He frowned as he angled the jeep with the driver side door inches from the entrance. Bent over the steering wheel, he scrutinized the store’s small interior. “I’ll keep the engine running while I check it out. Ready your—” He glanced at the pistol in my hand. “Good girl. Five minutes, okay?”
I nodded, scanned the bleak horizon through the cracks in the windshield.
The car door latched shut and the wait began. I chewed a nail. Checked the mag. Chambered a round. Back to nail chewing. Come on, Joel.
A motor rent the air, grew louder. Then a lone figure rolled over the hill on a motorcycle. The gun shook in my hand as the bike turned into the parking lot.
Inside the store, a dusty dark clouded the depths. Where was he?
The biker stopped beside me, his eyes bugging under his helmet. Should I point the gun? Would that scare him away?
The features on his weathered face rearranged themselves from strained shock to soft elation. Then his mouth and eyes hardened. Determination.
I raised the gun, trained it on his chest.
He shook his head. “Open the door.” His voice muffled through the window.
My other hand joined the one on the gun, cupping the grip, stabilizing the aim.
He showed his empty hands, his smile. “You’re…aw, Christ, you’re a looker. I haven’t seen woman since…” His eyes made hungry promises. “I just want to look. What do want? I’ll give you anything. Just let me touch.”
I stopped breathing.
Then his arm snapped out and grabbed the door handle.
In a flash of movement, Joel was behind him, swinging the butt of his shotgun. The stock collided with the back of the man’s head. His body dropped, eyes rolled to the sky.
Joel jumped behind the wheel and dumped a box of bottled water and packaged junk food in the backseat.
Blood pounded through my veins. “Is he dead?”
He shoved the gear into first and rolled to the edge of the lot, gaze locked on his side mirror.
I holstered the pistol on my thigh. “It’s okay, Joel.”
“No.” A heavy rasp pushed past his teeth. “No, it’s fucking not okay.”
We faced the road, unmoving. He remained fixated on the mirror. I looked in my own, which reflected the unconscious man sprawled on the gravel.
Thirty seconds passed. I tapped a finger on the carbine. “What are we waiting for?”
As if on cue, the prone man raised his head, rubbed the back of it.
Joel hit the gas, spitting rock in our wake.
“You didn’t want to leave him vulnerable,” I said, a few minutes later.
“No, though make no mistake. If killing him would’ve been the only way to neutralize him, I would’ve done it without hesitation.”
The fact that he hadn’t just killed him gave me renewed appreciation for the kind of man he was.
A few miles later, we skidded onto a gravel road and made our descent to my father’s lake house. Joel had told me my dad stopped answering his phone two days after the outbreak. And I knew if he survived, he would have found a way to contact me. A shiver licked my spine. Was he prowling his property in a mutated form? Could I shoot him like I shot the aphid in our basement?
Joel eyed my fingers plucking a frayed hole in my jeans. “You’re worrying.”
“Yes.”
“Want a hug?” His eyes crinkled.
A laugh bubbled up, came out as a snort.
His hand squeezed my thigh. “There’s a pack of smokes in the glove box.”
I let him see my face and he returned the smile. Then I exhaled a little of my tension.
A mile north of my father’s property, we passed the arched entrance of the Hurlin family’s eight hundred acre ranch. I wondered if the infected ranchers were dining on their prize winning stallions.
He pulled the jeep into my father’s circle drive. The motion activated light came to life. I grabbed the door handle and remembered what Joel had said, “Sidearm, carbine, shotgun, vest,” like a fucking nursery rhyme.
Already snug in the bullet proof vest, I wrestled out of the seat belt and hooked the carbine over my shoulder by its single point sling. I loved the look of my M4. With a collapsible stock and 14.5 inch barrel, its black metal frame and plastic hand grip made it an easy weapon to use. It was my weapon of choice
.
When I secured the USP .40 in my thigh holster, he flashed his white teeth in the flood light’s reflection. “Ready?”
Under the weight of my artillery, I puffed out my chest. “You bet.”
He clicked his tongue. “No heroics, Evie.”
We didn’t enter the house. The best way to identify a threat inside was to check for compromised entry points. As we crossed the yard, I remembered the day Joel gave me my first carbine. Before he took me to the range, he ensured that I knew how to handle it tactically. He showed me low ready, muzzle down when not ready to shoot. And high ready, barrel up while looking for or locking on a target and expecting a fire fight.
Carbines in high ready, we crept around the house. I approached the bends and sliced off each piece of the corner as I went. Like slicing a pie. It enabled me to visually clear most of the new view while still remaining covered.
At the second corner, I asked, “Why do I need the sidearm and shotgun, in addition to the carbine?”
He trolled the dense trees through his scope. “Everyone prefers to shoot with a carbine, because you can plow through your ammo and your threat with a more accurate, longer reaching and heavier hitting round. However, let’s say you are going along”—he aimed his carbine at the shed and mimed shooting—“Pop, pop, pop, click. Your carbine goes dry. Instead of dropping mag and reloading, to continue to get bullets down range it’s easier to immediately draw your side arm.”
Made sense.
He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Your pistol’s only good as a last resort concealable close range weapon. Got it?”
“Got it. And the shotgun?”
Duh
was written across his face. “Because you can blow a huge ass hole in almost anything at close range.”
Duh
indeed. We continued to the next corner. The property appeared secure until we rounded the final side.
Squatting along the tree line about fifty yards away waited seven…eight…nine aphids. Under the twilight, they glowed neon green as if they’d developed radioactive herpes. I pressed the butt of the carbine into my shoulder and held its eight pound weight steady. A deep inhale filled my nostrils with the scent of gun oil.
Thirty rounds. Nine targets. If I fired accurately, I could go with the three shot rule. Two in the chest, one in the head.
I looked through the reflex sight of the carbine, exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The first bug squealed and rolled. Twenty-seven rounds. I took down three more aphids. Why wasn’t Joel’s carbine firing next to me? I squeezed again with a trained exhale.
Despite the queer buzzing in my ears, I slipped into a zone. Five aphids remained and how many rounds? Shit, I lost count. But I didn’t let it distract me. The damn things dropped like flies. As if they couldn’t see where the gun fire came from.
One mutant remained, hunkered next to its fallen comrades. I wanted a closer look and decided to take it. I swiveled my head to look at Joel behind me.
“Evie. Evie. What the fuck are you shooting at? Give me the gun.”
I returned his puzzled expression with one of my own. “There’s still one left.”
“One what?” He reached for my carbine.
Then it dawned on me. He couldn’t see them. I angled the gun out of his reach and took off toward the trees.
Ten feet from the lone survivor, I dropped to low ready and freed the Maglite. When I clicked it on, the bug straightened and looked in my direction. Aggression sprayed in a mist of drool. Its porcelain eyes reflected against my light. That drooling atrocity didn’t have night vision. Pupils dilated in the dark to let in light and the tiny aphid pupil didn’t dilate.
It ramped to spring and spat more snot. I killed the light. I wanted to knife that one.
I reached for the dagger in my forearm sheath and startled when Joel’s pistol popped on my left. The aphid crumpled to the ground. Its neon glow dulled. Without lowering his pistol, Joel released his Maglite. I could see his profile in the light’s halo, his eyes searching the nine bodies that lay at our feet. “How did you…I didn’t see them—”
“Joel, look at me.”
He put his arm across my chest and backed us up without lowering his pistol. Ten paces back, he stopped and met my eyes.
“I’m not fucking helpless. Stop being so overprotective. You gave me all that training. You gave me these knives.” I shook my arm at him. “Let me fucking use them.”
He blinked at me. “I know you’re trained, but you’re fucking dangerous.” A sigh. “Yet here you are, proving yourself again…” His eyes darted around. I waited while he worked it out.
Eventually, his muscled arm yanked me against his chest, squeezing. His lips moved against my brow. “You’re right. But I worry, okay? I’m an overprotective asshole and I fucking worry myself sick about you. I won’t take unnecessary risks with you. Everything I do has your safety in mind.
Everything
.” The last was a harsh whisper. He leaned back to peer at my face. “Next time, stick with the carbine. Like the pistol, those knives are last resort.”
I let it go as we looked back at the carnage. The glow of the last aphid faded. I pointed at it. “Can you see the glow?”
He squinted. “No.”
“Huh. I don’t get it. They were lit up like a goddamn howitzer. And they can’t see in the dark. I’m sure they couldn’t see us.”
He completed a three-sixty with the Maglite, probing the edge of the immediate yard. “Little pupils. Makes sense.”
“Yeah. And the buzzing? Did you hear them?”
He scratched his beard with his flashlight hand. “Yep. Right before I shot the dickless bastard.”
“The others buzzed too. Each one had its own tone or pitch. Like they were communicating. “
A horrible thought came to me as I stared at the bodies piled in a sticky black bath. “You don’t think…my fa—”
“No. Remember Eugene said he found your dad’s Rhino miles from here? And even if your dad turned into…you know he never went anywhere unarmed. He would have ended his life before he mutated.”
“Yeah.”
“Even if one of these things was someone you knew, after the mutation it’s not anymore. It would kill you as sure as you stand there. Don’t ever hesitate, okay?”
I didn’t want to have this conversation.
“Evie?” He waited for me to look at him. “You shoot to kill. Just like you did tonight. Even if it’s me.
Especially
if it’s me. Come on. We’ll do another patrol around the property and pray for no surprises inside.”
The distant purr of a motor interrupted the desolation. The hum came from the direction of Eugene’s house, my father’s only neighbor within an audible distance.
“The jeep,” he said. “Now.”
I didn’t question him. Concealment was hiding behind things that didn’t have a ballistic value, like weeds or car doors. True cover concealed and protected. The engine block.
He swapped out his side arm for his M4 and held it in high ready. “We can’t assume it’s Eugene. So be ready.”
I reloaded and mirrored his stance. Who else could it be?
The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
Anne Frank
The motor rumbled from behind the grove. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and flexed my fingers, loosening my grip on the carbine. Wind blustered through the canopy. An owl screeched.
Through the scope, two pairs of headlights emerged from the hill and hovered over the gravel road, slowing and bobbing at me. I filled my scope with the first driver. From the corner of my eye, Joel lowered his barrel and stepped around the bumper. The ATV skidded to a stop and a man leapt from it, grabbing Joel by the vest, swinging him around, laughing. Eugene
.
Then he saw me, set Joel down and whispered my name.
I clicked the safety on and lunged into his arms. He held me tight. A welcome home. Then he released me. “Aw, thank the Lord you’re safe. Y’all remember my boy, Steve?”
“Of course.” I extended my hand to the man on the second ATV.
Steve’s eyes were hidden behind a veil of black shaggy hair. He squeezed my hand. “Hey Evie. It’s been a while.” Then he smiled. “Damn, it’s good to see a friendly face.”
“Yeah.” I glanced at Joel. “We’ve been lonely too.”
Joel reached around me and shook Steve’s hand.
“Now what in tarnation was all that racket up here?” Eugene laughed, low and hearty. “Sounded like a pack of basset hounds on the Fourth of July.” He rocked back on his heels and rubbed the bowling ball belly that hung between his suspenders. He looked just the way I remembered. Greasy dark hair encircled a bald spot. A wiry beard framed full ruddy cheeks.
“Well Eugene,” Joel said. “Evie cleaned house. Come on, I’ll show you.” He glanced back at me with razor eyes. So, his mollycoddling wasn’t going to disappear overnight. I set my jaw, jut out my hip and strummed my fingers on the carbine. He went on his way.
Steve stayed.
“Have there been a lot of attacks here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Guess so, but we’ve been pretty isolated.” He leaned against the jeep and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I was in St. Louis when the outbreak hit. Saw a lot of shit I’d like to forget.”
I looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry.”
“We’re all survivors.” He sniffed. “I know you had little ones.”
I flinched and tried to cover it with a cough. Then I grabbed the cigarettes from the glove box and offered one to Steve.
We savored the nicotine in silence until Steve broke it. “How’d you kill those bastards in the dark anyway?”
“This”—I patted the carbine—“and the glowing skin helps.”
He arched his brows.
I took a final drag to settle my guts. The cherry flared and dulled. I thought about the aphids’ brief glow before they died. “Have you ever seen one in the dark?”
Steve looked away and muttered, “Yeah, my girlfriend.”
Wilted shoulders, tucked chin, and bruised eyes. I should’ve let it go, but asked, “She didn’t glow?”