet into it.
Lundy squinted down at the small piece of plastic and said, “Is this what I think it is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s it doing all the way out here?”
“No idea, sir. I hate to think of the implications, though, sir.”
The colonel looked up into his lieutenant’s eyes and frowned.
Colonel Lundy then looked around and asked, “Where’s Dr. Nichols?”
“With Rogers, sir,” Hale informed the colonel.
“Go get him.”
“Yes, sir,” Hale said. Then he turned and disappeared into the woods.
Colonel Lundy looked down into his palm and his frown deepened. This wasn’t good at all. This medicine was strictly regulated. This might mean that the army, his army, had a thief and a traitor in its midst.
Could it be the Chinese are behind this? Hell, in today’s world it could be the Australians, the Mexicans, or even the damn British. He and his men were going to have to lock this one down quickly. If knowledge of this medicine got out, they were looking at a meltdown even greater than the one they had been facing for the past ten months. There would be riots in every compound in every major city across the United States.
CHAPTER NINE
Orin humped it through the forest, rifle in hand. He figured the chances of the men looking for him were greater than the chances that they were after the girl and her brother, so he periodically stopped and picked up some leaves that he would use to rub the sweat off his brow, getting his scent on them, and then he dropped them next to his footprints for the dogs and soldiers to find.
He was pretty sure the men were soldiers. Who else would be wearing body armor and moving in formation? They sure as hell weren’t hunting deer. He felt pretty certain of that.
Orin humped it up a slope and was surprised when he reached the top and the soles of his shoes landed on blacktop. A road, an old country highway, stretched in both directions. Which way should he go?
Directly across the highway from him was a dirt road. Orin saw a large splinter of wood sticking out of the ground to the left of where the dirt road intersected the highway. He walked across the blacktop to investigate and found an old rusted mailbox lying in a ditch. Where there is a mailbox, there is usually a house, if it hadn’t been burned down. And where there are houses there are sometimes vehicles.
Orin made up his mind and began jogging down the dirt road. He only had to jog about a quarter of mile until he rounded a curve in the road and was rewarded by the sight of a farmhouse resting at the top of a hill. As he jogged closer he noticed a pickup out in front of the house. He pumped his legs harder and turned onto the dirt drive that led up to the house.
He climbed the steps up to the house’s front porch and knocked on the door. He waited a full minute and knocked again. He didn’t expect anyone to answer, and no one did.
He walked back down the porch’s steps and examined the truck. It was a mid-sized pickup and he walked around it as he inspected its ti
res. The tires seemed well inflated, though a bit bald.
Orin then walked around to the driver’s door and opened it. He climbed into the cab. There were no keys in the ignition. He reached up and pulled down both sun visors but no keys came plopping out.
He reached over and popped open the glove box. He found a roadmap, a flashlight, and an adjustable wrench, but no key. He closed the glove box and then leaned down and looked under the floor mat on the passenger’s side. No luck. He then looked under the floor mat on the driver’s side.
Bingo!
He picked up a set of two keys looped onto a key ring that had a plastic white tag that read ‘Ford’ in blue letters. He examined the keys and they looked identical. He stuck one into the ignition and turned it. The engine wanted to fuss a little bit but it eventually turned. Orin stomped on the gas pedal and revved the engine.
CHAPTER TEN
“You wanted to see me, Colonel?”
Colonel Lundy turned around to find Dr. Nichols red in the face and soaked with sweat. The good doctor looked a mess. Lieutenant Hale stood beside him.
“Yes, I did. What do you make of this?” Lundy said as he grasped the plastic pellet between a thumb and forefinger and held it out to the end of Dr. Nichols’s nose.
Dr. Nichols flinched and stared at the small piece of plastic.
“It’s an injection pellet,” Dr. Nichols said.
“Are you trying to get smart with me?” the colonel asked.
“Smart? What? No, sir! Never! I don’t understand.”
“We found it here,” Colonel Lundy said as he pointed at the ground.
Dr. Nichols looked at the ground and then back up at the colonel.
“Here?” Dr. Nichols asked.
“Yes, here. Look at the blue tint on the pellet. Do you have any thoughts on how a V-33 pellet ended up all the way the hell out here?”
“That’s impossible.”
“I was hoping for a little more insight than that, Doctor.”
