Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5) (9 page)

She smiled and inched closer.

“You don’t mean us any harm. Do you, big fella?”

The huge beast lowered his trunk and turned his head slightly, shifting the enormous tusks away from her. She extended her hand, and the elephant brought his trunk around to inspect what she was holding. He touched her palm with the tip of his trunk and pinched it lightly with two finger-like extensions.

“Go ahead. You can have them. They’re good.”

He pinched some of the raisins and curled his trunk under to stuff them into his mouth. Samantha used her other hand to stroke the front of the elephant’s trunk. His skin felt thick and rubbery, like a pencil eraser, but it was also warm and covered in small wiry hairs. The elephant reached forward again and finished off the last of the raisins.

Samantha slid her hand over to gently touch his ear. The tip of the flap was thin, but the base felt thick and warm. As she lightly rubbed his ear, the elephant made a chirping noise.

“Careful, Sam,” Tanner said, not at all sure that befriending a twelve-thousand-pound creature was ever a good idea.

“It’s all right,” she said over her shoulder. “He doesn’t want to hurt me.” She turned back to the elephant and continued to stroke his ear. “Do you, boy?”

The elephant brought his trunk back up and gently touched her face.

“See,” she said, looking back at Tanner. “He wants to be friends.”

A huge glob of warm mucus suddenly blasted from the elephant’s trunk, spraying across Samantha’s face and chest. To her credit, she didn’t scream or jump away. Instead, she reached up, wiped the snot from her face, and flicked it to the ground. Then she turned back to the elephant and glared.

“That was
not
nice.”

He blinked once and then dropped a pile of dung behind him. Before she could chasten him further, he turned and lumbered down the trail.

Samantha stood dumbfounded, covered in the sticky brown goo, listening as two sounds echoed through the forest... the soft thumping of the elephant’s footsteps and the hysterical laughter of a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound escaped convict.

Chapter 7  

Mason stepped over a section of barbed-wire fencing that had blown into the road from a nearby farm. He turned and helped Leila over the small obstacle.

“I appreciate you letting me travel with you for a bit, Marshal.”

“Last time I refused to let a woman come along, she nearly shot me,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m trying to learn from my mistakes.”

“Your girlfriend?”

Mason thought about his relationship with Connie West. While they had been lovers for a short time and had even managed to part as friends, neither label seemed to fit.

“We were something.”

She smiled and nodded. “Relationships are complicated.”

“Tell me again why you want to go into Lexington.”

“It’s simple, really. Someone needs to tell people what happened here. It’s all part of the broader tragedy that started with the pandemic.”

“Do you think anyone’s really going to listen?”

She shrugged. “Maybe not today, but one day they will. Who knows, they might even demand that justice be brought to those who created the virus.”

Like Leila, Mason had long assumed that Superpox-99 was a biological weapon, but with world governments having all but collapsed, he thought it very doubtful that anyone would ever discover its true origin.

“No one involved is ever going to come clean about how this thing got out.”

“They may not have to. You know what they say about secrets?”

“What’s that?”

“It takes a lot of people to keep them.”

He shrugged. “You may be right. Someone may let it slip.”

“Besides, even if the truth remains hidden, perhaps my work will help future generations to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again.”

“You’re assuming that mankind will still be around in a hundred years.”

“We’ll make it,” she said confidently. “We always do.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, “I suppose you’re right.”

“For now, we must all find reasons to go on.”

“Our personal missions.”

She smiled. “Exactly.”

“And yours is to document the darkest chapter in mankind’s history? It seems like a terribly dreary job.”

“Maybe, but when I’m finished, the world will have a little closure.”

Mason nodded thoughtfully. “It sounds like a noble cause.”

“And you, Marshal? Why are you out here?”

“I suppose I’m doing what I was born to do.”

“Bringing criminals to justice?”

“Holding people accountable.”

She eyed him. “That almost sounds like you’re driven more by revenge than justice.”

“It depends on the day.”

Leila paused and then said, “Do you mind if I ask how many men you’ve killed over the years?”

Mason considered the question for a moment. It was the kind of thing people asked lawmen from time to time, and he thought the answer often said more about their character than their prowess with a gun.

“Too many,” he said softly. “And not enough.”

She squinted at him.

“I sense you’re a hard man, Marshal Raines.” She cracked a small smile. “But a fair one too.”

“I suppose.”

“And revenge or not, I suspect that your quest is as noble as my own.”

“You think so?”

“Look around you.” She slowly spun in a circle with her arms outstretched. “The world is without rules or order, men acting on their basest instincts. Yet here you are with your gun and your giant dog, out trying to set things right. Sounds pretty noble to me.”

He nodded his appreciation.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m on a fool’s errand, a regular Don Quixote out battling windmills.”

“Perhaps you are,” she laughed. “But think about it. Those are often the noblest quests of them all.”

Bowie began barking, and they hurried ahead to see what he had found. The wolfhound was standing directly beneath the I-75 overpass, cars of every shape, size, and color jamming the interstate above. The shockwave had thrown a few of the cars through the concrete railing, and they now lay on Winchester Road, upside down and smashed.

Mason and Leila carefully stepped through the minefield of broken glass and twisted sheet metal. In a world with limited access to medical care, an infected cut could be a death sentence. Bowie had his nose stuck in one of the cars that was lying upside down, and they squatted beside him to take a look inside.

The lifeless bodies of a woman and her teenage son dangled from their seatbelts, bones poking through punctured flesh and blood pooling on the headliner of the car.

“Poor souls,” Leila said in a heavy voice. “They survived the pandemic only to be killed weeks later by something as unlikely as a nuclear blast. It’s not fair.”

Mason said nothing. Questions about what was fair or unfair seemed irrelevant. Life put forward challenges, and it was up to the individual to adapt and survive. He’d gotten that much from his father.

Leila slid the camera off her shoulder and snapped a few photos of the unlucky pair.

“I know it must seem terribly morbid, but the human suffering has to be documented.”

Mason stood back up. “I hope you have plenty of film because, believe me, this is just the beginning.”

“Now that you mention it, I could use a spare memory card.”

“And the battery? How do you plan to recharge that?”

She patted her backpack. “Solar charger. I found it in a sporting goods store. The whole thing rolls up like a small rug, and it only take a few hours to fully recharge the battery.”

“Pretty clever.”

She shrugged. “I’m finding my way.”

They continued ahead with Bowie taking point. The four-lane road quickly became congested with cars, many of them flipped onto their sides or smashed into one another. The bright yellow sign for a Super-8 motel towered off to the right, and a Lowe’s Home Improvement store sat to their left. One entire wall of the Lowe’s had collapsed, and an assortment of light bulbs, plumbing fixtures, paint cans, and lumber lay spread across the parking lot. The motel had fared a bit better with only shattered windows and parts of its roof missing.

Mason shielded his eyes from the sun and surveyed the city ahead. Hotels and restaurants lined the street for the next few blocks. Beyond that lay a small mousetrap where Winchester Road crossed over the city’s bypass. It was impossible to see much farther than that because the clean structural lines once provided by buildings had been replaced by indistinguishable mounds of rubble.

Seeing him staring off into the city, Leila asked, “What makes you so sure that Lenny’s downtown?”

“Call it a hunch. I’ve spent much of my life finding people who didn’t want to be found, and it usually involves understanding their needs.”

“And how exactly would you know Lenny’s needs?”

“He was trying to build a kingdom, right?”

“I suppose.”

“And what does every kingdom need?”

She thought for a moment, and then a smile came to her lips.

“A castle.”

“Exactly. And the closest thing to a castle around here would be one of the office buildings downtown.”

“Still, that leaves a lot—”

She stopped when she saw him turn to scan the horizon.

“What is it?”

While Mason couldn’t yet see anything, he detected a faint thumping sound in the air. Without saying a word, he grabbed Leila’s arm and pulled her behind a nearby minivan.

“What is it?” she repeated.

He pointed to two black helicopters approaching from the east.

“Trouble.”

“It’s probably the military out surveying the damage. We might be able to catch a ride in.” She started to stand up and wave her arms.

Mason pulled her back behind cover.

“They’re not here to help.”

She turned to him with a confused look on her face.

“How would you know that?”

Mason watched as the helicopters came closer. If they didn’t change their current flight path, they would fly directly over his and Leila’s position.

“Who do you think did this?” he asked.

“I assumed it was some kind of accident. What else could it be?”

He shook his head. “This was no accident. It was a military strike, intentional and with purpose.”

“What purpose? What are you talking about?”

Before he could answer, Bowie appeared from around the other end of the van.

“Come here, boy,” Mason said, waving him over.

The dog sauntered over and flopped down between them.

The sound of the helicopters grew louder, and the air around them began to vibrate. As the aircraft approached, Mason saw that they were not typical military issue. They had a large rear ring tail propeller and two small lifting wings that extended from either side. A gunner leaned out from the open door of the closest helicopter, his face streaked in black paint.

Catching sight of them, Bowie growled and struggled to get to his feet.

“Easy boy,” Mason said, holding him down. “This isn’t the time for a fight.”

Bowie settled back down but used the opportunity to inch his way onto Mason’s lap. The dog was so big that his head and front paws hung off one side, and his hind legs hung off the other. Mason couldn’t help but laugh. Like many large canines, Bowie fancied himself a bit of a lap dog.

Leila pulled her camera free and discreetly snapped pictures as the helicopters passed overhead.

Trying to talk over the noise, she said, “What kind of helicopters are those?”

“You ever heard of the X-49 SpeedHawk?”

She shook her head.

“They’re prototypes,” he explained, “designed to outfly the UH-60 Blackhawk in just about every way possible.” Mason had seen photos of the experimental helicopters but hadn’t been aware that they’d ever been fielded.

When the air finally quieted around them, Leila turned to him.

“You know something about this. Something you haven’t told me.” Even though her words were direct, her tone was soft, suggesting she understood that he owed her nothing.

Mason stared off at the helicopters, weighing how much of the story to share. Most of what he knew was circumstantial, pieces forced together to form a puzzle that remained incomplete. Still, it was better that someone else knew. Leila was resourceful and in search of answers herself. If something were to happen to him, she might well continue his quest to expose the perpetrators.

“I believe the blast was meant to kill Lenny Bruce.”

She studied him. “Why would anyone launch a nuclear missile to kill one man?”

“He was involved in a plot to overthrow President Glass.”

“Even so, our government wouldn’t destroy an entire city to kill one terrorist.”

“You don’t understand. This wasn’t about killing a terrorist. It was about quieting a co-conspirator.”

“What are you saying? That people in the government were involved in planning a coup?”

“More like they were working to disrupt the country’s recovery, hoping that the discontent would drive a change in leadership.”

“And Lenny was to be an instrument of that discontent?”

“Exactly.”