After diving into the pipe, Penny crawled back around to view what was becoming carnage: four of the wolves were down, their beautiful fur blood-spattered, their thick legs kicking ineffectually, the mound of bats growing on each body. Many already appeared to be feeding. Only the wolf closest to her, perhaps the largest of the group, was still on his feet, backing his way toward the pipe with a stiff-legged, wobbly gate. Another wave of killer-bats swarmed on him, and she knew he wasn't going to make those last ten or so yards. She'd just have to watch him being ripped apart in front of her eyes –
No. Something snapped in her. She knew she shouldn't care, that it made no sense for her to care, but for some reason she was charging out of the pipe, her AR blasting out a swath through the triangle-bats a few feet above the struggling wolf-creature. The bats rose off the wolf in a dark cloud, scattering before her fire.
"Come on!" she cried to the wolf-thing.
The giant lupine-like creature took a few tottering steps toward her. She shocked herself and – from the wolf's bulging eyes – the wolf himself when she grabbed him by the nape of his neck and started dragging him toward the culvert. The wolf-creature, nearly the height of her chest, grunted and huffed as it strained to hobble along in her grasp. When he paused, Penny felt its enormous weight – she might as well be dragging a small car with a flat tire – but they made it to the pipe –
The enormous creature wouldn't fit. Even slumped on his belly, his shoulders struck the top of the pipe. She hadn't even considered that possibility! He lay there, spent, and Penny spun to face the expected onslaught. But the bat-creatures appeared to have lost interest in her and her charge, focusing on consuming his companions instead. It wasn't a long-term project: the massive creatures were stripped to bones in a few short minutes. A small group of triangle-bats headed in her direction, but a couple of bursts from her rifle discouraged them. Soon, they were a dark cloud moving toward the northern horizon, joined by another group rising from her elk, which had also been reduced to bones. Penny released a murmuring growl. Why did they have to be so greedy? Her stomach grumbled in agreement.
Penny collapsed down beside the giant bear-wolf, one hand absently resting on his back, which had a slight hump like an American bison. Its eyes were closed, its breathing labored. Would it survive? Penny opened her pack and pried out a water bottle. She poured some into her palm and bumped the battered creature's nose. Its eyes opened. A purple tongue unfurled and lapped it up. Penny poured another handful. Another lap of the tongue finished it off. She scooped out a hole in front of his muzzle and poured the whole bottle into it.
"I'll be back," she said, springing to her feet. "With food. Please just hold on, okay?"
She ran into a tangle of bat bodies a short distance from the culvert. She lifted one. A stink rose from its body – a run-over skunk combined with rotten garbage that made her toss it aside with an "Eewww!" She couldn't believe anything would want to eat that.
Penny spotted a rabbit in the adjacent cornfield and expended five rounds to bring it down when it exploded into a run. She ran it back to the wolf-bear, and even partly skinned it to make eating easier. Not much more than a few bites for something its size, she thought, but at least it showed the creature her intentions so he wouldn't run or stagger off somewhere.
The big creature was still there when Penny returned thirty minutes later dragging a small doe. The bear-wolf seemed to return to life as it sniffed the body and took a small bite off the deer's hindquarters. Penny cut in through the ribcage and found the heart, which she chopped in half and handed one part over to her companion. As she chewed the delicious organ she felt energy coursing back into her compact but powerful frame. She'd become quite the hunter, she had to say. Not so great of a shot, but she was fast and didn't get tired, and – big bonus! – she could smell waayy better than her previous self. A whole universe of smells – some she was grateful for, while others made her long for the old days – had opened up to her. She'd had no idea how many odors were in the world. It was as if she'd gone from smelling in monochrome to 3D HD color! All her new senses and abilities gave her so many advantages over some poor dumb deer or elk or rabbit that it seemed sort of unsportsmanlike to hunt them down. But she could live with that.
They worked their way through the doe methodically and swiftly. The wolf-bear didn't "wolf down" the meat per the cliché, but ate with a cool deliberation and efficiency, pausing occasionally to wipe blood or viscera off its snout with one paw and then lick the paw, as if he was a gentleman diner watching his manners at a posh restaurant. Watching him, eating with him, brought a big grin to Penny's face. Life, for the moment, was kind of awesome.
"You're funny," she said to him.
He regarded her with grave eyes, as if he understood her meaning and was somewhat offended. Which made Penny laugh.
After they'd consumed a good portion of the deer, the wolf-bear trotted off behind a patch of trees. Penny wondered if that was the last she'd see of him, but then he emerged and returned to her.
"You did your business?" she asked him. "What – don't tell me you're shy about that?"
The creature sat on its haunches, its aqua-blue eyes nearly level with her own. This had to be the weirdest animal she ever saw, she thought. Well, except for all the other zoo animals...
"I gotta do my business, too," she said. "Then I need to go. People are depending on me." She thought of Diana and her winged-wolf. Maybe she could have her own zoo creature companion? "You're welcome to come with me if you want. Join the team, you know?"
The wolf-bear followed her to the same patch of trees, but stayed back politely as she performed her bodily ablutions. When she emerged, she waved for the creature to follow. The wolf-bear held his ground.
"Come on," Penny called to him. "You know you want to."
The wolf-creature stared at her and didn't move.
"Have it your own way. See you around."
Penny sprinted away, resisting an urge for one last hopeful glance. Dumb mutt, didn't know how good he could've had it, she grumbled to herself. It was a stupid idea, anyway. Just because she'd helped him didn't make him her pet. Wild animals, especially super-smart ones, weren't pet material.
She'd run nearly a half-mile before she noticed the massive grey-blue body pacing her in near-silence a few meters to her right. She hadn't realized until that moment how much she'd longed for that sight. A big smile busted out on her pretty, slim face.
Suddenly, the apocalypse didn't seem so bad after all.
THE ALIEN sausage, Diana decided, had a rejuvenating effect. How else could she explain the sudden receding of her bone-weary fatigue and the mellowing of her multitude of sore muscles. She'd worked out enough over the years to make a good guess about her recovery times, and this was far faster than usual.
Zurzay appeared livelier as well. Nothing obvious, in his case – just a bit more relaxed body and clarity in his eyes. He reminded her of a cat she and Dean had adopted long ago that suffered from bouts of mysterious illness but only provided the subtlest hints – a stiff posture here, a glazed stare there – about when he wasn't feeling well. Zurzay didn't groan or make any obvious pained gestures, but his body language had been constrained, for lack of a better word. Now it was loosening. Whether he'd regain his strength in time to get them off the roof of the alien landing craft before nightfall was an open question. Diana wasn't sure he understood the threat but her bet was that he did. Despite his lack of words, he seemed to grasp pretty complex concepts – particularly those concerned with fighting and survival.
And loyalty, she added. A concept many human beings lacked.
Diana was struggling with understanding the former football quarterback star turned Adderall Superboy, who'd been serving them sausages and water with the happy air of a waiter expecting a large tip. She couldn't detect anything sociopathic in him. He didn't appear to be anything other than a lonely if perhaps not terribly bright youth looking to ingratiate himself with one of the few
surviving adults. But she didn't entirely trust him yet, either.
The top of the cylinder wasn't a comfortable place to be. Fortunately, it didn't seem to absorb any heat from the sun, but its surface was as hard and unforgiving as steel. Which didn't stop Zurzay from stretching out like a cat and falling into a sleep punctuated by an occasional long hiss of breath in place of a snore. She drifted off for an hour or two while Gary Hanson hunted in the area ("That sausage stuff gets old after a while"), promising not to venture out of sight of the landing craft and the nearby woods. Not the best strategy for defending against a surprise Nazrene attack, but there was no helping their need for rest or her lack of control over the boy.
Rest wasn't helping Diana decide how to deal with the approaching darkness if Zurzay proved unable to fly. But as the late-afternoon waned, Zurzay only went airborne once, with a grudging air, just long enough to relieve himself before returning to the surface of the landing craft and falling back into sleep. Gary Hanson dragged back the bloody hindquarters of what appeared to be a cow. Diana turned down his raw offering but had him drop off a five-pound slab of meat near Zurzay's head. Zurzay sniffed a few times in his sleep but didn't awaken. Gary gathered some wood and started a fire to grill his remaining meat. Despite the heavenly aroma wafting up from his makeshift grill, Diana decided to stick with the winning formula of the alien sausage. She would've killed for some fresh vegetables and fruit, but she wouldn't be suffering from scurvy anytime soon. Now it was all about making it through the night.
Luckily, it was summer – around June 1st, she guessed – and the day was long. When was sunset? Had to be around 9. The day was fading into that pale golden glow that preceded dusk. Usually, one of her favorite times of the day. Now, it was a countdown to possible disaster.
She was about to prod Zurzay when he awakened on his own. He sat, snatched up the slab of beef matter-of-factly, and devoured the meat in his usual methodical way.
"Can you fly?" Diana asked him, motioning upward and then toward the horizon opposite the Nazrene camp. "If you're able to, we should go somewhere safer than this." She pointed to the baboon encampment and attempted to mime an attack from the forest on their position. "With the cover of dark, they could come right up on us without being seen. Or me seeing them anyway. Maybe your night-vision is better?" She covered her eyes and swung her rifle around blindly.
Zurzay regarded her with the stoic demeanor of an elder teacher waiting for his inarticulate student to explain. That was how Diana saw it. She pointed to him, the sky, and the direction from which they'd come.
"We should go," she said.
Zurzay waved away her suggestion with one thickly muscled arm. Gary, who was sprawled out on the cylinder nearby, chuckled.
"Dude wants to stay and fight it out?"
"Dude may not understand the situation," Diana half-growled.
"How well did he stack up against them – the monkeys?"
"Damn well. He's a killing machine. Seriously."
"Good." The youth grinned. "So am I."
"Really? How many Nazrene have you killed?"
Gary's jaunty grin curdled. "Hasn't happened yet. But trust me, it will." He patted his knife and spear. "Just a matter of time."
"Well, your time might be tonight if you stick around."
"Where else I got to be?"
"You could be anywhere. Not need to risk your life staying here."
"You're my homies. We humans gotta stick together."
Diana gave him a bland smile. The kid had a point, and it applied not just to him. It was her definitive reason for being here, too, though surely there was a limit on that call to duty. She doubted Gary Hanson saw it that way. For him, as far as she could tell, this was all some big game. Fighting the baboons would be fun! Living off the land, running around with a spear and a knife hanging off your belt, was like playing cowboys and Indians. It was the same way with Penny. Diana wasn't sure how much of it was the Adderall or their age. Maybe consuming their siblings was temporary insanity, but their strange joie de vivre in the face of such tremendous loss suggested some form of permanent psychological break from normal feelings. No normal person could shrug off the death of their family – and their own personal contribution to that – as they had. She could only speculate how that kind of disassociation might manifest under life and death pressure. Penny had passed that test with flying colors. Diana might soon see how the former football star would do.
"I read that you had a full football scholarship to Georgetown," she said.
"Yup." His expression darkened a shade.
"That's quite an accolade."
"Uh, yeah. Not many people get a full ride to a Division 1 school like that. I was headed out there for training camp in a couple months."
"Sorry you didn't get that chance."
"You sure I won't? You think whatever happened here happened in Washington D.C.?"
"I'd say it happened everywhere, as unthinkable as that is."
Gary gazed out over the forest in the general direction of his once-future campus, his face growing reflective.
"I wouldn't even be in their league anymore," he said quietly. "It would be like Bret Favre playing in a junior high school. I could run or pass for a touchdown anytime I wanted."
"Probably so." Diana had to smile. Discussing football when they could all die in the next few hours. Never one of her favorite topics under the best of circumstances.
The youth eyed the sun over the western horizon. "I think I'll build more spears."
"Maybe we could carry up some of the boxes," said Diana. "Create some cover."
"Good idea! Those hairy fuckers could make us into pin cushions easy from down there."
Even Gary couldn't carry the boxes – which Diana guessed ranged in weight between three and four hundred pounds – to the top of the cylinder, but he had no trouble dragging them up with the rope. Soon, they had created a four to five-foot mini-fortress around them. An added benefit was that the boxes were filled with leather-like fabric and containers, rope, tough thread, and thick, curved needles – as if the "Keepers" were outfitting the Nazrene for a sewing bee, Diana thought. It didn't require much imagination to see how useful the stuff could be, but she wondered why the aliens didn't just include fully assembled objects, not to mention knives, spears, or other more advanced weapons/tools.
It was as if the Keepers were providing things that didn't help the Nazrene too much – assuming this had been a Nazrene transport craft. Nothing to say they hadn't commandeered it. Diana had to believe there were thousands if not millions more of such craft, each housing its own sample of exotic zoo creatures. One of many scary thoughts was that so far they'd only encountered a small percentage of them. Scarier still: Perhaps not even the most dangerous of them.
Zurzay watched with faint curiosity – or was it disdain? – while they assembled their fortress and Gary hastily carved out a pair of extra spears which lacked the finesse of the Nazrene assault weapons but would probably suffice to pierce baboon hides.
More sausages for dinner, and then there was nothing better to do than watch the shadows of trees stretch across the meadow and the surrounding woods for signs of Nazrene war parties. Neither Zurzay nor Gary appeared to share the tension that was eating Diana alive. Gary was whistling an off-key country tune that made her want to strangle him. Zurzay was grooming himself with his paws/hands and frog-length green tongue as if planning to attend an opera or maybe a night out on the town. Was she the only one who had any comprehension of the threat? She thought she understood Gary's nonchalant perspective, but surely Zurzay couldn't share it? Or was fighting for his life a routine occurrence?
As night fell, they caught a break: a near-full moon peeking over the northeastern horizon. If the Nazrene emerged from the shadows of the trees, which extended far into the meadow at this point, even Diana would be able to see them. Gary was perched on the boxes, scanning the woods around the meadow. Diana climbed down to relieve herself in a private
spot near the far end of the landing craft. When she returned, Gary had a proposal.
"Instead of waiting around all night wondering if they're gonna show up," he said, "why don't I sneak up to their camp and see what they're doing?"
With any normal person, that sounded like an insane idea. But then "normal" was the last word Diana would apply to Gary Hanson. He had a point – it would be a hell of a long night. Nodding off for even a minute would give the fleet-footed Nazrene time to reach the landing craft. Whether they could or could not ascend the cylinder by leaping as Gary did – she was leaning toward could – they had plenty of rope, and according to Gary were weirdly adept with it ("I watched two of them lasso an elk!"). It wouldn't take much for those clever creatures to figure out they could toss a length of rope over the cylinder and haul themselves up.
"Just observe, right?" she asked, a wary note invading her voice as she noted his shit-eating grin.
"Well, heh, I am getting another idea, if I'm being honest. You got a couple pistols, doncha?"
"Yes."
"Can the Jensens shoot? I'm guessing yes."
"The daughter seems quite proficient. Sonja probably is. Not sure about the boy." She regarded him darkly. "You're thinking of getting the guns to them and then they shoot their way out."
"Something like that. I figure I could distract them, get them all hot and bothered, toss the guns to Laurie and Mrs. Jensen and we run like hell back to here."
"Hard to imagine what could go wrong with that plan."
Gary Hanson's exuberant smile decayed as Diana's sardonic expression and tone gradually made inroads into his head.
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