Summer's End, page 19
“I think that’s more than plenty,” Doc said. “The rest is for us humans.”
“You need to quit saying things like that. She is human.”
“In your eyes, perhaps,” Doc said, pulling out more items from his pack. Once again, he tossed them to Horton, one at a time, keeping his distance.
First, it was a spare windbreaker. It matched the one Frost had left by the telephone pole as a cruel joke.
Horton put it on, then zipped up the front.
Helena needed to do the same thing, but she only snarled in response when he motioned with his hands for her to do what he’d just done. She preferred to keep the front open for some reason. That was fine by him. He wasn’t about to argue with a flesh-eating machine.
Next, Doc gave him a blanket. It was Army Green and only half-sized, but more than enough for Helena’s five-foot frame.
Horton gave it to her, then motioned with his arms to wrap it around her shoulders or her waist. She did the latter, working the cloth around her midsection, then she held the front closed with her fingers.
“Stretch marks?” Doc said in a sharp tone. “Tell me I didn’t just see that, Horton.”
“You did, but don’t get all squirrely about it.”
“You know what that means, right?”
“I do. But you need to stay calm, Doc. She can sense changes in mood.”
“Mood? Is that what you’re worried about? They’re multiplying, Horton. Or can’t you see that? And what about all those other scars?”
“None of that is my concern. Or yours either,” Horton answered, his eyes flaring to catch the man’s attention. He changed his tone to one of controlled conviction, hoping Doc would catch his drift. “Right now, we need to keep things calm. We are a team. Teams work together. Teams don’t pry into each other’s past.”
Doc’s eyebrows pinched, his lips holding tight.
Horton could feel the tension building.
Helena would surely sense it as well.
He needed to break the silence and focus everyone’s attention elsewhere. “What else you got in that pack?”
Doc pulled three ammo magazines from a side pouch, but chose to hold them in his hand while he yanked out the next item: his black fedora. He put it on his head, tilting it to the side, looking like one of the Rat Pack from long ago. “No reason not to wear this now,” he mumbled. “The secret’s out.”
He looked at Helena and pointed at his hat. “This is what real people wear. It’s called style.”
Helena narrowed her eyes as Doc continued, “You also might want to think about a comb. And a bath. I can smell you from here.”
“Jesus, Doc. Why are you such an asshole all the time? She’s not one you should antagonize.”
“Well, if it’s human like you say, then it ought to be able to take a little ribbing now and then. And a little constructive criticism. If not, then maybe I’m right about it being something less.”
There was no moderation with this man. Horton knew he was wasting his breath trying to get through. Doc was never going to change. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Doc held up the gun. “I’m not worried in the least.”
Horton wondered who’d win that battle. A Scab Girl with animal-like reflexes and years of living in the wild, or a pudgy old man who could barely hold the pistol still in his hand.
He figured it was a toss-up on paper. But if he was putting money on it, he’d take Helena. Either way, it was a fight he didn’t want to see. “If that’s all you have in that pack, then we need to get moving.”
Helena grabbed Horton’s arm and squeezed.
He brought his head around to see what she wanted.
Helena was in her hunched over stance, torso leaning forward, her face tilted up and frozen.
“Do we have company?” Horton asked in a whisper.
“What’s wrong?” Doc asked, also in a whisper.
Horton held up a hand to keep the man quiet.
Helena tugged at Horton to run, using enough force to make him stumble.
Horton looked back as they sprinted toward the house behind them, the one with no chimney. “Come on, Doc. You don’t want to stay there.”
Doc followed as Helena led them into the house. They crouched below the front window with Helena on the left, Horton in the middle, and Lipton on the right.
Helena took a piece of burned wood on the floor and smeared its black soot over her face, neck, and chest. Then she dropped the blanket and finished with her legs, feet, and butt.
Right then Horton understood why she wanted the garments left open. For easy access. She’d done this before.
Helena grunted at Horton to do the same.
Horton grabbed two hunks of charcoal and gave one of them to Doc. “She wants us to mask our scent.”
“Why?”
“Someone’s coming. Time to strip, Doc,” Horton said, tearing off his clothes. Once naked, Horton smeared the soot across the front of his skin.
Helena helped him finish the back of his legs, neck, and shoulders.
Horton did the same for her, smearing the mess across her back after she shed the windbreaker.
Both of them were now covered from head to toe in black.
When Horton brought his attention back to Doc, he saw that the man hadn’t moved, other than the position of the gun in his hand. It was aimed over the window ledge.
“What are you doing?” Horton asked.
“I’m not getting naked for anyone. Certainly not for some random Scab. Sorry, but this is where I draw the line.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you see she’s trying to keep us safe?”
“How do we know that thing isn’t maneuvering us into some kind of trap?”
“For what purpose?”
“To steal our possessions and leave us out here to freeze.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she do that after rescuing me?”
“It’s what I would do, if I were it.”
Horton snagged the gun away from Doc with a flash of his hand. He turned the weapon around and pointed the barrel at him. “Clothes off. Now. That’s an order. I’m not going to ask again.”
CHAPTER 25
Doctor Ben Lipton kept his privates covered with both hands while Scab Girl smeared charcoal across his naked body. It was humiliating, feeling her hands touching him everywhere. Pressing. Rubbing. Probing. Covering him in black.
He stood there, helpless, like a turkey being basted before Thanksgiving dinner. He really didn’t have a choice. Not with two rows of shark teeth and a gun aimed at him.
“Do you mind?” Lipton said, shooting a look at Horton’s weapon. “I’ve already agreed. Besides, it’ll go faster with two.”
“You’re okay with that?”
“Just get this over with, already.”
Horton froze for a moment, his eyes tight. Then he put the gun down and joined Helena with her work.
This wasn’t what Lipton had in mind when he left Frost’s compound. It never occurred to him to factor in the possibility of a Scab Girl during the design of his plan. He obviously missed something in both his initial assessment and his ongoing reconnaissance. Otherwise, the only other explanation for this failure to anticipate was that he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was—a first in the annals of all things Lipton.
“Lift your arms,” Horton said, loading his fingers with more of the soot.
Lipton obliged him, letting go of his privates and putting his hands over his head. He now understood the meaning of the old movie title “Free Willy.”
He continued his analysis in silence, hoping the mental exercise would keep his mind off the embarrassment. And the sensation of four hands, rubbing.
The last thing he wanted was for a cannibal to see an erection right in front of her teeth. Who knew how she’d react to such a thing?
He let the castration thoughts fade, returning to his self-analysis.
There was a chance Frost had deceived him somehow. Whether on purpose or otherwise, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps he’d underestimated Frost and his men, assuming their lack of a collective IQ had removed the possibility of subterfuge.
Lipton figured any scientist in his position would have agreed with his assessment: Frost was a dumbass. Not exactly a scientific term, but it fit. More so when Frost would give in to the driving need to kill something—anything—leaving a wake of entrails. Those primal urges were both frightening and easy to anticipate. With that said, knowing the wrath was coming had never once helped any of Frost’s victims.
Rage always wins. It’s simply too violent, too swift and too indeterminate.
“Turn around so we can do the back,” Horton said, applying pressure with a set of fingers on Lipton’s kidney.
He had been careful during his spying, planning every move while eavesdropping on the conversations between the drunks. It’s never easy snooping on those who’d kill you in a heartbeat.
Lipton assumed that Frost’s men thought of him as a special kind of prude: part asshole, part genius. A man oblivious to all things fun. One who would never stoop to their level and partake in a quest to defile himself during another one of their endless drunken gatherings.
Yet, they couldn’t have been more wrong. He’d purposely kept his true self hidden from their prying eyes. They were always watching him. Always judging. Never taking a moment off.
The truth was, he’d been known to hit the bottle before The Event changed the world. He knew firsthand that theoretical physicists can party with the best of them. More so after they learned their government grant had been renewed with no strings attached.
He missed the old days when you were paid for nothing. You never had to produce anything, as long as there was a glimmer of hope in your research. That was the key to keep the cash flowing from the government trough. A glimmer. Just sprinkle in a modicum of results in your progress reports and the higher-ups were happy.
But that was then.
This was now.
“Almost done,” Horton said, smearing more of the black on Lipton.
Lipton was sure there was never a mention of female Scabs. Only males. Helena must have been an exception. She was rare. Possibly valuable. Others of her kind would most certainly be looking for her, assuming they were the ones responsible for the scars across her skin.
He wondered if Frost and Fletcher knew female Scabs existed. There’d been no mention of it in the crosstalk Lipton had picked up. Then again, it was possible his boss had his own secrets, beyond the ones Lipton had already discovered without Frost’s knowledge.
Lipton had more he needed to relay to Horton, but not with this Helena person at his side—the same person, albeit a loose classification, who was rubbing black across the backs of his inner thighs, approaching Lipton’s version of the No-Go Zone.
Helena’s hands continued on, skipping the one area of his body no one else’s touch should ever penetrate.
Lipton studied Horton as his hands worked the black. Horton was clearly compromised, unable to see the threat next to him, literally and figuratively.
It meant Lipton would have to keep his plan quiet until the right moment came along. A moment when the female Scab was no longer inside Horton’s circle of trust.
Lipton was certain she’d turn on Horton, eventually. Animals do that. More specifically, wild animals. Once she did, that’s when Lipton would make his move and read Horton in.
Helena grunted three times, smacking Horton on the shoulder in the process.
Horton looked at her. “What?”
She pointed outside the window and to the right, just beyond a string of parked cars. Each was gray with heavy rust spots across their hoods, no doubt due to the freezing temperatures the past decade. Well, that and the acidic nature of volcanic ash.
Whether it was mafic ash or felsic ash, it was all categorized by its silica content. Lipton had read all the papers. Sampled his own deposits. Crunched all the numbers. Salts, acids, and sulphuric acid are never kind to man or machine.
He’d also detected trace amounts of radioactivity after The Event first ravaged the planet, though those readings were no longer present. He wasn’t sure if the radiation was part of the cause or simply an aftereffect. No way to know without more data.
Helena pulled Horton down, then did the same with Lipton, all three of them peeking over the ledge of the windowsill, its glass missing.
A second later, a gang of at least twenty Scabs moved into the neighborhood—all men, of course—each carrying some kind of hand weapon. Knives mostly, but a few held garden tools and pipes.
He watched them spread out like a swarm of bees in search of pollen—blonde, female pollen, he figured, with endless scars, like Helena, and a face that could stop a clock.
Lipton grabbed Horton by the neck, pulling him close to whisper into his ear. “I told you she would set us up.”
Horton pointed. “Look, Doc. What do you see?”
“Hunger, obviously.”
“No, you idiot. Look. Don’t assume. They don’t know where we are; otherwise they’d be making a dash straight for our position.”
“They could simply be avoiding a direct path on purpose. You can’t know what they’re thinking.”
“So now you’re calling them clever? Like they have intelligence? Which is it, Doc? Are they animal or human? Can’t be both.”
Lipton didn’t have a response.
Horton didn’t wait for one. “If she wanted us dead, she never would have led us in here or had us mask our scent. Trust me, she’s on our side. You just need to accept it and put your prejudices aside for once. Not everyone is hiding something.”
Right then, Lipton noticed a change outside. The Scabs had altered their course, heading directly toward their position inside the house. He motioned to the window. “I’d say that confirms my suspicion. Maybe you should let the grownups do the thinking from now on, Einstein.”
Horton whipped his head around, his eyes glancing at the course correction outside first, then he aimed them at Helena. “Did you do this?”
She didn’t respond, her eyes fixed on the activity outside.
Lipton smacked Horton on the shoulder to get his attention. “What do we do now?” he asked, letting his eyes drop to the weapon in Horton’s hand. “There aren’t enough bullets in that gun. Not unless you shoot one of those infamous magic bullets from the Kennedy Assassination and take them all out at once.”
“We run. That’s what we do. There’s got to be a back way out of this place. Come on, follow me.”
Horton went to stand, but Helena pulled him down. She pointed out the window.
When Lipton followed her finger, he saw a shadow blur into the foreground from the right. It was a man covered in a wrap of clothes, like a winterized toga that was open down the front, with what looked like body armor underneath.
His face was covered with a hoodie and his hands were fast, damn fast, as he wielded two curved swords, moving them in an over-under circular pattern, his hands gripping their leather-wrapped handles.
He slipped into the center of the hunger gang with the grace and speed of a fearless Ninja. The Scabs spread out and circled him, showing an excess of jagged teeth.
The man kept moving his swords, waiting and watching, as if he were baiting them to make the first move.
Then it started.
They came at him.
First in singles, then in pairs, each of them snarling with a weapon in hand.
He unfurled his swords in seemingly all directions at once, slicing at the threats coming his way, never remaining in the same spot for more than a heartbeat or two. Only once could Lipton see the curve of the man’s blades as they minced skin and bone, blurring together faster than bullets could fly.
Reaction was impossible for the Scabs in such close quarters, their numbers working against them. They were too close, allowing the man to use his extended reach, cutting through several of them with one swipe, his balance like that of a feral cat.
Three of the Scabs held back, looking dumbfounded, as their brethren met their demise with the speed of the wind.
Limbs were separated from bodies.
Trunks were opened up, spilling intestines into a growing pool of tissue and muck.
Arteries were severed, releasing their life-giving blood in geyser-like sprays, pulsating with each frantic heart-pump.
A few heads were liberated, too, no longer attached to the bondage of their frostbitten bodies.
Lipton couldn’t help but picture the underside of a lawnmower, its blades whirling with power, carving up and spitting out anything that came within its reach.
The carnage intensified as the unidentified man continued his onslaught with the precision of an orchestra conductor, working through the hunger gang in a blur of precision.
If Lipton hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have thought he was watching a Hollywood movie, one that had been choreographed to shock and awe in a spray of red.
The last three of the Scabs rushed the man in unison, forming a skirmish line of teeth.
The swordsman took a long step forward to catch the trio midstride with a double swipe high on their bodies. Their eyes flared wide as their necks gaped open, spraying blood in a wide arc.
As quickly as he’d started, the man froze in place, holding his weapons in their follow-through position as he gazed at their gasping throats.
It took a ridiculously long time for the final three Scabs to topple over, their collective life-force running out in spurts. Each cannibal seemed content to accept its fate as gravity pulled their twitching corpses onto the pile of the cannibal slaughterhouse.
The swordsman released his pose, then stood in a defensive posture for a short minute, his eyes scanning the perimeter.
The prey had become the predator, searching for more victims.
There were none.
Just as an assembly line powers down after a productive day of work, he pulled his swords in and sheathed them in one fluid motion, tilting them at the ready for his next battle.
A gust of wind raked across Lipton’s face as he watched the strange warrior stand in victory. He couldn’t stop the words on his tongue from setting themselves free. “Holy shit! Who the hell is that?”
