Savage (Apex Predator Book 2) Page 3

  Afterward, he laid his blade on the floor. The air stank of blood and smoke. Perkins’ side, black and crusty, looked like the inside of a barbecue grill. Even worse, his burnt flesh emitted a soft crackling noise. Like the crunching of charred paper.

  Steeling himself, Caplan checked the man for a pulse.

  Mills took a deep breath. “Well?”

  “He’s alive. For now.”

  Exhaling, she started to remove her hands from Perkins’ shoulders.

  “No, keep holding him.” Caplan picked up the rubbing alcohol. He pulled off the cap and proceeded to pour the liquid over the injured flesh. Perkins’ eyelids bolted open. Gasping and moaning, he tried to move without success before falling unconscious for a second time.

  Mills gave Caplan an unsure look. He nodded and she pulled her hands away from the man’s shoulders. “What now?” she asked.

  “We need to get him home. But first, we need meds.”

  “What about Dire?” She glanced at the front doors. At the giant shadow that cast a light pall over the store’s interior. “It’s still out there.”

  “One step at a time.”

  While she watched Perkins, Caplan raced back into the aisles. He stuffed his pockets with bandages, aspirin, pain killers, and other medical supplies. Then he ran back to the counter. He and Mills quickly wrapped bandages around the entirety of Perkins’ torso.

  When they were finished, Mills sat back on her heels. “Maybe we can sneak out the back door. Head into the forest and circle around to the van.”

  “We might make it, but we’ll never get away. It’ll be on us as soon as we fire up the engine.” He frowned. “Maybe we can find another car.”

  “There’s nothing around here for miles. Believe me, I’ve practically memorized that old map. It’s either the van or we hoof it.”

  “Then I guess it’s the van.”

  She stood up and turned in a half-circle, casting a sad look around the store. “I really thought this was our break. I really thought this place was going to save us.”

  “Me too.” Caplan glanced at the unconscious Perkins. The man’s body was covered in bandages and surrounded by piles of blood-soaked clothing. The smell of burnt flesh hung heavy in the air. Nearby, the small fire crackled, licking at the edges of the metal trash can and throwing a little light onto the floor. He stared at it for a few seconds, entranced by its orange and yellow flames, its ever-shifting shape, its warm heat. “And maybe it still can.”

  “How?”

  “Simple.” He picked up the trash can. “As a distraction.”

  Chapter 4

  Date: November 23, 2017, 10:31 p.m.; Location: North Maine Woods, ME

  Multiple fires erupted, spreading from aisle to aisle, helped along by rubbing alcohol and other incendiaries. Smoke billowed outward as the fires joined together, creating a mid-sized blaze. The blaze expanded, spreading to the walls and ceiling. Within a few short minutes, it had turned into a full-blown inferno.

  “Outside.” Caplan coughed as black smoke filled his lungs. “Now.”

  Quietly, Mills opened the rear door and hurried out into a small section of parking lot. The rising inferno sent sharp rays of light across the pavement, illuminating a dented dumpster and scattered car parts.

  Caplan threw Perkins over his shoulder. Then he followed Mills across the lot and into a patch of dead grass. They kept going, sprinting past the tree line and into the depths of the forest. Only then did they slow down and take stock of what had once been a vibrant ecosystem.

  The trees, mostly black spruces, measured nearly one hundred feet tall. Some remained standing although a significant number had fallen prey to soil erosion and root rot. Large patches of speckled reddish-brown bark had peeled away from the trunks, making room for dark green moss. Branches, withered and pointing at the ground, were largely barren.

  As they hurried through the area, Caplan fixed his gaze on the ground. It was hard and covered with twigs and branches. The little grass that remained was long and brown. He saw no signs of life. No nests, no tracks, no scat. Even bugs and spiders were nowhere to be seen. Not much left in this world, he thought. Just death and monsters.

  “Look at that,” Mills whispered under her breath. “It’s just standing there. Like it’s not even afraid of the fire.”

  Twisting his neck, Caplan saw the enormous dire wolf, bathed in shadow and light. It stood on all fours, growling at the inferno. Seeing it like that reminded him of Saber. It too had showed little respect for fire.

  Multiple explosions pierced the air. Bits of fire scattered in all directions with many of them landing amongst the dead and dying vegetation. New blazes sprang up, filling the night sky with crackling cinders and dense smoke. Correction, he thought. Make that death, monsters, and forest fires.

  From a certain standpoint, fire wasn’t such a bad thing. It would clear away the dead trees and renew the soil. Maybe, just maybe, it would even bring life back to this desolate place. But at the moment, it was just another obstacle to face, another threat to him and his friends.

  He shifted his grip on Perkins. The man twitched and groaned. Beads of sweat covered his rail-like body and nearly all of the rich color had drained out of his gaunt face. Suddenly, his eyes popped open. His cheeks puffed in and out as he took a few deep breaths. “The keys,” he wheezed. “Where are the keys?”

  That’s more like it, Caplan thought. It was good to see Perkins moving and talking again. “Don’t worry.” His free hand patted his pocket. “I’ve got them.”

  “What about my passport?”

  “Passport?”

  “The plane … I can’t miss it. I …” Perkins’ features twisted with confusion. “I need to catch my plane.”

  Caplan clenched his jaw. This was no physiological recovery. This was something else. Something dark and foreboding. The last rays of a setting sun, so to speak. A sun that, without Morgan’s help, would rise no more.

  He doubled his speed. Mills matched the pace and after another minute or so, he caught a glimpse of the road beyond the dying spruces. The mere sight of the dilapidated pavement warmed his heart while chilling him at the same time. The road was their ticket home. It would lead them back to the cabin, back to Morgan and the others. At the same time, this simple mixture of tar and compressed gravel served as a haunting reminder of all that had been lost. Of a once-mighty civilization, now shattered to pieces.

  They hustled out of the forest. Turning left, they saw the van, still parked alongside the road.

  “That’s strange,” Mills said.

  “What’s strange?”

  “Dire. I think it’s … well, I’m not sure what it’s doing.”

  To his left, Caplan saw the massive dire wolf striding around the back of the building. Growling, it stared at the flames. “Maybe it likes the heat?”

  “Maybe.” Kneeling down, she waited for Dire to circle around to the front of the building. As soon as its back was turned, she darted to the van. Opening the rear doors, she hopped into the cargo area.

  Caplan checked the behemoth and saw it was still focused on the fire. Swiftly, he carried Perkins to the vehicle and placed the man into the cargo area with Mills. Then he closed the doors and climbed into the front seat.

  Mills glanced out a side window. “Look at its paws.”

  Still circling the fire, Dire crossed the front of the store. And Caplan now saw what Mills had seen. Indeed, the massive creature was stomping at the edges of the fire, extinguishing the flames and sending puffs of grayish smoke into the starry sky. Well, how about that? he thought. A firefighting behemoth.

  Dire left the store and trotted to the edge of the parking lot. Carefully, it began stomping out the burning vegetation.

  Caplan inserted the key into the ignition. He turned it and the engine sputtered to life. The behemoth rotated its head. Its lava-orange eyes knifed through the darkness.

  He threw the vehicle into a one hundred and eighty-degree turn. Then he pushed his
boot against the accelerator. For a couple of tense seconds, his eyes were glued to the rearview mirror.

  Dire twisted around to chase them. Just then, a new fire sprung up around the gas pumps. The pumps exploded and flames spat into the air.

  “Whoa,” Mills said.

  Fire rained down on the massive dire wolf. A normal-sized creature would’ve fled for safety. But not Dire. It started to battle the flames even as its thick fur burned brightly for all to see.

  Caplan was awestruck. The behemoths had withstood mankind’s deadliest weapons. And this one hadn’t even flinched at the sight of fire, easily one of the most destructive forces of nature. What could possibly stop these massive beasts?

  Nothing, he realized. Absolutely nothing.

  Chapter 5

  Date: November 24, 2017, 12:06 a.m.; Location: North Maine Woods, ME

  “He stopped breathing,” Mills whispered frantically.

  The cabin was close, less than a mile away. But the distance felt more like a light year. “Do you know CPR?” Caplan asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Push hard and fast in the center of his chest. Do it thirty times.” He waited for her to finish, checking her form in the rearview mirror. “Now, tilt his head back. That’s good. Lift the chin and pinch his nose. Cover his mouth with yours and blow until his chest rises. Do it twice.”

  She followed the instructions. Afterward, she checked his mouth. “Nothing,” she said.

  “Do it again.” While she continued CPR, he pressed harder on the accelerator. They’d left the main road a few miles back and were now zipping through a dense section of coniferous trees.

  He skirted around a fallen spruce and past a patch of moss-covered rocks. Ahead, he spotted a large wood cabin in the center of a sizable clearing. It was almost completely dark, thanks to thick curtains hanging in the windows. A light trail of smoke spat out of a short chimney. Trashcans and other containers, partially filled with rainwater, surrounded the structure. A Rexto 419R3 corporate helicopter, heavily dented and covered with scorch marks, sat off to one side.

  He drove up to the front door, hopped out, and ran to the back. “How is he?”

  “He just started breathing.” Mills grabbed Perkins under the armpits. Carefully, she lowered him into Caplan’s arms. Then she ran to the cabin and opened the front door, causing soft light to fill the clearing. “Amanda,” she barked. “We need help.”

  Caplan lifted the unconscious Perkins over his shoulder and made a beeline for the cabin. A blazing fire, warm and bright, greeted him as he raced through the front door. Off to one side, Brian Toland lounged on a couch, a paperback book clutched in his grubby hands. Tricia Elliott sat in a wood chair, head down, mending clothes with thread and needle.

  “You didn’t find any food, did you?” Toland’s voice, annoying and abrasive, filled the cabin. “You know, this is starting to become obnoxious. While you’re out there playing games, the rest of us are—”

  “Shut up, Brian.” Mills pointed toward Perkins’ bedroom. “Amanda’s in there.”

  Caplan carried Perkins into the bedroom and saw Morgan. The apocalypse hadn’t been particularly kind to her. Or rather, she hadn’t been particularly kind to herself. Her once-perfect posture had turned into awkward slouching. Dirt and grime caked her skin. Her long blonde hair looked like it had been shocked with a brutal jolt of electricity. Only her eyes, blue and sharp as ever, hinted at any semblance to the woman he’d once loved.

  “Put him there.” Morgan pointed at the bed. “Tricia, I need you.”

  Caplan did as she said. “How can I help?”

  “By leaving.” Her voice was cold, clinical. Like usual.

  He nearly ran into Elliott on his way out. She recoiled, as she always did when someone came too close to her. He gave her a wide berth to pass. Then he strode into the common room and closed the door behind him.

  Seventeen months ago, Caplan and his little group had flown the Rexto to the cabin in their ultimately vain effort to avoid spreading the HA-78 virus. The cabin, along with the accompanying land, had been in his family’s possession for decades. He’d visited it often as a kid and could still recall collecting water from the nearby stream, beating dust out of the rugs, and gathering firewood from the forest. Ahh, those were the days. Now, the stream had dried up, necessitating their dependence on rainwater. And beating dust out of the rugs didn’t seem so important in the face of starvation. But hey, at least there was firewood. In fact, with so many dead trees around, it was their most abundant resource.

  “What happened to Derek?” Toland smirked. He was a grizzled older man who’d once found work as an author. He wore thick glasses, which he protected with his life. His face, once fat, was now quite thin. But it was difficult to tell under his scraggily gray beard. “Did he get a boo boo?”

  Mills exhaled. “A behemoth tried to eat him.”

  “Well, at least something’s eating around here.”

  “Okay, that’s it. You’re—”

  “Let’s go outside.” Caplan tugged her sleeve. “I need some fresh air.”

  She glared at Toland. Then she followed Caplan out into the clearing, slamming the door behind her. “Can you believe that guy?” she seethed. “Next time he complains about hunger, I’m going to feed him a knuckle sandwich.”

  He smiled.

  “He doesn’t even help out,” she continued. “Tricia sews. And Amanda tries to help in her own way. But not him. He just sits around, complaining. He’s dead weight, Zach.”

  “Yeah. But he’s our dead weight.”

  She fell silent.

  He ventured away from the cabin. Lifting his nose, he sniffed the air. Once upon a time, the clearing had smelled of blooming flowers, morning dew, and fresh cut grass. But now, all he smelled was death. Dead grass, dead trees, dead animals, dead everything. Nothing like the smell of death to get you going in the morning, he thought with a dark chuckle. That and body odor, of course. Can’t forget the body odor.

  The stench of body odor hung heavy around the cabin. It wasn’t that they didn’t have ways of cleaning themselves. Indeed, he’d fixed up a pretty ingenious solar-heated shower many months earlier. No, the real issue was getting their hands on soap, shampoo, and deodorant.

  Mills paced back and forth across the starlit clearing, blowing off steam. Then she produced a deck of playing cards. “High Thirty-One?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” They sat down on the patchy brown grass and she dealt out six cards. He picked up three of them. Two of Hearts, Ace of Clubs, Six of Clubs, he thought. Not bad.

  The goal of High Thirty-One was to get as close as possible to thirty-one points. Aces and face cards counted for eleven and ten points, respectively. All other cards were counted at face value. The trick was that points could only be added together if they came from the same suit. So, two face cards and an ace in separate suits only yielded a total of eleven points. But in the same suit, that hand was worth thirty-one points.

  He discarded the Two of Hearts and drew a new card. Nine of Clubs, he thought with a hidden smile. This game’s in the bag.

  Besides books and each other, cards served as their only source of entertainment. Not that Caplan minded. The one bright spot of this new world was that it had brought an end to television, video games, computers, cell phones, and social media. His little band of survivors actually talked to each other, did things together. He stole a look at Perkins’ window and caught a glimpse of Morgan’s shadow. Well, most of them anyway.

  Mills drew and discarded. On his next turn, Caplan knocked on the ground instead of drawing a new card. She arched an eyebrow and drew one last card. Discarding it, she held out her hand. “Fourteen,” she said.

  Caplan did the same. “Twenty-six.”

  “You got lucky.”

  He adopted a snooty expression. “I make my own luck.”

  “Do you now?” Smiling lightly, she handed the deck to him. He dealt out another hand and they continued to
play. After a few games, she glanced toward the cabin. “I hate this.”

  “Hate what?”

  “Waiting.”

  “If we’re waiting, that means he’s still okay.”

  “I know. It’s just …” She trailed off. “What if she can’t help him?”

  “Then we’ll find someone who can.”

  “Does the Danter colony have a doctor?”

  “Yes. Sandy Pylor. If the roads were better, I would’ve taken Derek straight to her.” He shrugged. “Obviously, I may still take him to her.”

  Danter was located twenty miles north of the cabin. But the roads leading that way were a veritable mess. Navigating them safely could take hours.

  Besides, Caplan wasn’t all that eager to go to Danter. Roughly three-quarters of its four-hundred residents had passed away during the last year and a half. As a result, Mayor Mike Zelton had begun to recruit new people to the little colony. And the last thing Caplan wanted was to endure yet another sales pitch.

  Making matters even more difficult, he liked Mayor Zelton. In fact, he liked many of Danter’s residents. He’d gotten to know them while vacationing at the cabin over the years. By and large, they were good people and a part of him hated to reject their entreaties. But what choice did he have? Above all else, he had to protect his people.

  Ever since Mayor Zelton’s first sales pitch, a debate had raged within the cabin. Namely, should they stay put? Or should they join up with Danter? Caplan led the stay-put faction. Their survival, he believed, was all that mattered. And the best way to survive this dangerous world was to remain in the middle of nowhere, hidden away from monsters, animal and human alike.

  Morgan led the opposing faction, contesting mere survival wasn’t enough. They had a greater responsibility to what remained of mankind. A responsibility to keep fighting. To cure HA-78. To defeat the behemoths. To end the Holocene extinction. And they couldn’t do that by secluding themselves in the middle of nowhere.

  Mills, Perkins, and Toland saw fit to join Caplan’s faction. Elliott, surprisingly enough, had thrown her lot in with Morgan. Since Caplan’s faction had the numbers, their will prevailed. But Morgan wasn’t happy about it. In fact, the debate had driven an enormous—and possibly permanent—wedge between them.