Cannibal Reign (40 page)

Sixty-Four

T
raveling west in a pair of Army M35, six-by-six trucks, it took the group almost forty-eight hours to travel 180 miles through two and half and sometimes as much as three feet of snow to the city of Denver. Even with snow chains on all of the tires, it was slow going, with one truck occasionally bogging down and being pulled free by the other. Kane and Forrest drove the lead truck; Sullivan, Emory, and Marty were in the second; and Ulrich and Danzig followed in their tracks due to the Humvee’s lower ground clearance.

“We’ve got what, about three hours before dark?” Forrest said, standing on the hood of his truck watching the ruined city through a pair of binoculars. “Maybe we should wait until then before we try to get through. Our night vision should give us an advantage over anyone we happen to come up against.”

“Why not wait until morning?” Ulrich suggested. “This snow’s getting deeper, and Denver may be the best chance we get to switch the trucks out for some snowcats.”

“Good point,” Forrest said. “Switching vehicles in the dark would be a pain in the ass. But we’ve still got a thousand miles to go, and I hate to waste even an hour sitting still.”

“I hear you.”

“Let’s get in there before dark and try to find the address for a local snowcat dealer. Any objections?”

“None.”

They stopped at the first gas station they came to and found a phone book behind the counter. The station looked like it hadn’t been open in fifty years, its windows shattered, trash and filth and a few hundred dollars of now useless currency swirling around in the wind. There was not a single morsel of anything edible to be found. Not so much as a stick of gum or a bottle of water.

Ulrich found an address then snatched a map from the rack near the busted register and looked up the street, tracing his finger from where they were at the corner of Tucker and Cisco to Chester Avenue on the other side of town. “Looks like the dealership’s about eight miles up the road.”

He dropped the phone book on the floor and went out through the broken storefront window.

It was getting dark by the time they made it to Vann’s RV dealership, where they found a pair of used red Bombardier GT300 twelve-passenger snowcats in the back lot alongside a new orange fifteen-passenger Tucker 1600. The vehicles were behind the building and out of sight of the road, and thus had not been tampered with.

Forrest told Sullivan, Emory, and Marty to take up positions on the roof of the dealership, then asked Kane for an assessment on getting the trucks up and running.

“Shouldn’t take long,” Kane replied. “Unless the batteries are dead, which is possible. Wayne and Linus are in the garage gathering some tools.”

“Let’s make it happen,” Forrest said, starting back to the trucks to inform West and Price of their find.

Trudging through the hip-deep snowdrifts behind the dealership, he heard the women and children suddenly begin screaming, and he bolted toward the corner, knees high and his weapon at port arms. There were rifle shots, and the screaming reached a crescendo as his legs churned through the snow. Marty bashed his way through a locked glass door to join him at the run.

They rounded the corner to see a cluster of the women gathered near the back of a truck, all of them pointing into the dimness at two men scurrying away in tattered parkas where the snow was only knee-deep. Joann and West were giving chase, but the interlopers were outpacing them, and one carried a screaming child gripped in his arms.

Forrest stopped and sighted on the man lagging behind, who was trying to shield the abductor from West’s rifle. He fired and hit the man in the small of the back. The abductor, however, was too far off to risk hitting the child, so Forrest continued running for the truck, knowing he’d never catch the man before he disappeared into the night.

Marty fired at the interloper’s legs and missed.

“Marty, no! It’s too far!”

“But if he gets to those houses, we’ll never catch him before he kills her!”

Forrest could see two dead men in the snow near the trucks now, where Price was staggering to his feet, holding his head.

“The dog!” Forrest screamed. “Price, the dog!”

Price whirled drunkenly around and scrabbled onto the running board of the truck where Laddie was barking savagely to get out. He pulled the handle to open the door and fell away as the dog leapt from the cab and went tearing off through the snow, quickly overtaking Joann and West as he gave chase into the shadowy neighborhood.

“Save my baby!” Joann shrieked as she stumbled, then fell forward into the dirty fluff. “Laddie, please save my baabyyyy!”

“Jack, I’m sorry, they came outta nowhere!” West shouted as Forrest and Marty ran past him. Emory and the other men were responding now, but they were still fighting their way through the deep snowdrifts.

“That way, Marty! Flank his ass to the right around those houses!”

The light was fading fast and there was no time to go back for their night vision goggles. They could still hear Beyonce screaming for her mother somewhere ahead of them, but they knew it wouldn’t be long before her captor put her to death to silence her screams.

R
unning for his life, the raggedy man felt his muscles burning, fear and exhilaration gripping his heart. He was nearly home free, but he needed to shut the kid up fast or those bastards with the guns would catch him even in the dark. His stomach twisted as he weaved his way through the yards, feeling the child’s plump and tender limbs through her coat and pants. His salivary glands were already working, smelling her soapy scent, already tasting her juicy, fire-roasted meat, salted and sweet in his mouth.

He had dropped his knife during the scuffle, having underestimated the tall black broad’s strength. What had these people been eating all this time? How were they so healthy? It didn’t matter. They had obligingly seen fit to kill his three cohorts for him, so if he could just make it to the sewer, he’d be free and clear with enough meat to last him for the next couple of weeks.

He decided to jam his thumb deep into the child’s eye socket to kill her on the run, but she was struggling and he mistakenly jammed his thumb into her mouth. Beyonce sank her teeth to the bone, and the raggedy man gritted his teeth and swore in anger as he bounded down the alley toward the open manhole, clouting her clumsily about the face and head until she let loose. The path through the snow here was well traveled and the going was fast.

At last he arrived at the manhole, laughing in victory as he held the child by her ankles over the opening, certain the twenty-foot fall would shut her up for good. But before he could drop her, he was slammed from behind by a 110-pound German shepherd moving at top speed. The man and the girl both flew clear of the hole, and the dog sank its teeth deep into his emaciated thigh, thrashing its head back and forth like an angry mako shark, easily separating muscle from bone, severing the femoral artery.

The man screamed in agony and beat at the dog’s head in the dark, having no earthly idea what sort of beast was killing him. Was it a bear? No! It was a fucking wolf! Holy hell! Where the fuck did a wolf come from? And why was it eating him instead of the child?

F
orrest stumbled onto the well-traveled path and raced along it, following the sound of Beyonce’s continued screams. Marty hurled himself over a backyard fence and fell in behind him, flashlight in hand to light the way.

“There!” he shouted, spotting the screaming child ahead of them on the far side of the manhole.

Laddie was sitting beside her, licking her face in a desperate effort to give her comfort while she continued to shriek.

In a fury, Forrest leapt past the girl to land on the raggedy man’s body, caving in his skull with the butt of his carbine. Marty snatched the child up, asking her if she was hurt, but all she did was scream.

“I think she’s okay. Can’t tell for sure.”

“Get back!” Forrest ordered, directing Marty and the dog away from the open sewer, slinging his weapon. He stuffed the man’s fetid carcass into the hole and dropped a phosphorus grenade in after it.

“Fire in the hole!” he shouted as Kane and Sullivan arrived on the scene, all of them ducking as a white flash of light erupted from the chasm with a muffled bang.

“Is she okay?” Sullivan asked, his chest heaving.

“I think she’s fine,” Marty said over her cries. “She’s just terrified.”

“What about you?” Kane asked, shining his own light on Forrest, seeing the dead man’s blood on his uniform.

Forrest nodded. “Get that child back to the truck before she draws more of these animals.”

“Let’s go, John,” Marty said. “This kid needs her mama.”

Forrest watched them go. “See how fucking close it was?” he shouted at Kane, pointing at the hole, shaking with rage. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ! What the fuck were they doing, Marcus? Playing grab-ass?”

“Man, I don’t know. They’re just doctors.”

“I told ’em,
watch the fuckin’ kids!
” Forrest howled, remembering the blasted bodies of the children in the Afghan desert, the missing arms and legs, the endless pleading for their mothers who had almost always preceded them in death.

“It’s cool!” Kane shouted. “The dog saved the fuckin’ day, man. That’s all that matters.”

Forrest dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around his dog, burying his face in its fur and thanking the animal for doing what he and his men had failed to do.

West met them on the way back, nearly in tears with shame. “Jack, I—”

Forrest threw his arms around the doctor and clutched him tight, kissing him on the cheek and speaking into his ear. “Let it go. It’s not a mistake you’ll ever make again.”

When they got back to the truck, Joann jumped down from the back to hug the dog, bawling with gratitude in the light of the Hummer’s headlamps.

Forrest pretended not to notice that Veronica was watching him teary-eyed from the back of the truck. He gave orders for the battered Price to lay down and rest and for the vehicles to be moved around back while the snowcats were prepped.

“That guy’s still alive over there,” Marty said quietly. “The one you shot.”

“Is he, now?” Forrest turned and walked through the snow to where the man lay on his back, with West kneeling alongside him examining the exit wound to his belly. Emory knelt opposite, holding a green cyalume stick to provide light enough for him see. “That’s enough, Sean.”

“I’m just—”

“That’ll be all, Doctor.”

“Sir!” West replied, got to his feet and moved off.

“Make sure Price is okay. Go with him, Shannon.”

“What are you gonna do?” she asked, rising.

He grinned and took a pack of smokes from his breast pocket. “You know? For a soldier, you don’t take orders for shit.”

She smiled in the green light. “Orders my ass. What are you gonna do?”

He shook another cigarette from the pack, lit it off of the first and knelt in the snow to put it between the dying man’s chapped lips. “How’s that, partner?”

“It’s good,” the man croaked, holding the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and feeling the nicotine hit him quickly. “Been a long time.” He was bearded and his skin was covered in open sores. The eyes were hard and there was no fear in them.

“How many more of you pricks I gotta worry about?”

“We’re the last of the—” The man shook with a tremor of pain and held his exploded belly. “—of the holdouts.”

“No military types about?”

“Not anymore. Moriarty’s animals pulled out last year . . . with all the food.”

Forrest took a long drag. “You’ll be happy to hear I shot Moriarty in the face.”

Smiling crookedly now, the man said, “Then this was a good day to die.” His eyes glassed over and he was gone.

Forrest stood and turned to Emory. “You and Marty join Sullivan up on the roof, keep watch through the infrared in case this prick was lying.”

“Sir!”

“Anything moves out there, anything at all . . . kill it.”

A
n hour later both of the used Bombardiers were running like a pair of tops, but the Tucker didn’t want to fire up, and it took another hour of tinkering with the engine to get it running. After they had all three snowcats running, the food, fuel, and equipment were transferred into the larger, four-track orange Tucker vehicle, then the women and children were moved into the heated cabins of the red Bombardiers. It was still a snug fit, but far preferable to sitting scrunched and cold in the back of the canvas-covered Army trucks.

The Tucker was twice as tall as the Bombardiers, so it would bring up the rear, with a pair of lookouts to keep watch over the small convoy as it slipped through the outskirts of Denver to the south, and headed up into the mountains along Interstate 70.

They drove all that night without lights at roughly thirty miles per hour, and by first light it was time to recharge the NVDs. They had crossed over the mountains by then, through spots where the snow was ten feet deep or more on the highway, and had to drive around the big green highway signs. They did not encounter a single living creature. Much of the forest had burned away, and all that remained for mile upon mile were the blackened trunks of charred trees.

By the time they crossed into Utah the depth of the snow was back down to three feet and it was time to stop and refuel.

“That’s the last of the fuel,” Kane said, wiping his hands with a rag as the seven fighting personnel gathered into a loose group. “But it’s more than enough to get us to the coast.”

“Who besides me expects trouble once we start getting close to the ocean?” Forrest asked.

Everyone lifted a hand.

“Good,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “Then there shouldn’t be any surprises.”

Price came dragging himself through the snow.

“Something wrong?” Forrest asked.

“Lynette needs to go number two,” Price said. “Do we have time for her to use that Porta-John over there?”

“Sure,” Forrest said. “Might not be a bad idea for everyone to go again before we get moving.”

They continued talking as Lynette wrestled her way through the now thigh-deep snow to the Porta-John in the center median near an earthmover. She kicked the snow away from the door with her legs then went inside.