Forged From Ash (22 page)

“Just a few emails. Nothing worth mentioning, though.”

“Where is he?”

“Didn’t say. I was just glad to hear anything from him after what happened with Paige. He took that pretty hard.”

“We all did,” Rico said tersely. “And we all gotta move on. She wouldn’t have wanted any of us mopin’ around feelin’ sorry for ourselves. Especially him.”

“I doubt Cole is just moping.”

“What the hell do you know about him?” Rico snapped. “If you got more to say on the matter, then spit it out! I don’t give a damn what went on between me and him before. Things have changed!”

“Don’t yell at me!” Daniels said. “I don’t know anything specific about what Cole’s doing. Last I heard, he was somewhere…let’s talk about this in person when it’s safer. Suffice it to say, I just meant that Cole isn’t the sort of guy to sit around feeling sorry for himself. He was in a bad place for a while, but that’s just because he and Paige were so close. I highly doubt he’s in that same place any longer.”

“Yeah…well I wish my doubts were that high.”

“So…does that mean you do doubt it or…?”

“Bye, Daniels. See ya in a few days. Give or take.”

Rico hung up and walked around the counter. Once again, he dove into the archives of comic books kept in all those long, dusty white boxes. While he might not have shared Daniels’ enthusiasm, Rico could appreciate how long it might be before he had anything new to fill his down time. After drawing from a liberal assortment of
Green Lantern
s, he selected some issues of
The Punisher
and
GI Joe
for himself. If anyone asked, he could always tell them the books were for kindling. And if anyone tried to use them as kindling, Rico could knock them flat onto their ass.

As he made his way to the door, Rico thought about how soon he could scrounge up some transportation and when he could get on the road. He rarely had occasion to think about specific timeframes anymore, and when he did, something popped into his head that he’d almost forgotten about. According to the planner taken from one of the men in the warehouse the IRD had raided, there was a meet of some kind set to happen at 8:15 the next morning.

“Shit,” he grunted. The IRD already knew about it and wouldn’t let him tag along with no strings attached. Also, since Rico had already paid that warehouse another visit, which would surely be discussed at that meeting, he would have to explain himself to the higher ups. By the time he opened the door to step outside, Rico had come to his decision. He’d gotten plenty from that place already and couldn’t afford to try for more if he wanted to get moving anytime soon. Hopefully, Daniels would find out more than a bit of eavesdropping could anyway. If The Vigilant were cooking up anything worth worrying about, Rico was sure he would hear more about it later.

Outside, the sky was darkening, and the wind had taken on a chill that gave teeth to every passing gust. Rico pulled his leather jacket around him tighter and walked parallel to the street running past the strip mall. “I thought I told you to find somewhere else to be,” he said without looking at the slender young woman who sat with a backpack that was almost as big as she was.

Haley stood up, hefted the straps of the pack over both shoulders and picked up her shotgun. “You torched the only place I had around here.”

“Don’t you know anyone else?”

“My brother’s dead, and my only other family is in Missouri.”

“What about the guy you were with in that tattoo shop?” Rico asked without breaking stride.

“He’s dead too.”

“Does he have any family? Any friends? Jesus, he just died. Don’t you want to…”

“To what?” she asked sharply. “Cry over him? Bury him in flowers? He was a dick, all right? The only reason I stayed here was because he was my brother’s friend, and there was nowhere else to go.”

Rico stopped and looked at her. Until now, she’d been just another civilian in need of rescue from a Half Breed pack. Even before the monsters took over, there had been no shortage of those in his life. It didn’t do a Skinner any good to grow attached to everyone who needed help. The best thing he could do was help when he could, move on and let them get back to their lives. Now that he took a second to see her as something more than just another screaming face, Rico saw more than just someone desperate to survive. She had the look of someone determined to live. It was a look that was as rare to the world as it was familiar to him.

“So what’s your plan here?” he asked.

Haley laughed and held out her arms to encompass the filthy streets around her and then let them drop to her sides. “Plan? What kind of plan am I supposed to make? All I can do is try to keep from getting torn apart one more day. The best way for me to do that is sticking with you.”

“I ain’t exactly headed anywhere safe.”

“I know. You’re a Skinner. But if anyone can give me something to hang on to that’ll last more than a week, it’s you.”

“There’s an IRD base not too far from here,” Rico told her as he continued walking along the street. “Get to the interstate and head northwest.”

“No,” she said defiantly.

He stopped and turned around to face her again. “No? What do you think this is? In case you haven’t noticed, this here is the end of the world! If I don’t like the look of yer face, I can put a bullet through it, and there ain’t exactly any cops around to come to your rescue.”

Haley approached him with solid steps that pounded against the concrete as loudly as they could considering the skinny legs to which they were attached. “I’m not going to the Army. They’re dicks too.”

“Watch yer goddamn mouth! Those particular dicks fight and die to keep this whole place from being overrun!”

“I guess the soldiers are ok,” she admitted. “But there was this sergeant or captain or whatever who came along and told us we had to fill out requisition forms to get some food, and when we did fill out the forms, they said there wasn’t any food left to hand out and that we should try back in six months.”

“Was that Staff Sergeant Canbold?”

Her face lit up as she said, “Yes! You know him?”

“Yeah. He’s a dick. That still don’t mean you can come with me. I got a lot of ground to cover and not much time to cover it in.”

“Where are you going?”

“Colorado.”

“How are you getting there?” she asked.

“Enough with the questions, all right? You want shelter? There’s a whole town in front of us and an Army base nearby. You want food? Scrounge for it like the rest of us. You want company? Find a dog.”

“Dogs aren’t exactly man’s best friend anymore,” Haley said.

Rico smirked but didn’t let her see it.

After a few more paces, she spoke in a voice that reminded Rico of another young girl he’d known who’d also had one hell of a stubborn streak. “I heard Skinners were recruiting.”

“What the fuck do you know about anything where Skinners are concerned?” Rico snarled.

“I know you guys are doing a lot more good than anyone carrying a gun and that you need all the help you can get. I also know you don’t have many people who want to be the ones to help you.”

“And what makes you any different?”

“What does it matter?” Haley asked. “I would think you guys would let anyone sign on. Even if it was just to put a stick in their hand and throw them in front of a few werewolves.”

“You see? Right there. That’s the reason why we couldn’t say a damn thing about werewolves, bloodsuckers or any of the other stuff to anyone for all these years. Because nobody gives a shit until it directly affects them. And when it does, they expect everyone else to just step in line and bend over backward for ‘em as if theirs is the only sad story out there. Now that it’s too late, you decide to open yer eyes and lend a hand.”

“
That’s
why you couldn’t talk about werewolves?”

Since everything else that came to mind for him to say was just another rant, Rico waved her off and started walking again.

Haley followed him without hesitation. “I want to fight.”

“Then pick up a goddamn stick and swing it at the first Half Breed you see. Have fun.”

“It’s a war, right? I want to do my part. What else do you want me to say? What else do I
need
to say? I’m sick of seeing people die and watching these things wipe us out. You probably think I was just some chick who got tatted up and partied before all of this happened and you’d be right. So what? If you can teach me how to kill at least one of those things, at least I’m doing SOMEthing to win this.” When she didn’t hear anything from Rico, Haley added, “If every person just kills one of those things, we’ll be hitting them pretty hard, right?”

“If there were as many people as there were when this first started…yeah. From now onward…not so much.”

For a few seconds, the only sound to be heard was the crunch of their feet against the dirty street. A couple seconds later, in a voice that was steady and pure, Haley said, “Then we’ll have to kill a lot more than that.”

Rico sighed, recognizing unflappable determination when he heard it. “I guess we can travel together for a while, but you’ll have to do more than talking to earn your keep.”

“How do you plan on getting to Colorado?” she asked.

“Haven’t figured that out yet. My other car crapped out on me outside of town.”

“Would another car help?”

Rico stopped and turned around. “You know where to find a car that’s in good enough shape to get us across the country?”

“The guy I was talking about before has one. Well…had one.”

“You mean the dick?”

Haley nodded slowly, her chin ending up much lower than it had when she’d started. Closing her eyes, her shoulders slumped and her chest froze in mid-breath. Now that things had calmed down and her heartbeat was something less than a primal drumbeat against her ribs, the weight of that death was making itself known. “Yes,” she whispered. “His name was Weston.”

Now Rico felt like the jerk. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes it was refreshing to give in to that role. This was not one of them. “It was wrong of me to just stomp away from your shop like that. Guess I kinda got caught up in everything. We should go back and bury Weston. It’s only proper.”

Half a weak smile appeared on Haley’s face. “Proper? You don’t seem like the kind of guy who uses words like that.”

“Now that you mention it, that could be a first for that word comin’ outta my mouth. Either way, no one deserves to be left behind like that. Especially after he put a roof over yer head for a while.”

“No,” Haley said. “Leave him.”

“Look…even if he was a—”

“It’s not that,” she interrupted. “It’s just…he was all about that tattoo shop. It was his whole life. He’d want to stay there now that…” She sniffed once, wiped her eyes with the back of a hand and steeled herself with a deep breath. “He’d want to be right where he is. Plus, it’s not smart to be so close to a werewolf den…even if it is burnt to a crisp.”

“All right, then. What about this car you mentioned? I haven’t seen any around here that weren’t turned into a scratching post or a werewolf’s urinal since I walked into this town.”

“I call that one.”

“Huh?”

“Oh,” she said with a tired laugh. “I meant I call that for a band name. Werewolf Urinal. It’s a game me and my brother used to play.”

“Nice. What are you thinking with that one? Light jazz? Power ballads?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of those groups with two girls with long hair, flowy clothes and thick glasses who play acoustic guitars in coffee shops. Remember those?”

“Yeah,” Rico grunted. “That’s the kind of shit that makes the apocalypse seem like it wasn’t such a bad idea.”

They laughed for a while before Haley pointed to a charred building across the street. “The car’s in there. We can gas up at a station about a mile down the road.”

“Why didn’t you mention the car before?”

“Because I had to make sure you were ok.”

“I won you over, huh?” he asked.

She held out her hand and waggled it in the universal gesture for so-so.

Rico nodded. “As far as first impressions, that’s a home run for me.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Wyoming

F
uel wasn’t as rare as Cole was expecting it to be after most of the world had ground to a halt. Fortunately, it also wasn’t one of those things that fell into the category of modern mysteries like the internet still being mostly functional and power still flowing through electrical wires. Gas was just one of those things that survival nuts had been hording before they knew exactly how mankind would be dealt its biggest blow since the black plague. Along with bottled water, ammunition and medical supplies, gasoline was a staple in every bomb shelter. It was also one of the most valuable forms of currency.

Cole was a Skinner, which meant he was one of the ultimate survival nuts. He’d stashed away his share of fuel but had also taken it as payment for the services he’d provided in Cody. Because of that, he had more than enough to make it down Highway 16 toward Cloud Peak in the Bighorn Mountains.

He drove an old Ford pickup painted a shade of green that one of the old ladies in Cody had called Sea Foam. Since he wasn’t an expert in such things, Cole took her word for it. There were torn fragments of decals from the Park Ranger service on the doors and tailgate as well as a large orange plastic dome on the roof that housed a rotating light. If not for the fact that a light like that would draw Half Breeds quicker than a buffet of slaughtered chickens, he might have left it in place. Instead, Cole’s first order of business after acquiring the truck had been tearing the light off, installing some floods on a reinforced bumper and building enough compartments in the cab to hold a small arsenal. These days he preferred big arsenals but made do with what he had.

Keeping his left hand on the wheel, Cole flexed the fingers on his right. Doing so got the blood flowing while also aggravating the scars on his palm. Both hands were scarred almost evenly, but he seemed to feel the most pain in his right hand when he tapped into the psychic element of the Nymar fragments still entwined around his spinal cord. He didn’t need x-rays or a doctor’s opinion to know they were there. He could feel them every now and then, wriggling inside of him like a wet itch on his bones.