Stomach uneasy, but eyes wide with respect, the boy looked at the battlefield with equal amounts of comfort and guilt. The seven bodies lay in two half circles, each one a clean shot through dirty camouflage uniforms and black ski masks. Considering the darkness Kenn had been shooting through, it was amazing to Charlie. Not one miss.
After a moment, Kenn sat down on the wet, hard seat, motioning for the boy to put out the light.
"We takin' their stuff?"
"No. See the sores? They're sick. We'll hit the redline, make another click or two, then doze for a bit."
"They wanted me? That's why they've been following us?"
Kenn saw no reason to lie as he pulled up his hood, indicated that the child do the same. Both males heard a distant dog barking miserably, but ignored it as just another starving pet still chained in someone's backyard.
"Yes. Probably thought your blood would heal them. Crazy shit now, and women and kids are big targets. Stay close. It'll just get worse."
The drab truck ran out of gas an hour later, and while Kenn was sad to see it go, he knew they'd been lucky to find it at all. He still wasn't sure why the EMPs hadn't knocked it out too, but assumed it had something to do with where it had been parked. The electro-magnetic pulses didn't seem to have traveled well through lead.
Kenn steered the coasting vehicle deep into a thicket of piñons, glad to see the sky was beginning to lighten. The rain fell steadily, the woods dark, twisted shapes alongside the faint gray path of concrete as the two Marines loaded their things.
"All right, just like we talked about - never more than three feet away in any direction. Got it?"
Charlie nodded, still thinking about the battle that Kenn's military mind had already forgotten - it had been justified, nothing to worry over. The boy's heart wasn't so clear, but he kept his mouth shut. Kenn was not his mother and he would not understand.
2
As they entered the city limits of Williamsburg, New Mexico, the sky lightened enough to really see, and the two males had too much time to dwell on each horribly vivid detail. There had never been a time for either of them (or the rest of the country) when even a single dead body had been left to decay on an American sidewalk or street. Now there were hundreds, thousands amid horrifically gruesome Christmas decorations, and if not for the constant gusts of wind, the smells would have been unbearable, even during winter.