The Holocaust Engine, page 36
And he understood.
Carter Lacewood understood stories. He understood the way that events connected to other events, and right at that moment, his mind took the various pieces all around him and assembled them into a single, coherent narrative.
Colossus was gone, blown to bits—a bomb, a missile from the chopper. The man on the ground was a new commando. He was with Reagan somehow, came with him to help, but this one had been wounded—burns and a bright red oval on his leg.
Debris from the missile?
Something had killed Razor—should have killed. That’s why they were shouting. They didn’t believe Razor was dead, or at least they wanted to make sure. This new one wanted something else. The bodies. He wanted the bodies intact, and now Reagan had a finger in his face and was keeping him on the ground, and was probably going to punch him if he tried to stop Defiance.
Why did he think that Razor should be dead? That was the part that didn’t make any sense. Was he new to the island? Did he not understand that the Twos were unkillable? At least... so far they had been, but if Razor was going to get back up, he was going to have to do it without a head. Defiance had reduced it to mush.
Hunter Grant seemed satisfied. He was walking away, looking over to where Reagan kept the other commando on the ground. He walked toward another one, and Lacewood had to move to see.
Oh God.
He shouted—hoped that he shouted.
Hunter Grant turned as the other one was already getting back to his feet.
The other one.
Lucifer.
It lifted something that Lacewood first took for a club. Then it pulled at it with both hands and it unrolled in front of him.
It was plastic wrap.
September 16
It... it... it... it knocked me down again. I caught part of the swinging chain, knocked out two of my teeth.
Vic had a One, slamming its head down on the street. Koz held his hand where the Chain-thing had bit him. Santiago grabbed Koz’s chewed up pinky and held it down on the sand, and was about to blow it off with his last bullet.
The sniper... the fucking sniper took another errant shot, and I felt that thing grab my shirt and twist, and I knew it was taking aim with Koz’s pistol... and....
[16-second delay, audible crying]
Wisdom hit it. He knocked it off of me.
[13-second delay, audible crying]
When I saw them, that thing and what was left of its face lay on its back. Wisdom... Matt... he had it... but really, it had him. Both men had pistols. Both had grabbed the other one’s gun arm with their own arm... forced by that thing... and they just held like that... craning their wrists around to get a shot.
[10-second delay]
Then they fired, both of them, over and over, like two wooden ships... firing off broadsides, point blank, spraying blood all around them. I could see the pieces of their bodies getting blown off. His face. His hair. Matt... he kept firing, four or five shots, until his gun clicked.
Every bullet had hit it in the head. There was nothing left. When it let go, Matt dropped on top of it.
He didn’t....
I couldn’t....
Thorpe watched as the chopper’s tail dipped suddenly. With wisps of smoke all over, it revved its motor and slanted hard over the buildings.
Radio: “—Heavy gunfire from the runway.”
“Where,” shouted Thorpe, almost delirious from pain and blood loss. “We need to know where!”
Too much haze. Can’t get a visual.
Sergeant Douglas Haney, AKA “Doctor Thorpe,” had a problem: he needed at least two squads of combat-class troops, and at least one good armored assault vehicle, and he needed them right now. He didn’t care what the idiot Major said—these were U.S. citizens. He was fighting enemy combatants on U.S. soil, and kids—these were just kids—were dying all around him. On top of that, a couple mags loaded with full jackets would be nice. The last poison bullet he’d put into “Lucifer” hadn’t even slowed him down.
What he did have was one deaf kid, with a .223—eleven bullets left—who was a lousy shot. He had another kid with a riot shield and baseball bat, who would not follow orders, one unarmed girl with a dog that was not moving draped over her lap, and one karate-dude with a pistol who couldn’t hit the broad side of the airport terminal where they currently took cover.
On the runway, a tiny sports car had been hit with .50 caliber rounds, and might or might not run. No one wanted to find out because somewhere in the midst of wreckage and debris was the last place they’d seen Lucifer, the Bontrager’s guy that looked like a 70’s pickup artist. On the other side of the runway, two more kids were laid out next to an inland pond, moving just enough that spotters could tell they were alive. And somewhere amongst all of this was another girl—this one missing—whom Bat-Boy would not leave without.
And he had already passed out once.
“All right,” he yelled.
The boy with the AR stood at the door that led out onto the Tarmac.
On the other side, the boy with the shield knelt protectively covering the girl and her dog.
Reagan stood above Thorpe.
Thorpe looked up. “This is the deal. We have to get those two from the other side of the runway, find the girl, and move... at least three wounded out of the combat zone. In other words,” he said, and pushed himself upright with his back to the wall. “We need a car.”
“I’ll take him,” Reagan said in Lacewood’s direction.
“Not the two-seater, Fuckwit. We need the armored car. Someone has to go down to the beach, rendezvous with whatever is left of the convoy, and get that son of a bitch up here where it can do some good.”
“Still has to be me.”
“Yeah, well, I’d offer, but I think you’re probably getting sick of carrying me all over the place.”
It made sense. The kid with the bat could fight, no question. Reagan had called him Hunter somewhere along the way. A name? A description? Didn’t matter; either way, it seemed appropriate. By Thorpe’s count, Lucifer had at least three separate concussions. Both Reagan and Hunter had fought him after he first unrolled the plastic sheeting and got the jump on Hunter, wrapping the plastic around his face. Thorpe could see the boy’s mouth frozen wide open. After Reagan knocked the thing off the boy, it had tried to do the same to him, but no luck—that kid Hunter could move. He kept changing tactics—and Thorpe made a note of this: outside, inside, takedown, moving, always moving. The one thing the kid could not seem to do was pair-up with the other kid to combine their attacks; he kept getting in the other one’s way. Finally, Thorpe had gotten a clean shot and hit the thing in a kidney. That was it. It ducked behind the pickup.
There was no question of trying to finish it off. At that point, the girl with the dog was screaming for her man, and her man had not yet noticed that he had three bullet holes in the back of his shirt. Not wounded, though—he had some sort of heavy black ceramic vest, probably police issue, but he’d taken rounds all the same, just as with the chopper.
The Dragon was still out there, and Thorpe didn’t have a vest. Neither did Reagan.
September 16
I don’t think I ever lost consciousness. 10:30 in the morning turned to the last minutes of twilight in my fading vision, and I writhed like a crab trying to get back onto my feet. Next thing I know, I’m looking at the face of Eve Daniels... except that it’s not Eve. Officer Eve Daniels would never have smiled like that. Her face sank into mine and I felt my lips tingle.
If I had a heating iron I would have burned them off right then and there.
When I did get back up, it was because of Santiago. He grabbed me and hoisted me up, and ran alongside me to the street. Vic Wallace ran past, headed the other way. I tried to tell my officer that we had to move the sick, but my mouth was full of blood and I swallowed some trying to talk. We crossed a patch of grass, and he said something about my back. Then he handed me off.
They put me on a mattress atop a wooden cot. It was too thin to provide much comfort, but I wasn’t feeling much of anything anymore. Two of them took me to a pastel-colored ambulance. No, not an ambulance, but something bigger, held up by tires that looked like overinflated balloons.
There were people—voices—all around. I could hear a high-pitched woman complaining about all the sand on the wound. Hands fumbled at my Kevlar vest, and I managed to turn my head as they lifted off the armor. I looked straight into the drawn features of the Malone girl, now lying on the carpet next to me. I wanted to feel for her. I wanted to mourn for my friend too, to think about his sacrifice, to well up with pride and mumble a few words. Elizabeth would probably want me to shed a tear.
All I could think of, though, was the Eve-thing’s smile leering down at me.
That and the other stretchers being lifted in behind me, guided by strong hands into metal slots along the interior of the ambulance.
All the while, a familiar man in dreadlocks and a white shirt spoke verbal notes into a hand-held recorder. My ride would cost $200 plus depreciation. There’s only one man in the Keys with a mind for price margins. I could have died there on the tarmac, bleeding my last onto the sand beside my best friend, but instead, Max was going to try and finish the run.
Carter Lacewood worked with Reagan Castaneda to clear the hall, the concourse, and the terminal of the tiny airport. Reagan had taken the pistol out of his waist holster and cleared corners and exits, and finally he and Lacewood had crouched all the way to the end of the check-in counter, clearing the opposite side in the glassed-in room with the model of an old-timey airplane hanging from the ceiling.
When they cleared the far side of the counter and stood up, they saw him.
He hadn’t been there before. Now he was, standing with his back to the exit doors, burns on his hair and his right cheek and part of his beard.
Lacewood knew the name: this was Marcus. He even knew that this one had been the leader of the Home Depot bikers before they were destroyed. He’d seen him on the runway before Face—his best friend Face—had sprayed his liquid flame, and died for spraying it.
Lacewood was no longer deaf, now able to hear a ringing that pulsed through his skull and drowned out everything else. Marcus said something, but Lacewood only saw lips moving. He imagined that Marcus was talking about him. He’d been there with his best friend Face, there when he was burned.
Marcus only stared at Reagan, though, and Reagan stared back.
As the story developed in his mind, Lacewood saw a different drama playing out. Marcus was goading, trying to get Reagan to come for him. Reagan could tell, though, and stood in front of the counter, his pistol holstered, wanting Marcus to make the first move. These two knew each other. No, that was wrong—Reagan’s face showed trepidation. They had encountered each other before. Reagan must have known something about him once, but now he was different, and the difference frightened him.
Lacewood didn’t understand it. The thing’s right eye moved independently of the left, and Reagan drew attention to this. Clearly, Reagan had done this; they’d fought before—maybe more than once.
While he watched this interplay, Lacewood tried to fit himself into the story. They had wanted him to go, to give his rifle to the injured commando, and to leave Hunter Grant and Vera. Why him? What good was he without the rifle? The only thing he could do now was....
Carter Lacewood chuckled to himself.
In the story of life, he’d always considered himself the main character. Everything that happened... happened because of how it moved his story. Hunter Grant came for him. The Wharf Rats moved in with him. The fighting took place around him. Face’s death was important because of the loss experienced by him. But as he assembled the story into a coherent narrative, a thought forced itself through the ringing: he was not the main character.
You’re the setup man.
In a blinding second, Lacewood thought about all the religious mumbo jumbo that he’d endured to make Hunter Grant happy, and wondered if this was what it really meant to see the face of God. Not to look at a giant set of eyes or a nose that gave off beams of light, but to realize that it’s not your book; you’re just a name on one of the pages. If all anyone were to do was look at the cover, they would never even consider him. He was so insignificant. But with the light on the page—on his page—with the people he cared about bleeding and dying on an island full of terrors, even his part—his tiny part—added something to the whole.
And so Carter Lacewood took the two hunting knives, which he’d sheathed on his belt because he thought they looked cool, and started forward at the creature that now turned to consider him.
I’m the setup man.
Lacewood chuckled to himself. “At least... I’m something.” He broke into a limping sprint, and engaged Marcus right in front of the glass, his arms windmilling.
Suddenly, Marcus no longer possessed the shape of a man. He was a blur of frenzied arms and legs, and a face that shuddered from side to side.
Lacewood fell onto his back, and felt a wetness on his forehead. He looked up in anticipation, his neck shaking, but Marcus couldn’t move in for the kill.
The story was reaching its climax. Reagan now had him.
Lacewood’s part was over. He could relax, think only about the pain and how awful and short life could be.
Reagan slammed knee after knee into the creature’s ribs. He timed his strikes—Lacewood found this amusing—so that every time Marcus tried to push forward, away from the metal beam in between the glass panes, another knee strike forced him back. Reagan delivered them like a drum beat: thump, thump, thump.
Fast, incredibly fast, Marcus slung a necklace over his head and around Reagan’s neck. Reagan’s face turned red but he didn’t panic. Instead, he moved in, worked his shoulder blade under the creature’s arm pit, and then spun in behind it. He grabbed Marcus around the waist in a single fluid motion, then turned, arched his powerful back, and drove the thing’s head down into the floor tiles.
Its body bucked and shook, and its limbs spasmed so violently next to where Lacewood lay that he had to fight to keep his eyes from protectively closing.
Reagan got up and, ignoring the thing’s flailing, punched it in the face—and again, and again. The fourth time, Marcus caught Reagan’s arm, but Reagan didn’t hesitate. He jumped, up and over, using the trapped arm like a pole stuck in the ground, and rotated over the creature’s body to land on the other side, where he raked its face with an elbow strike.
The thing caught this too. It had Reagan. Snared.
Reagan planted a leg onto the floor and pushed off. Lacewood could no longer see his face, with Reagan pinned in the vice-grip of Marcus’s arms, but his torso and legs vaulted up and over, up and around, up....
And then down.
Lacewood would never have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. The pendulum swing of Reagan’s legs ended and a knee struck downward, clacking against the creature’s head.
Still, the creature would not let go.
Reagan’s visible body now shook, his legs frozen in the air.
Lacewood shuddered to see such a magnificent fighter crushed in front of him, by a body Reagan had utterly destroyed yet still remained animated by some unknown evil. The wrongness of it all... the violation... his own contribution wasted... his friends lost....
Carter Lacewood found himself back on his feet, as if raised up by some unknown force, holding his shaking comrade around the waist. He clutched, shifted, pulled, and then Reagan was free, but seemed spent.
The pistol!
Lacewood pulled it out of Reagan’s holster, extended the gun, and fired into both of the creature’s eye sockets.
“One thing was certain, that the white kitten had nothing to do with it: it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.” ~ Lewis Carroll, “Alice in Wonderland”
The War Bus, Quarantine Zone
Day 100 and something
Did Nelson really not know where the Twos like his tattoo guy had been hidin’? Too bad. If the Conch Commander had come out from behind that fence any time in the last six weeks, he could have just asked. Instead, he’d been sittin’ behind his desk like some crazy old man waitin’ for the local kids to kick their football into his back yard.
If I’d known the score, I could have helped. I might have even told him for free, because I knew exactly where they was at! Then again, knowledge around here was a seller’s market.
I know because once it started gettin’ dicey and I started seein’ the “Two’s”—damn, that’s a stupid name—I started lookin’ for a place to lay low. I mean, I’m okay with zombies. The movies didn’t scare me when I was a kid, and the Keys are full of folks walkin’ around, blazed-over on the green stuff, or just lurkin’ around lookin’ down at their phones.
But who ever heard of a zombie that sets up road blocks? Nobody, that’s who. And who ever heard of zombies that get tired of getting played by a handsome local driver whose only sin was gettin’ around that roadblock? Hell, they came after me with an F250 like they was in some cheap gangbanger movie. I pulled ahead of one of them, but the other tried to run me into the gas pumps on Kennedy. I’m not sure what that would’ve done to them, but fried Max wasn’t somethin’ I wanted on my menu or my obituary. I took two hard turns to get them onto the baseball field, then downshifted for a power-slide that kicked me just past a brick wall, just before they learned what happens when cars meet bricks.
I figure there ain’t a lotta folks that can say they’ve been in a zombie car chase. That’s gotta count for somethin’, right? Might even put it on my resume. Still, not lookin’ to make that my new daily constitutional—not at all. Fuck Bontrager’s!
So where did I go? The Armstead Confine. And where was they hidin’ the whole damn time? The Armstead Confine!
