Hello, and welcome to Sunday Reads (the “Not Quite Sunday” edition).
Hello my friends. I appreciate your patients, as I haven’t been here as often as I’d like. After a year-long illness, my dad passed away a few weeks before what would have been his 80th birthday. In addition to external tasks with estate issues and such, there is the internal to process. I pulled this from the archives. I hope you enjoy it. I’m looking forward to getting back to regularly scheduled programming. Thank you for taking the ride with me.
She opened her eyes as the sun set. The trailer was stifling from the summer heat and she kicked the swamp cooler until it sputtered and coughed into action. Her head throbbed mightily. It must have been the heat, a little dehydration, she decided. As a precaution, she took a swig from the open bottle of cactus moonshine. Not too much, she reminded herself. Company was coming.
The trailer was on the high ground, and perched on the roof, Angela could watch the road through the canyon pass. She locked the door, came up through the top hatch and checked her night vision goggles. Settling in with her bottle and her AR10, she was ready. It didn’t take long.
Although most of them were dead and didn’t show up well in night vision, she could see the harriers behind them well enough. “Scum,” Daddy would call them. “Bad enough we have to deal with crawlers, we have to fight off bottom feeders like that.” After The Rising, when the dead would come up after the living ones, a few figured out how to drive them along like murderous cattle. The crawlers, who could move a good bit quicker than their name would suggest, could mow through a community in a matter of hours. The harriers would come in after, and pick through what was left.
It was a dirty business.
The sun of the Mojave, especially in the summer, was too intense for the crawlers, so the harriers set them out at night. For as long as she could remember, Daddy went up on the top of the trailer with his old army rifle and watched the house. Then, Angela took over.
Just over the ridgeline, she could see the first signs of crawlers: The light green flecks of critters getting away from the soft blobs of the dead on the move. As they came closer, she could see the brighter green of harriers. The warmth of their bodies gave them away as she scanned for them with infrared optics. Angela was always grateful for them. They made the watch much easier. Daddy would … She pushed the thought from her mind. She took a long drink.
“Focus,” she told herself.
She got into a prone position and sighted the crawlers. She had to be careful. The harriers could have snipers, too. They would not have the skill to take her out from the far hills, but there was no need to take stupid risks. They came in closer. The crawlers shuffled slowly, with the harriers pushing them along while riding heavily barded mules. She felt sorry for the animals. Sometimes, she even felt a little pity for the crawlers. Angela never minded taking out the scum.
They came in closer still. She found the leader. He was riding an actual horse, and was a little farther back from the others. She waited until they came closer. He’d probably have body armor, but a head shot worked on the living and the dead alike. She knew if she could take him out, the rest would scatter.
They came closer. Angela minded the wind. The desert breeze picked up dust and grit. Even a little could ruin the shot.
Closer still. She thought she could smell the metallic funk of the rotting crawlers. Soon now, she thought.
Closer. She could see the leader clearly in her sights. Breath in. Breath out. Squeeze.
His head exploded. The harriers, distracted by the attack, turned their backs on the crawlers for only an instant. Man and animal were set upon. Angela was about to set up and look around, when she heard a noise behind her.
More crawlers. Behind her, clawing up the perimeter fence. Angela was so focused on the one group, she missed the ones creeping behind her. She swung her rifle around and opened fire. She kicked the switch that electrified the fence. The sour copper smell of burning crawler filled the air. She knew it wouldn’t hold them for long, and she dumped the buckets of kerosene on them. The fire destroyed the crawlers at the fence, and drove the others away. She reloaded, scanning the horizon. The fire burned bright. It was a defense, but it attracted attention and made her goggles useless. She turned back briefly, watching the crawlers tear the leader’s corpse to shreds. She stayed on the trailer roof for the rest of the night, watching for more intruders.
As the sun finally rose, she made her daily perimeter check. She fixed the fence and re-set her traps.
She stopped at a small pile of stones. She gently replaced the rocks that had fallen over.
“Daddy,” she said. “I knew that was you. Thank you for watching over me. I love you.”
With one last look around, she went back into her trailer for a fitful morning’s sleep. She covered the windows, took of her shoes and threw herself down on the cot.
A soft voice whispered in her ear as she drifted off:
“I love you, too, Kitten…”
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