Grunt Traitor (9 page)

“Shit. Here they come.” The last thing I wanted to do was announce our presence with gunfire. “I’ll see if I can take them out, but if they get too close, open up on them.”

I sighted in on the first and led it by about five feet as I pulled the trigger three times. The first two rounds caught it in the face and back, sending it tumbling to the ground. I fired twice at the one on the left as it juked and jived, and caught it. Must have broken its back; it was still alive, but couldn’t move its back legs. Still, it tried to claw towards us.

Dupree caught the last one in a hail of full auto.

I pulled my pistol and strode to the one with the broken back. I put two in its head, then backed away as fast as I could.

“Hey, Dupree?”

“I see it. Better stay away.”

“Those are ascocarps, aren’t they?”

What looked to be a dozen knife-shaped outcroppings were sticking from the coyotes’ chests and shoulders. The tips of each were dark, as if they’d been dipped in blood.

“Look at those
Cordyceps
. I’ve seen this type on a tarantula. Looks almost like antlers. Only this is a mammal.”

I heard the high-pitched whine of a motorcycle off to the south.

I grabbed him. “Run!”

I took off at a dead sprint.

Dupree struggled to follow, his breath coming fast and furious. We made a rise in the gravel just as a motorbike skidded into the pit on the other side.

I shoved Dupree to the ground as I fell sideways, desperate to get below the pit’s artificial horizon. Dupree landed face first and groaned as he slid another seven feet down the other side. I spun and put my aiming point on the bike rider’s chest.

She was about twenty, thick in the waist and arms, and wore her hair in a Mohawk. She also had on night vision goggles and was surveying the area.

I jerked my head down when she looked in my direction. Two other motorcycles joined her.

I crabbed to where Dupree was struggling to roll over and helped him to his feet. We ran down an embankment, through several rows of trees, and onto the golf course. I sprinted across the fairway. Once I was in the opposite tree line, I found a low place and dropped my pack. I jerked the AN\PVS-7 free, turned it on, and slid it on my head, all before Dupree fell heavily beside me.

“Put your back to that tree,” I said, pointing to where he wouldn’t make a silhouette.

He scooted into position, then pulled out a rag, wetted it, and wiped blood from his face from where the gravel had lacerated him.

Meanwhile, I had my rifle ready as I scanned an artificially illuminated night. The sky, the ground, the trees were all different shades of green. I listened for the sound of a motorcycle, but didn’t hear a thing.

Had they gone?

Had they decided to move on?

This was exactly the thing I didn’t want—to be pinned down and lose time. I wanted us to be in and out, without interacting with the remnants of what had once been the Greater Los Angeles area.

Then I saw her.

She was on foot and sliding down the embankment we’d just come down. I saw her reach down to examine the gravel, probably noting where we’d disturbed it. Then she looked up... a hunter.

I glanced at Dupree and put my finger to my lips. When I looked back, she was gone.

Damn!

There was a trick an old sergeant had taught me when I was on guard duty one slick Fort Bragg evening.
If you look at a single thing, you tend to miss a lot of what’s going on around you. Instead, look at nothing at all, and you’ll have a better chance at seeing everything.
Now, fifteen years and an apocalypse away, I did just that. I stared at nothing, my gaze everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

One minute passed.

Then another.

Then I saw movement.

Miniscule, but it was unnatural, the round shape sliding around a tree near ground level. I snapped to the shape and made out the left side of a head. The ear. The chin. The nose. The singular optic from the NVGs pointing directly at me.

She had me, just as I had her.

How much time had passed? I suddenly became aware of our vulnerability. There’d been two others, right? So where were they? I know where I’d be if I were them.

“Dupree,” I whispered. “Watch our six.”

No response.

“Dupree.”

Still no response.

I turned six inches and felt a barrel touch the back of my head. I didn’t feel fear. I didn’t feel despair. I felt
angry
that I’d let myself get into this mess. I let go of my rifle and slowly rolled onto my back. Someone ripped my NVDs free. The world went black for a moment until my eyes adjusted to the night gloom.

One man stood above me with an M16; another pointed an MAC-10 with a sound suppressor at Dupree.

The man above me whistled.

Fifteen seconds later Mohawk stood above me.

“Did you frisk them?”

“No, ma’am.”

She squatted next to me. “Easy there, soldier. No funny stuff.”

She moved me into a sitting position, then frisked me, removing all of my weapons and throwing my pack into a pile. When she was done, she flexicuffed my wrists and ankles. Then she did the same to Dupree. They went through our packs, separating the weapons into one pile, communications gear into another, and what was left into the final pile. When they came to the biker jacket, they stopped cold.

The one with the MAC-10 held it up for her to see.

She nodded, then turned to me. “Which one of you killed Lou?”

“Me,” I said.

She appraised me with cold, unreadable eyes.

She had a nice three-inch scar on the right side of her face. A knife, maybe. Or shrapnel.

“Why’d you kill him?”

“So he wouldn’t kill my partner,” I said, telling the truth.

“What is he?” she asked.

I glanced at Dupree, who sat facing me, flexicuffed just like me. “He’s a scientist. An ethnobotanist. We’re here to figure out what’s coming out of the area around the Twin Hives.”

She exchanged looks with the other two.

“What do you know?”

I nodded towards Dupree.

He said, “You have animals exhibiting some alien strain of
Cordyceps ignota
. We saw humans with fungal growths much like those you’d find with
Ophiocordyceps unilateralis
, which seem to not only cause the host to serve as a vector, but to also create violent autonomous functions.”

“The fungees,” she said flatly.

He nodded. “Yes, the fungees.”

She turned to me. “Who are you with?”

“OMBRA.”

She raised an eyebrow. “For how long?”

“Since the beginning.”

Her eyes widened. “I know you.” She inhaled. “Hero of the Mound.”

Now it was my turn to be surprised. The only way she could have known was if she was there. Mr. Pink needed a hero. We were being defeated at every turn and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I’d saved Thompson, who’d frozen, and fought off and killed dozens of Cray, all recorded through our EXO suit cams to be rebroadcast on the plasma TVs in the bunkers. “What unit were you with?”

“Romeo Six.”

“You fought well. I remember when you brought back the remains of Romeo One Zero. I remember when you had our backs.” I had another thought. “Where were you for Phase I?”

“Roswell.”

“Where they kept the aliens?”

She snorted. “All they had was space junk. Now they have all the aliens they can handle. You up at Irwin, now?”

“Yep.”

This was the moment. I could see it in her eyes. What to do with us? I knew that part of her wanted to let us go. We had a shared experience. We’d been in combat together and come out the other side.

“What now?” I asked, nudging.

She frowned. “Not sure. That you killed Lou puts a monkey wrench in things.”

I regretted that we’d kept the jacket. “What was he to you?”

“He was in Romeo Six too.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. And I’d just killed him like it was nothing. “What was he doing with Devil’s Thunder?” I asked, finally opening my eyes.

“He thought he’d have a better chance of survival. He wanted to get away from the 605 Wall.”

“I hear Devil’s Thunder likes to rape and pillage,” I said evenly.

“There’s no shortage of that anywhere nowadays.” Her eyes hardened. “How’d you kill him?”

I could have lied, but I didn’t. “I put a knife through his ear.”

“From behind?”

I nodded.

“Did he even know you were there?”

I shook my head.

If she was going to kill me, she’d do it now. I could see my demise working through her eyes as she strained to find a solution that would be equitable to the memory of Lou, but also let me live.

Seconds passed.

“Who are you with? GNA?”

She grinned. “That shill? I didn’t like him when he was on television. Why should I like him now?”

I shrugged. “He seems pretty popular.”

“He just has good organization. I’ve known some who joined for the healthcare.”

I snorted. “I knew people who joined the Army for that, back when there was health insurance.”

“Lot of good that did them.” She stared long and hard at me, then she stood. “Uncuff them,” she said, pointing to the man with the M16.

He was tall, rail thin and bald except for tufts of hair clouding above each ear. “But he killed Lou.”

“Lou knew what he was getting into when he left us.” She shook her head. “Wrong place, wrong time. Now uncuff them.”

“But Sandi!”

She whirled on him. “We talked about this when he left. What if he came against us? Would you give him your neck?”

He jerked his head towards me. “But he just stuck a knife in him.”

“Steve! What would you have done if Lou had me in a corner? Wait for him to turn around?”

His shoulders sagged. “I liked Lou.”

“Me too.” She walked up to him and squeezed his arm. “But he chose them over us. Phil, help them put their gear away. We’re bringing them back to the farm.”

Phil was about my height and I now noticed by the hang of the pants that he had a prosthetic left leg—something I’d become familiar with, after all the roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. His face was pocked with what I recognized as scars from embedded concrete. Another victim of an IED.

“Sure that’s a good idea?” he asked evenly.

“I’m sure.”

He nodded and began redistributing the gear they’d confiscated back to us. Once Dupree and I repacked everything, they gave us back our weapons and we were on our way. As we climbed back up the embankment to the gravel pit, I was completely aware that this was not how I thought this episode would end. Goes to show that life still had a few surprises left in it.

I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern: a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.

Agent Smith,
The Matrix

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
RODE BEHIND
Sandi, and Dupree behind Phil. We hugged the mountains as we headed west. Twice we saw groups of human scavengers, but they were going from house to house, filling wheelbarrows full of canned and boxed food. Eventually all of that would run out, and then what? If there was anyone left who wasn’t a fungee, what would they eat? Remembering all of the movies they’d had us watch as a primer for our role at the end of the world, I found fault that they’d left out zombie films. At the very least
The Walking Dead
should have been something we were forced to watch and be tested on. I can just see some of the questions those silly scholars over at pre-invasion OMBRA would have come up with:

Did Rick shoot Shane because Shane had an affair with his wife, or because he was worried that Shane would ally the others against him and take over leadership of the group? What does this say about Rick’s humanity? What does that say about his leadership?

Or:

Merle and Rick seem to be the antithesis of each other, but explain how they are really the same character assigned to different circumstances.