Lycan Fallout: Rise Of The Werewolf (38 page)

My body ached both physically and spiritually. Extra healing powers or not, I had pushed myself to the brink of exhaustion. I felt slightly better when I saw Tommy; he didn’t seem to be faring much better than me as he was shuffling past Bailey doing some basic fighting with the
locals. When he did catch me staring, he made sure to put a little extra pep in his step. I found that humorous, I didn’t even have the energy to pretend I had the energy.

Bailey looked up at the sun, over at me, then shook her head. I gave her the finger, and I’m being honest when I say that was an exertion. Azile was nowhere to be seen. I think that was for the best. I had a lot of feelings to wade through, and that had never been my strong suit. Feelings weren’t for the weak…they were for the strong that could examine them. It is much, much easier to be a creature of action not reflection.
I cared for Azile. The question was how much.

I was leaning against a wall actually looking for the next place to park my ass when Tommy approached. I could only hope to God he didn’t want to go onto round two. I think I’d just let him stick me through the gut and be done with it.

“We need to feed,” he said d,d two.with no precursor.

I was about to tell him I could go for a bacon cheeseburger when the realization of what he was saying settled in. “Fuck no,” was my initial response, even though I knew we had to. “Should we walk down the center of the town shouting, ‘Bring out your near dead! Bring out your near dead!’? I’m sure someone will toss out a grandfather or two.”

“We cannot fight in this state, and even if we weren’t this tired, we would need to be at peak performance for what comes next.”

“That’s why you did it,” I accused.

He feigned ignorance.

“You wore the living shit out of me for fifteen hours so that I would be just like this.”

“We need to feed, Mike. If we are to have any chance tomorrow night, we need to be as strong as possible.”

“Is Azile in on this with you?” I asked angrily, spinning on him.

This time it was clear to see he had no clue what I was talking about.

“It is who we are Michael…like it or not.”

“Not, would be my response.” The thing of it was…I knew the validity of his words. Odds were already fairly slim of us surviving, and me feeling like I couldn’t punch my way out of a rice-paper house right now only magnified that feeling.

“So now what?” I asked, letting my head sag both because it was hard to hold it up and also because I was coming around to what he had to say.

“We hunt tonight. We cannot feed among these people. They already fear us.”

“
With good reason.”

Tommy shrugged and walked away. Okay, more like limp-shuffled away. I had decided where I was leaning was as good a place to sit as any. I sat with my ass on the dirt and my back against
an ancient rock wall. Then I laughed, hard enough that those nearest me stopped what they were doing to look. I was thinking the only way we were going to be able to feed was if we stumbled across a Walmart and some Spandex-wearing old woman was sitting in her little motorized cart and it had finally run out of juice; other than that, I was unsure as to how we were going to catch anything. Anything that moved at least, and it was the insanity of what I had to do that had hysterical tears running out of my eyes.

I didn’t move much that day
as I let the sounds of children playing and adults working at playing war wash over me. Oggie sniffed around me a few times, but for the most part, he was enjoying the kids. The sun felt great, I wished I had been a plant and able to gain all the sustenance I could out of its rays. The rest did me some good, and I was actually able to stand without assistance as I felt the shadow of Tommy blot out the setting sun.

“You ready?” he asked.

“I never even liked to hunt when I owned rifles,” I told him.

“You did, though. After the zombies.”

“I had to, we had to eat.”

He raised his eyebrows, in a ‘See what I’m talking about’ gesture. “We have to eat now.”to es.

“Clever, I’ve yet to stumble upon a deer that begged me not to, though.”

“It would if it could.”

“That’s really not helping.”

“I’m just trying to show you the similarity.”

“You should be going the other way. Make the human more animal-like, not the animal more human-like.”

“My bad.”

“Not something you expect to hear from a five hundred-year-old vampire.”

“I’m pretty hip.”

“What if we come across small kids?” I asked as we headed into the woods.

“The likelihood we’ll run into kids is remote.”

“Like Hansel and Gretel maybe. I don’t want to be a monster immortalized in a children’s fairy tale for all ages.”

“I think we’ll be alright. Any kids we stumble across out here will be more than a match for us.”

“You’re kidding right?” I asked.

“Mostly.”

“Where are we going?” I asked as we pushed through the dense brush.

“There are nomadic people all along the old US-Canadian border.”

“Just trying to survive,” I said with chagrin.

“Much like we are.”

“Yeah, but we’re the ones doling out the death.”

“Michael, these people out here would do the same to us. They are a self-sufficient lot, that’s for sure, but they will prey on anything and anybody that gets within their grasp.”

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

“It is what it is. Men as well as vampires are predators, at least they are not so helpless as the deer you fell with your rifle.”

“You keep bringing that up. Are you gonna make me feel bad about that, too?”

“No, I’m just trying to make a point,” he said with an edge of anger. “I’m about to do something I’m not sure if you will appreciate or not.”

He never even gave me an opportunity to respond as he raised his right hand up to the side of my head, he placed the flat of his palm against my temple. And like a switch, literally, he shut off my humanity. My id, my ego, my super ego, rational thoughts just gone, vanished. I became the animal I was. No feelings of guilt, pain, remorse, I was a basic being. Hungry, and on a hunt. My fangs shot down, my blood quickened with the thought of food. I was aware of Tommy, but not as a friend, he was in my pack, and he was there to make our chances of success more likely. Although, at the time, it was merely pictures in my head, eat or not eat. With him...eat, without him...not eat.

My senses dominated, I could smell individual leaves – don’t ask, I can’t explain that one. My eyes were primed; looking simultaneously for prey and for any threats. My ears twitched with the slightest movements
. If ants had been my t haokinarget, they would have been screwed as I could even hear them scrabble across the hard earth. Time meant nothing as we passed quietly through the woods. Ever-looking, ever-listening.

The moon was on the far side of being done for the night. Embers burned dully in the campfire as we approached. I did not see male, female, old, young – I saw food. The being guarding the fire scarcely had time to raise his weapon as my hunting partner descended upon him. I lusted to feed with him, but the hunt was far from over as a cry of alarm issued from another being. I ripped its throat out, not thrilling in the triumph, I was merely content that I was feeding.

An arrow tore at the shoulder of my jacket. I spun. My eyes narrowed as I took in the being holding the weapon. I dropped the food I had been holding, the being with the weapon turned and fled and I was upon it before it could leave the small clearing it had bedded down in for the night.

We both drank our fill and then, when we were full, we gorged. It was the way of the animal; feast or famine, and I was saving up for the leaner times. The bodies were husks when we finished. I tossed mine to the side like I would an old dinner plate. It meant nothing more to me than that. The sun was making its presence known as I followed Tommy away from the feeding grounds. He led us to a small stream
. We stepped in and I drank greedily, the ice-cold water a nice respite from the hot blood as it was washed down the metallic taste of the iron-rich food.

I was aware –
but not wary – as my hunting partner approached me. I watched as his hand went to the side of my head. I fell to my knees as everything I was flooded back into me.

“Don’t think too much about it,” Tommy said.

I could barely hear him over the rush of thoughts in my head. It was like a great wall had been erected between the man and the animal, and when it was torn down, it was difficult assimilating the two distinct halves into one cohesive unit.

It’s impossible to put to words how I felt at that point. When I had been operating as a pure predator I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced life in a more unpolluted form. I truly believe that was the way life was meant to be lived. Not racked with guilt, self-doubt, psychoses, neuroses, and any other fucking oses. It really did come down to eat or starve, live or die. That was life. Water flowed around my outstretched arms as they held me firmly rooted in place to the small river
-bed. I plunged my head into the near ice water, but even that couldn’t break the fog that clouded me.

“What happened?” I finally asked.

“You know what happened,” Tommy said, being less than forthcoming. “You wouldn’t have done it. And the stakes are too high. I did what I had to do.”

“I’ve said those words before.” I stared at my flowing, distorted reflection in the water. “Rarely is it good.”

“I’m sorry, Mike.”

On one level…I was pissed. Sure, who wants to be manipulated that damn easily? On the other…HOLY FUCKING SHIT what an experience! I would, on some level, grieve for those that we had killed the previous evening – that was the man-side, the animal-side was…what? Not thrilled, not any real human emotion really. Fulfilled? We had survived. And really not even that. Life just
was
, and death was just as much a part of that. There was no baggage tied to it.

My body thrummed as we headed back into Wheatonville. I could feel every ripple of muscle, every hair as it was stirred by my movement. I was definitely switched on high. It was the morning of the war moon. Most of the
town’s inhabitants looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here. Some had talked with ardor about sending their kids to another town for sanctuary. There really wasn’t a point. It was a good chance Xavier was going to strike here, but it wasn’t like he had given us his playbook. There were at least a half-dozen places he could strike. Sending the children off was just as likely to endanger them as keeping them here.

What I’ll remember the most about that day is there was no laughing; no kids running around screaming and playing. No jokes made or played. I was in a strange place,
and everyone around me was in dreadful expectation. I was in an exuberant anticipation. If this thing didn’t happen, there might be hell to pay. Tommy and I had sparred some in the late afternoon to try and burn off some jitters, but I was having a difficult time ‘play’ fighting, and he thought it best if we stopped before I got hurt.

Bailey was setting up her gunmen at the choke point to the city,
creating an effective crossfire. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough bullets to keep up a sustained rate of fire. They were surrounded by at least ten men on either side, some had swords, most had deadly-looking farm implements. Who knew tending the earth produced so many dangerous looking items; it was no wonder farmers seemed always able to survive against all odds. Lords knew they’d be tested this evening.

I didn’t see Azile until the sun was nearly down. “And so it begins,” she said to me.

She was wearing a long flowing red dress, one I had yet to see. She looked magnificent and fierce. Her head was hooded and her eyes half closed as if she was summoning more power from whichever well she dipped into. Bailey was on my right and Tommy immediately behind me, the sounds of him sharpening his sword about the only thing making noise. We were in between the day birds retreating for the night and the myriad of night creatures producing their symphony.

It was in those final few moments I knew that Xavier had set his sights on us. War produces its own climate. A low pressure system to be sure.