“How are you holding up?” he asked, his breath steaming from the ski mask, immediately carried away by the wind.
“I’m fine.”
“We’ll take a break soon.”
“I said I’m fine.”
The captain crunched through the snow next to her for a while, forced to make his own trail. Skye knew it would be difficult, just like the man on point, twice the effort required to follow a path made by another, but Sallinger didn’t slow or complain. She imagined that Ranger training (hadn’t they called it Jump School? She couldn’t remember) would have to be a brutal, seemingly endless program that pushed both mind and body to the breaking point. She wished she could have experienced it. Not only for the physical and emotional punishment and the resulting gains (she was certain she would have passed the program after many men had dropped out), but for the fact that had she gone through the same training as these men, they wouldn’t be treating her like a fragile, China doll. As Sallinger was now. Carney had been hard, even harder than these guys, and he had never treated her as anything but an equal.
“I can carry the same load, and walk just as far as the rest of you,” Skye said from behind her mask.
Sallinger’s skull face looked over at her. “I don’t doubt it. Especially with that big goddamn chip on your shoulder.”
Skye said nothing, putting one boot after the other.
A laugh came from within the man’s mask, and he shook his head. “You baffle the shit out of me, Miss Dennison. Are we all really such assholes that you hold us in so much contempt?”
Skye looked over at him then and started to speak, but quickly cut off the words. She wanted to tell them they weren’t assholes (except maybe the master sergeant) but that she couldn’t afford to… The hardness inside her slammed the door on the incomplete thought. Let them think what they wanted. It didn’t matter.
“I can see you’re keeping up,” the captain said, “and you don’t bitch like the rest of these guys, though you should. This is hard work for all of us, and I wasn’t suggesting it was harder for you. I was asking about your head. Oscar said you’ve been getting the same headaches he does, and he’s worried about you.”
Yeah, right, Skye thought.
“I’ve seen the pain he goes through,” Sallinger said, “and he’s quiet about it, the same way you are, but I can tell he’s hurting.”
Skye didn’t respond. The pain wasn’t too bad at the moment, just a mild ache that had moved to the back of her head, nothing like the white spikes that could drive her to her knees.
Sallinger pulled off a glove and dug into a jacket pocket, coming out with a small bottle of aspirin. “He asked me to give you these.”
Skye stared at the offering for a moment, then accepted it and tucked the bottle away. Now it was her turn to be baffled.
“Oscar’s only recently been through the slow burn,” the officer said as they walked. “We were both hoping the headaches were only short-term residual effects, but if you’re still getting them…” He trailed off.
“Does he have any other symptoms?” Skye asked. “I can see that his skin has lost its pigment. Anything else? Loss of smell or taste? Because the taste comes back, apparently.”
Sallinger motioned over his shoulder. “Why not ask the man yourself? He won’t bite your head off.”
The hell he won’t. “Maybe later.” Skye did want to talk to Cribbs, but she wanted to know why he had been carrying the SCAR. Was he sniper-trained? If so, there were things she could learn from him. More than that though, she wanted to talk about his symptoms, and not just because of what Sallinger had said. She wanted to know if he’d experienced…anything new.
As she was.
For the last twenty-four hours, any time she lifted the patch from her left eye, she had begun to detect light through the otherwise blind orb, a muted, red-tinted illumination. And not only was she tasting again, but she’d been sporadically able to smell as well, and that sense seemed to be coming back with a new intensity. Bombarded by scents, her brain worked furiously to sort and make sense of them. The pines had a stronger fragrance, and the snow and wind each had their own aroma. There were undercurrents of scent in the forest as well that she thought might be animals but wasn’t sure, yet she was sure about the smells coming from these men with whom she traveled. Their scent was powerful, not necessarily bad, but a musky, mammal smell. Stranger still was that in a short time she had begun to associate the subtle differences in odor with individual men. This smell was Rooker, that was Sallinger and so on.
These new developments frightened her.
They made the case that not only was the virus still inside her, but that it continued to work on her body in some incomprehensible way. Could her immunity change as well, make her vulnerable once again? Was the virus killing her, just more slowly than a bite?
What is happening to me?
That hardened part deep inside her, the voice that suppressed thoughts about Carney and her friends, shoved the fear into a pit and closed a lid on it. Nothing to be done. Worry is a waste of energy. Focus on the road, on the next kill. Use hate as fuel.
Skye said nothing more, and when Sallinger dropped back to walk beside Cribbs for a while, she quickened her pace and moved closer to the front of the column. The wind shifted, blowing straight into them and obscuring the air with white flakes. Skye tucked her chin, leaned into it, and marched on.
They came upon the first vehicle they had seen since the bear break-in at the Subaru, a small SUV shrouded in snow and crumpled at an angle against the right guardrail. There were no tracks around it, the doors remained closed and the SUV looked undisturbed. Captain Sallinger called up for Rooker to check it out for supplies, and to be careful. The young PFC headed toward it as Burke moved forward with his SAW so he could take up a covering position. Skye went up too, moving to the passenger side of the vehicle opposite Rooker.
They brushed the snow away from the side windows, but it did little to illuminate the gloomy interior. They were able to see the shadows of two figures in the front seat, neither of them moving. Almost immediately, heavy flakes began sticking to the glass where they’d wiped, quickly obscuring what little could be seen.
“Ready?” asked Rooker.
Skye nodded, and they pulled on the door handles together.
Both were locked.
Skye reversed her grip on the battle rifle, and with two sharp blows shattered the glass on her side. Rooker did the same. Nothing came snarling out at them.
The SUV was a BMW, identified as such by the iconic logo in the center of the steering wheel. Although the wind and cold had transformed the vehicle’s interior into a refrigerator, the green smell of death still poured out, making both Rooker and Skye recoil and turn their heads.
“Damn, that is ripe,” the young man said, waving a gloved hand in front of his face.
Skye squinted, breathing through clenched teeth as she tracked the muzzle of the SCAR across the interior, checking the back seat (only luggage, a cooler and a small pet carrier back there) confirming that the two in the front were the only occupants.
The stormy daylight coming through the broken windows revealed the scene in the front seat. A blue, cardboard handicap tag hung from the rearview mirror, and a placard set against the lower left windshield displayed the image of a Purple Heart and read, Combat Wounded. Months of decay had obscured features, but the dress and curled hair of the dead woman in the passenger seat put her somewhere in her sixties. A single bullet hole pierced her forehead, and her rotting face was frozen in an open-mouthed snarl, her stiff fingers hooked into claws. The woman’s body was hanging against the shoulder belt, leaning toward the driver’s side.
Behind the steering wheel, head tipped back and shriveled eyes open, a man of similar age in a checked shirt and khakis sat stiff and decomposing. Dried brain matter and flecks of bone clung to the BMW’s upholstered roof above and behind him. The pistol he had eaten lay in his lap next to a dead hand.
“How hard must that have been,” Rooker said quietly, his youthful face suddenly somber. He said something about his grandparents that Skye barely heard.
Skye didn’t respond. She unbuckled the dead woman and dragged the body out into the snow. Dried and frozen ichor covered the leather seat where the woman had died, and it crackled under Skye’s knee as she leaned into the SUV. After a moment of staring, Rooker started searching the back.
“Just take your time, ladies,” Master Sergeant Cribbs growled from outside the BMW. The squad had moved up to join them. “Really, we’ve got all day for this bullshit.”
Skye ignored him, but Rooker quickened his pace. The PFC pitched out a frozen six-pack of half-sized bottled water and a few packages of orange, peanut butter crackers, the only things in the cooler that remained edible.
“Got a dead Chihuahua back here,” Rooker said, rapping a knuckle on the pet carrier.
“It’s not time for chow,” Cribbs said, kicking the bottom of one of Rooker’s boots. “Hurry up.”
Skye took the handgun from the dead man’s lap. It was a nickel-plated Smith & Wesson .357 revolver with a two-inch barrel and rubberized grips, four hollow-points still in the cylinder along with two empty brass casings. Under the driver’s seat she found a clip-on holster with the emblem for the U.S. Marine Corps tooled into the leather, and a canvas zipper pouch, much like a cashier’s deposit bag, holding two speed-loaders and a box of hollow-points. The pistol was heavy, a nice, solid-feeling weapon that would no doubt pack a serious kick and a bigger punch, guaranteed to ruin someone’s day, living or dead. She backed out of the BMW, holstering the pistol and clipping it to her combat harness, shoving the speed-loaders and box of rounds into a pouch on her vest.
Minutes later the Rangers were back in line and moving east up the center of Interstate-80, the BMW and the tragedy inside fading behind them. Skye thought briefly about the dead couple, about what Rooker had said and her own grandparents, but that brought on memories and she quickly brushed them aside. Instead she focused on fully loading and familiarizing herself with the new handgun, staying to the trail being stomped through the snow by Rooker and Burke.
It occurred to her that even sealed in their brass casings, and nestled in her weapons and ammo pouches, she could smell the gunpowder from both the SCAR’s 7.62mm rounds, and the .357’s bullets.
Both smelled unique.
By two in the afternoon it was clear that the storm was getting worse. The wind was a constant now, ever-strengthening, and the snow was coming down harder, deepening the surface of the interstate with every passing hour. Above them, the sky was a turbulent blend of charcoal shades shot with black, and the occasional lightning flash appeared deep within the angry clouds. As visibility dropped, the Rangers closed the distance between each of them while they walked, only ten feet separating each figure. They had become shades, slow-moving haunts in a blizzard world. Their pace was half what it had been, fatigue settling in as they pushed on, still uphill, fighting the resistance of wind and deep snow.
Sallinger ordered his men to ditch their body armor and helmets, deciding that what small warmth they offered did not balance out the additional weight. He reasoned that they were unlikely to take incoming fire up here in the mountains (though he wondered if he’d regret that thinking once they reached Truckee) and decided it was worth the risk. The men shed their burdens without discussion, and for a while seemed to move a little faster. It didn’t last long, however. The weather, temperature and thinning oxygen at this altitude conspired to rob them of what little energy remained.
The captain was looking for shelter. Pitching the nylon dome tent here in the middle of the highway wasn’t practical. It wasn’t a serious outdoorsman’s tent designed for these conditions, more of a standard family camping tent, and the wind would slice through the thin fabric as if it weren’t there, or carry it away completely. The last vehicle they had seen that might provide a respite from the storm had been a jackknifed tractor-trailer on the opposite, westbound lanes, the behemoth crushed against a guardrail and quickly turning into a white mound. That was more than two hours to their rear now. He briefly thought about ordering the team to climb the right side guardrail and move out into the pines, hoping they would provide some shelter. The effort would be exhausting, he knew, and would it even be worth doing? He looked into the darkness of the trees. It wasn’t inviting, and the closeness of the pines would allow anything to slip up on them unseen.
He did not see the pack of Hobgoblins slipping through that very tree-line, moving parallel to and just behind them, keeping pace with the squad.
Sallinger thought briefly about snow caves (he’d built them as a Boy Scout, and then once during mountain survival training.) He rejected the idea almost at once.
No, it would have to be the jack-knifed tractor-trailer. Marching two hours back down the mountain would be demoralizing and sap the last of their strength, energy they would need if things went wrong or if the dead showed up. Sallinger didn’t want to do it any more than the men would, but they had to get in somewhere out of the elements. The trailer could be forced open (blasted open with a grenade, if necessary) and although it would feel like a butcher’s freezer inside, it would keep the wind and snow off them, and give the Rangers only one direction to defend.
He was about to call a halt and gather the men, when a shout went up at the head of the column.
“Captain,” Burke called back, “Rooker’s got something.”
Sallinger and Cribbs moved forward as everyone else knelt in the snow. When they reached the kneeling PFC on point, the two older soldiers dropped down next to him. “What do you have?” Sallinger asked.
PFC Rooker pointed into the storm. “Big, dark shape up ahead,” he said, unable to keep his teeth from chattering.
The captain dug out his binoculars and searched for several minutes. Then he handed them to Cribbs and looked at his men. “It’s an overpass.”
Heads nodded. An overpass would be good.
“More than that, sir,” said the master sergeant, looking through the binoculars. “Something is stopped up on top of the overpass.” He wiped wet flakes from the lenses.
“I saw something too,” said Sallinger. “Cars maybe? A line of trucks?”
Cribbs looked again and shook his head. “It’s a train.”
FOURTEEN
The California Zephyr was a ten car, double-engine Amtrak train that made the run between Chicago and Emeryville, California. Through meticulously choreographed, computerized timing and switches, the passenger carrier shared Union Pacific rail lines with a number of freight trains heading both east and west. As the rail line crossed the Sierras, it generally followed the Truckee River, frequently running parallel to and occasionally crossing over Interstate-80 and back again.
To the Rangers approaching it, the Zephyr looked like a relic that had been stopped and stretched across the overpass for hundreds of years. Its silver skin was obscured by frost and deep drifts down its length, and its tinted, panoramic windows – also frosted – stared back like the dark eye sockets of a skull. The rising wind blew cowls of white around the long, steel monster.
To Skye it looked like an icy crypt, one in which the dead were not at rest.
The men looked at each other behind their fearsome masks.
Sallinger seemed to pick up on his team’s uneasiness, and he gathered them close, shouting so he would be heard above the storm. “I don’t like it either, but staying out here is a death sentence. Anyone want to walk back down the hill for a couple of hours in this? Sleep in a nice, freezing tractor-trailer?”
They did not.
“Then we advance in pairs,” he shouted, “up the right side of the overpass. The pair behind covers the one climbing. When two reach the top, they take up covering positions.” He pointed a gloved hand at each of them. “No one enters that train until we are all up on the tracks, copy?”
Nods all around.
“Rooker and Burke, yo
u’re up first. Then Bracco and Miss Dennison, me and Moore. Top comes up last.”
Now Master Sergeant Cribbs leaned in. “Maintain your situational awareness. We’re all expecting skinnies, but there could be armed refugees hiding in there, ready to shoot at anything moving. If you even perceive aggression, you light it up.”
Sallinger nodded in agreement, and the men understood.
“Move out,” said the captain, and PFC Rooker and Specialist Burke climbed over the guardrail, descending a snowy berm that plunged them into snow almost up to their hips. The two men fought through the depression, moving toward the steep, snowy hillside that would climb to the tracks. On the highway, everyone had a rifle to their shoulder, each of them pointing in a different direction as they covered their teammates. Skye tracked her sniper-variant SCAR up the length of the train and back down, pausing at each blacked-out window and shadowy gap between cars, hunting for movement. They were too close to the underpass, the angle too steep for her to see what might be under the passenger cars.
Rooker started up the hill, moving well and climbing steadily. The SAW gunner behind him made it halfway up before losing his footing and tumbling back to the bottom in a cloud of white. He emerged coated in snow, gave a thumbs-up and immediately started back up again. At the top now, PFC Rooker knelt and pointed his M4 down the length of the train.
Burke made it, and Moore and Bracco started up. On the highway, Skye shivered and took her eye from the rifle’s scope, looking out into the storm. The weather was fast approaching white-out conditions, the wind cutting through her jacket and the face mask no longer very effective. She stared into the gathering dusk. Anything could be coming at them and they wouldn’t see it until it was twenty feet away. Her right hand squeezed the battle rifle’s pistol grip nervously, her index finger tapping at the trigger guard.
Omega Days (Book 5): The Feral Road Page 13
