The Holocaust Engine, page 33
All the girls they freed that night spent time in the hospital wing. When they were released, the Rats found all their families. Abby’s brought her back a week later, saying she was still sick and that, if they were really a hospital, there should be something they could do to help her.
She was better with Thyroid. She didn’t scream at night if he held her, and he kept her busy during the days. Thyroid seemed to Vera to have an uncanny sense for people. He started to work on Abby by assigning her to watch Lindsey MC, to keep her from ingesting any more poisons. The next step was to set her up with an entirely new wardrobe, picked from a clothing store in Old Town while the Rats guarded the front. Now she once again wore dresses, usually with long sleeves and a high collar that covered the worst of her scars. She worked in the hospital wing delivering food and changing bedding, and she smiled when she spoke to you, but if you talked to her long enough, she would answer you with a sentence that had nothing to do with the conversation. Maybe her mind would someday return to its fully functioning self. Maybe not.
Vera envied Thyroid his easy faith. She wanted to believe, to make her husband happy and share this aspect of his life. She wanted to hear the voice of God.
In three months of marriage, her life had changed forever. She could only remember the time before as a kind of diffuse collection of images, mostly painful. She rarely spoke harshly anymore. She couldn’t manipulate Hunter, and so she simply stopped trying. This was hardly a burden, as she didn’t need to control him. Mostly she could just ask for whatever she wanted. They rarely argued, and she couldn’t stay mad at him. In fact, the only times she got mad at him were when he took foolish chances—except for the time he’d insisted they give Cleo to Reagan because they owed him—and even if she wanted to be angry, the feeling always washed away when they were in their room together at night, and her husband turned over in bed and began kissing her. Vera Krasinski had hated her body, but Vera Grant didn’t mind hers at all. It made sense to her in the way that it fitted together with her husband’s.
Lindsey MC had assured her that love only lasted for a few months, after which you got really mad at each other and he started to beat the shit out of you. Lindsey assured Vera that they were still friends, and when her husband starting hitting her, they could find something and get wasted.
Vera knew that would never happen. Hunter would never hit her. Something inside of him was permanent and immortal. It would not change, not in a few months or even in a few decades. If either of them were to drastically change, it would have to be her.
One night, she decided to pray while her husband showered under the bucket apparatus that Face had made for them after the power went out. It was hot and she only had a single candle for light. Terrance lay on the bed, while Maximus and his girlfriend Patrice, the dappled Pointer/Labrador mix that the Twins had traded for from the White Street Pier Confine, lay together on the floor.
Terrance had been wheezing in his sleep, not even walking down the stairs anymore to go outside, and she knew that he would probably die soon. While she was offering a clumsy attempt at sounding like her husband up to God, Terrance stood. He jumped down from the bed and tottered over to the door as if someone were there. Vera picked up the candle and looked over at the other dogs, but not only were they not barking—which they usually did if someone was at the door—but they were both on their feet, panting, their tongues lolling out of their mouths like they did if they were about to get fed.
Vera opened the door and looked out in the hall. Empty. She looked down to see Terrance sitting on his rear, snorting every so often, the way Granny had told her he used to do when he was younger and was waiting for her to come home. Vera almost picked him up, but thought twice about it while holding the candle, because Sri had told them all a hundred times how careful they had to be with open flames. She walked past the place where the dogs were still sitting up and looking at her, and back at the door. Then Maximus let out a little whine, and Vera set the candle back in its stand. When she turned around, Terrance was gone. She ran back to the door, candle in hand, and looked out into the hall. It took her a moment to notice him lying there by the wall, and another to notice that he was dead.
They buried him on the side lawn, under the hedges. When they went back to the room, while her husband got ready for bed, Vera tried the door.
She let go of it and it shut. She opened it let go of it again, looking at the automatic door closer, and it shut again. It worked every time. Then she went to the bed and lay down, thinking it through.
She had let go, and the door had closed with Terrance still inside. She’d set the candle down and looked back, and the door was still closed but Terrance was gone. If someone had opened it, Maximus and Patrice would have barked a warning, but they had remained quiet. In fact, they still had the same expectant look on their faces, as if something wonderful were passing by and they wanted desperately to go and be a part of it, but they couldn’t. They had been told to stay.
Vera sat down on the bed and began to cry. When Hunter came to console her and ask what was wrong, she patted the arm around her to show that everything was all right, but she couldn’t look at him. Not yet.
She understood. She’d been praying that, if God were out there, that He would show her a sign that everything was going to be okay. God had given His sign, and she could almost hear it, a voice somehow distinct from her own thoughts.
There is something wonderful on the other side of the door, and one day you and your husband will both understand, but not yet. Not yet. And I’m so sorry, Vera, but the other shoe that you have always been so afraid of is about to drop.
The Run
Quarantine Zone
“Cas, are you up?”
Reagan wanted to say no to Krissy, but what would have been the point?
Derrick Adisa and Jay Bradford had already gotten up and headed down to breakfast with Ricky. Papp was still sleeping, having helped the previous night when one of the tent posts snapped.
Reagan himself had been awake for over an hour, after another nightmare of the hospital getting hit, he and the fighters trying to hold The Dragon and its creations off long enough for Mary and the others to escape. Men had dropped all around him, but nothing slowing those creatures down. Derrick had lost his courage and ran, and Reagan and Ricky sprinted after him, the two of them stumbling over the bodies of their friends, every doorway cut off by another of the monsters.
He glanced around the room. He’d shoved his air mattress up against the wall, under the window, shading him from the morning light. Strong winds blew through the empty window frame, wiggling the clothes and bedding that four grown men and one little boy had left scattered over the room.
When he didn’t open his eyes, Krissy dropped her dog on him, and Keebs went immediately to work on his face.
“All right, all right, that’s enough with the tongue.”
“Dr. Thorpe wants to talk to you.” Her shirt was black with sequins, her bottoms jean shorts. She’d spent time on her hair. Krissy Stratton was no longer self-conscious about her scar—Reagan wouldn’t tell her, but he actually liked it. A two-pronged fork of smooth white skin started right below the eye and traveled down the cheek, breaking up the naive symmetry of her features. She looked strong now. Her old expressions of superiority—such as the one on her face just then—now looked like a tough girl’s displeasure: Get your ass in gear, soldier.
Krissy had painstakingly cut her dog’s hair down to the size of a beagle’s. With a white body and brown face, except for a stripe of white running down its nose, Keebs always looked to be smiling.
Reagan threw off the sheets and got up from his air mattress.
Keebs leaned up against his left leg and stretched out the way she often did, natural selection turned for cuteness and shows of affection.
“He’s going to want you to take him to the bridge,” said Krissy.
“No, he’s going to want me to take him to the battle,” said Reagan, taking swim trunks from his side of the chair. “Do you mind?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s after eight o’clock. The Republic could start out at any minute.”
Reagan shrugged and dropped his boxers.
At that moment, Ricky appeared in the doorway, took one look at Reagan naked, Krissy appraising him with her arms folded, and turned mechanically, going back the way he came.
“Trust me, the last bureaucracy on the island won’t head out anytime soon,” said Reagan, pulling up his swim trunks. “First, they’ve got to form the committee to decide when to start.”
“So are you taking him?”
“Yeah.”
“Do we need to get the truck ready?”
“It wouldn’t be the worst idea you’ve ever had.” Reagan buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his khaki shorts. Then he clipped in his holster and began to stretch on the uncluttered patch of floor by the bathroom.
Keebs took advantage and lay on her back in front of him.
“Little bastard,” he said, and rubbed her belly.
“D will want to come.”
“Out of the question.”
“Why? Because only Big Bad Reagan can face The Dragon?”
“No, because the last time we did a head count, we were down to seventeen commandos and orderlies who could still fight. Total. Lose me and it’s sixteen. We can’t afford to throw anyone away at this point.”
“He won’t take no.”
“Sure he will. He’s got to keep an eye on you if he ever wants to get himself some Krissy Stratton, doesn’t he?”
“Oh please.”
For a moment, they simply looked at each other.
Finally, Krissy shook her head and said, “Don’t expect me to act sad or anything.”
“You know what’s funny is that, according to Facebook, we’re still in a relationship.”
It took her a moment to think of a barb, and before she could let it fly, Reagan got up, headed for the door, and placed a finger over her lips, “No, no, like this....” He went back into the room for his shoes and said, “You know all the stuff I kept bringing in on my own, and everyone kept getting mad that I was making runs by myself, and asking how I kept pulling it off?”
“Yeah.”
“I wasn’t going over to Key West like I said. I hit a bunch of stores our first night on the island, stuffed it all in some garbage bags, and hid it all in some of the sand traps on the golf course. There are still a few things out there. The Rickster has a map.”
“Mother fucker!”
“Speaking of The Rickster, would you mind keeping an eye on him while we’re gone? This day would be even more depressing if we get out there and find him hiding in the trunk of our car.”
As she shook her head and moved to leave, Papp sat up, now awake. “Don’t let Thorpe get you killed.”
“Promise. Only Krissy can get me killed,” he said loudly in the direction of the footsteps down the hall.
“Do you have everything?”
“Hang on. Gun... check. Gloves... check. Colostomy bag in case Mr. Gray gets a hold of me... check.”
Papp shook his head. “How do you do it? You and the jokes. I wish I could. All I can think about now is maybe I should be the one that drives the truck.”
“Well,” Reagan said with a single sniff. “Maybe after today, no one will have to drive it.”
Reagan Castaneda and the man known to the hospital survivors as Dr. Thorpe, dressed just as he’d been dressed two days before, walked out into the circle drive. Reagan held his shoes in his hand as they went past the freshly splinted tent post, past the beds and everyone too sick or too hurt to make it to the cafeteria for another of Mary Stratton’s breakfast specials, past the lines of laundry, and even the waste holes and the line of cars, out nearly to the fence. Reagan stopped in front of a bright yellow sports car.
“What are you doing?”
Reagan whistled, out a breath. “I’ve never driven a Corvette before. What do you say?”
He drove them to the gate, and once the guards silently rolled the two pickups that formed the gate out of the way, they parked on the street not more than thirty feet outside the car wall. Reagan rolled down the windows, and the passenger compartment instantly became a wind tunnel.
“You’ll want to be able to hear what’s going on,” he said. “Trust me.”
Thorpe, his real name of Haney known only to Reagan, stared at him for a long moment. “Are you going to put on your shoes?”
“Later. I don’t want them to get all sweaty.”
Thorpe looked away. “Take a bit of advice from someone who has done this a time or two. It sounds all Buddhist, but trust me, it helps. You’re thinking about the fight. Don’t think about the fight. The fight will only last a few minutes. Don’t think about the few minutes. Think about something good you’re going to do after. Then just think about what it’s going to take to get there. Think of it like a game. Think competitive and how you’re not going to let these assholes keep you from getting the win.”
“If only you knew.”
“I know. Oh, maybe not whatever this Lucifer guy does—”
“He held one guy down and killed him by squirting wasp spray up his nose. He killed another with a big-ass syringe loaded with sea water or some shit.”
“Okay,” Thorpe said, nodding, “That’s fucked up, I admit, but combat is combat, kiddo. Whether it’s a syringe or a Taliban sawing through your neck, it’s all the same at the end.”
Reagan considered as he put on his shoes.
Thorpe glanced all around. “What do you think is happening on the other side of the island?”
Reagan shrugged. “If Needle-Dick over at the Republic confine holds true to character, then he’s checking and rechecking some overly complicated plan that’s about to turn into a shit show.”
Thorpe shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. If they have armored vehicles, they should just spread out, form three or four separate convoys—north, south, middle. How are nine guys and one heavy gun going to stop all that?”
“The Dragon is the biggest problem by far, but not the only one. Needle-Dick is a bastard, but he’s not stupid.” Reagan nodded to the west. “He’s only got two ways to go, and one of them means fighting the squatters in New Town. No... he’s going to push south. It’s mostly open on that side, and your air cover should have a nice clean shot unless The Dragon and his boys wiped out the entire Sheraton Confine and set up in there. Nah... I think we would have heard that. Don’t you get any intel on that phone of yours?”
“All clear for the last 48 hours.”
“Did they give you anything on Protest City before you dropped?”
Thorpe snorted. “Kid, I’d never even heard of a confine before I met you people. They showed me a couple hours of aerial footage, with heat signatures running around like ants. A couple of them were strange. You’d see one close on another, then throw it twenty feet through the air. But no, I don’t know anything about Protest City.”
“They’ve been quiet for awhile,” said Reagan, reflectively. “I wish I knew why.”
“We’re focusing on getting through today. Remember? Tell me something useful about his men.”
Reagan pushed back in his seat and stretched his shoulders. “All of them have weapons, but only Razor is any good with his. It looks like one of those oversized swords, if you’ve ever seen one of those funky Japanese cartoons. I think it used to be propeller blade. They like to go hands on. With all that adrenaline running through them, they just want to tear into you, but the smaller ones aren’t that dangerous throwing punches. They’re all strong, but the little guys can’t get enough weight behind their blows. Don’t let any of them grab you, though, big or small. If they do, you have maybe a couple seconds. Their grip just gets tighter and tighter and then it’s all over. If Colossus hits you, you’re dead.”
“The one who picked up the car?”
“Minivan. He turned it over on its side while one of our people was using it for cover.”
“Fuck... me.”
“The last time I saw him, he had bits of skin falling off every time he moved. Not fun to look at.”
“All those pictures looked like they were taken at night. How’d you guys get ’em?”
“A couple kids over at the DoubleTree hotel rigged up a security camera. Battery powered. You can carry it. They gave it to us, and one of our people got the shots over a period of a few days.”
Thorpe nodded.
Reagan glanced down on Thorpe. “So what’s so special about your gun?”
Thorpe reached into his belt and pulled out a gun that looked like something out of a science fiction flick.
Reagan recognized the cylinder under the gun barrel as a laser sight.
“The gun is nice,” said Thorpe, “but it’s the bullets that are supposed to be special. They’re loaded with a nerve toxin. The guy at HQ told me that unless these dudes have some radical difference in their basic biology, it should drop them in a matter of seconds.”
“Huh.” Reagan considered it. “Okay, might be worth a try. Better than what we had planned.”
“What’s that?”
“This old box truck we used to drive around.”
“You gonna try and run ’em over?”
“No. We loaded two hundred pounds of fertilizer into the back and turned the whole thing into a giant bomb.”
Thorpe stared.
Reagan shrugged. “When Doc White said we’ve tried everything, he meant it. We’ve tried everything.”
September 16
It took the better part of the morning to get our sick stowed away in the van and settled for the trip. Kimmie Bartlett threw up and we had to clean it out and try again. I got away for a few minutes on the beach—just a few minutes alone with my Angie. I won’t say what we said to each other. It’s personal—father and daughter—because I had a feeling that I’d never see her again. If something happened to me, what would that mean for her?
I don’t remember most of the speech I gave, just a few choice lines that I thought up the night before instead of sleeping, a little cop-speak for old times’ sake. I think I quoted Vince Lombardi at one point. My one inspiration was the very last.
