Gift from God: Hunter Wars Book Four (The Hunter Wars 4)

by SD Tanner

  She knew they were considering relocating people far away from Ruler. “How can relocating people to the UK be a solution? It’s so far away.”

  “I think that’s the point. Gears wants to get people out of easy reach of Ruler and his super hunters. He thinks if we waste less resources defending our homes, we can spend more time growing food and manufacturing what we need.”

  Breathing slowly and deeply to calm herself, she said, “He does have a point. If we don’t restart manufacturing soon, we won’t remember how to. It just seems so far away.”

  “It is and it isn’t. By air, it’s only ten to twelve hours, and by sea it’s a week. Life isn’t going to move as fast as it used to.”

  She laughed softly. “True. Now I look back on it, we were all so manic. This pace of life seemed slow at first, but now I think it’s more natural.”

  Stroking the long nose of a caramel colored horse that had moseyed over clearly hoping for a treat, he said, “Yeah, the world had gotten pretty crazy before all this happened. In retrospect, hitting the reset key was probably inevitable.”

  Her stomach fluttered slightly. “I worry so much now the baby is coming. I don’t know what kind of life he or she is going to have. What if I’m not here to take care of it?”

  “Why wouldn’t you be here?”

  “I’m a doctor, Ted. Childbirth isn’t easy, and we don’t have the medical facilities we once had.”

  “But women have had babies since the beginning of time.”

  “And women have died in childbirth since the beginning of time,” she retorted, more sharply than she meant to. “Old graveyards are full of women and babies who died in childbirth. It’s not as guaranteed as we made it look in more recent times.”

  Despite the warmth of the day, she shivered and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her as close to him as he could with her now substantial belly.

  “I’m frightened for the baby,” she said, as she leaned against his chest. “I’m frightened for both of us. And assuming the baby is born safely, I’m scared I can’t protect it.”

  Rubbing her shoulders, he said, “Break it down, Lydia. You’re not the only doctor we have. You can go to the CDC to have the baby, and there’s plenty of good medical skills and equipment there. And once the baby’s born, you’re not its only parent. This baby has more fathers than any other baby in history.”

  Pulling back from his embrace, she retorted sharply, “Are you to trying to be funny about us not knowing who the father is?”

  “No. That hadn’t crossed my mind. I’m talking about Gears, Pax, Pop, TL and me. And don’t forget, Ip travels with the pack, and she can kill pretty much anything weird that gets in our way.”

  She was being oversensitive and she knew it. “Sorry, but I am all over the place. I can’t seem to keep my emotions in check anymore.”

  “It’s okay, Lydia, you can be as emo as you feel. No one’s judging you.” Looking over her head towards the fence bordering the Ranch from the countryside, he added, “This place needs to be better defended than this.”

  Again feeling alarmed, she pulled back from his embrace. “Why? The hunters never bother with it, and there’s too many people here for a rogue gang to attack us. At least that’s what TL said.”

  “Maybe I am paranoid, but these days that’s working out well for me. Gears and TL told me to keep an eye on you while they’re gone and that’s what I plan to do. I’m going to go check the perimeter, and make sure we have at least some defenses in place.”

  Feeling anxious, she watched walk across to the dozen combat shooters he’d brought with him that morning. Over the past four months the Ranch had been perfectly safe, but any hint of danger made her worry. Again fighting with her emotions, she breathed deeply to calm herself. She didn’t understand how she felt anymore and she was tired and emotional all of the time. Everyone assured her it was just the late stages of her pregnancy and all women went through it, but she didn’t believe that was her problem. Lately she’d been experiencing odd episodes where she could hear people in her head. They weren’t exactly voices. It was more like these strangers had a presence, were occupying space, and leaving emotional trails in her thoughts. Fearing she was losing her mind, she hadn’t told anyone about these people and she didn’t believe they existed.

  CHAPTER FOUR: Live to fight another day (Gears)

  Philip and his co-pilot had landed their plane at Heathrow Airport, and they’d been in the UK for a week. With him was Ip, TL, Logan, Axel, and four combat shooters. They’d decided to assume they would have limited access to weapons and supplies, and brought guns, anti-tank missiles, ammunition, car batteries, fuel and MREs. Ip was reborn with the same abilities as a super hunter and controlling hunters was not a problem, but Philip had been correct in his assumption that many of the hunters had starved.

  With the batteries and fuel they brought with them, they’d managed to start three Range Rovers they found at the airport. Axel provided them with maps and the locations of military bases, and they used these bases to supply themselves with fuel while they drove across the country. Deciding to avoid London, they’d head west towards Wales, where Axel told them they would find a large ammunition and mortar factory. According to him, the factory was enormous and spanned over a thousand acres, with a hundred small buildings. The motorways that crossed the UK were jammed in and out of the major centers, but the long stretches of road in between were clear enough to be used. They travelled across the country by driving off road when necessary, and then rejoining the motorways once they cleared congested areas.

  As they drove across the country it was evident the fight between human and hunter had been brief. He supposed with their strict ban on guns, the living had little to defend themselves with and quickly fell prey to shamblers and then later to the fierceness of the hunters. Now well over a year since the outbreak, the hunters had thoroughly stripped the land of the living. Without a continuing source of food, they’d largely starved and life was returning to the land. He admired the tenacity of nature, but was painfully aware how quickly man’s footprint on the planet had been removed. If anything, he thought, nature flourishes without us.

  Everywhere in the UK was full of life. Trees grew densely and there was an abundance of small animals. He’d seen hundreds of rabbits, and even some hares, feeding and skipping along the side of the roads. All this was evidence the hunters were dying out. Without the presence of Ruler and his super hunters, the UK lacked the hellish quality his own country was developing. If left alone, he figured the UK would become a rich, fertile land, densely populated by trees, animals and greenery.

  The surviving hunters in the UK were so weak many were unable to attack. Just that morning they’d driven through a small village on their way into Wales, and several dozen hunters were lying around the area. Being too weak to move, the hunters had watched balefully as they drove by. Not wanting to waste the ammo, they ignored the downed hunters.

  Ip had been sleeping peacefully in his arms, but now she was fidgeting. Pushing herself from his chest, she looked directly at his face.

  He gently massaged her neck. “What is it, honey?”

  “The whole of me.”

  Without explaining any further, she stood up and left the room they’d slept in for the night. Being part hunter, she had a lean muscular build, and he watched admiringly as she stepped lightly and gracefully through the room. With her hunter body build, and shaggy blonde haircut, he didn’t think she looked much different from her previous self.

  They’d taken a large suite in a country hotel outside of Pontypool near the ammunition and mortar factory. According to Axel, the ammunition site was built during World War II, and continued to produce small consumables up until the outbreak. He was hoping the factory was still intact and they could use it to produce the weapons they needed to continue their fight against Ruler. Although he planned to relocate people somewhere safe and well out of Ruler’s reach, he had no intention of letting him take
over the country he and his brothers had spent their lives fighting for. That was not an option, but he needed to get smarter, otherwise they would have nothing left to fight with.

  TL was still half-asleep as Ip left the room and he asked, “What’s her problem?”

  “Dunno.”

  Sitting up, he stretched the stiffness from his body. Being six foot five and heavily built, no furniture ever seemed designed to fit his bulky build. He had a face that looked like it was carved from a block of granite, with a long, deep ragged scar running from his eyebrow to his chin. Pax always took great delight in telling him he looked like a gorilla. As he scratched at the stubble on his face, he could hear the ragged scraping sound it made. Out of habit, he traced his fingers down the tight scar that gave his face a mean edgy look, even when he was being friendly.

  He and TL stretched and yawned themselves awake, and several combat shooters began to move around them.

  Sounding hopeful, he asked, “You wouldn’t be makin’ coffee, would ya?”

  Taking the hint, the combat shooter replied, “Yeah, I’m making coffee.”

  Dawn had broken, and there was a growing light through the narrow windows of the room. The UK was full of quaint, old hotels that were once large manors. The one they’d selected for the night was clean, but dusty and slightly worn through overuse and lack of refurbishment. All the hotels they stayed in looked much the same, and the heavy furniture and carpet looked old even when it was still in perfect condition. He supposed the UK was an old country and well used, giving everything a long lived-in feel.

  “So, whatdaya think, TL?”

  “It’s viable, but it’s a big decision to move so many people here.”

  “Yeah, I know, but we can’t keep ‘em fed on the mainland. We’ve got ninety thousand mouths to feed. We jus’ can’t do it.”

  TL had slept in a large, deep red colored armchair, and now he leaned forward, still stretching his body. “I know, but we could clear more islands. Keep people closer to the U.S..”

  “What difference does it make? Wherever we put ‘em, we gotta transport ‘em. If we bring ‘em here, then at least they’re all in one location. They’re gonna have to work the land hard, and that’s gonna take a lot of manpower. Plus we don’t have to ship anythin’ here. They’ve jus’ gotta make what’s here work.”

  “True. We just have to get them here, and there’s houses, vehicles and infrastructure. All we have to do is quarantine an area, get the power and water back up, and they can get on with farming for food and getting manufacturing working again.”

  “Exactly, TL. And now we’ve got so many people, and more arriving every day, we won’t run outta capacity either. This place ain’t hunter free, but they’re less of a problem, and that little shit Ruler and his demon super hunters ain’t here.”

  Logan walked over and threw himself onto the other end of the couch he was sitting on. He’d been a Colonel in the Army and lived in a government bunker that was taken over by Ruler. When he objected, Ruler took control of his mind and placed him at the moment in time when his daughter had just died. Kept in that state for months, Ruler used him to trick them into attacking a missile silo. Angry with Ruler and determined not to be disadvantaged that way again, Logan asked to be infected so he could help them win their war.

  Before Logan could speak, a combat shooter returned with cups of coffee, and handed him a cup with several packets of sugar. He thanked the combat shooter, and placing the cup between his knees, tore open the packs of sugar. He preferred his coffee milky and sweet, but at a push he’d settle for anything with caffeine.

  Logan sniffed and said, “It’ll work providing you bring the Infected. There’s still hunters here.”

  Preferring his coffee black, TL took a sip from the steaming cup and said, “That’ll be true, Gears. Just because we haven’t seen many able hunters doesn’t mean there aren’t more.”

  “Yeah, but there’s less of ‘em here than back home. We should be able to secure an area well enough for the few they’ve got here.”

  “We can actively clear them,” Logan replied.

  Philip walked over, and listening to the conversation, he added, “And fewer people survived here, so there’s still a lot of supplies left. Fuel and food depots don’t look to be fully depleted, plus there was every type of manufacturing and the factories are still standing.”

  He nodded to Philip and said, “Yeah, I agree. The UK is a viable option, but I get where TL is comin’ from. It feels like a hell of a wrench to have to take people from their home country and ship ‘em five thousand miles away.”

  “It’s not forever, Gears,” Philip replied. “If the people are safe and you maintain your supply of weapons, then you can focus on taking back control of your home. Right now, you’re fighting on too many fronts.”

  They’d barely been keeping up with the demands four months ago, but with the influx of another sixty thousand people, they were stretched to breaking point and beyond. Even so, he didn’t like the idea of taking people from their homeland. He didn’t want to leave the U.S. and he knew they wouldn’t either. It felt like they were running away and that didn’t rest well with him. Sighing, he reminded himself of his motto, ‘live to fight another day’. They would have the people leave, so they would still be alive to return and reclaim their country.

  Downing the last of his over-sweetened coffee, he said, “We should get movin’. I wanna check out this armaments site, and then we need to recon the area and work out where we could set up a base.”

  It took them an hour to get everyone fed and moving. Living on MREs was his least favorite way to survive, but even back home, fresh food was becoming scarce. There were too many mouths to feed, and they couldn’t grow food fast enough for the seemingly never-ending stream of people seeking refuge at their bases. He was surprised at how many people were still alive and hiding. They’d always known there were survivors making it on their own, but they’d no idea how many there were. Once Ruler’s henchmen starting rounding people up and forcibly taking them to the refugee camp, people emerged from their hideouts, looking for somewhere able to defend them from this new assault on their freedom.

  After the attack at the bases, life never quite settled back into a routine. It was as if Ruler broke something. Not their spirit exactly, but the confidence they could get the situation under control. He wasn’t sure he could control the outcome anymore. Ip’s death and subsequent rebirth, combined with the attack at the bases, punctured his faith. In the eighteen months since the outbreak, he and his brothers had worked diligently believing they could somehow get control of the dynamic. Events since had convinced him otherwise, and he struggled to find motivation to keep fighting what he believed was a losing battle. He didn’t talk about his worries with anyone, not even his brothers or Nelson, a man he was close to. Feeling increasingly isolated, he wasn’t coping that well, but each day he got up and did what needed to be done, whilst always hoping something would happen to restore his faith in their mission.

  Travelling to the armaments factory was relatively easy. It was remotely located and surrounded by forest and farming land. Being away from the motorways and congested living areas, the roads were mostly clear, and the area seemed quiet and untouched by the end of the world.

  Ip was sitting in the back seat of the vehicle, and while she looked out of the window, she absentmindedly scratched her arm.

  “Are you alright, honey?”

  When she didn’t reply, he touched her arm and felt her flinch. She never pulled away from him. While everything else around him changed, she never pushed him away. Puzzled, he touched her arm again, and this time she pulled away as if she was in pain. He gently took her hand, and pushing the sleeve of her t-shirt up her slender forearm, he felt an odd soft ridging under his fingers. On her delicate skin there was a welt that weaved like a fine snake. The ridge wasn’t red, it was as if her skin was forming a ruptured line, twisting like a snake from the crook of her elbow and d
own to her wrist. Stranger still, were the intricate patterns filling in between the loops of the ridging, weaving a complex and delicate kaleidoscope of bluish and black lines. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought they were tattoos.

  “Honey, what is this?”

  “It is the whole of me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Pulling her arm away, she tugged her sleeve down. “I am Death. You are War. We are one.”

  Axel was driving and he asked, “What the hell is she talking about?”

  He wasn’t sure he knew, but he didn’t want to try to explain it to Axel. “She’s fine. She jus’ lives in her own world is all.”

  Having lived with Ip for more than a year, he knew she never lived in the same reality as they did. In her previous self, before Mackenzie shot her and she was reborn into this new body, she was able to read their minds and see super hunters after they were dead. She didn’t seem to have those abilities anymore, but she still didn’t seem connected to their view of the world. Lydia always said the people infected with the designer virus might continue to evolve, and he wondered if Ip was evolving. It wouldn’t surprise him. She’d always been unique. Deciding he would talk to her later, he returned to watching the road while they drove towards the armaments factory.

  TL was in the vehicle behind him, and through his radio headset, he heard him ask, “Are we there yet?”

  “Ya sound like, Pax.”

  “That’s a low blow, but Pax and Ted do liven up a road trip.”

  He had to agree with his brother. Without Pax’s incessant rambling and overexcited behavior, or the endless bitching between him and Captain Ted, the trip to the UK had lacked a spark. He could see the practicalities of making the UK a temporary base while they dealt with Ruler, his super hunters and the hunters, but he couldn’t get excited over it. Had Pax and Captain Ted been with them, they would have raised hell and caused endless trouble. Still, he thought dourly, we would have laughed more.