by M. D. Massey
He looked up at me and grinned. “Big night, so I figured we’d celebrate. Gabby said she’d never had chocolate pudding before, so I decided to see if I could salvage what I found in the cabinets.”
I nodded. “What’d you use for milk?”
“Dry baby formula.” He dipped a finger in the concoction and licked it. “It tastes okay, once you get over the consistency.”
He offered me a spoonful. “Um, I’ll pass.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Look, kid, about earlier—”
Bobby kept whisking away. “Don’t sweat it. Gabby told me about Kara.” He stopped whisking and looked up at me. “Look, no wolf expects their alpha to be perfect. All we expect is that we can rely on our pack leader when they have to lead. And I know I can follow the calls you make. So, no worries—we’re good.” He went back to whisking.
I didn’t know what to say, so in typical guy fashion, I said nothing. Then, I had a real brainstorm. “Thanks, Bobby. I appreciate it.”
He didn’t look up, but he smiled a little. “Yeah, well, you saved my life. Those punters would’ve taken me to Van, and there’s no telling what would’ve happened. He might’ve killed me, or more likely he would have held me hostage.”
“Hostage? For what?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention this? My dad’s the Coastal pack alpha.”
Now that was a revelation. “Um, nope.”
He nodded and stirred the bowl for a few more seconds, then pulled out the whisk and checked the bowl. “It’s almost starting to peak.” He whisked furiously now. “And like I said—” whisk whisk whisk, “I owe you—” whisk whisk, “but also—” whisk whisk, “so does my dad.”
“Huh.” I considered what he was saying and shook my head. “You know what, kid, you don’t owe me a thing. I helped you because it was the right thing to do, not because I wanted something. As far as I’m concerned, we’re friends. So, I have your back, you have mine. End of discussion.”
He stopped whisking and admired his work like Michelangelo admiring the Sistine Chapel. “Perfect.” He wagged the whisk at me and cocked his head to the side. “I know why you did it. Because you’re a good guy. Why do you think I’m still hanging around? You may not realize it, Scratch, but people like you are few and far between these days.”
I was flattered, but also a little embarrassed by his frank statements. He grinned. “Don’t bother saying anything. I know you’re no good at talking about your feelings. But do me a favor and let Gabby know my mousse is ready.”
I was glad he’d let me off the hook. “Will do, kid. And, uh, good talk.”
Bobby just shook his head and chuckled.
The “mousse” was a hit with Gabby, but I skipped it since I didn’t want to risk getting a case of the runs before our mission. Gabby decided to go for it, but she had a tougher stomach than me, having grown up eating bugs and bark with her uncle and Captain Perez. And Bobby, well—that kid could eat anything.
“Hey, I thought chocolate was bad for dogs,” I quipped as I watched them wolf down the contents of the mixing bowl.
“That’s only true for house dogs, I think,” Bobby replied, with chocolate baby formula pudding all over his face and hands.
Gabby licked her fingertips and grinned. “I don’t care what it does to dogs or wolves—all I know is that chocolate pudding is now my all-time favorite food.”
I laughed. “Yeah, you’re not going to be saying that when you’re sitting on the toilet for the next two days.”
Bobby frowned. “Uh-uh! I sniffed every ingredient. You think don’t know what salmonella smells like?”
I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Alright, Chef Boyardee, I believe you.”
Gabby wiped her hands daintily with a slightly damp rag and patted her stomach. “Oh, that was good.” She looked over at me and arched an eyebrow. “So, fearless leader, what’s the plan?”
I pulled out the map Sam had drawn of the local area, including the wolf compound and all the buildings adjacent to it. I plopped it down on the table and stabbed a finger at an X I’d drawn. “We’re packing up and going here, to this high-rise across from their base. It’s about ten or eleven stories tall—plenty high to set up an observation post and get a handle on their movements.”
I pointed at our target on the map. “Once we have an idea of how many are here, how many are in the field looking for more uranium or whatever else they are trying to use to blow a hole in reality, and what their patrol schedules are like, then we spring the trap on them.” I clapped my hands shut and interlaced my fingers tightly. “And squeeze.”
Bobby gave me a thumbs up. “Oh, I liked that last part. That line is going in my book, for sure.”
Gabby looked at him with derision. “What book?”
“My memoirs, of course.”
She put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “Bobby, I’ve never seen you writing anything, not even a to-do list.”
He pulled his shoulders back and gave her “the hand.” “Oh, I’m writing, believe it. But just because you don’t see me writing, it doesn’t mean I’m not writing.” He tapped a finger on his skull. “It’s all up here. I’ve got eight chapters in my head already.”
Gabby rolled her eyes and I coughed to get their attention. “Anyway, back to the plan. We’re taking that building tonight—it’s probably infested with the dead, but we only need to take the stairwells and the top three floors. The plan is for us to work our way through the bottom floor to the emergency stairs, then secure the doors to each floor as we work our way up, taking out any deaders we come across with as much stealth as possible. When we get to the top three floors, we’ll clear them out one at a time. Then we’ll set up observation posts on the top floor and the roof.”
Gabby sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I still don’t see how we’re going to take out those wolves. You nearly died fighting just one of them. Granted, you hadn’t yet taken the serum at the time, but you’re not exactly one hundred percent right now, either.”
I pulled up my sleeve and showed them the bite mark. There were still some gangrenous black lines emanating from the site, but it was clear that they were receding. “I’m not one hundred percent, and that’s a fact. But, that will work to our advantage tonight. Now, here’s how things are going to go down—”
26
SHIELD
We got to the building a little after midnight, and I had Gabby and Bobby stay hidden while I scoped the place out. There were a couple of shamblers around, but not in serious numbers. I looked up at the building and counted floors, noting the broken windows on the south side. I assumed that was from when the bombs had fallen, but I didn’t think the pressure wave had been powerful enough to reach this far away from the blast area.
On closer inspection, it appeared that the someone or something had broken the windows in random patterns; it could have been due to random violence or just plain old entropy. At any rate, we weren’t going to be staying long. I jogged up to the doors and snuck in while moving as carefully as possible. I wasn’t concerned about the deaders, as they’d likely ignore me. But, if there were any revenants in here, they’d come running for a meal just as soon as they spotted me.
The first floor was mostly clear of the dead; I pushed the few stragglers I found into offices and locked them inside. I located a stairwell and did a quick visual and auditory on it. It sounded like it might be busy, but not very. I searched around for a second set of stairs and found a door, but someone had barricaded it from the inside. Weird. Intrigued, but with no time to solve any mysteries, I returned to the entryway and signaled Gabby and Bobby to come inside.
“Probably a few dozen deaders in the stairwell. I’ll lead, Gabby follows, and Bobby takes up rear position. No firearms. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves yet—not until we’re ready to spring the trap. Now, let’s go.” I had my tomahawk in hand, knowing the katana would be too big to do much good on the stairs. I opened the exit door, and we began our eleven
flight battle.
The first few levels were easy, since the dead were only coming at us two or three at a time. I’d take the first one head on, Gabby would pop the second, and that would give me time to handle the third if there was one. No big deal. But, the more noise we made, the more deaders we alerted to our presence. Soon, we heard lots of slow, ponderous footsteps coming our way.
“I think we’re about to get overrun. We’re going to have to lead them onto one of these floors and lock them in while we take the other staircase. Then, we can go up a flight and double-back to this set of stairs. Bobby, you take point and lead Gabby to the other fire exit, which is on the opposite side of this floor. Just be aware that someone barricaded the first-floor exit door from the inside. So, if things go south, you’ll have to head up and not down. Got it?”
He nodded. “No problemo, boss.”
Gabby cocked her crossbow, loaded another bolt, and followed him through the door. And with little time to spare; in seconds, I was ass deep in the dead and swinging for the fences. I took out a few to trip the others up and to serve double-duty in keeping the door open for the rest. Then I followed Gabby and Bobby inside the building.
Once, these floors had housed tech firms, attorneys, accountants, and publishing companies. Now, they housed only the dead. The general layout of the building was pretty standard, consisting of a square hallway that went all the way around the floor. Office entrances were every thirty feet or so, with the odd storage or mechanical closet thrown in for variety. Other than that, it was a straight shot to the other stairs, with little opportunity for slowing the dead down or evading them, should something go wrong.
My strategy was simple. It consisted of moving slowly enough so the bulk of the deaders in the stairwell would follow me in, but fast enough to stay ahead of them so I didn’t get swamped. The problem was, I’d forgotten that these things mostly ignored me these days. So, I had to get ugly. Once I started splitting heads, they perked up quite a bit and took an interest. After that, it was just a matter of leading them down the hall, and then circling back to the stairs and shutting the door behind me.
After I had moved the bodies out of the way and locked them in, I listened for Bobby and Gabby to return to the stairwell from the floor above. I waited for a good two minutes, then realized that something had gone wrong. Shit. I should never have allowed us to get separated, I thought. But there was no sense crying over spilled milk. I headed up and see what was keeping them.
I sprinted up the stairs to the floor above, slowing only enough to open the door without announcing my presence to every shambler that might be present. I listened for sounds of violence coming from the halls, but only heard faint echoes of conversation coming from the left-hand hallway. One of the voices was Bobby’s, but I didn’t recognize the other. I tiptoed my way down there to see what the hell was going on.
As I got closer to them, I began to catch pieces of the conversation. “Tell me, why are you here? Did Van send you to spy on me?” The voice was deep and gruff, and somewhat pained, as if the speaker was ill or perhaps injured.
I heard Bobby reply. “Look, we didn’t mean to bother you. Just let her go and we’ll leave.”
“Maybe I will, or maybe I’ll just have a meal at your girlfriend’s expense. Or is she your sister?” I heard whatever it was sniff loudly. “No, she’s not a wolf. Van didn’t send you, then. He’d never let valuable merchandise get away, that’s for sure. So why is a whelp like you traveling with a human?”
Bobby muttered a meaningless reply, but I could tell that he was out of excuses. I drew the Glock and screwed the silencer on the barrel, stepping into view and putting a bead on the thing’s head as I did. It was a ’thrope, that was for certain, but it didn’t look right at all. It appeared as though it had started to shift and gotten stuck between its human and werewolf forms. It also looked scraggly and sick, sort of like a stray dog with the mange. It had one long, clawed hand clapped over Gabby’s mouth, holding her firmly in place by pressing her head against its chest. He’d disarmed her as well; her crossbow lay in one corner, and her kukri and Kabar had been tossed into another. Gabby was fighting—scratching and kicking with everything she had—to no avail. She may as well have been fighting a brick wall.
“Oh goodie, another visitor,” the wolf said, smiling in a grotesque manner that pulled the features of its half-human, half-werewolf face into a mockery of amusement.
“I’m packing silver-tipped rounds, and I’ll put one right in your eye if you even think about hurting the girl.”
The wolf chuckled. “I doubt you’re that fast. Or that good.”
Years before, when the bombs dropped and the chaos started, I’d found that I wasn’t that handy with a pistol. Since then, I’d spent years training myself, doing hours upon hours of fast draw and dry fire drills, and using pellet guns to work on my accuracy without wasting ammo. These days, I rarely missed what I was aiming at with my sidearm.
In the blink of an eye, I dropped the barrel of the pistol a few centimeters and put a round in the thing’s shoulder, just inches from Gabby’s head. It staggered visibly and gasped as the round hit—not from the impact, but from the pain. Based on my experience with killing the ’thrope at Kara’s place, I knew that one round in the shoulder would just be a nuisance to it. But one to the head? That might ruin its day, for good.
It got the message. “Aw, gosh—shit!” The thing clutched at its shoulder and gave me an evil look, releasing Gabby. It stomped around some and jumped up and down in frustration. “I mean, really—who shoots someone to make a point? Doesn’t anyone ever talk things out these days?”
Gabby glared at the wolf as she gathered up her weapons, replacing them one by one, except for the crossbow, which she kept in hand. She quipped, to no one in particular, “Yeah, it’s like we’re living in a post-apocalyptic world or something.”
The wolf turned and pointed a long, ugly finger at her. “Exactly! That’s what I tried to tell Van. Just because we were living in a savage world, we don’t have to act like savages.”
I looked over at Bobby, and it was apparent the kid was puzzling something out. He kept his eyes on the wolf while he explained what I was looking at. “Sometimes the weaker wolves can’t shift fully, so what you get is a sort of half-werewolf, like this guy. They’re seen as being weak, and a liability—omegas. No one wants them in their pack.”
The wolf in question was digging a long claw into the hole that the round had made in its shoulder, cursing all the while. Finally, it pried the bullet out, dropped it on the floor, and sighed. “Ah, that’s much better. Much, much better.” It looked over at me with a furrowed brow. “That hurt, you know. And it was totally, completely unnecessary.”
I ignored the protest. “Okay, so you say you were once a part of the Corridor pack. But if you’re an omega, then why’d they let you stick around?”
The wolf chuckled sarcastically. “Well, good question. As it turns out, I was the only one left who knew how to work the reactor.” He pulled over the lapel of the dirty white lab coat he wore, pointing to an I.D. badge clipped to his jacket. “Joseph Conway, first-year master’s student in nuclear and mechanical engineering, at your service. You can call me Joe.”
I tsked and scratched my chin. “So you were their best boy. At least, until someone replaced you recently, you mean.”
He nodded sagely. “But such is life. Besides, I didn’t know enough about the reactor to get it to do what they wanted. You know how hard it is to cause a controlled meltdown? I mean, seriously, that’s way above my pay grade. Anyway, that reactor was never built for that—it’s just a test reactor, designed to keep half-stoned grad students from causing another Chernobyl.”
His jaw was doing funny things when he spoke. It reminded me of a snake eating a rat. I realized his appearance was weirding me out, and waved my pistol around, gesturing at him randomly. “Do you think you could—you know—change back or something? Your appearance is a little off-putting
.”
He looked at me with a hurt expression. “That’s just racist, man, that’s what that is—and plain hurtful besides. I can’t help what I am. I mean, I didn’t ask to be like this, you know.”
I looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Just change, please. Okay?”
“Fine, whatever.” He shifted back into human form, and before us sat a dumpy, nerdy-looking man in his late twenties. He was going prematurely bald, with a slight potbelly, pockmarked skin, and poor posture. “Happy now?” His voice had gone up three octaves at least and went from gruff to nasally to boot. He pulled a pair of what we in the Army affectionately called “birth-control glasses” from his pocket, and put them on to complete the effect. The guy was like a cross between Booger and Lewis from Revenge of the Nerds.
Gabby muttered under her breath. “I think he looked better the other way.”
Joe plopped down on the ground and sneered at Gabby. “Oh, sit on a stick, Selena Gomez. And by the way, Pat Benatar called and said that she wants her look back.” He huffed and glanced sullenly around the room. “Comes in looking like an extra from Les Miserables, and tells me I’m the one who looks bad. The nerve.”
Of course, the insults went right over her head, but it got a rise out of Bobby. He looked at Gabby and snickered. “Oh, don’t worry Gabs—he may as well have complimented you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
I glanced at Joe. “Thanks for the info. Now, do you know anything about what they’re trying to do with that reactor?”
“Sure, absolutely, but from a scientific standpoint, I don’t see how it can work. Then again, I’m a werewolf who gains fifty pounds when he shifts, so I don’t know if the laws of physics apply anymore.”
Bobby nodded sagely. “Pocket dimensions, dude. That’s my theory.”
