First Wave (The Travis Combs Post-Apocalypse Thrillers) (11 page)

The next morning at breakfast, Travis motioned Jim
to come over. “Nora, Katy, and I are going up on the rim to procure a cow and
bring back meat. I want you to grab some water and be ready to head out with us
in five minutes. There are some things we still need to talk about.”

Jim reluctantly shrugged his shoulders and headed
back to the line shack to get his gear. Travis knew that the less time he gave
the man to think about instructions the better. Nora and Katy were already
walking over, with rifles slung African style off their shoulders.

A few minutes later, Jim returned. Nora led them
behind the line shack and into the narrow confines of the slot canyon. About
two hundred yards in was a makeshift ladder made of old fence posts lashed
together with barbed wire remnants, typical of the cowboy ingenuity found in
regions with limited resources. Various sections of ladder were in place that
led from one rock ledge to another until they inched up to the top of the
canyon and scrambled on some toe holds pecked in the sandstone rim. The
vertical oasis of trees in the canyon below disappeared and the land in front
of them opened back into a vast expanse of endless slickrock, peppered with
occasional clumps of scraggly junipers. About a half mile to the south was a
cluster of black cows gathered around a pool of water that had formed in a
small rock depression.

“All of the cows are ours,” said Nora. “That
waterhole is where they tend to gather in the morning. Because these cows are
left to wander all year, they’re a little more wary than barnyard animals.
They’re used to the sight of people, though, and we’ll be able to get in relatively
close. Getting a shot won’t be an issue as long as we don’t spook ‘em with loud
noise or excessive movement.”

Travis stopped as Jim moved slightly behind him. Katy
glanced back at the two men. “Nora, why don’t you and I head on. The guys need
to talk a little,” she said.

The two women began a stroll towards the cattle,
while the men walked slowly outside of earshot. “So, Jim...with all this mayhem
and training, we have some catching up to do. Let’s see…I think you were
telling me how you were one of the brilliant minds pulling the curtain on the
world and had some magic potion in your pack that could set things straight.”

“I’ve been watching you Travis, and I can see that
you have our best interests in mind and are not the lumbering oaf I mistook you
for on the river trip. However, nothing can be done with the vaccine in my pack
unless I have access to a lab, and that is not going to happen until I can be
put in touch with my handler,” he said.

“What makes you think he’s alive and your lab isn’t
a shitpile of ashes and rubble?”

“There were others in the research program that
didn’t see eye-to-eye with the corporate entity running the show. My handler
was one of those. He and his team had certain protocols in place, unknown even
to me, that would ensure that the virus wouldn’t emerge into a second or third
wave.”

“If that’s so, then why do they need you?” Travis
said, as they followed the contours of the tawny slickrock.

“There were six of us involved in the research, in
case something went wrong or happened to one individual, to ensure that the
project would continue. My specialty was neurophysiology, not virology, so we
were spread out across the scientific disciplines. In any research project,
there are always random elements that can’t be accounted for so you have
contingency plans in place. Surely, you understand that. My job was to identify
the neuorological receptors for the virus and to track the changes within the
cortex as it spread. The mutations we’ve encountered at the beach, and the
ranch, were not something I ever witnessed.

“I thought you said your research was a government
run operation. Now you’re saying it was a corporate entity that pulled the plug
on humanity?”

“Government, military, corporation…it’s all the same
beast cloaked in lingo to soothe the bureaucrats signing off on the funding.
The umbrella corporation that funded our government division was owned, in part,
by the Secretary of Biodefense, but few people knew that.”

Travis looked down at the pebbled ground and shot a
glance up towards the women, who were a hundred yards ahead, cresting a slight
ridge and dropping out of sight. The two men plodded along, their breathing the
only sound between them, as Travis tried to untangle the information Jim had
provided as well as what he knew about bioterrorism from past training courses
with the DOD. They were nearing the ridge when they saw the women scrambling up,
wide-eyed, towards them with rifles in hand.  

“Rabid dogs!” Katy said, in a frenzied breath. “Coming
this way…dozens of them…get ready.…”

Travis bolted a few feet up to the ridge and saw a column
of around thirty, emaciated dogs heading towards them. Most of them were half-naked,
with ulcerated sores on their face and legs. The two lead animals in front were
spewing out grey foam with each bound on the slickrock. The leader, a massive
bear-like figure, was missing an ear while raw bone shone through the left side
of his skull.

“They must have been headed towards the cows and got
wind of us,” panted Nora.

“Everyone drop down beside me,” Travis yelled,
unslinging his AK. “Get your safety off! Remember…front sight, squeeze, repeat.
Aim for the shoulders or hips to disable them.” Travis’s voice was drowning out
amidst the approaching cacophony of growls and snarls, as the gangly mob of
canids streamed forth up the ridge.

Katy and Nora were kneeling on Travis’s left while
Jim was on his right. “Now!” he said, as they began firing. The dog’s loped up
the ridge in an undulating wave as the shooters delivered short, controlled
bursts into the oncoming horde. Travis dumped four rounds into the lead dog’s shoulders
but it still kept trying to claw its way up to the ridge, despite the massive wounds.

Dropping the alpha didn’t seem to matter as the
animals were driven by a rabies-induced madness that kept them pouring forth,
like a wildfire that consumes a hillside. Nora and Katy took whatever targets
were presented, finding themselves firing their weapons into the mass of
decrepit figures. The dogs moved more like a swarming school of sharks than
independent animals. The reload drills the women had practiced, paid off, as
each of them commenced replacing magazines and providing support fire when the
other was empty.

The slickrock beneath them flowed red amidst a tangled
mess of limbs, flying chunks of fur, and whelping carcasses. With the lead
members dead or disabled, the rest of the pack continued in a single column up
the ridge and then, five of them, peeled to the right of Travis. He turned to
fire and noticed Jim was gone. He paused for a second, and then dropped two of
the dogs, but the others kept running over the ridgeline. Jim was about fifty
feet away, sprinting towards a juniper tree. As the remaining dogs neared the man,
Jim clumsily did a half turn and sprayed off several rounds from his pistol.
Travis heard the familiar hum of bullets whiz by his head, followed by a
ricochet on the rocks behind him as Jim continued firing.

“Sonofabitch,” he snarled, dispatching another dog
headed towards Jim. Just as Travis rose, a giant, bulldog mix leapt over the
ridgeline at his face. He swung his head to the left, slamming the butt of the
AK into the animal’s skull sending it to the ground unfazed, and then emptied
the remains of his magazine into the ulcerated beast.

He turned back to the ridgeline beside the two women
and continued firing.
We’re going to have kill every fucking dog. There’s no
other way out of this unless we do,
he thought. Katy dropped her AK on the
ground. “I’m out of ammo,” she said, as she pulled a pistol from her belt and
continued firing. The eight remaining dogs stopped, as if an invisible barrier
had emerged from the rocks beneath them. With open jowls, they paced in
half-circles around the group.

Nora dropped one more beast before lowering her
empty AK and withdrawing her pistol. The remaining dogs strode back and forth
around the fallen bodies looking up at their potential prey and then down at
the mangled carcasses in their path. The biggest dog of the bunch, a
Rottweiler, finally turned and walked away, while the others hesitated for a
moment and then followed the new alpha.

The three kept their weapons in ready, watching the
dogs retreat in the opposite direction. “Cover me,” Travis said, as he bolted
off to his right. With beads of sweat pouring from his forehead, he sprinted
down the slope towards Jim, while dropping a fresh magazine into the AK. He
could hear Jim’s tormented shrieks coming from the other side of a large juniper
in the distance. As he raced over, Travis could see two dogs ripping at Jim’s
legs as the man desperately clung to the branches of the tree, attempting to
climb up the gnarled branch, while the animals yanked at the muscles of his bloody
calves.

Approaching within thirty feet, Travis took careful
aim and shot the closest animal in the hind legs and belly. Once it fell, the
other dog clinging to Jim paused, as two bullets struck the animal in the ribs.
Travis closed the distance and finished each animal with rounds to the skull.

Jim had released his grip on the tree branch and
slunk to the ground beside the carcasses. His pants were shredded in long ribbons
and a boot was missing. The sight of raw, exposed bone was showing where the
flesh had been stripped bare on his left leg. Bright red blood was spurting
from higher up on his inner thigh landing on a patch of sand next to him.
Travis pushed aside one of the dogs and grabbed the trauma kit from his pocket.
Kneeling next to Jim, he placed a large wad of gauze on the man’s femoral
artery and applied pressure. Jim was pale and shaking, his inhalations coming
in loud gulps. His swollen fingers gripped Travis’s arm.

“Hold still, we’ll take you to the shack and get you
patched up,” Travis said.

“You’re a good leader Travis, but your lying skills
are very poor,” said Jim. “Let me bleed out…you know you’ll feel better,” he
said choking out the words.

“Shut up. You’re a fool without a soul, but you can
still help save what’s left of this world.”

Jim looked beyond Travis’s shoulder as Nora and Katy
were trotting up to them. “You want to see your son again Travis…you want to
begin this world anew with him…then take my pack and…” he gasped, “take my pack
and get to the coordinates at the secondary site. The coordinates are,” his
voice fading and eyelids fluttering.

“Jim, stay with me, you bastard. You’re not getting
off this easy,” he said, holding down the gauze with one hand while tapping the
man’s pale cheeks with the other.

Jim’s chest rose slightly, with a wheeze, and he
squeezed Travis’s arm while reaching down into his pants pocket. “The location
is here,” he gasped for air and thrust a thumb-sized cylindrical container up.
The silver tube had a sealed metal cap on one end. He urged Travis to grab it and
then stared into his eyes. “My handler…he said I’d be…he said…I’d be safe
with….you,” Jim choked in air and then exhaled, his body slumping into the sand
as his final breath issued out.

Nora and Katy squatted down beside the two men. Travis
was peeling Jim’s boney grip off his arm while they stared at the skinny man’s
ashen face. He removed his hand from the soaked gauze and wiped it back and
forth on the coarse, slickrock surface, trying to forget what he had heard and
staring off to the east.

Katy put her hand on Travis’s shoulder. Her fingers
were still trembling as she took several deep breaths. He looked at her, then
out beyond to the crimson rocks littered with animal carcasses.
Pity they
had to die that way. No dog deserves to go that way. What a waste of fine animals.
Then he glanced at Jim’s crumpled body.
He ain’t even worthy of the vultures.
He turned Jim over on his side and removed the pack while handing the
pistol and remaining mags to Katy. He slid the small daypack over his
blood-soaked hand and stood up. The desert had become placid again with a faint
breeze blowing across the plateau and the orange disk of the sun looming
overhead.

“Maybe we should come back another time to get beef,
sir. We can always stick with having chili again tonight,” said Nora.

Travis’s shoulders were hunched forward, his head
hanging low. “That’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard in a while, young lady,”
his rigid lips pushing out the words. “Yeah, right,” he whispered. “Chili
oughta be just fine. Just fine.”

“Snipers ready. Fire!” said Crawford, holding his
spotting scope steady, while the muffled sound of two suppressed .308 rifles
delivered their rounds. A half second later, the heads of two biker thugs came
apart, their bodies collapsing in a swath of open scrub. In the lookout tower
sixty feet above were the remains of four more bikers who had been dropped at
the hands of Crawford’s band of eight fighters, who lay concealed amongst a
tangle of downed branches.

Crawford scanned the low grass around the fire
lookout tower, a quarter mile away, where the men had been dwelling. “That
oughta be the last of that rubbish. Those pieces of shit are having their spurs
removed before the gates of Hell,” he said, pulling back from the scope and
rubbing his bloodshot eyes. It had been three days of evading the undead and hunting
a cartel gang, and he and his team were weary from constant movement. His old,
battered body was holding up to the rigors so far, but he had to pace himself
as they still had a few days left until the extract in Chino. He didn’t want to
risk sending the helos in this far, and they had done much of their foot travel
on an old railroad bed that cut through the backcountry near the Verde River, a
few miles to the northwest of their present location.

One of the ranching families they had stopped to
check on the day before, had been brutally murdered. Crawford still winced at
the memory of the carnage they had witnessed: the tortured, disfigured bodies of
the rancher, his wife, and two daughters that had been strewn about the house;
the barn reduced to smoldering ashes, and the horses lying slaughtered in the
meadow; two fine cowboys Crawford had known since they were kids, lying dead behind
a shack, their bodies revealing bullet and machete wounds.

The family’s brown pick-up truck, loaded with water
and supplies, was still intact along with canned goods and tools in the house
cupboards. The whole scene reminded him of search and destroy missions he had
undertaken during his years leading covert missions, where retrieval of vital
intel and elimination of enemy personnel, if deemed necessary, were the sole
focus.
This was a peaceful family just trying to defend their own. Nothing
could justify this,
he thought.

Crawford figured the horrific scene had unfolded the
night before their arrival. This was the first time he had witnessed such
precision and swift brutality in the attacks against other survivors. From his
former days as a combat tracker, he determined that there were six shooters
involved. The next morning, while making their way back to Chino Valley, they
crossed the trail of the bikers and tracked them to the fire watchtower, where
they looked to be setting up an observation post. Crawford decided that
frontier justice was worth a half-day detour from their original plan.

His wife Clara, who was resting prone on her elbows
scanning with binoculars, tugged on her husband’s dusty sleeve and motioned to
the west. “There’s a convoy of twenty or so thugs on the blacktop, driving in
the opposite direction.”

From their vantage point on the forested hillside,
he could see the ribbon of movement two miles away with his naked eye. “Looks
like these vermin are working the region hard. Wonder what the attraction is?”

“Too bad, we don’t have a dozen more .50 cals with
us,” said one of the three snipers, a skinny man in his late twenties, running
his hand over the rifle by his side.

“Don’t worry,” said Crawford, “you’ll get a chance
to use my rifle soon enough. The world, these days, almost makes that a
certainty. Besides, we’ve wasted enough good ammo on these sons-a-bitches.
Let’s make our way to Chino and get back home. This has been enough huntin’ for
one trip.”