THEM (Season 1): Episode 4 (5 page)

I turned back to Bernie and shook his hand once more. “Well, the offer still stands if you decide to change your mind. We could always use a good Marine to help us rebuild.”

“I appreciate it, Scratch. Now, you make sure to look after yourselves. I don’t have to tell you that you’re walking into the devil’s backyard by heading into Austin. Not many people come back from making runs up that way. Watch your backs.”

Gabby squinted and nodded. “We will, Mr. Bernie, and I promise to look after him.” She punched me on the shoulder and walked off to untether Donkey. Bernie and I shared a look that said a lot about teens and hubris, but inside, I was proud of the kid. She’d fought to come with us, and in the end I knew if I’d left her she’d just follow along anyway. Short of locking her up back at the Facility, I had no choice but to bring her.

As we were leaving, Bobby got caught by Margaret and ended up with some dried fish jerky and a new jacket besides. “That t-shirt you’re wearing isn’t near enough to keep you warm at night,” she said, scolding and cajoling him into taking the gifts. He simply blushed and obliged her, obviously uncomfortable with being mothered. He said a quiet thank you and then scurried off to wait for us at the gate.

I turned and waved at them as we left the peninsula, and they waved back from atop the settlement wall. I hoped it wouldn’t be the last we saw of them, and said a silent prayer that they’d both be safe when I returned.

Bobby and Gabby took turns scouting ahead as we continued north along the back roads, but except for the odd deader we avoided trouble all day. That evening we spent an uneventful night in an old metal barn, locked safely away from whatever terrors and dangers lurked in the night. We holed up way back in the sticks southwest of the city, not far from where one of my favorite barbecue joints used to be back before the War. I regaled Gabby and Bobby with tales of huge slabs of brisket, BBQ ribs the size of stout tree limbs, and sausage links as long as your forearm as we shared a humble dinner of Margaret’s fish jerky and some dehydrated fruit I’d taken from the mess back at the Facility.

Bobby remembered what it was like back in the days of all-you-can-eat buffets and grocery stores that were restocked by just-in-time tractor trailer shipments every night, but Gabby was skeptical that there could be so much food all in one place. I promised her that when we got back we’d kill a wild pig and have a barbecue of our own to celebrate. She seemed to like that idea, but Bobby opined that ruining a perfectly good hog by cooking it over a fire was a waste of meat. Despite the circumstances, I slept well that night, dreams of brisket and ribs dancing through my head.

We woke up early, and once we got the all clear from Bobby that the area was free from deaders we headed out and made good time sticking to the back roads as planned. The kids took turns scouting ahead, making a sort of contest out of who could cover the most terrain and still make it back to report in every 30 minutes or so. They used the maps I’d procured from the Facility and some inner wolf odometer to gauge the extent of their ranging ahead. Bobby claimed he was winning by a hair, but to be honest I was pretty sure he was taking it easy on Gabby. Despite the advantages the treatments had provided her, she still wasn’t anywhere near being a match for a full werewolf, even a third-gen like Bobby. However, I speculated that she’d be quite the hellion once she grew into her own.

Around noon, I snapped out of my reverie when Gabby came running back through the trees, triple-time. She pulled to a stop in front of us, breathing hard with her hands on her knees, which indicated just how urgent the situation might be. I tilted my chin up in a questioning gesture, and she squinted up at me and gasped out a response. “Punters, about a dozen located a half-mile east-northeast, heading the same direction we are.”

“Can we avoid them?” I asked.

She nodded and replied with a look of disdain. “Yeah. The way they’re moving, a herd of deaders could run past them and they’d never notice.”

“So what’s the big deal?”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d want to pass on these guys.” She paused and stood up straight to take a drink of water, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Scratch, that punter with the funny hat is with them—the one who shot me on the boat.”

Pancho Vanilla, my old friend—also known as Jimmy the Punter.
Time for some payback,
I thought. I nodded once and handed her a canteen. “Well then, this is hardly an opportunity I’d want to pass up.” Gabby’s face hardened at that, and it gave me pause. I wondered at how different this kid’s life would’ve been if she’d grown up watching MTV and shopping at The Gap.

I gestured at Bobby. “I want you trailing them at a distance and checking in with us throughout the day to make sure we don’t accidentally let them spot us before nightfall. Don’t take any risks; just make sure you know their position when they stop to camp. Gabby and I will stay ahead of them and try to find a safe house close to where they stop so we can ambush them after dark.”

Bobby bowed with a flourish of his hand. “At your service, sire.” He winked and took off into the trees.

I turned back to Gabby. She wore a grim expression as she fingered the handle of her Kabar at her waist, and I thought about how I was responsible for more than my own well-being at this juncture. I’d never had to raise a kid before, but I’d spent plenty of time working with kids before the war. Big responsibility, that. At that moment I decided that I’d be damned if I was going to help turn an 11-year-old into a heartless killer.

I tapped her forearm to get her attention. “Gabby, I know you want some payback for getting shot, and I do too. But, we can’t just go killing everyone who crosses us.”

“Why not? My
tío
always told me it was the best way to make sure that bad people never crossed you twice.”

“That’s true, but there are other things we have to consider besides just our own welfare in this life. If we go around killing bad people just because they’re bad, we’re no better than they are in the end. Besides that, humans are in short supply these days. We need to focus on the real enemy.
Them.
”

She screwed her face up for a second and then looked up at me. “Is that why you let the Colonel live?”

“Yes, for that and other reasons, but that has a lot to do with it. Gabby, I’ll kill a deader, a rev, a nos’, or a ’thrope in a heartbeat, and I expect you to do the same. But when it comes to killing our own kind, we need to balance our will to survive with remembering what it means to be human.” I paused and considered my words. “It was wrong for me to try to take him out the first time. He was no direct threat to us, and I crossed the line. Not only that, but if I had killed him, chances are someone worse would’ve taken his place. Does that make sense?”

“I suppose.” She looked down at her feet and traced a line in the dirt with her toe. “But will you at least let me scare him a little bit? I’d like to see him piss his pants like the Colonel did the other night.”

I laughed. “How’d you know about that?”

“When you came back, the smell was all over you. Me and Bobby just put two and two together and figured you’d scared the piss out of him.”

I rocked back on my heels and gave the thought about two seconds. “Yeah, I have to say that this guy definitely deserves to have the piss scared out of him. You have my word.”

That night, we waited until the punters set up camp in an old self-storage facility. The place was fenced in and the structures inside were sound, and frankly I wished that we could have been using it for our own safe house. Instead, we set up inside an old two-story Victorian just down the road. The neighborhood was on the outskirts of southwest Austin, and after dark it crawled with deaders. I had to force Gabby to sit tight while Bobby and I reconnoitered the place.

We jumped the fence at a spot that was well out of the way of the punters’ line of sight and climbed on top of the storage units to scope them out. True to form, the punters were drinking and carrying on, which was attracting quite a few deadheads to their fence line. As a drinking game, they took turns stabbing them through the wrought iron fence with a makeshift spear someone had fashioned from a mop handle and a steak knife. If one of the punters took out a deader with a single stab, the others had to slug back a shot of whatever rotgut they were drinking. It wasn’t long before they were all drunk and passed out inside the main office building where they’d taken shelter.

I whispered to Bobby, “I expect that Pancho’ll have to come outside eventually to relieve himself. We’ll wait until he does and snag him then.”

Bobby nodded and whispered back, “You’re the boss.”

“You keep calling me that. What’s the deal?”

“Boss, alpha, same thing. Wolves naturally follow the strongest leader they can, because that’s the one who is most likely to keep them alive. You may not be a ’thrope, but you got alpha written all over you. Thus, you’re the boss.”

I nodded. “Alright, good to know. Just don’t do that sniffing thing again though—it creeps me out.”

He smiled, and even with the partial cloud cover I could see his face almost perfectly in the dark. “You know, now that you have my wolf blood running in your veins you might start doing it too. Have you had the urge to pee on anything lately? To roll in roadkill? To lick your balls?”

I sighed. “Just shut up and keep an eye on the exits.”

“Hey, I’m just saying, try it and you might like it. Roadkill smell is a dead turn-on for most ’thrope females.”

“I’ll pass. Now. Watch. The. Door.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Once I got Bobby settled down and on task, it was about another 45 minutes to an hour before Pancho showed his ugly mug. I almost missed him, since he wasn’t wearing that stupid hat. My best guess was that he thought he looked like McMasters from
Tombstone
in it, but this guy was a far cry from a Michael Rooker character in any capacity. Despite my distaste for Pancho’s sartorial leanings, I made a mental note to look for a copy of
Tombstone
if given the opportunity. Gabby would probably love it.

Pancho looked about three sheets to the wind, but even so Bobby and I moved as stealthily as possible into position to snatch him. I hopped down the wall and snuck up behind him while Bobby waited above him on the building’s roof. Before Pancho knew what had hit him I’d choked him out and had him hogtied and gagged. Bobby jumped down, and we carried him off to the fence line with no one the wiser.

The real challenge at hand, though, was getting Pancho’s sorry ass back to our safe house without a train of deaders following us back. I motioned for Bobby to draw them off before they got wind of us, and he rolled his eyes and sulked off into the night. I heard a loud noise a few blocks over and assumed it was Bobby. After waiting until most of the deaders were moving off to investigate, I heaved Pancho over the fence and then followed him over. He’d hit the ground with a grunt and had begun to stir by the time I landed next to him, so I pulled out my Bowie and held it to his throat as I whispered in his ear.

“I know you can’t see me, but I assume you can feel my blade at your throat.” He blinked several times in the dark, and I could see that he was scared, but pissed as well. I could work with that. “Now, as soon as my partner gets back we’re going to take a short trip, and then we’re going to have a little discussion. Blink twice if I can trust you to cooperate.” He paused, looking more pissed by the second, then finally blinked twice. “Good. If you don’t struggle or try to escape, I’ll make sure my partner doesn’t eat you.”

About that time, Bobby came jogging back up. I motioned for him to grab Pancho by the arms, and he shrugged and just heaved him up and over his shoulder, reminding me of just how strong a full-blown ’thrope could be. He gestured as if to say, “after you,” so I decided I wouldn’t look a gift-wolf in the mouth and led the way back to our makeshift safe house. About halfway there Bobby paused and motioned me down, squatting behind an old dumpster without setting down his burden.

I could hear him sniffing the air, although I didn’t notice anything out of place. He leaned over to me and whispered in my ear. “Nos’, and pretty close, too.”

Pancho must’ve heard, because he started struggling, knocking over some trash that had been stacked on top of the dumpster. I cracked him across the jaw, and he slumped back into stillness across Bobby’s back. Bobby grimaced and pointed to an adjacent roof. I could see a figure crawling our way, scuttling almost like a roach or a spider, belly down and slinking so silently that I almost couldn’t hear it even with my new upgrades.

Just then the wind shifted, and I caught the smell that had set Bobby’s radar on high alert a few moments before. It was the smell of old rot, dried blood, and death. I recognized it, because I’d smelled it many times previously on vamps I’d killed. Strangely though, I only remember smelling them after I’d killed them; I couldn’t recall a single time I picked up the scent of a nos’ before I’d dusted one.
This could come in handy
, I thought, loosening my battle ’hawk and drawing my Bowie from its sheath. Bobby cocked an eyebrow at me, and I motioned for him to head to the safe house with Pancho. He shook his head no, but I mouthed “I got this,” and shooed him off. He twisted his mouth in what looked to be indecision, then he padded off into the dark.

I looked up again, only to see that our friend was nowhere to be seen. That had me nervous. I couldn’t use any firepower to take this thing out, or else the punters would be all over us, not to mention every deader within two miles. Fact was, I wasn’t too sure about my ability to take it out with just my tomahawk and my Bowie. On the other hand, there was this part of me deep down inside that was telling me this thing was invading on my territory. It was like this inner voice telling me I had to take it down, because its very presence was an affront to my existence.

Now where the hell did that come from?
I wondered silently. My introspection was cut short momentarily as the wind shifted to my back and I caught that desiccated odor coming strong from my six o’clock.

I pivoted silently and drew my ’hawk, simultaneously switching my Bowie to a reverse grip. I laid the blade back against my left forearm, keeping it tucked so I could move in and use it to hook and slash. I felt the movement more than I saw it as I turned and chopped with the axe in a backhanded motion, catching the creature across its eye sockets as it leaned in to sample the menu.

Shit, I never heard it coming!
I thought as I checked its arm with the blade edge of the Bowie, chopping down at its biceps as the thing scurried back and away from me. Its right eye socket was ruined, but it was nothing that a little hemoglobin and time wouldn’t fix. That was, if I didn’t manage to put it down here and now. The thing hissed at me, and I could see its good eye glowing as it darted its gaze to and fro, taking in this strange new creature who didn’t seem to understand that it was the predator and not the prey.

Well, tough shit. It was time that I figured out just what my new semi-superpowers were capable of, and this was the perfect opportunity to test them out. I came up into a high crouch, circling to my left and toward its ruined eye, hoping to gain some advantage by using its new blind spot against it. The thing scuttled sideways, circling in a similar fashion, definitely faster than I could match. Within seconds it sprang quickly toward me, cutting off the circle and bounding on all fours to close the distance.