"You think it sucks," he said.
"I'm having trouble picturing the Jensens shooting their way clear of thirty Nazrene and then outrunning them over the mile or so from their camp to here."
Gary gave her a sullen frown. "Like I said, I'd distract them."
"That would need to be one hell of a distraction." Diana sighed. "Look, Gary, I'm not saying it's a completely crazy plan. We just don't have the firepower to pull off that kind of operation."
"Diana –"
"That's a no, Gary."
Gary had set his jaw in sullen anger. Diana edged subtly away from him, shifting her rifle to a more accessible position. The boy did not care for being told what to do. Was this the moment he'd turn on her? Zurzay's eyes blinked open and focused with sudden intensity on the youth, as though pondering that question himself. Perhaps Gary sensed the change in ambience because he stopped scowling and relaxed back on his haunches.
"Okay, pretty lady." He winked at her. "You're the boss."
Diana stared at him as if waiting for an invisible shoe to drop, but the youth rolled to his feet, affecting a casual air.
"Catch you later," he said, and leaped over the boxes into the night with a quick farewell wave.
Diana listened to the muted thump of him landing and his retreating footfalls. She traded a look with Zurzay. Probably projection, she thought, but the wolf-creature's orange eyes appeared to glow with skepticism.
"Right," said Diana.
Down on the meadow, Gary ran with great bounding strides, his grin growing with each step. Diana probably looked at him like a kid, but that wouldn't last. In time, she'd succumb to the old Gary Hanson charms. No woman could deny he was hotter than fuck. His red skin only emphasized that. When she finally experienced what he could do, game over!
His thoughts turned reluctantly from the gorgeous Diana to the challenge ahead. Definitely a beauty and the beast deal, he thought. Fucking disgusting monkeys thought they were the new top dog on the block. They'd learn who the real top dogs were soon enough.
He slowed down and entered the woods in a slow jog. Lights from a half-dozen fires glowed through the trees ahead. Gary closed in, slowing to a walk, easing through the brush and placing his feet carefully to avoid telltale sounds. The wind was blowing their stink into his nostrils and he needed to stay downwind from them so he didn't return the favor.
The camp began maybe a quarter mile in, spread out over forty or fifty feet. The apes sat or lay around the fires, jabbering, waving their paws, or sleeping. He didn't see the Jensens at first. But he could smell them – a sweet, slightly acrid, distinctly human odor. The nearest, he was sure, belonged to Laurie Jensen. He'd gotten a whiff of her when he'd run out of their house. Pretty hot little farm-girl – not so little really, with a lotta curves and corn-fed beef on her frame – and a decent athlete, too. Watched her run in a fag-football game in seventh-grade PE. Girl had some spring in her long, muscular legs. Considered making a move on her, real casual-like, but turned out she was a goody-two shoes. A student taking more advanced math as a sophomore than he was as a senior. He didn't go for the brainy girls much. Real ball-busters, in his experience. Fuck 'em. Besides, she was two years below him. Wouldn't've looked right. Still...
Gary tiptoed toward her smell – and there she was. They were. She was lying curled up – spooning – in the arms of a stinking monkey. Gary stopped behind a tree no more than ten feet from them. The hairy piece of shit had big hairy arms wrapped around her, snoring contentedly. A wave of red-hot fury rose in him. It took all his willpower not to rush forward and stick his spear between the ape's closed eyes. The wood point might not even pierce the thing's thick skull. No, he needed to get himself under control, stay cool like he did when the linebackers rushed him, and take this slow. Oh, he sure as hell would spear the dirty ape, but he needed to get Laurie Jensen clear of him first. Then he'd kill her ape-lover and sneak her away through the woods. He stomped down an image of the ape fucking her. Ugh. Disgusting...and yet the image did start a rise in him. Eye on the ball, not balls, Gar. Not like she chose this or anything...'least, I don't think she did. He'd just have to re-train her. Screw him a few times she'd damn well forget all about her monkey-love.
Casting about for a solution, Gary had a thought, stolen from his tossing pebbles against his girlfriend's window to get her up and him laid. He reached down and dug into the ground with one hand. Sure enough, sifting through the dirt, he came up with a tiny rock. Perfect. He readied his right arm – the same arm that had delivered so many touchdowns – and lobbed it gently toward her head. Laurie's eyebrows twitched as the pebble tapped her forehead.
Her eyes blinked open. Gary edged out from behind the tree and extended one hand in invitation. She frowned, cocking her head, face puzzled. Of course! She couldn't see him as clearly as he could see her. He spotted a flickering light reflecting some branches closer to her and inched forward until his gesturing hand caught the light. Her forehead relaxed in comprehension. Got it, he thought.
Laurie raised her head, shifting her body to begin disentangling herself from the Nazrene's embrace. The monkey stirred, his snore rumbling to a halt. He muttered something that sounded to Gary like a question or a protest. Laurie pried one of his forearms clear of her chest.
"I need to go," she said.
The monkey sleepily murmured something else and loosened his constraining arm. Gary smiled and nodded. Smart girl. He raised his spear, readying himself for a deadly thrust once she was clear. She rolled to her feet, directly between Gary and his intended victim, placing a finger to her lips. Well, duh. When he took her hand and started to slip around her, spear cocked, she stopped him with a hand on his bare chest, shaking her head. She pointed away from the ape into the forest.
Girl has a point. If he stuck the monkey it would probably scream like a bitch and he'd have the whole camp on his ass. Better to sneak out of Dodge now and return to fuck up him and his hairy brothers later. And man, would that be sweet!
They moved away, her still holding his hand, slowly picking up speed. Behind them, Gary heard the ape snort awake and call out in a low, commanding growl. Gary ached to bolt, but he knew the girl couldn't achieve his escape velocity. Just a bit further and they could haul ass.
But now her monkey-mate had sprung to his feet and was furiously sniffing the area they'd just left. His low growl turned into a raging snarl and then a roar that seemed to shake the entire fucking forest. Gary had to hand it to him, pulling Laurie into a run: that was no bitch scream. Suddenly, apes were springing up everywhere, shouting snarls, snatching up spears.
"Gotta boogie," said Gary.
"I can't outrun them."
"I can." He bent over as they ran. "Climb on my back. I got this."
"I can't leave my family behind!"
"We'll come back for 'em."
He caught one of her arms and dragged her into a piggyback position on his back.
"You're Gary Hanson, aren't you?" she breathed into his ear.
"Good guess. Now hold on tight, girlfriend, 'cause I'm switching on the afterburners."
Her gasp when he seriously started sprinting was music to his ears. You ain't seen nothing yet, sweet-cheeks! With the benefit of his new night-vision, Gary followed a relatively unobstructed path through the woods while the Nazrene stumbled and smashed and cursed their way along behind them.
Their lead wasn't as large as he would've liked when they burst out of the forest. Gary stretched his legs into a full sprint toward the landing craft, but the monkeys weren't more than sixty or seventy yards back, and this time he wasn't pulling away. Laurie Jensen didn't feel heavy but she had to be sapping some of the spring from his step. Tough titty. He'd just have to suck it up for the next few hundred yards. Nothing he hadn't done before.
A glance back showed the apes pursuing in that strange arm-and-leg lope of theirs, eating up shitloads of ground, maybe gaining slowly. Gary felt his first prickle of fear. If they got too close he'd have to dro
p his prize and sprint the remaining distance solo. They probably wouldn't kill the girl, but they sure as fuck would kill him.
"Diana!" His shout emerged more of a gasp. He marshaled his breath. "Diana! They're right behind us!"
Drooping against a box on top of the cylinder, Diana wasn't aware she was sleeping until Gary's cry snapped her from a half-dream involving a strange house-move where neither the moving van nor her husband was showing up. At first, she wasn't sure the cry hadn't been part of the dream, but as she sat up, swinging her rifle to bear, she could make out dark figures running across the meadow toward them a few football field lengths away. It was hard to judge from her angle and distance, but one figure in the lead – clearly Gary, from his Olympic sprinter human stride – didn't appear more than a few steps ahead of his pursuers. And there was something off about his shape...as if he was carrying something on his shoulders –
"Oh, crap," Diana whispered. "He's carrying one of the Jensens!"
Zurzay rose from his own slumber and moved to her side. Diana sighted down her barrel at the approaching figures, but the Nazrene were running close enough to Gary and in such a tight bunch that without a night scope or a better angle she couldn’t find a decent shot. But she could arrange for a decent reception. She grabbed the rope she'd been using to lower herself down the side and flipped it over the end nearest the runners on the theory that Gary might not be able to leap up the cylinder with someone on his back.
A whoosh of air announced Zurzay launching into the air. Diana watched him sail up into the night, a batman-like silhouette against the stars. When she turned back to Gary and the Nazrene they weren't much more than a hundred yards out and coming fast. Gary's lead appeared to have dwindled to twenty or thirty meters at most. She guessed the only reason the baboons hadn't thrown their spears was that they didn't wish to kill whoever was riding on Gary's back.
Bracing her rifle on a box, Diana sighted in on the Nazrene pack over Gary's head – close enough now that she felt she had a safe shot. She was starting to squeeze the trigger when Zurzay swooped in behind the baboons, one wing slicing along their back ranks. Damn it, Z, why couldn't you have waited?
She expected the wolf to launch back into the air, but instead he was sucked up into a whirling battle on the ground as the Nazrene mobbed him.
"No," she said. "Goddamn it, no!"
Without further thought, Diana jumped up, slung her rifle over one shoulder, and rappelled down the front of the cylinder. She hit the ground running. Gary and his passenger jogged up to her as she charged out to help her friend.
"Gotta let him go," gasped Gary, glancing back, slowing to a stop.
"The hell I do." Diana noted that Laurie Jensen was on his back but she had no time for niceties.
"You have a pistol."
Diana stumbled to a stop. Laurie. "Yes."
"Give it to me. I'll come with you."
Laurie pushed off Gary's back. Diana faced her, mind spinning. No time for calculation. She jerked out her Glock and handed it to the girl. They started together toward the writhing mass of Nazrene.
"Fuck," said Gary. "I'm coming, too."
Charging twenty to thirty crazed baboon-creatures in the middle of the night. The thought crossed Diana's mind in a blaze. Surely one of the most spectacularly insane things she'd ever done. Fortunately, there were no second-guesses. Her friend who'd risked his life for her and hers more than once was going to die if she did nothing. That was not happening.
They'd dragged Zurzay to the ground. Diana opened fire, aiming high at the tangle of bodies. Laurie started shooting, too.
"Wait," Diana snapped at her. "Save it for closer!"
The mass of Nazrene burst apart. Several started toward them, others hesitated, and the majority sprinted back toward the woods. Some of the ones charging them fell under Diana's fire. The balance of them turned and fled with their comrades. Diana kept shooting until they reached Zurzay, dropping perhaps a half-dozen of them. They stopped at Zurzay, huddled within his wings in the center of a cluster of bodies.
She kneeled beside the flying wolf. In the darkness, she couldn't see much, but her hand on his chest came away wet with sticky blood, and his breathing was rough and uneven. He reached up and his large furry hand gently encircled hers.
"Diiiaanaa."
Diana bowed, tears spilling from her eyes, startled by the sharp knives of grief piercing her chest. It had been a long time since she'd cried over anyone but Dean.
"You shouldn't have done that, Zurzay," she said. It wasn't necessary, she added silently, but what was the point of saying that? He'd acted on his own counsel, as always, and more often than not he'd been right to do so.
Diana jerked a little as a hand rested on her shoulder.
"The Nazrene use a kind of salve from the ship on their wounds," said Laurie. "I've seen it heal bullet wounds almost overnight. Bullet wounds from your gun, by the way."
Diana resisted the tide of hope those words brought. "Is there any left in the ship?"
"There could be. It's in blue containers with some symbols – squares with slashes going through them."
Diana had a vague memory of seeing containers like that. This time hope sparked a fire in her. She eyed the nearby woods. "We need to get him back to the ship."
"I'll take the heavy end," said Gary. "If you two girls can take his legs."
Diana had always wondered how much Zurzay weighed. She was about to find out. Zurzay growled something that sounded like a protest as Gary stooped to grasp him under his shoulders. Gary hesitated.
"Ignore his noises." Diana bent down to latch onto his left leg. Laurie followed suit with the other. "We need to do this now."
They lifted. Diana was pleasantly surprised – he weighed less than she'd expected, unless Gary was bearing almost all of the weight, which she doubted. Since he was wall-to-wall dense muscle, she speculated his bones might be lighter. None of which will matter if we don't find this miracle alien salve and it doesn't work. Even one spear wound had taken Zurzay down. How many spear-thrusts – along with bites, blows, and clawings – had he endured in his fight? The circle of bodies and spears lying around him suggested too many.
By the time they reached the cylinder, Zurzay lay limp and unconscious in their grasp. They carried him into the ship and lowered him on the soft dirt within.
"We need light," said Diana. "And to make sure the baboons aren't trying something."
"Got it covered," said Gary.
They had nothing better to do than wait as the former athlete revived his afternoon's fire and returned with a burning branch liberally coated with fire paste.
"Nothing out there but dead bodies right now," he informed them. "In case you were wondering."
On Diana's suggestion, he handed off his torch to Laurie and assumed the guard role outside. With his light, they rifled through some of the remaining boxes until Laurie pointed out a shoebox-sized aqua-blue container bearing a circular pattern of squares, triangles, and lines.
"I think that's it," she said.
Diana struggled for a few moments to open it until discovering that clasping her hands fully around the lid caused it to pop free. Inside was a thick cream that reminded Diana of clay-based face cream, its bright aqua-blue color matching its container. Instead of a medicinal odor, it smelled like chocolate. Laurie brought the torchlight to bear on Zurzay's stretched out form.
"Is he breathing?" Laurie asked.
Diana lowered her ear to the winged-wolf's muzzle. A soft but steady hiss of warm air tickled her ear. Yes. She nodded to the girl.
Diana wasted no time in running her fingers over his chest and back, dabbing the salve into the deepest wounds before applying it to every gouge, scratch, or ripped skin she could find on his body and wings. The bright blue salve filled the air a confectionery odor, as if she were converting her hirsute friend into one large chocolate bar.
"I hope this works as good as it smells," she muttered.
Zurzay moan
ed as if in protest or agreement. It was the first sound he'd made since losing consciousness. Diana dared to hope it meant the alien cream was working.
"Here," she said, unbuckling her belt and handing it the younger woman. "I'd better spread the wealth."
"Thank you." Laurie strapped it on and holstered the Glock Diana had given her in the meadow. "Thank you for rescuing me."
"That wasn't my idea." Diana nodded to opening, where Gary Hanson's moonlit figure paused to look in on them.
"No monkeys," he called in. "How's Z doing?"
"Too soon to tell," Diana called back.
The youth resumed his guard patrol. Diana dropped back on the sandy soil, heaving out a weary breath. For the first time since the rescue, she focused on the redheaded girl.
"How are your mom and brother doing?"
Laurie shrugged her bare shoulders. Bare, Diana noticed, because the short-sleeves had torn – or been ripped – away. Her rosy cheeks lost some of their flush.
"They're okay." She lifted her shoulders again. "They aren't as horribly cruel as you might think. They feed us and..." She averted her face away from Diana's gaze. "They seem to want us to live, for whatever reason."
Diana decided not to press her on the details. "We've been trying to figure out why they're so determined to hold onto you."
"Me, too. We all have."
"Any theories?"
"Not other than...um...companionship."
Diana nodded. What an insane transition from being a sheltered teenager living a sheltered, Norman Rockwell life on a modern farm, all her needs provided by a physician mom and a no doubt successful farmer-dad, to a world where you were menaced by killer fairies and kidnapped by sentient baboons. Dean and she had often joked about teenagers, particularly female teenage relatives, that "they should drop us a note when they grow up." Diana found the untested/unformed elements of a young teenager, usually combined with a uber-confident sense of moral righteousness – the one thing they did seem confident about – to be unnerving in the way that any self-deluded person tended to unnerve her.
You never knew who you were until you were tested, Dean had said more than once. But this girl had been tested. And as far as Diana could see she'd passed, fully formed or not.
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