The Omnivore Wars Read online

  Relief washed over him as he saw the other Tuskers coming toward him, thankful they were disobeying his orders that they wait until he came back. But instead of coming toward him in an orderly manner, as they’d been taught, they looked more like a band of wild pigs, heedless of their surroundings.

  They were moving strangely, as if unsteady on their legs. Napoleon nudged Marie to stop. As he watched the approaching Tuskers, he realized he didn’t want anything to do with them.

  From behind him came gunshots as the humans who’d been climbing the hill starting shooting at shadows.

  Trapped. Napoleon saw a deer trail running sideways along the hill, away from both sets of pursuers, and he pointed in that direction to Marie. She nodded and started off, her belly swaying back and forth as she ran.

  Napoleon cursed himself for letting her come along. But these new creatures were something he never could have predicted.

  He’d been trying to send a message to Genghis, but either they were too far away, or the Great One had chosen not to respond.

  Or he too was affected by this plague.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Enrique rode onto the Pederson ranch exhausted and covered in dust. In the distance, he could see smoke swirling up from near the river. Saguaro was burning.

  The guard at the gate stood with his mouth open as Enrique rode up and dismounted. “At ease,” Enrique said, after which the man belatedly saluted him.

  Leading the horse to the pasture near the house, he removed the saddle and bridle, dropping the gear to the ground. He patted the horse on the rump, and it nearly kicked him. Enrique laughed. So much for getting friendly.

  He continued up the winding drive, walking bowlegged, past the old, rambling house and up to the barn. Barry was waiting for him with a look on his face that made Enrique’s heart drop.

  “What is it?” Enrique demanded. He looked over Barry’s shoulder, hoping to see Alicia.

  “I need to talk to you,” Barry said. “Come inside.”

  Enrique froze. Something in Barry’s tone made him not want to continue the conversation. Turn around, get on the horse, ride away.

  “Tell me,” he heard his own voice say, as if from a long way away.

  Barry stared at the ground and shifted his feet like a little boy who’d been caught stealing cookies. Enrique was ready to step forward, put a hand on each of the shorter man’s shoulders, and shake him.

  Jenny came out of the barn, looking breathless, and Enrique realized that she must have been in the crow’s nest and come running. Had something happened to Felix? Enrique’s son was a bit accident-prone. He’d come home more than once to a grim-faced Alicia, only to find Felix had the kind of minor injury that—to Enrique, if not Alicia—was the healthy sign of a normal active child.

  “Tell me what’s wrong, dammit!” he demanded.

  Barry looked to Jenny, who nodded.

  “Alicia’s missing,” she said. “We don’t know where she is.”

  “Missing? What do the hell do you mean, missing? Weren’t you people watching her?”

  “We had no reason to think she’d leave,” Jenny said defensively. “And you’re one to talk, Enrique. Next time, you might want to tell us if you’re planning to disappear.”

  “Why aren’t you searching for her?” Enrique felt a huge surge of adrenaline rush through him. A moment before, he’d been ready to go into the barn, collapse on his cot, and sleep the rest of the day away; now the only thing keeping him there was that he had no idea where to start looking.

  “We were just getting a search party ready,” Barry broke in. “We only discovered her missing a half an hour ago. We didn’t want to go off half-cocked.”

  “Felix woke up and came out looking for her,” Jenny added. “That’s when we discovered she was gone.”

  Enrique stiffened at his son’s name. He pushed past Barry without another word and went into the barn. By the rack of guns, he saw three of his men loading up for the search party. They turned and saluted him, but didn’t meet his eyes.

  “Who was on guard duty?” he demanded. He wasn’t sure what he’d do, but he knew someone was going to pay for the lapse in protocol.

  “I was, sir,” the sentry said. “She just wanted to go for a walk. She had her rifle. I didn’t think there was anything wrong.”

  Enrique felt the anger drain out of him. His soldiers didn’t have the authority to stop Alicia if she wanted to do something. He hadn’t left any such orders. It had never occurred to him that she—or anyone else—would do such a stupid thing.

  “Felix!” he shouted, his voice echoing in the cavernous building. “Where are you, son?”

  “Papa?” came a small voice. Felix poked his face around the blanket walls of the living quarters in the back of the barn, and then came running. “Papa, you’re back!”

  Enrique took the young boy in his arms. He always felt so small, so full of energy. “Where’s your mother, Felix?” Enrique asked. “Do you know where she went?”

  “I sorry, Papa. I don’t know!” Felix cried out, as if he thought he was in trouble. “I was sleeping. She wasn’t here.”

  Enrique squeezed him. “Don’t worry, Felix, we’ll find her.” He let his son down. “You stay inside the barn, OK? Don’t leave here without me, you hear?”

  Felix nodded, his eyes big. Enrique stood up, keeping his hand on his son’s head reassuringly. He felt anything but reassured, but had realized he was frightening his son to death. Maybe Alicia is just taking a walk outside. She had a gun with her, and no one had seen any Tuskers since the battle.

  But Alicia doesn’t know about the zombies!

  Jenny and Barry followed him into the barn, standing nearby, as if offering comfort. He put his hands on Felix’s shoulders and turned his son toward Jenny. “Take care of him while I’m gone,” he said.

  She nodded. She held out her arms, and Felix reluctantly left his father’s side and was enfolded in her embrace. Enrique walked briskly to the gun rack, grabbed a fresh rifle and kit, and headed for the door. His three men followed him without a word. Barry hurried after them.

  They stopped at the base of the hill. When Enrique had left, the hillside had been covered with the rotting bodies of Tuskers, along with javelinas, coyotes, and ravens. Now only the coyotes and ravens and javelinas remained.

  “What happened to the Tuskers?”

  Barry looked uncomfortable. “I was on duty in the crow’s nest,” he said softly. “I fell asleep. When I woke up, the bodies were gone. The Tuskers must have come back and taken them away.”

  “You saw and heard nothing?” Enrique demanded.

  “I heard a gunshot,” Barry said. “That’s what woke me.”

  “You…heard…a gunshot?” Enrique said slowly. His blood turned cold, and a shiver went through his body. For a moment, he went blank, as if all thoughts, all emotions had abandoned him. Then the vacuum was filled with sheer, unreasoning fear.

  He started to run up the hill, but he was more tired than he’d thought. His strength gave out on him halfway, and he found himself on his knees, gasping for breath.

  Enrique looked up into Barry’s worried eyes. “You don’t know what’s happened, do you?” he asked.

  “What?” Barry asked. “Just tell me.”

  “The Tuskers didn’t come back to take their dead,” Enrique said. “The dead walked away on their own.”

  “Walked away?”

  “The dead have come alive,” Enrique said, finally gaining enough strength to stand up again. “Not just Tuskers, but humans too.”

  Barry didn’t say anything at first. Then he muttered, “I thought that bastard was up to something.”

  “Who?”

  “Professor Patterson and his mobile lab. He had something up his sleeve, and he wouldn’t tell us what. I’ll bet this is his doing. He wanted to kill all the Tuskers with some kind of biological agent. It appears he did the opposite.”

&nb
sp; “But where did they go?” Enrique asked. “Why aren’t they attacking? North of here, the countryside was swarming with them.”

  They struggled up the slope. Barry grabbed Enrique’s arm and helped him along. One of his other men put a steadying hand on his back. He made it to the top, though he could barely stand.

  Barry saw her first and tried to hold Enrique back.

  Alicia was lying on a small outcropping of rocks on top of the hill. She was sprawled on her back, and it was clear from damage to her throat and the huge puddle of blood underneath her that she was dead. There was a gash on the inside of her thigh, and her femoral artery was exposed. Her eyes were open, and she was staring into the sun.

  Enrique didn’t remember running to her side, didn’t remember lifting her in his arms. He was staring down into her sightless eyes, saying her name over and over again, knowing she would never answer, yet somehow thinking that if he just said her name enough times, with enough force, she would stir.

  He slowly became aware of Barry kneeling beside him. The three soldiers were standing in a protective circle around them. The sky seemed darker than it had a few moments before.

  “How long…?” he asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Barry said. “We’ll stay as long as you need.”

  “No,” Enrique stood up. The blood soaking his pants from sitting in the puddle was half dried. He’d been staring into Alicia face, but what he’d been seeing was the Alicia he remembered. Her mouth was open; her eyes had clouded over. He closed her eyes and pushed her jaw up, and now she merely looked asleep.

  “We’ll carry her back, sir,” one of the soldiers said. The other two had already moved to her arms and legs, ready to lift her.

  “Thank you,” Enrique said. He felt immensely tired. He didn’t want to stand, or to walk home. He could have just sat on the hilltop forever, beside the body of his wife, and he wouldn’t have cared what happened. But the others reminded him of his duties. Alicia wouldn’t have wanted him to abandon his men, and above all, she wouldn’t have wanted him to abandon Felix.

  “Thank you,” he repeated.

  The soldiers gently lifted Alicia and started to work their way down the hill, being careful of their footing, not wanting to drop Alicia’s body. Enrique followed, with Barry at his side. He stumbled a couple of times, and Barry again took his arm and helped him.

  Halfway down the hill, the men carrying Alicia stopped. The soldier who had his hands under her arms suddenly cried out and laid the body partway down. The other man reacted more slowly, but he made a strange, strangled noise, then lowered the body the rest of the way to the ground.

  Alicia was moving. She crawled at first, then lurched to her feet. The soldiers were backing up in alarm, and one of them fell backward over a rock. She ignored him and also passed Barry, who stood stock still as if paralyzed, his mouth open.

  It’s not her, Enrique thought. Yet why was she moving toward him and ignoring the others? Did she somehow still recognize him?

  Without thinking, he opened his arms to greet her.

  As she got closer, Enrique closed his eyes, because he couldn’t stand the blankness of her face, the dull surface of her once-vibrant brown eyes. He heard a shot, and something liquid splashed over his face. He opened his eyes, and blood trickled down his forehead, stinging. Alicia remained upright for a moment, half of her head missing, then toppled backward.

  Enrique stood looking down at her for what seemed forever. Then he whirled around and strode toward Barry, who still held the pistol in his hand. Barry flinched, but didn’t try to run.

  Enrique grabbed him in a bear hug.

  “Thank you, my friend,” he murmured. “Thank you for doing what I couldn’t.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Don’t move, Marie.”

  Napoleon didn’t want to fire the gun. The creatures were attracted to noise and movement. He held his breath as the zombie Tusker approached their hiding spot, snorting as if it could hear them, trailing its guts along the ground, tripping mindlessly on its own intestines every few steps. It reeked of death and decay. It came up against the crude covering of branches and shrubs Napoleon had thrown in front of the cave and sniffed. The barrier was meant as a blind—once discovered, it wouldn’t keep the zombies out long.

  The zombie’s own rotting remains made it impossible for it to smell the living. It moved on.

  Before Napoleon could relax, a human zombie stumbled into the clearing. It was walking on its leg bones, an arm and shoulder gone, its face shattered, showing only teeth and one bloodshot eye.

  Napoleon watched through his peephole, curious to see what would happen. The zombies of both species ignored each other.

  Marie groaned from the pain of the wound in her right hind leg. The zombie Tusker, who was almost out of sight, turned abruptly. The human zombie turned its head, and both stumbled toward the blind.

  Napoleon nuzzled Marie, licking her wound, trying desperately to comfort her. The human and pig zombies stumbled about the clearing in confusion, nearly bumping into each other, and finally moved away in opposite directions.

  Napoleon nearly collapsed from the tension. He felt helpless. The mighty Napoleon, he thought derisively. He’d been named after the great human commander, a master strategist, and here he was cowering, unable to move.

  As night fell, more and more zombies came near, but as long as Marie and Napoleon didn’t make noise or stir from their hiding place, the zombies couldn’t find them.

  But how long could they remain here? They needed food and water.

  He’d leave Marie behind in hiding, he decided. She couldn’t move quickly. He’d leave her the few supplies they had and get help.

  A full moon rose. Once again, a zombie Tusker and what was left of a human entered the clearing. It looked like the same two zombies that had almost discovered them earlier.

  Napoleon reached out with his mind. He’d briefly tried this earlier, but hadn’t sensed anything. No, there were no thoughts, no emotions here. No soul. And yet…

  Both the pig and the human turned in his direction, and he quickly broke contact.

  Neither coyotes nor ravens were turning into zombies. There was something about the process, perhaps, that required a deeper intellect, self-awareness—perhaps the thing humans called a soul. Or maybe it was the physical similarities—humans often used pigs in their experiments, and diseases were transferred easily between the two species.

  The two zombies were still milling about the clearing. They seemed to sense that Napoleon was there.

  Despite the danger, or perhaps because of the exhaustion the constant danger brought on, he fell asleep sometime in the middle of the night.

  Marie’s squealing woke him, a sound of pain and fear, unreasoning, instinctual. She was having a nightmare. Marie’s dream ended, and she fell silent, but it was too late.

  Napoleon approached the mouth of the cave and stared out. Both zombies were looking directly at him, as if they could see him. Minutes passed, but they didn’t move. Their dead eyes didn’t catch the moonlight, but were blackened holes. Another Tusker zombie arrived and lined up beside the other two, then another human zombie, and before long, there was a solid mass of them standing there, looking at the tangle of branches and yet not moving.

  Behind him, Marie let out another squeal. The zombies surged toward them. Napoleon shot the rest of the clip in his pistol, but other than dropping a few zombies and making others trip and stumble, it didn’t have an effect on the forward rush. The zombies quickly surmounted the barrier and rushed the entrance to the cave.

  Napoleon kicked out with his forelegs, striking one of the Tuskers aside, and ripped into the legs of a human zombie, who dropped to the ground, but then they swarmed over and around him. He heard Marie wake up and start screaming, the screams becoming ever more frantic.

  These creatures looked like humans and Tuskers, but they were an abomination of torn and rotti
ng flesh. Napoleon reached out desperately.

  STOP! he screamed out in his mind. The zombies faltered for just a moment. But there was something there, Napoleon could feel it. A thought, a movement in the mind, a flutter of consciousness—it was almost buried amid hunger and pain, but there was a sluggish remnant of what the zombies had once been.

  A name—Horn. But from that small glimmer of identity, Napoleon took control. The pig stopped short. The other zombies, both human and Tusker, also stopped, confused, as if they too had sensed the message.

  Napoleon reached out again with his mind, controlling first one, then two, then all the zombie pigs. It was exhausting at first, but the more he exercised his control, the easier it got.

  He dug deeper into the first Tusker’s mind. There was a dull ache there, a desire to feel, to think again. Napoleon found the small memories and amplified them. The Tusker turned and pushed back against its fellows. Napoleon felt his consciousness expand, exploring the dim recesses of the zombie minds, turning them to his will.

  The surge slowed and then halted. The creatures backed away and stopped, facing him, as if waiting for instructions.

  A human zombie wandered through the pack of now-quieted Tuskers and stretched out its bloody hands, somehow immune to Napoleon’s control.

  Napoleon reached out to the nearest Tusker, and it slashed out with its tusks, cutting through the rotted flesh of the human’s legs, and the zombie dropped to the ground. Even then, it tried to crawl forward. The Tusker zombie rushed the human one, stomping down with its hooves until the other zombie stopped moving.

  “It’s going to be all right,” Napoleon said, relief surging through his body. He grunted in laughter while the Tuskers milled about as if confused.

  Marie looked at him strangely. She didn’t know what was happening.

  “They can be controlled! Try reaching out to them as you do when controlling the Kin.”