The baboons were ignoring her.
Very slowly, she moved towards the first aid kit near the gun rack. Calmly, she took hold of the plastic box, opened it. With shaking fingers she wrapped her calf and then taped it up.
Now and again, a baboon would look up at her with a blood-stained muzzle and snarl, but that was about it.
Next, she had to get out of there.
But Gus, oh Jesus, what about Gus?
No time for that. She shut her mind down. Went cold. Emotionless. This was survival now, it was war to the teeth. The easiest way out would be through the dining room and into the kitchen. If she could make that, then she could slip out the back door and hobble to the garage. The keys to it and the Jeep inside were in her pocket. Then a quick spin out to Fort Kendrix.
Swallowing, she began to move towards the archway that led into the dining room.
She scooted herself along on her ass.
The baboons still ignored her.
She got to the archway, took one long last look at them to satisfy herself that they had no interest in her. They didn’t. There was plenty to eat and that seemed to be the primary motivating force: hunger.
The shortwave radio was in the dining room.
But she didn’t dare send a message.
That would mean speaking at full volume.
She pushed herself into the kitchen. Almost there, by God, almost there.
Into the kitchen.
More of a warehouse now with stacked crates of MREs and purified water and flares and radio parts and Emma heard a scuttling noise.
A ragged breathing.
She swung around on her ass and an especially large ape was waiting there, puffing out its chest.
A Mandrill.
It was a large shaggy baboon-like beast with an olive pelt, its nose a brilliant bright red, vivid blue spokes fanning out over the cheeks. Emma found herself staring into its eyes. They were a cool, watery scarlet. The top of its head had been cut away, its brain exposed.
She did not want to think about what they had been doing to this animal just like she did not want to think about what it could do to her.
It stepped forward on all fours with an almost swaggering, arrogant stride.
It bared its teeth, yawned its mouth wide and let loose with a high-pitched scream that was instantly answered by a dozen other screeching voices.
Emma licked her lips.
There was a gaping hole in the beast’s midsection and she could see right through it, nothing but bones in there. It couldn’t possibly be moving, but it was.
She brought up the shotgun.
The Mandrill charged.
She pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
She worked the pump, pulled the trigger again, and in the back of her mind a small voice counted off the five rounds she had already fired.
Five.
Here’s what you need to remember about the Mossberg 500, she could hear Gus saying to her. It has a five- round magazine so if you’re going to use it, carry a back-up. It’s a devastating weapon, Emma, but not if you run out of shells.
Shit.
Hopelessly, Emma tried firing it again.
Then the Mandrill was on her.
It took hold of her with great strength, pushing her down and bouncing her head off the floor to take the fight out of her. Then it grabbed her by the hair and swung her like a Barbie doll, smashing her into cupboards, the kitchen table, a green metal cartridge box.
By then she was barely conscious.
The Mandrill seemed pleased.
For alive or dead, it liked its females submissive.
Emma looked up with bleary eyes.
She saw the Mandrill’s bright red penis squirt cold urine into her face, marking her. It gushed over her cheeks, burning her eyes, bringing an acidic, nauseating taste to her lips.
The stench more than anything made her pass out.
The Mandrill, grunting happily, dragged her from the room.
*
When Emma came to she was in the cellar.
She was sore, threaded with pain, but the worst part What the hell?
She was face-down and something was humping her from behind. Her first instinct was to fight, to scramble free. But she was still dressed so it wasn’t like she was being penetrated.
Wait.
There were several baboons gathered around, but keeping a respectful distance and that was because the Mandrill had her. Mandrills were not baboons, she knew, just close relatives, the largest species of monkey in the world and this one was the alpha male of a pack of baboons.
It was humping her to show its dominance.
It screeched.
The baboons yelped and barked.
The females were busy picking maggots from each other’s hides and eating them.
Emma knew she could not panic.
A lot depended on what she did now.
She cast an eye around. There was the woodstove, the carefully stacked kindling. The axe. Double-bladed, kept very sharp by Gus. You could slit paper with it.
The Mandrill leaped off her.
The baboons growled at him and he snarled and shrieked, driving them off and up the stairs. He sat back on his haunches. There were insects crawling in his fur. He studied the females.
His harem.
And Emma was now one of them.
She gathered her strength. It was now or never. She had to reach that axe and if she couldn’t, that would be it.
The Mandrill was turned away from her.
Now!
Emma dove to her knees, ignoring the pain it brought. She scrambled over to the woodpile. The females made baying sounds. The Mandrill roared and came after her.
Emma grabbed the axe in both hands and swung it with everything she had.
The Mandrill came at her with jaws wide.
The axe came down.
It cleaved the beast’s exposed brain, slicing deep into the cerebral fissure separating the right and left hemispheres. The Mandrill hopped this way and that, clutching at the axe buried in its head. It shook. It convulsed. It vomited out a bubbling black jelly and then it pitched forward, dead once again.
Two of the females ran.
A third turned to fight.
It dove at Emma.
She never had time to get the axe free from the Mandrill. The female knocked her down and then they were
