Cascade box set 2, p.22
Cascade Box Set 2, page 22
“Here, take a drink, you look like you need it.” He handed her the small bottle.
She could feel the sweat on her forehead and across her body, as she gulped the water down. She looked at him and smiled. “It’s okay, it was just a dream. What time is it?”
“Around 1 am. Lay back down, we’ll need to be up in around four hours from now.”
She then realized her head was throbbing with an intense headache. She reached into her pack, pulled out some painkillers and took them with the water. As she lay back down, the images and sounds of the jungle she just dreamed about still resonated in her mind.
*****
The smell of coffee invaded Abbey’s senses before she was fully awake. The low hiss of a small gas stove was somewhere on the kitchen counter and Zach stood with his back to her once again. A momentary sense of panic threatened to take over her mind, but then she looked around her at the candles burning, and presumed this was real.
He turned around with a mug in his hand. “How’d you sleep? No more dreams?” He walked past a large radio set on one of the small round tables, and brought her a coffee.
She took it and sniffed the fumes that were rising from it. “Thanks I need this. Have you contacted the Core yet?”
“I was waiting for you to wake,” he walked and sat next to the foot square green box, with a large aerial sticking upwards from the back.
He picked up the mike. “This is Brigadier General Zach Felton for Core Operations. Over.”
A few seconds of static passed before a voice replied. “Good to hear from you Brigadier General. What’s your status? Over.”
“We are at the northeast tip of Texas, in the town of Gladtow. We should make it to the non-responding outpost in Kentucky by nightfall. How’s the rebuilding going there? Over.”
There was a further delay then a recognizable voice came from the speaker. “Morning Zach. Rebuilding is progressing well. I’m not sure if you want to hear this, but we now have the numbers that we lost during the battle. Over.”
Zach sighed. “Go ahead. Over.”
“Approximately three thousand four hundred and twenty military personnel and just over seven thousand civilians. But before you blame yourself for those deaths, remember those numbers would have been far, far higher if it weren’t for yours and everyone else’s efforts,” said General Trow.
He then felt Abbey’s hand on his shoulder. “She’s right.”
“I know.”
“Most of those were from their E.L.F’s though, and the other times when their forces came up against ours, they lost, even with their tanks and helicopters. Over.”
Zach felt the pull of the camp on him. I should be back there, helping. “Will you be resuming missions outside of the walls? Now the gang has gone and with the Cascaders, there are lots of materials we can take from further afield. Over.”
“Already on it. Two salvaging teams will be leaving today. Over.”
“Good. If this set still works from inside Kentucky I’ll send you another update, at approximately nineteen hundred hours. Over.”
“Stay safe, both of you! Over.”
Zach put the mike down. Abbey went to hold him, but he pulled away, getting to his feet. “Let’s pack up our stuff and get back on the road.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Abbey rested her arm on the window frame of the pickup and let the cool morning air flow past her. “There’s a truck stop up on the right, might be worth checking out?”
“We don’t have time, we got a lot of ground to cover,” said Zach.
Not much in the way of conversation had passed between them since they left Gladtow. She had thought it was because he was tired, but as the green and brown shoots of early spring flashed past her across the fields and trees around them, she wondered if he was starting to regret taking the trip to Boston.
“General Trow seemed to have everything in hand,” she said.
“Yup.”
She sighed.
“Within a few days we should be back at the camp.” It wasn’t what she really thought, but she felt the need to say it anyway.
“Hopefully.”
After four hours of tree lined highway and only the occasional exchanged word, they approached the city of Little Rock, Mississippi.
Abbey felt the back of her neck, it was the first time she had felt any sensation of creatures since their last stop. “There’s something up ahead.”
“How far out?”
She put her finger to her temple. “Some miles.”
“Our route passes over a major river, could it be there?”
“I can’t tell.”
Zach slowed as clouds begun to clump together above, dulling what had been a bright sun filled sky.
As broken advertising boarding’s passed by, the volume of trampled trees and the remains of buildings grew in intensity.
Abbey closed her eyes to better focus the sparkling sensation in her mind. “Five or six miles out, towards the center of the city. A number of large creatures, they are not aware of us yet.”
Zach looked across the small group of multistory buildings that started to emerge in the distance. He also noticed something peculiar about them. “Look.”
She opened her eyes and looked towards where her senses were telling her the threat was coming from. What were once office buildings and skyscrapers were now covered in sheets and layers of a white substance, with a myriad of holes.
“I’m guessing something lives—” before he could finish the ground shook and a creature which looked like a giant beetle rose up from the side of the highway and moved across their path some two hundred yards in front of them. Zach slammed on the brakes, causing Jai their wolf like E.L.F to fall into the back of the cabin. Zach quickly threw the pickup into reverse as the ground continued to shake.
“Look!” shouted Abbey frantically looking around them.
Other creatures, similar in form to the huge one but much smaller, emerged from the trees and ground.
Zach looked out the back of the pickups rear window, driving in reverse as fast as he dared as hundreds of these smaller beetle like creatures surrounded the highway.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it!” shouted Zach as the creatures swarmed towards them, bounding onto the concrete. Within a few seconds, their escape route back from where they came was closed off as the creatures completely encircled them. Zach brought the pickup to a stop once again.
“Can you do anything?” He said to Abbey.
“I… I dunno, I’ll try.”
She got out and looked at the razor sharp looking pincers and legs which were part of twelve foot long armored bodies. High above Mo squawked and dived down landing on top of the pickups cabin, as their wolf E.L.F growled behind them.
Abbey quickly turned towards him and Mo. “It’s okay! Be calm.” She then turned back to the creatures that were waving their antlers and bodies at her just a few yards away.
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the creatures around her, but it was no good, as in Dallas there were too many to get a fix on. Their minds, what there were of them was constantly shifting, flitting in and out of her own.
The ground shuddered once again as the huge two hundred foot high version the creatures around her, moved towards her.
“Any time now would be good, Abbey!” shouted Zach in the pickup, his foot ready on the gas pedal, even if he didn't fancy their chances of plowing through the wall of E.LF's.
She then had an idea. She quickly turned towards the leviathan approaching them, and this time kept her eyes open, but raised her arms towards it. The tingling increased in her neck, and she felt the huge presence in front of her. It was more intelligent than the hundreds of smaller creatures, and she felt it sensed she was similar to it in some way.
It stopped moving forward, then raised its semi-truck sized antlers hundreds of feet up into the air, and then back down. The smaller beetle like creatures bowed slightly, then turned and scurried away.
Zach watched with one hand on the wheel and another on his assault rifle, not wanting to move or make a noise as the ground shook and the large creature turned and moved back towards from where it came.
Abbey carefully got back into the passenger’s seat. “Let’s go…”
As the way ahead slowly cleared, they drove slowly forward.
“The big one was the parent. The smaller ones are the children, it just reacted, it thought we were a threat,” said Abbey as she watched the huge E.L.F lumber back between small buildings and then slowly descend into what looked like a block sized hole in the ground.
“Glad you convinced it otherwise.”
She gave a relieved smile.
Shortly after they were passing over the Arkansas river.
“I think I need a drink,” said Zach, still on edge.
Abbey smiled and pulled the bottle of water from her pack. “I know. If the whole world is like what we saw back there, who knows what else is out there,” she said passing him the open bottle.
He took a quick swig, and handed it back. “I just hope us small humans can find a place in it.”
Abbey put the bottle back in her bag. She wanted to tell him that humans could survive in their camps, but she wasn’t sure she really believed that anymore. She needed to know more and that was what she hoped she would discover in Boston.
The landscape around them once again returned to miles of trees lining the road, the occasional small town and an airport or two.
After around five hours of traveling on the highway that would take them to Memphis, the grayness above them grew more uniform and a light rain started to fall.
Zach noticed the large fur covered beast in the back of the pickup was panting and licking the drops of moisture that were falling onto its snout. “I think our friend back there is thirsty.”
Abbey looked back. “Yeah, we should stop and I’ll give him some water.”
Zach slowed the pickup to a stop, and Abbey grabbed her bottle then got out. He then pulled the map across from her side and studied their route, noticing a river up ahead. “Hey, there’s a river just up ahead, maybe we can save our water and he can drink there?”
Abbey looked around her and the damp and rich looking undergrowth mixed with foreboding brown trees. “Okay, but I need to make sure we’re alone near the river,” she said getting back in the pickup.
After a short drive, they stopped on the highway. A small muddy track ran down into darkness as the rain increased.
Zach turned the engine off. “You sensing anything?”
Abbey shook her head. “Just some miles off, but nothing here. You wait here, I’ll take him down to the river.”
She went to get out when Zach put his hand on her arm. “You’re sure there’s nothing here? We know they like water sources.”
“I’m not sensing anything, and anyway I’ve got a eight foot high werewolf to protect me!” she smiled.
“Take your M4 anyway.”
“Okay.” She pulled her rifle from the backseat and placed it over her shoulder.
“Screw-it, I’m coming with you.” He went to get out.
“No, I’ll be fine. You need to be here, ready to go in case I come running back out of the woods! If any E.L.F’s appear I’ll handle it.”
Zach sighed. “Okay.”
She got out closing the door behind her, and beckoned Jai, as she had named the large wolf life creature down from the pickup. It loomed above her, but not as tall as it could have been as it was hunched over and panting.
“Let’s go Jai, time to get you something to drink.” She looked down at the path that disappeared into the dark underground and further down towards the riverbank. She waved in front of her. “Go on, you can drink down there.”
The large creature scurried forward and down the path of trigs and stones. Abbey followed as close as she could, trying not to slip. Soon the rushing waters of the river could be heard and the ground flattened out. Jai was already drinking from the flowing water from the bank.
She looked around her. Would be a nice spot if the sun were out.
A small rippling noise made her turn around, back towards the river. Jai was gone. “Jai?”
She ran forward and looked along the river, he was nowhere to be seen. “Jai!” she shouted. Just as she went to pull the rifle from her shoulder, the water in front of her exploded making her fall back. A large tentacle appeared wrapped around Jai’s torso. The wolf creature snarled and tore away at it, slicing away as the creature under the water pulled Abbey’s pet from one side of the river to the next.
Abbey immediately closed her eyes trying to detect the other creature, but she could only sense Jai and Mo high above them. She went to get to her feet, when the clatter of automatic fire pierced the air around her, and a volley of bullets disappeared beneath the froth and surging waters, immediately the leathery hide of the water creature loosened its grip on Jai and he clambered back onto the bank, still growling and snarling.
Zach pulled Abbey to her feet. “Is he injured?” he said towards Jai whose own arm was wrapped around its midriff.
Abbey moved closer to the wolf creature. “Let me see,” she said as much with her mind as her mouth. Jai’s clawed hand moved away slowly revealing round dark red marks. “I can’t see any broken skin. He could be injured on the inside, but there’s no way of knowing.”
“We can’t stay here, I don’t know what I did to that thing, it might be back.”
Abbey focused her mind on Jai in front of her, and then on the pickup some yards up the slope. The wolf creature slowly got to its feet, then scampered up the slippery mud slope back to the pickup.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was mid-afternoon when they were crossing the Mississippi river on the west side of Memphis. The spires of the huge bridge towered above them, and even though there were large parts of the road missing, there was enough flat concrete left for Zach to drive the pickup across.
In the distance amongst the gray mist of the low clouds, they didn’t need Abbey to sense any E.L.F’s as they could see them with their own eyes. What was once downtown with high buildings was a collection of ruins. Huge creatures on four legs, looking like crocodiles lumbered across the landscape.
“I sure do hope either they keep their distance or you can control them, hopefully both,” said Zach keeping a watchful eye on the prehistoric looking scene.
Soon they were heading north and then around the city, keeping a constant few miles between themselves and any of the scary looking things that were roaming loose. Progress was slower than they both liked because of the amount of vehicles they had to weave around, but as the watery sun started to head towards the horizon, they were clear of the city and only a few hours or so away from their destination.
The hills and forests of Tennessee flashed by and soon they were moving through the built up area of Nashville. Zach looked across to Abbey to see if she sensed anything, but on seeing her sleeping decided to leave her be. He hoped Mo circling high above would be an early warning system if anything were too close to them.
In the gloom, crushed and broken homes could be seen near and far around the highway, and anything that was once vertical was now lying across the damp ground. As they pushed on, he would occasionally see movement out of the corner of his eye, but ignored it.
By the time they were driving up a country lane towards the Kentucky outpost, there was only intense black for the pickups main beams to penetrate, and Abbey was awake and alert.
“It should just be up ahead by the coordinates we were given,” said Abbey.
The road dipped and swayed through undergrowth that was once manicured lawns, until it climbed upwards. Their headlights glanced off headstones of a lost graveyard, covered in vines and weeds, until finally bouncing off a fifteen-foot high metal fence.
After driving alongside it for a few moments, Zach stopped the pickup near a large white painted gate. “I’ll see if I can open it,” he jumped out and walked across and pushed on one of the sides of the metal plating, it moved back a few inches then sprung back. He looked back at Abbey sitting in the pickup. “It’s chained?”
Abbey got out and walked up to him. “I thought this outpost was ransacked by the gang?”
“That’s what we presumed when we lost contact with it.”
“Maybe there are some of them still inside?”
Zach nodded. “Could be. I need to find a way—”
The sound of a vehicle on the opposite side of the gate, some way off echoed around them.
“Kill the lights!” said Abbey.
Zach quickly ran to the driver’s side, and turned the lights off, but left the engine running. “Get in, I’ll drive us a bit further down!”
Abbey jumped in, and he drove for a few seconds, then turned the engine off and let the car drift silently up against the grass verge.
“Get in this seat. If all hell breaks loose, I’ll get back here as soon as I can.”
Abbey nodded, and Zach jumped out and ran back along the fence to where the gate was and waited.
The sound of a car door opening was accompanied by the sound of footsteps across a gravel drive, and then right up against the fence. The sound then continued as if someone was walking up metal steps.
Zach could hear grunting just a few yards above his head but couldn’t see anything in the complete darkness. Then came splashing through puddles, and the sound of rattling chains.
They seem alone.
A dragging sound of metal against gravel told Zach that the gate was being opened, and that was confirmed by a flashlight beam sweeping across the road and trees opposite him. He raised the butt of his rifle. He didn’t want to have to kill this person unless he had too.
A shadowy form appeared behind their flashlight and they moved forward out onto the drive, Zach quickly ran forward and raised his rifle, then stopped as the glow of the person’s flashlight illuminated their face.
“Brad!?”
Zach immediately lowered his rifle.
“Zach?”
Zach grabbed Brad Crenshaw by the shoulder. “We thought you were dead!”
She could feel the sweat on her forehead and across her body, as she gulped the water down. She looked at him and smiled. “It’s okay, it was just a dream. What time is it?”
“Around 1 am. Lay back down, we’ll need to be up in around four hours from now.”
She then realized her head was throbbing with an intense headache. She reached into her pack, pulled out some painkillers and took them with the water. As she lay back down, the images and sounds of the jungle she just dreamed about still resonated in her mind.
*****
The smell of coffee invaded Abbey’s senses before she was fully awake. The low hiss of a small gas stove was somewhere on the kitchen counter and Zach stood with his back to her once again. A momentary sense of panic threatened to take over her mind, but then she looked around her at the candles burning, and presumed this was real.
He turned around with a mug in his hand. “How’d you sleep? No more dreams?” He walked past a large radio set on one of the small round tables, and brought her a coffee.
She took it and sniffed the fumes that were rising from it. “Thanks I need this. Have you contacted the Core yet?”
“I was waiting for you to wake,” he walked and sat next to the foot square green box, with a large aerial sticking upwards from the back.
He picked up the mike. “This is Brigadier General Zach Felton for Core Operations. Over.”
A few seconds of static passed before a voice replied. “Good to hear from you Brigadier General. What’s your status? Over.”
“We are at the northeast tip of Texas, in the town of Gladtow. We should make it to the non-responding outpost in Kentucky by nightfall. How’s the rebuilding going there? Over.”
There was a further delay then a recognizable voice came from the speaker. “Morning Zach. Rebuilding is progressing well. I’m not sure if you want to hear this, but we now have the numbers that we lost during the battle. Over.”
Zach sighed. “Go ahead. Over.”
“Approximately three thousand four hundred and twenty military personnel and just over seven thousand civilians. But before you blame yourself for those deaths, remember those numbers would have been far, far higher if it weren’t for yours and everyone else’s efforts,” said General Trow.
He then felt Abbey’s hand on his shoulder. “She’s right.”
“I know.”
“Most of those were from their E.L.F’s though, and the other times when their forces came up against ours, they lost, even with their tanks and helicopters. Over.”
Zach felt the pull of the camp on him. I should be back there, helping. “Will you be resuming missions outside of the walls? Now the gang has gone and with the Cascaders, there are lots of materials we can take from further afield. Over.”
“Already on it. Two salvaging teams will be leaving today. Over.”
“Good. If this set still works from inside Kentucky I’ll send you another update, at approximately nineteen hundred hours. Over.”
“Stay safe, both of you! Over.”
Zach put the mike down. Abbey went to hold him, but he pulled away, getting to his feet. “Let’s pack up our stuff and get back on the road.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Abbey rested her arm on the window frame of the pickup and let the cool morning air flow past her. “There’s a truck stop up on the right, might be worth checking out?”
“We don’t have time, we got a lot of ground to cover,” said Zach.
Not much in the way of conversation had passed between them since they left Gladtow. She had thought it was because he was tired, but as the green and brown shoots of early spring flashed past her across the fields and trees around them, she wondered if he was starting to regret taking the trip to Boston.
“General Trow seemed to have everything in hand,” she said.
“Yup.”
She sighed.
“Within a few days we should be back at the camp.” It wasn’t what she really thought, but she felt the need to say it anyway.
“Hopefully.”
After four hours of tree lined highway and only the occasional exchanged word, they approached the city of Little Rock, Mississippi.
Abbey felt the back of her neck, it was the first time she had felt any sensation of creatures since their last stop. “There’s something up ahead.”
“How far out?”
She put her finger to her temple. “Some miles.”
“Our route passes over a major river, could it be there?”
“I can’t tell.”
Zach slowed as clouds begun to clump together above, dulling what had been a bright sun filled sky.
As broken advertising boarding’s passed by, the volume of trampled trees and the remains of buildings grew in intensity.
Abbey closed her eyes to better focus the sparkling sensation in her mind. “Five or six miles out, towards the center of the city. A number of large creatures, they are not aware of us yet.”
Zach looked across the small group of multistory buildings that started to emerge in the distance. He also noticed something peculiar about them. “Look.”
She opened her eyes and looked towards where her senses were telling her the threat was coming from. What were once office buildings and skyscrapers were now covered in sheets and layers of a white substance, with a myriad of holes.
“I’m guessing something lives—” before he could finish the ground shook and a creature which looked like a giant beetle rose up from the side of the highway and moved across their path some two hundred yards in front of them. Zach slammed on the brakes, causing Jai their wolf like E.L.F to fall into the back of the cabin. Zach quickly threw the pickup into reverse as the ground continued to shake.
“Look!” shouted Abbey frantically looking around them.
Other creatures, similar in form to the huge one but much smaller, emerged from the trees and ground.
Zach looked out the back of the pickups rear window, driving in reverse as fast as he dared as hundreds of these smaller beetle like creatures surrounded the highway.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it!” shouted Zach as the creatures swarmed towards them, bounding onto the concrete. Within a few seconds, their escape route back from where they came was closed off as the creatures completely encircled them. Zach brought the pickup to a stop once again.
“Can you do anything?” He said to Abbey.
“I… I dunno, I’ll try.”
She got out and looked at the razor sharp looking pincers and legs which were part of twelve foot long armored bodies. High above Mo squawked and dived down landing on top of the pickups cabin, as their wolf E.L.F growled behind them.
Abbey quickly turned towards him and Mo. “It’s okay! Be calm.” She then turned back to the creatures that were waving their antlers and bodies at her just a few yards away.
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the creatures around her, but it was no good, as in Dallas there were too many to get a fix on. Their minds, what there were of them was constantly shifting, flitting in and out of her own.
The ground shuddered once again as the huge two hundred foot high version the creatures around her, moved towards her.
“Any time now would be good, Abbey!” shouted Zach in the pickup, his foot ready on the gas pedal, even if he didn't fancy their chances of plowing through the wall of E.LF's.
She then had an idea. She quickly turned towards the leviathan approaching them, and this time kept her eyes open, but raised her arms towards it. The tingling increased in her neck, and she felt the huge presence in front of her. It was more intelligent than the hundreds of smaller creatures, and she felt it sensed she was similar to it in some way.
It stopped moving forward, then raised its semi-truck sized antlers hundreds of feet up into the air, and then back down. The smaller beetle like creatures bowed slightly, then turned and scurried away.
Zach watched with one hand on the wheel and another on his assault rifle, not wanting to move or make a noise as the ground shook and the large creature turned and moved back towards from where it came.
Abbey carefully got back into the passenger’s seat. “Let’s go…”
As the way ahead slowly cleared, they drove slowly forward.
“The big one was the parent. The smaller ones are the children, it just reacted, it thought we were a threat,” said Abbey as she watched the huge E.L.F lumber back between small buildings and then slowly descend into what looked like a block sized hole in the ground.
“Glad you convinced it otherwise.”
She gave a relieved smile.
Shortly after they were passing over the Arkansas river.
“I think I need a drink,” said Zach, still on edge.
Abbey smiled and pulled the bottle of water from her pack. “I know. If the whole world is like what we saw back there, who knows what else is out there,” she said passing him the open bottle.
He took a quick swig, and handed it back. “I just hope us small humans can find a place in it.”
Abbey put the bottle back in her bag. She wanted to tell him that humans could survive in their camps, but she wasn’t sure she really believed that anymore. She needed to know more and that was what she hoped she would discover in Boston.
The landscape around them once again returned to miles of trees lining the road, the occasional small town and an airport or two.
After around five hours of traveling on the highway that would take them to Memphis, the grayness above them grew more uniform and a light rain started to fall.
Zach noticed the large fur covered beast in the back of the pickup was panting and licking the drops of moisture that were falling onto its snout. “I think our friend back there is thirsty.”
Abbey looked back. “Yeah, we should stop and I’ll give him some water.”
Zach slowed the pickup to a stop, and Abbey grabbed her bottle then got out. He then pulled the map across from her side and studied their route, noticing a river up ahead. “Hey, there’s a river just up ahead, maybe we can save our water and he can drink there?”
Abbey looked around her and the damp and rich looking undergrowth mixed with foreboding brown trees. “Okay, but I need to make sure we’re alone near the river,” she said getting back in the pickup.
After a short drive, they stopped on the highway. A small muddy track ran down into darkness as the rain increased.
Zach turned the engine off. “You sensing anything?”
Abbey shook her head. “Just some miles off, but nothing here. You wait here, I’ll take him down to the river.”
She went to get out when Zach put his hand on her arm. “You’re sure there’s nothing here? We know they like water sources.”
“I’m not sensing anything, and anyway I’ve got a eight foot high werewolf to protect me!” she smiled.
“Take your M4 anyway.”
“Okay.” She pulled her rifle from the backseat and placed it over her shoulder.
“Screw-it, I’m coming with you.” He went to get out.
“No, I’ll be fine. You need to be here, ready to go in case I come running back out of the woods! If any E.L.F’s appear I’ll handle it.”
Zach sighed. “Okay.”
She got out closing the door behind her, and beckoned Jai, as she had named the large wolf life creature down from the pickup. It loomed above her, but not as tall as it could have been as it was hunched over and panting.
“Let’s go Jai, time to get you something to drink.” She looked down at the path that disappeared into the dark underground and further down towards the riverbank. She waved in front of her. “Go on, you can drink down there.”
The large creature scurried forward and down the path of trigs and stones. Abbey followed as close as she could, trying not to slip. Soon the rushing waters of the river could be heard and the ground flattened out. Jai was already drinking from the flowing water from the bank.
She looked around her. Would be a nice spot if the sun were out.
A small rippling noise made her turn around, back towards the river. Jai was gone. “Jai?”
She ran forward and looked along the river, he was nowhere to be seen. “Jai!” she shouted. Just as she went to pull the rifle from her shoulder, the water in front of her exploded making her fall back. A large tentacle appeared wrapped around Jai’s torso. The wolf creature snarled and tore away at it, slicing away as the creature under the water pulled Abbey’s pet from one side of the river to the next.
Abbey immediately closed her eyes trying to detect the other creature, but she could only sense Jai and Mo high above them. She went to get to her feet, when the clatter of automatic fire pierced the air around her, and a volley of bullets disappeared beneath the froth and surging waters, immediately the leathery hide of the water creature loosened its grip on Jai and he clambered back onto the bank, still growling and snarling.
Zach pulled Abbey to her feet. “Is he injured?” he said towards Jai whose own arm was wrapped around its midriff.
Abbey moved closer to the wolf creature. “Let me see,” she said as much with her mind as her mouth. Jai’s clawed hand moved away slowly revealing round dark red marks. “I can’t see any broken skin. He could be injured on the inside, but there’s no way of knowing.”
“We can’t stay here, I don’t know what I did to that thing, it might be back.”
Abbey focused her mind on Jai in front of her, and then on the pickup some yards up the slope. The wolf creature slowly got to its feet, then scampered up the slippery mud slope back to the pickup.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was mid-afternoon when they were crossing the Mississippi river on the west side of Memphis. The spires of the huge bridge towered above them, and even though there were large parts of the road missing, there was enough flat concrete left for Zach to drive the pickup across.
In the distance amongst the gray mist of the low clouds, they didn’t need Abbey to sense any E.L.F’s as they could see them with their own eyes. What was once downtown with high buildings was a collection of ruins. Huge creatures on four legs, looking like crocodiles lumbered across the landscape.
“I sure do hope either they keep their distance or you can control them, hopefully both,” said Zach keeping a watchful eye on the prehistoric looking scene.
Soon they were heading north and then around the city, keeping a constant few miles between themselves and any of the scary looking things that were roaming loose. Progress was slower than they both liked because of the amount of vehicles they had to weave around, but as the watery sun started to head towards the horizon, they were clear of the city and only a few hours or so away from their destination.
The hills and forests of Tennessee flashed by and soon they were moving through the built up area of Nashville. Zach looked across to Abbey to see if she sensed anything, but on seeing her sleeping decided to leave her be. He hoped Mo circling high above would be an early warning system if anything were too close to them.
In the gloom, crushed and broken homes could be seen near and far around the highway, and anything that was once vertical was now lying across the damp ground. As they pushed on, he would occasionally see movement out of the corner of his eye, but ignored it.
By the time they were driving up a country lane towards the Kentucky outpost, there was only intense black for the pickups main beams to penetrate, and Abbey was awake and alert.
“It should just be up ahead by the coordinates we were given,” said Abbey.
The road dipped and swayed through undergrowth that was once manicured lawns, until it climbed upwards. Their headlights glanced off headstones of a lost graveyard, covered in vines and weeds, until finally bouncing off a fifteen-foot high metal fence.
After driving alongside it for a few moments, Zach stopped the pickup near a large white painted gate. “I’ll see if I can open it,” he jumped out and walked across and pushed on one of the sides of the metal plating, it moved back a few inches then sprung back. He looked back at Abbey sitting in the pickup. “It’s chained?”
Abbey got out and walked up to him. “I thought this outpost was ransacked by the gang?”
“That’s what we presumed when we lost contact with it.”
“Maybe there are some of them still inside?”
Zach nodded. “Could be. I need to find a way—”
The sound of a vehicle on the opposite side of the gate, some way off echoed around them.
“Kill the lights!” said Abbey.
Zach quickly ran to the driver’s side, and turned the lights off, but left the engine running. “Get in, I’ll drive us a bit further down!”
Abbey jumped in, and he drove for a few seconds, then turned the engine off and let the car drift silently up against the grass verge.
“Get in this seat. If all hell breaks loose, I’ll get back here as soon as I can.”
Abbey nodded, and Zach jumped out and ran back along the fence to where the gate was and waited.
The sound of a car door opening was accompanied by the sound of footsteps across a gravel drive, and then right up against the fence. The sound then continued as if someone was walking up metal steps.
Zach could hear grunting just a few yards above his head but couldn’t see anything in the complete darkness. Then came splashing through puddles, and the sound of rattling chains.
They seem alone.
A dragging sound of metal against gravel told Zach that the gate was being opened, and that was confirmed by a flashlight beam sweeping across the road and trees opposite him. He raised the butt of his rifle. He didn’t want to have to kill this person unless he had too.
A shadowy form appeared behind their flashlight and they moved forward out onto the drive, Zach quickly ran forward and raised his rifle, then stopped as the glow of the person’s flashlight illuminated their face.
“Brad!?”
Zach immediately lowered his rifle.
“Zach?”
Zach grabbed Brad Crenshaw by the shoulder. “We thought you were dead!”
