Bigfoot War 3: Food Chain (11 page)

A rifle cracked in the distance. Thane’s chest exploded as a high caliber round ripped through him. Wally saw shock and disbelief in his eyes before Thane’s corpse toppled over to lay face down beside him. World spinning, body aflame in agony, Wally dug deep and somehow found the strength to sit up.

A young man waved to him through the rain from the APC’s open side. “He was crazy!” the young man called to him. “Someone had to put him down!”

“Wait!” Wally tried to shout as the young man slammed the APC’s door, but if the young man heard him, his words were ignored. The APC’s motor growled as it kicked into gear and drove away, heading northward. Wally slumped back to the grass and lay there bleeding as he tried to build up the energy to hobble his way towards The Bunker. When he did, bodies of the beasts covered the entire clearing around the open bay door. He waded through them into the bay. Thick smoke still lingered within it. With his good hand, he tore a strip of cloth from his tattered shirt and made a makeshift mask over his nose and mouth.

The inner door was broken open when he reached it. The beasts had fought their way into The Bunker proper. The battle had been lost, but still he had to see for himself. He had to know if
Bree
was still alive. He wandered through The Bunker’s corridors, occasionally coming upon the corpse of a beast, but more often he moved past the mangled and partially eaten remains of the men and women he’d been trying to save. There were several places in the corridors where the bodies were so thickly piled up he had to climb over them. He guessed the civilians had done their best to keep the fight going after the soldiers and militiamen had failed to stop the monsters. It was a futile effort given what they had been facing, but he knew he would have done the same in their place.

Finally, he reached the lowest level of the complex. Here the bodies were thickest of all. The walls themselves were stained with blood. The doors to the large lab, where the bulk of the civilians looked to have made their last stand, were battered open. Inside, a great sea of twisted and mutilated corpses stretched out before him. He moved among them, searching. When at last he found
Bree
, a sound like a whimper trembled forth from his lips and he sunk to his knees beside her. Her eyes were wide open in an expression of utter terror. Her head was bent an unnatural angle and her thighs and groin were torn and chewed up, exposing a mass of stringy, red tissue. Congealed blood smeared her hands and face.

A sob shook his entire body as his tears broke loose. With a shaking hand, he closed her eyes and leaned over to kiss her cold forehead. Then he stood and stumbled back the way he came.

Epilogue

N
ate sat by the fire, sipping at a mug of coffee, as a pot of beans cooked over the open flames. The night was quiet and still. A cool summer’s breeze blew through the trees. He kept an eye on the trees, watching the shadows. Though there hadn’t been a beast spotted in these parts for over a year, the old tales of the monsters put him on edge. He blamed his dad’s wild stories about the days when the dead had walked the earth and the beasts almost drove humanity into extinction. Those days were long passed, however, and the world was beginning to right itself. Just in the last ten years, numerous cities had sprung up here in the southern part of what once was known as the United States, the largest of which held a population of over five thousand. It was strange to think of that many folks crammed behind the walls of a single, sprawling stronghold. Life in the cities had its charm, but Nate was grateful for his job as a post carrier. Regardless of the dangers, he couldn’t imagine any other type of life. It let him travel and watch the new world as it continued to grow.

Nearby, his horse snorted, making him jump. His hand went to the large pistol holstered on his belt as an old man, limping along on a wooden cane, came hobbling into his camp.

“I’d stop right there if I were you,” Nate said as he leveled his pistol at the old man. Though the world was far safer than it used to be, he wasn’t taking any chances. Waylaying a postal carrier was a common thing to do for those looking for an easily-gained batch of supplies.

“May I rest by your fire?” the old man asked, his voice weary and tired.

“Are you armed?” Nate asked, eying the cloak that covered the old man’s body.

“Only with my wits and this cane,” the old man said with a wink.

Nate, against his better judgment, decided to have pity on the old fart. “Come on, then. I got some beans cooking. You look like you could use a good meal.”

“Thank you.” The old man took a seat across the fire from him.

Nate fished a plateful of beans from the pot and handed it to the old man, who took it in his aged, trembling hands.

“What are you doing out here by yourself?” Nate asked.

“What I always do—Wander.”

“That can’t be much of a life.” Nate was really starting to pity the old fool now. How did the man even survive out here?

“It’s not, but then my life ended a long time ago.”

“If you want to travel with me, I’m headed to New Raleigh. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“Thank you, for the beans as well, but no.”

“What’s your name?”

“Does it matter?” The old man shot him a glare.

“Well, I’m Nate. I’m a postal carrier out of Greenville.”

“I see that.” The old man smiled and gestured at Nate’s khaki uniform and the bags resting on the ground beside his horse, which bore the logo of his trade. “It’s amazing how fast things are coming back now that the beasts are broken and driven back into the hills.”

“Tell me about it. By next year, I hear that there’s a real, honest-to-goodness plane that’s going to be tested over in Virginia.”

The old man finished his beans and got up.

“Hey, where are you going?” Nate asked. “It’s not safe to travel in these woods at night. What if you came across one of the beasts?”

“Son, I’ve killed more beasts than you have seen in your life.”

Nate watched him go. When the old man reached the edge of camp, he turned around and said, “My name is Wally Morgan. Thank you again for your kindness.” Then he was simply gone, vanished into the night.

Nate stared after him and took a sip of coffee. That name sounded so familiar. Where had he heard it before? Then the memory hit him like a fist to the side of the head. He spat the coffee into the dirt. He’d just met the man who had made the new world possible. He’d shared a fire with a legend.

Nate doubted anyone in New Raleigh would ever believe him, but he was dang sure going to tell them about it all the same.

About the Author

Eric S. Brown
is the author of numerous books including the
Bigfoot Wa
r series,
The War of the Worlds Plus Blood Guts and Zombies
(Simon and Schuster),
Season of Rot
(Permuted Press), and
World War of the Dead
(
Coscom
Entertainment) to name only a few. His short fiction has been published hundreds of times in the small press and beyond. He lives in NC with his wife and son, where he continues to write as many tales of the hungry dead, blazing guns, and the things that lurk in the woods as his addiction to comic books permits.

Visit his Website at
ericsbrown.wordpress.com

Coming Soon

Bigfoot War 4: LEGION

Also by Eric S. Brown

Space Stations and Graveyards

Dying Days

Portals of Terror

Madmen’s Dreams

Cobble

The Queen

The Wave

Waking Nightmares

Zombies II: Inhuman

Unabridged Unabashed and Undead

The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts

and Zombies (with H.G. Wells)

Season of Rot

Barren Earth (with Stephen North)

World War of the Dead

How the West Went to Hell

Kinberra
Down

Season of Death

Bigfoot War

The Human Experiment

Anti-heroes (with David Dunwoody)

The
Weaponer

Bigfoot War 2: Dead in the Woods

Last Stand in a Dead Land

Praise for
Bigfoot War

“Brutal and visceral, what was once the joke of the
Cryptozoological
world is now back where it belongs: at the top of the monster food chain.”

- Scott A. Johnson, author of

City of Demons
and
Deadlands

“Eric S. Brown breathes new life into the Bigfoot mythos.

Grizzly, gritty . . . gripping, Brown pulls you in from page one and doesn’t let go until the very end. Even then, he still haunts your nightmares.
Bigfoot War
is not to be missed!”

- James
Melzer
, author of

Escape: A Zombie Chronicles Novel

“Find a big gun, and catch your breath when you can. The raging, relentless pace of this book will grip you until the last page. Mr. Brown has entered new territory and the residents are large, strong, intelligent, and very, very angry . . .”

- Stephen A. North, author of
Dead Tide

“Eric S. Brown transmutes myth into horrifying reality. Through key people of Babble Creek,
Bigfoot War
instantly pulls the reader into a small town facing obliteration. A powerful, unique voice shines here, leaving you white-knuckled until you finish, thirsty for more.”

- Ben Eads, dark fiction writer

and host of
The Dark Fiction Show

“The first words unfold to put the reader right in the middle of flat-out adventure, action, violence, and an adrenaline rush of sound and emotion. In addition, Mr. Brown seems to have an instinctive understanding of how to put fiction down on the page. The construction of the book and how it moves is purely professional and inspired. He knows how to craft an effective novel!”

- James Robert Smith, author of