First Wave (The Travis Combs Post-Apocalypse Thrillers) Read Free Page A

removed from the high-strung city girl he met
weeks ago.
    Travis glanced over the group, whose faces were
aglow with firelight. He had really taken to these “civis.” He had spent most
of the trip engaging LB, a former Army helicopter pilot, and Evelyn whose son
had lost his life in Iraq shortly before the surge. Even when you’re out of
the military, you’re still in. Travis stared into the fire in between
conversations over the next hour. He recalled vivid images of hundreds of other
campfires he had sat around over the years in the woods around Ft. Bragg while
training other operators in the skills to stay alive in the wilds. I sure
don’t miss the mosquitos, chiggers, and poison ivy.
    Travis looked over his shoulder, towards the river’s
edge, and saw Mark and Fran holding hands under a tree a hundred yards from the
glow of the campfire. Just as he was turning his gaze back, he caught movement
coming down the moonlit gravel road. It was a tall man, in a uniform, weaving
his way towards Fran and Mark. The figure stumbled like he was inebriated.
    “Hey Pete, looks like the river ranger is here,” he
said nodding towards the beach. Everyone stood up eager to hear news about the
vans. “I’ll go talk to him and see what’s up,” said Travis as he strode towards
the beach.
    As Travis walked to where the road dead-ended at the
river, he saw the ranger increase his stride towards Fran and Mark who had
their back to him, their attention lost amidst the loud gurgle of rapids. The ranger’s
skin was mottled and his shirt unkempt. He wasn’t slowing down and, as Travis
neared, he heard the figure emit a wheezing, rodent like sound. Then the ranger
did a partial leap for the back of Fran’s head, heaving his face on to her
shoulder. She turned and shrieked as the man slammed his jaws on to the right
side of her neck, biting out a sizeable portion of flesh. Fran reeled back while
the ranger bit further through her neck, sending a spray of bright red, blood
on to Mark’s face. Her husband recoiled a step back in horror but then shot
forward, punching the man in the side of the head and screaming at him. The
ranger snapped its jaws at Mark, catching his thumb in the crossbite and shearing
it off. Travis was in an all-out sprint and did a linebacker’s slam on the
ranger, sending him flying off Mark into a large boulder a few feet away.
    The disheveled ranger immediately got up, unaffected
by the jarring impact and fixed his attention on Travis. The man lumbered towards
Travis, with the glimmer of fresh blood dribbling from his lips running down over
the bronze badge on his uniform.
    Travis pulled his eight-inch tactical knife from its
sheath and rushed forward, slightly sidestepping the oncoming attacker while sinking
the blade below the man’s sternum right to the hilt. Without any sign of being
diminished, the ranger pawed at Travis’s face with crusty hands while a
sickening acrid smell ushered forth from its rubbery lips. Travis yanked the
blade out and drove it in an uppercut through the man’s lower jaw, pulled it
back out, and stomp- kicked him on the chest, sending him backwards. The ranger
was flailing his arms, and on all fours when, across Travis’s left side, came the
flash of a wooden oar striking the man across the head as Pete moved in and made
a wild swing. After two more blows from the oar, the figure lay lifeless with
its head pancaked on the rocks.
    Travis’s face was like chiseled ice as he stood over
the body of the ranger. He tapped his dirty boot into the ribs, making sure the
man was dead and then gazed up at Pete, who was leaning on the upright oar
catching his breath. He noticed the man’s skin was marbled blue and grey, like the
person they’d seen earlier on the river trip. It resembled someone suffering
from cyanosis or carbon monoxide poisoning. Chunks of the man’s hair were
missing and only small strands, resembling dental floss, hung off the side of
his head. An ammonia-like odor