Kim emerged from the medical tent and removed a pair of rubber gloves. Nikki tried desperately to search the expression on her face for a hopeful sign. “Will she be all right?”
“The bullet that hit your mother has caused a severe amount of damage.”
“But will she be OK?”
“Her liver was hit, along with a kidney.” Kim paused. “She’s starting to show symptoms of septic shock. I’m not sure how to say this, Nikki, but it’s only a question of time before she looses consciousness and passes away. I’m so sorry.”
The words from that last part were coming in slow and distorted, as though nurse Kim had been shoved into slow motion. Her mother had been Nikki’s reservoir of strength. There’d always been hope in Nikki’s heart that she’d managed to find a place to hide after her truck was found abandoned by Finn and Lou near the hotel. Carole was waiting for a safe time to make the journey back, that was all, and in the end Nikki had been right. But this wasn’t the way she’d hoped to see her again. “How long does she have?” Nikki asked, feeling the dread slithering up around her throat.
“An hour, maybe less.”
A colossal weight came crashing down on Nikki’s chest, making it hard to breathe, and Kim pulled her in close. “She wants to see you,” the nurse said. “Your mother knows she doesn’t have long. Go and spend the time you can together. It’s a chance most of us here never got.”
Nikki nodded, knowing Kim was right. Everyone in New Jamestown had lost someone during and after The Shift, and few if any got an opportunity to say goodbye. After taking a moment to wipe her eyes and collect herself, Nikki gave Kim a final hug and entered the medical tent. Carole’s weary gaze traced her as she approached.
“Kim told you, didn’t she?”
Nikki bit her lip. “You don’t need to protect me anymore, Ma.”
“I know that, Nikki.” Carole smiled. “You’re a woman now, you know that? But to me you’ll always be my little girl.”
Nikki knelt by her side, trying to keep from breaking down. Already, her mother’s skin was turning yellow. Maybe in the Old World, before The Shift, a hospital existed where surgeons and organ transplants might have been there to save her life. Maybe if things were different something could be done to patch her mother up. But out here, in a wilderness of sorrow and pain, Nikki knew the recovery she hoped for was simply impossible.
“Listen,” Carole whispered, struggling to breathe. “There are things I need to tell you. Important things.”
Nikki leaned closer and caught her mom studying the deep groves in her daughter’s cheeks.
“The Wipers have food. Lots of it. At the hotel. More than enough for everyone here.”
“OK, Ma, I’ll tell them.” Nikki was holding her mother’s hand now and the tears started to come and she couldn’t hold them back anymore.
“And your brother,” Carole said. “He’s alive.”
Nikki looked up, eyes wide and disbelieving. “Alive?”
“He’s at the Grand America with a man named Alvarez. I tried to save him, but he wouldn’t come. Promise me you’ll bring your brother home, Nikki. Promise me you’ll do that before they turn him into one of them.”
Nodding, Nikki squeezed her mother’s hand. The two of them hugged for what seemed like hours, Nikki refusing to let go until she realized she was the only one still holding on. She pulled away and looked at her mother’s face and saw peace there for the first time since the plane crash. Carole was dead, and Nikki felt like a piece of her had died as well.
PRIMAL SHIFT 8: Invasion
Larry
Carole’s body wouldn’t be cremated. It was a decision Larry had made the minute news of her death had reached him. With hungry workers struggling to chop down trees in order to finish work on the enclosure, he couldn’t very well divert them to gather wood for a funeral pyre. All Father’s death, though not that long ago, was a different time, before Larry was in charge and back when food was almost plentiful. Besides, a grave site would give her daughter, Nikki, something to visit.
The act of sabotage and terrorism that resulted in the complete annihilation of New Jamestown’s food supply already meant Larry would need to divert up to 70 percent of the colonists to hunting. Most of the farm houses in the area had been cleaned out long ago. Some of the property with livestock had proved to be the biggest missed opportunity. With no one to feed or give them water, most of the animals had died within the first two weeks. A time when Larry was little more than a city slicker still adjusting to the new reality he’d found himself in. Besides, canned food was plentiful and with a city full of unguarded kitchens, it was simply a question of backing a truck up to the front door and taking whatever was there.
Larry made his way downstairs and outside. A handful of cult members was getting ready to debrief the newcomers. To ensure they were trustworthy and prepared to work. If not, they could get back into their ice cream truck and fuck right off. He was no more than a foot from the door when Nikki appeared. There was something about the girl that gave him the heebie-jeebies. The way her crystal-blue eyes seemed to stare right through you. There were things she was capable of seeing that didn’t make sense. A girl who had no memory of her own, but could see the buried memories of strangers. Somehow, she’d been able to see a time where Larry’s father held him lovingly as a child, and he still wasn’t sure if it had been a simple case of overactive imagination.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” she told him.
Larry rolled up his sleeves. “I’m on my way to an interroga ... I mean, to a debriefing. It’s gonna have to wait.”
She was following him now, and he wished she wasn’t a such a stubborn bitch like her mother.
“It’s about the food,” Nikki said.
Larry’s ears perked up. “You saw who raided the colony’s pantry?”
“No, it’s not about that.”
The disappointment in Larry’s eyes was immediate. Having lost interest, he was about to turn around again.
“It’s about the Wipers at The Grand America Hotel. They’re sitting on a gigantic stash of food.”
Larry stopped dead in his tracks, a single brow perked with interest. “Go on.”
“They spent weeks stripping it from every part of the city. Kitchens, restaurants, schools. Anywhere with nonperishable goods became a target. That’s why they haven’t attacked. While we built walls, they built food reserves.”
“Your mother told you this?”
“Some of it. The rest I got from talking to the people she arrived with.”
Larry could sense she was holding something back. It almost sounded like she was trying to encourage him to launch an attack against the hotel. Nikki wasn’t particularly known for her bloodlust, although the possibility of revenge was there since Wipers had just killed her mother. But there was something else going on, and Larry couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The notion was a tempting one, no doubt about it, but first he’d need to know details about the hotel, it’s layout, how many Wipers were there, and what kind of a person this Alvarez character was.
•••
The newcomers were being held in the sheriff’s trailer. When Larry entered, only Lou, Tanner, and Ethan were there. Dana was off investigating who had robbed New Jamestown’s food supplies.
Each of the adult newcomers stood and introduced themselves. The young children who’d arrived with them were being looked after by cult members.
A crusty dude who looked like he worked in a sewer was Russell. The man in blue and gray military fatigues was Callahan. Beside him was an attractive teenage girl named Jessica. Next to her was a thin and homely woman named Holly, and clinging to her arm was her daughter, Tamara.
“Good, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” Larry said. “I’d like to know your intentions.”
“Intentions?” Russell asked, as though Larry had broken into Latin.
“Yes, intentions. If you people are hoping to stay in New
Jamestown ... ”
“New James ... I thought this was Rainbowland,” Callahan cut in.
“It was called Rainbowland, but it’s since been improved and renamed.”
Lou spoke up from the back. “We had a change in management you might say.”
Larry looked at him and smiled weakly. “Thank you, Lou. I’ll take it from here.”
“Fine by me, Boss.”
“Right now we’re experiencing some shortages,” Larry said, trying to crack his knuckles without having much luck.
“I noticed,” Russell said matter-of-factly. “Most everyone here’s little more than skin and bones. The Wipers got all the food now. Been hording it to themselves.”
“That’s the word on the street,” Larry said. “But keeping New Jamestown strong and healthy will require each of you and your children to swear an oath to uphold our principles.”
“I don’t mind doing that,” Russell said. “So long as they’re fair.”
“Oh, they’re fair.” Larry was looking at the soldier, certain he could be of use.
“I swore oath to the United States of America,” Callahan said. “So, as soon as I can get my hands on a vehicle, I’ll be heading back to my unit.”
How naive, Larry thought. A real patriot. He wanted to tell this Callahan that the country he was sworn to protect didn’t exist anymore, if he hadn’t already noticed. There wasn’t any point in burning that bridge just yet however.
“How many men in your unit are left?” Larry asked.
“I dunno,” Callahan replied like an eager schoolboy. “Seventy. Maybe less.”
“And what kind of weapons do you have?”
Callahan suddenly didn’t look so interested in answering Larry’s questions. “Look, Son, we’re all on the same side here. There may be some room for cooperation is all I’m thinking.”
For a moment, the soldier seemed to relax a bit. “We have enough to protect ourselves, but not any tanks or aircraft if that’s what you’re asking. We’re submariners.”
“Das Boot,” Lou shot from the back. “Heck, I loved that movie.”
Callahan gave him a thumbs-up, and smiles filled the room, Larry included. The wheels in his head were starting to turn, and already things were looking up.
Jeffereys
Ducking his head into Alvarez’ suite, Jeffereys looked around and swore.
Where the hell was he?
Jeffereys had something to tell Alvarez. Something big. It had to do with Petty Officer Lewis and the ... conversation the two of them had. The kid held out longer than Jeffereys thought he would. Once the sailor was lucid enough to begin answering some questions, Jeffereys had gotten right to brass tacks. Who are you? Where is your base? How many of you are stationed there? What kind of weapons do you have? Standard questions really, but this was only round one, and Jeffereys wanted to give the kid a chance to open up without the use of force. The thought of torturing him had caused a flicker of hesitation in Jeffereys. Both of them were government employees after all, working for the man. Or at least they’d once worked for the man. The man was little more than a memory. Alvarez was the man now. Sure, in his former life, Jeffereys had been a meter maid, a person despised by the average Joe on the street because he did his job. So going in, he knew pulling out the sailor’s fingernails and teeth would be tough, but uncovering the threat posed by him and his unit was far more important.
On a level that surprised even him, Jeffereys was happy he hadn’t been forced to kill the kid. That he’d come to his senses after just a modicum of harm had managed to befallen him was good for everyone. Paper cuts along the webs of your fingers and under every nail was a start. Squeezing bottles of lemon juice into those really got him squirming. But the coup de grace was Lewis’ pre-existing wound. A shattered right leg, broken when the Humvee he was riding in crashed and flipped on its side. The same Humvee that now belonged to them. In the end, getting Lewis to start talking, really talking, took little more than some added pressure to that broken leg. It was a gruesome business for sure, and Jeffereys didn’t think of himself like one of these brutes Alvarez was having him train into an army. Sure, they could fire a weapon and drive trucks. Hell, they could even follow simple orders, but at the end of the day they were bloodthirsty savages. You could train a monkey to carry a glass, but that didn’t suddenly make him a butler.
Before the world went crazy, those Wipers were neighbors who squabbled over high fences and county zoning laws. They relished seeing their enemies served with fines and warrants. Those same neighbors had developed new tastes. Being buried with paperwork no longer did it. Now, they preferred to bury you up to the neck and whack the eyes out of your skull with a two-by-four.
No, Jeffereys and his men weren’t like the others, not by a long shot, although he had to admit that when Lewis began squawking like a bird, giving up each of his delicious secrets, Jeffereys thought he was gonna blow a load in his pants. And he nearly did with the final bombshell Lewis laid on him. In fact, bombshell wasn’t even the half of it.
That’s why Jeffereys was stalking through the corridors of the Grand America, looking for Alvarez.
He finally found him standing in front of the hotel, looking up as though he were giving directions for a new sign that was being mounted. Next to him was Aiden, the child who had arrived with the brutes from the airport.
“A little higher,” Alvarez said. “A touch to the left. Yes, that’s it.”
Jeffereys got outside and saw what they were doing. Dangling from the hotel’s overhand was the body they’d recovered from the Humvee. Lewis said Josh was his name, and he’d been one of the survivors living directly under their noses. The same group that had snuck through the air vents and tried to steal their food. Now, his corpse was strung up with length of heavy ropes, perhaps as a warning to others.
“What do you think?” Alvarez asked.
Jeffereys blinked. “Seems like overkill – ”
“Not you. I was talking to the boy.”
Aiden squished up his face, as though trying to mask the horror of what he was seeing. “He’s a thief, and he got exactly what thieves deserve.”
Al laughed. “Quite right,” and turned to Jeffereys. “So, was our friend willing to talk, or do I need to speak with him myself?”
“Took a bit of coaxing, but he spoke, and you won’t believe the half of it.”
“Really? Try me.” All the humor had gone out of Alvarez’ voice, and Jeffereys knew that fickle thing he called patience was running out.
“They aren’t Army. They’re part of a submarine crew. Couldn’t reach their command structure over the radio and landed in San Diego some time after the shit hit the fan. The kid says they’re about 70 strong with about 15 Humvees, well 14 now, and lots of small arms.”
“Their location?”
“Ely State Prison in – ”
“Nevada,” Alvarez said flatly. “Yes, I know exactly where it is. The warden and I were on good terms. There was just enough in the budget we were getting from the military to keep this sad little man plied with prostitutes and envelopes stuffed with cash. In return, he’d send me any prisoner I wanted and help dispose of the bodies when things went wrong. We went through so many in the beginning, you know, trying to calibrate the equipment. Cost of doing business, you might say.” Alvarez looked up at Josh’s body again. “Is that everything, or have you saved the best for last?”
Now it was Jeffereys’ turn to gloat. “You know me too well.”
“Do tell.”
“The submarine crew is from the USS Alabama.”
“Should that mean something to me?”
“I asked him the same thing. When he told me I nearly hit the roof. It’s what they call a boomer. That submarine of theirs is carrying 24 nuclear missiles. All we gotta do is get our hands on the captain and a handful of his men. After that, we can rule the world supreme.”
Jeffereys was dancing a little jig, the same sort of jig allied propagandists claimed
Hitler had danced in June of 1940 upon hearing that France was ready to surrender. Either way, Alvarez was beaming with enthusiasm.
“We’ve got some planning to do,” he said before leaving with the boy in tow.
Nikki
Only half of the colony showed up for Carole’s burial, yet still Nikki was touched by their show of support. Nearly all of them brought their tools along. Saws, axes, shovels. The very instruments of their oppression. The moment she was done, they would be whisked back to work. Those not currently present were either out hunting game or manning the walls against the Wipers, who continued to observe from across the river. Nikki read a handful of passages from the Bible as they lowered her mother into the ground, her body wrapped in linen. The timber required to build the walls, towers, and outer defenses had meant putting a coffin together was impossible. That’s what Larry had told her, and in her current state of mind there was no point in arguing. Nikki sprinkled a handful of dirt into the grave, still numb to the fact that the body lying there belonged to her mother. Hardest of all was knowing that she would never see her again.
After Nikki had finished, Tanner and Ethan, flanking her on either side, helped Nikki to her seat. One of the cult members rose to recite a few words from their own scripture. In keeping with their outward shift toward militarism, Nikki noticed they tended to now shy away from the more peace-loving sections. In a way, those parts had been destroyed along with All Father’s body on the funeral pyre that day. The cult members spoke of eternal life and going to the great light, which sounded fine by her, but still made many of the other colonists decidedly uncomfortable. It was following this that Larry offered a few words, although they weren’t at all what she had been expecting.
“As many of you know by now, there is a thief in our midst. First of all, I would like to assure each and every one of you that whoever is responsible will be caught and severely punished for this treasonous act.”
Nikki could see Larry’s gaze locked squarely on Timothy the entire time.
Primal Shift: Volume 2 (A Post Apocalyptic Thriller) Page 12
