“I thought we already covered that.”
Teardrops said, “I guess we were hoping that after having time to get to know us, you might decide to share—”
“No.”
A vein on Red Beard’s forehead swelled, like a night crawler wriggling its way to the surface. “You’re telling us that—”
“I’m telling you no.”
Red Beard clenched his fists so tightly that Mason could hear the knuckles pop.
Teardrops reached over and patted his friend on the shoulder.
“It’s no problem, Marshal. We’re cool. We’ll find something down the road a ways.”
As Teardrops spoke, Red Beard slowly slid his hand toward the small of his back.
Mason squared himself, his gun hand hanging ready at his side.
“Just so we’re clear,” he said in a firm voice, “if either of you makes a move I don’t like, I’ll shoot you both.”
Red Beard’s hand froze, and he brought it back around front. Both men looked at each other, uncertainty in their eyes but a determined tightness to their jaws.
Teardrops took a step toward Mason, his hands spread open with the palms up.
“You got it all wrong, Marshal. We’re not looking for any trouble.”
Red Beard suddenly made a quick grab for the gun at the small of his back. Before the weapon could clear his belt, Mason drew the Supergrade and shot him twice below the throat. Both bullets punched through nearly the same hole. He immediately sidestepped and fired more two shots into the smaller man who was standing transfixed by the sudden explosion of violence. The first bullet passed through his heart, and the second split his sternum. Both men hit the ground at the same time.
Mason stood watching the wisps of burned gunpowder rise into the air, as if they were the spirits of the fallen men. He replayed every facet of the gunfight, including his draw, grip, trigger squeeze, and recoil control. Then, waking from the trance, he stepped forward and looked down at Teardrops. The vacant stare in his eyes told Mason all he needed to know He moved over and knelt down beside Red Beard. The man lay clutching his throat, like a prospector trying to hold back oil, blood pulsing out from between his fingers. He gurgled and coughed as he gasped for air, desperately trying to hang onto life. Mason reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. Red Beard’s eyes grew wide and tears began to stream down his face. He blinked once, then his body spasmed and he was gone. His big green eyes stared up at the sky like two polished emeralds floating in pools of milk.
Mason stood and looked down at the bodies. Only minutes before, these two men had been riding carefree through the mountains with the cold morning air stinging their faces. Now they lay dead, their warm blood slowly draining out onto the dirt beneath them. It had been a defining moment for them, one that they surely didn’t appreciate the importance of until it was too late. Mason cleared his throat and spat. Such was life.
He carefully searched them, taking the hunting knife, the Glock pistol, and a small snub-nosed Colt revolver that Red Beard had been hiding behind his back. He put the knife on his belt and the two pistols into the glove box in his truck. Once he was certain they didn’t have anything else that might be of use, he rolled the two bodies over the edge of the steep mountain road and kicked some dirt to cover the pools of blood. He walked the motorcycles off the road and leaned them behind a nearby tree. He would pick them up on his return trip. Mason didn’t particularly enjoy riding motorcycles, but they were very fuel-efficient and might serve a valuable need if gasoline became scarce. From this point forward, it was all about survival.
CHAPTER
8
As Mason continued his journey down to Highway 321, he couldn’t help but replay his encounter with the two men. Both were surely convicts. The tattoo of the teardrops was common among those who spent time in prison. It occurred to him that many of the survivors of Superpox-99 might indeed be criminals. According to Jack, they had been released only after things had grown so dire that the nation’s infrastructures were collapsing. Unlike the vast majority of law-abiding citizens who had been caught completely unprepared, the convicts would have had the chance to steer clear of others until the virus subsided.
As with shootings in his past, Mason couldn’t help but wonder why he felt so calm after having just taken two lives. It wasn’t that he necessarily expected to have regrets or second thoughts about his actions. Drawing down on the two men seemed justifiable in this new world where every man had to be held accountable for his actions. He was, however, surprised that he could control his body’s unconscious processes, including his heartbeat and the release of adrenalin. Fellow marshals had accused him of having ice in his veins on more than one occasion. While that was meant as a compliment from one lawman to another, doctors had also warned that emotional baggage was like an audit from the taxman; while extremely unpleasant, it was something that eventually had to be dealt with.
Mason wasn’t so sure. During his time in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, he had learned to kill without questioning why. The enemy was the enemy, nothing more. They had no children, no wives, no dreams for the future. They were simply the epitome of evil that had to be stopped. While such detachment might lead some to sociopathic behavior, it had enabled him to follow an internal compass that he believed always pointed true north. Life was easiest when viewed in black and white, right and wrong.
To force himself to stop rehashing things that were probably best left in the past, Mason began reviewing his goals for the excursion into Boone. Above all else, he needed to assess the scope and severity of the infection in his immediate area. Were the dead lining the streets as the convicts had suggested, or was there some semblance of society still functioning?
He had also compiled a list of supplies that he hoped to gather, not the least of which was additional food. He had a large stockpile of dehydrated and freeze-dried supplies in the cabin, but collecting extra canned and prepackaged food was still prudent. Packaged products might last a year or two, and regular canned food could easily be safe to eat for five years.
Fuel was also a pressing need. Without adequate gasoline, he would be confined to the cabin, which would leave him isolated and potentially vulnerable. He had placed four empty jerry cans in the bed of his truck, two of which were now full. Using his method of draining fuel tanks enabled him to get around, but it relied on having frequent access to other vehicles. It also didn’t account for the fact that fuel would eventually solidify into a gummy substance if it sat for too long. In a year or two, the gas in most of the vehicles would be unusable without some form of pretreatment. A fuel stabilizer was therefore high on his list of needs.
Next on his list were medical supplies. Mason had a fairly exhaustive first aid kit at the cabin, but he hoped to gather some broad-spectrum antibiotics, anti-diarrheals, and antiviral medicines, if any still existed. In addition to food, fuel, and medicine, he had identified a collection of miscellaneous items that might prove useful, including batteries, ammunition, matches, spare parts for his truck, toiletries, bottles of hand sanitizer, and disposable face masks. He had no idea if the last two items would in any way protect him from Superpox-99, but they seemed to be reasonable precautions to have on hand.
When he arrived at Highway 321, he paused once again to appreciate the scope of the devastation. Cars and trucks of every size and shape lined the four-lane divided highway. Some were smashed into one another; others had been driven off into the deep ravines lining the shoulder; a few were even propped up on the concrete divider, as if a huge bulldozer had plowed through the stalled traffic. This had been a scene of terrible suffering; people trying to escape something that was not escapable.
He turned east on the highway and began carefully navigating the congested thoroughfare. He spent much of the time driving on the shoulder, and more than once had to nudge a vehicle that was blocking his path. Most of the automobiles had bodies within, all now in advanced stages of decomposition. Even during his time in
the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mason had never seen so much death at one sitting.
After navigating through the blockade of vehicles for two long miles, he came upon a service station on the right side of the road. Attached on one side was a small convenience store and, on the other, a mechanic’s shop that had been partially burned out. Two fuel pumps sat out front with an old rusty Dodge Charger smashed into one of them. A stamped sheet metal sign hung above the store, Sugar Grove One-Stop.
He pulled into the small parking lot next to the undamaged fuel pump. The pumps wouldn’t operate without electricity, but they almost certainly contained fuel in their underground storage tanks. He waited in his vehicle for a full minute to see if anyone would come out to investigate. No one did.
Taking his M4 with him, Mason climbed out of his truck. He double- checked the chamber and slapped the magazine to make sure that it was fully seated. It was a safety click away from being ready for action. He positioned the single-point sling over his neck and shoulder so that the weapon could hang freely.
His first stop was the Charger that had crashed into the fuel pump. Thankfully, there were no rotting corpses inside. A few hand tools were scattered on the floor, and a small duffle bag was on the seat. He searched the bag and found only a set of women’s clothes.
He left the tools and bag in the truck and walked to the front of the convenience store. The glass door was smashed, and several shelves that had been barricaded against it were pushed over into the store. A man lay face down on the floor a few feet inside. A .22 rifle was poking out from underneath his body, probably his last line of defense against looters. Hundreds of flies buzzed around his decaying corpse, taking their fill of the rotting flesh.
As Mason carefully maneuvered through the blocked doorway, the sour stink of decomposition hit him in the face like a sweaty boxing glove. He forced himself to take shallow breaths through his mouth as he proceeded into the store. Most of it had been thoroughly ransacked. The shelves were tipped over and the glass cooler cases smashed. Candy, chips, bottled drinks, and a mishmash of food products covered the floor. If not for the dead body, it would have been a junk food paradise.
“U.S. Marshal,” he called out. “Anyone alive in here?”
For several seconds, there was no reply. Then he heard a faint scratching sound coming from the back of the building. He brought his M4 to the ready and slowly approached the small hallway at the rear of the store. On one side were the men’s and women’s bathrooms, and on the other was a storeroom. He stood in the hallway and listened. The scratching sounded again, clearly coming from the storeroom.
Standing to one side of the door, he bumped on it with the muzzle of his rifle.
“This is Marshal Raines. Anyone in there?”
The only answer was the same scratching sound.
He tried the door knob, but it was locked from the inside.
“Stand aside,” he said. “I’m coming in.”
Mason lined up with the door and gave it a good kick. The frame split and the door swung in. Inside was a young woman sitting at a small table. Based on the advanced stage of decomposition, she had been dead for more than week. A large pool of blood, organs, and bile had spilled across her chair and onto the floor. Much of her flesh was split, and several bones were already visible.
Lying beside her chair was the largest dog Mason had ever seen. Covered in a thick coat of gray, brown, and white fur, the Irish wolfhound rested just outside the pool of the woman’s blood. The dog didn’t look long for this world.
“Hey, boy. You okay?”
The dog winced and scratched the floor. His eyes were only half-open, and his huge tongue hung from his mouth like a wet mop.
Mason approached the dog slowly and squatted down. It made no effort to get up. He wondered if it had contracted the virus. The woman in the chair had blisters covering her arms and face, but he saw no signs of blisters on the dog’s skin. Mason knew that most viruses didn’t cross-infect between species, but he couldn’t be sure if that was true of Superpox-99.
He knelt beside the dog for nearly a minute, considering his options. The smart thing to do would be to walk away, perhaps putting a bullet in the dog to end its suffering. Before he could firmly make up his mind, the dog slid its head forward to rest on the toe of Mason’s boot.
“I hear you,” he said, reaching down and petting the animal’s head. “You’re not ready to give up just yet.”
The dog whined.
“I don’t suppose you can stand?”
It looked up at him with two different-colored eyes, one blue and the other brown.
“That’s what I figured,” he said, scooping up the huge animal into his arms. The dog offered no resistance, not even a growl. Instead, it draped over the sides of his arms like a sleeping child being carried to bed.
Mason couldn’t believe how heavy the dog was. Even suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, it easily weighed over a hundred pounds. He carried it from the convenience store out to his truck and placed it on the tail gate. Then he opened the passenger-side door.
“If I let you ride up front, you’re going to have to promise not to puke up anything. Deal?”
The dog blinked in response.
He scooped the dog up again and placed it on the seat.
“Stay here while I get you something to eat and drink.” There was no point in breaking into the supplies in the back of his truck when there was a store full of them only a few steps away.
He re-entered the store and searched through the debris. On the floor, he found several unopened bottles of water and a tray full of miniature cans of cat food. He dumped out a couple of three-liter bottles of soda and used his newfound hunting knife to cut the bottoms off to act as makeshift bowls.
As he exited the store, supplies in hand, Mason heard the distant sounds of traffic approaching from the east. He sprinted back to the truck, tossed the supplies on the floorboard, and slid into the driver’s seat. Being caught with very little cover and only a lame dog to back him up was not his idea of a solid defensive position. Seeing no other option, he quickly pulled the truck around to the back of the convenience store. There was nothing large enough to hide it behind, so he parked it as close to the building as possible.
As he stepped from the truck, the dog gave a soft woof.
Mason looked over at him. The dog struggled to raise its head.
“You’ve got more courage than strength. Let me handle this. You rest.”
The dog slowly lowered its head and closed its eyes.
Mason readied his M4 and went to the corner of the building to see who was approaching.
A caravan of four RVs and two campers traveled single file down the highway. One camper rode at the front and one at the rear, running sentry for the convoy. When they neared the service station, the vehicles slowed to a stop.
The door to the lead RV opened, and two men and a woman stepped out. The men were armed with rifles, and the woman carried a pump shotgun. She stayed by the RV while the two men went up and checked out the store. After a couple of minutes, they returned. One of the men had his arms full of snacks, and the other carried their rifles.
Mason decided to take a chance. He swung the M4 to his back and shouted from the corner of the building.
“Hello there!” he called, waving his hands.
They all turned in his direction. The man carrying the snacks quickly dropped them to the ground, and everyone raised their rifles. However, no one took careful aim. Mason took a step away from the building, ready to dive for cover if needed. The three talked among themselves and then turned back to him and waved.
“Hello!” one of the men yelled.
Mason took that to be a good sign. Careful to keep his hands where they could see them, he walked toward the group. When he got to within a few yards, he stopped. The three kept their weapons in hand but didn’t point them directly at him. Another good sign. They didn’t know it, but they were in just as much danger as
he was. Mason could draw and shoot all three in just over one second, faster than most people could even comprehend a situation, let alone react.
The two men were in their late forties or early fifties. The woman was perhaps a few years younger. All looked exhausted. The older of the men stepped forward and offered his hand. Mason shook it.
“Good to see a friendly face,” the man said. “I’m Carl Tipton, and this is my brother, John, and his wife, Jules.” The others nodded and smiled at Mason.
“I’m Mason Raines.”
Carl looked down and saw the badge on Mason’s belt.
“Well, I’ll be darned. I haven’t seen one of you Marshals since my days as a bail bondsman.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve encountered other law enforcement officers?”
“Not a single one. Of course, there are plenty of cop cars littering the streets. But I can’t say as I’ve seen anyone alive in uniform.” He looked to John and Jules. They both shook their heads.
“Most of them abandoned their posts when things got bad,” said Jules. “Who can blame them? Family comes first for all of us.” To emphasize the point, she reached out and placed a hand on her husband’s arm.
“Have you been through Boone?”
All three stiffened at his question.
“Yes sir, we have,” answered Carl. “I wouldn’t advise you go that way, especially with that badge.”
“Why’s that?”
“The place has been overrun by a gang of thugs. Not what you’d call law-abiding citizens. The worst part is that I suspect there are quite a few survivors hiding out, just too afraid to come out of their homes for fear of being victimized.”
Mason nodded, giving his words the attention they deserved.
“Sounds as if somebody’s going to have to go into Boone and help those folks.”
Carl sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But that would be a tall order. You’d probably have to put down more than a few people in the process.”
“Did you folks run into any trouble?”
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