M Banner - Silo - Summer's End

“I guess that answers that question,” Fletcher said in a sarcastic tone, bringing Krista’s attention forward.

Fletcher motioned with his eyes, directing her gaze to a slew of body parts littering the area to the right. Some had been cleaned of flesh down to the bone, others were partially intact. Heston’s cowboy hat sat on top of the mess, its brim covered in a run of gooey tissue.

“Poor bastard,” Krista said, her mind flashing a violent scene of Heston’s death.

“Is that—” Summer asked, her tone charged with angst.

“Look away,” Krista said, hoping to save the young girl from a visual she would never forget. “You don’t need to see this.”

“Seriously,” Dice said to Summer, as if he’d been cued to distract her. “Let me take the dog. He’s too heavy for you.”

“I said no. Don’t you understand English?” Summer snapped in a strained voice, turning to avoid the man’s reach.

Fletcher carried Edison to the narrow gate at the back of the Trading Post, angling sideways to open the latch and squeeze through the opening.

Krista lost contact with Edison’s neck when they went through. Blood shot out again, spraying more of Fletcher’s clothes before she caught up and was able to resume her triage.

“Hang in there, Professor,” she said, wondering if her mentor could hear the words. His eyes were no longer open, but at least his chest was still pumping air.

Fletcher brought his eyes to Krista. “I don’t know; he’s lost a lot of blood.”

“He’ll be okay. He’s a lot tougher than he looks,” she said, not wanting to admit the man was right. She motioned to the left with her head, taking an extra gulp of air to recharge her lungs. “The trucks are that way.”

“He’s not gonna make it that far.”

“He doesn’t have a choice. We have to get him back to the s—” she said, stopping herself in mid-sentence, before she revealed that Nirvana was in an underground silo.

“I’m sorry, the what?”

Krista changed her words in a panic, using a stutter to buy time to adjust. “—the station. Doc will fix him up. No problem.” She scanned the area ahead in a noticeable fashion. Probably too noticeable, but then again, that was the idea to draw attention away from her near-reveal.

Fletcher took the bait. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” she said after an eye squint, pausing her words for effect. He needed to think her sudden caution was the reason she stopped her sentence short a few seconds ago. “Where the hell did they all go?”

“The Scabs?” Dice asked, his voice landing on her ears from behind.

Summer spoke next in a breathy voice, almost as if she could read Krista’s mind. “It’s like they all went home or something.”

“Or gave up,” Dice said.

“Something obviously drew them away,” Fletcher said, sounding indifferent to the discussion.

“Or someone,” Krista mumbled without thinking, her mind pondering the tone Fletcher had just used.

Fletcher continued, his chest pumping harder than a minute ago. “No telling what happened. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it. All that matters is they’re gone. We’ve got more important things to deal with.”

“He’s right,” Dice said.

Krista’s mind latched onto a recent memory, one that took place a few minutes before. She kept her legs moving as she sniffed her shirt. A strange odor caught her attention. “What the hell was that stuff you threw on me back there?”

Fletcher hesitated before he spoke, looking as though he was debating whether or not to answer her. “Something we’ve been working on.”

Krista pondered the recent events in her mind, digesting some of the more curious aspects about the attack. The Scabs had run past a defenseless pair of easy meals in Summer and Edison, only to attack Heston. It didn’t make sense. Predators never ignore the easy prey. Not when they have a choice.

Her vision changed again, this time showing the dogpile of Scabs on Team One after they had come to her rescue. She was there, too, with her troops, in harm’s way, but the Scabs left her alone, only tearing into her men. Her heart twanged with grief, thinking of their brutal deaths.

Right then, a new idea popped into her head.

She leaned forward and took a whiff of Fletcher’s shirt. It smelled mostly like iron from the professor’s blood, but she was able to detect a different odor. One that matched what she smelled on her own clothes. That’s when it hit her. “It’s some kind of Scab repellent, isn’t it?”

“That’s as good a term as any,” Fletcher said, glancing at Dice while the group continued its scamper to the trucks.

“It must not work very well, since Frost still ate it,” Summer said, laughing and wheezing for air, the dog’s body bouncing in her arms as she ran. “So did the rest of your guys.”

“We only put it on you three,” Dice said, his chest hardly moving at all.

“And the two of us,” Fletcher added.

Krista didn’t buy his answer. “Why not everyone?”

“There wasn’t time. We had to act fast.”

“Well then, I guess we should thank you,” Krista said, wondering why Fletcher would do that, especially against his own team like that. Tactically, he should have saved his men first. Not to mention his boss, Frost.

Summer groaned, no doubt due to the canine’s weight taking a toll on her back. Yet she hadn’t slowed down, not a lick, keeping up with Fletcher as the group motored along the fence line at a pace just short of a sprint. “Could’ve used it yesterday when I was out doing my thing.”

“We didn’t have it yesterday,” Dice said.

“That’s hard to believe.”

“It’s brand new,” Dice said, pushing his legs forward another stride. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take over?”

“Dude, I got this. Back off.”

The transport trucks came into view three steps later, bringing newfound energy to Krista’s legs.

“Which one?” Fletcher asked her.

Only two vehicles were parked in front of the main gate, instead of three as expected. She pointed. “The one in back.”

“Are those your men?” Fletcher asked with concern in his voice, as a slew of bodies came into view. They were shredded into pieces, lying about the trucks along with several hundred spent bullet casings.

“Must have been a huge firefight,” Dice said.

“That’s disgusting,” Summer said when she arrived with the unconscious dog. She pointed with her elbow. “But at least they hit their targets.”

Krista followed her eyes, seeing a blanket of dead Scabs. Most with bullet holes and torn limbs. Blood everywhere. Nothing moving.

“Well, not all of them,” Krista said in an emotionally torn voice, stepping over what remained of her men. Bits and pieces of flesh dotted the landscape, as if they’d been fed through a wood chipper, white camo uniforms and all.

Dice stepped forward to help Fletcher load the professor into the back of the truck, taking over for Krista with one hand on the neck wound.

Krista shook off her emotions and flushed the pain in her heart. She had a job to do. There wasn’t time to grieve for her men.

She dug deep and found the stronger version of herself, then took a few moments to survey the Scab carnage. Some of the body parts weren’t torn or shredded at the ends as she expected. They’d been sliced clean, with precise edges.

Summer must have just noticed the same fact. “Someone chopped through them like butter.”

Krista agreed with the girl’s assessment. “With something sharp.”

Summer’s voice tensed. “Oh my God. The Nomad? He did this?”

Krista nodded, surveying the casings and other evidence. “Must have tried to rescue our men.”