Hunter Wars Omnibus Edition (Books 1 - 3)

by SD Tanner

  Mackenzie smiled and said, ‘Get dressed. We’ll take the RV. On the way to Jacksonville, we’ll go by Brookhaven and Hattiesburg where the old base and the CDC you came from are. Maybe it’ll trigger your memory.’

  She didn’t see how that would work and asked, ‘How can I have memories when I have new body and brain?’

  ‘You have some sort of memories, Ip, or you wouldn’t be here at the Ranch,’ Mackenzie replied.

  She pulled on her clothes and after gathering up her towel and toiletries, they both walked back to the RV. Climbing on board, she tossed her towel and toiletries onto the sofa and sat in the large and comfortable passenger seat at the front of the RV. Mackenzie was walking through the RV, securing doors and then he joined her at the front of the RV. As he started the engine, music blared from the speakers and Mackenzie carefully navigated the large mobile home towards the single lane road.

  She stretched her long legs out onto the dashboard of the RV and asked, ‘Can you teach me to do that?’

  ‘Do what?’ Mackenzie asked.

  ‘Drive,’ she replied.

  Glancing at her, Mackenzie said, ‘You probably already know how to, but I’ll teach you. You have memories, Ip. You just don’t know they’re memories.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She asked curiously.

  ‘You think the Ranch is your home because you’ve been there before,’ Mackenzie replied.

  ‘Was it my home before?’ She asked.

  ‘No. It was Gears, Pax and TL’s home. They were going to use it as a base for survivors, but it was overrun by hunters trying to get you,’ Mackenzie explained. ‘After that Gears moved you to the cruise ship so the hunters couldn’t get to you.’

  ‘That does not make sense,’ she replied. ‘Why would I think their home is my home and why would this human, Gears, care whether the hunters would get me?’

  ‘Because he loves you and he wanted you to be safe,’ Mackenzie replied.

  She huffed and said dourly, ‘He did not do a good job. He let you shoot me. Which was very bad of you. Do not do that again.’

  Mackenzie laughed and said, ‘Yes ma’am.’

  When they visited the storage site that acted as their original base, she didn’t remember it. The site was still being used by the people from the Major’s base and they couldn’t go inside. Mackenzie then took her to the CDC that created her original self. It was now empty and open and she and Mackenzie wandered through the site, but there was nothing there she remembered either. They kept driving until they were about a hundred miles from Jacksonville, where Mackenzie parked the RV and found a Harley Davison Heritage Softail. Although Mackenzie wore a helmet, after trying one on, she decided the helmet was too uncomfortable. As it turned out, she could drive the RV, but she learned at the expense of a motorcycle, she couldn’t ride one. She tucked behind Mackenzie on the motorcycle, wrapped her arms around his waist and with a bandanna wrapped around her nose and mouth, enjoyed the wind rushing past her as Mackenzie rode towards Jacksonville.

  She believed she must have existed before. Too many people seemed to know her for it not to be true and there were fragments of feelings and images in her mind that she couldn’t place. The confusion of her mind was frustrating. Often her thoughts were incomplete and when she tried to grasp them and make them whole, there was no more information to be had. She didn’t believe Mackenzie was lying when he said she had to die and oddly, she didn’t really resent him for shooting her. I have life, she thought, and that’s enough. Deciding she didn’t want to think about it anymore, she dismissed her concerns. Smiling to herself, she felt a spark of joy, a quiver of delight at being alive and she began to sing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Failure to launch (Pax)

  ‘Tell me why we’re doin’ this again, Gears,’ he said unhappily.

  Gears was stuffing gas canisters into a pack and replied grumpily, ‘You’re never goddamn happy, Pax. When I was mopin’ about on the sofa, ya nagged me to get up and do somethin’ and now you’re bitchin’ ‘cos I am. You’re worse than a woman.’

  Chuckling, Captain Ted slung his own pack over his shoulder and said, ‘You two are like the odd couple. I wonder what your kids would look like?’

  Groaning, he said, ‘We ain’t havin’ that conversation, Ted. It always gets ugly and someone gets badly hurt.’

  They walked to the bird waiting on the helipad for them and along with six shooters, they all climbed on board.

  ‘And where are you ladies and gentlemen draggin’ my sorry ass to today?’ Hatch asked amiably.

  Gears replied, ‘Ya know where we’re goin’, Hatch. The abandoned church just outside St George, south of Folkston.’

  Hatch said resentfully, ‘I know and I wouldn’t mind, but you guys are crappy tippers.’

  Chuckling, he said, ‘And yer a good pilot, but a lousy cab driver. Yer rude, surly and ugly.’

  He knew Gears wanted to test Lydia’s theory that super hunters could be killed like any human, but he hadn’t expected Gears to know where to find a super hunter. With her ability to communicate with the super hunters, Ip was able to see what they could see and with her ability to read minds, she could see into their memories and what they’d seen. Those abilities meant they were able to identify the location of the super hunters and had attacked them on several occasions. They lost forty-nine shooters trying to clear the Bahamas Island without Ip, and he thought Gears was being too aggressive. With Ip’s death, they lost a critical weapon. Personally, he didn’t think they could do the things they could do before and they certainly couldn’t do things the same way, but with Gears not willing to listen to reason, he was having to cope with the fallout of his brother’s manic state of mind.

  Through his headset, Gears said, ‘The survivor said they’d seen hunters clustering around the church, so I’m guessin’ there’s probably a super hunter in there. I wanna test the effect of tear gas and get rid of the sonofabitch at the same time.’

  He snorted and said, ‘Yer jus’ in a bad mood, Gears, and ya wanna kill shit.’

  Gears shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, so?’

  Captain Ted punched him in the shoulder and said sharply, ‘Shaddup Pax! I wanna go hunter huntin’. Don’t be such a fuckin’ killjoy.’

  Max said, ‘Nobody in this outfit ever wants to listen to the voice of reason. You’re wasting your time, Pax.’

  He snorted and throwing his arm around Max’s shoulder, he said boldly, ‘We should form our own splinter group. Ditch these zeroes.’

  Pulling away from him abruptly, Max replied tartly, ‘I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re crazier than they are.’

  ‘That’s true, Pax,’ Hatch said.

  Snorting again, he replied dourly, ‘When Gears is the sane one, ya should all be very fuckin’ frightened.’

  They were now slowly circling the church Gears believed the super hunter was hiding in. The survivor was right, the ground around the church was badly churned, which was a sure sign of a high degree of hunter activity. Without a super hunter, the hunters didn’t form large packs and it was fair to assume there was a super hunter in the area. The church looked old and he thought, quite creepy. It was a small building, built of large chunks of stone, heavily weathered and a murky color of grey. In addition to front and back doors, each side had three arched windows that must have once contained stained glass, but were now empty dark holes. Surrounding the church was a graveyard with remnants of old headstones, now disturbed, shattered and scattered across the damaged earth. Standing starkly on the barren and torn up land were several spiky dead trees. It was as if a little piece of hell had moved into Georgia and he thought, if they never managed to restore order, this would be what the whole world would become. Barren, desolate, sad and lifeless.

  ‘Whatdaya think?’ Gears asked.

  ‘I think it looks like a little bit of hell moved here,’ he replied honestly.

  Gears shot him a surprised look and said, ‘Yeah, it does.’

  The church gave
him the creeps and suddenly he wanted to destroy whatever ruined this place, which must have once been peaceful. Finally on board with Gears way of thinking, he said, ‘Let’s get down there and throw some gas at it. See what happens.’

  Grinning at him, Gears said, ‘Attaboy! That’s the way we play!’

  ‘Ya guys make me look sane,’ Hatch said. ‘That’s why I hang around with ya all. Ya lowered the bar so low that I look like the sensible one.’

  Hatch dropped them down next to the church and as was protocol, took off again and observed them from the air. His job was to keep the bird secured and if all hell broke loose, to land and get them out safely. The gas cylinders were fired like grenades from the M203 attachment on the M4A1 gun. The cylinders had an accuracy of around two hundred yards and released a cloud of gas for about twenty-five seconds. Once the gas was released, a person would suffer from a burning irritation to the nose, throat and mouth and produce an excessive amount of mucus. They would also be disoriented, have difficulty breathing and be partially incapacitated for about an hour. It was fun stuff and to protect themselves, they wore clothing that covered their entire body and everyone had gas masks.

  After some bickering, they decided to fire three cylinders of gas through the arched windows of the church. Given each cylinder covered a twenty by thirty feet area, they really only needed two cylinders, but they decided overkill was the order of the day. They were hoping that if they disabled the super hunter with the gas, it might be easier to get into the church, kill the hunters and then the super hunter. The plan assumed they could kill the hunters guarding the super hunter and that assumed there were not too many of them.

  Having navigated around the broken headstones and heavily churned ground, they stood outside the three arched windows on one side of the church and fired the cylinders. Getting ready to enter the church, he was fiddling with the straps to pull the gas mask over his head, when he heard the sound of a thousand feet stamping and turning around he saw why. There were a thousand feet stamping and every single one of them was heading in their direction.

  ‘Holy shit!’ A shooter shouted.

  Distractedly, he thought the shooter shouldn’t be cursing in a graveyard and it seemed like bad luck to him, but then he thought they probably couldn’t get any unluckier. The hunters were streaming towards the church at a manic speed with their heads vibrating and screeching and growling while they ran.

  ‘Hatch!’ Gears shouted. ‘Get us the fuck outta here.’

  As trained, they and the shooters immediately formed a tight circle and fired in every direction, effectively protecting one another. The difficulty would be getting the bird on the ground without it being boarded by hunters, but long enough for them to get on back on board. As hunters were on their position already and more were coming, Hatch was hovering above them unable to land safely.

  ‘Get down here, Hatch,’ Gears called steadily.

  Obviously deciding he couldn’t land, Hatch hovered the bird just two feet above their heads. The wind from the powerful blades whipped the hunters off their feet, and the noise was deafening. The dust penetrated the sides of his wraparound shades and he wished he’d managed to get his gas mask on. As he breathed, he could feel the dust and dirt being sucked from the ground, circle in the air and enter his mouth, nose and ears. Caught in the middle of this dust, he couldn’t see anything, but he continued to fire outward on the assumption a hunter might be in front of him. Unable to hear over the noise, he had no idea what was going on, but figured he wouldn’t be left behind. It was becoming difficult to breath and he thought, if something didn’t change in the next few seconds he would need to move away from the bird or he was going to suffocate.

  Something did happen. He felt hands grab him and he was bodily lifted onto the floating bird while he continued to keep firing at enemies he couldn’t see. As he was dragged onto the platform of the bird, he got to his knees and was half-hacking and half-vomiting dust and dirt. He felt himself roughly pushed forward and looking around, through his blurred vision he saw Gears being hauled onto the platform behind him. As soon as Gears was on board, Hatch took the bird high into the air and still coughing and hacking, they all peered down at the ground below them. It was literally teeming with hunters and as he blearily looked into the distance, he saw there were more coming. Thousands of hunters were driving their way towards the abandoned church and he thought it looked like that little patch of hell had just extended its boundaries.

  Grabbing Gears, and still coughing, he croakily shouted, ‘Good plan!’

  Gears had pulled off his right assault glove and still hacking and spitting up dirt, trying to rub grit from his eyes, he shouted back, ‘Now we know. Gas don’t work.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Living by faith alone (TL)

  ‘We’re not your prisoners,’ Georgia said defiantly.

  They infected twelve people a month earlier and now nine of them were sitting in the kitchen lounge area at the CDC. The other three who were not present, were either dead or unable to care for themselves. He’d just been told by Louise, one of their original lab techs, that there was a problem and he was needed. He walked into the kitchen lounge area and saw Lydia and Farrington standing by the kitchen bench. As usual, Farrington looked disinterested but clearly, Lydia was worried. He wanted to go over and comfort her, but instead he asked the group what was going on.

  Georgia now had the distinctly blue eyes of the infected and he thought it added to her youthful beauty. He nodded and said in a calm and steady voice, ‘Of course you’re not, Georgia. We’d just like to understand what’s going on.’

  Looking at him warily, Georgia said bluntly, ‘We want to leave.’

  He didn’t understand where they could go and genuinely confused, he asked, ‘I understand, but where do you want to go?’

  Georgia shook her head and said, ‘We don’t have to tell you that.’

  ‘No you don’t, although I don’t know why you wouldn’t,’ he said reasonably.

  Lydia was listening intently and sounding worried, she said, ‘Some of you should still be under medical care. Of the twelve of you that we infected, one has died, one is in a coma and one has health conditions that mean they can’t be without medical care. The rest of you were only infected a month ago and it’s very possible you haven’t felt the full impact of the virus yet.

  He had to admit Farrington had significantly reduced the destructive impacts of the designer virus. Many of the infected people in the room looked and behaved as normal as anyone else. If it were not for their blue eyes, it would be difficult to know they were infected at all.

  A man, he remembered was called Malcolm, said, ‘Don’t try and scare us, Lydia.’

  ‘I’m not trying to scare you, Malcolm,’ Lydia replied honestly. ‘I’m your doctor and I’m concerned about your welfare.’

  He knew Gears wouldn’t be happy when he heard the Infected wanted to leave. The Infected could kill hunters with a touch and that ability evened up the fight against the hunters. Losing Ip was a blow that already cost them and losing the newly infected would only add to the loss.

  He already radioed Gears and he was on his way to the CDC and all he was trying to do was keep them talking until Gears arrived. Luckily, Gears, along with Pax, was now living at the Marine supply base and he was less than an hour away by air. Since losing Ip, Gears refused to live in their suite on the cruise ship. Without Ip, they no longer needed to form a protective team around her and all three lived wherever they were for the night. He spent most nights at the CDC with Lydia, which is why he was on hand to try to deal with this latest crisis. Stepping into the room, he walked over and sat on the low coffee table in the middle of the group. All nine of them had bright blue eyes and all had gotten leaner and more muscular since they were infected.

  Deciding honesty was the best policy, he said, ‘The reason we needed people to volunteer to be infected is because we need what you can do. If you leave, then we’ll struggle without you and you
’ll probably struggle without us.’

  Frowning, Georgia said, ‘You don’t understand. We’ve become something else now. We’re not like you. We live in a different world.’

  Genuinely wanting to understand, he asked, ‘What do you mean?’

  Georgia replied, ‘We’re not alone. We’re in one another’s heads. It’s like we’re a family.’

  He knew Ip had lived in a different world and he did understand and said. ‘I lived with Ip so I understand that, but why does that mean you have to leave?’

  Looking upset, Georgia said, ‘We need a home of our own. We want to be together. Some of us aren’t finding this transition easy. We need to take care of one another.’

  Nodding sympathetically, he asked, ‘I can imagine it must be very difficult, but can’t you stay and let us take care of you?’

  Georgia shook her head and said adamantly, ‘No. We need to sort ourselves out. Work out what we are. Learn to be what we are. We’ve changed and we need to learn how to be what we are now.’

  Leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and speaking sincerely, he said, ‘I understand you need time to adjust, I just don’t understand why you can’t do it here with us.’

  Still looking upset, Georgia said, ‘The change is more than just being infected. I have…people in my head. It’s hard to explain, but my mind is not the same anymore. I’m not me anymore…I’m me plus these people who live inside me…’ Clearly at a loss to explain herself, Georgia’s words tailed off and he could see she was very distressed.

  He didn’t think they were going to have much say in whether the Infected left or not and he asked, ‘Will you come back?’

  Refocusing on him, Georgia replied, ‘I don’t know. This is uncharted waters for us.’

  Thinking about what could happen to them once they left the CDC, he said, ‘I get the hunters are not a problem for you, but the living could be. How will you be safe on your own?’