Boelnitz smiled. "I have a feeling that as long as you're here, there'll be no end of stories."
s.
One of the most terrifying weapons in the Kurian Order's arsenal is the disease that makes man revert to a howling beast, a lizard brain seeking to kill, feed, and, yes, sometimes even procreate.
How they remove all the higher brain functions, leaving the lower full of savage cunning and reckless determination, only their elite scientists would be able to say.
The fear of a ravies outbreak is one way of keeping their human herds in line. There's such a thing as civilizational memory, and the human strata of the Kurian Order have been taught that only timely arrival of help from Kur stemmed the howling tide that threatened to wash away mankind in the red-number year of 2022. They instinctively know that without the protection of the towers, the screamers might return.
Anyone who's heard the dive-bomber wail of a ravies victim in full cry has the unhappy privilege of hearing it repeated in nightmares for years to come.
Of course in the Freeholds, they know that ravies is just another Kurian trick up one of the sleeves of a determined and ruthless creature with more limbs than can be easily counted on a living specimen.
Folk remedies abound, all of them nearly useless. A bucket of ice-cold water is said to distract a sufferer long enough for you to make an escape. If you suck a wound clean while chewing real mint gum mixed with pieces of pickled ginger, onion, and garlic, you'll never catch an infection from a bite. Pregnant women are naturally immune-this particular canard leads to all manner of bizarre remedies as others seek the mystic benefits, from drinking breast milk to pouring umbilical cord blood into a fresh wound. And, of course, that the only sure way to stop a ravies sufferer from getting at you is to shoot them in the head.
Of course, anyone who's ever emptied a magazine into the center mass of an oncoming screamer knows that they go down and stay down when suffering sucking chest wounds, cardiac damage, or traumatic blood loss.
No, the only facts absolutely known about ravies is that it is a disease that affects brain tissue and the nervous system. Sufferers don't feel any pain and are hyperaware, ravenous, and irritable, and if they are startled or provoked, they will try to rend and bite the source into submission and an easy meal. Heart rate and blood pressure both increase. Most brain-wave patterns decrease, save for the delta, the wave most associated with dreams, and beta, which increases during anxiety or intense concentration.
Many wonder why the Kurians, usually so careful with lives and the aura that might be harvested, allow whole populations to be reduced by the disease.
David Valentine had two theories. One is that ravies encounters shocked and wore down professional military types-no one enjoys gunning down children and preteens who, under ideal conditions, could be easily kept away with a walking stick or a riot shield until they drop from exhaustion. It took David Valentine months to quit hearing the screams in his sleep following his first encounter with ravies near the Red River in 2065. The other is that sufferers were harvested like everyone else in the Kurian Order, with the disease simply adding flavor to the aura thanks to the unknown tortures of body and mind.
Stuck was right, as it turned out. There weren't many cases in town. As they switched vehicles for refueling from the trailer, only one more ravie attacked, and Frat brought her down with a clean head shot.
They prepared to leave the mill once there was full daylight.
"We're going to try to keep moving to make it back to Fort Seng without another stop," Valentine told the assembled vehicle chiefs in the mill. "We'll take on rescues of anyone alongside the road until the vehicles are at capacity."
"Isn't that dangerous, sir?" Chieftain asked. "They might be bit. And if we lose a vehicle, who'll end up walking if there's no excess capacity?"
"And what about that kid?" Silvertip put in. "He's been bit."
"He's in Boneyard, with his mother and Doc keeping an eye on him," Valentine said. "At the moment he's not symptomatic, not even trembling, so the iodine may have got it or Southern Command's last year's vaccination may work against this strain. In any case, they'll keep him sedated. As for rescues, if we lose a vehicle, we'll travel overloaded and chance the fine."
One or two got the joke and laughed.
"One more thing: Let's break out the winter camouflage. We're still soldiers, and we still have eyes in the sky watching us and enemies to fight."
The winter camouflage was mostly old bedsheets and fancy table-cloths cut into ponchos, and extra felt that could be wrapped around your shins and tied with twine to create extrawarm gaiters.
Valentine changed the route order. Bushmaster would go first in order to clear drifts. Rover would follow, and then Boneyard and Chuckwagon brought up the rear. The two Southern Command Bears would ride in the Chuckwagon, as they'd most likely be attacked from the rear by ravies running on foot-Valentine had never heard of a ravie driving.
They wouldn't use the motorcycles at all, not with the snow and this strain of ravies that could leap the way they'd seen at the mill gate. Longshot volunteered to ride in the open atop Bushmaster so she could stand up and look over drifts, but Valentine told her to keep warm out of the wind.
So they pulled out. Valentine chalked a rough mile marker of empty circles on one of the roof struts of Rover. Every ten miles, he'd mark one off.
As they pulled out of Grand Junction and made it back to the old federal highway, he filled in the first of the twelve circles.
Three circles filled.
With room in Rover thanks to Mrs. O'Coombe being in Boneyard, Brother Mark now rode shotgun and Boelnitz, desirous of keeping away from Stuck, crammed himself into the backmost seat. Valentine sat behind Habanero so he could consult his maps and speak into the driver's ear, Duvalier next to him.
The snowfall had stopped, but the wind still threw up enough snow to make visibility bad and kept the convoy to less than five miles an hour.
The heavy cloud cover made for gloomy thoughts.
"Anything from the A-o-K on the radio?" Valentine asked as Habanero worked buttons to tune it.