Vindicta, p.18
Vindicta, page 18
Like a lost puppy—a really ugly puppy.
“We probably should—” he broke off as the female freak started to back away again. “Wait!” he ordered, holding up a hand for it to stop.
“Storm,” she warned as he sheathed his knife.
She raised her pistol just enough so that she could bring it up in a second if the thing even twitched in Storm’s direction.
“Can you understand me?” he asked curiously.
Then, shockingly, it nodded. It was a jerky nod, but still…a very clear affirmative.
“Well, damn,” he said under his breath and tossed her a nonplussed glance. He looked back at the threat. “If you try to harm us, we’ll have to kill you.”
The freak’s shoulders writhed as she raised her hands in surrender. At least, that’s what Kate thought it meant. She was mentally thrown off balance.
What the hell were they going to do now?
“Let’s go clear the store,” he said, backing away from the strangely non-murderous freak. “Follow me, but keep your eyes on her.”
They backed away from the ill woman, Storm finally turning and opening the door. The freak began walking closer, looking as if she was having trouble not sprinting toward them. Was she trying to keep herself from attacking them?
Her mouth opened and closed silently, but Kate heard no words. She was either not speaking, or too far away.
“She’s coming toward us,” Kate said, pulling her knife and hoping the smaller human-freak hybrid didn’t lunge. The woman paused ten feet from the door.
“Come on. We’ll close the door.”
Kate backed into the dark back room and Storm switched on his headlamp before closing the metal exit door. She turned her mind toward the task at hand—clearing the store.
“The back is clear,” he murmured.
She followed him through the large, swinging door and into the slightly brighter salesroom. Aisles of merchandise lined the floor in an untouched tableau, frozen in time. It was unlooted and pristine.
They prowled the aisles, tense and ready for a sudden attack around every endcap. None came. Kate shrugged her shoulders to loosen them up a bit and wished she’d taken an ibuprofen tablet before they’d left the house.
She was ready to get this done.
“All clear. Let’s load the ammo first. Watch the windows.”
She pulled a couple of carts from the front of the store and pushed them to the ammo case. She gritted her teeth as the second cart’s wheel squealed and pulled to the right. The noise wasn’t that loud, but it went against everything she’d learned since early July…and she hated carts that pulled.
She abandoned it and got another.
“Here,” Storm said stacking boxes of ammo that he’d pilfered. “Fill this cart and I’ll take it out. I want to find some spare car batteries. Stay alert.”
She nodded and knelt to empty the cabinet. The bottom shelf was full of .223 ammo which they desperately needed. There were also some boxes of .243, .270, 30.06, and .308 which she took as well. The top was dedicated to pistol ammo and smaller caliber rifle rounds. A shelf across the aisle held shotgun loads.
They’d need to make a lot of trips to get all that.
She heard a rustling and looked up as Storm can by with a cart. He’d found some batteries and other gear. She finished with the ammo and he helped her fill the rest of the space with the shotgun shells.
“Take my cart. It’s lighter. We’ll go out through the front.”
She pushed the heavy cart toward the large plate-glass windows up front. He opened the door and looked both ways before pulling the cart behind him. Kate pushed hers through and paused as he came up beside her.
She pulled her knife and used her forearm to guide the cart.
The Humvee they’d brought sat in front of them and they maneuvered through the concrete parking barricades and around to the back.
“Shit!” she cried and let go of the handle.
She backed away from the freak-woman that sat on the ground in the shade of the Humvee.
“What the hell is she doing?” Storm muttered.
“Resting, it looks like. Waiting for us.”
“Damn it.” He bit his lip in thought and came around the front of her cart. “Move,” he ordered.
The freak lurched to her feet with a violent shudder and started to heave again, but she didn’t vomit thankfully. Kate wasn’t affected by bodily fluids anymore, but it was still unpleasant. She also didn’t think Storm would appreciate the thing spewing bile all over his Humvee.
The female freak ran a few feet away then stopped again and watched them. Her hair was long and brown and wavy. It was mostly clean. Aside from her pallid skin, rattlesnake eyes, and dirty clothes, she could even pass for a normal person.
“Watch her while I load these up,” he said.
Kate pulled her pistol and kept her gaze trained on the threat that didn’t seem so threatening. She didn’t let her guard down though. One mistake is all it would take to die in this world.
“Done. Let’s go back in.”
Kate backed away from the Humvee as Storm pushed the two carts. The woman stayed focused on her the entire time, but she didn’t move…not until they got to the door.
“She’s coming toward us again,” Kate said.
They went inside and watched as the woman stepped to the glass window. Her gaze was piercing as she looked in at them. She put her wriggling fingers against the glass and waited.
For what, Kate didn’t know.
“Get the camping supplies and I’ll grab some things for the vehicles.”
Kate cleaned out the shelf of emergency candles and Sterno cans. There were camp stoves and single burners and she took those too. Cast iron skillets and griddles and coffee pots took up the rest of the space.
She was going to need another cart.
She walked out toward the front again and saw that the woman was still standing with her hands pressed to the glass, peering in. Kate took a deep breath and walked over to her. The woman watched her, breath fogging the glass.
She noticed it and pulled back for a moment before leaning in to cloud the glass again. Then, she did something fairly extraordinary. She wrote.
The message was simple, and shakily written with uncooperative fingers—but it was still a message.
Hi
“Storm!” she called quietly.
“What’s wrong?” he jogged over and put a hand on his pistol.
“Look,” she nodded.
The woman breathed on the glass and the message appeared.
“I’ll be damned,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “I didn’t know it was possible. She even wrote it backward.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked him as he paced.
“What do you mean? We’re going to load up and go.”
“We can’t leave her here,” Kate said quietly.
“Why the hell not?! She can take care of herself obviously. What we should do is just put her out of her misery,” he said.
“We can’t do that! She’s not like the others. She hasn’t attacked us.”
“Yet, Kate. Yet. She could be a ticking time bomb for all we know.” He went back to the carts and they once again pushed open the doors and loaded the supplies in the back. The infected woman watched them without moving.
“That’s good for now. Let’s check out that Suburban. If we can get it going, we’ll head to the grocery,” he said, gesturing with a nod toward the store.
“Sounds good. I’m glad this place is so out of the way,” she said, keeping her eyes on the freak trailing after them.
They moved along the wall toward the back of the building as the sun beat down on their heads. It was the middle of August as best she could figure, though she didn’t know the exact date. One and a half months after the biggest upheaval their planet had seen in a long time, and they were still acclimating and still trying to find their way.
They’d lost so many in such a short time, and she was very afraid that they were only the first.
The bricks were hot on her arm and the air was thick with humidity, but she barely noticed. She was too caught up in her thoughts. The whole time she had just been surviving…going from one task to the next in the hopes of staying alive another day. She wanted to kill the freaks, as many as she could. She wanted to find Feckley and take back what was hers—but those weren’t good enough reasons to keep going.
She was going to stay alive and well to protect her friends, her people. She was going to make sure that Red, Harley, Storm, Jen, and Young made it through. She wasn’t going to fail them like she had failed her mother, and like she had failed Jared.
The SUV was parked haphazardly near the edge of the lot and they crept toward it. The windows were too tinted to see in properly and she wanted no surprises.
“Locked,” Storm said.
They had figured it would be, but it was worth checking. Even if they could get in, the keys probably wouldn’t—
The metallic jangle of keys hitting concrete startled her and she whirled.
The woman was standing there, perhaps twenty feet away. A bundle of keys rested at her feet.
“Storm. It’s her Suburban,” Kate said.
“I don’t guess she’ll be needing it anymore,” he said, eyeing her warily as the woman approached them. She moved in stuttering steps, trying—and failing—to control her flailing limbs. Kate stepped back as she reached the back of the vehicle. She scrawled a finger through the thick coating of dust and pollen.
“She’s writing again,” Kate murmured.
“I see that,” he said dryly.
He walked over to the end and glanced at the word. ‘It says ‘take’.”
“Take the truck?”
He shrugged. “I assume so.”
The woman opened her mouth and hummed a soft ahhhh. It sounded like an exaggerated exhale, but with the nodding of her head, Kate suspected that she was agreeing.
“I think she said yes,” Storm said.
“We can’t just take her truck and leave her here,” Kate said. “I don’t feel right about it.”
“Kate, we can’t take her home. She could endanger us all.”
“What if we put her in one of the other homes until we know her better?”
He sighed. ‘You’re serious?”
She nodded.
“Fine, but you are responsible for her.” He huffed out a breath and went to snatch the keys. “I’ll take this over to the grocery. You follow along with your new friend.”
“Red is going to freak,” she said with a grin. “Pun intended.”
A small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Most likely.”
Chapter Seventeen
Grocery Shopping
Kate- Past
“Do you want to go with us?” she asked the woman-creature. She wasn’t sure what to call it. It wasn’t a woman, but it wasn’t fully freak either.
The woman nodded.
“You know that if you try to hurt me I’ll kill you?” Kate asked.
Another nod.
“Okay. Just so you know. I’m not sure what level of mental functioning you’ve got going on there, but I’m assuming that you are somewhat cognizant or you wouldn’t be able to write.”
Another nod.
This could be a pretty restful companionship.
Someone that didn’t talk was right up her alley. Of course, it would be much better if she wasn’t half dangerous-freak, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. They walked over to the store where Storm was searching the contents of a purse.
“I found her license. Her name is Kimberly Daniels. Thirty-two.”
They looked at the woman and she nodded again and sprinted forward with an outstretched finger. Storm shifted his hand to his pistol, but two seconds before he blew her head off, she stopped and pointed to the wallet.
He looked wary, but he picked it back up and opened it. Kate watched as he pulled out the money and the credit cards. He searched the back and when the woman made a low groan, Kate knew he’d found what she had wanted him to find.
“Oh man, it’s a picture.”
The woman held a hand out beseechingly and he placed it between her truculent fingers. Kate swallowed and glanced away when she saw the little boy and the man smiling out at her. Loss was all around them. It hurt to think about the families—the children.
“Your husband and son?” Storm asked as she stared at the picture.
She nodded and the picture fell from her hand. She lunged for it, but couldn’t manage to get it from the concrete. Kate bent down and held it carefully. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she told the woman carefully.
The woman became frantic.
Storm pulled Kate away as the hybrid—Kimberly— shook her head. Kate began to have a terrible feeling.
“I don’t think they’re dead,” she told Storm.
The woman stopped her hysterical head shaking and pointed at the photo again, over and over.
“Are they here somewhere?” Storm asked.
Again, a nod.
“Can you write where?”
She put her finger to the SUV and began to write. Some of the letters were smudged in her effort, but the result was clear enough.
“Cow Creek?” she read.
Storm frowned. “The scout camp?”
She nodded.
“Okay. We’ll take you there.”
She pointed at the grocery.
“They need food?”
She nodded emphatically.
“Okay then. Kate, let’s make this quick.” He gave Kimberly an assessing glance. “Come on.”
◆◆◆
The inside of the small grocery store wasn’t as neat as the inside of the hardware store had been. Some of the shelves had been cleared and the cigarette racks had been cleaned out completely.
There was still enough to provide them with plenty of food, and Storm went right to work in the canned foods aisle. Kate moved further into the store and stopped in the staples section near the back. She cleared the shelf of flour, sugar, and oil.
She wasn’t sure how long the oils would last, but they would use them as long as they could.
Kim was standing at the end of the aisle, staring into the dim meat department. The smell was rank, and Kate had been breathing through her mouth the whole time, but she thought she could almost taste the rot on her tongue.
Kim sprinted away and there was a tremendous crash. Kate ran to the end of the aisle with her knife ready.
“Kate!” Storm yelled from his aisle nearby.
“There’s a freak! Kim’s got it by the throat!” she said, eyes wide.
She forgot to breathe through her mouth and the sudden inflow of tainted air through her nose almost made her throw up.
There was no smell quite like a full case of meat rotting in the humid August heat.
A wet, snarling sound tore through the store and Kate watched in amazed—and disgusted— horror as Kim ripped away the freak’s throat and chewed through his trachea.
“We need to clear the back,” Storm said, giving Kim and the writhing, dead freak a wide berth.
Kate raised her eyebrows at Kim, not sure what to do. “We’re going to clear the back.”
Kim nodded and rubbed her chin with a spastic hand. It didn’t do much to clean off the gore, and Kate was afraid that she was going to have to wipe her down.
She wasn’t happy about putting her hands so close to Kim’s mouth, but she couldn’t go back to her family looking like she had literally ripped out someone’s throat with her teeth.
Kim wandered off toward the front of the store and Kate followed Storm through the back. The storage room wasn’t overly large. The refrigerators and freezers were packed with spoiled goods.
They bypassed them and went to the dry goods section. There was a good haul back there and she was excited to have found it. Most grocery stores they had come across had been ransacked and were practically worthless, but this place was a goldmine.
“It’s clear,” Storm said, after checking the restroom, which she had been silently scowling at.
“Good. Let’s get this stuff loaded. We can bring back more vehicles and people later. I want to get as much of this as we can. Others are bound to find it soon.”
◆◆◆
It took them thirty minutes to cram the SUV full of food and supplies. Kim had kept watch over the parking lot on her own initiative…at least that’s what Kate thought she was doing. Storm clenched his jaw as Kate took the SUV keys from his hand.
“She can ride with me,” Kate said.
“No. She’ll go in the Humvee. You can follow. We’ll take her to her family, and then go home and get the others.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I don’t think she is going to attack us.”
“You never know, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
They moved out at a slow pace. She was tense the entire drive. The area was remote, and the roads wove through thick woods and overgrown fields. She couldn’t help but wonder how many of those super-freaks were out there watching them pass—how many were following along and waiting for the right moment to strike.
The drive to the Boy Scout camp was short. The ten minutes flew by, and by noon they were pulling around the isolated area. There were no tents or RVs. There were no bodies and no evidence of a massacre. A small group of rustic cabins ringed the area and the main lodge was the center point.
Storm let Kimberly out of the vehicle. She sprinted toward the door without hesitating and Kate realized their mistake immediately. “No! Wait!”
“Kate!” Storm said, whipping his head around.
“If they have a weapon, they’ll shoot her! They won’t know!” Kate said frantically.
“Shit,” he cursed and took off after the hybrid.
“Kim!” Kate called again, turning the corner and seeing her pounding against the door.
Kim spotted her and growled, a low, vibrating rumble that cut through her chest. Kate held her hands up. “They don’t know that you aren’t bad. They’ll attack you! Let us talk to them first. Please,” she said. “Let us explain.”
