The coyote howled a third time, answered by several more of a hunting pack. The mournful calls came from the southern perimeter of the base, close by the California state line.
“Got to be two hours to reach headquarters, what with the crips and the unconscious,” said Mac. “And I’m not that hopeful about what we might find when we get there.”
The fire from the Aquila was already dying down, the pall of smoke beginning to dissipate toward the south. Slowly the eight survivors from the crash began to make their way toward the distant huddle of buildings.
The sun was now well down, and the temperature was dropping quickly. The reasonably able took turns helping the more seriously injured.
They’d gone about half the distance when they came across the first of the bodies.
Chapter Ten
The desert winds had desiccated the corpse, leaving it as dried-up as an Egyptian mummy. The eyes would have been first to go, along with all of the soft tissues of the face. Scavengers, probably including the coyotes, had also gotten at it, ripping open the abdominal cavity.
The bare bones of the skull shone through the taut, torn remnants of the dark skin. Teeth glittered in the twilight’s last gleaming.
“Security guard,” said Jim Hilton as they stood around the body.
The body was clad in the ragged remains of an olive green uniform. There was a belt around his shrunken waist and an open holster on the right hip. The tatters of hair clinging to the smooth skull were bleached the colour of straw.
Name patch on the left breast, the stitches pulled loose so that it flapped in the light evening breeze, identified the man as K. DeForrest in faded red letters.
“Anyone know him? Remember him?” McGill stooped and dipped his hand into the pockets of the uniform, but someone had been there before and they were all empty.
Nobody answered.
“How’d he die?” asked Jed Herne.
There was still enough light for Pete to point with his toe at the corpse’s chest. “Shot,” he said flatly. “Three times.”
The white of splintered bones showed through the jagged holes.
“Could it’ve been a rebellion? You know, like a kind of civil war?”
Carrie Princip’s halting question hung in the air unanswered.
“Might be something to do with this red grass. Everything around seems dead or dying.” Jed looked at the others. “And the forests gone to blood. Like the crazy said on the radio.”
“Let’s keep moving.” Jim led the way, away from the corpse and across the flattened, dusty land, toward Stevenson’s main buildings.
When they got closer to the center of the base, they came across five or six more corpses though it could have been four or even seven or eight.
This time the coyotes had done a better job gnawing the bodies and tearing them apart. The light was almost totally gone, apart from a deep maroon glow behind the western mountains, which made it extremely difficult to check the details of the dead.
“This is more recent.” Mac was stooping over one of the bodies. “Not so rotted. No uniform, just jeans, sweatshirt and working boots, badly worn. Rest look like they were shot, but this one’s had his throat slit from ear to ear.”
“Terrorists,” said Jeff Thomas, his voice muffled and distorted by his badly broken nose. Since leaving the scene of the crash landing, the journalist had hardly spoken to the others. He’d been unresponsive, reluctant to take his share in helping Kyle and Jed Herne along.
“Terrorists!” Mac laughed, making a snorting sound in the darkness. “What kind of shit is that?”
“Lefties or righties. Some kind of guerrilla gang attacked the base. Broke the fences, smashed up some planes, set fires… killed the guards.”
Pete Turner joined Henderson McGill in laughing at Jeff’s idea. “Not just your nose got pulped, brother, your brain, too? Terrorist gang attacking one of the most heavily armed and sec defended places on the whole bastard planet!”
“Think the government wouldn’t have sent along a few reinforcements, Jeff?” Mac shook his head wearily. “What went down here mostly went down months ago. Months.”
“HOLD IT A MINUTE.” Jim raised a hand, halting the stumbling procession. Several of the survivors immediately slumped, groaning, to the dirt, completely exhausted.