Chapter Three

Whiplash

It didn’t take long for the cannibal with the broken nose to find them. What amazed Dez was the rapidity with which the injured cannibal tore through the forest. It shouldn’t have surprised him, not after all he’d seen. But it did. It was as though the last vestiges of the old world refused to relinquish their hold on him, and as a result, his reason still recoiled when confronted with another testimonial to this new, nightmarish existence.

He knew Gentry’s strength would give out before long. And he could hear the cannibal stealing through the forest behind them. Before, the son of a bitch had moved with the stealth of a timberwolf. And while the cannibal still ran with a surprising lack of noise, the rage and the broken nose were making him careless.

Dez slowed to a trot, fingered the handle of the Ruger. He didn’t want to use it, but he would if he had to. The noise would give away their whereabouts, and he doubted the other two cannibals would allow the murder of one of their own to pass unavenged.

Even worse, they’d be newly fed.

Newly empowered.

Dez wouldn’t have believed it had he not once witnessed it. For a time he’d been a member of a struggling colony based in a network of caves along the Tippecanoe River. He’d been asleep – fitfully, as always – when a barrage of screams had assaulted him and the others slumbering in a moist tunnel just uphill of the water. By the time Dez had disengaged himself from the woman he’d slept with that evening and who’d insisted on slinging an arm over him as though to moor him to the slimy rock floor, the slaughter was already in full bloom. He’d stumbled out of the cave to find a middle-aged woman with curly brown hair – one of the leaders of the colony – spread-eagle on the ground with a cannibal’s face buried in her split stomach. Three other colonists were similarly laid out, each with cannibals grafted to them like skulking hyenas. Dez and another man had drawn their guns to blast away at the killers, but before they could fire, the cannibals had darted away into the night or, in one case, leapt up to grasp an oak bough that hung fifteen feet off the ground. The cannibal, surcharged by the flesh he’d just devoured, swung from the bough, landed nimbly on the grassy riverbank, and bounded into the forest with the agility of a jungle cat.

The sound of Gentry stumbling brought Dez back to the present. Dez threw a look over his shoulder. Had the cannibal pursuing them eaten from Kenta or Rikichi before setting off after Dez? It was a vital question.

One he had no time to ponder.

“Can’t run anymore,” Gentry panted. “Can’t—”

“You have a weapon?” Dez demanded. His lungs were burning, but that was more from fear than fatigue. The only favors this ghastly lifestyle had done for him were hardening his muscles and expanding his endurance.

“Just my knife,” Gentry answered. “I use it to clean squirrels—”

“Get it out,” Dez told him.

A flash of movement from their right, and then pain seared through Dez’s shoulder. Somehow he was on his knees, and the cannibal was laughing, and some instinct made Dez flop down on his stomach, and it was a good thing because he heard a whistling sound, and the air he’d just vacated was rent by some fast-moving object.

Dez pushed to his hands and knees and thought, Holy Christ. The bastard has a leather whip. And where the hell had he hidden it?

Save Indiana Jones, Dez had never seen a whip used as a weapon, but as he scrambled to his feet now and backed away from the grinning cannibal, who was smaller than the other two but who appeared completely unhinged, Dez decided the whip was uniquely suited to this new world. Lethal enough to inflict serious damage, yet relatively silent. A man skillful enough to wield it would have better reach than a man using a knife or a machete. Sure, a bow had better range, but as Dez could attest, a lot could go wrong with a bow and arrow because you needed space to shoot.

The whip was whistling at him again.

Dez lunged sideways and only partially evaded the leather’s sting. Cold fire scalded his hip, but he didn’t think the denim of his jeans had been parted.

Dez unsheathed the machete.

The grinning cannibal had shaggy black hair and a scraggly beard smeared with what could only be human viscera. So the bastard had eaten from Rikichi or Kenta before setting off after Dez. Bad news.

Dez didn’t comprehend the biology of it, but the experience by the river had taught him the effects of cannibalism were almost instantaneous, not unlike those old Popeye cartoons. Only instead of spinach creating bulging muscles, the ingestion of human tissue induced a maniacal power that was as extraordinary as it was revolting.

“Come now, kitty,” the cannibal said, twirling the whip handle at his side. Dez tried not to be hypnotized by the way the long slender lash swirled and danced in the predawn air.

“Watch him,” Gentry said.

Dez nodded, hoping Gentry had exercised the good sense to draw his knife. Two against one, they still didn’t stand much of a chance, but if they were lucky, they might catch the cannibal off balance.

“Tell you what,” the cannibal said, the whip writhing at his side like a restless serpent. “I’ll give you a head start, old man. Fifteen, twenty minutes even.” The grin broadened. “I’ll want to enjoy this meal.”

Dez took in the man’s overwhite teeth, the too-pink gums. Tell-tale signs of cannibalism. No regular person was that healthy anymore. Only cannibals looked virile enough to star in toothpaste commercials.

Of course, the starey, darting eyes and the expression of lunatic glee would probably disqualify this man from most ad campaigns.

“Not goin’ anywhere,” Gentry said.

Dez glanced at the older man and beheld a mettle that hadn’t been there before. Maybe they would live yet.

“Fine then,” the cannibal said, nodding at Dez. “I’ll give you a chance to save your hide. You come back to the clearing and tell us where other survivors are, we’ll let you live.”

“Maybe you should run that by Paul and Stomper,” Dez said, “since you’re obviously their little errand boy.”

With a snarling growl, the cannibal swung the whip in a wild looping strike, and Dez dove for his knees. Dez slammed into the cannibal in a barrel roll violent enough to upend him, and before the son of a bitch could untangle his whip, Dez swung the machete and buried it two inches deep in the man’s calf muscle.

The cannibal squealed, pawed at the blade, which Dez abandoned. Dez somersaulted forward and reached back for the crossbow. Pivoting, he drew back the bow and took aim even as the cannibal fidgeted with a revolver. Dez strode forward, leveled the crossbow at his breastbone, and knowing he’d get no better opportunity, fired.

The bolt split the man’s sternum, the sound reminding Dez of an axe striking a cord of ironwood.

The cannibal let out a breathless grunt and grasped the impacted bolt.

Dez knew he couldn’t wait. Cannibals possessed uncanny recuperative powers. He reached down and snagged one of the cannibal’s scissoring feet. The cannibal didn’t seem to notice, only emitted a series of pitiful mewling sounds and fondled the fletching of the embedded bolt as though he couldn’t decide whether to risk yanking it out or not.

While he was thus engaged, Dez crouched and got hold of the machete handle, but it was slimed with blood. He wiped his hand on the ass of his jeans, ventured to grip the handle again, but it was still slippery.

Dez eyed the cannibal, whose lips were peeled back in agony. How long would the man lie there grimacing? Further, who was to say that Paul and Stomper weren’t tromping their way toward them right now? Cannibals were voracious; they might not be content with Rikichi and Kenta.

Time was short.

Dez slid his hand up his shirtsleeve, gripped the machete handle with his leather coat, and tugged on it. At first he worried it wouldn’t come free – the edge of the blade seemed to be lodged in bone. Worse, he had realized what Dez was up to and had begun to kick at him, albeit weakly. The cannibal’s blood spurted over Dez’s forearms. Dez ground his teeth, pulled on the handle. The leg from which he was attempting to wrest the machete suddenly jerked down, and for a moment Dez lost his grip.

He covered his palms with his sleeves, grasped the handle with both hands, and yanked up.

The machete slurped loose from the calf meat, and Dez nearly overbalanced. It occurred to him that if the cannibal abandoned the arrow that was lodged in his chest and instead removed the gun from his pocket, he could simply shoot Dez, and then all of this would be over.

The image of the gun firing into his guts was enough to motivate Dez. He gained his balance, took a couple unsteady strides, and stood over the cannibal. The man was peering up at him, teeth bared, a dull glaze of hatred in his narrowed eyes. He wanted with all his soul to murder Dez and would do so in an instant if given the chance.

Dez raised the machete, and the cannibal’s eyes widened.

With a cry, Dez slammed the machete into the cannibal’s throat. The blade had apparently not been damaged when it lodged in his leg because it cleaved through the man’s larynx like a prow through placid waters. He was nearly decapitated by the blow, the arterial spray shocking even to Dez, who had slain more than one creature this way. He turned his head, but not before being enameled in blood.

After a moment, Dez eyed the man’s crimson-stained chest, the fractured bolt poking out of it. He hated to waste a good arrow, but he would accept this trade-off, all things considered.

Dez finished the decapitation, then stood panting. He became aware of Gentry, gaping at him in the bluish light.

“You killed him,” Gentry said, his tone hushed.

Dez wiped the machete on the fabric of the cannibal’s arm. “Thanks for the help.”