CHAPTER THREE
Around the gentle curve in the road was a sight I'd had the great fortune of never seeing up close before. A horde. That was what I'd heard people call large groups of Huskers, groups ranging in size from ten or twenty of them to hundreds. I'd mostly heard the term used when referencing hundreds, and though this group wasn't that large, it was large enough. Large enough to completely block the road, five or six deep.
The only other horde I'd seen had been a small one of maybe three dozen bloodsuckers, who'd been staggering through a valley dusted with snow, following a group of dogs. I'd been watching from the relative safety of a copse of trees atop a tall hill, but I'd still been plenty afraid. The sound of the horde's collective moaning and hissing, echoing in the quiet valley, had sent chills racing up and down my spine.
That had been back in Ohio, and I hadn't seen a group of that size since, although I'd frequently come across groups of a half-dozen or so in my travels. When that happened, I usually just hid if there was a hiding spot available, whether that was a cave, a rusted-out car at the side of the road, or an abandoned building or dwelling. I'd even once climbed up into a termite-infested tree house, where I'd spent the night.
Most times, even though they were attracted by human scent, the Bloodsuckers would eventually just pass. I could and would take on groups of a half-dozen or so if I had to, but knowing from experience how easy it was for a person to get hemmed in by such a group, I generally didn't risk it. I was strongly hoping to arrive to my sisters un-zombified, with all my blood still in my body.
While Nick brought the truck to a complete stop, I turned and looked out the back window, catching sight of both my bags in the truck bed, not that they even mattered anymore.
"Hurry! Throw it in reverse!"
Even before I'd finished speaking, I'd seen that it wouldn't be possible to escape the horde simply by reversing and heading back down the way we'd came. Dozens and dozens of Huskers were shuffling out from the woods on either side of the road behind us, some of them blocking the road already. Within seconds they'd be too thick to just simply drive through, if they weren't already.
For the second time that day, I felt pretty close to imminent death. I couldn't believe it. I realized that we might have a chance at survival if we just remained in the truck, but with as many Huskers as were surrounding us and shambling toward us, I thought there was a pretty good chance that eventually they'd break the windows of the truck and pull us out.
A few of them alone couldn't usually do that, but a hundred of them together might be able to, if the scent of blood-filled humans whipped them into enough of a frenzy. If they circled the truck, the pressure of them all might even break the windows right away. I really wasn't sure, but I sure didn't want to find out.
Having all these thoughts seemingly in the span of a second, I whipped my face back toward Nick. "Let me out. I'm going to try to outrun them all through the woods. You two can do whatever you want."
"No." With his expression one of intensity, to say the least, Nick grabbed my arm and held it with a firm grip. "You're staying right here in this truck. Do you understand me? You're not going to move."
"Wrong. I'm leaving. I'm going to live. Now let go of my arm right this-"
"You're going to stay right here in this truck, Evangeline. That's how you're going to live. Is that clear?"
Nick had a look like he definitely wasn't used to having anyone protest his orders.
But still, I protested again anyway. "I said let go of my-"
"Is that clear?"
I finally jerked my arm free from his grasp, figuring that if he felt the need to be so commanding about telling me to stay in the truck, it must mean that he and Blaine were actually going to leave the truck in an attempt to fight the horde, which would give me a chance to escape into the woods. "Fine. I'll stay in the truck."
That was definitely a lie.
Seeming as if he detected some deceit, Nick took my arm again, looking me right in the eyes. "You do not move."
Feeling like a scolded little child or something, I said fine again, and Nick released my arm, grabbed the truck keys from the ignition, presumably so that I couldn't drive off, and jammed them in his jeans pocket, looking over me to Blaine.
"Let's go."
After hastily rolling up the windows, they both all but flew out of the truck, slamming the doors behind them. Immediately, I yanked open the glove box, in search of a weapon I could use when I also flew out of the truck, which I figured I'd do in less than a minute, once the Huskers had swarmed Nick and Blaine, which I was pretty certain they'd do.
Still, though, I couldn't be certain that all of them would swarm, which was why I needed a weapon in case I had to quickly fight my way to the woods. It was tempting to think about grabbing my backpack from the bed of the truck, because I had a spare screwdriver in the front pouch, but I couldn't be certain that Nick and Blaine hadn't taken it for some reason.
I also couldn't be certain that I'd even be able to reach the bed of the truck when I finally got out of it. If a Husker was blocking my path, the only option I'd have being weaponless, would be to try to shove it aside and just hope that it stayed shoved away for a few seconds, and I didn't really like the idea of just hoping and gambling like that.
After pulling out various tools from the glove box, none of them being a screwdriver, unfortunately, I found a medium-sized knife in a leather sheath. Appearing to be some kind of a hunting knife, it would have to do, I supposed, although I really would have preferred a different weapon. Pretty much any other sharp instrument that would stab, besides a knife.
I hated knives. Hated them. Not in a way that I hated to cut food with them, but beyond that, I hated handling them and especially fighting with them.
I'd first become averse to knives when something had happened to me at my first Olympics, when I'd been seventeen, even though that something had had nothing to do with a knife. But still, that was when it had started. Then, a few months into my journey south, I'd lost my first trusty screwdriver, and so had to help myself to a knife from an abandoned RV to use temporarily until I could get a new screwdriver.
My first day using the knife, my hand had somehow slipped on the handle while I'd been stabbing a Husker through the eye, and I'd sliced my hand deeply. Always quite squeamish when it came to blood, especially for being the daughter of two doctors, I'd become absolutely panic-stricken when I'd seen the river of blood flowing from my palm.
Dizzy and nauseated, I'd sprinted for at least a half-mile, foolishly increasing the volume of blood flowing from my palm; but I'd just felt a desperate, wild urge to run for help. No matter that the world had all but ended and there was no place to get help from. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking logically at the time.
Ultimately, I collapsed in a ditch, winded, dizzy, and nauseated, and eventually passed out, whether from blood loss or simply my extreme squeamishness, I had no idea. When I came to, feeling someone or something holding my arm, I was pretty sure I was going to see a Husker about to sink its fangs into my flesh, having been lured by the smell of freely-flowing human blood.
50But instead, I saw the heart-shaped face of a young man with honey-brown eyes filled with concern. He seemed to be holding my arm so that he could examine my palm. Behind him stood no fewer than seven men, a few of them quite large and muscular, which instantly filled me with dread.
"Don't worry," the man examining my palm said right away. "I'm not going to hurt you. I was a hair away from becoming an MD before the virus hit, and I just want to help you if I can. And as far as the men behind me...rest assured that we're not the kind of men who desire the company of women in the way you might fear."
This kind, brown-eyed man, whose name I soon learned was Chris, ended up cleaning my wound, stitching it, and giving me a supply of antibiotic pills as a preventative measure against infection. After I camped overnight with this group, enjoying homemade vegetable barley soup that they made over a fire, the group's leader, a man named Anton, invited me to continue on with them as they traveled. They were heading east, to Pennsylvania, where they'd heard there was a fairly large community of survivors somewhere near Pittsburgh.
It had been a tempting offer. Very, very tempting. Observing the group, as well as hearing various sounds and quiet groans overnight, I'd become certain that Chris hadn't been trying to run any kind of a game on me. It had become crystal clear that he and his friends probably wouldn't be making any attempts to sexually violate me. And even after only a few months on the road, I was tired. I was lonely.
I enjoyed the company of Chris, Anton, and the other men, and felt like they might become my friends and help protect me from other men. And then maybe, once we all reached the Pennsylvania community, providing that there really was one like the group had heard, I could establish some sort of a normal life living among many other survivors.
I'd really only had to think things over for a few seconds, though, before thanking Anton for the offer, but telling him that I had to decline with regret. My sisters were waiting for me, and if I was ever going to have any kind of a normal life ever again, I knew it had to start with them. Only when I knew that all three of us were safe could I even think about rebuilding any kind of a normal life.
The group expressed regret that I wouldn't be joining them, but said they understood, and after checking on my hand one final time, Chris gave me a big hug and then had pressed a four-leaf clover into the palm of my non-injured hand.
"For luck. Spied it while drinking my coffee this morning, and I figure you might need it more than me. Keep it in your pocket until it disintegrates."
I had, putting my hand in my pocket and just feeling it every so often over the next couple of days before it crumbled into dust.
Currently, I could have used a whole pocketful of lucky clovers. After removing the knife from its sheath, I got a good grip on the handle, slammed the glove box shut, and looked up to see what was going on beyond the windshield. And at the same time that I did, I heard roaring coming from two wild animals charging at the horde of Huskers.
There was a lion and a tiger, both of them racing out from the direction of the truck. Stunned, I just stared, realizing that Nick and Blaine were apparently shifters. And in the few seconds since they'd left the truck, they'd already shifted.
Now things made a bit more sense. I'd thought that them trying to take on the horde, just the two of them, had been a suicidal mission, and I hadn't been able to understand their seeming confidence while flying out of the truck. Now I kind of got it. Shifters were many times stronger and faster than normal human men. Shifters were many times stronger and faster than normal wild animals.
I hadn't encountered many in my travels. However, the same day I'd seen the smaller horde while atop the high hill in Ohio, I'd also seen three tigers and a bear racing through that same valley. Later on in my journey, I'd occasionally spotted other shifters at a distance. Then, two members of Chris and Anton's group had been wolf shifters.
At least two or three seconds ticked by before I recalled hearing a roar before I'd been knocked unconscious earlier, when I'd hit my head on whatever hard object I'd hit it on. After regaining consciousness, I'd been too preoccupied by conversation with Nick and Blaine to recall hearing that earlier roar and connect it to them. I really wasn't sure quite what I'd thought had happened earlier, and what part they'd played in it. I just hadn't really had time to think over the day's events yet.
I supposed in the back of my mind, I'd kind of been thinking that they'd somehow dealt with all my sixteen or seventeen would-be attackers, possibly using a gun, so that they themselves could kidnap me. And I still kind of thought that, though without the gun part. Now I knew that they'd probably been able to deal with all my would-be attackers at once because of their increased speed and strength while in their respective animal forms.
Now that I realized what had likely happened after I'd hit my head, another realization was dawning on me. Regardless of their motivations, Nick and Blaine had saved me from probable gang rape and possible death. That was a fact. However, at the same time, maybe they'd only done what they had because they had ideas of violating me and keeping me as some sort of concubine. After all, Blaine had pretty much said that they were calling the shots, not me, in regards to whatever was going on, and then Nick ordered me to remain in the truck against my will.
It made perfect sense that what had happened was that they'd just swooped in and abducted me from would-be abductors. Which kind of negated any moral virtue that one could find in the fact that they'd saved me. If they'd saved me only to violate me themselves in the future, that really didn't seem like much of a save.
Although I figured that if a person was going to be subjected to rape, just two attackers was better than a small army. Though as far as I knew, Nick and Blaine had a small army of men waiting back at wherever they camped or lived.
All this made sense, but at the same time, it didn't. Even though I barely knew Nick and Blaine at all, and even though they'd both been irritating and maddening in different ways, and even though Blaine was clearly more than a bit rough around the edges, I couldn't deny that I didn't get a really strong rapist vibe from either of them.
I definitely had questions about the two of them, specifically regarding what their motivations were, but something in the back of my brain made me doubt it was rape. But then, I had no idea why they might have done what they had, and why they seemed intent on holding me against my will. Maybe they decided that they needed to determine if I was a spy or not.
Another possibility was that maybe they thought that if they took me back to stay with them, even by force, that I'd eventually give my body to them voluntarily. Maybe that was far preferable to them than taking what they wanted sexually by force. Although holding a woman against her will and accusing her of being some sort of a spy didn't seem like a great way to set any voluntary intimacy in motion.
It didn't even matter what they wanted. Or, it wouldn't within seconds, when I made my escape into the woods. Then, I'd soon be far away, sprinting through the trees. I'd never have to find out just what the hell Nick and Blaine wanted. I'd soon forget about it all, heading south toward Nashville, and Jessica and Ebony.
After a glance behind the truck told me that the Huskers all seemed to be going around it, heading for Nick and Blaine, I turned my attention back to the front, just in time to see each of them decapitate a rotting Husker with mighty snaps of their jaws.
There were a lot of Huskers for them to contend with, though. A lot. In addition to the ones that had been blocking the road ahead, and the ones that had been shuffling out from the woods behind, there was now an additional wave coming out from the woods to the east.
All this wasn't my problem, though. To the west, the woods looked pretty clear, almost completely free of Huskers. The woods even looked kind of beautiful and serene, with the sun's very last rays painting the trees in brilliant shades of orange and gold. I'd soon be heading into those woods. Needed to. So, I couldn't figure out why I was now hesitating in executing my escape plan.
I supposed it was because despite the fact that Nick and Blaine were both obviously very strong shifters, it was equally obvious that they were almost comically outnumbered. They were now both furiously charging and biting at the Huskers, decapitating them in what almost reminded me of an exceptionally gruesome game of whack-a-mole.
I could see what they were trying to do. They were trying to clear a path heading north, probably not intending to attempt to kill every single one of the hundred-something, or maybe even two hundred, Huskers all around. I figured they probably planned on getting back in the truck and hitting the gas the moment an adequate section of roadway had been cleared.
The only thing was, it was looking like there was a chance they could be bitten by Huskers before they could ever accomplish that task. And all it took was a Husker swallowing a single mouthful of blood for them to give their victim the fever that would turn them into a Husker, too.
"Dammit."
I repeated the curse, not sure why I cared that Nick and Blaine were so outnumbered and might get bit. I supposed it was simply because they were human beings, shifter-human beings anyway, and ones who I was kind of sure they probably wouldn't try to rape me. And I wasn't at all sure that I could just flee the scene, knowing that I was leaving two men who certainly needed help without any available. After all, I'd met many people on the road who could have easily just walked away instead of helping me.
"Damn."
I knew it now. I had to help. Maybe I could help clear out some of the Huskers and then escape, but I doubted it. By the time they were thinned out enough for me to feel like Nick and Blaine didn't need help anymore, they'd probably be thinned out enough for Nick and Blaine to see me dashing away and chase after me. It seemed that if I was going to help, and I was, I was probably going to give up any chance at escape, at least for now.
Clutching the knife, I took a few deep breaths, then flung open the truck door and jumped out into the fray, almost immediately stabbing a moaning Husker through the heart, making it drop to the street the moment I withdrew the knife blade. In rapid succession, I killed two more, but not long after, things took a turn. Specifically, most of the Huskers suddenly took a turn toward me.