Carl looked over at Connie and waved. She returned a halfhearted gesture.
"Of course. Is she your girlfriend?"
"No," he said quickly. "Just another soul in trouble."
"We"ll keep her safe until you get back with Jules and John. You have my word."
Both of them heard the unspoken a.s.sumptions, but neither felt the need to question the optimism. Things would either work out or they wouldn"t. Hoping for the best rarely made a difference one way or the other.
"You promised me," Connie said, her face turning a deep shade of red.
"I said I"d help you, and I will." Mason didn"t quibble over her a.s.sertion that it had risen to the level of a bona fide promise.
"You can"t very well help me if you"re dead."
"Thanks for your concern. I"m touched, really."
She sighed and slumped her shoulders.
"I don"t mean it that way. I just want to get this done. They hurt me, you know?" Her hand instinctively went to the burn on her chest.
He remembered all too well his own hunger to punish those who had killed Ava. And while he didn"t appreciate Connie"s selfish agenda, he could at least understand it. He stepped forward and carefully took her hand in his. She seemed surprised by the sudden physical contact.
"Listen, Connie, I know what they did, and we"ll go set things right. But first, I need to help these people."
She stared into his eyes and nodded, as if coming under a spell.
"Okay, but you"ll never get back before dark."
"We"ll see."
Bowie gave a short bark as he played with Carl, and both Mason and Connie turned to watch.
"Are you taking your dog?"
"Of course."
"But not me."
"Bowie"s a fighter, and I trust him with my life."
"But not me," she repeated softly.
"Can you knock a man down and rip his throat out in three seconds flat?"
"I don"t know," she said with a nervous grin. "I"ve never tried."
"I"ll come back for you, Connie. Until then, I need you to stay safe."
She squeezed his hand. "Okay, but please don"t get killed. There are very few heroes left in this world."
It was barely two miles to the outskirts of Elizabethton and only another half mile to the CVS Pharmacy where, according to Carl, they had been camping the previous night. The streets were still and quiet, not so much as a single survivor out scavenging for supplies.
Mason watched as the sun slowly lowered toward the horizon. He guessed that he had a little less than an hour of daylight left. The one thing he knew for sure was that he didn"t want to get caught out after dark in a town full of infected survivors. The last people who had made that mistake ended up needing to be cleaned up with a mop and bucket.
The CVS parking lot was full of cars, many of them dented with their windshields smashed in. Several bodies of the infected littered the parking lot, bullet holes riddling their grotesque corpses. A thirty-four-foot Four Winds motorhome lay pa.s.senger side up, oil and gas still seeping from the undercarriage. Most of its windows were broken in, and parts of the sheet metal siding had been torn away.
Mason grabbed his M4 a.s.sault rifle, loaded with the double magazine that he had taped together earlier. That gave him sixty rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition, enough to give a h.e.l.l of an account of himself, should it come to that. He shut off the truck and stepped out.
The drug store appeared deserted from where he stood, but Mason couldn"t quite shake the feeling that eyes were watching him from every dark window. Bowie hopped down to stand beside him. The dog seemed to sense they were in enemy territory, his ears perked up like small radar dishes.
They walked slowly toward the RV, coming upon it from the front of the cab. Mason squatted down and looked in through the shattered windshield. No one was inside, but a blood-soaked jacket was wadded up on the driver"s seat. There was also a handful of rifle casings scattered throughout. John and Jules had apparently survived the initial a.s.sault long enough to get off a few rounds, but not without injury. Based on the blood smears, they had climbed out through the windshield, which made sense since climbing up and out through the opposite door would have been difficult with a leaky leg or gut. The injury also helped to explain why they hadn"t simply walked out at daybreak. a.s.suming they were still alive, they must have decided to hole up somewhere until the cavalry rode in after them.
Bowie caught the smell of something on the ground and began circling toward the back of the RV. Mason followed, constantly scanning the street for anyone who might have taken notice of their arrival. So far, it appeared that they had gone undetected, at least by anything willing to come out into the light.
There was no door at the rear of the motorhome, only a small curtained window and an aluminum ladder that now ran from left to right. Bowie inched up to the broken window and began growling.
"Easy boy," Mason said, pulling him back.
The window posed a bit of a dilemma. He sure as h.e.l.l wasn"t going to drop to all fours and blindly crawl in through the small hole. Nor did he want Bowie to do so.
"You stay here," he said. "I"m going up top."
Bowie lowered his head and hunched his back, staring intently at the small curtained window. If someone crawled out, they were in for a nasty surprise.
Mason slung the M4 across his back and used the sideways ladder to climb up onto the pa.s.senger side of the motorhome. A door and a double window, which remained surprisingly intact, were centered along the wall. He readied his M4 and carefully walked toward the window, the metal paneling crunching under his boots as he left imprints with every step.
The setting sun reflected off the gla.s.s, making it impossible for him to see through the window. All he could really make out were a few cushions tossed about and a mattress propped up with one corner resting against the window sill.
He continued on to the door. With his right hand holding his rifle at the ready, he leaned down and turned the k.n.o.b. It was unlocked. He pulled it open it just enough for the bolt to clear the striker plate, and then stepped back and waited.
Nothing. No shouts for help. No one bursting out through the door.
He squatted down and used the muzzle of his rifle to flip the door all the way open.
There was the sound of brief movement inside, but no voices.
Mason leaned over and quickly peeked inside. Even with the sunlight at his back, it was still too dark to see much more than the general layout. A stove was directly beneath him, and boxes of food littered the floor.
He cupped his mouth with one hand.
"John? Jules? You in there? It"s Marshal Raines."
No one answered.
Mason weighed his next action carefully. Going into the hole, as it were, was not without risk. On the other hand, if John and Jules had chosen to hide somewhere, the RV was as likely a place as any. He couldn"t leave without checking it.
The drop was only about seven feet, but with all the pillows, dishes, and food lying about, there was no guarantee that he would land on his feet. Mason gently set down his M4 and drew his Supergrade. It would serve him better in close quarters. He also double-checked the hunting knife on his belt, although he knew that if he were forced to draw it, the fight was already half lost.
"Ready or not," he whispered.
Mason took a step forward and dropped down into the motorhome. His landing was better than he had feared, one foot planting firmly on a microwave oven and the other smashing through a gla.s.s-faced cabinet door.
As soon as he hit, an infected man leaped at him from the front of the RV, his hands extended like bony claws. Mason swung the Supergrade up and fired a quick shot. The slug hit the man directly between the eyes, generating enough compressive force to blast a golf ball-sized hole out of the back of his head. The 230-grain bullet, however, didn"t have nearly enough ma.s.s to overcome the man"s momentum, and Mason found himself wrestling with the dead body.
As he struggled to shove the man away, a second man slammed into him from behind. Mason tipped forward, his foot refusing to come free of the broken cabinet. Unable to turn around, he swung the Supergrade down and shot blindly back at an angle. The bullet caught his attacker in the shin, splintering off a chunk of bone and opening a huge b.l.o.o.d.y gash in his leg. The man screamed and beat down on the back of Mason"s neck.
With one foot still entangled in the cabinet, Mason dropped to a knee, pivoted, and fired three shots into the man"s gut. He too fell forward, adding to the ma.s.s that was already threatening to pin Mason to the floor. Another man scrambled to get by his fallen comrades, jabbing forward with a sharp metal railing torn from a bunk at the far end of the motorhome. The corner grazed Mason"s cheek, leaving behind a b.l.o.o.d.y sc.r.a.pe.
As the man brought the weapon up for a more powerful thrust, his feet were suddenly pulled out from under him. He fell, kicking and thrashing to get free, but it was to no avail. Bowie ripped into him, only stopping when he had chewed through the man"s spinal column.
With one final grunt, Mason pushed the dead men off to the side and took a quick look around. Other than himself and Bowie, the RV was empty. He touched his cheek. It was sore and already starting to swell. His neck felt even worse, but when he rotated his head, everything seemed to work. He carefully lifted his foot from the cabinet and stood upright.
"That could have gone better," he mumbled.
Bowie looked up at him, blood dripping from his mouth.
"Anyone ever tell you that you"re downright scary sometimes?"
Bowie turned away and began b.u.mping cabinets open with his nose in search of food.
Even though the motorhome was in a complete shambles, it was easy to see that it was a high-end model. Some of the many features included a granite kitchen counter, four-burner gas stove, bathroom with shower stall, and even a queen-sized bed. The fresh spatter of blood, brains, and bone, however, did absolutely nothing to improve the upscale ambiance.
"Well, they"re obviously not here," Mason said, thinking aloud as he reloaded his Supergrade. "I"m not sure if that"s good or bad."
Bowie had found a box of Vanilla Wafers and looked up with a couple of cookies poking from his mouth.
"When you"re done with your snack, meet me outside."
Mason stepped back up on the microwave and poked his head out through the door like a tank commander surveying the battlefield. Fortunately, no one had been drawn to the brief firefight. He hauled himself up and out, retrieved his M4, and stood on top of the overturned RV, studying his surroundings.
His first thought was that John and Jules might have retreated to the drug store, but he quickly discounted the idea. They had surely been in enough sc.r.a.pes to know that the large store would be impossible for two people to defend.
On the other side of the street was a historic church. Bodies lay out front, and the building itself looked completely gutted, its doors ripped off and windows smashed. Perhaps G.o.d"s followers had grown impatient waiting for their salvation, or more likely, the infected had simply overrun the town"s survivors in a conflict not so different than the one Mason had faced in Boone. And while Jules and John might have been tempted to seek shelter in a house of the Lord, he doubted they would have been comfortable hiding in a building that was nearly falling in on itself.
A couple of hundred feet down the road was a sanitation company. Directly across from it was an antique gas station that now sold homemade jewelry, decorative tractor parts, and other small-town memorabilia. A little further up was an auto salvage yard and, across from it, a mobile home sales and service center. In the opposite direction were a U-HAUL store and a large roadside motel. There were other businesses past those, but with at least one of them injured, Mason doubted that John and Jules would have ventured much further. He glanced over his shoulder at the sun. He had half an hour to find them and get out of town-not nearly enough time to search all the possibilities.
He climbed down and did a quick walk around the RV. Bowie had crawled back out the window and was busy sniffing a puddle of something that looked like a mix of motor oil and blood. That gave Mason an idea. He hurried back around to the cab, carefully leaned in through the broken windshield, and pulled out the b.l.o.o.d.y jacket. Based on the size, it had to be John"s.
"Bowie!" he called.
Bowie hurried toward him, his claws skittering across the pavement as he rounded the corner. He stared at Mason with a confused look and then sat back on his haunches, waiting.
The idea was a long shot to be sure. Mason had no reason to believe that Bowie could track a person by their scent. Then again, he had no reason to believe that he couldn"t. Given Bowie"s level of understanding of human speech, he had obviously received professional training, likely in either the military or law enforcement. It was definitely worth a try.
Mason bent over and held the jacket up to Bowie"s nose.
"Go find John," he said, standing up and waving the jacket around.
Bowie looked at him and yawned.
Mason squatted down and got nose to nose with the big dog. He held the jacket up between them and sniffed it a few times.
"Let"s go get him!"
Bowie"s eyes came alive with fresh excitement. He jumped to his feet and began circling the motorhome, his nose glued to the asphalt. Mason slung John"s jacket over his shoulder and hurried after the dog.
The hunt was on.
If it hadn"t been for the occasional drop of blood on the pavement, Mason might have discounted Bowie"s almost supernatural ability to follow the invisible trail left behind by John and Jules. The dog was certainly not above leading them to a discarded rotisserie chicken if his stomach told him it was time to eat.
Bowie led them north, away from the drug store and past the gas station. He turned in at the auto salvage yard, a huge outdoor facility filled with thousands of wrecked cars and trucks. The left side of the yard contained vehicles deemed worthy of parts and looked very much like a low-budget used car lot. The right half was a graveyard filled with towering piles of crushed cars, stacked twenty feet high in tight rows.
Bowie paused for a moment and then turned right into the giant stacks of crumpled metal and broken gla.s.s. Mason hurried after him, wondering how the dog could track such a faint odor when surrounded by the pungent smell of oil, paint, and steel. After another few hundred feet, Bowie stopped and began barking at the back of a faded blue Chevrolet Impala that rested beneath five other vehicles. He hopped up and began scratching at its trunk, which was tied shut from the outside with a length of electrical wire.
Mason called out, "John! Jules! Where are you?"
Almost immediately, a voice called down from above.
"Marshal, up here!"
He looked up and saw a lean, middle-aged woman standing on top of the pile of cars. It took Mason a moment to realize that it was Jules. The last time he had seen her, she seemed frightened and overwhelmed by the horrific events. But standing there with a pump shotgun in one hand and waving with the other, it was clear that she had made the necessary adjustments to survive.
"Where"s John?" he asked, fearing the worst.
She managed a small grin and pointed down at the Impala.
"I hid him in the trunk."
"You did what?"
She started to make her way down the mound of wreckage.
"He"s hurt. Darn fool shot himself in the leg."
Mason stepped up to the Impala, untwisted the wire, and opened the trunk. John lay inside, conscious and alert, a thin smile on his face. He cupped a Colt Commander .45 pistol with both hands.
"Marshal Raines, sir, you are a sight for sore eyes."
Bowie propped up on the b.u.mper and began sniffing John as if to confirm his find. When he was sure, he looked back at Mason and barked enthusiastically.
Mason leaned over and patted the dog on its side.
"You found him all right."
Bowie wagged his tail with excitement.
"Anyone ever tell you that you got a good dog there, Marshal?"