Rise of the Huskers (The Raven Falconer Chronicles) (2 page)

“
Maybe it’s for the best.  It’ll tear you apart to find him.  We better turn back,” Mick suggested, stretching her hand to find Raven’s knee.

“Let’s give it another kilometer or . . . Mick,” Raven said haltingly, as she rounded a sharp corner in the road and saw something unusual in the pathway ahead.  “What do you make of that?”

Mick’s attention was drawn to the Jeep’s headlamps, casting a harsh light over the battleground, which had left a partially decapitated corpse lying in the middle of the road.  The girl’s immediate reaction was to think Eli was dead but upon closer inspection, as they neared the spot, it became apparent it was not her father but a smaller individual.  They stopped a full 50 meters from the gruesome scene.  Neither woman spoke, each trying to make sense of the bloody display.  A whine from the backseat, accompanied by a dark snout probing their shoulders, finally drew them from their trance-like state.

“What do you think happened here?” Raven asked.

“I’m not sure.  It might not have anything to do with your dad.  Could be anybody that ran into trouble but if it was him, wouldn’t his Lexus be here?”  Mick’s keen eye caught something just off the right of the beam’s glow.  It was reflective and out of place.  “Rave, pull forward a couple of meters and turn the wheel to the right.  There’s something at the edge of the road.”  The Jeep inched forward, the lights swinging slightly to the right.  “Yeah, there.  What is that?”

“Looks like a bumper,” Raven assessed, taking her foot from the brake and letting the vehic
le roll forward another dozen centimeters.  “Looks like it was stuck against the rail and was ripped off when the driver backed away.  Certainly wasn’t there earlier or we would have noticed it.”

“For sure, wasn’t there this afternoon.  Is it the same color as your dad’s?”

“I don’t know.  It’s at the wrong angle.  I better walk over and take a look.”

“Raven, are you nuts?  That corpse is likely a Husker and there’s blood everywhere.  I don’t think we even dare drive through that crap.  It’ll contaminate my Jeep for days.”

“We’ve come this far.  I need to find my dad.  I’m going to pull a little closer . . . ”

“Damn it, Rave.  Listen to me.  I know you’re hurting but infecting you . . . me, the others won’t help your cause.  Your dad’s not here; he could be anywhere.”

Raven shifted uneasily in her seat, suppressing the urge to lash out and verbally assault her friend.  She knew what Mick was saying was true, but the overwhelming need for closure pressed her on.  “I get that.  I really do.  Let’s just take a little closer look.  I won’t get near the blood.  Maybe there’s a way around it without getting it on the jeep.”

Mick shook her head in disbelief as Raven rolled the Jeep forward.  “Stop!  That’s far enough.  Raven, I love you and will do anything for you but this is insane.  This was a nasty fight.  How do we
know the virus isn’t airborne or dripping from trees?  I’m not going any closer.  If you need to explore beyond this point, I’m afraid you’re on your own.”

“Fine,” Raven said, slamming the Jeep into park and jumping from the driver’s door.

“Rave!  For heaven’s sake, Raven, don’t get any closer.”

The fair-skinned girl walk
ed slowly toward the body, slipping the mask over her mouth and nose.  She tried to avoid the crushing urge to breathe rapidly; fearful she might hyperventilate.  Mick watched from the safety of the cab, praying her friend would come to her senses and return to the Jeep.  “Come on, Rave,” she whispered.  “There’s nothing more to see here.”  A loud bark suddenly erupted from the back seat, where Pooch had been frantically pacing.  Her head was now thrust over the front seat, tongue hanging oddly askew until she spotted Raven.  The dog’s attention was immediately focused on the meandering figure, watching intently, and barking at the very moment she sensed Raven was in danger.

Seconds later, Raven responded to what she’d seen, as well as the warning from the girl’s new mascot, and ran the few meters back to the Jeep.
  Plunging into the driver’s seat, she whipped the mask from her face and declared, “It’s Benny!  I’m sure of it.  It’s Benny Necula and the bumper is definitely my dad’s.”

RCMP Officer, Zygmunt Nowicki, snored, sucking great gulps of air down his windpipe only to expel them moments later with a series of lip-smacking
‘poo – poo – poo’s’
.  He suddenly flinched, rolling onto his side, bringing the noise to a standstill but perpetuating the sensation that he was lying in an irrigation ditch in Afghanistan.  The veteran’s knees jerked awkwardly as he reflexively crawled through the mud and stench, searching for a safe place to hunker down while bullets whistled overhead.

Shouts filled the air, “I’m hit!  Medic, I need a medic!”  Ziggy pressed his head firmly into the pillow’s soft folds, imagining his helmet sinking into the saturated mud of the earthen trough.  Sweat filled his eyes, adding to the overall discomfort of the oft-recycled nightmarish event.  In his mind, he pushed a mounting fear aside and raised his brow to the edge of the embankment, searching the horizon for movement, friend or foe.

Instantly, a loud, single report from a large caliber rifle shook the officer, rousting him from the unfortunate dream.  Dazed and more than a little confused, he scanned the cell in which he’d spent the night locked behind steel, reinforced bars, with the key safely tucked under his pillow.  Nowicki kicked the blankets off and swept his feet to the floor, muttering as he did.  With a large hand he attempted to smooth back a row of unruly, wavy locks, which extended a few centimeters down his forehead, the brown hair immediately springing back, out of place.  A pair of much darker, arched eyebrows shaded hazel eyes, injected red from lack of sleep over the past few nights.  In boot camp he’d often been teased about the length of his eyelashes, which curled up, touching his brow.  The veteran generally wore his hair cropped short, a look he’d embraced while serving in the Canadian Special Forces, but lately a haircut had been pushed well to the bottom of his list of things to do.  However, he’d kept his strong jawline and upper lip cleanly shaved, again a holdover from his service abroad.  Fine, light-brown hairs covered his arms and legs but for a length of skin on his right upper thigh, where shrapnel from an IED had permanently scarred the tissue. 

Rubbing his
eyes, he tried to make sense of the concussion he’d heard, or imagined, only seconds before.  The muscular officer stood, stretching and extending his arms well overhead, before placing his hands on his hips and spinning his torso back and forth.  A definitive ‘
pop
’ sounded from his lower spine and he let out a quick, “Whew, that’s got it,” as he reached for his pants draped over the back of a lone, steel chair.  Nowicki stretched a thin, too often worn, blue undershirt over his broad chest, testing the fabric and outlining his toned physique.  The gym was his home away from home; a place to unwind, relieve stress and meet women.  However, taking care of his own needs seemed misguided, as duty and devotion to the little, mountainous community was foremost on his mind.

Though he’d slept with thick,
woolen socks over his feet, the concrete floor’s cold permeated the material easily and chilled him to the core.  “Damn, I hate winter,” he hissed, in the same moment that another, more distinctive blast erupted outside the police station.  “What the hell?” he shouted.

Ziggy finished dressing
, taking a second to wrap his heavy, leather belt and holster around his waist, before he used the key to make good his escape.  Hustling down the narrow corridor between cells, he arrived at yet another locked door, which he hurriedly unlocked and pushed aside, bringing him to the main office area and foyer.  Nothing was disturbed.  It was just as he’d left it the night before; lights off but the generator humming gently in the background. 
Glad that’s still working,
he thought, as he ran to a front window, his Glock now extricated from the holster and partnered with his right hand.

Outside, a man knelt behind an RCMP crui
ser, one knee resting on a thin layer of wet snow and the other at a 90-degree angle to support his weight.  He held a scoped rifle, which the shooter slowly pivoted a few degrees right and left, looking for his next shot.  Unable to see the man’s face, Officer Nowicki burst through the front door and leveled his pistol at the figure.  Frightened, the man spun, dropping onto his butt in the cold, soggy ground, both feet splayed before him as he brought his Savage 300 to bear on the officer.

“Hold up there,” Ziggy yelled, concentrating to keep his
Glock’s laser sight dancing on the man’s forehead.

“Nowicki?  That you?” the shocked civilian stammered.

“Yup, and who are you?”

“Willie, Willie Daniels – you pulled me over up by the hot springs a month or so ago and ticketed me for speeding.”  There was a quiet pause before Willie continued, “Thought all you guys were gone.”

“Not hardly – you see me standing here, don’t ya?  What in the world you doing out here this morning?  You ‘bout got yourself shot!”  Ziggy lowered his pistol but did not return it to the leather case.

“I had to try.  With those things roaming the streets at night and supplies all but gone, I had to try.”

“Try what?  What were you shooting at?”

“Elk.  There’s a cow and calf in town that I been chasing all morning.  Didn’t dare give it a try until the sun was up, but they’re plenty spooked now.  Haven’t been able to get a clean shot yet.”  Mr. Daniels finally picked himself up from the blundering position and brushed himself off.  “You all that’s left?” he asked, as he joined the officer on the station’s landing.

“Not sure, but I’m afraid so.  I haven’t heard from anybody for about 36 hours.  How’s your family?”

“There’s just me and th
e wife.  We’re doing okay – hungry, of course.  I spent yesterday going through our neighborhood looking for food supplies.  Didn’t find much but had to ventilate . . . ” He suddenly stopped and tightened his hold on the Savage.

“Relax Willie.  I’m not here to judge.  I’ve ‘ventilated’ a few
myself and the sad truth is . . . we’re not done.  In fact, we may just be starting.”

Daniels released the rifle’s
forend with his left hand and allowed the barrel to pitch downward, supporting the gun’s weight with his right arm.  “When we gonna get some help?” he asked.  “Thought we’d have all kinds of police or military here by now.”

“Me too, but I’m sure they’re on the way.  Just hang tough and take care of you and your wife.  That’s all you can really do for now.”  Lying didn’t come easy to the sturdy officer but there was no sense causing this man any more anxiety than he was already experiencing.  “Give me a minute to finish getting dressed and we’ll see about finding that elk.”

A few minutes later, the police car rolled slowly through the streets of Banff with Willie hanging partially out the passenger window, his rifle at the ready.  “Holler out if you see ‘em,” Ziggy issued, from behind the steering wheel.  He’d grown tired of the riot gear and settled for aviator sunglasses with a mirror finish and a thin, linen mask.  A pair of cotton gloves protected his fingers from the cold, rather than his usual leather ones, knowing the lighter material would make shooting easier, if given the chance.

“You got ‘
er,” Willie yelled back, not taking the time to pivot toward the driver.  He anxiously swept each passing street for signs of the animals.  “Nothing yet.  How ‘bout you?”

“Nope – no . . . ” Zygmunt paused as they neared the park that paralleled the river.  “You see that?”

“What?  Where you lookin’?”

The officer brought the cruiser to a stop and pointed at the large, prominent structure in the middle of the grassed space.  “Over there, near the gazebo.  Looks like some predators got ahold of something.  We better check it out.”

Willie made no attempt to step from the safety of the car.  “What do you mean, we?  I know exactly what’s over there and it weren’t no predator.  It was them damn Huskers.  They’ve left half eaten bodies all over town, some ripped to shreds but most hidden, like they were dragged someplace out of the way so they could eat ‘em.”

“Very well, suit yourself but I
gotta take a look.  Give me some notice if you see anything.”

“Sure will, officer.”

The scene was pretty much as Daniels had vaguely described it.  A partially ingested corpse lay at the bottom of the stairs, the face unrecognizable but clearly a big man.  He’d been dead a day or two, the cold helping to preserve the body and slow down the affects of decay.  Ziggy walked around what remained of the once powerful being.  He stopped and knelt to examine the head, being careful not to contact the frozen tissue.  “Hm, that’s new,” he whispered, presuming the cavernous wound in the man’s skull to be the result of a sharp, heavy weapon or something lighter, wielded by a very strong individual.

Returning to his feet he noticed something else that was out of place on the floor of the gazebo.  He ventured up the few steps to find the severed head of a woman he recognized but could not place.  The sunken cheeks and distorted features were gruesome but the somewhat clean removal of the head, with no body to speak of, stirred the patrolman’s imagination.  “Using weapons?” he questioned.  The idea pushed him to reach for his pistol, which he pulled while scanning the park for signs of movement.  “Huskers . . . rotten, scary . . . ” He cussed quietly to himself, allowing his voice to trail off as he approached the cruiser and Willie.

“Well?”

“Just as you said.  Looks like they’ve been feeding on him at night.”

“You know you can hear ‘em . . . sometimes walking the streets at night, moaning and grunting.  Screams are horrible when they finally find somebody,” Willie asserted.

“Yeah, yeah they are.  You seen any of them with wea
pons?  You know, clubs or guns?”

“No
pe, but some of ‘em are smart – remembering or learning how to get through locked doors or windows.  Pretty soon, nowhere will be safe.”

“Nothing we can do about that now.  Let’s get you that elk before I have to check on some other survivors and your wife wonders what’s happened to you.”

“Sounds good to me.”

The two men skirted the edge of the park and traced their path back to the west end of town
, where a rock bridge spanned the Bow River.  The water flowed lazily, as it always did, through the once pristine community, a sign of the calm and solitude that was the Canadian Rocky Mountains.  “Over there, over there!” Willie excitedly clamored, doing his best to point across the bridge to a pair of animals standing on the lawn of the Provincial Government’s Office Building.  The cow and calf were enjoying a quiet moment, munching on the wilting vegetation that ringed the building in an array of flowerbeds.  “Hold up,” he ordered.  “We get any closer and they’ll run.  I think I can take her from here.”

“You’re shooting the calf, right?” the officer inquired, his tone issuing more of a command than question.

“Hadn’t planned on it.  The cow will give us more meat.”

“Yeah, but if you shoot the cow the calf will die anyway.  Willie, someday, and someday soon, things will be back to normal.  Shoot the calf.”

“Whatever you say.”

A minute later the calf dropped at its mother’s heels, the dying animal’s mouth still full of shriveled leaves and stems.  The reluctant cow bolted away, only to bring herself to a stop in a stand of quaking aspens, where she turned and called for her calf.

“Nice shot.  Let’s get over there and gut that thing before the noise attracts some company,” Ziggy ordered, waving Willie back to the car.

The pair dragged the 200-pound yearling near the cruiser, where Daniels went to work slitting the animal from anus to sternum, dragging the mass of internal organs from the elk.  The Afghani-vet stood nearby, his carbine held across his chest and his eyes roving the landscape.

“Boy, that’s something you never get used to,” Willie said, turning his nose away from the wafting scent.  The aroma drifted on the light breeze until it permeated the nearby surroundings, including a large shattered window at the side of the governmental edifice.

“You
about done?” Ziggy asked.  “Don’t have a very good feeling about this.”  He’d had the same premonition numerous times overseas and in equally dangerous circumstances.  Learning to listen to one’s inner self, drawing from unseen cues, smells and ‘feelings’ had kept him alive this long and he doubted them not.

“Couple more minutes, just
gettin’ the last of the esophagus and . . . ” Willie was silenced by the sound of a nearby door opening, and then rapidly slamming shut.

They wheeled in the direction of the noise to see a man and woman standing just outside the main entrance.  They were disheveled, the woman being naked below the waist but otherwise they appeared unharmed.

“Hold it right there,” Nowicki shouted.  “Identify yourselves.”

The two unknowns made no attempt to respond but held their ground.

“You know them?” Ziggy asked Willie.

“Seen ‘
em around is all.  Don’t look like Huskers though, too clean.”

“Come on, let’s drag that calf up on the hood and get out of here,” the officer instructed, slinging his rifle temporarily over his shoulder but not taking his eyes off the newcomers.

Jim and Janice Hershey watched and waited, their heightened sense of smell pushing them to act beyond their normal, yet depleted ability to control their emotions and urges.  When the couple, both provincial employees, first contracted the infection and the consequences became apparent, they opted to single-handedly hold down the operations of the facility, as long as they were able.  Unknown to the general population, the government building was well stocked with freeze-dried foodstuffs and an abundance of medical supplies designed for just such an emergency.  The problem had been notifying the public and distributing the necessary supplies in the wake of such a contagious virus.