A leg appeared through a gap in the concrete, just ahead of me. Attached to it was the foot, and the foot was clad in a real, actual, honest-to-God boot. The good shit. Most of the good shit was gone, or owned by folks that didn't live in this ruin anymore, so this ganger must have been tough. After all, he was still wearing that boot, wasn't he? I compared his foot to mine for a moment. Not a perfect fit, but I could probably stuff some rags in the toe. The foot came down, braced, the leg straightened to let the other move- now. Now was my moment.
I darted forward, fast as a rattlesnake, and jabbed the rebar into the leg, where the knee should have been, gripping the crude shiv like an icepick and putting all of my little girl weight into it. I heard the tendons break and watched the joint take the shape it wasn't meant to. The leg bent, this time to the side, and the bandit fell toward me, toppling like a tree. He was probably in shock because he didn't scream. As soon as he hit the dirt, I yanked my bloody shiv out of his knee and slammed it down into the hollow of his throat. The only sound he made was a weak gurgle. One down.
This little stretch of ruin and concrete and rust was mine. I lived here, and though I looked like a little girl, I was not. I was a cat. Like a jungle cat. Maybe a panther, or a jaguar, or… a tiger. A tigress. I was the tigress, and this was my territory. These asshole poachers were hunting me for my beautiful pelt. And a tigress could only really do one thing with poachers.
I froze crouched low over the body, out of sight. No shouts, no shots, no problem. Good. The more I took like this, in shadows and the silence, the less I would have to try to take on face to face. I quickly rummaged through the raider’s gear. No gun, just a crowbar. Classic. A few different bullets, though, all different sizes. I pocketed those, and then quickly stowed the jerky I found in his inside vest pocket. I hoped it was made of some animal, but I didn’t look at it too closely. What I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me, right? Wrong, but who was going to call me on it, this guy? Going through his belt pouch, I found something excellent. A genuine pre-war army grenade. This part was tricky, but it could seriously change the odds against me. But only if I played it right.
Carefully, I trapped the grenade under the dead man's chest, keeping it pinned so that the ‘spoon' (or floppy handle-looking part, as I liked to call it) was stuck firmly into the ground. Then I pulled the pin out, careful not to jostle the little bomb. The grenade would go off if someone touched the body, and take everyone within fifteen meters along for the express ride down to the Big Heat. I had seen it happen a couple of times before, and when I had been eight, I had even watched someone plant a trap just like this one. I knew it would work, so long as I was careful.
I got a few paces away from the dead man and his rapidly expanding pool of blood, put my back to the pillar and counted to five. Then I stuck my head out just enough to let my voice carry out into the open and make where I was a little harder to pinpoint. Then I made my best impression of a horrible scream of pain. Immediately, footsteps responded. The asshole poachers were coming, and they were the ones that would die to the hidden pit of bamboo stakes. No tigers were going to get caught up in this one.
I slunk away, staying low- though I still moved as quickly as I could manage quietly. I didn't want to be less than a hundred feet from a fragmentation grenade. There was now a lot of shouting going on, close by. The footsteps were converging on the place where I had killed that first raider, and angry shouts rose over the ruins, scaring away a couple of nearby flocks of blackbirds. I winced and made myself as small as I could.
Sure enough, I heard the grenade escape its trap, probably set free by some well-meaning raider hoping to help out his buddy. There was a clatter of light metal, and then someone yelled “Grenade!” And then there was a loud bang that turned everything in the world into a dial tone. What was a dial tone again? I didn’t move. Anyone near the blast couldn’t hear right now, but neither could I. Stumbling into someone I didn’t hear coming would get me killed just as sure as one of them getting a good hold on me would.
I waited for several agonizing minutes for the ringing sound to go away, and then I risked a tiny peek around the little clump of shattered concrete I was using as a hiding place. The ground back where I had left my little surprise was a mess. I didn't let my eyes linger on the carnage long. It damaged the illusion. They were just poachers. I was a tigress. I did what big cats would do, and I hunted down my hunters. No big deal. Nothing to worry about.
I crept out a little ways, scanning the ruins for signs of any survivors. There. A big guy stood staring off in the wrong direction, swarthy-skinned and bald, dressed in the tatters of old biker leathers. There was blood liberally spattered across one side of his face, and one of his arms looked like a tigress had gotten her teeth into it and tried to rip it clean off. Of course, that was what had happened? Right? A tigress didn't use grenades or trick people with the corpses of their friends and kin. She just killed her hunters by cleverness and the strength of her magnificent body. And that was what I had done, right? Right.
I moved quietly, carefully, circling through the scattered slabs of concrete and rotting wood, avoiding the tetanus traps of bent and rusting nails that seemed to stick out from everywhere around here. This ruin- I was not exaggerating to call it my territory. I knew this place, and this wasn't the first time I had danced this particular club. I avoided the traps and dangers almost without thinking- making use of my small, starved frame to stay out of sight. I slipped behind a mostly intact section of old strip mall wall, and when I emerged on the other side, staying safely hidden in the shadows, I could see that the big man with the bad arm hadn't moved. Good. I stalked towards him slowly, not darting around in quick movements that would draw the eye, but rather imitating a cat's smooth, sensual prowl, with my rebar shiv gripped icepick style in one hand.
I closed the distance. He was just five steps away. I didn’t dare breathe. If he turned, he would have me off of the ground by my throat before I could even try to run. Those big guys could be deceptively fast. Four steps. I noticed that he had a tattoo on his left biceps, probably from before the war. It was the classic heart encircled by a ribbon- and there were names tattooed there. I looked away. I didn’t want to know those names. I didn’t need to know more about this poacher to kill him. I was the tigress. This was what I did. Three steps. My eyes flicked involuntarily back over to his tattoo, and now I could read the names on the ribbon. I read them before I could stop myself. Jeannie. Sam. Brett. Aaron. His family? Did it matter? Two steps away. No return. I gripped the shiv and prepared my body for the pounce. One step. I tensed… and moved!
"Hey!" A voice from the other side of the ruined courtyard. "Look out!" I was in midair, I was scrambling onto the big guy's back, I was reaching for his chin- but he had turned at the warning, and had gotten an arm between us. I wasn't clinging to his back; I was closer to his shoulder. This might not have been my first rodeo, but it wasn't his, either. Howling with rage, the angry raider seized me by the front of my shirt and charged, pushing me ahead of him like a bull. I was so surprised that it took me a precious second to figure out what he was trying to do. By the time I realized it and tried to escape, it was too late. He pile-drove me into a still-standing wall back first, and I blacked out for a moment.
I opened my eyes and found myself sailing through the air. I had just enough time to realize I had been thrown before I hit the cracked pavement and bounced, leaving some of the skin on my arms and legs behind as I skidded to a painful halt. Oh, this was bad. This was very bad. "Hey!" It was the voice that had warned the big guy, the voice of the one I hadn't seen. "Hey! We got the little bitch! Guys, come on over if you want a piece of this! I got dibs on first run!"
I tried to get to my feet, but a big, broad leathery hand slammed down over my throat like a vice, then closed down hard. I struggled as I was lifted into the air, trying to gasp but unable to breathe past the iron grip suspending me aloft. “Not so fast Burke,” the big man said, tightening his grip on my throat
more and more by the second. “This little bitch killed Carter, Kenny, and Rawhide. I’ll be damned, but she was about to stick me, too. I’m going to soften her up first.”
Burke made a noncommittal sound and then sighed. "Go ahead, but remember, Alpha Dog, I don't like my apples bruised."
Alpha Dog’s only response to this was a snicker. “You pussy.” It was unclear if it had been a friendly comment for Burke or a challenge. I was pretty sure I didn’t care either way. What I did care about was the red haze closing in, and the blackness following close on its heels. I couldn't blackout. If I did, I would never wake up- or worse, I would, and death would be a long, agonizing way off. I didn't know firsthand what Burke and those like him meant when they called "Dibs" on me, but I had a pretty good guess. I was young, not stupid.
Without warning, the pressure around my throat released, and I dropped from Alpha Dog’s meaty fist, collapsing to the cracked pavement and gasping for air. I winced, bracing myself for the boot that I knew would be coming- but it didn’t come. Against my better judgment, I looked up.
Alpha Dog was just standing there, his eyes glassy, his mouth slack, and a little dark dribble starting from the corner of his mouth. He stayed there for a moment, making odd, chirping sounds, and then fell forward onto his face. That’s when I noticed the crude pipe-and-scrap tomahawk sticking out of the back of his head. A scrawny, pale man with too-wide eyes growled through a mouth of rotten teeth, “Now who’s the pussy, you fat fuck?” So that was Burke.
Boots crunched on gravel, and I looked over to see two more bandits approaching, both of them bearing makeshift weapons in a casual manner, not seeming bothered in the slightest by the murder that had just happened right in front of them. I guessed that the old Alpha Dog had not been well-liked. One of the men, smoking something greasy between filthy cracked lips, spit a gob of something disgusting and brown. “Hail to the Chief,” he drawled.
“Fuckin’ a,” commented the other in an amused tone, apparently by way of agreement.
It was right then that I remembered that I was in danger. I was the tigress, not a little girl, and I had been snared by the poachers. I had to get out of this… and I thought I saw a way. I lunged forward, snatching the tomahawk out of the back of Alpha Dog's skull, and before the new chief could do anything to stop me, I swung it as hard as I could in a diagonal slash aimed for his skinny little neck. He put up a hand to stop me, and lost three fingers for his trouble. The tomahawk was deflected slightly, and it didn't open the side of his neck. Instead, I tore open the side of his face in gout of blood and pulverized teeth.
Chief Burke screamed and reeled, but none of the others moved to assist him. They just watched, still standing casually, still looking just as amused as before. I snapped my gaze back towards the man I had just maimed, in time to see his undamaged hand come screaming in like a major league fastball for the side of my head. I ducked, and the wind of that blow's passing lifted some of my wild black hair up off of my head in its wake. I didn't wait for another invitation. I dropped my weight and charged forward in a shoulder block, imitating the big athletes I used to watch… before. Burke, already off balance because of his clumsy roundhouse, flipped over my back as I plowed right through him and crashed down hard to the ground.
I spared a glance for my audience, but the two bandits hadn’t moved. One of them lifted a hand and drew a slow circle in a clear “go on…” gesture. I focused on the prone Burke, just now trying to get to his feet. If I had been a hero, like in the movies, I would have thrown that tomahawk right into the back of his head. It would have been poetic, badass, impressive. Instead, I closed with the wounded man, careful not to show any hesitation. I didn’t say a clever one-liner. I didn’t say anything. I just hit him with the tomahawk in the back of his neck until he collapsed and didn’t move again.
For a short while, there was silence, and I just stared down at what I had done. I spit on the bloody wreckage of the brief reign of Chief Burke. Then slow, steady clapping broke the stillness. I looked up. The two bandits were standing a little closer, their weapons down by their sides, deliberately non-threatening.
One of them, a tall, athletic, well-tanned man with a leather patch over one eye said, in exactly the same tone as he had before, “Hail to the Chief.” He gave me a little bow, surprisingly absent of mockery. He seemed genuinely impressed.
The other man, who looked like the lovechild of a bull steer and a dump truck, spat a stream of brown juice from his lower lip’s payload of tobacco and said, “Fuckin’ a,” by way of agreement.
“Okay, cool,” I said, and immediately began scrounging around for that damn pair of boots.
…
I ran with those guys for about a year. They called me Chief and brought me food and water when I asked, but pretty much just led themselves. We left my stomping grounds in the ruins, and roamed south, past the rad zones of the dead city and out onto the old highway. My "subjects," as they called themselves (really just Pat and Boone), seemed pretty happy to have me around as a sort of a cross between a protégé and a mascot. They were a lot older than me, but that didn't matter. Later I realized that I reminded each of them of a kid sister or a niece- someone turned to ash in the war. Sometimes I would catch one or the other of them just staring at me, but nothing came of it. It didn't really matter. We were a little pack.
A tigress didn't run with a pack, but whatever, maybe I was a she-wolf. We robbed the folks we thought we could sneak up on, and we set traps out on the road to lure in the unwary. Usually, I was bait. Nobody was afraid of a twelve-year-old girl. But I wasn't a girl. I was a she-wolf. We stole, we cursed, we killed, and a few times, finding ourselves caught in a fight with better bandits, we ran. At the time, I thought it was the best time I would ever have. It wasn't right. It wasn't wrong. It just was. It was life after the end of the world, and it seemed like things were as alright as they could be, at least for a little she-wolf and her two-man pack. Until Pim.
…
We started just as we had many times before. I was bait. Just a hurt little girl, smeared with rabbit blood and leaning up against a burned out car, crying and apparently alone. The travelers we had been stalking were not far down the road, and before long, they appeared out of the heat haze, walking steadily down the road bearing packs loaded with who-knew-what. It looked like they were a small family. Hah. Easy pickings. Couples always fell for the “lost little lamb” act. The only rubes who could give them a run for their money were “lone-wolf” guys- especially since I was thirteen, and I was starting to look less like a little girl every day. I snickered to myself, then quickly suppressed it and let out another loud, melodramatic sob. Somewhere off nearby, I could practically hear Boone rolling his single eye at my theatrics, but I ignored him. It really was funny, that “lone-wolf” thing. A lone-wolf wasn’t badass. A lone-wolf was a shitty wolf. A wolf without a pack was a dead wolf. Fuckin’ morons.
The travelers drew closer, and I saw that I was right. Two men, probably brothers, one woman, a kid in the middle, maybe my age. Everyone looked related, with the same tawny skin and mouse-brown hair. The kid hadn’t gotten his size yet, and he still looked a little like a puppy with his oversized feet and hands and his scrawny frame. But his eyes were something else. They were beautiful, colored a blue so pale that they seemed almost white when the light hit them. They seemed fairly well-fed and fairly sure of themselves, and every one of them was armed with higher-end hardware, all except the boy. Not the best sign, but we could take them. All I had to do was sell the part.
I shook with feeble sobs as they approached, clutching at my belly, where I had stained my ragged shirt with most of the rabbit's blood. I reached out a trembling, bloody hand and cried, managing somehow to squeeze the word "help" out between my wracking sobs. The two men in the lead immediately took an interest, and they raised their guns reflexively, but immediately lowered them when they saw me. Excellent. They were gonna be easy marks. I wondered how they had gotten so well armed an
d supplied if they were so damn gullible. Most people at least hesitated to approach, but one of the guys was already walking towards me, fishing what looked like bandages out of a pocket. I opened my mouth to give the signal- the three words that would end these four lives. It wasn’t really their fault, but they were deer, and Boone, Pat and I? We were wolves.
"Help me, please," I said- or at least I tried to say that. Instead, my words died on my lips as the boy looked right at me with those bright, piercing eyes, and said, almost conversationally, "Trap." And everything fell apart.
Pat and Boone attacked, bursting out of their hiding places in the grass by the sides of the road. We had had some luck, and we had guns of our own- though they weren't nearly as nice as the traveler's armaments. Gunfire erupted in all directions. Boone and Pat had the advantage of the flank, and relative surprise, but these men- these men were playing in a different league than my "subjects." We were wolves. But they weren't deer. They were moose.
Alien Romance Box Set: Romantic Suspense: Alien Destiny: Scifi Alien Romance Adventure Romantic Suspence Trilogy (Complete Series Box Set Books 1-3) Page 52
