Wolfen (20 page)

Sinna grabbed his arm and pointed northeast.

A shadow moved.

A few yards to its left, another.

Three more came, forming a solid group of five emaciated,
long limbed, gray-skinned creatures hunting for food. They weren’t as frail as
the ones back in San Francisco. These seemed to have a steady food supply, which
would explain their numbers.

Sinna jerked her chin farther north. Another group, and more
shadows in the distance behind them. They moved together, like a barely
coordinated army, sweeping the woods, noses lifted to the breeze.

Seventeen in all.

A chuffing sound off to the west brought Bryce’s head
around.

Make that twenty-nine.

Something dropped to the forest floor right in front of the
mule, startling them both. A bony gray hand propped onto the hood, claws
digging into the paint. It was small enough to be a female, but Bryce had never
expected
this
. The convert pulled herself up and slithered onto the
mule, hissing like a snake. She had no eyes. Her face had indentations in the
skin where eye sockets would be, but somehow had never developed actual
eyeballs or eyelids.

Her head twitched from side to side, and Sinna’s fingers dug
into Bryce’s arm. “Drive,” she whispered, barely a sound.

Bryce shook his head. Too dangerous.

The others were coming closer, baring fangs, sniffing the
air. They drooled and quaffed, but didn’t vocalize. For all their lack of
balance, these things didn’t stir a single leaf or snap a single twig.

The female on the hood made a clicking sound and twitched
her head so far to the side, it looked like she broke her own neck.

A deep growl off to the left answered her, and Bryce slowly
turned his head toward several large males headed straight for them. While he’d
been watching the snake woman, more converts had melted into being through a
thick mist that rolled in from the north.

The snake woman reached forward and slid her hand down the
front window. She groaned like a rusty door hinge, then slapped her palm onto
the glass, and hissed viciously.

Bryce put the mule in reverse and stomped on the gas pedal
to dislodge her.

A chorus of blood-curdling screams rent the air.

“Hold on!”

Converts charged, running faster than the mule could move in
reverse. Bryce stepped on the brake and turned the wheel hard right, spinning
on the service road until they faced forward. It cost him precious seconds and
slowed them down enough for a couple of converts to land on the truck bed.

Bryce swore and punched it. One fell off, but the other hung
onto the jagged edge of the back window. Sinna pulled out her gun and fired
over her shoulder without looking. She missed, wasting one of the few bullets
they had.

“Aim first!”

Intent on a meal, the convert reached in through the window,
but the bumpy ride kept slamming him up against the top edge, and knocking him
back down to the truck bed. Bryce drove across a ditch, bouncing the mule hard,
and the convert impaled his hand on a sharp piece of glass. He didn’t even
notice.

“Sinna, shoot him!”

She pulled her knees up onto the seat, turned around and,
with both hands on the gun, aimed and fired off a shot. Convert brains
splattered the back of the cabin, and the horde outside gave a collective
high-pitched squeal that stabbed through his eardrums.

Bryce roared in pain.

Sinna covered her ears, lost hold of the gun and her
balance. She fell against Bryce, accidentally turning the wheel left and
sending them off the road. He swore, yanking the wheel sharply to correct, just
in time to avoid an outcropping.

“Oh, God, they’re gaining!”

“Too much weight.” Bryce steered the mule back onto a proper
road. There went the intersection. “We need to get him out.”

Sinna nodded and scrambled between the front seats into the
back. She pushed and shoved the bleeding mass of refuse out of the cabin, then
crawled through to get it off the truck.

On fairly even cement now, Bryce sped up gradually, careful
to keep them straight. One more bump or sharp curve and Sinna would go flying
off the truck along with the corpse. He kept checking the rearview mirror to
make sure she was still there. The body was twice Sinna’s size, and had to be
heavy as hell. She struggled to move it even an inch, and the longer she spent
out there, the more incensed the horde became. Bryce gritted his teeth and
turned his attention back to the road. Out of the corner of his eye, he counted
gray shadows as they multiplied beside them.

Fifty miles per hour, and the converts weren’t falling back.
If the mule ran out of steam, they’d never make it. The sun was going down and
the battery had already drained to a quarter—he had no idea how much longer
they could keep going like this.

The chassis rose a couple of inches as Sinna shoved the body
off, and Bryce eased up on the gas a little to hurry her back inside. It cost
them a few more feet of distance and from his side, a massive male altered his
route, throwing his weight into the mule.

Sinna cried out, falling against the window. The damaged
glass gave way and she crashed halfway out the opening.

“Sinna!”

Another male made a run at them, claws aiming for her.

“Hold on!” Bryce stomped on the gas pedal, gripping the
steering wheel so hard, he felt it warp in his hands.

Sixty miles per hour.

The convert screeched, lagging just enough to claw the truck
instead of Sinna. She shimmied back inside and shrank to the floor between the
front and back seats, hyperventilating.

Seventy miles per hour.

The horde ran on, screaming and whooping, not about to give
up on a ready meal. Several moved in close to the back of the truck, claws
scraping metal. One tripped and fell, bowling over three others, but five more
remained.

Eighty miles per hour.

A set of claws dug into metal and held on. Bryce snarled and
fishtailed. He managed to bat away a good number of them along the sides, but
that one seemed to be stuck. They came up on cars stalled along the road, and
Bryce swerved to get around them, but slammed against their sides to dislodge
the last hanger-on, deliberately scraping more paint off as metal screeched
against metal. The extra weight came loose. Bryce checked to make sure, and saw
bloodied claws stuck into the mule’s side. The rest of the convert was gone.

Behind them, the horde slowed, giving up as the mule pushed
almost ninety-five miles per hour on open road, leaving them in the dust.

Bryce didn’t slow down until full night had fallen and he
was sure they were in the clear. By then, he had no choice; the mule slowed on
its own, crawling for a few more miles before it finally gave out and quietly
powered down.

They were a half-night and untold miles away from the convert
hive and Haven—in the wrong direction.

Son of a bitch!

Bryce got out, slammed the door, and rammed his fingers into
his hair. He was shaky, hanging on by a thin thread, and couldn’t believe he’d
kept it together this long. By the light of the moon, he inspected the damage:
more photovoltaic paint gone with no way to repair it, and the remaining glass
in the side windows was useless. He broke it all out, more out of frustration
than any practical considerations. At least the windshield was still salvageable.

Sinna came out the other side. She was talking to him, but
he didn’t listen.

The scent of blood—convert and human—seeped too deep into
everything. Bryce took off his shirt, balled it up, and wiped down the mule’s
interior as best he could. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do. When he
finished, he dug a hole to bury it and used a fistful of moist earth to scrub
himself. It wouldn’t clean him by any stretch of the imagination, but at least
he didn’t smell like a butchery anymore.

“Bryce,” Sinna said. “What do we do?”

He chuckled without humor. “Mule’s dead. At least for the
moment. We have no food, no water, not enough weapons, and too many converts
standing between us and Montana. Guess that means you get your wish, little
bit. We’re going south.”

The news didn’t thrill her. “Maybe they’ll be different.”
Her tone belied her words. “Maybe they’ll help us.”

“Yeah. And maybe we’ll wake up tomorrow and the sky will
rain down chocolate chip cookies.”

The first shriek to rend the night terrified Desiree out of
a deep sleep and sent her rolling off of the bed. She instantly scrambled
underneath it and made herself as small as possible. Her room was only a few
feet from the inner wall, and it sounded like converts were just outside it.
Had they breached Haven’s defenses?

No, think!
If they’d gotten inside, there would have
been screaming and alarms set off.

Another shriek answered the first, and several more joined
in.

No, they hadn’t gotten inside—yet. But they were close.
Too
close.

Dozens called to each other in a sickening symphony of
deranged howls, voices unique but in a strange, unsettling way, harmonizing
with the rest. And over it all rose a horrible, ululating voice—a sound fit to
curdle blood. Their leader. Desiree had seen him once from a distance. Might
made right among converts; their primitive hierarchy depended on size and brute
strength. Their leader was a massive six foot ten, and built like a tank. He
had a short, wide neck, with vocal cords that emitted sounds she’d never heard
before. She knew it was him out there now; his voice was unmistakable. And if
he was there, then this wasn’t a meandering nature walk.

Desiree waited for the gunfire. Klaus was cautious with
ammunition, but he wouldn’t tolerate a threat this close to Haven. They had to
be within feet of the outer wall; closer than they’d ever dared come before.
Haven’s defenses might have looked impressive from the outside, but their
construction was little more than a house of metal cards. If even one convert
managed to entertain the thought of attacking long enough to give it a try,
they were all in very deep shit.

The guards knew that, and they’d start shooting any minute.

Any minute now.

But instead of a rapid succession of pops, when the voices
outside lulled a little, someone shouted an order into the night:
“Hold
positions! We do not engage!”

What? No!
Where the hell was Klaus? They needed fire
power—STAT!

A disturbance rose up outside her room. She peeked out from
under the bed and saw shadows moving past her door. A mother shushed her crying
child. Teenagers whispered to each other in a rush of hissed words.

“Hurry up! We have to get to the commons.”

“We’ll be safe there, right? I mean, they won’t get through
the walls, will they?”

The answer was too muffled, but Desiree could take an
educated guess. If people were gathering in the commons, the centermost point
of Haven, then they still believed there was power in numbers; that if they
were all in one place, the guards would keep them safe longer.

In reality, they would have been better off running for the
escape tunnels instead. If there was strength in numbers, then why was no one
knocking on doors, rousing the citizens, sounding alarms?

Answer: Because no one cared.

People always showed their true colors in a crisis. Everyone
was all hunky dory during the good times, swearing fealty and promising love
ever after, but as soon as times got tough, all of those loyalties evaporated
like piss on a hot summer day, and then it was every man for himself. No one
could afford to hold your hand when they had to hold a weapon; you either
followed the current and joined the herd, or you were left to the wolves.

The weak, the old, and the lame always got left behind.
Which meant Desiree was on her own.

The last of the Havenites had evacuated this part. Not even
her erstwhile guards would come for her now. Desiree pulled herself out from
under the bed and strapped on her prosthesis with shaking hands. With her
crutch to steady her, she huddled by the door, checking to make sure nothing
was there before she stepped out and hurried through the corridors toward the
commons.

Her mind played tricks on her in the dark; the abandoned
paths were like an eerie ghost town with monsters just beyond the wall. Every
flap of cloth, every skitter of rodent feet made her jump. She imagined
converts stalking inside Haven, just around every corner. They were coming for
her. She knew it.

Faster. Faster!

With each step she took, the howling grew louder, making
Haven’s thick walls seem almost insubstantial. She fought back tears, forced
air in and out through a throat tight with fear. Desiree saw glowing eyes in
every shadow, until she made herself not look. She heard footsteps just behind
her, claws scratching at the metal wall, but when she spun around, there was
nothing.

It was all in her head.

It’s not real.

Oh, the converts were out there, but in the open, Desiree
was better able to judge the sounds and she could tell they were a sure
distance away. A couple dozen yards, at least. Still much too close for
comfort, considering they must have crossed about five miles of wide-open space
to get there.

And if they’d gotten that far, what was to stop them from
going farther? At any moment, one of them could set his sights on Haven, and
their hive mind mentality would compel every single convert to charge the
compound. They wouldn’t stop until they’d gotten inside. No matter what it
took, how long it took, or how many died in the attempt, they’d keep on coming.
They didn’t know how to give up. Haven’s walls would crumble to dust in
minutes.

Desiree quickened her step, prosthetic joints creaking with
too much strain. She didn’t care. The commons weren’t far, just beyond the
baths and the market. She could make it. There was safety in numbers, if those
numbers had guns. She was going so fast, trying so hard to outrun Death’s call,
her prosthetic foot caught on her crutch and she fell. Hard.

As if they sensed it, the converts quieted. Desiree’s heart
thundered. She’d never make it to the commons this way. The baths were a few
feet in front of her; she could hide there. Maybe the mineral-rich steam would
disguise her scent until the storm blew over. She could hide in the water. Better
to drown on her own than be torn apart by them.

A different set of sounds outside the wall startled
her—higher pitched, almost questioning. Whoops and clicks, followed by a series
of hisses and grunts. One howled, another emitted a sharp, wet bark. Almost
like a conversation.

But that couldn’t be. Converts weren’t that smart. They were
ruled by instinct. Organization of any sort was purely incidental.

Right?

Through the snarls and growls that almost seemed like a
verbal fight, a more melodic voice sounded:
Woooip—woooip—woooaaaaaaa…

Chuffing followed, and another shriek, and then the rest
screamed together.

Sweet Jesus, they’re communicating!

Desiree pulled herself up with the crutch and hobbled into
the dark tunnel. Torches were mounted on the wall, along with a small fire
starter. She set her crutch against the wall, took the torch down, and struck
metal against metal. Her hands shook too much, and the spark flew wide of the
torch, wasted. Desiree tried again.

A small noise echoed in the cave.

She froze. “H-hello?” Fire forgotten, she dropped the tool
and reclaimed her crutch. “Is anyone there?” She couldn’t outrun whatever was
in here, but she sure as hell wouldn’t lie down and volunteer to be dinner.
“Hello?”

“Dee?”

She recognized the voice and sagged in relief. “Rey? What
are you doing here?”

The five-year-old boy came out of hiding. He was little more
than a shadow, but it didn’t matter. “I lost my mum,” he said. “Did you see
her? Where did she go?”

“She’s probably in the commons. They’re all there. I’m sure
she’ll come get you in the mor—”

“Can you take me to her?”

Shit.
“Uh, it’s probably safer if we stay here. At
least until sunup.”

“Please, Dee! I’m scared!” He broke into tears. “I want my
mum!” The boy wailed, his voice amplified by the caves.

Outside, the converts answered.

“Shhh! Hush. We have to be quiet.”

Rey howled louder.

“Please, stop it. Crying won’t help anything.”

“I want my muuuummyyyy!”

“I know, I know, but—”

“
Muuuummyyyyyyyyy!
”

Shit and drat. And goddamn it, too.
“Okay, fine. I’ll
take you. But you have to stop crying.”

He stopped at once and launched himself at her, hugging her
middle so hard, he almost knocked her to the ground. “Thank you, Dee!”

“Hey, easy there, yeah? I only have the one good leg.”

Rey sniffled and wiped his nose on her shirt. “Sorry.” He
held his hand out for her to take.

Seriously? Where the hell did kids learn to be such
manipulative little monsters? She had half a mind to leave him here and go
somewhere else.

But no. She couldn’t. That would be wrong.

A shaft of faint moonlight shone down on the boy as he
blinked his big, wet, owl eyes at her, still holding out that hand.

Desiree rolled her own eyes. “Other side, kid.”

He came around, tucked his hand into hers, and led her
outside. He pulled, eager to find his derelict mother, not caring one damned
bit that Desiree couldn’t walk as fast as he did. But when the howls picked up
again, he gasped and cowered against her, his thin little body quivering.
Apparently any adult would do in a pinch, crippled or not. She was bigger, so
Rey expected her to protect him.

“Come on, we gotta keep moving.” She didn’t want to be out
here any more than he did, and the sooner she handed him off, the better.

He nodded and walked, but kept his arms around her and his
face turned into her side. It made for some very precarious maneuvering but
they managed, and once the path had opened up a little through the market, they
were almost home free. Fires flickered in the distance. Havenites, as a rule,
were afraid of the dark. They lit torches and huddled close, preferring to take
their chances together out in the open, rather than hide inside alone.

“Rey!”

The boy’s head snapped up. “Mummy?”

“
Rey!
” The haggard Fiona ran for her son, but as soon
as she saw Desiree, her tear-streaked, blissfully relieved expression turned
into hard antagonism. “Get your hands off my son!” She snatched the boy away,
glaring as if Desiree was singlehandedly responsible for his near-imminent
demise.

“I found him in the baths,” Desiree said.

Fiona turned her back and crooned loudly to drown out
Desiree’s voice. “Oh, my boy, I was so scared! Don’t you ever run away from me
like that again, you hear!”

“You’re welcome,” Desiree muttered. They were already too
far to hear. As mother and child rejoined the herd of frightened humanity,
people smiled in relief, opened their arms to the boy returned safely to their
midst. Then they looked at who’d brought him back, and turned feral.

Right. Desiree not welcome here. I forgot about that.

There were no guards in sight. It was a tossup whether they
were on the outer wall, or making a run for it through the escape tunnels.
Either way, approaching the Havenites without them around might be just as
dangerous as facing off with converts. Rather than risk their animosity,
Desiree ducked into shadows where she wouldn’t be easily visible.

If the monsters breached the wall, not even the Havenites’
little huddle would save them. Desiree hoped it wouldn’t get that far, but she
was a realist. If the worst should happen, then her only chance of survival was
to get a nice, long head start into the tunnels.

Off into the rabbit hole I go.