The Stranger (17 page)

Twenty-five

Zak sounded cool . . . in control. But he wasn’t dragging his feet. “There are hundreds of hornets down in the valley,” he called as he loped toward us.

Michaela shielded her eyes as she looked down to-ward the lakes. “Are they coming this way?”

“They don’t seem to be, but you can never tell with those sly bastards. They might be doing that on purpose; then they could double back over the hill to en-circle us.”

Ben jogged up, scared-looking. “I guess this is where we leave pronto.”

“Not yet,” Michaela said. “There’s no point in running until we know their intentions.”

Zak nodded. “This is a good place to stay for a few days. They might just pass straight by.”

Tony appeared with a pair of binoculars. He climbed a fence to stand astride the rail. For a good thirty seconds or so he studied the men and women flowing by in the valley bottom. From what I could see against the sun’s glare they moved in groups of twenty or so. They were walking purposefully enough away from us, but as Zak had said, it might be a trick. After passing out of sight they might return when we least expected it.

With the binoculars to his eyes, Tony spoke. “Oh, crap . . .”

“Have they seen us?”

“No. They’re on a hunt.”

Ben’s hands shook. “That’s bad, right?”

“Right.” Tony lowered the binoculars. “They’re hunting people like us. There’s a group of around twenty down there, carrying backpacks. They’re still well ahead of the hornets, but do you see what I see?”

He handed Michaela the binoculars.

“There’s a second group moving parallel to them higher up the hill,” she said. “As far as I can tell a river joins the lake right in front of them.” She handed the binoculars to me. “They’re heading into a trap. Only the poor devils don’t know it.”

Raising the binoculars to my eyes, I viewed the figures in sudden brutal close-up. “You’ve seen this before?”

“Oh, yes. Lots.” She sounded grim. “Remember what we were just talking about?”

“They’re hunting those people for a hive?”

“I can’t swear to it, but let’s say I’m ninety percent sure.”

“What are we waiting for, then?”

“Greg, what do you mean ‘What are we waiting for’?”

“Those people need our help.”

“Ben, there are twelve of us. There are hundreds of bad guys.”

“But we—”

“We can do nothing but watch and make sure they don’t attack us.” She stared at me. “It sounds uncaring, but what can we do? You’d need a couple of helicopter gunships to take out those: They’re a whole army.” She tossed her head back to where a clutch of rifles leaned against the barn wall. “We’ve got a few peashooters.”

I studied the group of survivors. They were all burdened by bundles of blankets, backpacks; most carried sacks that I guessed were stuffed with food. They were a desperate bunch. They knew they were being pursued, but they weren’t going to ditch their precious foodstuff just yet. Maybe they thought they could outrun the hornets. Only they didn’t know they were being driven into a narrow point of land that would be bound by a lake at one side and a fast-flowing river at the other. I panned to the right. A half mile behind were the hornets, moving in groups of around twenty. I couldn’t count them all, but I saw the murdering bastards numbered in their hundreds. The binoculars were powerful enough to show individual faces. The men all had thick tangled beards, with a thick tangle of hair. The women had tumbling manes of curls. Most wore rags. Some were naked. It was their eyes that really punched you in the gut. They were so goddam vicious. They blazed from those wild clocks of hair like fucking laser beams. And each pair of eyes had locked onto the men, women and children in front who were trying to outrun them.

Zak shielded his eyes with the cowboy hat as we watched. “We need to send a couple of people down to keep an eye on them.”

“I’ll go,” I said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?” Michaela said.

Tony shook his head. “We get the feeling you might do something heroic.” He nodded down at the hornets swarming along the valley. “The kind of heroic that will get all of us killed.”

Zak said, “Michaela, Tony, take the bikes down the track across there. That’ll bring you close enough, but you’ll still be uphill from them. . . . Keep behind that line of trees. They won’t see you there.”

“What about the sound of the bikes?”

“Don’t start the motors,” I said. “Freewheel down. Only fire them up if you’re seen.”

Zak gave a grim smile. “He’s starting to think like one of us.”

Ben looked uneasy. “But if they see you we’ll all have to run for it, won’t we?”

“We will,” Zak agreed. “But we’ll have a head start and we’ll be on bikes. They’ll be on foot.”

Michaela began to walk back to the bikes. “Zak, you best be ready to move out fast just in case. OK?”

He nodded. “Don’t worry, we’ll be ready.”

Within moments, Michaela and Tony were coasting down the hill, using gravity alone, not the big Harley motors, to power their descent. Even from just a few yards away I could hear nothing but the whisper of tires on soft dirt that had accumulated on the track. Seconds later I heard nothing at all as I watched them leave.

Zak immediately got the others to gather up their belongings just in case we had to quit this place like greased lightning. That left me at the fence watching through the binoculars. The bunch of survivors were still well ahead of the hornets. They looked confident they were going to make it. Most had rifles ready in case they were attacked, but they still weren’t going to ditch their belongings so they could move faster. Those pitiful supplies were all that kept them from starvation.

I checked the groups of hornets, who didn’t move in a great hurry either. But then, the cunning monsters knew that the people just ahead would run out of dry ground within the next ten minutes. At the foot of the hill Michaela and Tony had coasted down to the line of trees that hid them from the bad guys. OK. So far, so good.

But wait . . . all those hornets in the valley moving in plain view across the meadows were eye-catching. You couldn’t miss seeing them for sure. I felt a twitch, just a flicker of a twitch in my stomach. That instinct was reaching out of the depths of my bones. It wasn’t quite the Twitch I’d experienced before. But it was some-thing like.

I scanned the line of trees farther to the right that followed the line of the track. I damn well knew it . . .
I damn well knew it
. The hornets were still a good quarter of a mile away from Michaela and Tony, now at a standstill on their bikes as they watched the bad guys pass by farther down the valley, but sure as hell and high water there were a group of around twenty of the monsters moving along the
same
track. But that shouldn’t be too much to worry about, should it? They were a good distance away. And they weren’t walking fast.

No. There had to be something else.

Again I used the binoculars to sweep the line of trees. This time I made the pan much slower. Seeing each bush in turn. There had to be something else that—whoa. Got it.

Maybe a hundred yards from Michaela and Tony, just around a curve in the track, I saw a group of five, maybe six people huddled against a tree. They weren’t hornets, I was positive of that. They seemed to be in a tight clump, with one guy carrying a shotgun moving backward and forward across the track. Even from this distance I could tell he was nervous as hell. He knew the hornets were following them. What he didn’t know was how far away the monsters were. I swept the binoculars back to the knot of people. A young woman sat on the ground. Her legs were somehow awkward under her, as if she wanted to stand only her legs were too weak. Others clustered ’round, trying to help. A girl of around thirteen wrapped an object in a large towel or piece of sheet.

She handled the object gingerly, like it was incredibly fragile. All I could tell was that it was red. Not at all big.

Hell . . . a goddam baby. That’s what it was. A newborn baby! The woman must have just given birth. I stared so fiercely through those lenses it felt as if my eyes would dry out. But I saw clearly enough now. The girl was wrapping a newborn baby still smeared with blood in a towel. The other people were trying to help the mother to her feet. Christ, she gave birth running from those monsters, now she had to get up and run again before they caught her and tore her face off.

Once more I scanned the line of track. I saw another figure. This one had gray hair. He was—he was . . . damn. I forced my eyes to focus. That’s it. An old man. He was standing guard between the group with the newborn baby and the hornets bearing down on them.

I watched a full five minutes as the old guy waited. A brave old guy at that. There must have been twenty bad guys and they were young and homicidally crazy. At least he appeared to carry a gun of some sort. It was too short and stubby for a rifle. A submachine gun, maybe. The guy would need formidable firepower against an enemy like that.

It ended faster than I expected. The hornets came ’round the corner of the track. Not running, but moving quickly. They saw the old guy, made straight for him. Then this stupid thing happened. It was like watching an old comedy movie . . . only there was nothing funny about it . . . not one fucking bit funny . . . but it was fucking stupid. He aimed the submachine gun. I waited for the crackle of exploding cartridges and the jet of smoke from the muzzle.

Nothing. Fucking nothing.

The old guy looked at the gun. He jerked at the bolt, then the trigger. I saw him shake his gray head in dis-belief.

And then . . .

Over.

That was it. Finished.

One of the hornets pushed him, sending him dropping down onto his behind. He turned ’round on the ground, trying to stand. Only his old bones didn’t work as fast as they used to.

Then the hornets were on him. I thought they’d pounce like mad dogs, but they just flowed ’round the old guy as he sat there on his backside in the dirt looking up at them as they walked by, ignoring him.

Only the last one in the pack didn’t. He carried a heavy steel bar that must have been the length of his arm. He raised it above his head in a way that seemed almost casual. The old guy sat there in the dirt. He supported his top half with one hand against the track while with the other he tried to block the blow.

The hornet swung the bar easily, missing the guy’s arm. The end of the iron bar whipped down, hitting into the old guy’s skull square in the top. The old boy looked as if he’d suddenly gotten way too tired. Slowly he lowered himself facedown into the dirt and lay still. The hornet struck him once more in the head with the bar. Then moved on without looking back.

I found myself staring at the old guy lying there with his open mouth pressed against the road, willing him to get up, grab the gun and blow those bastards to shit. But he didn’t move and his gray hair turned the color of cranberry juice.

While this happened I’d been locked into my own world, staring through the binoculars. I turned and ran back to where Zak readied the people near the bikes.

I grabbed one by the handlebars and rocked it forward from the stand.

“Hey!” Zak shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“There are hornets down there we didn’t see before. They’re going to find Michaela and Tony.”

I was ready to punch my way through Zak if he argued. Instead: “OK. Catch.” He threw me a rifle. “It’s loaded with ten rounds. And it’s a semiauto. Just point and squeeze.”

He swung a pump-action shotgun over his shoulder, then made as if to start the bike’s engine.

“Zak. Freewheel down there.”

I didn’t want to signal those hornets with the sound of motors that their blood enemies were on the way. And I hadn’t told Zak everything, of course. I hadn’t mentioned the woman who’d just given birth on the road. Or the old man’s murder. Or that right now I planned to give those murdering sons of bitches a little taste of something they’d never forget.

Twenty-six

Dammit if the track didn’t have enough bumps to nearly throw us clean off the saddles. What’s more, it was steep enough to bring us close up to forty without having to fire up the Harley engines. Gripping the handlebars tight, the grass banks rising high and over-grown at either side of us soon made it look as if we were whistling through a green tunnel that blurred as we moved faster and faster.

I glanced at Zak. He concentrated on the track ahead, avoiding ruts and holes in the ground. The thing is, it was so quiet. All I could hear were the whisper of air by my ears and the hiss of tires on dirt.

At the bottom of the track Zak braked to bring himself to a stop where Michaela and Tony now shot us surprised looks. Only I didn’t stop. No way was I going to even touch the brake. I passed them in a blur, keeping the momentum going.

Now the track had leveled out. Bit by bit the bike began to slow, but I was still doing thirty when I passed the bunch of men and women with the newborn baby.

The guy with the shotgun looked as if he was making up his mind whether to shoot me or not when I called out, “Keep moving! You’re being followed!”

Temptation started to bite now. I wanted to fire up the motorcycle and power up to that bunch of killers that must still be heading along the track. But I fought it down. When I arrived I wanted surprise on my side.

The bike slowed as the track began to run uphill.

Twenty miles an hour . . . fifteen.

I saw a curve ahead.

Ten.

I put my feet down, my soles brushing the soil.

Five miles an hour.

I stopped. Then, with my feet balancing me I slipped the rifle off my shoulder and aimed along the track.

For a while I sat there. The sun shone down. I heard birds in the trees. Butterflies flitted among yellow flowers in the meadow. Honeybees buzzed through the long grass. Sweat trickled down my face; my heart pounded with a dark funereal rhythm.

The track ahead lay deserted. Maybe they’d gone back? Or cut through the trees into the field?

But then I got it. The Twitch. Not for the first time I wondered if bread bandits, hornets or whatever you called them carried some smell so faint I didn’t consciously sense it. But the old dinosaur brain locked deep inside the folds of primate brain still sniffed it bright and clear on the hot summer air. My stomach muscles twitched. In my neck and back more muscles snapped tight. So tight the contracting neck muscles pulled my head back and forced my chin up.

The bastards were here. They were right around the . . .

Then they walked ’round the bend. I pulled back the bolt. I’d only have to do that once because this little beauty had a self-cocking mechanism.
OK, Valdiva. All you need do is aim . . . squeeze the trigger . . . aim
and squeeze
. . .
aim and squeeze
. . . .

Muscles twitched like they danced in my gut. Blood sparkled through my veins. My whole being squeezed into that cubic inch behind my right eye. The one that looked through the sight and along that gleaming barrel. I concentrated on nothing else now.

There they were. A group of guys in their twenties and thirties, I figured. They moved purposefully toward me. Not running. Their eyes locked on me.

But they wouldn’t spook me.

I waited until they were maybe fifty yards away before squeezing the trigger.

The first shot punched clean through the chest of the one in the lead. The bullet tumbled out through his back to smash into the mouth of the guy behind him. His teeth vanished in a cloud of red glory and enamel splinters.

Both dropped down into the dirt. Two with one bullet! There was an angel on my shoulder today.

Forty-five yards away I dropped the next guy with a chest shot, too. He went down kicking his legs, vomiting blood. That bastard was dead meat.

I’d expected them to charge. There were still seventeen of them. I had eight rounds left in the clip. Do the math; I’d have to cut and run in the next ten seconds.

Forty yards and closing.

Bang . . . dropped the next with a head shot. A bald guy. The top of his scabby dome lifted off in one piece like you’d slice the top off a boiled egg. His comrades didn’t flinch when the guy’s brains spattered their faces.

Thirty yards. Bang, bang. I dropped two more with head shots through their eyes. One round exited the back of the sick fuck’s skull to slice off the guy’s ear behind him. The one who lost the ear bled like a pig but it didn’t stop him. I had to drop him with a shot through his lungs. He sat down on God’s earth to cough blood into his cupped hands.

Four rounds left. Thirteen mad fucks remaining.

They were twenty yards away. If they ran now they’d reach me in maybe ten seconds.

I fired again.
Lousy shot, Valdiva.
The bullet gouged out the hornet’s eye, but it exited through the side of his forehead, just below the temple. Most would have gone down with the sheer trauma of an injury like that. But his expression hardly flinched. His good eye still burned at me. And even though blood turned the righthand side of his face into a red mask he kept moving.

Where have you gone, sweet angel of mine? Now I had to use another precious bullet on Seňor Solo Eye. It caught him in the throat. He went down gurgling to claw at the ground like it was the earth itself that hurt him.

Fifteen yards.

Then the goddam sly bastards went and did it. They cut and ran.

The twelve that remained burst through the bushes at the side of the road to disappear into the trees. They left the tail-end guy, though. The one who’d killed the old man back along the track. He still had that steel bar, too. He ran straight at me with the bar raised above his head. Old man brains still stuck on the end. Christ, he was so close I could see the moles on his face that bristled with black hairs.

I aimed at the center of his chest.

But I didn’t fire the gun. Not then. What got into me, I don’t know. Maybe the angel on my shoulder moved over for a devil to settle there to whisper in my ear.

Instead of blowing a hole in the killer’s chest I dropped the muzzle. When I fired the metal-jacketed slug smashed his balls. It might have chewed off his dick, too, I don’t know.

With that high-pitched squeal you only hear when you accidentally stand on a dog’s paw, he dropped down into the soil at my feet. There he rolled from side to side, both hands clutching the blood-soaked mess between his legs.

I didn’t have time to put a second slug in his head.

I knew what remained of the hornet gang would be running as hard as they could to reach the people with the newborn baby. Now was the time . . . I started the Harley’s motor, revved it until it howled like a phantom war cry, then blasted down the track, the back wheel throwing up a geyser of dirt as high as the treetops and coating the fallen man in filth as he writhed in agony.

It took seconds to reach the group. They hurried along the track. Some helped the mother, whose thighs were still slick with blood. A girl of around thirteen carried the baby. And there, cutting them off from going farther, hornets ran out of the wood. The young guy dropped a couple of them with the shotgun. Then he started fumbling with the thing, trying to reload.

Slowing the bike, I fired my last shot. The hornet went down with a hole in the back of his head you could have shoved your fist through.

There were still more than half a dozen left. I had to slow the bike, but I cut past the little band of survivors. I had nothing but air in the ammo clip now. Instead I accelerated toward the surviving bunch of killers. They were still intent on claiming their original prey and sidestepped me. One wasn’t fast enough. I caught him across the forehead with the rifle butt. He went down onto his back. Down but not out, he started to sit up. Whipping the bike ’round, wheels throwing out dirt like a smoke screen, I rode toward him. The front wheel bounced up over his chest, pinning him down to the ground. Slowly, hardly touching the throttle, I eased the bike forward until the rear tire pressed down deep into his belly. Frantically, he beat at my legs. His eyes bulged wide; spit bubbled through his lips in fast, glistening gobs.
Bye, bye, freak boy
. I opened up the throttle until the engine screamed; the back wheel blurred, spun and ripped out his intestine as efficiently as a chainsaw.

That left me with the other hornets who closed in on the group. The guy still fumbled shells into the shotgun breech, dropping them on the ground in the process, picking them up, dropping them again, picking them up again, panic distorting his face into a mask from which jutted two terror-stricken eyes

But then it was over.

In a blur motorcycles buzzed past me. Zak, Michaela and Tony rode alongside the surviving hornets. Balancing their shotguns in the crooks of their elbows, they fired. And, man, you knew they’d done this be-fore. In less than ten seconds the half-dozen-strong bunch of bad guys lay dead in a growing pool of their own blood.

Down in the valley the other hornets would have heard the bikes and the shooting. They’d come looking for us now. It was time to get that tired bunch of people with the newborn baby up the hill, then the hell out of there.