CLAY: Roads Beyond: A Five Roads to Texas Novel, page 22
The trees thinned, and he went to his belly, crawling the last thirty yards. From here, he could see the campfires guttering in the snow, canvas tarps sagging under frost, shapes huddled close to the flames.
Wendigos.
Some wore the scavenged remains of uniforms, others rags and animal hides, faces smeared with ash and paint. Every one of them carried something—clubs wrapped in wire, spears tipped with jagged scrap metal, stolen rifles slung on their backs.
The infected moved through them like cattle, herded by kicks and shouts. The Wendigos didn’t fear them—instead they mingled with the dead, as if the line between the two had long since blurred.
And then Clay saw Jackson just like he had been described.
The camp was alive with movement—a great writhing mass of Wendigos and infected bodies circling a roaring bonfire. The heat shimmered in the cold night air. Smoke churned upward, the smell of burning pine and rot thick in his nostrils.
At the center, their leader sat on the roof of a rusted panel van like some unholy priest, the mask on his face glaring white against the firelight, and a headdress of bloody rags hung from his head and down his back. The chanting rose and fell in a primal rhythm, voices hoarse from devotion and bloodlust.
Clay slipped into the fringes of the mob, his head bowed, mimicking the twisting, jerking motions of the dancers. He kept his rifle slung across his back, hands loose, swaying with the rhythm to blend in. His pulse was steady now—he’d done this before, walked among the enemy in plain sight.
But he needed a distraction. Something loud.
A grin tugged at his lips as an idea hit. Moving with the press of bodies, he edged closer to the fire until he could feel the heat licking at his face. The crowd was now screaming their chant, stamping and swaying in a frenzy, as they screamed up at the stars. Nobody looked at him.
He reached into his hip pouch and palmed two fully loaded rifle magazines. Without hesitation, he pitched them into the flames.
The raging fire popped, hissed. No one noticed. The chant swelled louder.
Clay backed away, slipping between two gaunt men painted in ash. The flames raged, the crowd chanted to a staccato drumbeat, brass hissed in the fire, then began to explode. Now, heads turned, confusion cutting into the ritual. The masked leader tilted his head, trying to see through the smoke. The sounds of an army attack made them duck as if under fire.
Clay’s hand slid into his jacket and wrapped around the grip of the 1911.
The popping turned into sharp, violent cracks—round after round cooking off in the flames. Sparks and embers sprayed into the mob. The chant broke. People screamed, scattering from the fire.
Clay stepped forward through the smoke, his eyes locked on Jackson.
The fire erupted in a storm of sparks as the magazines cooked off, each round cracking like a firecracker in the heart of the blaze. Clay felt a round buzz past him, but was undeterred. Others screamed, and panic took over, the hypnotic chant shattering into jagged pieces of terror.
Clay drew the 1911 in one smooth, practiced motion. The pistol barked once—its sharp report drowned beneath the rapid popping from the fire.
The Bone Speaker’s mask burst apart, fragments spinning through the firelight. His body snapped backward, tumbled from the roof of the van, and hit the dirt in a spray of ash and dust.
Clay reholstered before the man’s body even settled. He moved instantly, melting into the crush of bodies surging away from the blaze. Staying tight to the panicked current, he kept his head low as masked Wendigos barreled past, shoving, stumbling, tripping over the mob that swarmed in confusion.
Then the popping in the fire sputtered out. For a moment, there was only the chaos of boots on dirt and ragged breathing. A voice cut through it—high, raw, panicked:
“The Bone Speaker is dead!”
The mob faltered, shifting backward toward the van, toward their fallen leader. Clay didn’t. He slipped away at the edge of their vision, into the treeline, swallowed by the dark.
He kept moving until the fires were just a glow through the branches. Then he found a rise in the ground, dropped to his belly, and waited, watching the chaos below, his rifle cold in his hands, ready in case they sent anyone hunting.
CHAPTER 32
Clay lay on the cold rise all night, the damp earth seeping into his bones. Below, the Wendigos milled in restless knots, their chants gone, replaced by low murmurs and the crackle of the dying fire.
When dawn bled gray across the treetops, he watched them carry the Bone Speaker’s body—limp, masked fragments still clinging to his face—and place him atop the pyre. The flames licked high, swallowing their leader in smoke and ash.
Then, in a long, ragged column, they marched away. Not an attack. Not a pursuit.
A retreating army.
Clay stayed on the hill until the sun burned high, until the smoke thinned to a faint smear in the sky. Only then did he rise, joints stiff, and work his way back through the trees.
Andrew was at the door when he returned, eyes searching him like a man bracing for bad news.
“Is it over?”
Clay nodded once. “For now, it is. But I told you, kid—we can’t stay here.”
Andrew’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. Elizabeth stepped up beside him, her face pale but steady.
“Clay… will you find us a home?”
Clay glanced between them, then past them, out to the snow-covered road beyond the gates.
“I’ll find us somewhere,” he said. “But it won’t be here.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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About WJ Lundy
W. J. Lundy is a Retired member of the U.S. Military with service in Afghanistan. He has over 23 years of combined service with the Army and Navy in Europe, the Balkans and Southwest Asia. W.J. is an avid athlete, writer, backpacker and shooting enthusiast. He currently resides with his wife and daughter in Central Michigan.
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