Wolfen (3 page)

16 NE (New Era)

There it went. The last can of beans. They were officially
out of food, and as far as anyone could tell, their little ragtag group was all
that was left of the once-thriving city of San Francisco.

Sinna licked her spoon clean, refusing to waste a single
molecule of nourishment. She felt like hell, but then, they all did. Most of
them hadn’t stepped foot out of the underground rectory in so long, they
couldn’t remember what the outside looked like anymore.

Nate, their leader by virtue of his assault rifle, sometimes
scouted for food with David and Connor, but over the last few weeks, they’d
returned with nothing. Sinna suspected Nate and his seconds-in-command ate
whatever they found before they came back inside, but she had no evidence to
support that. All of them looked a small hop, skip, and a jump into the grave.

Night was coming on, depriving them of what little light
filtered in through the handful of ventilation holes torn into the ceiling and
the outside walls. Sinna drummed her spoon against her up-drawn knee, debating
what to do with it. Highly unlikely they’d ever again find food she could eat
with utensils, but she was reluctant to just toss it away.

Nate tapped his foot against a crate, and his hand on the
weapon in his lap. Something was eating at him—no pun intended. When he shoved
to his feet and started pacing, Sinna flinched. His camo uniform was covered
with dirt and dust, but his boots were in surprisingly good shape. She envied
him that. Her own had been pilfered off of a half-eaten corpse and were a size
too small for what she considered to be her abnormally gigantic feet. Two
months of wearing them had accomplished nothing but bloody blisters on her
heels and her big toe wearing a hole through the inside lining.

“This is it,” Nate said.

By the door, David and Connor sat up a little straighter.
They weren’t soldiers like Nate. David used to be a school teacher, and refused
to touch anything more lethal than a baseball bat. Connor, a former butcher,
liked to arm himself with knives and cleavers. He was slightly more heavyset
than the rest of them, which made him the logical choice for defensive brute
force. He’d lost his cleaver a few months back, but a number of his steak
knives were still in pretty good shape. He’d even found a decent-sized rock to
hone them on. For him, this was as good as it was going to get.

David and Connor didn’t exactly get along with each other,
but both followed Nate with the mindless obedience of lost sheep. One day, he’d
lead them to slaughter. Perhaps not intentionally, but Sinna knew it would
happen, and when it did, they’d obey without question.

“What’s it?” Sinna asked, since no one else seemed inclined.

With a huff, Nate paced another circuit, then took a knee in
the middle of the room. A longish lock of dirty brown hair fell over his eye.
He might as well have been posing for a fashion shot. He had the bone structure
for it, and those dark, mysterious eyes beneath a pair of sweeping eyebrows
with one set slightly higher than the other in a sometimes quizzical, sometimes
menacing way. Hard times had lent his features a sharp quality, just short of
starved. He had that whole renegade soldier thing going on. The look suited
him.

Nate swept his gaze over them, like a general about to go to
battle. It made Sinna nervous. “We always said we’d stay only as long as we had
a safe shelter and food to eat. We all agreed that a quick death out there was
better than starving down here.”

Sinna frowned. She could hear David gulp while Connor
rearranged himself on the stoop.

In the back corner, Amy clutched her son, Matt, even
tighter. A sixteen-year-old miracle child, born with the turn of ages. The only
reason he’d survived this long was because his mother refused to let him out of
her sight. Amy was desperately devoted to Matt; he was her reason for living.
If anyone would stand up to Nate on this crazy idea, she would, surely.

But Amy didn’t say a word. Instead, she hid her face behind
a fall of matted blonde hair.

“You can’t be serious,” Sinna said.

Nate gave her a grave nod. “I am.”

“You can’t mean to walk across the city with Tam in tow!”
The short, half-Chinese, half-Portuguese barista hadn’t spoken since her
boyfriend had to be put out of his misery a couple of weeks ago. Poor Jimmy. A
bad fall, a broken leg, and the resulting infection had put him half in the
grave.

Tam couldn’t handle it. She’d sobbed hysterically while
Jimmy had screamed in pain and fever-induced delirium. When Connor had done
what needed to be done, Tam had just…stopped. She’d turned catatonic. Nothing
got a reaction from her. She ate when hunger drove her to it and drank when
they gave her water, but that blank haze in her eyes never lifted. It probably
never would.

Nate ducked his head. “We may need to leave her behind.”

“How dare you!”

“Sinna, there’s nothing left. What do you want me to do?”

She pushed to her feet, clutching her spoon like a weapon.
“If you’re so eager for death, then turn that gun on yourself and blow your own
goddamn head off. You have no right to decide who lives and who dies.”

Nate stood to match her. “You think this is easy for me?”

“Yes. I think you’re just itching to get rid of us and go
off with your buddies over there.”

David scrambled up, too. “Now that’s not true! Tell her,
Nate.”

Ignoring him, the former soldier sighed tiredly, his
handsome face creasing with lines of strain. “I could have done that any day,”
he said, and in a softer tone added, “Why do you think I keep coming back?”

That was as close to a declaration as she’d ever allow him
to get. Tam was as good as a walking corpse. At thirty-four, Amy might have
been Nate’s age, but she was vicious when approached, and as long as she had
Matt with her, some last shred of human decency kept the men away.

But Sinna was still young, and she had no one, which made
her fair game. Nate watched her all the time; she felt his gaze on her so
often, she’d almost gotten used to the feeling, akin to warm slime oozing along
her skin. She’d allowed him to look because his attention seemed to keep the
others at bay, and he’d kept his own distance when she’d pushed back, almost
out of courtesy, as if he’d appointed himself her knight in shining armor,
willing to wait for her to make the first move.

If that status quo was changing, then Sinna was in deep
shit.

Taking a step back, she prepared to thoroughly lambast him,
when Amy spoke up. “He’s right, Sinna. We need to go. Now, while we still can.”

Sinna shook her head.

Old Isaac sat up on his pallet. “Listen, I don’t like it any
more than you do, but the fact is, we ain’t gettin’ any younger, you know what
I mean?” In his late fifties, Isaac was physically the weakest, with bad knees
that locked up, making him limp if he moved around for too long. Whenever Nate
and his crew went out to gather, Isaac guarded the door. He should have been
the voice of reason among them. How could he agree to this?

“Isaac, what if you can’t keep up?”

“Thought about it. I’m willing to take the risk.”

“So we’re going to sacrifice the old and weak, so the rest
of us can live? Amy, what if Matt falls behind?”

Amy started rocking the boy. He heard what they discussed
but, with a sick sort of trust, he never said a word in opposition. He’d never
known a world without his mother, and as long as Amy made decisions for him,
he’d never make one on his own.

“How about we put it to a vote?” David suggested, adjusting
the frames of his glasses. Sinna didn’t know why he bothered wearing them. The
lenses had gotten smashed out years ago.

Sinna looked at each of them in turn—all people who’d seen
the worst of what humanity could do, who’d watched their world get torn apart.
The eight of them could very well be the last people anywhere on Earth, and
they had nothing left to fight for. Except for Tam and Matt, every one of them
looked ready to walk out and risk becoming a banquet for Grays.

Maybe they were right. Maybe it was time to move on.

“No,” Sinna whispered in defeat, “you win. We’ll leave.”

Nate’s shoulders sagged, and he smiled, raising his arms to
hug her. Sinna stepped out of his reach, disgusted by the gesture offered like
a treat to an obedient pet.

His smile dimmed somewhat, but he must have interpreted her
retreat as fear because he said, “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe, I promise.
And Tam—”

“I’m not leaving her behind,” Sinna decreed. No way in hell
would she walk out of here and leave that girl to the monsters.

“Sinna—”

“She can walk on her own, and she’s quiet. I’ll guide her if
I have to, but I’m not letting her stay here to rot.”

Nate’s mouth twisted. In the three years she’d known him,
he’d never shown a hint of temper; ever the level-headed soldier with a gun.
Now, he seemed to seriously contemplate choking the life out of her.

Sinna refused to back down. There were some lines she
refused to cross. She had to believe there was still good in people. If they
left someone defenseless behind to die, they’d be no better than the monsters
everyone feared so much.

“Fine,” Nate growled when Sinna wouldn’t let him win the
staring contest. “Get some rest, everyone. We leave in the morning.”

I dream of Gerry—her face, her smile, the creases of her
wrinkles when she laughs, explaining some ancient concept of satire. I dream of
her reading beautiful words from books that will never be read again. I hear
her tell me I may be the last to learn in this way; that civilization has
shattered, and what few pockets remain whole will be on par with cavemen. I
understand all this, which pleases her. She tells me she loves me. I am her
world, her sunshine.

But she calls me Sigma Nine.

Something is wrong.

And then the Grays come, and she screams…

~

Sinna started awake, slapping a hand over her mouth to
stifle a scream. No loud noises. Not ever. Intellectually, she knew it wouldn’t
matter; Grays were so hard of hearing, she could blare heavy metal music
through a bullhorn and they wouldn’t notice. Still, that subconscious
evolutionary mechanism built into her DNA whispered to stay hidden. Stay quiet,
and don’t make a move.

She wheezed for air, chanting to herself,
Calm, calm,
calm
. Years of practice had honed her instincts. She slowed her breathing,
calmed her heart, though her senses remained on high alert as she scanned the
dim room. Not quite day yet, but close enough. The sun had come up recently.
High time to get moving.

The others were rousing as well, faces grim, but determined.

Nate checked his weapon, Connor inspected his knives. David
shoved his baseball bat with its handle cracked down the middle through his
belt like a sword. It was all for show. If Grays showed up, he’d probably die
before he could wrestle it out to use.

“How are you feeling, Isaac?” Sinna asked.

“Creaking,” he said with a gap-toothed grin. “How you doin’,
beautiful girl?”

“Let’s move out,” Nate ordered, taking a stand by the door.
Last night, he’d explained the formation he expected them to keep: Nate would
lead to scout the way, with David behind him as second, followed by the women,
Matt and Isaac after them, while Connor took up the rear to sound the alarm if
anything moved.

While Amy smoothed out Matt’s shirt, Sinna went over to Tam.
She wasn’t usually this sound a sleeper. “Rise and shine, Tammy girl. We’re
going for a walk.” She gave Tam’s shoulder a shake. “Tam?”

Nothing.

“Tam…”

A harder shake made Tam roll onto her back, head turning
toward Sinna. Blue lips parted, sightless eyes wide open.

“No…”

Her pasty-white skin had already cooled, but rigor mortis
hadn’t set in yet. Sinna pressed her fingers to Tam’s neck in a pointless
gesture, shaking her head in denial. “What did you do?” she whispered.

“Come on,” Nate said, “we’re burning daylight.”

Sinna’s world narrowed to a point. Tam’s eyes stared at her
in accusation. Blood roared in her ears, drowning out indistinct voices that
could have come from either within or without. Part of her mind said the others
were rallying, demanding to know what had happened to the poor, defenseless
girl lying so still on the floor. But she didn’t hear. She didn’t feel anything
except a rage so powerful it filled every cell of her body from head to toe,
and finally made her move.

Sinna stumbled to her feet. “
What did you do!
” She
blindly shoved Amy and Connor aside to lay into Nate. “
You son of a bitch,
you killed her!
” She struck out, kicking and hitting, but Nate deflected
her blows, slapped her flailing arms away with laughable ease.

One good grab, and Nate wrenched her arms behind her back,
pressed her chest to his. His hand nearly covered the back of her head as he forced
her face against his shoulder in some caveman attempt to comfort her. “Shh!” he
hissed. No loud noises—ever.

Sinna didn’t care. She writhed in his hold, bucking to get
free and making no progress whatsoever as he rocked her like a fucking child.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Isaac had pushed to his
feet, but David held him back. Not that the old man could do anything anyway.
He kept looking between Tam on the floor and Sinna in Nate’s arms, shaking and
unsteady on his feet.

Sinna seethed, pinned so tight, she could barely breathe,
let alone fight. Amy was crying as if it had been her own child murdered.
Too
fucking late!
Where had that compassion been last night? Where had her
righteous anger been when Nate had sneaked across the room,
stepping over
Amy and Matt, so he could snuff Tam out? Had Amy heard him? Had she grabbed her
baby boy and turned away?

“I made a judgment call,” Nate snapped at them, squeezing
Sinna until her nose felt one pound of pressure away from breaking. She could
smell her own blood, and it made her livid. “She wouldn’t have made it anyway,
and she would have cost us more lives. I couldn’t allow that.”

“This ain’t right.” Isaac shook his head, voice trembling.
“It wasn’t your call to make.”

“Don’t look, baby,” Amy sobbed to her son. Sinna imagined
the woman rocking Matt in the same way Nate rocked her now—to subdue. Nothing
about Nate’s hold offered comfort. He only clutched her as he did, because the
moment he let go, she’d kill him. Every second he held her, Sinna’s skin burned
with hate. She couldn’t stand his touch.

With a muffled scream, she wriggled to gain some leverage,
then hiked her knee up, managing to tap Nate’s privates just enough to get him
to release her. “Murderer,” she snarled and, curling her fingers in, punched
him with all her might. The satisfaction of seeing his knee hit the floor
buffered the pain that radiated from her wrist. “How long before you put a
bullet through Isaac’s head because he slows us down?” she demanded. “Or
Matt’s, or Amy’s?”

“Nate,” Connor warned, “shut her up.” He’d drawn two of his
blades, staring at Sinna through small, mole-like eyes. One word from his
leader and he’d do it himself—permanently. Sinna itched to knock some sense
into him.

Nate motioned for Connor to stand down as he picked himself
up. “What’s done is done,” he declared softly, spitting blood. He assessed
Sinna as if seeing her for the first time, but did not engage again. “I’m
sorry,” he told her, “but here now, or out there later, Tam was already dead.
It was only a matter of time. She was a friend to us all, and I, for one, would
have been grateful for a bloodless death like that.”

“You should have told us that last night,” Sinna snapped. “I
would have obliged you.”

Connor took a step forward, but Nate’s glare stopped him in
his tracks.
Noted
, she thought. She wouldn’t be turning her back on
either of them.

“You killed her,” Isaac said. “
You
did. You chose to
end a life, and that’s on your soul, son. No one else’s.”

Amy murmured to Matt, removing both of them from the
discussion.

“Fine,” Nate said. “I concede to that. And I consider the
matter closed.” He looked directly at Isaac, hand on the butt of his rifle to
make it clear he wouldn’t tolerate further arguments. Then he turned to Sinna,
though addressed all of them. “Now, you’ve got a choice. Come along, or stay
behind. What’s it gonna be?” Gone was the knight in shining armor. There was
nothing left of him but a soulless soldier about to head into battle knowing a
certain percentage of his unit would die.

He knew, and he was okay with it.

Sinna gaped as understanding dawned. No, not just okay. He
was
planning
on it! “You’re bringing us along as bait!”

Nate shrugged. “Any one of us could be bait. That’s the strength
in numbers, babe. It ups your odds of survival. Gives the enemy somebody else
to shoot at.”

Amy occupied Matt with some bullshit assurances while her
son nodded listlessly. They could be the next to go. Or Isaac, who was even now
massaging his right knee. Connor was the blade. Nate would want to keep him
alive as long as possible, if for no other reason than as an additional guard,
and would protect him over anyone else. With the weak ones down—as Nate said
they would be, sooner or later—David and Sinna were the next expendables.

This was the choice Nate had put before her: sacrifice the
others to save herself, or play the martyr and go off alone. For a moment, she
was tempted. Oh, how tempted! She had plenty of know-how to evade Grays, and
she could scavenge or hunt to sustain herself. But if she left, there’d be no
one to look after the weak ones. Nate would throw them to the monsters in a
heartbeat, if he thought it would “up his odds.”

The worst part? The others knew it, too. But in their desperate
circumstances, they had no one else to turn to. They put all of their trust in
the murdering son of a bitch with a gun, because they had no other choice.

Bile rose in Sinna’s throat, but she ruthlessly pushed it
down. Isaac had no more fight left in him, Amy and Matt were effectively null
and void, and Connor would leap at the chance to get rid of extra baggage.
They’d all do as ordered.

Sinna looked to David, who clutched the knob of his bat,
eyes transfixed on Tam’s lifeless body. He hadn’t said a word this whole time.
Shock. There’d be no help from him. Once again, she was defeated.

When she still hadn’t answered—because she refused to
dignify Nate’s decree with any sort of response—he turned his back on her and
headed for the door. Everyone filed behind him in formation as they’d been
instructed, except for Sinna, who waved Connor on with a mocking bow so she’d
be the last one out.

Nate checked the stairway, then signaled it was safe.
Together, they crept up to the main level of the rectory where thick dust
covered the once-gleaming wooden floor in a dull grayish-brown. At the pulpit,
the massive crucifix had been broken into three parts, the metal form of Jesus
bent over the altar beneath the weight of his wooden cross.

Nothing had been disturbed. Nate and his crew always used
the same path going in and going out, always stepping into their own
footprints. No marks indicated anyone else had been there in a very long time.

It meant nothing. Or at least very little. The real danger
was outside.

It took Nate, Connor, and David together to remove the bar
and open the wooden double doors. The hinges groaned so loudly, Sinna held her
breath, expecting to hear screeches at any moment. When nothing happened, Nate
stepped out, big commando man taking the lead, and all of them followed behind.

First time in months Sinna had seen the outside world, and
it was an eerie feeling. No sounds—no animals, birds, or even insects.
Buildings had been burned or looted long ago. Cars had crashed left and right;
rusted wrecks and jagged pieces of metal littered the road. Every so often,
something would flit across a window above, and Sinna’s heart would skip a
beat, until she recognized it as the movement of a drapery or piece of
clothing.

They followed the street until they hit a makeshift
barricade barely tall enough to obscure what might have been on the other side.
It made Sinna’s chest ache. The wall wouldn’t have slowed Grays down, and
whoever had toiled so diligently to build it would have died in seconds when
the packs came hunting. Structures like this only attracted them.

Nate slung the rifle across his back and climbed up to help
the rest of them. They hoisted Amy up first, followed by Matt. Isaac took a
little more time, but he managed.

Then Nate held a hand out for Sinna.

She wouldn’t take it. Instead, using David’s shoulder, she
levered herself up on her own, shoving past Nate on her way across. He caught
her elbow, no doubt ready to say something. But one look at her face and he
changed his mind, using his hold to help her down instead.

“David,” Nate said when they were all across, “go check
inside those stores over there.”

David frowned. “What?”

“There might be food.”

“You want me to go by myself?”

“One will attract less attention than two.”

“By that logic,” Sinna chimed in, “we should all split up
now and go our separate ways.”

Nate speared her with a venomous glare. “Be my guest.”

She raised her chin and glared right back. “Come on, Dave,
I’ll go with you,” she said, without taking her eyes from Nate.

David wrestled the bat from his belt and adjusted his
glasses. God, if a single Gray showed up, they were dead.

“Wait,” Nate growled and, cursing under his breath, reached
into one of his many pockets to pull out a hand gun.

Sinna frowned. “How many of those do you have?”

He checked the magazine, snapped it back into place, and
handed it to Sinna. “You know how to work this?”

“What,
now
you want to share? Did you guys know he
had an extra gun?”

“Jesus, Sinna, what is your problem?” Connor griped. In daylight,
his ugliness was glaring—an asymmetric brutish face with a flat, wide nose, one
nostril visibly bigger than the other, and Cro-Magnon brow bones over small,
deep-set, freakishly pale green eyes so close together they were nearly lost
beneath his bushy eyebrows. His teeth were crooked, which gave him a slight
lisp and the illusion of fangs he liked to bare to intimidate. Not a face you
wanted to wake up next to.

And he was just as ugly on the inside.

Nate, at least, had some decency left; he’d kept order among
them for this long. If not for Nate and his assault rifle, Sinna was certain
Connor would have gone savage on them all by now.

“My problem is being kept in the dark,” she returned.
Literally
and figuratively.

And there Connor went, baring his fangs.

Isaac rubbed the back of his head. “She has a point, Nate.”
He ignored Connor completely. The butcher was a guard dog; Nate held the leash.
Noting the dangerous gleam in his eyes, though, Sinna wondered how much longer
Connor could be contained.