“Sheesh,” said Barker, “I was just trying to add a little levity to the gravity of the situation.”
“Nice word play,” said Gem. “He’s just jealous ’cause he’s vegan, right? Didn’t you say Keri had him—”
Dub shot a glare at Gem and snapped, “Don’t say her name. You didn’t know her. Got it?”
Gem pressed her lips together and nodded.
Barker reached out for Dub’s arm. “C’mon, dude. She didn’t mean anything by it. She—”
Dub jerked away from Barker’s hold. “I don’t want to hear it from you either,” he said without looking at him.
He jumped to his feet and started moving away from the rocks, moving with long purposeful strides. He didn’t wait for his friends. His angry steps crunched on the gravel and dirt. Behind him he heard low voices and then short hurried steps working to catch up with him.
A tinge of guilt crept into his chest. He shouldn’t have snapped at them. They didn’t mean anything. They were coping with all of this in their own ways. Still, he resented it. And he wasn’t about to apologize. Not right now.
To his right and in the far distance he could see the bright lights of the checkpoint. They glowed against the darkness around them. That was the spot they’d eyed from the outcropping of rocks. It was at the southern end of a neighborhood that stretched into the hills from the highway. To the west, there was more light. Additional checkpoints.
The light was a good thing. It blinded the soldiers or police manning them from anything beyond the reach of the portable LED balloon lights. They’d been close enough the night before to see them perched atop thin tripods at the edges of the barricaded positions through which almost nobody passed.
Dub slid his thumbs under the padded straps of his pack and tugged. Despite its ergonomic design, his shoulders were raw from the bounce of the heavy gear on his back. He held the straps in place as best he could and stepped across the barren, dark terrain.
He slowed his pace and looked toward the purplish sky. It was nearly black to the east, hints of lavender to the west. The moonlight hadn’t yet materialized, so Dub squinted, trying to force his vision to acclimate to the low light. He started sliding his feet as he moved, dragging his toes across the dirt with a scrape.
It was louder than he would have liked, but the noise was better than a misstep, twisted ankle, or worse. Small rocks rolled under his feet and he skated across the terrain.
His thighs protested when he climbed sharp inclinations. His shins barked when he haltingly descended the opposite slopes.
The temperature was dropping fast. It was already cooler here in the hills than it was in Westwood. The lack of sunlight or paved roads that had absorbed and radiated daytime heat made it chilly.
A breeze brushed against Dub’s face, and his skin armored itself with goose bumps. He shuddered, but kept moving as silently as possible. Fifteen minutes had passed when Barker sidled up next to him. Gem was a couple of steps behind. Her loud breathing was the giveaway.
Dub pretended he couldn’t sense his friend and pressed his weight into the rising ground. He exhaled, pushing air from his lungs, and climbed higher.
“Hey,” Barker said. “What’s with the silent treatment?”
Dub didn’t respond. He didn’t want to say something he’d regret. He bit the inside of his cheek and pressed forward. The first hint of pale blue moonlight was beginning to illuminate their path.
“Dub,” said Barker, “stop. Look at me.”
Dub reached the peak of the rise and stopped. He adjusted the pack on his back, wrapping his fists around the straps, and stood there without turning to face Barker. Gem was still climbing a few feet behind them. She was grunting like a tennis player hitting a ball with force.
“C’mon,” implored Barker, his breathing labored between words, “don’t be like this. We know you’re hurting. We are too.”
That Barker spoke of himself in the plural, as if he and Gem were one, didn’t ease the tension. Dub clenched his jaw and didn’t acknowledge the sentiment. His grip tightened around the straps on his shoulders. His pulse quickened and a wave of heat rushed through his chest.
“I’m sorry, Dub. I’m sorry she’s gone. I’m sorry Michael is too. I’m sorry about a lot of things, dude, but none of it is my fault. It’s not your fault either.”
“I never said it was my fault,” Dub exploded, spitting venom. “Why would you think that? Why would you even say that?”
His voice echoed loudly. His ire reverberated off the peaks and canyons surrounding them.
Barker raised his hands in surrender. “Whoa. Seriously, I wasn’t implying anything. I’m telling you that I understand you. I—”
“You don’t understand me,” said Dub. “You don’t even—”
A low growl silenced him. His eyes widened.
Gem, who’d reached the flat peak between slopes, whispered, “Did you hear that?”
She was answered with another growl. It was more a grunt the second time. It was resonant and rich. Dub’s hair stood on his neck and arms.
It was close. Within fifteen or twenty feet. Dub turned his head from one side to the other, searching for the source of the growl. The cold air, the uneven terrain, and the disorientation of the near darkness made it impossible to know from which direction the sounds had come. He scanned for shadows, shapes, anything that might tell him who or what was out there. He saw nothing but the gray outlines of the hills, the distant buildings, streetlights that lined far-off neighborhoods, and the lone bubble lights at the checkpoints to the north.
Now, though, he could hear heavy breathing. It wasn’t Gem or Barker. It was something large. The breaths were flavored with hints of grunts or groans. Another, louder sound that resembled something close to a roar was closer now. Dub imagined a dragon in the seconds before it spits fire. Still, he couldn’t determine its source location. Was it behind him? In front of him? How close was it?
With trembling hands, Dub slowly unhooked his grip from the strap and reached across his body to unhook a flashlight from the side of his pack. He thumbed the carabiner clip and slid it from a fabric loop. He brought it to his front and cupped his other hand over the lens while he turned on the LED beam.
“What. Are. You. Doing?” Barker asked in a measured whisper that sounded like puffs of air.
Dub’s heart was beating against his chest and in his ears. His breathing was shallow and rapid but virtually silent. He uncovered the lens, and a bright bluish-white cone of light shone directly in front of him. It revealed brown dirt and brush. He swept the light to his left and found more of the same. He swept back to the right, completing a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree arc. He was moving back again when something at the edge of the beam moved. It was large and fast, and the breathy, throaty growl it emitted was almost deafening. Its heavy feet pounded the earth, and as Dub swung to locate it in the center of the light, something heavy and solid slammed into his right side. It was muscular and its musk was oily. The scent filled Dub’s nostrils, and an explosion of pain electrified his body. It was as if a truck had run into him and kept plowing ahead at full speed. The force of the sideswipe pushed him back and to the side. The weight of the pack on his back accelerated the momentum. Dub cried out, cursing, futilely attempting to maintain his balance, not realizing his feet weren’t on the ground any longer. By the time he understood he was airborne, it was too late to do anything about it.
“Watch out!” he shouted, not sure what he was warning his companions to watch out for. He didn’t recognize the voice as his own. It was high pitched and more of a squeal than a masculine call to arms.
He lost hold of the light and twisted awkwardly in the air and hit the ground. Landing on his chest, the air knocked from his lungs, his eyes went wide with panic. He gasped, not able to breathe.
Behind him he heard a scream and shouting. Struggling for air, he rolled onto his side. The flashlight, on the ground, cast its beam toward some sort of chaotic movement. In
the shadows, a behemoth moved faster than would seem possible. Flashes of its broad, dark shape entered the light and then disappeared.
There was more screaming, shouting, and then a whoosh of air before the beast roared again. It huffed and stomped, its breathy growls louder. Dub sensed it was close again. It moved past him, its gait erratic, its guttural groans racked with pain.
Dub stayed still, in part because he was frozen with fear and in part because he still couldn’t breathe. Had it been seconds? Minutes? How long had he been on the ground while the chaos exploded around him?
The grunts faded, as did the sounds of the beast pounding the dirt into the distance. On the verge of unconsciousness, Dub finally caught his breath. He was still on his side. His chest hurt, his left shoulder was bruised, and his left hip throbbed.
“Barker,” he hissed. It was all he could manage. “Gem? Are you okay? Can you hear me? Where are you?”
Nobody replied. The silence was nauseating. He tried again, a little louder. “Guys, are you okay?”
He rolled onto his aching chest and lumbered to his feet. His balance was off from the pain in his left side. He could stand though. That was something. He searched the darkness immediately around him and found the flashlight.
He took two long careful strides, wincing as he moved, and picked up the light. His trembling hand guided the bluish white beam across the ground. He saw Barker, and his stomach lurched. His friend was on his back, his eyes closed. His hands were bloody, as was his forehead. He wasn’t moving. His pack was still looped over one arm and was off to one side on the ground.
Dub inched toward him, limping as fast as he could, dragging his left foot across the dirt. He dropped to the ground beside his friend, tears welling again. What was the last thing he’d said to Barker? It hadn’t been nice. He remembered that much.
He reached out and touched his friend’s shoulder, shaking it softly.
“Barker?” He held the light at his friend’s chest and saw the slow rise and fall of it. He was breathing. Dub exhaled with relief.
He swung the light around, looking for Gem. He called to her. At first there was nothing. Then he saw a piece of her clothing, a shred of it, on the ground.
He bit the inside of his cheek, drawing blood, but prevented himself from vomiting. He hadn’t been kind to her either. He cursed himself and set to work on the person he believed he could help.
He shrugged off his pack and slung it to the ground next to Barker. Holding the light in his mouth and ignoring the swelling pain along half of his own body, he unzipped the pack and withdrew a first aid kit.
He set it on the ground next to the pack and unsnapped the box. He found alcohol wipes and began cleaning the dark, sticky blood from Barker’s forehead. All the wipes did, however, was smear the blood. There was too much of it for the relatively weak absorbency of the towelettes. He found a package of gauze and tore it open, unfolded the square piece of cotton, and swiped it gently across Barker’s head until he found the source of the blood.
He’d expected some huge gash, a life-threatening wound. Instead, it was a narrow cut no more than a quarter inch in length. It wasn’t even wide enough to need stitches, though it was swollen, and dark bruising was building around the edges.
He took a clean wipe and dabbed it on the cut, squeezed a pouch of bacitracin on the wound, and covered it with a large bandage. He was about to work on Barker’s hands when a voice startled him. He fell back onto his side from the shock of it.
“I thought you were dead,” Gem said sheepishly from behind him.
Dub swung around to face her, leaving Barker for the moment with his hands still bloodied. He smiled and tried to get up. She waved him off and limped toward him.
He shined the light toward her, careful not to aim it into her eyes. Her shirt was torn on the side. A large piece of it was missing. Aside from that and whatever was forcing her to favor one leg, she appeared okay.
“I could say the same for you,” he finally replied. “When I saw a piece of your clothing torn off by whatever it was that attacked us, I thought—”
“It was a bear,” Gem said. “A black bear.”
Dub’s hands began trembling again. The light wavered around Gem. Her expression shifted from relief to horror, and she drew her hands to her mouth. Her eyes glistened, reflecting the artificial light from the flashlight. She staggered, still limping, toward Barker. Through her hand, cupped over the bottom half of her face, she whimpered, “Is he alive?”
“Yes,” Dub said. “He’s breathing. He’s unconscious though.”
Gem took another step and knelt awkwardly beside Dub. She put her hands on Barker’s thigh and sobbed. “He saved me, you know,” she cried. “He got in the way. He gave me time to get away.”
She picked up one of his hands and then, realizing it was soaked in blood, dropped it onto his waist. She gasped again, the tears coming in streams down her cheeks.
Dub picked up the bloody hand and turned it over, searching for a wound. He couldn’t find one. Then he reached across Barker’s body and checked his other hand, which was equally bloody to the wrist. There was no evidence he was hurt.
“I don’t think that’s his blood,” he said, placing Barker’s arms at his sides. “I think it’s the bear’s.”
Barker groaned and turned his head to one side. His chest heaved and his legs shifted.
“Don’t move yet,” said Dub. “You’re okay. You’re all right. Just lie still.”
Barker’s legs relaxed; his breathing slowed. Then his eyes popped open and he sat up with a start. He tried scrambling to his feet while gasping for air, his fingers scrabbling in the dirt for something. He was disoriented and afraid.
Gem sniffed back her tears and squeezed his leg. “Shhhh, it’s gone. We’re okay. We’re all okay.”
Barker stared at her for a moment; then he shot a wild glance at Dub before his tense expression softened. His chest shuddered; his chin trembled. He let out a sigh that sounded like one of Gem’s sobs. His shoulders sagged. He winced and brought a bloody hand to his forehead. “Are you sure we’re alive? It doesn’t feel like we’re alive.”
Dub slid back away from Barker so Gem could move closer to him. She kept one hand on him the whole time, never letting go.
She put her hands on both sides of his face and pulled him toward her. She kissed him on the lips and pulled back only an inch. “We’re alive,” she said. “We’re alive because of you.”
Barker’s response was slow. “I don’t know,” he slurred. “I don’t think so.”
A breeze blew past them and a chill ran through Dub’s body. He shivered and turned away from his friends, aiming the flashlight’s cool beam toward the direction the bear had traveled. It was in the same direction they’d planned on going.
“Is there a high-pitched noise?” asked Barker. “Does anyone else hear that? It’s like white noise.”
He sat up fully, wobbling a bit, and balanced his weight on locked arms. He blinked deliberately a couple of times and stretched his face to widen his eyes. “Things are a little blurry too. I don’t feel right.”
Gem turned to Dub, her hand resting on Barker’s leg. She spoke as if he weren’t there or couldn’t understand her. Her eyes welled and glistened in the brightening moonlight. “I think he’s got a concussion,” she said and turned back to face Barker. “Do you feel nauseated? Do you have to puke?”
“No. Just…off. I feel off. And my head hurts.”
Dub glanced over his shoulder again, searching the open ground behind them. He swept the flashlight across the ground and noticed dark splotches on the gray dirt. They looked like blood. The bear was injured. It might have been badly hurt, given the amount of blood decorating a nearly straight path over a rise about fifty yards to the west. “I think the bear is injured,” he said to nobody in particular.
“It probably is,” said Barker. “I hit it with a rock a couple of times.”
“You did?” asked Dub. “You hit a bea
r with a rock?”
“A couple of times,” said Barker before belching like he was going to vomit. He drew a fist to his mouth and swallowed hard. “I might puke.”
Dub couldn’t remember the rules for bear encounters, even though he should have. He and Keri liked to hike the plethora of hills and canyons that wound through and around the Los Angeles area. With one type of bear it was better to play dead. With another it was better to make yourself big. It was never good to run. Fighting with rocks wasn’t on either list.
“I sprayed it with mace,” said Gem. She was rubbing circles on Barker’s back as a wave of nausea appeared to roll through him. “I mean, not mace. It’s pepper spray. I have it on my lanyard.”
“You both attacked the bear and it didn’t kill either of you?” Dub asked. “And aside from what I’m agreeing is a concussion, neither of you are seriously hurt?”
Gem shrugged.
Of all of the unlikely events he’d witnessed, this dumfounded Dub more than most. His two essentially unarmed friends had beaten back a bear, in the dark.
“What about your shirt?” he asked.
Gem shrugged again. “I tripped over something and fell. I think my shirt snagged on something and tore off. It wasn’t the bear.”
“I don’t think it was attacking us,” said Barker. “I think it was running away and we got in the way. I think we scared it.”
Gem helped Barker up. He stumbled but gained his balance. She held his elbow with one hand and wrapped the other arm around his waist. “We should probably get going if you’re okay to walk,” she said. “It could come back.”
“We need to head north,” said Dub. “We can skirt that neighborhood ahead and hit Agoura Road. If we head west, we could run into that bear again.”
They resumed their trek, with Dub leading the way. They’d gone about a hundred yards when he slowed and eased alongside his friends. “How’re you doing?”
“Good,” they said in unison.
The Alt Apocalypse (Book 4): Affliction Page 19
