Omega Days (Book 5): The Feral Road

by John L. Campbell

  Rooker grinned. “Top is giving you a try-out.”

  Skye snorted. “He’s an asshole.”

  At once the grin fell from Rooker’s face, and Skye realized she’d made a serious mistake. She touched Rooker on the arm and softened her voice. “I’m sorry. That was wrong.”

  The young man just looked at her.

  “Educate me,” she said, hefting the weapon. Rooker nodded.

  Miles back, a pair of red-skinned Hobgoblins – one a grown female with red hair, the other smaller, dressed in a school uniform and essentially faceless – loped down the center of a black-topped, rural road. They were out in the open, but had no care for what or who might see them. They sensed no threats here. There was only the pursuit.

  Both creatures headed in the direction of a distant pillar of black smoke, as above them the sky began to cloud over, and the first snow flurries fell gently from above.

  SEVEN

  The sniping incident at the farmhouse had consumed much of their daylight, and it was early evening when they reached Emigrant Gap on Interstate-80. The drive from farm country to where the back roads met the highway was increasingly steep, climbing to an elevation of more than four thousand feet. Emigrant Gap was a small community of cabins and ski lodges, gas stations and fast food joints that usually experienced thirty-plus inches of snowfall in January alone, and already there was a foot-deep layer covering the road. The two trucks full of Rangers slowed as they pushed through it, finally coming to a stop just short of the overpass and ramps for I-80.

  The light was quickly fading, an overcast sky spitting snow.

  The captain, Corporal Bracco and Burke the SAW gunner were scouting a spot on the left as a potential overnight camp, a gas station-convenience store combination with a small cabin behind it. The master sergeant and PFC Moore had moved ahead to investigate the overpass, and Skye was left behind to watch the trucks with Rooker. She sat in the bed of the Titan, examining the battle rifle Cribbs had given her.

  “Try these,” Rooker said in his Tennessee twang, walking to the side of the truck. He held out a pair of black and green Nomex gloves, as well as a black and white ski mask. Skye tried on the gloves. They fit well and were warm. The fabric was thin and flexible enough to permit detail work like moving rifle selector switches, loading magazines and perhaps even weapon cleaning without exposing her hands and fingers to the cold.

  “Nice.” She looked at the ski mask. It was mostly black, but as she held it up she saw that a white image on the front, when the mask was pulled over the head, would appear as a skeletal death’s head. It was slightly luminescent in the last light of day. “What’s this about?” she asked.

  “Cool, ain’t it?” Rooker said, grinning. “You come at someone wearing this and they’ll piss themselves.”

  “Has that ever happened for you?”

  “No. This is my first time in combat. But our guys overseas say it terrifies the rags…I mean, the insurgents.”

  Skye looked at the luminescent skull painted on the black fabric. She doubted the walking dead would give a shit how she looked, except as a potential meal. It would probably keep her face warm, though, so she tucked it into a pocket. She preferred her black knit cap for now. “Thanks.”

  Rooker nodded at the battle rifle she was holding. “What do you think?” When they moved out from the farm, Rooker had joined her in the back of the Titan, and Bracco replaced him as driver in the highway department truck. The young man explained the basics of Skye’s new rifle as they rode.

  The SCAR, all in beige as opposed to the black and tan M4s, was heavier than the assault rifle and a little bulky, something to which she would have to adapt. It had a larger frame, and normally featured a stubby barrel, although this variant was equipped with a foot-long suppressor. Chambered for 7.62mm instead of the M4’s lighter 5.56mm, the SCAR’s magazine held only twenty rounds, but they hit with more impact and had a longer range. Instead of the forty-millimeter grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel on Rooker’s version, the sniper variant had a large scope that could be switched out with night optics. The weapon felt solid, and Skye liked the weight. It felt like the butt stock could crush a drifter’s skull if swung in close quarters.

  “Different,” she told the PFC. “I used to have an M24-E. It was even bigger, heavier.”

  Rooker nodded. “The XM variant of the M24. That is a no bullshit weapon, but it’s purely for sniping. The SCAR does double duty; sniping and assault. I love mine.” He patted the weapon slung against his chest.

  Still seated on the edge of the pickup truck bed, Skye raised the SCAR and sighted through the optics, performing a slow half-circle rotation from left to right, making small, clicking adjustments to the scope. She was impressed. Better than the optics of the M4. Her gloved fingertips brushed across the safety, the fire selector switch (single, three-round-burst and full auto) and finally found the magazine release.

  Skye didn’t look away from the rifle as she said, “When the master sergeant said ‘Educate her,’ what did he mean. I know how to shoot.”

  “Yeah…but not like a Ranger.”

  Now she did look at him, and raised an eyebrow.

  The kid blushed and held up his hands. “I’m not saying anything. We can all see that you’ve had some kind of training, but it seems sort of…I don’t know, half-assed. Like you picked up a little here and a little there, made some stuff up on your own. Please don’t take it the wrong way, but it’s just not professional.”

  He was right, of course, and much of her shooting proficiency had been developed through on-the-job-training. She couldn’t help but bristle a bit, though. “And you guys are better, right?”

  “Yes.” Rooker said it without hesitation or boast. “Our training is world-class, and we work with our weapons almost every day. We all shoot expert.” This last was also delivered without sounding like a brag, as casual as if he’d said, “We all breathe in and out.”

  Skye thought about what he’d said. “You’re all expert marksmen? Even you?”

  “Yes ma’am. It’s part of being a Ranger.” That part was delivered with unmistakable pride.

  “Okay,” she said, “I’m listening. Educate me.”

  Rooker blushed again. “I can show you some things, I guess, like the most efficient way to carry your weapon and ammo, how to load more smoothly, and close quarters battle techniques. It’s different up close.”

  Didn’t she know it.

  “But when Top said ‘educate,’ I don’t think he meant I was supposed to teach you how to shoot. More just to familiarize you with the weapon.” Rooker looked away. “And maybe to let you know how Rangers act.”

  Skye looked at him for a moment, but let the last remark go by. Teach me the hardware. Keep the personal stuff to yourself.

  She went back to her optics, sweeping right to left now. This time there was a corpse in the tree line. It had been male, and wore only swimming trunks and a blue waterskiing vest. Skye decided it must have been wandering the woods for quite some time, for its gray flesh was covered in lacerations from rocks and tree branches. That, and no one had been waterskiing around here since the summertime. Its legs looked especially shredded, with the white of bone peeking out in many places. Its hair was matted with dried gore and pine needles.

  Skye pulled the stock of the heavy SCAR more tightly into the hollow of her shoulder, armed the weapon with its charging handle – a solid-sounding KA-CHAK – and centered the sight reticle on the bridge of the creature’s nose. The water-skier lurched past a pine, a heavily laden bough dragging across its face and dropping a curtain of snow, obscuring her sight picture for a moment. Then the limb snapped clear, and the thing stumbled forward, its mouth hanging open in a moan she couldn’t hear at this distance.

  Trigger squeeze.

  A muffled HUFF and a brass shell casing rattled into the truck bed.

  The SCAR kicked her shoulder, and the zombie’s head disintegrated in a black and gray mist from the jawline u
p. Skye moved on with the scope, searching the trees, but the thing appeared to be alone.

  One less, she thought.

  “That was sweet,” Rooker said, standing with his arms folded and nodding at the fifty-yard kill.

  Short bursts of gunfire came from the direction of the convenience store and cabin, and Skye came to her feet in the truck bed, swinging her weapon toward the sound. A moment later PFC Rooker’s radio squawked with Sallinger’s voice. “Two tangos down.”

  Ahead of the truck, the silhouettes of Cribbs and Moore were returning from the overpass, their boots crunching in the snow. Both wore the death’s head ski masks, and upon seeing them – two heavily-armed, dark shapes with grinning skulls for faces – Skye understood what Rooker had meant about the sight paralyzing an enemy. It was ghastly and unsettling. As they approached, Rooker raised a hand in greeting and called, “Top, Miss Dennison dropped a skinny in the trees.”

  The master sergeant didn’t acknowledge him, but stopped and pointed. “Dennison, come with me.” PFC Moore joined Rooker at the truck, and Skye climbed down and caught up with Cribbs, who had already turned away and started walking back toward the overpass.

  “What?” she asked, walking beside him, but the master sergeant said nothing, only marched through the snow with his M4 partially raised, looking left and right. He took them into the deep gloom where the highway crossed over the access road, the snowfall cut off for a moment, then passed back into it and trudged up an on-ramp to the left, a place where two sets of boots had come and gone not long ago. When he reached the top, the older man knelt in the snow. Skye took a knee beside him.

  Interstate-80 was a white ribbon running out before them into the mountains. Steep walls of dark pines shrouded in white swept up and away on both sides, snow falling in the last, gray light. The tiny community of Emigrant Gap rested in the notch between the slopes, buildings with snow-covered roofs clustered on either side of the highway. It was cold, enough to snow but not too uncomfortable yet, and it was quiet except for the sound of their breathing, the weather dampening any sound there might have been. Silence in a silent world.

  The gray-skinned sergeant pulled his ski mask up, turning it into a cap. He stared into the falling night, saying nothing. Skye let it go on for a while, then said, “What are we doing here?”

  “I want you to see something,” Cribbs said. He pointed. “What’s out there?”

  Skye looked at the highway and shadowy little town. A couple of drifters shuffled through the snow several hundred yards out, moving from one side of the highway to the other. “Nothing,” she said.

  “Nothing?” The master sergeant shook his head. “I see death.”

  “You mean those things? We could hit them from here. They’re nothing.”

  The soldier looked at her. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I want you to look, Dennison. Really look. Tell me you don’t see death.”

  Skye sighed and stared at the highway, playing along. The slow-moving corpses were now lost from view. “Nothing. Just snow and road. An empty town.”

  “An empty world,” the sergeant said in his raspy voice. “A dead world, but not exactly. It’s still full of plenty of things that will kill you without a moment’s hesitation. The living and the dead.”

  The young woman shifted to her other knee. “I’m aware. Am I missing something, Sergeant?”

  He nodded. “The world is missing something. People. They’re gone, and now predators rule. There’s no one left to help you when you fuck up, when you’re outnumbered, or when you just need some human contact. And you are a dangerous liability for us.”

  “Why?” she snapped. “I can take care of myself.”

  “And that’s exactly why you’re a liability. You take care of yourself. You’re not a part of this team, and it’s obvious to each one of us that you don’t want to be.”

  Skye shook her head. “I didn’t ask to be part of your team. I’m fine on my own.”

  “That thing in Chico,” Cribbs said, “the Hobgoblin you called it. That’s what being on your own gets you.”

  Skye’s face reddened. She didn’t want to be reminded that she would have been killed by that monstrosity if not for these men. She didn’t like the idea of having to be rescued.

  “These are Rangers, Dennison,” the man said. “They spend more time learning how to work together, to look out for one another…to give a shit about each other…than they do training for combat. It’s not the flags and patches and hot-shit weapons that make them special. It’s how they feel about each other, what they’re willing to do to make sure the other guy makes it home.” He swallowed and winced at his damaged vocal cords. “You’re not one of us, don’t want to be part of what we are, and that makes you a liability.”

  She glared at the man with her good eye. “I can shoot.”

  “We can all shoot. That doesn’t make you an equal.”

  Her voice quavered when she spoke, and she cursed at herself, forcing the tremble away. “I’ve been out here taking these things down longer than any of you. You’re really only a week into this. You don’t know me.”

  “Oh, I know what you are, Dennison,” the master sergeant said. “Sniper. Lone gunman. Lurk in the shadows and deliver death at a distance.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?” she demanded.

  They both fell silent as five shapes emerged from the gloom a hundred yards away, a small herd of bighorn sheep led by a three hundred pound ram. They moved in a silent line across the empty interstate, bellies brushing the snow, and kept close together. In minutes they were gone, hopping easily over the guard rail and disappearing into the night.

  Skye waited for an answer, and when it didn’t come, she said, “How can you decide all this about me in only a couple of days? You don’t know where I’ve been, what I’ve seen.”

  Cribbs nodded. “And it’s clear you don’t want anyone to know.”

  Skye stared straight ahead, saying nothing, as a tear burned her eye.

  “Exactly,” the master sergeant said, and then looked at her. “There’s two kinds of snipers, Dennison. There’s the lone killer – that’s you – who plays by her own rules. They’re full of rage and hate, and care only about the kill. That, and being alone.”

  Skye wouldn’t look at him.

  “Those snipers are feared,” said Cribbs, “despised by everyone, even their own troops because they’re in it for themselves and can’t be trusted to do the right thing. They’re cold and efficient and deadly, and when they die, they die alone and no one mourns them.” He looked back at the interstate. “A Ranger sniper is different. They’re a defender, a dedicated shooter who puts their ass on the line to protect the people they care about. They exist to watch over others, to neutralize threats before they can do greater harm. It’s a lonely, dangerous and noble profession. And that’s just not you, is it?” He brushed snow off his sleeves. “I don’t need a heartless killer in my unit.”

  Skye was trembling, her face hot as she looked at the desolate stretch of white highway. “Your unit? Isn’t Captain Sallinger the boss?”

  The master sergeant let out a dry chuckle. “You really haven’t been paying attention.”

  She wiped a gloved hand at her eye. Was this the sergeant’s try-out? Getting her out here alone so he could tell her how worthless and unwanted she was? She didn’t need this shit, and certainly didn’t need these people. As she was about to put those thoughts into words, the headache spike appeared at the left side of her brain, scratching at the surface with its white-hot tip while the vision in her remaining eye went cloudy and gray for an instant, then shifted back to normal. She clenched her teeth.

  “You have a choice, Dennison,” Cribbs said. “And I don’t care what the captain thinks about you, you’re no damsel in distress. If you’re going to stay, you’ll learn to listen and do it right. Otherwise you can gear up and head back out on your own, with the SCAR as a parting gift. I think you know which one I’d prefer.”

/>   The headache spike began to slowly push into her brain, causing her to cry out and press a hand against the side of her head.

  “Headache?” Cribbs asked.

  Skye nodded, her eye closed and tearing.

  “I get them too,” the man said, standing. “Suck it up.” Then he turned and trudged back down the on-ramp.

  The convenience store had been looted so completely that all they’d been able to scavenge was a roll of duct tape and some pliers from the stock room, and half a roll of toilet paper from an employee restroom. Everyone, including Skye, was happy about this latter find. The rolls they’d taken from the occasional house during the walk from Chico had run out quickly. Skye was a little annoyed at how much toilet paper six grown men could use.

  The cabin had been ransacked, but not so thoroughly. The looters appeared to have been interested mostly in food and weapons, and left behind the rest (except the toilet paper, Skye grumbled to herself.) Everyone was able to restock with clean socks and underwear. To Skye’s delight, a woman had lived here, and she found a heavier, gray woman’s coat to pull on over her jacket and sweater. Even more importantly, she was able to resupply herself with feminine products and over-the-counter pain relievers. It occurred to her that in every end-of-the-world scenario she had seen in movies and on TV, no one seemed to consider the importance of handling the monthly cycle. And hers could be especially bad. These Rangers might be tough, she thought, but they didn’t want to meet a demon who was heavily armed and short on girl supplies and pain relievers.

  Sallinger announced that the team would stay the night here, ordered a fire built and had the master sergeant set watches. Cribbs tended to meal preparation while the captain conducted a more thorough search of the cabin. He asked if Skye wanted to help him, but she elected to stand a watch alone on the cabin’s porch.