Monster of the Apocalypse (16 page)

C
arrie. Carrie. Yeah, it sounded good. The young woman formerly known as Hey You decided that Carrie would be her name from now on. The ugly joke was over.

She stepped outside with Bregor at her side. He stayed so close that he occasionally touched her knee as she walked. His attention revolved around the toy in her hands as much as her. As they arrived at the midway point in the open space, she threw the stuffed duck. Bregor could not contain himself. He bounded in typical Rottweiler fashion after it. Bringing it back covered in slobber, his ugly face twisted in a big, wet grin.

Carrie leaned down. She cupped the scarred face in her hands and laid her forehead on his.

He did not want to release the toy, but with gentle, constant pressure and a command word, he let go. Bregor did not miss his old life at all. His new life had started. He was already comfortable with it.

After a short time, Carrie decided it was time to go for a short walk. She let Bregor carry his duck.

That night the dog slept at her bedside again.

Lecti woke with a start. She rolled over and noted that Deo was sleeping beside her. Eleon must have carried her in and laid her back on her sleeping bag. He was not in sight. She felt the hair rise on her arms. A premonition. Rising and padding to the rail outside, she looked over. Eleon’s bike was gone.

Standing over Lecti after he deposited her on her bag, Eleon came to a conclusion. He could not allow these two kids to come along on this part of the journey. Hal did not know that Eleon was traveling with them. Eleon had left before Zip and Cotton, and before Deo and Lecti went back to find Toshi dead. There was no reason to think that Hal would suspect any association if he showed up again. He should be able to walk right in, just as he had before.

The key from Jenny found a home in his pocket as he walked past. His bike was light as he pushed it downhill to the main road. The bike was not very loud anyway, and as he accelerated from the condo access, he was sure the kids were still sleeping.

Confidence.
That was going to get Eleon in the door without suspicion. He pulled up in front as though he owned the place.

There were no dogs in front. The chains lay limp on the cement. Two bowls hugged the wall close to one chain, and the other had none. Strange, Eleon thought. He was expecting the
dogs.

The door was unlocked. He did not remember if the door was locked before, but he would have expected it of Hal. Eleon pushed through, cautiously. No one greeted him. No one challenged him. He began to wonder if there was anyone home. He slipped to one side and found the shadows.

Eleon was stymied. He couldn’t just stay here and wait. He only had so much time. Finally working around the room to the bottom of the stair, he started to ascend. He would check on the girl first. He drew a pistol from a holster hidden under his jacket.

Halfway up the stair, things went bad suddenly. A roaring, scarred beast of gnashing fangs and flying saliva broke from the hallway that entered on the stair landing. He bounced on his front legs, rear end lowered to facilitate a leap as he moved aggressively toward Eleon. Teeth and eyes
flashing, the rumble coming from his throat left no room for mistaking his intentions.

Eleon pointed his weapon. He hoped his first shot would be good. The stair was not going to be to his advantage if he had to retreat. It would be worse if he had to fight this brute off. It was obvious that there was no time to try to calm the beast. His trigger finger tightened.

“No!”

The exclamation almost made Eleon fire. His adrenaline pumping, he pulled back the gun.

The dog dropped immediately. It was almost as if Eleon had pulled the trigger. The animal still eyed him with a low, malevolent growl and a curled lip. But the beast was on the floor. Not in a stance of aggression.

Looking up, Eleon expected to find Hal pointing a gun at him. The voice crying out the command had not registered.

A young woman stepped from the hall. She looked hard at Eleon, her gun aimed at the ground to her side, but ready. She moved forward slowly in the dim light. Suddenly her face lit up.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you. What are you doing back here?”

It took a moment. The voice was vaguely familiar. Then it dawned. This was the girl that smelled so bad. Except it was definitely not the same girl. This girl was beautiful.

Deo yelped as Lecti kicked him in the kidney. He rolled over and exclaimed angrily, “What?!
What’s going on?!”

“Get up, Eleon’s gone.” Lecti was already rushing to the stairs with her shotgun. “The bike’s gone, too. Get your ass up, now. We’ve got to catch him.”

By the time Lecti finished her exclamation, she was charging out the door.

Deo was right behind her. He didn’t stop to put his shoes or his shirt on. He grabbed the rifle and the shoes and hurried down and out of the condo barefoot.

Sliding the scattergun into its sheath, Lecti pointed to the driver’s seat.

“You drive. And give me the rifle.”

While Deo put his shoes on, she checked the breach and made sure it was loaded.

Deo jumped in and suddenly paused. A puzzled look came over his face.

Lecti did not understand. “What are you waiting for?”

“The key, Lecti.
The key is gone.”

She looked. Deo was right.

Carrie introduced herself by her new name. It felt right. It felt good. She did not know this man, but she had once given him a kindness. He had seemed to appreciate it. Indicating the lobby floor, she invited him to retreat down the stairs. Bregor padded down, practically glued to her left knee. The training when Hal was out hunting or scavenging was paying off. Waving a hand, she suggested that the man sit. He did.

The conversation was short but intense. Eleon found out that Hal was dead, but not how. Carrie asked if he had seen the other dog, and from that, Eleon found out that Lilly was missing. The young woman seemed relieved that the dog was gone. She asked why he was back.

Explaining that he was now traveling with companions, Carrie at first thought he meant Zip and Cotton. He straightened out the misconception immediately, and she was elated to find he meant Lecti and Deo and that they were back in town. Eleon had to explain why they weren’t with him. He admitted that he was intending to kill Hal himself. He also confessed that it was Lecti’s idea to rescue her. She took his hand and thanked him when he told her. Tears welled.

Carrie got up and moved to the windows. She told Bregor to stay.
Eleon would rather the dog go with her.

A small sob escaped Carrie, but when she turned around she looked at him with clear eyes.

The dog was nosing his leg. Eleon knew it would be alright.

“So what happens now?” asked Carrie.

“I don’t know exactly, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

A year later a group picture was in order. The camcorder was hooked up to a computer, and the group posed and laughed as they made faces. Finally, a suitably serious photograph was picked and printed. Carrie framed it, and hung it in a place of honor on the lobby wall.

From the wall they looked out at the future. Eleon sat in front, his hair a little more silver grey, his face slightly more wrinkled. His hand rose to his shoulder where it cupped his wife’s. She smiled a smile that only Lecti could. In her other arm, a small bundle of warmth gurgled and cooed. Her son had her blue eyes and Eleon’s dark hair. Beside her, Carrie held one hand on her growing belly. Deo had lightened her unborn child’s skin. It would never be the beautiful ebony black of his mother’s, but she would love him anyway, just as she loved Deo. Carrie’s free hand held his, out of the camera’s view. Deo stood tall with the beginnings of his new beard. It was thin, but he was proud of it. Bregor lay at their feet, looking up at them and ignoring the camera, a doggy smile on his lips.

H
eat boiled from every surface. The dry air moved sluggishly, creating wavy, ill-defined optical anomalies in the distance. Though Hawthorne, Nevada, could be brutally cold in the winter, summers were equally extreme in the opposite direction. At least the wind wasn’t blowing.

Zip had changed in the years of his abandonment. Once pride and vanity had been a priority, keeping him meticulously groomed. Now he made no effort whatsoever. There was no one to impress but himself. Feral eyes squinting in the brightness, he contemplated his day.

He had limited choices. He could hunt. Most of his options in that respect would be jackrabbits, cats, or wild dogs that managed to exist on the rabbits, cats, and the occasional antelope or mustang carcass. He made an effort to keep from killing them off completely for the simple entertainment factor in having them to hunt.

Scavenging houses and shops had become old. There were only so many times that a building could be searched before anything of interest was found.

A movie? The equipment still operated, but he knew them all so well that he could recite every line before it was spoken. Music was similarly too familiar. Books held no interest. He hadn’t the imagination or patience to enjoy them.

One of the few fantasies he indulged was getting out of town. He thought about it almost as often as he thought about what he would do if he caught up to Cotton. His thirst for revenge didn’t stop there, however. Within days of being marooned he had an epiphany. While wondering why the dark stranger had declined to take his life, he suddenly realized that it must have been Deo that instigated being chased down. His hate for the old man whose name he had never learned gave way to a sure and steady lust for a chance to get even with Deo. Even though part of his realization included that Deo pursued him because he had beaten that bitch, Toshi, to death, he never made the connection that his situation might be his own fault and ended better than he deserved.

Vehicles that could have afforded his exit from town were plentiful enough. They just didn’t run. As a remote community heavily populated by the military, and because of their need for dry air storage bunkers, electric vehicles with limited ranges never caught on. The internal combustion alternatives failed to be viable as their fuel went bad. Not that there were no electric vehicles. The sudden rush of desperate travelers running from danger, or toward safety, in the last days of and immediately after the plagues, had scavenged most for parts. The ones they missed had become useless from the extreme temperature variations and time. It was frustrating to find a visually perfect mode of transportation and not be able to make it run.

Zip resorted to horses for a brief time. He corralled several, but between his temper and his lack of experience in training or breaking them, things went badly. He ate his failures.

That left shoe leather as an exit strategy. Zip considered it, but it all came down to one thing in the end. He was afraid to take his chances in the desert on foot.

He bided his time.

On this stifling day, as Zip gazed down the road to Las Vegas and thought about what might break the monotony, he saw an approaching cloud of dust in the distance. It gave him hope.

As the stranger approached, he hesitated at the edge of town. He was hungry and tired. It would be good to find a safe place to hole up for the next several hours until the cool of the evening made travel more attractive. Since he had left Vegas, stopping every hundred miles or so to recharge his bike, he hadn’t seen any signs of human life and wasn’t expecting to. Now he was surprised to see the figure of a man sitting in the shadow of a gas station overhang, casually leaning a chair back against the building as though waiting for him.

Well-traveled and road weary, he decided from the relaxed posture of the sitting man that he would be safe in approaching. Still, he was cautious. He moved his bike forward slowly.

Zip sat quietly, tilted back in his chair. He had to be patient to lull this man into his grip. When the stranger got close enough, Zip leaned forward touching the chair legs down lightly. He stood, raising his arms from his sides in an attitude of submission. It was taking a risk, but in the end would make things easier if he could get close.

The stranger hesitated.

Zip spoke.
“Gettin’ hot. I’ve got cold drinks and could stand some conversation if you’re interested. We don’t get much news lately.”

Evaluating each other, they both stood lightly, ready to retreat to whatever cover they could find. A full minute passed in silence as they weighed each other.

Finally…“Who’s we?” asked the newcomer.

Zip considered, and decided to go with a lie that he thought would make the situation less threatening.

“My wife, two kids, and my wife’s sister.”

The last he added as an enticement, allowing the stranger to think there might be an available female. It wouldn’t hurt, and might be just the thing to reel him in.

“Where are they?”

“Other end of town by now.
They’re headed out to the lake to go swimming.” Zip felt the other man relax as his lie worked.

Still, the rider remained cautious.

Zip had been checking out the bike the man was astride. It looked serviceable, and he recognized the brand. His interest was a mistake. As his gaze came back to meet the other’s, the stranger’s eyes were hard. Zip realized the man was suspicious. He had given himself away by being interested in the bike. He had to defuse the situation.

“That’s a Torsion bike, isn’t it? I’ve got a couple just like it.” He lied again.

The stranger relaxed. “Yeah, it is. What kind of drinks have you got?”

“C’mon, let’s see.”

Zip led the way inside, turning his back. Another calculated risk. He invited the newcomer to make a choice.

In his haste and thirst, the stranger bent to retrieve a bottle. Turning to face Zip and thank him, he barely noticed as Zip’s blade slid softly under his ribs and pricked his heart.