Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

Paige had kept hold of the Half Breed she’d impaled with her sickle. After twisting the weapon to make sure the werewolf was dead, she finally let go with her left hand so she could grab one of the squeeze bottles. “Get ready on that tailgate,” she said.

Milosh slid his knife back into its scabbard and scooted toward the rear of the truck until one foot was propped against the edge of the frame and the other was flat against the back.

Paige dumped a good portion of bait mixture onto the dead Half Breed and then pulled the sickle free. “Hit it!”

Milosh popped the latch and opened the tailgate with a solid kick. Then he pulled himself against the side of the truck bed so his body pinned the rifle in place and a path was cleared for her to shove the Half Breed out. She didn’t know where she got the strength to move the heavy creature, but her muscles barely protested as she pushed the carcass toward the back of the truck. The vehicle’s momentum and erratic movement went a long way in sending the dead werewolf into the anxious faces of the creatures running directly behind them. Knowing that some of the Half Breeds might try to jump up into the truck while it was open, she unscrewed the squeeze bottle and tossed it at the ravaging crowd so the rest of the mixture was sprayed across as many of the creatures as possible.

Propping herself onto her knees, she swung her sickle out and down to hook the tailgate beneath its curved blade. All she needed to do then was fall back to lock it into place. Since Al was constantly checking his rearview mirror, he knew when to steady his course so as not to throw her out along with the carcass they’d just unloaded. She grabbed the side of the bed and watched chaos unfold among the Half Breeds.

Most of the creatures swarmed the baited carcass. Others splintered into smaller groups to chase creatures with the mixture spattered on their coats. The newer breed definitely had a keener sense of smell than the previous generation and were driven beyond frenzy as they got closer to the mixture. One of the Half Breeds that had been sprayed by the water bottle ran in circles and flopped on its back like a dog trying to grind an itchy spot against the floor. It twisted itself into a pretzel in its attempt to gnaw at the bait and was quickly overtaken by its brethren as the overzealous werewolves ripped it to pieces. As the green pickup carrying Nadya and Jesse sped down a nearby street, more Half Breeds followed it onto northbound I-69 and led a couple dozen others in that direction.

Even with the road momentarily cleared, Paige knew better than to celebrate. She flipped the sickle into the bed and trapped it once again beneath her foot. “Where are we headed, Al?”

“Straight through town on Mississippi Avenue. Don’t know how far we’ll make it before one of those damn things shreds a tire.”

Paige winced. She hadn’t thought of that. While making a suicide drive through a town infested by shapeshifters, getting a flat tire seemed almost too common a problem to consider. Even so, anything that brought the truck to a halt would be one hell of a serious situation. “How far is the reservoir?” she asked.

“Just a few miles north of town. Getting there is still pretty sketchy considering how much we’ll have to plow through.”

“Don’t think about that,” she told him while popping the top off another squeeze bottle. She sent it pinwheeling into some trees at the intersection where Liberty Road met Mississippi Avenue. Some of the Half Breeds peeled away from chasing the truck, but the ones that remained had their sights set on her and would not be diverted. To make matters worse, some creatures emerged from those same trees to either attack the container of bait mixture or replace the Half Breeds that had broken off their pursuit.

Al turned to look over his shoulder. There was a maniacal glint in his eye when he said, “Give the gimp something to hang onto.”

“What?” Before Milosh could fire back with anything more than that, he was tossed from one side of the bed to another. He and Paige rattled around as the pickup tore through a tight series of turns that sent it between groups of Half Breeds, over refuse scattered in the road, into the dirt beside the road, over a set of low bumps, and finally back onto northbound Mississippi Avenue. Once there, Al slammed his foot onto the accelerator and cranked the knob of his stereo. If he was going to drive into hell, there wasn’t any reason why he shouldn’t hear some Tom Petty along the way.

It took a few seconds for her to reorient herself, and then Paige sat upright and grabbed onto the side of the bed. Most of the light in Atoka came from whatever spilled down from the moon. Even though it wasn’t full, the pale glow was especially dazzling. To many people in other parts of the world, it must have been a beautiful sight. From where she was sitting, however, the moon made Atoka look like death frozen over. Many of the town’s lights were off and an overwhelming percentage of those that did shine were sputtering to stay that way. Smoke rose from fires in a few different locations, and whenever she spotted another human being in the distance, that person was cut down by the rampaging beasts that had overtaken the town. In some houses or beneath a few darkened stores, people were huddled just like the ones jammed into Waggoner’s panic room. For all she knew, the redhead with the Tupperware, those families, and even Waggoner were already dead. Even worse, they could have been among the Half Breeds being led to the reservoir.

Paige reached over to help Milosh get back into a seated position with his back braced against the wheel well. Unlike the other times she’d tried to help him, the Amriany accepted her efforts. “We shouldn’t be leaving this place,” she said in a voice she thought would be too quiet to be heard over the truck’s engine and the snarling of her countless shapeshifter pursuers.

Having reloaded the rifle and steadied himself so he could sight effectively along its barrel, he replied, “We aren’t going far.”

“But there’s people who can still be saved. The Mongrels probably need our help.”

“Plenty of people need help. There will always be someone to save. When you watch the news on television, all you see are those in need, and people like us are always thinking of ways to help them. You know what we have to do?”

“What?”

Milosh shifted and grunted as the heavy hunting rifle weighed down the tender stump of his left arm. “We need to stop watching the news.”

She would have chuckled at that if she hadn’t been forced to hang on for dear life as Al swerved to avoid running into a wall of Half Breeds. The truck took the corner and headed north.

“Did you ever hear of a village called Bruusk?” Milosh asked.

Since the green pickup had helped take some of the pressure off them, Paige said, “No.”

“They were being terrorized by Nymar, and three good Amriany refused to leave even when more and more of the villagers were turned.”

“This had better be a quick story,” Paige said. “We’re getting close to the Full Bloods.”

“All three Amriany, along with every last villager, died because none of them knew when to leave. How’s that for a short story? This is the case now. It is time to leave, and if we don’t, we die.”

Paige hadn’t allowed herself to feel guilty over decisions she’d made for a long time. There were things that needed to be done, and she did them as best as she could. That’s all there was to it, and that was usually enough to get her through the night.

It was going to take a lot more than that to get her through this night.

Nadya, Jesse, and Quinn waited for them alongside I-69, waving at the red pickup like a pair of pushy hitchhikers. Farther back on the road, the green pickup was completely covered in a writhing mass of knotted muscle, wiry fur, and gnashing teeth. Al skidded to a halt and Paige crawled across the bed of the truck to lean over Milosh’s side. “How many are left?” she asked.