by David Wood
After firing the last bolt through the hole in the tripod’s foot and into the metal floor, Ella clipped the hooks of her own security band to the sides of the truck, a few feet behind him. They could be tossed and bounced and smashed all about, but they wouldn’t be flung free, which was a good thing—most of the time.
“Where did you get this thing?” Ella asked. “Weren’t they illegal?”
“Older machine guns were legal,” Peter replied, speaking loudly over the wind rushing past. “But not this one. It came from a National Guard Depot. There are a lot of unguarded weapons in the world now.”
Peter kept the gun barrel level and pointed straight back, ready to whip it to either side. Wheat streaked back, a blur of brown lines. And among it, shaking wildly, the tall tails of running Stalkers. The formerly human monsters were falling steadily behind, unable to keep up with the Ram’s acceleration. He considered letting the weapon rip into the field, but he’d be firing blind. The drum held one hundred rounds, but with a sustained fire rate of one hundred rounds per minute, he’d burn through the entire chain far too quickly. With only one replacement drum, he’d have to pick his targets carefully.
He squeezed the grip as the first signs of an adrenaline spike set in, his hands shaking. It didn’t concern him. He’d felt it many times in the past, though it had been awhile. The adrenaline surging through his body made him hyper aware, sped up his reaction time and increased his tolerance for pain, but it also took a toll on his body. When the action slowed, his muscles would quiver and twitch all over with unused chemical energy until the adrenaline was reabsorbed by his system. That he experienced larger adrenaline dumps than most people made him a good soldier, but it also made recovering from a battle that much more strenuous. And after today, they’d all need to crash. Hard.
But was that even possible out here?
Is this what life outside the house is like all the time?
If so, how did Ella and Anne survive?
He tried to picture the two of them, always on the run, fighting Stalkers and foraging for the non-ExoGenetic flora that still existed. He couldn’t do it. He glanced back at Ella as he was bounced side to side, held in place by the thick rubber band. He’d been treating her like the woman he knew long ago, the woman who had spent most of her life in a laboratory. Her eyes were hard, gazing out at the field of wheat, focused, seeking out danger. She’d changed. But how much?
The whoosh of passing trees snapped him out of his thoughts. The wheat field fell into the distance, blocked by tall leafy trees, sentinels of the former, non-GMO ruled world. And yet, even here, where the sun was held at bay by a leafy canopy and the temperature dropped, ExoGenetic berry crops flourished. Tangles of thorny raspberry and blackberry bushes covered the forest floor. Passing through on foot would be laborious and torturous. The long flowing vines were covered in thick fruits, the blackberries hidden in shadow, the raspberries glowing like red beacons, juicy, delicious and deadly.
Berries, berries everywhere and not a bite to eat, Peter thought, butchering Samuel Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’ And yet, he knew that the sailors of old never had it this bad. If they had, no one would have bothered sailing to the far parts of the world, and Europe would have still been dependent on the Silk Road to get its iPhones from China. Not that anyone was using cell phones anymore. Paperweights, all.
Their speed fell by half when they reached the first bend in the road. Tires squealed around the corner, tearing through the strands of raspberry bushes stretching out over the pavement. Peter and Ella tipped sideways, but the rubber bands held them upright. Peter tried to keep the machine gun barrel straight back, but it swiveled to the side. Aiming on the curvy road would be hell.
As they rounded a bend in the opposite direction, the truck slowed even more, forced to stay on the road by large rocks and trees lining the sides. Over the lessening roar of the big truck’s engine, Peter heard a high pitched, warbling cry, like a giant turkey being plucked alive.
“They’re getting organized,” Ella said. “For the hunt.”
Peter listened to the sound of crashing vegetation and snapping branches. The Stalkers were moving through the forest behind them, but he hadn’t seen one yet.
“We’re already moving, so I don’t think they’ll try to trap us. They’re inhuman, but they still have limits. They get tired. They’ll probably charge in unison. Try to bring down the larger prey as a group.”
For a moment, he was confused about the ‘larger prey’ comment, but then he realized the Stalkers might see the big truck as a single target.
“They’ll stay low to the ground as they approach,” Ella continued, “but they leap when attacking.”
“That’s when I’ll get them,” Peter said more to himself than Ella.
“Right,” she said. “Or when they’ll get us.”
“Pessimism doesn’t suit you,” he said, once again thinking about the woman he knew, who had believed anything was possible if you set your mind to it.
“Realism keeps us alive.”
He was about to tell her it was a horrible way to live, when the words brought him back in time. He’d said the very same thing to her in regard to surviving an ambush in Afghanistan. He’d done things to survive that he had tried to forget since, but he knew he would do them again if he needed to. The very blunt way he’d told her about those events, and his unflinching acceptance of them, had led to her questioning his sometimes cold outlook on life. Realism keeps me alive, he’s said.
He’d been right then, and she was right now. War was hell, and he’d survived it, but this was something worse.
“Two o’clock,” Ella said.
Peter reacted to the statement with unflinching swiftness, which had been instilled in him long ago. He rotated the gun barrel to the right, finding the target a hundred feet back, tearing through the thorn laden bushes like they were made of fluff. Even from a distance, he could see the streaks of red blood streaking down the creature’s gray skin, from a thousand razor-thin cuts. They’re monsters, he thought, but not invincible and not without limits. He pulled the trigger.
Five 5.56×45 mm NATO rounds spewed from the barrel, one of them a bright orange tracer, showing the spread’s path. Not that he needed the tracer round to see where the bullets hit. Tree bark exploded in the air. Getting a round through the forest streaking past and hitting a target moving just as quickly through the trees, would be nearly impossible. He’d have to wait until they were closer.
“What’s happening?” Anne called from the window.
Peter didn’t look back, but heard Ella reply. “Jakob, keep us moving and stable. That’s more important than speed right now.”
“What?” Jakob said. “Why?”
The fear in his son’s voice broke his heart.
Ella shared some more of her newfound blunt realism. “Because we can’t outrun them. Our only chance is to outgun them, and your father can’t do that if we’re swerving all over the road.”
“Okay,” Jakob said, and the vehicle slowed a little more. Peter was about to ask for more gas, when he realized the machine gun was much easier to control. He aimed at the single creature again, holding a bead on it. He pulled the trigger in quick jerks, spacing out the shots. The first two struck trees. The third squeezed through two tall trunks, shredded a blackberry and then struck home, piercing the Stalker’s broad chest. The creature coughed and fell, careening head over heels in a tangle of thorns.
Then a second took its place. And another. And another. They spread out through the woods, running with reckless abandon, focused solely on the their prey. This kind of behavior, this desperate hunger, was what separated predators of the old world from the new. A lion wouldn’t go after an animal it thought might injure it. In the wild, any injury could lead to death, by infection or by simply weakening the animal so it was susceptible to competitors. A lion that couldn’t fend off hyenas because of an injured limb, was typically a dead lion.
; He picked targets, squeezing off single rounds when he had a clear line of sight. He missed far more than he hit, and the mob of Stalkers was closing the distance. He’d counted a dozen at first, but he’d reduced the number to nine. Although he’d used twenty-five rounds to do so, and the math said he’d have to change ammo drums to kill them all. The long reload time would leave them wide open to attack.
Peter swung the barrel to the left as the truck swung around a bend to the right. He tracked five of the Stalkers, leaping across the open road. If they flank us, we’re screwed, he thought, and he pulled the trigger. The spray of bullets and glowing tracer rounds ate into the group, empty bullet casings clanging to the truck bed, but the creatures at the back were protected from the fusillade by those in the front. After unleashing twenty-five more rounds, three of the Stalkers stumbled and slid across the pavement. The other three made it to the relative safety of the forest on the other side. The two sets of Stalkers advanced on either side, peeling away, deeper into the forest, fully flanking the truck.
At this point, they’re going to overtake us and set that trap Ella warned us about.
But they didn’t. Instead, after a series of squawking cries, both groups turned inward at once. He wasn’t sure just how intelligent the Stalkers were, but he was pretty sure they knew three of them were sacrificing themselves, while the other three...they’d have a feast.
Chapter 14
Peter fought the urge to swing the barrel around at the three Stalkers charging from the right. He knew they were still coming. Could hear their squeaking pants as they neared. But the three monsters on the left were closer. And airborne.
The stalkers led with their long hind legs extended, claws splayed wide. If they made contact with prey, the talons would sink into the flesh underneath as the full weight of the creature slammed into the victim. If the unlucky prey wasn’t killed by the impact, the claws would finish the job.
He made momentary eye contact with the Stalker leading the way. He saw intelligence in its gaze, but it was masked by rage and hunger. If the creature was smart enough to understand what the machine gun could do, its raw emotions kept it from really comprehending the consequences for its actions.
Or maybe it did understand?
Maybe all this rage and hate seething from the thing was because it could remember what it once was and loathed him for it. His very existence might mock them. He didn’t think the creature could comprehend all this, but back in the part of its brain that was once human, it might remember, and feel...
For a moment, he pitied the thing.
And then he shot it, punching three holes in the center of its gray chest, which was lined with bulging ribs. The shots kicked the monster back, flipping it over through a cloud of pink gore. The tumbling body stumbled the two Stalkers behind it, and Peter cheered inwardly as he turned the gun barrel to the right.
Too late.
He pulled the trigger, but the angle of the gun barrel was blocked by a Stalker’s body as it landed on the side of the truck, the hot metal sizzling against the creature’s skin. The truck shook and skidded from the impact, but Jakob managed to keep it moving and on the road. Somewhere in the back of Peter’s mind, he heard Anne screaming. Or was it Ella? He couldn’t tell, but then his voice joined the chorus.
He shouted in surprise and abject horror as the Stalker clinging to the side of the truck stretched out its sinewy neck, opened its needle-tooth-filled maw large enough to clamp down on his head like a bear trap and lunged for him. Peter leaned away from the gaping jaws, but the elastic holding him in the truck also kept him from diving away.
The jaws snapped just an inch from his nose with such force that the colliding teeth snapped, spraying his face with bits of enamel and spittle.
Peter winced, but years of training and field operations—though now distant memories—had honed his reactions into something closer to instinct. Action without thought. He dropped back, letting his weight stretch the elastic band back until the stored potential force in the band propelled him back up. As his feet rose first, he kicked hard with both legs, catching the Stalker in the chest. He felt ribs break. The monster roared in pain. But it held on, a look of determination on its face...until a shotgun blast removed the expression, along with the rest of its bald head.
As the shotgun blast rang in Peter’s ear, he felt glad that Ella had remembered his discarded weapon and had the wherewithal to use it. Not many people would have thought or moved as quickly. Of course, anyone unable to do so was probably already dead. The world was now a twisted version of Herbert Spencer’s survival of the fittest. Now it was survival of the most savage, which didn’t bode well for his son’s future...or his daughter’s.
The shotgun-propelled gore blasted back and slapped a second Stalker in the face, blinding it before the creature could lunge forward. But the third monster leapt up to take the now headless beast’s place. The first thing it did was demonstrate its intelligence by slapping away the shotgun before Ella could chamber another shell. Then with a quick swipe of its claw, the Stalker severed Peter’s rubber band. The black band, freed from one side of the truck, snapped away, striking Peter in the gut while the still-attached side of the cord, still wrapped around his waist, yanked him off his feet and slammed his head into the bed’s side wall.
Vision spinning, Peter tried to right himself, but the loose floor of spent bullet casings rolled under his feet. There was nothing he could do to help Ella, who was still held in place by her rubber band, and she wasn’t heavy enough to lean back very far.
And then, in a flash of vicious motion, everything he thought he knew about Ella changed. With a battle cry she reached forward, meeting the Stalker’s reaching head, and as the creature tried to sever her head with its teeth, she clung to its face and buried her thumbs into its eyes. There was no hesitation in the action, no squeamish flinching. The motion was fluid. Practiced. Without remorse or revulsion.
The Stalker shrieked, twisting its head upward. Ella’s thumbs slipped out of the ruined eye sockets with wet pops. And still, she didn’t stop. While the monster had its head turned skyward, letting out a tortured wail, Ella punched the thing in the throat, connecting with what once might have been an Adam’s apple. There was a crunch of cartilage and flesh that cut the Stalker’s cry short and left it thrashing and gasping. Ella ducked as the creature’s writhing claws passed over her head. And then it was gone, spinning over the pavement behind them.
As he starred at Ella, bewildered by what he’d just witnessed, she turned down to him, gazing hard at him, and shouted, “Ten o’clock!” The words snapped Peter back into action. There were still three Stalkers left. While Ella stretched against her rubber band, trying to recover the shotgun, Peter found his feet, latched onto the machine gun and swung the barrel left to ten o’clock.
He pulled the trigger, unleashing four rounds, but the nearest Stalker had anticipated the attack, ducking and dodging to the side faster than he could track. While he followed it, the second moved in for the kill, leaping up to be met with a hail of buckshot. At a distance of fifteen feet, Ella couldn’t miss. However, as the buckshot dispersed, it also lacked the lethal efficiency of a close range shot. The metal balls punched into the Stalker in a wide spread, creating many small, non-lethal wounds rather than a big hole. But the impact and pain generated by the shot caused the Stalker to fall short of the truck and stumble upon landing, craning its head down to look at the rivulets of blood now running down its body. In the long run, the wounds could prove lethal from infection, but in the short run... The wounded Stalker rejoined the chase, lagging behind, less of a threat, but determined to join the feast.
Peter fired a second volley at the Stalker to his left, missing once again, but forcing the monster to retreat into the trees. There were four of them now. Another had joined the hunt. Two on the right, one on the left and the injured creature, slowly falling behind.
Maybe some of the buckshot pierced a lung?
The sit
uation was improved, but he was also dangerously low on ammo. He’d lost count, but knew there wasn’t enough to miss again. He swung the barrel right as the two Stalkers closed in. He lined up the shot, prepared to send a single round in the head of the nearest Stalker, but then the truck rounded a corner. No longer held in place by the rubber band, Peter was flung to the side. Instinctively, he gripped the machine gun to stay upright, but that also meant squeezing the trigger.
Bullets raged into the air as casings rattled to the truck bed. Peter tried to pry his finger away, but his falling weight had wedged it in tight, nearly to breaking. Ella ducked as the barrel swept over her head, narrowly avoiding the chaotic barrage. The only thing that saved Jakob and Anne from being mowed down by their father was that the machine gun ran out of ammunition.
Ella stood back up, lifted the shotgun, fired, pumped and fired again.
Peter pulled with his arms, using the mounted machine gun to lift himself up. He expected a Stalker to be leaping at him, but found the two on the right lying in the road, separated by fifteen feet.
“You got the first one,” Ella said, revealing his accidental barrage had yielded at least a small measure of success. It also implied that she’d killed the second, and he wondered if she might be more fit to lead this cross-country expedition through hell.
Movement pulled his vision back to the left, where the still healthy Stalker paralleled the truck, staying in the trees. Peter looked ahead and saw an approaching right turn. That’s where it’s going to hit us, he realized, and he saw the second Stalker, perhaps sensing the impending kill, charging up behind them, no longer slowed by its wounds.
The shk-chk of a shotgun being pumped turned his eyes back to Ella. She frowned. “It’s spent.”
He had shotgun shells in the backpack on his shoulders and shirked it off, but he already knew it was too late. Neither of them could reload in time.
