Feast (16 page)

21

During his life, formerly as a Marine, and recently as a survivor of the ExoGenetic apocalypse, Peter had made a good number of tough calls. Sometimes people died as a result. Sometimes at his hands. Most often the dead were his enemies, occasionally an ally, and once...his wife. And now he was faced with another tough call.

Option one: he could keep driving and give the wheel a quick twist, flinging both Boone and the Rider from the back of the truck. It was the safest and fastest option. The Rider probably wouldn’t be killed, but Boone certainly would be, by the impact, or the Rider.

Option two: he could stop the truck and join the fight, helping Boone defeat the Rider. Boone had a better chance of survival, but would risk the Woolies, or the gator catching up. And if that happened, they were all going to die.

Option three: he could try something reckless without stopping and maybe save Boone’s life in the process, or maybe screw up and crash, which would bring the outcome back to option two.

The crux of this internal struggle was Boone.

Was the man an ally?

Was he an enemy?

They had fought side by side. Had saved each other’s lives. That meant something among warriors. But was there a difference between trained soldiers and weekend warriors? Could he trust Boone, who had revealed himself to have a questionable moral compass? But maybe the man just needed redirection. If too much time under Mason’s influence had brought out Boone’s baser instincts, perhaps some solid redirection could bring out his best? Like Luke did with Vader, Peter sensed some good left in the man.

Convinced there was a chance, even if just a small one, that Boone could be redeemed, Peter’s mind was made up for him.

It was time to get reckless.

With one hand on the wheel, his foot on the gas and his eyes on the road, Peter leaned forward and reached under the driver’s side seat. He felt nothing at first, and he worried that Boone’s men had already discovered the hidden weapon. Then his fingers grazed something solid. It had been jostled deeper under the seat. Had one of the kids been in the truck, they probably would have had an easier time retrieving it from the back.

He leaned a bit further and found himself stopped by the steering wheel. His shoulder felt about ready to pop from his socket as he stretched out. The bumpy rubber grip tickled his fingertips, but it clung to the carpeted floor, pressed down by the weapon’s four and a half pounds. He needed a few more inches.

A shout of pain twisted him around. The Rider’s long, hooked teeth had punctured Boone’s neck. Without thought, Peter twitched the wheel to the left, kicking the truck’s back end out just a bit. The sudden movement nearly toppled the two combatants in the truck bed, but the Rider adjusted its body and remained upright, slipping its teeth out of Boone’s flesh.

With a shout of rage, Boone took advantage of the distraction and slipped his thumbs into the Rider’s eyes. The creature howled in pain, but what might drop a man to the ground had the opposite effect on the Rider. Instead of reeling away from the thumbs about to burst its eyeballs, the Rider leaned into it, mouth open, ready to exchange its eyesight for blood.

Peter wasn’t sure if the creature was just in a mindless rage, or if it understood that its body could evolve the ability to regrow eyes, or develop another sense to replace its eyes. It didn’t really matter. Either way, Boone was outclassed. And soon, he’d be dead.

“Shit,” Peter said, twisting the wheel hard to the left, doing his best to not throw his passengers, while keeping them on the road around a bend. Back on a straightaway that continued as far as he could see, Peter stretched for the weapon again and came up short. Knowing time was short, he toggled the adjustable tilt switch on the side of the wheel, which sprang up. It still wouldn’t allow him to lean straight down, but that wasn’t the plan.

Leaning to the side, Peter slipped down beneath the steering wheel. He kept one hand on the wheel with the hopes of maintaining a straight course, but when the back of his neck struck the leather wheel-grip, he was pretty sure they were careening toward the swamp at a slight angle.

Peter’s hand slipped beneath the seat, easily reaching the hidden weapon. He gripped the handle, pulled it out and sat back up. The road came back into view. So did the swamp. Peter turned hard to the right, narrowly avoiding the drop-off into several feet of water and even more muck. The sudden move kept the truck on the road, but pulled Boone’s feet out from underneath him. The man toppled backward and the Rider followed him down.

The Rider lifted its head up, howling in victory. Its prey was pinned and defenseless. The creature’s eyes had been compressed. One of them was a mess of blood and viscous white fluid. But the injuries only fueled its mania.

Peter lifted the Smith & Wesson Model 500 revolver and aimed it over the back seat. He had discovered the weapon behind the counter of a convenience store they had pillaged for water and any food old enough to safely consume. They hadn’t found much, but the gun was a rare gift. It was a .50 caliber hand cannon. Not quite as long barreled as Dirty Harry’s, but equally as powerful. And that meant a few things. First, anything roughly the size of a human hit by a single round would find itself with a basketball-sized hole in the bullet’s wake. Something like a Woolie might take two or three rounds, but a single shot in the right spot would still do the trick. As for the gator, Peter had no idea. But the Rider? One shot was all he needed, if he didn’t miss...or hit Boone.

And one shot was all he might get. Firing a weapon like the Model 500 generally required two hands. The kickback would be substantial, and if the weapon didn’t buck from his hand, it might very well break his wrist. On top of that, he was firing one of the world’s most powerful handguns inside the enclosed truck cabin. The padded floor and ceiling would absorb some of the sound, but every hard surface inside the vehicle would reflect the cacophonous boom right back into Peter’s ears.

This is going to hurt,
he thought, leveling the sight through the back window. As soon as he drew a bead on the monster, its lower jaw opening wide enough to envelop Boone’s head and whatever limb he tried to defend himself with, Peter pulled the trigger.

The explosion slammed into Peter’s ears and forced his eyes shut.

He didn’t see the weapon tear free from his hand, but he felt it leave his fingers and then strike his forehead. As though the impact of a spiraling four pound revolver wasn’t bad enough, it was the scorching hot barrel that struck him, hissing briefly as it burned a red line above his brow.

When he opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was a clean hole in the rear window. The bullet had punched through so suddenly that the rest of the glass remained intact. And beyond the window...nothing.

Did the Rider bite down?

Did he miss?

When the Rider hunched its back and rose into view, Peter knew he had failed and that Boone was dead.

Then the rest of the hairy body rose up, and he relaxed. Red blood chugged from a gaping wound where its head had been.

Boone sat up, hands on the headless Rider’s chest. He pushed the creature up and then shoved it hard, sending the ragdoll body toppling into the road.

When the scent of smoke tickled his nose, Peter faced forward. He shouted, but could only feel the air bursting from his lungs. Aside from a buzzing, he heard nothing else. Peter turned hard, following a fresh bend in the road. When the big truck was back under control, he lowered the steering wheel and pulled the revolver off of his pants, which had begun to burn. He placed the cooling weapon in the passenger’s seat and focused on the road.

A moment later, he jumped when something tapped his shoulder. He spun to find Boone leaning in through the back window, shouting something.

Peter tapped his ear. Shouted, “Can’t hear! Gun was loud!”

Boone shouted something else. Peter still couldn’t hear him, but the man’s smile and obvious relief hinted that Boone was thanking him. And then everything changed. Boone’s face morphed back into fear. His eyes wide. His forehead a mountain range of wrinkles. Peter could even hear a little bit of Boone’s screamed warning. All of that and Boone’s pointed finger turned Peter’s gaze forward. To the road. And what stood in its center.

A Rider.

Female.

She was large. Taller than Peter. In one hand she held a spear. Her free hand was pointed at the truck.
No
, Peter thought.
At me.

On the surface, this Rider looked a lot like Kristen had. For a moment, he wondered if she had somehow survived their last encounter and was back to haunt him. But the eyes were wrong. Where he saw a hint of the wife he’d once had in Kristen’s eyes, here he saw only a monster.

A monster out for revenge.

The idea that this creature might have followed him all this way simply because he killed the tribe’s ExoGenetic leader surprised him. Then again, Ella and Anne had been pursued halfway across the country by the even less intelligent Stalker pack.

Peter eased up on the gas.

He heard Boone shout. His voice sounded like he was speaking through a tin can. “What are you doing? Run it down!”

Peter’s instincts were the same as Boone’s.

“Kill it and grill it!” Boone shouted, his voice clearer.

Well, not exactly the same,
Peter thought, slowing even more.

At first he wasn’t exactly sure why he was slowing down, rather than speeding up. But then he figured it out. The soldier’s worst enemy.

Empathy.

For the enemy.

Peter stopped thirty feet short of the lone female. It wasn’t until he opened the door and stepped out that he noticed she wasn’t actually alone. Hidden just inside the swamp on either side of the road were seven Woolies and four male Riders.
Where are the other females?
he wondered, scanning the area, but then he refocused on the living blockade hidden in the swamp. Had he sped through the female’s position, he would have been met head on by a living wall.

And the confused and somewhat disappointed look on the female’s face told him that might have been their plan. She and Boone were equally confused by his actions.

“Hey,” Boone whispered, as Peter stepped down onto the dirt road. He was back inside the truck cab, leaning between the front seats. He handed the Model 500 handgun to Peter, keeping it below the window. “If yer fixin’ on going out there, best take some protection. Also, you know, there’s a good chance we might have trouble crawl’n up our backside any moment now.”

Peter took the weapon and slipped it behind his back, tucking it into his pants. Then he stepped out from behind the door, hands raised. He walked toward the lone female, who was now even more confused, but had yet to take on an aggressive stance.

All that changed when Boone slipped back into the pickup’s bed and swiveled the machine gun forward. The female raised the spear, cocking it back, ready to throw.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she waited, and with every step Peter took, her arm lowered a little further. She might want vengeance on Peter for what he did—he couldn’t think of any other reason she’d be here—but she was also smart enough to be curious about his strange response to her aggression.

She’s still an ExoGen,
Peter thought. If she moved to throw that spear, he wouldn’t hesitate to draw the handgun and fire. He was no Billy the Kid, but he could draw a gun and fire accurately, faster than most, especially at such close range.

Twenty feet from the ExoGenetic woman, Peter stopped. They stood in silence for a good ten seconds, and then Peter spoke first, offering the only words he could think of that might carry his true feelings about what had happened to his wife. “I’m sorry.”