Rabid

by Jami Lynn Saunders

  As they drove, the road became increasingly strewn with overturned cars and trucks. Salvatore had to drive off the road and around the obstructions, and the mud from the recent rain made the going difficult.

  “Someone did this,” Jack said.

  Abby nodded. “Maybe humans did it to create a protective—”

  Up ahead, a disk flipped up from the road and a hole appeared. Ferals began to emerge, and then more holes and more ferals appeared. Salvatore swerved as four of the creatures ran toward the vehicle.

  “They’ve been hiding in the sewers,” Abby said.

  The front of the vehicle clipped a feral and sent it flying. It hit the ground with a thud, rolled into a tree, and began convulsing. The other ferals kept coming. Salvatore continued to maneuver between the overturned vehicles, swerving in and out as if he were running an obstacle course, hitting more ferals as he went. But the armored car was heading deeper into the city, away from the highway. Soon they were back in the heart of the city, and hundreds of ferals were chasing them down the city streets.

  “There!” Jack yelled, pointing to a small facility that was protected by a twenty-foot wall topped with coils of barbed wire. “The gate is open. Get us in there and we can shut it.”

  Salvatore floored the accelerator and smashed his way through a dozen ferals. He cleared the gate and hit the brakes just inside the wall. The vehicle spun sideways, and Jack, Pippa, Abby, and Salvatore leaped out. The three werecats morphed and began pushing on the end of the rolling gate. The rusted wheels moved a few inches, and the werecats redoubled their efforts. A feral came through the gate, and Jack cut it down with Excalibur before it could attack the others. Six more ferals appeared and surrounded Jack. He raised Excalibur and prepared to fight.

  A high-pitched howl rent the air, and a beast—half cat, half alligator, and seven feet tall—sprang toward the ferals, ripping through them with six-inch-long teeth and razor-sharp reptilian fingers. Aiden had become a one-of-a-kind hybrid of fearsome brutality. Hideous screams arose from the ferals, and soon a dozen of them lay dead on the ground. The rest retreated from this new and terrible threat. Aiden went to the massive gate and pushed it closed, locking out the rest of the screaming horde.

  Aiden and the werecats returned to human form. Jack looked on, awestruck by the sight and by the memory of the creature Aiden had transformed into only moments earlier.

  “Are you okay,” Pippa asked Aiden.

  “I feel great,” Aiden replied. “Never better. I feel as if all my energy has returned.”

  Pippa wrapped her arms around him. “I’m glad.”

  “Hey, we need to run this perimeter to make sure those things can’t get in somewhere else,” Salvatore said. “Like, now.”

  Aiden and Pippa took off in one direction, Abby and Salvatore in the other, while Jack guarded the front gate with Excalibur in his hand.

  “It looks like we’re safe for now,” Salvatore told Jack after he and the others returned. “But it also looks like those things won’t be leaving any time soon.”

  “We may have to make a break for it in our vehicle,” Jack said.

  Pippa shook her head. “They’d overtake us, tip us over, or bust out the windshield.”

  “Not only that, but we don’t know where we are in relation to the highway,” Abby said. “I’ve never seen a full map of this city, so I can’t get us back out of town by memory.”

  Jack looked around the small facility, which covered only a few acres. “It looks like this place was once a jail or perhaps a small prison.” He pointed toward a corner of the compound. “I think that tall structure over there is a watchtower.”

  “Who are you planning to lock up, doc?” Abby asked.

  Jack smiled. “No one. But I have an idea. I’m betting they’ll have some sort of iron bars on the inside, where they held their prisoners. What if we cut some bars loose and mount them over all the glass openings of the vehicle? Then, even if they manage to break the glass, they wouldn’t be able to get to us.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Salvatore said. “But that won’t keep them from tipping us over.”

  “Wait a minute,” Abby said. “Tell me we still have the fire saw.”

  “It’s in the back,” Jack said.

  “I bet I could scrounge up some circuitry from this place and create a circuit board that would allow me to work the fire saw from the inside and send a laser band around the vehicle. It won’t be as strong as the regular fire saw, but the charge would be strong enough to shock any feral that touched our vehicle.”

  “Wouldn’t it shock us too?” Jack asked.

  “The laser line wouldn’t actually touch the vehicle. It would only be a thin line running completely around us at one height, so it wouldn’t cover us entirely. But any feral that ran toward us would most likely be shocked.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Einstein,” Aiden said.

  “Good,” Abby said. “We should split up to get this done as quickly as possible.”

  “I’ll guard the wall,” Pippa said. “Abby, you and Salvatore should look for the circuitry you’ll need, and Jack and Aiden can take Excalibur and cut the bars. When you get back, I’ll go up the watchtower and take a look around. Maybe I’ll find a good route from here back to the highway.”

  They reconvened several hours later. Aiden was in hybrid form, carrying dozens of bars over his shoulder as if they were twigs, and Jack carried a bucket of hand tools and hardware in each hand. Everyone set to work immediately. Aiden took the lead on installation and devised a way to secure the bars to the vehicle.

  “I guess you learned a lot working for Alexander,” Pippa said before heading off to the watchtower to scan the surrounding area.

  She climbed the dusty steps of the tower and was surprised to find a machine mounted in the middle of the floor that allowed her to see for miles in every direction. It reminded her of a giant pair of binoculars, and she thought about the various gadgets Abby used to bring up from the basement of the Hunter Library to show her. She wondered why a jail would have needed it. It occurred to her that the jail might have once served as a safehaven. There was no telling what might have happened to the inhabitants.

  Pippa shook off the melancholy thoughts and scanned the surrounding city. Highway 10 stretched away in the distance, and she found a route back to it. She also saw that the city was swarming with ferals, and they were all moving toward the temporary safehaven. She made a mental note of the route and then descended the tower and went to scavenge for food.

  As the day wore on, Aiden, Jack, Abby, and Salvatore worked on the modifications to the armored car. Pippa found packaged food and supplies and loaded them onto the vehicle whenever the other four took a break. By dusk, Aiden and Jack had finished covering the windshield with iron bars, and Abby had modified the fire saw but had yet to test it. They took their evening meal inside the vehicle, which Salvatore pulled close to the entrance of the main building so they could watch the main gate. The ferals outside had finally stopped their howling. Whether they had retired to their sewers for the night or were busy figuring out another way in, no one knew.

  After dinner, Pippa took Aiden through the building for a final scavenging run. “I want to show you something I found,” she told him. “It’s a supply room with what appears to be weapons. Since you’re the weapons expert, I figure you can decide what we should take.”

  The small supply room was at the back of the building. Inside, metal shelves lined the walls from the floor nearly to the ceiling, and they were filled with supplies, including blankets, gas masks, and old weapons. These included rifles, pistols, and what appeared to be steel balls with a neck on top and a lever down the side.

  “Grenades,” Aiden whispered.

  “What?”

  “Remember when I set off the M-80s in the tunnel?”

  “Sure.”

  “These things are like M-80s that morphed. You pull that little pin while holding the lever down, and then you throw it
and duck. The lever releases, and four seconds later it explodes. If you’re anywhere near the blast, you die.”

  “So, we can blast our way out of here!”

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “Come on, let’s go tell the others the good news.”

  Aiden put a hand on Pippa’s shoulder and gently turned her toward him. “Pippa, do you remember what I said to you when we first got you back?”

  “You said you wished you could marry me.”

  “That’s right. And I meant it. Pippa, I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you months ago. Although I was indebted to Mother Frances for saving me, she never collected on that debt. I’m the one who chose to guard you in New York. Mother Frances didn’t ask me, I asked her. You know how I know we’re going to make it out of here?”

  Pippa shook her head as a tear rolled down her cheek.

  “I know because your love kept me alive. I know now that love can help anyone survive. So, Pippa Reyes, I want to know one more thing. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” Pippa replied.

  “My gosh, where have you two been?” Abby asked. “It’s been nearly two hours!”

  “Gathering these,” Aiden said, as he set a wooden crate on the floor in front of the others.

  Abby looked inside the crate, and her jaw dropped. When she looked up again, she was grinning. “Grenades! We can blast our way out of here!”

  “This is the best news we’ve had in a long time,” Salvatore said.

  “We have some more news,” said Pippa.

  The others looked at her expectantly.

  “Aiden asked me to marry him.”

  “Surely you told him no,” Abby said, laughing.

  “Pipe down, Einstein,” Aiden said.

  “You pipe down, you little straggler,” Abby replied, and then she hugged him. “Well, sis, I guess you could’ve done worse.”

  The next morning, the group returned to their tasks. As the others worked on the armored car, Pippa walked the perimeter. Aiden joined her during a brief break and suggested that they test the grenades. The horde of ferals had returned, so live targets were plentiful.

  They grabbed some grenades and climbed to the top of the wall. The ferals howled and shrieked when their heads appeared over the parapet. They ducked back down, and Aiden looked at Pippa. “Watch carefully as I explain what I’m doing.”

  Pippa nodded and Aiden took a grenade in hand.

  “You hold it in your throwing hand, like this, with your thumb holding the safety lever down. Then you put the index finger of your other hand through this ring.”

  Aiden held the grenade up to demonstrate. Pippa nodded.

  “You pull the ring—give it a little twist as you pull it—which removes the pin that locks the lever in place. Now it’s live. Remember, four seconds after the lever releases, it blows up.”

  “Got it,” Pippa said. “Four seconds.”

  “The last step is to throw the thing at the target—preferably as far as possible—and duck. As you toss the grenade, the safety lever releases and the primer explodes, which sets the fuse burning. The fuse ignites the detonator, which detonates the main charge. Boom!”

  “It sounds complicated,” Pippa said.

  “Only for the guys who made them. For us it’ll be easy. Remember, hold it tight with your thumb on the lever, pull the pin, throw it overhand, duck, and listen to the glorious blast.”

  With that, Aiden pulled the ring on the grenade he was holding and gave Pippa a big grin. Then he stood up, cocked his arm back, and heaved the grenade at a group of ferals. He ducked back down, and four seconds later a blast rocked the air. When they peered over the top of the wall, a half dozen ferals were lying on the ground, dead.

  Pippa went next, and another group of ferals went down. After two more tests, the other ferals backed away from the building, far enough to get out of range.

  “Four for four,” Aiden said. “That’s good. Let’s hope we don’t have any duds.”

  It took half a day to finish the modifications to the vehicle. When the work was complete, Aiden took Abby, Salvatore, and Jack to the wall and had them practice grenade throwing. Dozens more ferals were killed before the creatures backed off again.

  They had decided to leave that night. When the time came, Jack drove the armored car up to the gate. The plan was for Abby and Salvatore to toss grenades at the ferals from the wall and force the creatures to back off. Aiden and Pippa would then morph and push the gate open as Abby and Salvatore ran back down and jumped into the vehicle, followed by Aiden and Pippa. With any luck they’d have a few seconds before the ferals realized what was happening.

  Abby and Salvatore each took a bucket of grenades to the top of the wall and waited as Jack started the car and pulled it right up to the gate. Two explosions rent the air, then two more, and the ferals began wailing and screaming. Abby and Salvatore were like machines, throwing and ducking, throwing and ducking, until the ferals had retreated out of range. The gate began to creak open, and Abby and Salvatore ran down the steps and jumped into the revving vehicle. Aiden and Pippa joined them, and the car took off into the night.

  The ferals swarmed. Grenades flew, but the ferals piled on top of the vehicle. One jumped onto the hood and looked in through the windshield, howling and shrieking. Jack could barely see to drive. Abby switched on the laser, and the ferals fell away.

  “Watch out,” Pippa screamed. Jack wrenched the wheel, but the front right side of the vehicle hit an overturned van.

  “Just a scratch,” Jack said as he floored the accelerator.

  “What happened?” Abby asked, peeking her head up from the back through the metal opening.

  “Nothing, we’re all right,” Jack replied.

  “No, we’re not. The fire saw has quit working.”

  “It must have damaged your right front laser port when I hit that van,” Jack said. “Don’t worry, we’re almost to the highway.”

  The highway entrance ramp was dead ahead, and the ferals were falling behind. Soon, all they heard was the sound of the screaming car engine. Jack hit the ramp at top speed and took them onto Highway 10, headed west.

  When morning came, they saw that the terrain had changed, the deep greens of lush vegetation replaced by the feeble browns of dust and sand.

  “It looks like death,” Pippa said as she stared out the window. She and Aiden were sitting up front with Jack, and she was frowning at the desolate landscape.

  “Not death, just another part of nature,” Jack said. “We’re leaving the green part of the country and entering the desert. There won’t be any lush greenery for a while. But we’ll see green again, I promise.”

  “Maybe there won’t be any ferals either,” Aiden said. “They can’t eat sand.”

  “Always the optimist,” Pippa said before kissing his cheek.

  He lifted his hand to touch her face but frowned when he saw the green, scaly claw that had grown from his right wrist. He pulled it back before it could brush her cheek.

  Pippa looked hurt. “Aiden, please don’t pull away from me, not ever.”

  “I’m just now realizing what I am,” he said. “I haven’t had much time to think about it till now, and I guess I was becoming used to it growing on me. But now that we’re together, I do think about it. I look at it, and I don’t like it.”

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of,” Pippa said. She took his new hand and interlocked her fingers in his.

  “Speaking of desert, we’re running low on water,” Jack announced. “We’ll need to find a source soon, or it will be tough making it through.”

  Abby, sitting in the back with Salvatore, stuck her head through the opening to the front. “Be on the lookout for cactus plants.”

  “What’s a cactus plant?” Aiden asked.

  “It’s a weird green plant unlike any you’ve ever seen. It doesn’t have leaves. It has little needles that stick out all over it, and it’s shaped funny.”

  “Okay, I’ll bi
te. Why do we care about a weird plant that’s shaped funny and has needles instead of leaves?”

  “Because it will have water inside it. We can pop a hole in a cactus and get fresh water to fill our containers. Hold on, I’ll show you.”

  Abby rummaged through Pippa’s satchel and found her book on indigenous plants. She handed it to Aiden. “Turn to page 147 and you’ll see a variety of cactus plants. There’s also a picture showing the top cut off of one, so you can see the water.”

  Pippa was the first to spot a cactus. Jack pulled to the shoulder of the road and stopped, and they exited the vehicle.

  “Keep a sharp lookout,” Jack said. “Just because we’re in the desert doesn’t mean there aren’t any ferals around.”

  The five travelers scanned the desert in all directions, four of them sniffing the air as a warm western breeze blew in. “All clear,” Pippa announced, and they headed toward a cluster of cacti.

  “It looks just like the picture,” Pippa said as they approached.

  “We’ll need a knife to poke a hole in it,” Abby said, but Aiden had already begun making holes in one of the prickly plants with his talons.

  The group filled their four solar-silver water purifying bottles and several large reserve containers before dining on a small breakfast of non-perishable canisters full of preserved fruit and dried meats they’d taken from Houston. They ate quickly, eager to get away from the hot and blinding desert sun.

  “Let’s go before we roast,” Jack said.

  “Maybe we should try to find some shelter for the day and drive at night,” Aiden suggested. “Assuming we can find some shade.”

  They set off again, but it was even hotter inside the car than outside. The air that streamed in through the open windows felt like a blast furnace. Aiden and Salvatore let Pippa and Abby ride shotgun and they took the back. They opened the rear doors and sat on the floor with their feet dangling out the back, but the hot breeze was little better than no breeze at all.

  By the time Aiden spotted a patch of shade, receding in the distance behind them, all five were feeling woozy.