The gunshots sounded like they were from an automatic weapon. They went on for about a minute and I heard faint screams and yells. It was definitely somebody firing on a bunch of primitives.

A moment later the vehicle resumed heading in our direction from the secondary road.

"It's him!" Lori said.

"We've got more coming from the north," Martin called.

I turned around. Sure enough, there was a bunch of them heading toward us from that direction. They appeared to be a good distance away.

Wesley drew closer, coming fast. I went to Tracy and said, "Stay with Emily." She nodded and the rest of us met Wesley in the middle of the road where he pulled the jeep to a stop.

"We got a bunch more coming from the west!" Martin shouted. He shouldered the rifle, ready to take aim.

"I got more weapons in the back!" Wesley called out. He jumped out of the Jeep bearing a mean-looking black M4 and waited with Martin and me for the primitives to get closer.

"Lori, cover the east!" I called out.

I could hear James and Heather fumbling with something in the rear of the Jeep and when Heather said, "Now that's what I'm talking about!" I felt a nervous pang. For some reason knowing that girl was now arming herself made me nervous. I tried to put it out of my mind, to tell myself that she would be an incredible a.s.set to our little clan and those thoughts were justified when she called out. "There's more coming from the north!"

"Wait until they're within range!" Wesley called out.

I stole a quick glance toward the rear of the Jeep. Heather had armed herself with a black pistol and stood in the standard firing stance, feet shoulder-width apart, weapon held out in front of her in both hands and pointing toward the primitives heading our way. James was still fumbling in the back for a suitable weapon and I felt a little more relieved to see that Heather appeared to know what she was doing. I checked the direction south of us. All clear.

"Okay!" Wesley called out. The primitives were a good two hundred yards away and we could now see they were carting weapons-sticks, baseball bats, and shovels. Gunfire erupted from all directions, and amid the yells and screams as the primitives dropped I felt a sense of something that I still can't describe. The primitives were no match for our weaponry and we killed about thirty of them in the s.p.a.ce of two minutes. Despite that fact, I felt that we'd turned the tide toward something else...something darker. Even though we could easily ma.s.sacre the primitives, knew they were no match for us technologically, I had the sense they had something else on their side. Something larger than themselves, larger than all of us, something unseen and dark, a malevolent force.

Like the previous bands of primitives, this newest batch not only had makeshift weapons, they threw rocks at us. None of them came close to their targets and within five minutes they were all dead. Heather came around the back of the Jeep, her face flush. "Got some of those motherf.u.c.kers!"

"Good girl," I said. I ejected my spent magazine and inserted a fresh one.

"Notice something about these?" Wesley asked.

"I do," Martin said. He looked troubled.

"They look like wetbacks," Heather said, matter-of-factly. I saw Lori frown at that statement.

Wesley nodded, seemingly unaffected by Heather's comment. "Take a look. They used to be migrant workers."

It was hard to see them from this far but Wesley had a pair of binoculars that he handed to me. How he could see them from that far away was amazing. The guy had eyesight like an eagle. I took a peek. Sure enough, the tattered remnants of their clothing, their dark, swarthy features, all suggested they were Mexican immigrants who'd been living in this area working California's ripe fields during picking season. I glanced at Martin, who met my gaze. It was obvious that gunning these people down bothered him.

"There's farms about twenty, maybe thirty miles from here," I said, handing the binoculars to Lori.

"And beyond those farms will be more," Wesley said. "I doubt we'll see any more primitives today. My guess is most of them are too far out of earshot to have heard any of this."

Tracy called from the SUV. "Everything okay?"

I called back to her. "We got 'em."

I quickly told Wesley about our own battles during the period he'd been at Edwards and he nodded. "I came across a similar situation. I'll tell you more about that later. Is your daughter okay?" I'd told him about her panic attack.

"Yeah, she's asleep. Come on."

We reconvened near the SUV. Tracy got out and joined us.

"To make a long story short, there's no normal survivors at Edwards," Wesley said. He looked grave. "If there were, they've left. I saw plenty of dead soldiers. Probably normals who were taken by surprise, and primitives who'd been shot. It wasn't a pretty sight."

I could only imagine.

"The security gate was open and I got through fine," Wesley continued. "I went to the main barracks, found that everybody was dead, and started looking for weapons. I've got a nice stash back at the jeep. Close to ten thousand rounds of various caliber ammunition, a bunch of military-issued rifles and handguns, even found a couple of shoulder-mounted missiles."

"d.a.m.n!" Heather exclaimed.

"I found something else, too. I don't know how else to describe it except...well..." He looked at Tracy and me. "You got a piece of paper and a pen?"

"My bag, in the back," I said. "Hold on." I retreated to the rear of the SUV, found it, and handed it over to him.

"After I rearmed I took a quick drive around the base," Wesley said. He started sketching something in the spiral notebook I gave him. "Didn't see anything but bodies. My guess is everybody scampered off when they turned primitive. Those that didn't were either driven away or killed. I only saw a few cases where those that didn't turn had stayed at their posts. In all cases they'd run out of ammo and were simply overwhelmed by primitives. Lots of bullet-riddled primitives and one torn up dead grunt, if you know what I mean."

I nodded. We stood around watching Wesley draw and talk.

"Anyway, I was rounding the north corner of one of the barracks and saw something weird. It was drawn on the wall and there was...well, there was a body lying there. Didn't think much of it at first but something about the way it was on the ground made me stop the Jeep. I got out and took a look and sure as s.h.i.t, this guy wasn't just killed by the primitives. He was downright sacrificed."

"Sacrificed?" James asked.

"Yeah." Wesley finished sketching but kept the pad close to him. "This guy was sacrificed. There was a sketch of this on the wall."

And then he showed us the sketch.

When I saw it my heart stopped.

It was almost identical to the weird drawing I'd seen on that wall in Hollywood last week.

Picture a demonic-looking caricature. A thin, somewhat narrow chin. A thin maw for a mouth. Eyes beady and narrow, displaying a malevolent evil. A high brow with what appeared to be bony protrusions above each eyebrow well at the top of the forehead. Not much of a neck, a body that was hard to distinguish because of the blurry brush strokes, but the wings...those were the clincher. The wings stretched out from the body, and they were prominent.

"It was drawn in blood," Wesley continued. "The dead guy's blood, I'm sure. He was lying on his back and there were these other symbols and drawings on the ground." He started sketching again. "It looked like he was a soldier who didn't turn, who'd stayed true to his honor and duty. He was still dressed in his fatigues but his shirt was ripped off. His chest had been torn open and the heart yanked out. It was lying at the foot of that drawing. Likewise, his eyes had been ripped out of his head and placed with the heart, along with his genitalia."

"My G.o.d," Lori murmured.

"There was a cup lying nearby. It looked to me like it had been filled with his blood. There was some left in it. Looked like a coffee cup." He finished with this second sketch and turned it toward us. "Anyway, he was lying inside this circle thing with these patterns drawn around it. Again, it was drawn in his blood."

This second sketch showed a weird symmetrical pattern. Half circle, half parallelogram, it was a mixture of curves and straight lines with weird squiggly symbols drawn at various points. It looked strangely like some occult-symbol, albeit one that was unrecognizable to me.

"He was lying in the middle of that?" James asked. He looked amazed.

"Yeah," Wesley said. "The blood was still slightly damp. Sticky. Like it had only been done hours before."

"What do you think it means?" Tracy asked.

"Primitive man held spiritual beliefs," James said, looking at the sketches. "We know this from the archeological records. Artifacts like cave paintings, crude ceremonial daggers fashioned from sticks, and jewelry and idols made from bone suggest primitive man worshipped various G.o.ds. We still don't know the extent of what dogma they may have held but it's believed they were simple. G.o.ds of fire, wind, water, and earth. They would have been very basic, primitive beliefs. You know, prayers and sacrifices to the G.o.d of earth to provide good fortune for hunting. That sort of thing."

"What would something like this mean?" Martin asked.

James shrugged. "Hard to say. The Aztecs are believed to have utilized human and animal sacrifice for a variety of purposes and G.o.ds. In many cases, warfare was the purpose for obtaining victims for sacrifices. It was considered an honor for war captives to be sacrificed to the G.o.ds. You said the heart was removed?"

"Yes," Wesley said. "Along with the eyes and his d.i.c.k."

"That's odd. In Aztec culture the abdomen was split open, the heart removed and placed in a cup. The body was usually dragged down the stairs of the altar to be disposed of in other smaller ceremonies."

"Didn't other cultures practice human sacrifice?" Tracy asked.

"Yeah, but not to the extent the Aztecs did. The Egyptians, of course, but even what we see here is alien to their usual method. Even sacrifice by various Mesopotamian and Babylonian cultures differ from this." James studied the drawings intently. "d.a.m.n, I wish I had access to my library. Ancient spiritual beliefs weren't my forte, but some of the books I had contained chapters on the subject."

"Well, whatever it is they were up to, it ain't good." Wesley looked grave. "I'll be blunt in saying there's something wrong with this. Yesterday they were attacking like a bunch of wild animals and now they're more coordinated, more..."

I quickly told Wesley about our theory-the riled up monkeys in the zoo a.n.a.logy that James alluded to earlier. Wesley nodded. "That's a d.a.m.n good way of putting it." He looked at James. "What, were you some kind of professor or something?"

"Medieval history professor," James said. He was still studying the drawings. He looked back at Wesley. "And I concur. Something is very wrong here."

Eight.

It was decided that we would drive north for another three hours, which would put us east of Napa Valley. Because the cat was now out of the bag regarding our cabin, I told Wesley about it. He agreed that we probably wouldn't be able to make it to the cabin before night fell, especially at the speed we were going (which was occasionally hampered by having to drive around stalled and crashed vehicles in the road, some quite serious). "East of Napa is pretty barren," he said. "I say we find someplace out of the way, eliminate any primitives we see, then hole up somewhere for the night. We can take turns on watch patrol."

Thanks to Wesley's trip to the base we were all armed except for James, who admitted he'd never held or fired a gun in his life and was not comfortable with one. "Fine," Wesley said, patting James on the back. "Once we get to the Sierras I'll teach you myself."

Tracy reclaimed the Kimber and Lori picked a Glock 9mm handgun while Martin got himself an M4. I reclaimed control of the Ruger. Martin also carried a Glock in a shoulder holster Wesley had brought back. Likewise, Heather had two handguns tucked into a holster she wore low on her hips. Something about her demeanor seemed to change since she'd armed herself. She seemed more confidant yet more aloof from the rest of us at the same time. It was like after arming herself she distanced herself emotionally from the rest of us.

As we drove north following Wesley's jeep, I snuck occasional peeks in the rearview mirror at her. While Heather had proven herself to be capable around guns and had joined in to protect our little clan from the primitives, something still bothered me about her. Tracy seemed to feel the same way. A few times as we headed north she glanced at me, a grave look on her face. Emily lay fast asleep in her lap and last night's outburst from Heather came back to me. Shut that f.u.c.king mongoloid half-breed brat up or I'll do it for you! A retort made in fear because the primitives heard our daughter's cries and were descending on our house? And what about Martin's feelings from last night? That Heather had seemed hostile while in his and Lori's presence? I knew what Martin was talking about, being Native American and all, especially a Native American who wore his hair near down to his a.s.s. Yes, racism still existed in the early years of the twenty-first century, and while it was rare when I was in a Caucasian community I sometimes received curious, and on rare occasions, hostile glares. Had Heather been able to pick out my heritage from the bone structure of my face? My hair? My skin color? It was obvious that Lori and Martin were African-American and Hispanic and Martin's h.o.m.os.e.xuality would be a double strike against him. As for Tracy, she came from pure white Anglo-Saxon stock, making our daughter, Emily, mixed-race. Was that where the half-breed comment came from?

I thought about this on the drive up and couldn't help but wonder. While I was still uncomfortable with the idea of having Heather armed, I also realized that if she truly wanted to do us harm she could have done it easily half a dozen times between the time we killed the last wave of primitives and before we finally left, but she hadn't. She'd even tried to talk James into arming himself, told him she'd help teach him how to handle one of the smaller caliber pistols Wesley had brought back. If she were truly racist, as the paranoid part of me felt, she wouldn't be so friendly with James who, by my estimate based on his last name and his full beard, was obviously Jewish.

Maybe she felt better and more in control because of Wesley's presence. While I didn't know much about Wesley, I knew he was about my age and appeared to be from common white Anglo-Saxon stock judging by the brown hair and blue eyes. Maybe Heather felt better having another white person with our group. Tracy wouldn't count, of course, having spoiled her white heritage by crossbreeding with a redskin Indian.

What the h.e.l.l was I thinking?

As we drove I noticed vehicles pulled over to the side of the road. In some cases, their doors were open, as if the occupants somehow made it out on foot or were dragged out. There were no signs of people-primitive or normal-anywhere. The few times we pa.s.sed small towns or rest stops we had to carefully maneuver our way around stalled or crashed vehicles. The sun was still unmercifully hot and we drove with the windows rolled down to save gas with no A/C on. When we pa.s.sed what had been populated areas we always heard the howls from the primitives. Occasionally we saw them peek out from inside buildings or behind other structures. A few times we were chased, and twice rocks were thrown at our vehicles, but none hit us. As before, they could never get us on foot and we never returned fire. "Don't waste the ammo," I said during the first encounter with the primitives as we pa.s.sed one such town. Martin had leaned the muzzle of the M4 out the window as we drove through and he lowered it. "We're gonna need all the ammo we have for the future."

By eight o'clock we'd reached the outskirts of another small town and Wesley turned toward another highway that would take us into the Sierras. The evening was growing a little cooler, but not by much. Twice we heard yells from real, unturned people who heard our vehicle pa.s.s by. "Hey! Hey over there! Help us! We're over here!" Both times I felt like stopping but Wesley, if he heard them, never slowed down. I kept up with him, a pang of regret burning in my gut both times.

About twenty miles from that last town we came across a rest area consisting of a gas station on one side, two fast food restaurants flanking it, and a small hotel. We pulled off the side of the road at the gas station and got out of our vehicles, armed and ready.

Wesley motioned toward the hotel. "My guess is that hotel is deserted but we have to make sure. You low on gas yet?"

"We're going to need it." The SUV was hovering at a quarter tank now.

"I doubt these pumps will work," Wesley said. He was looking around the gas station. There were four other vehicles, one of them an older model van.

"Don't you think we should check it out first?" Martin asked. He was cradling the M4 like he was born with it.

"Yeah." Wesley motioned to him. "Let's go."

Martin and Wesley headed to the gas station and did their clean and sweep in under a minute. When they came back, Martin called out. "There's a couple of gas cans in here. We can siphon gas from the other vehicles."

"I've never siphoned gas from a car in my life," I muttered.

Heather heard me-she was standing a few feet to my right-and she said, "I have. I can do it."

After filling the tanks in both vehicles thanks to Heather, we did clean and sweeps of both fast food outlets and then the hotel. I found evidence that somebody had occupied the ground floor-the administrative area and kitchen-a day ago, but it was empty now. After moving the weapons and our belongings inside and securing the entrances, we made base on the second level. There was a large conference room we commandeered and it was near the stairwell that led to the bottom floor. There was a hallway that branched out from it that led to guest rooms and we found one that had been propped open with a piece of luggage. The rest of the doors were locked, and since the power was out at this place they were inaccessible due to the keycard system being kaput. "I'm going to put Emily in this room," Tracy said.

I nodded. "Good thinking." I didn't want Emily in the thick of things, should we face a late night attack.

Once everybody was inside and our supplies were upstairs, we set about getting something to eat. Emily was awake now, feeling a little better, and Tracy fed her some fruit and carrots. The rest of us had a mixture of things; fruit, vegetables, peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwiches, cold Chef Boyardee spaghetti. And water. Plenty of water.

We also planned out the evening's schedule. Wesley suggested that Tracy and I stay in the one room with our daughter while the rest of them took two-hour shifts on watch patrol and slept in the conference room. I was okay with this and looked at Tracy for some kind of approval or confirmation. She looked uncertain, but nodded. Emily, oblivious to what was being decided, ate her sandwich and played with a doll we'd brought along for her.

The watch schedule was as follows: Martin would go first, followed by Lori, Heather, Wesley, then James and I would take the five to seven a.m. shift. We all agreed to this.

When we were finished eating, Tracy picked up Emily and took her to the room we'd be sleeping in. I told her I'd be in a little later and watched them leave. They left the door propped open so I could get in. Everybody else was hunkering down in the conference room, picking out a spot, laying out blankets and pillows. It was Martin's shift and he was sitting outside the conference room near the stairway. "It might be a good idea to do periodic sweeps of all four corners from this floor," he suggested.

"I agree," Wesley said.

n.o.body was really tired yet, so we kind of huddled on the floor near the entrance to the conference room. Lori asked me if Emily was okay and I told her she was fine. Lori had taken a real shine to her and that made me feel good.

We started talking about our current situation.

And the primitives.

"I could tell something wasn't right as early as last week," Wesley said. He was sitting cross-legged in the hall. The only light that came in the building was from a large window that overlooked the stairway. "I remember even as I was at Camp Pendleton and making plans for the conference that things just didn't feel right. And then I started noticing things around me. Like I drove by an all out no-holds-barred street fight four days ago that was happening right on the sidewalk in Seal Beach. The one guy just kept yelling normal stuff, you know, 'Get off me, motherf.u.c.ker, get the h.e.l.l off me!' The other guy, he was relentless, like a wild animal, and he was just screaming this gibberish. I didn't think about that incident again until yesterday when everything just collapsed."

I told the group about what I saw in Hollywood, that bizarre homeless person, and as I recounted this my mind flashed back on the picture Wesley drew and- - the graffiti that dotted the wall- I stopped, the realization hitting me.

"Did any of you see anything like...well, like those drawings Wesley showed us earlier?" I asked, looking around at the group. "Like drawn on a wall or on the ground or something?"

Martin and Lori shook their heads, as did Heather and James. Only Wesley nodded. "Yeah, you know, now that you mention it I did see something similar in Zuma Beach last week. It was kinda like that...that thing that was on the wall at Edwards...only...well, it was incomplete...it didn't have wings, and it was on a wall along the beach facing the ocean. Didn't really pay attention to it at first."

"I didn't see s.h.i.t like that," Martin said.

"What day did you see that fight?" I asked Wesley.

He shrugged. "Last Thursday?"

That was the day I saw the weird homeless guy and the wall drawing in Hollywood. I looked around at the others. "Any of you remember anything weird and out of the ordinary from a few days to a week ago?"

James looked perplexed. "I remember walking across the quad after one of my cla.s.ses and a student came running by making hooting sounds. He sounded like a wild monkey. Ran right by me. Couple of other kids called out to him but he kept going. I figured it was some kind of weird fraternity initiation rite."