The Holocaust Engine, page 35
Reagan fired at Lucifer from a Weaver stance. He missed.
Thorpe emptied his thoughts, drew the FN 5.7 with the laser sight from his holster, and dropped down onto his right knee, his left forward so far that it looked as though he were airborne, suspended above a hurdle at a track event. His arms locked out like steel pistons and he fired from left to right—two to the chest, one to the head of Razor; two to the chest, one severing the right ear of Lucifer. He then paused to gain his sight picture, adjusted for the distance, and put seven rounds into the midsection of Colossus. He then dropped his clip and popped in another.
Razor was down.
Lucifer had dropped to his knees, holding his chest, blood dripping out of the missing ear.
Colossus sneered and whipped the barrel around.
“Take cover!” Thorpe yelled.
September 16
Two of them jumped the retaining wall. We had heard them splashing, one man and one woman—both soaking wet, both out of their heads, both coming at us.
Wisdom dropped them, using nearly an entire mag to get them both on the ground, while yelling at the deputy with the shotgun to hold fire. We were going to need those slugs.
I couldn’t see the guy with the chains, but I knew what he was doing: he was preparing to charge.
I knew most of the action had shifted somewhere else, so I ran over to the van, using the reprieve to get it back in play. We couldn’t go east, which meant we had to get back around the garbage truck and the Twos.
I wore out Murphy on the phone. “Hit it! Hit it right now!”
Wallace and I didn’t say anything to each other. No time. Even without Chain-Boy, we’d have more Ones on us any second. We gave each other a look and ran to the back. He threw open the doors and we both started pulling Kevlar off the crying, sick patients. We were still wedging them under the back tires when Wisdom shouted. I thought our guy had started to charge. I was wrong. It was worse.
When I made it back to the ‘Cat, I saw the garbage truck moving, thick black smoke coming out of its overhead exhaust pipes, the front grill hanging off and dragging on the pavement. The guy with the chains hung onto the back. Gollum was still alive, and driving.
“I’ve got it,” the Eve-thing shouted. “Let’s call him Mr. Clean.” She laughed.
“Murphy!”
He said something, but the idiot with the shotgun fired and I couldn’t hear. Fifty yards. Forty. I kept yelling for him to repeat. Finally, I heard him.
“I said, get down!”
I dove for the deputy with the empty rifle as the missile whooshed in. The front end exploded and I was thrown back, mid dive. It knocked all of us over. The front end of the garbage truck vanished—just pieces of the motor and tires, part of one on fire, the flame appearing and disappearing with every turn of the wheel. The wreckage rolled straight at us, then turned and went off the road, maybe fifty feet down the beach, and finally got stuck in the sand just before the water.
The Eve-thing screamed.
“We got one,” the deputy with the shotgun muttered from his back. “We got one.”
From Eve-thing’s reaction, I figured it was true. I jumped up into the back of the ‘Cat and got in her face. I shouldn’t have, but she was so far under my skin that I wasn’t thinking clearly. Right in front of her nose, I yelled at her about how it felt.
All of the sudden, she stopped screaming, opened her eyes and said, “Oh, I’m not mourning him.” Her face got all pouty. “I’m sad for you, Perry.”
She grinned at the wreckage, and I turned.
Mr. Clean had jumped out the back, and now charged straight at us, chains wrapped all up his arms, about five feet of it, with some sort of weight dangling from both ends.
Vera watched in horror.
“Aw, sweet puppy,” said the one with the thick beard, dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt. It made a clicking sound with its mouth and held out its hand. This one had no visible sign of infection.
Maximus was not fooled. He lunged and locked his teeth into the thing’s arm, and then pulled it to the ground. The thing tried to pull him into a bear hug, but Maximus had gone utterly wild, jerking his body as it moved up the thing’s head and began to savage its face.
Vera, knowing Maximus wouldn’t last long, grabbed the knife out of her boot holster. Something latched onto her wrist.
Thyroid, looking straight at her, blood all down his face, began to pry the knife out of her hands.
“Chris! Chris!”
Too late. He was up.
The thing with the beard shot upward onto its feet, pulled Maximus off its face, and threw the dog, slamming his body against the wall just inside the entrance to the hanger. Maximus lay motionless on the ground.
“Look what you did to my face,” the thing screamed, a flap of cheek hanging loose. “My beautiful face.”
When it turned, Thyroid had closed to within twenty feet.
Vera looked all around for anything she might use as a weapon, but Thyroid had stopped. For a moment Vera thought he wouldn’t make it another step. Then she realized that the thing wasn’t moving either. The two of them simply stared at one another. Seconds passed, and for a wild moment, everything stopped, as if some sort of contest were taking place. She couldn’t make sense of it.
Finally, Thyroid moved, and pointed at it, his finger held still. “You... whatever you are... in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of him. Do it! Do it now.”
The thing’s eyes narrowed, its chin dropped, and it shook its head. “Sorry, kiddo, it doesn’t work like that.”
Thyroid lowered his arm uncertainly and turned. “Vera?” His expression was grave. “Tell Hunter... they’re not just infected. They aren’t human anymore. This must have been what Granny tried to tell us.”
The thing surged forward and caught Thyroid just as he was turning back. They rolled together on the ground.
Vera ran. Out of corner of her eye she saw Maximus, now back up, closing as well. They arrived at the same time, Maximus tearing into its shoulder, Vera raking her nails across its eyes.
It knocked her off and reached again for her dog. Then it stood straight up, and Maximus fell and went for a leg. Vera could only see it from the side, standing over Thyroid, straddling the boy, and it reached for its beard, ignoring the dog tearing at its legs. It staggered off of Thyroid, and Vera realized what was happening. She got back her feet and ran straight at him. Right as she made contact, she wound up with her right arm and slapped, straight up, with all her strength. Behind the beard her palm contacted the hilt of her dagger, where Thyroid had lodged it up under his chin.
Its head jerked, and the thing tottered backwards. For a moment, it managed to straighten and look straight at her, and Maximus let go of its leg. He backed up and tried to open its lips, but the dagger, now driven through the roof of its mouth, held it shut. Its eyes rolled back.
At the very moment it fell to the ground, Maximus yelped as if something had startled it from behind.
Lindsey MC was not good at war. When the monsters had attacked and Face turned on his flamethrower, she’d left her position on the flank. It looked so cool. Out from the side, she could see how far the jet of flame traveled, but standing behind him, it just looked like a blossom that stopped right in front of his hose. She’d laughed to herself and was looking for someone to share this with when the tank exploded.
When she regained consciousness, Mr. Gray, wearing a Nixon mask, had begun to rape her. They were in one of the hangers, in the backseat of some weird-looking truck, and he’d taken her pants off.
Lindsey MC was not good at hand to hand combat either. She squirmed and kicked, and tried a head butt when he came close, but he beat her bloody. He held her wrists down and leered over her while she grew weaker and weaker. She even tried to knee him in the back, but it was useless. He straddled her waist in the padded bench seat covered with a plastic tarp, and choked her nearly unconscious. Again and again, he did this, laughing as her vision faded, each time stopping in the moment before it all went black, while the bullets cracked outside and an explosion shook the truck.
Unfortunately for the entity called Mr. Gray, Lindsey MC was particularly good at one thing, and that one thing was murder. She had a natural aptitude that she might never have discovered if it had not been for the outbreak and for the Wharf Rats. And, as with most natural aptitudes, the utilization of this gift gave her great pleasure.
Mr. Gray realized this as he thrust himself inside of her and noticed her grinning up at him. But by then it was too late, because by then he’d already made forceful contact with Lindsey MC’s diaphragm and the stainless-steel razor blade embedded in its center. And even though pain was not its master, it shivered and lost its grip on the girl’s arms.
She jumped up and, with one hand, roughly pulled down its gray hood. Before it could properly react, she used both her hands to do something right below the level of its mask. When it did look down, it became aware that she’d taken her watch off and was twisting it, right below his chin, over and over.
The thing’s body could not distinguish this new pain. It never realized that a piano wire was being tightened around its neck.
Lindsey MC was a natural, and the wire was not digging into the back of its vertebrae. It was between them, digging down into the spinal cord itself, and as it became paralyzed, its blood soaking its clothes, the seat, and the girl, it could only gaze into the eyes of Lindsey MC’s and listen to her sharp laughter.
September 16
I never should have given that idiot the shotgun. He missed every damn shot and was trying to get another in the pipe when it hit us. Me, Wisdom, and Santiago, coming around the street side, had all scored hits, but nothing to the face. It ran with its arms in front of its face. One of the shots actually ricocheted off of the arm chains.
[6-second delay, heavy breathing audible]
I saw the weights as it swung. One was spiked. The other had a kind of saw blade welded on the top of the ball, like a Mohawk on a little metal head. The thing flailed. It killed the rifle deputy instantly. The saw-ball caught Wisdom on top of a shoulder and put him on the ground.
[8-second delay, breathing becoming more rapid]
It had shortened up on the spike ball and just repeatedly slammed it down on the other deputy. Smash, smash, smash.
Eve-thing yelled at me, “Shoot it in the head! Shoot it in the head!”
I wasn’t but a few feet away, in the back of the truck, gun even with his face. I went for an eye, caught it on the forehead, at the hairline. Then my slide locked back—totally out.
Eve-thing sighed, as if we were at the carnival and I had just missed the prize.
The thing looked up at me, one arm still out to the side where the chain connected to my friend’s shoulder.
I charged. He was big, but I knocked him off his feet and shimmied up his body so the vest was pushing down on his face and he couldn’t bite me. I pulled out my knife and started ramming it into the top of his head, over and over. The hit must have pulled the ball loose, because he had both arms free. He grabbed me around the waist, and though he only squeezed for a second, I felt my back pop. I thought it was broken, thought I was paralyzed.
It had to let go then, because Wisdom had taken one of the balls....
[Words inaudible, sounds of hyperventilation]
It knocked us both off, and we went flying. A chopper buzzed overhead, and a sniper shot but missed by a good five feet. All that wind. Damn fools.
Then Vic’s deputy with the rifle got a hit, right in the face—side angle, across the eyes—got both eyeballs and the bridge of its nose.
It looked straight at him. I swear it did. Even with nothing there. It looked straight at him and ran and knocked him down and dug its teeth right into the man’s neck. I’ll never forget it, the way the flesh on the deputy’s neck bulged around its jaws, while its teeth just sunk in... just sunk in and closed, and then it arched up and spit out the guy’s larynx.
Billy thought, in retrospect, that running to intercept the two Twos coming from the Salt Ponds had been a mistake. Billy and Shawn both had pistols, and waited until they were close before firing, but they didn’t hit anything.
The one with long hair and all the gold stuff, Marcus, had just run straight at him, cat-rolled at the last second, and buried a switchblade deep into Billy’s stomach. It left the knife in him and kept running toward the others. It never even slowed down.
Lying there with a knife he could not get out of his abdomen, Billy had watched while Shawn had fought the other Two hand-to-hand, and as Face’s gas tank had burst. He kept turning from the one side to the others, fully expecting to see his friends on the ground, dying, with each turn.
Only Hunter Grant still stood on the runway—four to one, still fighting, shield up, Defiance flying. God, he was magnificent. Tears welled-up in Billy’s eyes, and it had nothing to do with the pain in his gut.
On the other side, Shawn had Salamander at a standstill. Shirtless and wearing wetsuit leggings, the thing had fired a spear gun straight at Shawn, and missed. Shawn, moving wildly, had dodged it, and now the two fought with knives. Salamander kept trying to get its body into him, but Shawn sidestepped it every time. He kept moving, and every time the creature closed, Shawn went for its weapons. Salamander’s knife arm had been cut to ribbons.
He could never last, though, and Billy knew it. If Shawn died, he was going to die like a Wharf Rat, fighting to the very last like Hunter Grant. Billy felt all around him for the pistol. He found the handle, gripped it, and tried to get up, but a hot iron burned through the center of his body. He tried to pull the knife out, but even touching it brought more agony than he could bear.
In the distance, Shawn took a punch, another, and a then a swinging backhand that caught him right on the chin. Shawn hit the ground.
Billy gritted his teeth. He only had seconds. He gripped his own abdomen, around the protruding hilt, with his left hand, and gripped the pistol with his right. A scream caught in his throat as he rose.
The pain rendered him senseless. Far ahead, he could see the body of his friend being dragged toward the Salt Ponds. Behind him came gunfire and the sound of a bomb blast. He staggered forward.
In his head, a guitar riff cut through the haze—then bass, drums, a voice. The pain lessened, and Billy managed a limping skip, almost a jog.
Salamander didn’t turn. He had Shawn over his shoulder as he walked him down into the brackish water.
The lyrics told him what to do.
Billy never slowed down at the water’s edge. He paid no attention to the bloated, long-dead body floating face down in the shallows. He skipped through the water until he was up to his waist and then he dove. He no longer felt the knife. There was no pain—only the music, hammering his skull:
Face... Face... Face!
Shoot him in his fucking... Face... Face... Face!
Each time a crescendo rose on the “Face.” Billy could hardly see. He had to let go of his gut so that he could paddle with a hand and a pistol. The pond was not large. He didn’t go far. There, ahead and to the left, he saw Shawn, bubbles rising out of his mouth, and Salamander, Indian style on the bottom, blood streaming up from his arm like red smoke, looking up at his victim like a child watching fireworks.
Billy knew he needed air, but the music.... The music.
Face... Face... Face!
It had to be obeyed.
Salamander’s head jerked toward him, and it showed teeth.
Face... Face... Face!
It let go of Shawn, and then Salamander and Billy Blankenship reached for each other. Billy wondered if the gun would even fire under water.
Face... Face... Face!
Lacewood went to Glen ‘Face’ Waldron’s lifeless body. The sobbing caught in his throat and never came out as a sound. Face’s expression... his expression as the bullets had trailed up to him and hit the fuel tank. They had been doing so well, winning the fight. Who would ever have expected a homemade flamethrower?
Face was a genius.
And now Face was gone, burned to char, his body curled up fetal, like a child sleeping.
Carter Lacewood desperately needed to hold someone, to be held. He needed another Rat to tell him how to cry, how to make any sound at all. He looked all around, and saw fires and metal wreckage and a bright yellow car with smoke coming from its hood, and two men standing over another. It took him a moment to realize that one of the men standing was Hunter Grant. Just the sight of Hunter, still alive, took the emotion out of his throat and let him breathe again.
A chopper circled in the distance.
Lacewood staggered up behind Hunter and grabbed his shoulder. The other boy spun and, for a moment, Lacewood thought Hunter would hit him with Defiance.
Hunter’s mouth was moving, but no sound came.
Lacewood recognized the other man as Reagan the Commando. His mouth was moving too.
It was then that Lacewood realized that he couldn’t hear. He looked down to see both of his hands scraped and bleeding, and one of his legs didn’t move right. Hunter shook him, and he could easily let himself pass out, but.... He could not. He steeled himself and tried to make sense out of the lips and gestures. Hunter wanted something—something that Lacewood should be carrying.
The rifle!
Lacewood had never seen the man on the ground before. This man was shouting up at Reagan, and Reagan was shouting back.
Lacewood started back to where he had been lying on the ground. He remembered the place in front of the hanger, where Colossus had fired the gun and Lacewood had startled, but Colossus was not there, just a section of cement that was blackened and bowed up like a giant mole hill.
He turned around to see that the one on the ground was still yelling, as Hunter had gone over to a body and started hitting it in the head with Defiance.
