The Flock (27 page)

The first thing that surprised Vance Holcomb was that he was still around to
be
surprised. He sat up and the contusions on his chest sent an explosion of pain through his torso. “Cripes, that hurts,” he said to no one in particular. He peeled away what remained of his shirt, torn into ribbons by the claws of
Titanis walleri
. He could scarcely believe he had survived the experience. Carefully, he undid the Velcroed straps of the flak jacket he'd been wearing. He'd put it on to protect himself from bullets, never thinking he'd be kicked in the guts by a gigantic bird. Looking down, he saw that his chest was a mass of bruised flesh. It was a miracle he had suffered no internal injuries, but he felt certain that he had not.

He wondered why the Scarlet rogue had not killed him. Vance had realized when the terror bird appeared out of the forest that it was the rogue, for none of the others was so large. The first light of dawn was pinking the sky, and he could see the forest as a line of darkness about a hundred yards to the north. That was where the Scarlet had appeared. He turned around and looked back the way he had come. What had happened, he wondered? Why hadn't the assassins come in and finished him off? The rogue must have attacked them. But had it been able to chase off a party of armed men? Holcomb considered that, and once again was led to conclude that these birds were possessed of an intelligence that might match that of humans.

With a few tentative steps, he retraced the way he had run. In point of fact, he was happy he had not had to negotiate the field of possibly unexploded ordnance that he knew lay just beyond the point where he'd been stopped. His chest burned with pain, but the soreness was slowly working its way out as he forced himself along.

Within the next twenty paces, he came upon the remains of Jim Gant. The small man lay in a pool of blood, a huge semi-circle of tacky black cooling around him. Flies and beetles crawled in it and were already working his body in the morning warmth. The man's right arm had been neatly severed at the shoulder and his dead eyes stared into a cloudless sky. Kneeling, Vance reached down, avoiding the pool of gore, and he removed the 9mm pistol that was still holstered at the dead man's hip. He stood and held it in his right hand. It made him feel better, safer.

He looked across the savanna. No one was waiting for him. No one had fired a shot at him. Either the terror bird had frightened them off, or maybe it had killed them all. He strode through the tall grass, his legs becoming wet with the morning dew clinging to the blades. Something dark lay in the field to his right, perhaps twenty feet ahead. He paced up to it and looked down. It was Winston Grisham, the retired soldier who had been legally battling both Holcomb and the Berg Brothers over the fate of this wilderness. Immediately, he knew that a partnership had somehow been formed between his two foes.

He saw that Grisham was still breathing. Vance chambered a round and aimed the gun at the colonel's head. Where his attempted assassin was concerned, he was not going to be squeamish or indecisive. His finger tightened on the trigger.

“Drop the gun,” the voice told him.

Holcomb looked up to see another man in camouflage fatigues standing in the grass no more than thirty feet away. The man was aiming a pistol at him, but he was not standing solidly and did not seem to be in the best of health. In fact, it looked as if he might pass out at any second. The man squinted and tried to look determined.

“You drop your pistol or I swear I'll blow your colonel's head off.”

The soldier continued to weave unsteadily. His chest was bleeding profusely, blood soaking through the military issue fabric. He'd obviously not had the protection Holcomb had enjoyed when the terror bird had drop kicked him like a leather ball. In a second, the wounded man dropped his pistol and then went to his knees.

“That's a good little Fascist,” Holcomb said. He knelt and found the pistol on Grisham's body. Taking it, he threw it as far toward the north as he could. The pistol landed somewhere out in the grasses with all of the other unfound weapons from years gone by. Taking a good look at the colonel's still form, Vance started toward the other wounded man and only stopped short when he encountered the man's pistol, which he tossed in the general direction of the other.

“Are your wounds terminal?” he asked the man. His injuries appeared to be very bad, and if the blood continued to flow he was not going to last very long.

“Screw you,” the man muttered.

Holcomb kicked him in the ribs. Just as he was turning from the soldier who was lying limp and useless there in the grass, he heard yet another voice.

“Grief, but you've been a lot of trouble to kill.” Watkins, rising up from the grass, had retrieved his rifle. The scope had been somewhat skewed, but he didn't need it at this range. He had every intention of sending Holcomb straight to Hell when a fearfully familiar sound came to him.

The nearby air was filled with a strange
fluttering,
again similar to the whirring of many insect wings. The Flock was suddenly there, appearing as by magic from the surrounding grasses. They readjusted the positioning of their striped and mottled feathers so that they no longer blended neatly with the savanna around them. Egg Father had left these three adults behind, to monitor the humans, to see what they did.
Act only if you feel threatened,
he had told them. They felt threatened.

The terror bird nearest the still unconscious Grisham made a sudden movement in the direction of the colonel. Watkins aimed as best he could and fired at it. The shot went slightly right and above where he had intended it to, but the bullet still struck the bird, passing through the fleshy muscle tissue along his left side. A small gout of blood showered out, and the bird, an adult female, quickly learned that
the histories were true
. Men could kill from a distance. She screamed this fact to the others, who all turned toward the armed man.

As the birds focused their attention on Watkins, Holcomb ran. He faced in the direction from which he had first come and he went, pumping his legs as fast and with as much energy as he could muster. Behind him, he heard the gun crack again, three times. The earth shuddered a bit under the tread of the huge animals. When Watkins screamed Holcomb did not turn to see what was going on, what they were doing. But he did hear a sound he never wanted to hear again. He supposed it was the sound of flesh being cut.

The pines swallowed him up, as behind he heard yet another volley of shots followed by a very short scream. He wondered if that had been the wounded man he'd kicked, or the awakening Grisham. Vance doubted he'd ever know as he once more began to run as fast as he could, realizing that it probably would not be enough. He pushed on, waiting for the sound of pursuit. The birds' tread actually shook the ground when they bore down on you. He'd know when they got close.

As he continued, he kept expecting to hear the approach of the huge birds. Fifty yards, a hundred. They still were not on him. At the place where the forest met the savanna he did not turn to see what was happening, but heard yet another explosion of firearms. This time it seemed to be a pair of weapons. But by then he was determined not to look back, not to stop running. Holcomb was tired, sore, and verging on clinical dehydration. He knew that even if nothing ran him down, he was still not going to make it very far without something to drink and a moment to rest.

He was tempted to slow down, and he recalled the sight of the Scarlet rogue bearing down on him, remembered how it felt when its foot—the toes splayed as wide as his chest—crashed down on him. Vance Holcomb ran faster and did not stop until he had reached the punctured ruin of his dome where he had left his backpack and roughly a gallon of fresh water.

Crawling into the dome he found his pack amid the wreckage of his equipment. He drank his fill and, recalling his previous mistake of remaining there too long, crawled back through the tunnel. He'd left his ATV only a few miles away. It was his last, best chance.

Jogging briskly, but conserving his strength, he went toward the place where he had stashed the tough little vehicle. Along the way, he chanced a glance back now and again. He saw nothing, heard nothing. Vance Holcomb seemed to be alone again.

The first sight that greeted them at the top of the sinkhole was what remained of a pair of men. They'd had guns, very good rifles in fact, but neither of them apparently had been able to get a shot off when they'd been attacked. Each of the men seemed to have been cut neatly in half. The sight was quite hideous, and both Riggs and Niccols wanted to get past them. It was only at Mary's insistence that they paused long enough to retrieve the pair of rifles.

“I think our guns are probably full of water and mud, anyway,” she'd told Ron, who quickly dropped Crane's shotgun and shed the bag of shells at her feet. “Why didn't they shoot? Got any idea?”

“I can't imagine,” Ron said. “The one we saw was certainly big enough to hit without much trouble.” Ron shivered. “Damn. I didn't think they would be that
big
. Christ.”

“What do you think's going to happen, now?” There was a definite rattle in Mary's lungs, now. The hours spent crouching in the water had done her bronchitis no good.

“I honestly couldn't tell you. I do know that this place will be shut down and probably by God fenced off as soon as word gets out.” They pushed through the forest. Occasionally, they would spot an enormous three-toed track in the soft earth and one or the other would point it out as if making a great discovery.

“What's going to happen to that bitch, Kate?”

“If she's still around, which I doubt, I personally want to see to it that she's put away forever.” Ron didn't want to tell Mary that Kate almost had him suspecting her of complicity in Dodd's murder. She might never forgive him if he told her.

“What the hell was she up to? I mean, who did all this?”

“I'm not sure,” Ron admitted. “I've got my suspicions. But basically we need to be about as careful as we can be. In fact, I suspect we should avoid the Eyesore entirely and just get the hell out of here. Make for Salutations and forget about Holcomb and his compound. Best case, it's empty and there are only a few dead bodies. Worst case, someone's going to be waiting to pop us and add us to the list.”

“Screw that,” Mary said.

“My sentiments, too.”

Ron stood there for a moment, just looking at Mary. Her own gaze was focused on the forest, as she searched for the likeliest route out of the stand of trees in which they stood. Her face was covered in grime, her hair tacked with sticks and leaves and dots of mud. But she had saved his life. She had put herself in danger, had stayed with him every step of the way. As if suddenly seeing the sun for the first time, Ron was hit with a rush of emotion he'd never really experienced. Suddenly Mary was the most important person in the world to him. He'd realized he had been such a fool.

Without saying anything, without asking for permission, Ron dropped the rifle and grasped Mary by the shoulder. He turned her to him and planted his lips firmly on hers. He kissed her long and hard, and his heart raced as he realized that she was returning the kiss with all of the passion he now felt flooding out of him. After a few seconds, he took his mouth from hers and looked into her face.

“Mary. I've been a damned fool,” he told her. “I'm sorry I treated you the way that I did. Sometimes a man doesn't realize what he has. I've been an idiot.”

“Well,” Mary said, “that's what I've been trying to tell you for months.” She bent and retrieved the rifle he'd dropped. “Learn to respect a weapon, son. We might need it.”

“Yes,” Ron said. “You're right. Let's get out of here.”

 

Mary knew that by all rights she should have stopped caring for Ron when he'd rejected her. She knew his reasons. Not fear of commitment, not afraid that they'd moved too far, too fast. He'd been a snob. But she couldn't help herself. They'd had so many things in common, similar feelings and interests. And there had been the physical attraction. You couldn't help that, sometimes. And who the hell knew what love was, or how to control it? Mary certainly didn't. She had been stuck on Ron almost as soon as she'd met him, and she remained so.

There was a moment of silence as they plodded along; both were tired beyond words. Finally, Mary brought it up. “What about Billy? We going to check on him? He can't be far away. You never said…”

“Oh, yes. He's dead. No doubt about it.” He recalled the feeling of the awful exit wound as he'd placed his hand on Billy's stomach.

“Christ.”

Neither spoke for a while as they continued to walk, veering southward and away from Holcomb's buildings and going wide of the spot where Crane had been shot.

“Best thing we can do for him is get some help and come back,” Mary said, echoing what Ron was feeling.

Before Ron could reply, the sound of a motor began to come toward them. It grew until they felt the need to hide, concealing themselves behind a clump of Spanish bayonet. They soon recognized the sound of one of the ATVs they had seen in the Eyesore's garage. In a while, the stubby little machine appeared, and they could see that Vance Holcomb was astride it, guiding it skillfully through the forest at a respectable rate of speed. Even from the distance, they could clearly see that Holcomb was disheveled; his shirt was in tatters, open to the waist to reveal flesh a very nasty shade of black and blue.

“Think we should flag him down?” Mary asked.

“How?”

“Fire one of these guns in the air?”

“Unless I'm mistaken, he's the main target these guys were after. We were just in the way. I think that if we fired a shot he'd soil himself and find a few more rpms in that engine. I think we'd best just let him go.”

“You're probably right,” Mary said. And soon the gas vehicle roared past them and became a slight burr in the distance.

The sun rose in the sky, the heat began to peel the sweat from their skin. Slowly, they ticked off the yards, knowing they had miles to go.