Silence fell for two heartbeats, then “Rabba de vo I.” Jerome and Vera were pushed from the jungle, and all around them their attackers emerged from the trees. “Rabba! Rabba!”
“That didn’t take long,” Milly said.
Tye got up, hands above his head. “We don’t understand you. Can…”
The native closest to him lashed out with a sharp punch that took Tye’s legs out from under him. He fell on his butt and looked up, stunned. Tiny waves lapped on the shore, a frog bleated, and the cacophony of insects and birds made Milly’s head pound in time with her heart.
The natives looked orc-like. Milly recalled the description from sacred text The Lord of the Rings. Their faces were covered in lesions and scabs that oozed blood and pus like giant acne, and their blood red eyes were so set in swollen sockets it was hard to see them. Blood vessels pushed against tightened skin, hair as white as dried beach grass stuck from their scalps in patches, and distended ears made the infected appear elvish. Milly expected Legolas to come springing onto the beach firing golden arrows.
An orc-man kicked Tye, and he fell over. The beast growled and lifted Tye’s head and produced a knife.
Milly drew the Glock, sighted, and fired. No hesitation. Bad ass and smooth as silk.
The natives scattered like the birds had, running in every direction as if chased by wolves. Milly waited a few seconds and shot once into the air.
“Stop wasting ammo,” Tye said.
“What? We can’t have them coming back soon.” She put the gun in her waistband and knelt beside Robin, who was breathing hard, but awake and aware. The arrow in her leg had gone all the way through and missed the bone. The other hit her shoulder blade and spouted blood. Milly put her hands around the arrow, trying to stop the bleeding.
“Tye, what the hell were those things?” Peter said.
“They’re people,” he said. “Or they were.”
“How could you know that?” Vera said.
“I’ve seen them before,” he said. “At our conference on the news broadcast. Before the diseased died they had a surge of violent behavior and bloodlust and they looked like that. Black, white, Latino, Indian, oriental, it didn’t seem to matter. The disease turned all people into living husks.”
Milly rose and went to the dead person she’d shot. It didn’t look human, but she could see how it could have been, or maybe its ancestors. She felt sick. She’d never killed anything bigger than a fish in her life.
“This thing might be what’s left of the human race,” Tye said.
Milly remembered the little girl’s silver flecked eyes in her dream. Tye was wrong.
Hooting and hollering rose above the jungle noise, and it sounded like the natives were communicating. The yells receded, but that brought no comfort. Milly sensed they were being watched, and that the Uruk-hai were calling their friends.
Tye knelt beside Robin. “Peter, you and Vera keep watch. Robin, I’ve dealt with worse. I need to get the arrows out and stop the bleeding. Try not to pass out. Stay with me.”
She nodded.
He turned to Milly. “Go get some rags and the whiskey container.” Milly ran to the boat while he waited. When she returned, he said to Robin, “On the count of three. One…” Tye yanked on the arrow and it came out smoothly. It was nothing more than a thin tree branch stripped of its bark and hadn’t done much damage. He dowsed the wound with berry whiskey and used rags to apply pressure to the wound.
Robin shrieked. “Shit… you go on two. Everyone knows you go on two,” she said.
“I know,” Tye said.
He pulled the other arrow and cleaned Robin’s wounds with the booze, bandaged her up with rags, and stabilized her. Then they all got back on the launch and headed back out to sea, this time keeping as tight to the shoreline as possible.
“They must’ve been watching us come in for days,” Peter said. “Knew right where we were landing.”
“You really think those things were people?” Milly said.
“What do you think?” Tye said.
“I think if they were people things have changed more than you thought,” Milly said. “We’re not sure what the disease did, but now you’re saying you think it didn’t kill everyone?”
“People like Tye?” Jerome said.
“No. The disease never found anyone who lives on Respite. She means people who caught the virus but lived,” Vera said.
“Nothing the virus touched lived that I know of,” Tye said.
“Yet you call the things that attacked us people. How can that be?” Milly said.
Tye didn’t answer.
They hugged the shoreline a few miles up the coast and pulled into another bay. Fate had been their friend. The mountains and forest encroached right up to the water, hanging over it in many places and providing the perfect place to hide the boat. Robin said she could walk, and what choice did they have? Wait until she healed? That would take weeks. She’d have to make it the best she could, and hope the wounds didn’t get infected, because if they did…
“Let’s get some rest. We head inland at first light,” Tye said.
The sun fell in the west, leaving only a bruised sky. Milly imagined she saw Respite on the horizon, and Randy standing on Great Rock waving to her. Her mom whispered in her mind, stroking her confidence and pointing out her insecurities. The night settled in and so did Milly and the rest of the crew.
Tomorrow was another day.
She hoped.
Chapter Eight
Year 2066, Sierra Madre del Sur, Mexico
Tye was on point and he led the fellowship through the forest via a thin deer trail. An abundance of wildlife filled the woods: rodents, birds, squirrels, puma, fox,
