Flesh-&-Bone(44)

This forest was sparse compared to the denser woods back home in central California. Even so, Chong managed to use the meager vegetation for cover as he put as much distance as he could between himself and the craziness back on the field.

He paused only once, to gape in wonder at the men and women on motorized machines who came tearing out of nowhere.

Jeez, he thought dryly, Nix is going to love this.

And not for the first time—or even the first time that day—Chong wished that Tom was still here.

But . . .

The motor sounds faded a bit, and Chong felt a splinter of relief that those newcomers were not chasing him. The others, though . . . Riot, Carter, and Sarah. They could be anywhere out here, and Riot had already demonstrated that she was capable of moving like a ghost through the forest and tall grass.

Moving like Lilah.

Chong wanted to find her more than anything in the world.

In the far distance he could see a ridge of rocks that were eye-hurtingly white, but he decided not to go that way. With his dark jeans and shirt, he’d be like a black fly on white linen.

Instead he headed along a ridge of red rocks that cut through the forest and seemed to curve around to the east. Lilah probably went east to find Eve’s parents, so Chong angled that way.

When he was a mile into the woods, Chong dropped into a low squat and listened. He was a very good listener, with sharp senses that he’d honed for months as a tower guard on the fence line between Mountainside and the Ruin. Tom had helped him refine his understanding of the information his senses offered to him. The difference between the rustle of branches in a variable breeze and the sounds of someone—or something—moving stealthily through the brush. The difference between the moan of wind through rusted metal on a deserted farm or abandoned car and the hungry cry of a distant zom. He made his body go absolutely still as he listened.

The motor sounds were far away, and the woods around him were still. The forest, though, is never silent; nature never totally holds its breath. There are always small sounds—insects and animals, the subtle noises made as the temperature changes throughout the day, causing wood to expand and contract. He listened for sounds that shouldn’t be there.

There was nothing.

Until there was something.

Chong tilted his head to try and catch the ghost of a sound. He almost dismissed it because it was in time with the breeze, but then he listened closer. No, not in time with the breeze; just behind it. He nodded to himself. What he heard was the sound a careful person made when they were trying to move with the breeze, but they were doing it slightly wrong. They were waiting for the wind to stir the branches and then moving with the swaying brush; but that wasn’t the way Tom had taught them.

“You have to be warrior smart,” Tom once told them. “And a smart warrior looks ahead. Watch for the wind as it comes toward you, look into the distance and see how the foliage moves. The wind is like a wave rolling in. If you want to hide in its sound and movement, then time your movement so that you are starting to move as the wind reaches you. Don’t chase the wind—let it push you.”

Don’t chase the wind, thought Chong. That was exactly what he was hearing.

He held his position.

Then he caught a whiff of something. At first he recoiled, thinking that it was the rotting stench of a zom, but he shook his head and took another sniff at the odor on the breeze. It was similar to the spoiled-meat smell of cadaverine or putrescence.

The sounds were louder now. Whoever was sneaking through the woods was coming his way. Panic jumped in Chong’s chest, but he fought it down. He looked around and studied the woods for a couple of good choices for escape routes if the stranger came directly toward him. The best route was to his right, a stony path shaded by chokeberry and bitterbrush shrubs. He edged toward it, ready to bolt.

A man suddenly emerged from the woods twenty feet in front of Chong.

But he was facing the other way. Chong froze and stared at the stranger.

And strange he was.

The man was short and broad-shouldered, with huge biceps like soccer balls, a freakishly overdeveloped chest, and almost no neck at all. He wore the same black clothes as the people on the motorbikes, with red streamers fluttering in the sluggish breeze.

The man started to turn, and Chong slipped soundlessly behind a bush, certain that he hadn’t been spotted.

A pair of angel wings had been carefully embroidered on the man’s shirt, and around his neck was a chunky steel chain from which hung a slender silver whistle. Chong recognized it at once.