Recovery: V Plague Book 8 (23 page)

Rachel was
shivering again.  Sitting with her back to the lake the fire warmed her front,
but a breeze had sprung up.  It was blowing across the lake, striking the part
of her body that wasn’t turned to catch the warmth of the flames.  She wasn’t
about to turn away to warm herself.

A
bone-chilling howl warbled into the night, making her jerk and look in the direction
she thought it had come from.  The pack of wolves, she was now certain it was a
pack, had been howling for half an hour and she was unnerved and on the edge of
panic.

The voices
of the animals were all around her, only the open lake to her rear remaining
quiet.  The dark forest that pressed in was menacing, holding unseen terrors. 
Rachel was shivering as much in fear as she was from the weather.  Pistol
firmly gripped in both hands she constantly tried to see beyond the fire, but
the flames that were keeping her safe were also preventing her from seeing
beyond the small ring of light they cast.

Rachel’s
breath caught in her throat when a sleek grey form seemingly materialized at
the edge of the light on the far side of her camp.  The wolf stared at her with
intense eyes that flashed yellow in the firelight.  She raised the pistol,
dismayed to see how badly her hands were shaking.

As she
watched the wolf, wanting to pull the trigger but afraid she would miss and
waste precious ammunition, another suddenly appeared out of the darkness a few
feet to the left of the first.  Slowly standing, Rachel struggled to control
the shakes as the new arrival growled and curled its lips away from sharp
teeth.

The
primitive, instinctual part of Rachel’s brain screamed at her to run.  To
flee.  Her fight or flight response went into overdrive and a massive amount of
adrenaline flowed into her system, calming her hands and sending her brain into
warp drive.

She
recognized that neither of the animals facing her were the wolf she had first
encountered and repelled with the flare gun.  Both were smaller, perhaps
females, and hadn’t learned the painful lesson the other one had.  Instincts
still telling her to run, Rachel fought the impulse.  There was nowhere to run,
and she had no doubt that if she moved the wolves would attack and bring her
down before she took three steps.

The animal
that was growling took a partial step forward, moving ahead of the other and
farther into the firelight.  It was no more than twenty feet away on the far
side of the campfire.  Rachel aimed for its chest and concentrated on a slow,
steady pull of the trigger, just like John had preached to her over and over. 

Like most
new shooters she tended to jerk the trigger, which pulled the muzzle to the side
and caused her to miss what she was aiming at.  He had done everything he could
to correct her error, telling her that she should almost be surprised when the
weapon fired.  “Squeeze and don’t anticipate the kick.  That will cause you to
flinch before you even shoot,” he’d told her repeatedly.

John’s words
ringing loudly in her head, Rachel was surprised when the pistol roared and
bucked in her hands.  Both wolves jumped at the loud report, but the growler
let out a yelp and stumbled sideways.  Swiveling, Rachel intended to fire at
the second one, but it had already vanished into the darkness.

The animal
she had shot had only taken half a step before falling to the ground.  It now
lay there, twitching as it died.  Blood was pulsing onto the snow around its
chest, the hot, red liquid melting and mixing with the pristine white.  Shock,
terror, and relief all flooded through Rachel, warring with boldness to be the
supreme emotion of the moment.

Emboldened
won out and she opened her mouth and screamed a guttural cry into the night. 
She had killed a wolf!  They would be afraid to approach the camp again!

She remained
standing, pistol up, ready in case any other members of the pack approached. 
Her breath was coming fast and deep with the surge of adrenaline, but as time
passed it calmed and she lowered the weapon.  The fire was still burning
brightly but Rachel picked up several more dead branches and after knocking
snow off of them, tossed them into the flames.

An hour
later the only sign of the wolves was the dead animal on the far side of her
camp.  She was both surprised and elated that she had defended herself.  But
she also acknowledged that she must have gotten very lucky with the shot.  The
bullet had to have pierced the wolf’s heart to put it down so quickly.  She
didn’t want to think about the odds against her making such a shot, or the odds
of her doing it again if they returned.

Not if, she
corrected herself.  When they returned.  She didn’t believe for a second that
the predators had been driven off, afraid to return simply because of a loud
noise and the death of one of their pack.  What did she do next?

Continuing
to shoot at the wolves, hoping for more kill shots wasn’t practical.  The Air
Force issue pistol was a Beretta 9 mm and had only held fifteen rounds.  She
had already fired almost half of them and there wasn’t any spare ammo in the
survival pouch.  Perhaps there was some on Bill’s body, and she thought about
going to check when the sun came up.

Rachel
realized that she needed to begin moving as soon as it was light.  She needed
to get out of the mountains before either the weather or the wildlife killed
her.  Not that conditions in any town or city she might find would be any
better because of infected, but at least there was the possibility of shelter.

But which
way to go?  She didn’t have any idea which direction to even begin walking and
was afraid of heading deeper into the rugged country.  Sitting there, she tried
to think of any city in the state, hoping that would trigger something in her
mind about the geography of the region.

Try as she
might she couldn’t come up with the name of a single town in the state. 
Reluctantly she acknowledged to herself that until a day ago Idaho had been as
foreign to her as any place on the opposite side of the globe.  Except for
potatoes!  Didn’t most of the potatoes in America come from Idaho?

That meant
there must be flat farmlands somewhere in the state.  And wherever they were it
was probably warmer there.  But where?  She had no idea which direction to even
start walking.  Part of her wanted to hang her head and cry.  Give in to the
situation and sit there until the cold or the wolves took her.  Only faint hope
that John was alive and on his way to save her prevented her from completely
giving up.

Stomach
grumbling from hunger, Rachel wiped away a tear and picked through Bill’s
survival pouch, finding one of the two MREs.  It was a hot meal with a chemical
pack built in that would heat the food once activated.  She set about preparing
it, devouring every bite as soon as it was ready.  Taking a long drink from the
lake she settled back onto the small tree trunk she had been using for a seat
and waited for the wolves to return.

I stepped
hard on the gas and we roared out of the truck stop and back onto Interstate
80.  We were seventy-three miles west of Laramie Wyoming now.  At least two
dozen dead females were scattered around the parking lot we had just left. 
Apparently they had been trapped inside the building and until we came along
hadn’t been motivated enough to smash their way through the plate glass window
to escape. 

We were
still moving fast, faster than I had expected.  The sun had set before we
reached I-70 in Kansas and on the narrow, rough two-lane highway I’d been
forced to reduce our speed so I would have time to react to any obstacles that
suddenly appeared in our headlights.  But two things had let me push back to
the Dodge’s top speed of 140.

I hadn’t
thought, but police cars are normally outfitted with additional lighting for
the officers’ safety after dark.  Katie, bored, began fumbling around with all
the knobs and switches in the Charger.  She played with the siren, the red and
blues and then turned on a brilliant bank of lights built into the roof-mounted
beacons. 

They reached
significantly farther down the road than the headlights, letting me see well
ahead as I drove.  Between the extra light and the smooth pavement of I-70 I
pegged our speed back at one forty and held it there.

We made a
couple of fuel stops then had to slow to use smaller highways to get around the
Denver metropolitan area.  Jessica warned us well in advance that the freeways
in the city were a jumble of wrecks, and there was also a fairly large
population of infected wandering around.

There had
been a few close calls with infected as we worked our way around the city.  The
roads were narrow, hilly and crowded with abandoned vehicles, yet were still
passable.  Occasionally we’d crest a rise or come around a curve to see one or
more males just standing in the road.

I had
managed to avoid all of them, not damaging our car.  But the tradeoff had been
reduced speed.  At times we were forced to move as slow as forty miles per hour
to safely negotiate stretches of road.  By the time we connected with
Interstate 25, north of Denver, I was exhausted from maintaining such a
hyper-alert status for so long. 

But I was
able to resume our top speed, which was a relief until we reached Fort Collins,
Colorado and had to stop for gas.  Infected were in the area in large numbers,
thankfully mostly male, but we still had a few harrowing moments while we were
stopped.  It had been a small, no name gas station I’d spotted after bypassing
the truck stop Jessica had found for us because a massive semi trailer was on
its side on top of the storage tank access.

At the small
station we’d repeated the process that was now routine to us.  Katie and Dog
kept watch while I pumped the fuel and checked over the engine.  But this time
both males and females had begun appearing out of the surrounding streets and
alleys before I even had the pump connected.

“Do we find
another station?”  Katie shouted as she began shooting females approaching at a
sprint.

“We’re on
fumes now,” I shouted, rushing to get the fuel flowing.

She didn’t
answer and as I worked I could hear her suppressed rifle firing at a steady
pace.  I had quickly checked the oil, dumping another quart into the engine
while the pump did its job.  As I finished tightening the oil filler cap a
running female that had come in on Katie’s blind side tackled me to the ground.

Dog was on
her in a flash, sinking his teeth into the back of her neck and dragging her
off of me before I had a chance to do anything.  I left him to finish her off,
jumping to my feet and raising my rifle.

Katie and I
kept the infected back but burned through a lot of ammo in the process.  Her
aim was improving quickly as old training came through.  She knew how to shoot,
just hadn’t done much of it in the past several years.  Well, she was getting a
crash refresher course now.

The Dodge’s
tank had filled and was overflowing when I had a half a second to glance over. 
Apparently it had been full for some time as there was a lot of fuel spreading
across the pavement and into the gutter at the side of the road.  Switching to
pistol, I kept fighting as I shut down the pump one handed, slamming the hood. 

I gathered
up everything as best I could.  It was difficult to drain the hoses of fuel
with one hand while firing a pistol with the other, but I managed.  With every
pull of the trigger I winced slightly, expecting the fumes to be ignited by the
burning powder in the round, but I finally got everything loaded and the trunk
closed without blowing myself up.

Katie had
stuck with her rifle and had a rather respectable body count in a large
semi-circle around her.  Dog had watched our backs, taking out several females
that had escaped our notice.  Without him we probably wouldn’t have made it out
of Fort Collins.

Continuing
north I’d had to slow for the terrain as we left I-25 and moved onto a state
highway that would take us up into Wyoming.  The Rocky Mountains loomed over
us, just to the west and it seemed as if I could feel their presence even
though they were invisible in the dark.  Moving slowly through their foothills
we finally passed out of Colorado and the road flattened out as the countryside
opened back up.

“Damn, that
was Colorado,” Katie said when we passed a sign welcoming us to Wyoming.  “Why
didn’t you stop?  Pot’s legal there!”

“I think
it’s legal everywhere now,” I said, unintentionally killing her attempt to
lighten the mood.

We blasted
through Laramie, Wyoming, seeing nothing other than the empty pavement brightly
illuminated by the Charger’s lights.  Our next fueling had been at a large
truck stop, seventy-three miles west of Laramie.  A large diner with floor to
ceiling windows looked out on the apron and a group of females had crashed
through the glass when we pulled up and got out of the car.

We had put
all of them down before they reached us, refueled, added oil and were back on
the road after taking a moment to relieve ourselves while the other kept
watch.  Dog had taken full advantage, finding at least four places that needed
his mark.

Once we were
back on the road I had Katie call Jessica for an update.

“The Bradley
hasn’t moved and I’m having some issues with the archival stream.  I still
haven’t been able to determine what happened to them,” she said as soon as she
heard my voice.

“What about
Idaho?”

“No change,
sir.  Just one target next to a fire.  Only thing new is there are now only
eight other thermal signatures in the area where there were nine before.  I
don’t know what happened to the ninth.”

“Is the
weather supposed to clear?  Any idea when you’ll get a visual?”  I asked,
steering a little to the left to avoid a small piece of debris on the
pavement.  Even something as small as a Ping-Pong ball had the potential to be
disastrous at our speed.

“I’ve asked
sir, but don’t have an answer.  I’ll ask again.”

“OK, good. 
What about a cold weather gear outfitter and a new vehicle?  How’s that
coming?”

“I’ve got
you a Jeep dealer in Twin Falls, Idaho.  That’s right at the base of the
Sawtooth Mountains.  Zoomed in and spotted you a sweet ride that looks like
it’s set up really well.  Outfitter is a different story.  Without the Internet
to find a specific store, well, it’s a challenge.  I did find a large sporting
goods store in Ogden, Utah, but it may not be a good place to stop.  Lots of infected
in and around the area.  But I haven’t stopped looking.”  She said.

“You’re
doing great,” I said to encourage the young woman.  “I’m sure you’ll find me
something.  How’s the road ahead?”

“You’re wide
open, sir.  But you’ve got mountains off and on for the rest of your drive. 
The worst will be coming into Salt Lake City from the east.  There look to be
some pretty steep grades and sharp curves.  You’re going to want to pay
attention to the warning signs on the side of the road.  You try to go through
there the way you’ve been driving and you won’t make it.”

“Yes,
mother,” I said, laughing to let her know I was being sarcastic and not
offended at her advice.

“Sorry,
sir,” she said with a giggle.

“Keep at it,
Jessica.  And thank you for everything.  Call me with any news.”  I broke the
connection.