First Wave (The Travis Combs Post-Apocalypse Thrillers) (8 page)

The sun was cresting the grey, limestone rim of the
canyon when Travis returned from the morning check of the deadfalls. He place
three rock squirrels and one packrat on the large sandstone boulder under the
lip of the alcove and glanced over at the figures sleeping on the cottonwood
bark mats. Evelyn and Becka were huddled beside one another while LB was
snoring a few feet away, curled in a ball. 

Travis grabbed a handful of pine nuts from his vest
pocket and scanned the canyon to the left. A hundred yards down from the alcove,
Katy was hunched over, washing her face by the river. Beads of water,
illuminated like glass in the rising sun, trickled down her slender neck around
the contours of her soft shoulders.

He was about to walk over when he noticed Jim upstream,
in the other direction. He was leaning over, looking through his red daypack. Travis
walked down, hopping on rocks, until he came up behind the older man. As Travis
approached, Jim hastily zipped up the pack and feigned washing his hands.

“You know Jim, we haven’t talked in a while and
there’s something that’s been bothering me like a tick in my ear.

“Oh yeah, what’s that Travis?”

“Your strange mannerisms have stuck in my craw since
we first shook hands. I can usually get a pretty good fix on people but you…you
are a mystery. And I don’t like mysteries. They give me a bellyache.”

Jim wiped his hands on his shirt and turned his head
slightly towards Travis. “Do you always talk this way to your clients on
trips?”

“If you were a client of mine, I would have flown
your ass out on day three. Something occurred to me last night, as I lay I
staring up at the cave ceiling- why would a guy pay big bucks to join a river
trip at the last minute and then hang out by himself most of the time, not
muttering more than a few sentences during the entire three weeks? I thought,
‘either he’s a social misfit or he’s running from something.’ While I’m certain
of the first, it’s the second part that’s baffled me.”

Jim lowered his head into his trembling hands. His
hunched up body and strands of gray hair magnified his frail persona. Travis
glanced at the red pack. “Is what’s in that pack worth dying for…worth the life
of the people around you?”

Jim was silent and his eyes were locked into intense
concentration on the boulders in front of him. “Travis to Jim, do you copy?
Hello,” said Travis, waving his hand. “I was there yesterday, if you remember,
and I’m pretty sure you would be taking a sand nap right now, if it weren’t for
LB and I yanking your boney backside out of the mud. So, is what’s in that
precious pack of yours worth a person’s life…worth anything in this world now?”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jim said through
clenched teeth. His sullen eyes had become aglow and his face tightened as he
looked up at Travis. “What’s in here is all that matters, in this very moment,
and what future moment’s humanity has left. Nothing else matters, not me, not
you-- only the vaccine in here. For now, the devil owns the world and what I
hold here may be all that matters.”

Travis placed his hands on his hips. “Vaccine, what vaccine?
What the fuck are you talking about Jim?” 

“Your mind is too simple to understand the
implications of what I have in my pack. Men like you are on autopilot,
programmed by a government that has shaped you into an organic asset for
removing roadblocks that obstruct their global agenda. My research in New
Mexico, along with that of my colleagues elsewhere, was meant to provide hope
for the human race, not plunge it into darkness,” Jim seethed, as he clenched
the shoulder strap of the pack.

Katy walked up to the two men and shot a puzzled
glance at Travis. “Everything alright? What’s going on?”

“I’d like to know myself,” he shrugged at Katy. “Why
don’t you start from the beginning Jim, before this
organic asset
gets
angry.”

Jim rolled his shoulders back and held his chin up,
gazing at the trees above. He exhaled and began twitching the fingers on his
right hand like he was trying to remove a sticky substance. “We never intended
for the pathogen to spread the way it did,” he paused looking down at the river.
“I was one of six researchers brought in to design the virus and then formulate
an antidote to mitigate any damage such a deadly bioweapon could cause in the
wrong hands.” He leaned forward and dipped his fingers in the water below,
swirling them back and forth as if painting. “They said we would be saviors and
the world would be beholden to the brilliant minds that averted extinction,” he
muttered while his lips contorted in a half-smile. “Instead it was these very
hands that cleaved the world in two, fracturing for all time the glorious
achievements of our race.”

Travis leaned forward, “You mean you’re one of the
architects of this disease that’s crippled the world? What the hell were you
doing hiding out on our river trip when you should have been combatting this?
You thought you’d just drop off the radar for a while until you could return,
with no one the smarter?”

Jim dropped his head between his knees, grinding his
palms into his temples as if trying to erase his memory. “History will show
that I wasn’t a coward, though, but a scientist of principal.”

Katy lunged forward kicking Jim in the back. “You
should die right here…you bastard…you…” Travis grabbed her arm and pulled her
back. “Easy…easy Katy.”

“Our friends are lying dead on the beach, and
Becka’s whole family is gone because of this monster. Don’t tell me to go easy
on him,” she said, jerking her arm free. “I’ve got a father back home…he’s all
I have left, and I don’t even know if he’s alive.”

“Get in line behind me if you want to kick in his
front teeth but right now, we need more information, so I’m asking you nicely
to back off,” Travis said.

Katy ruffled out a deep breath and paced from left
to right with folded arms.

“Jim, you’ve got a lot to spill tears over. Maybe
you should’ve found religion or gotten a conscience by now. Why don’t you let
us in on your little science fiction plot to end the world, and tell me what
the hell is in your pack. Because if it’s something that can turn things around,
I’d sure like to know.”

Jim stroked the top of the dusty pack repeatedly, as
if he were petting a beloved dog. He stared ahead into the cottonwood grove
with swollen eyes. “Like any virus, there are three ways to battle such a
contagion. You get inoculated before the event, you get an antidote during the
event before the terminal stage,” he paused, “or you are born already immune which,
statistically, is very unlikely. With every viral contagion there are those who
are the two-percenters and unaffected, to put it in a way you would understand.”

“What good is the vaccine in your pack if you only
have a few vials?” said Katy.

“There are more located in a safe place. These
represent half the equation. The vials here need to be combined with the other
formula stowed away at the secondary site that each of us were assigned.”

“But, by now, hasn’t the initial virus run its
course? I mean, won’t it burn out once these creatures are all dead?” said Katy.
“If we hide out here for a while longer, we can avoid becoming infected until
those things die off, right?”

“No. You see, we created the bioweapon to have three
waves, each being more virulent than the ones that preceded it, much like the
original 1918 virus but with one difference. The reanimation of the deceased is
not something that was in the strain we created. That is nature’s cruel
handiwork spitting back in our faces. The next wave will produce not only an
even higher mortality rate, but who knows what will happen with the reanimation
effect.”

Jim looked up at Katy and Travis and quickly back
down at the river. “Each successive, viral wave has a shorter incubation period.
With the first wave, viral onset until death is usually six to eight hours, as
you’ve witnessed. With each wave that terminal rate is cut in half. You may not
even have to be bit to have the next wave spread. Anyone who has been in
airborne contact with the virus already, is most likely an asymptomatic carrier
and will suffer the effects,” he kicked a pebble in the river with his boot and
then looked up. “Probably, even you two and everyone else here.”

Travis shot a glance at Katy and then clenched his fist
while squatting down next to the cowering figure. “Not you though, eh Jim?
You’ve probably already been vaccinated I’m guessing. How long before the next
wave hits?”

“You must remember that the initial testing we did
was on monkeys under controlled laboratory conditions and….”

He was cut short by Katy, “Spare me any more
lectures Spock. How long damnit?”

“The models indicate that we have six months until
the next wave strikes with the third wave following in another six months, as
per the 1918 pandemic. Anyone left after that will truly be the next Adam and
Eve.”

Katy’s face went from flushed red to a buttermilk
color. She sat on the rocks behind Travis and gazed down canyon.

Travis’s mind flashed to his son, Todd.
Was he
alone, fending for himself in some god-forsaken burnt out house in what was
once Denver? Maybe he made it out with his mom? Was he even alive? What if….
he
immediately forced the images away and resumed his laser focus on Jim’s words.
“Solutions…options, let’s discuss those,” Travis said. “You are carrying those
vials for a reason so you must have hope that something can be done to stem the
tide of further infection. Let’s talk about that and why you thought hiding out
with us was ‘humanity’s best course of action’.”

“I was told to join this particular trip by my
handler- the only person I trusted. He arranged everything and said that I
would be safe until the first wave had passed. Then he would come for me, but
something must have gone wrong.”

“Define ‘safe’, you bastard,” said Katy, who was
standing again and motioning her fist at Jim. “Those fucking creatures on the
beach didn’t make me feel too safe.”

Travis wedged himself between the two and then
turned towards Jim. “You said there was a site where the other vials were kept.
Where?”

“I only have the coordinates for the secondary site.
Whether that is the location of the laboratory is unknown but….” Before he
could finish, Pete emerged from across the river, leaping from rock to rock while
pushing past tree branches. He was panting, his face red and sweaty.

“Trav, I was down canyon about a half mile scouting
the area for springs when I heard some people talking. It looked like some of
those bikers by the way they were dressed. There were three of them, and they
had two women tied up on their motorcycles.”
“Were they headed this way?” said Travis.

Pete leaned on an overhanging branch and paused to
take a breath. “I don’t think so. They were parked on this one-lane bridge
talking about what to do with the women. These looked like some bad dudes
Trav.”

“Yeah, seems like those are the only kind to be
found these days. Doesn’t anybody take a break from killing,” he said, smirking
in Jim’s direction.

“Alright, I’ll grab LB and we’ll head down. Stay
here with the others. If you hear any movement other than ours, head up canyon
and disperse amongst the boulders by the rim. That will at least give you the
advantage of having the high ground until we return.”

Travis retraced his way up to the alcove racing over
the rock-strewn path.

“I am going with you,” said Katy from behind.

“Like hell! You’re staying here with the others. LB
and I will handle this.”

“Is this a boy’s club now? I can fight! You guys
aren’t the only ones who know how to use a gun.”

He stopped and turned. “Katy, I don’t have time to
give you a crash course on how to combat tactics. Just stay here.”

“I’m coming Trav. My dad was a police officer and I
grew up hunting. I sure as hell ain’t no stranger to pulling a trigger.
Besides, someone skilled with a gun needs to stay here in case there are more
bikers in the area,” she said, glaring back at him.

God damn civilians- they never did as
they were told.
He turned towards her, his face taut.
“The way this works then, is you follow my lead and do exactly as I say. You
got that Xena!”

He sped up to the alcove. The others had already
arisen and were moving around. “What’s going on?” said Evelyn.

“There are some bikers down canyon. Katy and I are
going to head there. For now, grab your stuff and wait here. Pete will explain
the rest,” he said donning his gear and grabbing the lever action rifle which
was resting on a small shelf of sandstone. He did a partial-chamber check of
the Glock and then took off down the trail while Katy followed behind with the
shotgun on her shoulder.

As they neared the location Pete described, they
could hear the men’s voices faintly resounding off the tight canyon walls. He
stopped and crouched in a thick undergrowth of bushes, listening for any
movement while he scanned the boulders to either side. About a hundred yards
ahead was a single-lane bridge which spanned forty feet and was six feet off
the streambed. Three motorcycles were parked in the shade over to the right.
Two young women were handcuffed to the back bars of the bikes they sat on. One
looked to be around twenty with her hair in a jumbled ponytail. She wore jeans,
a western-style plaid shirt, and cowboy boots. The other one, who bore a
resemblance, was about sixteen and dressed similarly. Both women had bruises on
their cheeks, and the older one had a tinge of blood coming off her lower lip. Slung
next to bulging saddlebags, on two of the bikes, were AK-47s. Beside the
younger woman was a skinny biker who was running his fingers through her hair
and laughing. The two other heavier-set men were standing a few feet away
snorting something out of a small tin.

Travis scanned the rocky, stream bottom leading to
the bridge. The area didn’t make for a quick rush or offer any chance of
stealth.

He looked back at Katy. “You’ve got seven rounds of
buckshot in that shotgun. If this turns ugly, just put the front sight on what
you want to hit and make damn sure that ain’t me.”

She lowered the weapon and looked it over, keeping
her finger indexed above the trigger. “Got it!”

“I only see one way for this to go down without
those ladies getting shot so just play off me and follow your gut if things
turn south. No plan survives contact with the enemy so stay fluid, alright.”

He turned and surveyed the bridge one more time. He clenched
his left fist into a ball, stood up, and took a deep breath. The two of them
emerged from the bushes and proceeded to the bridge, walking on the grape-fruit
sized rocks with as much as grace and silence as possible while keeping an eye
on the men. As they neared a dirt slope that went up the opposite side of the
bridge from the bikers, the scrawny man by the women turned, wide-eyed, and
shouted to the others. “Boss, lookey here, we got some visitors.”

The two portly men looked up from their tin of white
powder and both took deep snorts before the darker skinned man put the
container on a stump. Each man placed a hand over their pistols and walked a
few feet down the bridge.

They all looked to be in their early twenties. Travis
could tell the burly man, with the dark complexion, was clearly the alpha dog. He
had a pistol on his right hip and a machete on the left. He sported a silver
nose ring and his toxic eyes had the look of someone who had killed for
pleasure many times before. The second man next to him was tall and skinny with
a chipped front tooth. He wore a partially unbuttoned leather vest which
revealed knife scars on his chest. He was no stranger to pain but was clearly
the leader’s lapdog from the nervous way he kept looking at the larger man. The
last biker was pear-shaped and had a neatly shaven head with a red spiderweb
tattoo on his right side, just above the ear. His fat, banana-like fingers were
pattering the wood handle of a machete on the side of his leather chaps while
the other rest upon an AK slung over his chest. The three of them had the
shakes and bloodshot eyes that come from being hyped up on amphetamines.

Travis stopped for a moment at the bridge’s halfway
point. “Say, can you guys tell me what’s going? We just came off a long hunting
trip and it seems like the whole world has gone to hell. Is there anyone alive
in the outlying towns?” he said, then continued inching towards the men,
steadying his breathing.

“Viral Armageddon, bro. That’s what the newspaper
called it a few weeks back,” said the man with the nose-ring. “It’s like a
thousand Katrinas going off around the country. Everybody’s fucked, except us.
We’re the righteous ones,” he said, with a heavy accent while tugging his pants
up above his protruding belly.

“You mean all the cities have collapsed in the U.S?”
said Travis.

“Not just here, man- Russia, China, Brazil and those
fucking limeys too. Everyone’s got the bug…millions dead. The big cities are
wastelands. But me and my boys, we seen it comin’ and got out. Kinda like
pioneers of the new world order.”

Hmm, even a pock-marked troglodyte like
this guy can provide some worthy intel
, Travis thought. “And
what about those ladies there. I suppose you’re just providing some roadside
assistance to them, eh?”

The thickset man glanced back at the women on the
bikes and smiled. “Them bitches was riding their pretty ponies all alone in the
desert. That just didn’t seem safe. We thought they’d be better off living with
us.”

Travis slowly took a few steps to the right, within
the confines of the bridge, trying to get the bikers to shift slightly and
clear the two women. “By your looks, you dudes could drop a small army of guys
so I’m sure glad we’re headed the other way.”

The older woman on the bike raised her head up with
tears in her eyes. “Please don’t leave us with these animals. Help us. Please!”

The burly man looked at Katy. “Mmm, I likes the look
of your girlfriend. How about you hand over that fine chica to me old man so I
can add her to our collection. And then you can go on your way.”

“Old man, huh?” replied Travis. “You know I am
getting up there, as you may have noticed from the grey in my beard,” he said,
slowly moving to the right, getting the men to follow him so they were away
from the two women. “As I see it, you’re half my age but I’ve got twice your
fighting experience, pendejo, so why don’t we just skip ahead to the part where
the backsides of your heads are painted all over the bridge,” said Travis, slowly
placing a hand on his pistol.

The skinny biker let out a half chuckle then looked
up towards the leader. The dark-skinned man looked Travis over, studying his
hands and then rolled his eyes in a half circle. “Can you believe this Josey
Wales motherfucker. He’s one of them shit-hot soldier boys you always see in
the movies who drops a bunch of guys and walks away with the woman. Well grandpa,
today’s going to be a little different you see, because….”

Before he could finish Travis drew his pistol and
put a round in the man’s head and one in the throat. The large hulk staggered
backwards and fell on his bike causing it to topple over. The other two men
were white-faced, and then the pear-shaped biker lunged forward, bellowing
while raising his machete. Katy stepped back as Travis moved off in a diagonal
and fired two rounds in the man’s face and one in his chest, sending him
reeling backwards over the guardrail of the bridge into the stream.

The skinny man was shaking uncontrollably and
looking to his right and left, as if his dead friends were going to return. He kept
walking backwards in half-steps with his spindly fingers twitching and glancing
over his shoulder at the dirt road behind him.

“Before I kill you, tell me how many more there are
in your gang and where they’re all located? If you’re up front with me, I’ll
make your death quick. If not, then you’re going to wish you had gotten more
jacked up on your buddy’s snuff this morning.”

The man stood still, his eyes fluttering. “There’s
just us mister. We was just out joyridin’ and all. We weren’t gonna hurt these
purty girls, honest.”

Keeping one hand on his pistol while advancing
towards the man, Travis reached over by the younger woman on the bike and
withdrew a machete that was tucked beside the gas tank, flinging the sheath on
the ground.

“I’d rather not waste any more of my precious
bullets. In my experience, you’ll bleed out in less than one minute once this
blade reaches its mark. Either way, you’ll tell me.”

“Wait, wait mister. Alright man, I..I..uhm, I’m
pretty sure there’s around fifty  of us, uhm, at the Ashfork den,” the man said
flapping his fingers around on his thumb, as if counting. “And then probably,
uhm, uhm, another hundred, uhm, down the road, you know, by the town of Williams,
and more in Flagstaff.”

“Are they all as savvy as you?” Travis said leveling
the gun at his head.

“Huh, whatdayamean, mister?”

Travis pulled the trigger one time, taking out the
backside of the man’s head. Hardly any dust on the road was displaced as the
man’s twig-like body fell back on to the sandy soil. He looked down at the dead
man’s gaunt face and then turned his wild eyes towards Katy, who was moving
across the bridge. A vein in his temple was pulsing and his grip on the machete
tightened. He scanned the road ahead in both directions. Picking the leather
sheath off the ground, he inserted the machete and shoved it into his beltline.
Then he changed out the pistol mags. He leaned over the boney corpse and went
through the man’s belt, removing a Glock and a serrated knife.

Katy walked over the cement flooring of the bridge
and looked down at the fat man below whose upright body was sending rivulets of
blood into the stream. She was choking on her own breath trying to get in gulps
of air past her trembling lips. She had dealt with the aftermath of gunshot wounds
many times before in the hospital but had never witnessed an actual shooting.

Travis walked over to the women on the bikes. “Where
are the keys to those cuffs?”

The older woman nodded to the dead man below the
bridge. “That one had ‘em.”

Katy came over to the women while Travis went down
below and retrieved the keys from the soiled front pants pocket of the gourd-shaped
biker.
More oxygen for the rest of us now, you piece of shit
, he
thought. He tossed the keys up to Katy and went through the man’s pockets. He
removed four pistol mags from the leather vest, a machete, and a large folding
knife that was tucked inside the waistband. Then he went back up to the bridge.

The two ladies were hugging each other, the younger
one sobbing hard as she gripped the backside of the other woman’s shirt in a
tight bear hug. When the women eased up on their embraces, Katy stepped forward
with a bottle of water. “Here, have some of this. It’s over.”

“Thank you ma’am,” said the older woman. Her defined
cheekbones sat below the faint mark of squint lines around her eyes. Her blonde
hair was wavy and hung down on broad shoulders. She gave the water to her
sister and drank what remained. “Thank you sir, dear God, thank you!” she said
looking over Katy’s shoulders.

“I’m Katy and that’s Travis.”

“Nora Daniels and this is my sister Rachel.” The
young woman gave a faint nod. She was shorter with  sinewy arms and a lean,
beautiful face hidden beneath a shading of fresh bruises around her nose and
eyes.

“Ladies, can you tell me if there are any more of
these surly intellects lurking about?”

“I don’t think so sir,” said Nora in between swigs
of water. “We’re about a half mile from Highway 89, and we were the only ones
on that road for hours. They said they were taking us to the town of Williams
where the others were,” she said in a trademark western accent.

“Just in case, we better stow the bikes and bodies
in the event anyone happens this way,” said Travis. “You can join the rest of
us at our camp afterwards, if you want.”

As they dragged the bodies a few hundred yards down
canyon behind some boulders, he heard bits of Nora’s words as she recounted
what had happened. “They appeared out of nowhere; we were riding our horses
back from a nearby ranch we had gone to check on, when they came driving right
up alongside us; couldn’t get away; the fat one shot my sister’s horse out from
under her and then came for me; we’d heard rumor that there were some gangs way
up north. I guess we shoulda stayed off the main road.”

“Are there any more folks down your way still alive,
holding out?” said Travis.

“A bunch down in the Verde Valley in some of the
more isolated areas. I’m not sure to be honest. After the internet and news
went out, we pretty much just kept to our ranch,” replied Nora.

“Why were you out by yourselves?” asked Katy.

“Well ma’am, we both grew up near Chino Valley and
have worked our family ranch since we were kids. It’s the only place we knew
where we could take care of ourselves, and we thought we’d be safe, or so it
seemed. Those guys must have been watchin’ us for some time.”

“What about your family?” said Travis.

“It’s just me and Rachel sir. Our parents knew they
were getting sick. They called us from Phoenix where they had been visiting
friends. They told us to both stay at the ranch and wait there. The rest of our
friends and ranch hands…had to be killed…” she paused trying to maintain her
composure. “We waited there and now we’re alive and everyone we loved is gone.”

After hiding the three bodies, they walked back to
the bridge. “So, what the chubby one said…about the rest of the world…is it
true?” he asked Nora.

“That’s about the only thing that grasshopper-brain
had right. It’s like the Armageddon mentioned in the bible. I was in town one day
getting mail at the post office during the first week, when the virus hit here.
That’s when I heard about a rash of people coming down with some bleeding
sickness and the hordes of dead springin’ back to life. The big cities fell
apart shortly after that, with some survivors scrambling to leave for the high
country. About two thirds of our town was wiped out last I heard. The rest have
either fled, are hiding in their homes, or up in fortified communities in the
mountains.”