Transmission: Voodoo Plague Book 5 by Dirk Patton Read Free Book Online

and down each side of the road as I weighed
my options, I tried to come up with what kind of animal I might be facing. 
Unfortunately I didn’t know this part of the country well enough to even make a
guess.  Whatever it was had to be big and powerful to have killed Gabbert as
swiftly as it had, and there just weren’t that many large predators in North America
that I could think of that were capable.  A bear?  Panther?  No, those didn’t
fit.  His leg has been taken out from under him first, then his stomach torn
open and throat slashed as he lay on the ground.  This was something built low.
    Giving up on trying to figure out what it was, I decided I
didn’t really have a better option than to proceed and find a vehicle. 
Stepping off I moved deeper into the canyon of tall grass, eyes constantly
scanning, rifle up and swiveling back and forth in sync with my eyes.  The wind
was still ripping through, creating a loud sighing sound and rustling all of
the vegetation in the fields.  It was causing so much noise I wasn’t able to
depend on my hearing to alert me to an impending attack.  Frequent checks of my
rear were consistently negative, but I also knew that without constant
attention something could emerge from the weeds and bring me down from behind
before I knew it was there.
    I had covered half the distance to the truck stop when
movement to the front brought me to a stop.  As I watched, three low, hulking
figures trotted out of the grass and onto the road no more than thirty yards
away.  They had massive shoulders and necks and long bodies, nearly five feet,
with narrow hips and were covered in a dense coat of black, wiry fur.  Their
heads were cruelly shaped and held well below their front shoulders.  Gleaming,
razor sharp tusks, several inches long, jutted up from their lower jaws and
each animal had to weigh at least 300 pounds.  Razorback hogs.  Oh shit!

7
     
    I didn’t know much about razorbacks, but what I did know
scared the hell out of me.  They are faster and stronger than any human, generally
nasty tempered, and with their sharp tusks I now understood how Gabbert had
been taken down and eviscerated so easily.  But the question was, had we
stumbled into them, or were they hunting us?  I didn’t think the hogs were
predators that would come after a human.  As far as I knew they would just
defend their territory, but I didn’t know enough about them to understand why
they had killed him and come after me.
    They stood there staring at me, blocking the road.  The
largest one was closest to me, and his head was lowered as he made a popping
sound with his mouth.  I could see foam forming along his lips and splattering
onto the black pavement.  If this was a dog my first thought would have been
rabies, but I wasn’t so sure that’s what was going on. 
    Rifle sighted in on the leader’s head, I reflected that I
had the same problem now that I’d had with the bear I’d encountered in
Tennessee.  The M4 rifle does not fire a heavy bullet.  Certainly wouldn’t be
my choice for trying to take down a 300 pound wild hog.  Or three of the damn
beasts.  With my thumb I checked to ensure the fire selector was set to burst,
then decided to try something a little more devastating.
    Moving slowly so I didn’t trigger an attack, I reached to a
pouch on my vest and pulled out a grenade.  Carefully I pulled the pin and let
the spoon release into my hand rather than spin away and clank across the
pavement.  As soon as the spoon came off the actuator I started counting.  At
three and a half I tossed the baseball sized explosive at the razorbacks.  I
was too damn close for this, but I needed a knockout punch on the half ton of
pork that looked like it was ready to charge.
    I followed the grenade with my eyes, trying to time my move
with its arrival on target.  I had tossed it underhand with a high arc so it
would come down in the middle of them.  If I had timed it right it