J.B. knew that, as well, and he sat very still, unable to take his eyes off the creamy pudding.
THE WALKING DEAD WERE all around Ryan, every empty eye socket turned blankly toward him. The wind blew at the tattered clothing, whistling through the shrunken holes in the dried flesh. Step by slow, unsteady step, the corpses were coming closer.
He leveled the Llama Comanche at the nearest of the shambling horrors.
MILDRED HAD BEEN on vacation with some of the other members of the Olympic pistol team, staying in a newly built block of apartments near Pagosa Springs.
The nearest shooting range was at South Fork, the far side of Wolf Creek Pass, nearly eleven thousand feet high, but this afternoon Mildred had gone off on a trek of her own, borrowing a Jeep to take the twisting, narrow trail into the San Juan Mountains, up toward Cimarron.
There had been no forecast of the snow that suddenly came swirling around her, closing visibility to twenty feet, rushing at the windshield so that it was like driving into an endless white tunnel.
It was as if the heavens had opened and dumped six months’ snowfall on her, all in one storm.
The radio had been giving sports news when it died.
As she reached down to try to adjust it, the heavy-duty tires of the Jeep struck a tumbled log, jarring the wheel from her numbed fingers. The vehicle lurched to one side, off the ice-slick trail, and started to roll.
Mildred grabbed at the door handle, but the biting cold had slowed her reflexes and she was way too late. The Jeep was already tumbling, over and over, bouncing and jolting. She heard a grinding crash of torn metal and then something struck her across the back of the head, above and behind her right ear, and the darkness opened its cloak and took her in.
When she came around there was an eerie stillness, broken only by the howling of the wind. Mildred opened her eyes, wincing at the savage stab of pain that ran through her skull. She reached up and touched her face, feeling the cool stickiness of congealing blood across her cheek.
Her careful probing made her fairly sure that there was no terminal damage done by the crash.
There was a large duck-egg swelling where something had come loose from the back of the Jeep in the accident and clouted her across the head.
“Could be worse, girl,” she said, hoping that her own voice might lift her spirits. But it simply made her feel that much more alone.
It was when Mildred tried to move out of the wrecked Jeep that she began to realize the seriousness of her dilemma. The seat belt was tight across her ribs and shoulders, holding her suspended in the inverted vehicle. A sharp branch of a broken pine had smashed through the driver’s window, pinning her against the back of the seat. Though she wriggled experimentally, the beads in her plaited hair chattering softly, nothing much happened.
She was completely trapped.
Snow was blowing in on her face. From the position she was in, it was impossible to reach the release on the seat belt, though she tried hard.
“Gas?” she said, wrinkling her nose, aware suddenly of cold liquid trickling across her chest. That was when she started to yell for help.
JAK HAD BEEN HUNTING the big mutie cougar for three days and two nights.
He and his wife, Christina, had been losing stock from their New Mexico spread since late October. Now Christmas was only a few days off, and every dawning brought a fresh trail of bright blood, ruby on the ermine of the snow, and the raggled remains of one of their sheep.
He had a satin-finish Colt Python bolstered on his hip, and several of his beloved throwing knives concealed about him. But they weren’t the right weapon for a cougar whose spoor showed he was close to twenty feet from nose to tail.
The Winchester 70A bolt-action rifle was a good reliable hunting rifle, with its chrome molybdenum steel action and narrow serrated trigger. It had a hooded-ramp front sight with a white diamond-leaf rear sight for quick adjustment.