Wolf Hiding (A Wolf in the Land of the Dead Book 2) (6 page)

Nowen pushed the girl aside and grabbed the door before it opened completely. “Whoa! There could be Revs out there.” Silently Sage stepped back and Nowen cautiously looked out.

The ground behind the pawn shop fell sharply away. Stubby bushes and weeds studded the hillside. At the bottom of the hill was an old, boxy van. It was dust-covered and the front windshield was cracked but whole.

Nowen looked at the back edge of the door; scratch marks in the paint showed where the door had been forced open. “Sage, is this how you got in?”

The girl nodded. In the sunlight Nowen could see that her eyes were not black at all but a deep, dark brown. Sage pointed at the van. “Papa and me lived there. Papa opened the door. But the bad man inside chased us out.”

“And then what happened?”

“I ran to the van. The bad man chased Papa that way.” She waved toward the front of the building, and then fell silent for a moment, chewing her bottom lip. “Papa never came back.”

Nowen looked at the battered old van. “So you’ve been living in the van? For how long?”

Sage shook her head.

Nowen sighed. “Ok. Go help Anton. Tell him I’m going to try and draw the Revs away from the car, and for you guys to be ready to go once it’s clear.”

Sage nodded and ran back into the shop. Nowen waited until the door had closed completely, and then headed to the front of the buildings.

A Rev in the rags of an orange-flowered sundress swayed slightly as she stood near a dumpster. Her autumn-yellow eyes stared at nothing, and her spindly fingers twitched absently at the end of her limp arms. A tattoo, a vine of ivy and roses, was still visible around her neck.

Nowen studied the Rev. The undead creature had staggered away from the main group still moving through the parking lot and now stood at an offset angle from where Nowen crouched. The Rev was shorter than Nowen and looked to have been an older woman when she’d died; a tangle of matted grey hair fell just past the bony shoulders.

Nowen scooped up a handful of gravel, glancing at the other Revs. When she was sure that none of them were facing her direction she tossed the gravel past the solitary Rev. The pebbles skittered across the pavement and the Rev whipped her head around, tracking the sound.

Nowen was up and running before the last bit of gravel hit the ground, drawing her knife as she ran. In the space of a heartbeat she was behind the Rev, grabbing a handful of the filthy hair with her left hand and yanking the Rev’s head back. Yellow eyes rolled toward her. Mottled, discolored lips opened as the Rev began to moan and Nowen drove the knife blade through the woman’s forehead. Bone crunched like eggshells and a viscous, foul-smelling liquid oozed from the wound.

The Rev sagged, jaundiced eyes rolling up in their sockets. Carefully Nowen lowered the body to the ground, checking that the other Revs hadn’t noticed her activity. She pulled the knife free and wiped it clean on the sundress, and then moved to the safety of the dumpster.

She watched the remaining Revs as they stumbled around the parking lot. Most of them were in a loose circle around the car, and the rest had been drawn to the storefronts, attracted by the sun flashing off the glass of the windows.
Too many to take out one by one. I’ll have to lead them away.
The wolf opened eager eyes.
No. I let you out, and the next thing I know it’s months later and we’re who knows where.

Their car wasn’t too far away from the entrance of the pawn shop. If she could get the Revs to follow her back down the hill, Anton and the girl could get in the car and drive down to meet her.
Now or never.

Nowen stood up and walked out from behind the dumpster. She moved across the parking lot, angling away from the car and the buildings. One of the Revs, a teenage boy in heavy winter clothes, turned from his position at the front of the car and looked at her. His nose was missing, a gaping hole surrounded by strings of grey tissue marking the wound that killed him. The Rev’s mouth opened and he moaned.

Instantly the other Revs alerted, turning toward Nowen, their answering moans rising like the wind over tall grass. They moved toward her en masse and she moved away at a slow jog. As the sight and smell of prey reached them the Revs’ pace increased and Nowen found herself moving faster.

She started down the hill and the Revs followed. Their moaning was louder now. She could hear other Revs nearby responding and she growled involuntarily. The wolf half was excited at the prospect of fighting these
dead-not-dead
but the human half tensed as the moans and cries of the Revs increased.

Over the rise and fall of the Revs behind her Nowen heard the welcome rumble of an engine. She glanced back, hoping to see the sleek silver car racing toward her. The Revs were closer than she expected. Startled, she missed her footing and fell.

The hot pavement bit her hands and knees. She scrambled back up as fast as she could, feeling the claw-like hands plucking at her clothes. She took one step forward and then her head was jerked back, violently.

The fetid, rank smell of the Revs overwhelmed Nowen as she tried desperately to move forward. Pain spiked through her scalp.
My hair!
She freed her knife from its sheath and arched her arm back, slicing through her ponytail just below the rubber band. The Rev behind her staggered back, the long fall of black hair still clutched in one mold-colored hand.

Nowen ran down the hill, gulping air in great breaths. At the bottom of the incline she swung to the right and pounded down the road. A Rev in a firefighter’s uniform grabbed her as she sped past a wrecked truck. She let the undead creature pull her around in an arc, moving in close to the Rev and sliding her knife deep into a yellow eye. The Rev slumped to the ground and she yanked her blade free in a spray of grey liquid.

Suddenly another Rev was there, slamming into Nowen with the force of a runaway car. They fell to the ground and the Rev shrieked in her face with a sound of nails on a chalkboard.

The Rev had been a big man in life and his weight pinned her down. She got her left arm up and under his neck, forcing his wildly-snapping jaws away from her. But her right hand was trapped beneath her, and she could feel the knife edge digging into her back. Frantically she heaved upward but the Rev’s body didn’t budge. He howled, and strings of grey saliva dripped from his open mouth. Tremors raced through her left arm; she wouldn’t be able to hold him off much longer. Her awkward position made letting the wolf out impossible.
We can survive a Rev bite, but probably not getting our throat ripped out. Can we change fast enough to avoid being killed?

Bands of black fur began to rise over her body. Her blocking arm slipped a fraction more; the Rev’s worn teeth were closer now.
Ok...here goes.

Abruptly Nowen was free, the Rev’s crushing weight gone. She looked up to see Anton standing over the Rev, a shotgun pressed against the dead man’s head. An earth-shattering blast rattled her ears. The Rev’s head disappeared in a wash of black blood, brains, and shattered bone.

Anton looked at her. “You ok?” he asked as he offered her a trembling hand. She nodded and let him pull her up, and together they ran back to where the car sat idling a few feet away.

Chapter Eight

They drove north on I-25 through the fading afternoon. Cheyenne was an hour in the past. Anton had made a rough circuit of the city, searching for any sign of another New Heaven outpost. All that could be seen from the highway was deserted houses and buildings, the wandering dead and the scattered bones of their victims. In silence the blonde man had turned the car north and left the dead city behind.

Nowen drifted in and out of a light sleep, lulled by the smooth and gentle rocking of the vehicle. Her thoughts were scattered. Half-dreams, half-memories of the wolf’s life on the prairie jumbled together in her head. A soft cough brought her out of her doze. She yawned widely as she blinked and looked around. The sun was heading toward the western horizon and golden light streamed into the car.

In the driver’s seat Anton coughed again and took a drink from the steel flask. A pair of dark-tinted glasses hid his eyes as he glanced at her before turning his attention back to the road. Nowen twisted around and checked the back. The girl, Sage, was stretched out on her side along the black bucket seats. It looked uncomfortable, but her eyes were closed and she breathed in a regular, deep rhythm.

Nowen settled back in her seat. The view through the front windshield showed an empty highway stretching on into infinity. On either side of the road the green and brown prairie rolled away as far as could be seen. The occasional isolated house or ranch building could be seen, but otherwise there was no sign of humanity.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“About an hour away from Douglas, Wyoming. I thought we’d stop there for the night.”

She looked out at the clear sky and the sun still several hours from disappearing completely. “We should keep going.”

Anton snorted. “Well, I’m tired, and I bet that little girl is beat, too. If you want to drive all night, I’ll be glad to let you.”

“I’m...not good at driving.”

“So, we’ll stop at Douglas and get an early start tomorrow.”

Nowen just nodded. The urge to get to this place, this New Heaven, and see this other wolf was strong. The urge to leave these people and return to her mountains was stronger. Every delay in the trip grated on her nerves.

“What did you do before?” Anton asked abruptly.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, before all this happened. Before the Flux, and the zombies. Fluxers. Revs. Fuck, whatever you want to call them.”

She leaned her head against the side window. The glass, cooled by the air conditioning, felt good against her cheek. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” His voice was incredulous.

“No. I don’t know. I have no memory of who I was or what I did before I woke up in a hospital in Colorado to people screaming and bleeding and dying everywhere around me. Even my name is not my name, but just something I choose to call myself.”

“Oh.” Anton said, and then fell silent. They rode like that for a few minutes, and then he spoke again. “So, how do you do...
that
? You know, change shape?”

Nowen looked at him. “Again, I don’t know. Honestly, that’s something I’m hoping to find out when we reach this New Heaven.” Again an uncomfortable silence filled the car.
What now? Do I ask him to talk about himself?
“What did you do before?”

“Me? Not much. I was going to college, studying Latin at the U of C in Denver.” He barked out a bitter laugh. “Huh. If I’d have known what was going to happen I would have taken some course that would be of use now. Engineering maybe, or some kind of science. Being able to speak Latin will be
real
helpful in the days to come. “ He drew deeply on his flask and stared glumly ahead through the bug-splattered windshield.

Should I...cheer him up? Or something?
A thought occurred, and she turned to face him as much as her seatbelt would allow. “I never thanked you for saving my life back in Cheyenne.”

Anton looked at her, and even with his shaded eyes she could tell that he was startled.
And touched?
He gulped down his mouthful of liquor, nodding quickly. “You’re welcome. Truth to tell, I just got there in time. Damn car wouldn’t start.”

As quickly as the feeling of gratitude hit her it left.
But I heard the engine start. What game are you playing?
A sharply indrawn breath drew her attention to the back seats. Sage still lay in the same position, but her dark eyes were open. They ticked from Nowen’s face to the back of Anton’s head, and then back again to Nowen.

“Holy shit! Look!” Anton shouted and Nowen whipped around in her seat. Far ahead on the highway she could see an indistinct shape and movement of some sort. The car’s speed increased. The shape resolved itself out of the heat rising from the road. It was a woman, riding a bicycle down the center of the highway.

Her name was Suzannah (“One Z, two Ns, one H!”) and she thanked them profusely as she sat in the passenger seat and directed the cold air flow over her sweating face. Anton had taken one look at the young woman’s dangerously flushed face and pink chest rising from a low-cut tank top and asked Nowen if she would let Suzannah sit up front “to cool down”. Now she and Sage sat in their bucket seats and listened to the woman talk. Nowen was tall enough that she could see over the front seats, and she watched Anton and Suzannah’s interactions curiously.

“Oh my God, I’m so glad you guys came along! I’ve been biking since early this morning and I thought I was going to die! I’m just not used to lots of exercise.” Suzannah freed her pale red hair from its confinement on the top of her head and ran her fingers through it. The car swerved slightly and Nowen caught Anton glancing at the woman.

“Where did you come from?” Anton asked.

Suzannah arched her head back and turned from side to side in front of the air vents. “Originally, or lately?”

“Uh, either?”

The redhead laughed. “Oh, it’s a long story, but I’ll try to shorten it for you. I was living near Sedalia, in Missouri, when that Flux shit started. I heard that the government had a place set up near Springfield where it was safe, so I went there. It was a fucking hellhole! Too many people, not enough food, trash and shit everywhere - literally! All the porta-potties backed up within the first week I was there. And the soldiers! Now, normally I’m up for the chance to look at men in uniform. But these guys were so jumpy! They took their guns everywhere, and by the second week I was there they were flat-out shooting people who made any trouble at all.”

“The government wasn’t prepared, huh?” Anton asked.

“Oh, honey, no. It was like one of those horrible little countries they used to always talk about on the news. Africa, or Russia, or something. I could tell that things were falling apart; I’m good at picking up on stuff like that. I got real friendly with one of the soldiers there. He told me how the army couldn’t keep the CZs from spreading, and how the East Coast was pretty much all dead people, and-”