Mason immediately sighted in on the far man and fired two shots in rapid succession. The first bullet caught him under the ribcage, and the second in the neck as he tumbled backward. At the sound of the gunshots, Bowie bolted from behind the car, barking as he raced toward Mason. Van Gogh spun around, shock and confusion on his face.
“Drop it!” Mason commanded, quickly adjusting his point of aim. At eight feet, he could empty the magazine into the one-eared man before he could get his rifle in hand.
Van Gogh glanced at his partner and then back at Mason. After only a short deliberation, he released his rifle, letting it clatter against the concrete pipe. At that same instant, Bowie raced around Mason and scrambled up into the pipe.
Mason shouted for him to stop, but Bowie tore ahead. At the sight of the snarling dog, Van Gogh turned and ran. Mason jumped to his feet and raced around the outside of the pipes, hoping to cut him off. The soldier was remarkably agile, making it out the far end of the pipe, with Bowie hot on his heels.
They raced out onto the freeway, the man finally turning and screaming while holding his open hands out toward the dog. Bowie hunched his back and began to slowly advance, snarling, without a hint of mercy.
“Bowie!” shouted Mason.
Bowie tipped his head to the side to acknowledge his master’s call, but refused to take his eyes off the soldier.
Mason approached and placed one hand on the dog, trying to calm him.
“Easy, boy,” he said, careful to keep the Supergrade pointed at Van Gogh.
Bowie relaxed, letting his fur settle along his back.
“Keep that monster away from me,” Van Gogh pleaded, his voice trembling.
Hearing the fear in the man’s voice, Mason thought he saw his way in.
“That depends on how cooperative you are. My dog hasn’t eaten in a couple of days, and right now, you look a lot like a ribeye steak.”
Van Gogh bent slightly, and his gaze flicked toward his boot knife.
Mason shook his head.
“That’s not going to end well for you.”
Van Gogh gently pulled the knife out with two fingers and tossed it a few feet away.
“Smart,” said Mason. “Now, drop to your knees, and lace your fingers together on top of your head.”
Shaking slightly, the man did as he was told, his eyes never leaving Bowie.
Mason glanced back at the soldier he had shot. The man’s body half out of the pipe, blood dripping from his neck down into the gulley. He was definitely out for the count.
“I assume you two were waiting for me?” he said, turning back to his prisoner.
Van Gogh didn’t answer.
Mason shrugged. “Okay, dinner it is.” He loosened his grip on Bowie, and the dog immediately lunged for the soldier.
“All right, all right!” the man screamed, leaning away. “Yeah, we were waiting on you.”
“Why?”
“Just to find out who you were. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh, and then put a bullet in my head, right?”
Van Gogh started to deny it but stopped himself.
“Hey, man, I was just following orders. This wasn’t personal.”
“I assume you’re a private contractor?”
He nodded. “I used to be regular army, but the pay was shit, you know?”
“Who are you working for now?”
“Look, the best thing you can do is turn around and walk away from this. I’ll tell my boss that you got away. Simple as that. He’s not going to come looking for you. Why would he?”
“He won’t need to,” Mason said calmly. “I’m going after him.”
“That’s suicide. Nakai is—” Van Gogh caught himself. “Shit!”
“Who’s Nakai? Another mercenary?”
“It doesn’t matter what you know. If you go after him, he’ll kill you for sure. I’m telling you, you should let this one go.”
“I’m touched that you’re so concerned for my wellbeing. Really, I am. Did you feel that way about the marshals you murdered back in Glynco?”
The man’s face turned pale.
“Listen, I had no part in that. I swear to God. That was Nakai all the way. Most of us showed up after it was already done. We were only there to pick up the guns.”
Mason smiled. Van Gogh was a veritable gold mine of information.
“That’s what this is about? Guns? It must have been a hell of a haul to need five tractor-trailers.”
Van Gogh shrugged. “Not so many. A couple thousand rifles, maybe.”
“Why did you need the guns?”
He shrugged again. “They’re not for us. We we’re hired to deliver them to a guy named Lenny Bruce. He’s building a little army up near Lexington. It was just a job. That’s it.”
“All right, you’re doing great. You may actually live through this.”
“There’s no need to kill me. I’m nothing more than a grunt left behind for a little clean up. You know how it is.”
Mason nodded. “Believe me, I do. Now tell me about your boss, Nakai.”
“There’s not much to tell. He was Force Recon. A badass, through and through.”
“What else?”
Van Gogh pointed to Mason’s handgun.
“He can pull one of those faster than Jesse James.”
“What about with a rifle?”
“He carries an Aug. Very skilled with that too. Like I said, it’d be better to walk away from this one.”
“What else?”
“He’s careful. I don’t think he trusts anyone—no one other than Jeb.”
“Who’s Jeb?”
“Jeb’s like his foreman, big and mean. I once saw him kill a man in the mess tent with a fork. Shoved it right through his eye.”
Mason thought about what Van Gogh had revealed. While it could all have been carefully crafted bunk, he didn’t think so. The man seemed incapable of telling a lie, let alone keeping a secret.
“Okay, final question.”
Van Gogh looked up, wondering what would happen after that.
“Who hired Nakai?”
“I don’t know.”
The words came out too quickly to be a lie, but Mason thought he would push a little to see what else Van Gogh might know. He loosened his grip on Bowie, and once again, the dog began growling and inching forward.
“I swear to God I don’t know!”
“What do you know?”
“Look, all I heard was that a general buddy of Nakai’s might be the one who called us in. That’s it, I swear. I don’t have a name or nothing.”
Mason’s hand closed onto Bowie’s collar, and Van Gogh sighed with relief.
“A general?”
He shrugged. “It was just what I heard. Could be shit—I don’t know.”
Mason stared at the man, trying to decide what to do with him. He had been as helpful as anyone could ask, but he was also involved in what had happened at Glynco. Mason thought about it long and hard, and in the end, mercy won out over revenge.
“Pick up your knife.”
Van Gogh’s worry quickly turned to panic.
“Listen, man, I told you—”
“Pick it up and start walking.” Mason pointed in the direction that the convoy had traveled.
“Why? Even if I catch up to Nakai, he’ll kill me for sure when he finds out that I talked to you. And he’ll know, believe me.”
“I don’t care where you go. Just get out of my sight before I let my dog use your gonads for jawbreakers.”
Bowie stared at Van Gogh, licking his lips.
“Fine, fine,” he muttered, getting to his feet. He walked over and carefully picked up his knife and slid it back into his boot. “No need to be like that. I’m gone already.” He turned and began hiking north along the interstate.
When he was about thirty feet away, Mason called out to him.
Van Gogh stopped and looked back over
his shoulder.
“You should consider a new profession.”
The man looked confused.
“Why’s that?”
Mason slid his Supergrade back into its holster.
“Because you scare too easy.”
CHAPTER
5
“It’s too bad we couldn’t stop in Boone,” Samantha said, looking out her window at long rows of trees that were beginning to get their full spring foliage.
“We have what we need. Best if we just roll on for now.”
She nodded noncommittally.
They drove past a pack of wild dogs standing on the side of the highway. The animals watched the Escalade pass, their heads tipped up and their eyes sharp with interest. Perhaps it had been quite some time since they had seen anything moving on the road. More likely, they were staring at its occupants, imagining the taste of fresh meat. They chased the car for a short time, running up alongside the SUV, barking and growling. They only stopped after Tanner swerved and ran over the lead animal, breaking its neck with the seven-thousand-pound vehicle.
“Damn dogs,” he said.
Samantha winced but didn’t say anything. They had seen countless packs of dogs, many of which had undoubtedly once been loving pets. The lack of human companionship, not to mention their eating of cadavers, had turned them from loyal companions into ruthless pack animals with a taste for human flesh. And while Samantha was the first to defend animals of nearly every size and shape, she held no love for the dogs. Since her very first encounter with them on a dark highway, she felt only fear and loathing for the beasts.
“What do you think Isa will say to us?” she asked.
“Who?”
“The little girl we’re going to see.”
He shrugged. “She looks pretty young in the photo. I doubt she’ll have much of anything to say.”
Samantha imagined their meeting with dreamy eyes. Something suddenly occurred to her.
“I was thinking—um, maybe you should let me do the talking.”
He glanced over at her.
“What are you saying? That I’m scary?”
“You’re the scariest person I’ve ever met.”
“Thank you,” he said with a wicked smile. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.”
“No, really. You’re scarier than Frankenstein.”
He chuckled.
“You’re so scary that a great white shark would put on tennis shoes and run up the beach to get away from you.”
His chuckle turned into a laugh.
“I mean it,” she said, getting into the spirit of it. “If the boogey man was in your closet, he’d stay there until you left for work.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, holding up one hand while trying to stop laughing. “I got it. When we find the girl, you can do the talking.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
Tanner saw the sign for I-77 ahead. A long string of cars jammed the on-ramp, but the off-ramp was relatively clear. He drove over the median and started up toward the interstate. As they came to the top of the ramp, he brought the Escalade to a full stop. All four lanes were filled with cars. A narrow path had been pushed through the automotive bedlam, but it was by no means straight or easy to follow.
“Do you think we can get through this?” she asked.
“If others can, we can,” he said, easing the car forward.
“We’ll have to go slow, or we’ll end up walking... again.”
“Hey, that was one time. And I was new to this whole apocalypse thing.”
“You almost got me eaten.”
Tanner rubbed a small scab on his face.
“We’ve all had our close calls with hungry critters.”
She turned to him with a serious look on her face.
“Promise you won’t ever let anything eat me.”
He glanced at her.
“And what exactly would you have me do?”
“You know,” she said, biting her lip.
“You’d rather I put a bullet in you than let zombies munch your brains,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Is that it?”
She nodded. “Promise me.”
He gave her a long look.
“Okay, I promise.”
“Do you want me to do the same for you?”
“Unh-unh.”
“Why not?”
“If something’s going to eat me, I want it to have to work for its food.”
“You probably wouldn’t taste as good as me anyway,” she said in a very matter of fact way.
“What makes you say that?”
“In all the horror movies, monsters always want to eat the children. I figure they must know that we taste better. It’s only logical.”
Tanner shook his head. He had become accustomed to conversations with Samantha going in odd directions, but her quirky comments never failed to amuse him.
She rolled down her window and took a deep breath.
“Ugh! It smells like dead people.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
Tanner noticed something in the road up ahead and gestured for her to take a look. Pieces of roadkill were spread along the yellow center line, hunks of meat and bone run over so many times that they were no longer recognizable. An RV sat parked on the side of the interstate with long black skid marks extending behind its rear tires. A human leg, with a bright blue tennis shoe still attached, lay beside the RV. A little further up was an arm. Beyond that rested what was left of the torso. Splashes of blood were everywhere, as if the famous expressionist painter Jackson Pollock had gotten busy with a bucket of red paint.
“Gross,” she said, making a face. “What do you suppose happened here?”
Tanner slowed the Escalade.
“Nothing good.”
They eased by the carnage, searching for clues.
“I bet the dogs did this,” she said.
Tanner looked to his left and saw the naked body of a woman staked to the ground in the grassy median. A heavy piece of rebar protruded from her stomach like the flagstick at a golf course.
“No,” he answered, his voice cold and hard. “This wasn’t dogs.”
Without further explanation, he punched the gas and sped past the bloody massacre.
Parked on the shoulder of I-77, Tanner and Samantha sat inside the Escalade, finishing a lunch of freeze-dried spaghetti and a powdered juice drink.
“Good?” he asked, tipping the pouch up to pour the last drops of spaghetti sauce into his mouth.
Samantha looked down at her pouch. It was still half full.
“I’m not Italian,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure that spaghetti isn’t supposed to be thin enough to slurp through a straw.”
Tanner tossed the wrapper out the window and pulled a couple of chocolate bars from his pack.
“You want one?”
She nodded, sliding it into her shirt pocket.
“Even chocolate might not save this meal,” she mumbled as she opened her door. “I’ll be back. I’m going to pee.”
“Take your rifle.”
“To pee?”
“If I had to count the number of times I needed a rifle when peeing—”
She held up her hands, surrendering.
“Fine. I’ll take it.”
As Samantha walked away from the Escalade, Tanner rolled his window down. If she got into trouble, it would be easy enough to hear her call for help. One benefit of civilization dying was that the world had become incredibly quiet.
He stared out the window at endless miles of cars and trucks, wondering if society would ever get back where it was before the pandemic. It could go either way, he thought. Enough damage had been done that the world could just devolve into chaos. And while he might not want to openly admit it, he was okay with that.
Samantha walked slowly up the grassy emb
ankment toward a small thicket of trees and bushes, the spaghetti sloshing around in her stomach like a bathtub filled with warm water. If she missed anything most of all from her previous life, it was the food. What she wouldn’t give for a plate of her mom’s buttermilk fried chicken. Maybe with a cob of corn and a slice of Texas Toast on the side. She licked her lips but tasted only the remnants of the rehydrated spaghetti sauce.
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