Fall of Man | Book 4 | The Tide

by Sisavath, Sam

  “Tell me what you do know,” Cole said to the newcomers. “Don’t make me regret not popping you when I had the chance.”

  Jason grinned. Or tried to. It came out forced at best. “What’s going on out there isn’t what you think.”

  “What do you think I think it is?”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Right. Anyways. People going crazy. Some kind of virus? Disease? Who knows. But it’s not that.”

  “What is it, then?” Zoe asked. She stood with her daughter slightly behind Cole, either afraid to get too close to the newcomers…or him.

  “Let’s pretend we didn’t notice that,” the Voice said.

  Yeah. Let’s.

  “It’s something else,” Jason said. “Something that isn’t natural.”

  “None of this is natural,” Cole said. He tapped the trigger of the AR slung in front of him impatiently. Not that he was really impatient; it was a good nonverbal cue to Jason that he should get to the point already.

  “Yeah, I know,” Jason said. “What I’m saying is, what happened out there, it happened for a reason. You get me?”

  “No,” Cole said.

  “Not a clue,” Dante said.

  “You’re talking gibberish,” Zoe said. “What do you know?”

  “Just tell them,” Elle said to Jason.

  “Yeah, just tell us,” Dante chimed in.

  Jason focused on his companion. “They probably won’t believe me.”

  “Why not?” Elle said. “I do.”

  “Yeah, but you’re you, not them.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Me neither,” Dante said.

  “Just spit it out,” Cole said. He was genuinely losing his patience now.

  Jason turned back to them, but he focused on Cole. Even through the black paint, Cole could see the seriousness suddenly overtake the shorter man’s face. “Have you ever heard of Project Red Book?”

  Cole squinted back at him.

  “You have,” Jason said. His own eyes widened. It might have been shock, or surprise, or confusion. Or maybe all three. “You know what it is. Wow. You’re the first one I’ve ever talked to about this that knows what Project Red Book is.”

  “What’s he talking about, Cole?” Zoe asked. “What’s Project Red Book?”

  Jason grinned. “You were in the military, weren’t you?”

  “He used to be,” Dante said before Cole could answer. “So what’s this Project Red Book?”

  “It’s the reason all of this is happening,” Elle said. “At least, that’s what Jason says. And I believe him.”

  “Why?” Zoe asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Why do you believe him? Did you know him before all of this?”

  “Well, no. We met after it happened.”

  “So you don’t know him. Not really.”

  Elle seemed to think about it for a moment before answering. “I know him enough. And I believe him.”

  “Back to the topic at hand. What is Project Red Book?” Dante asked Jason. “Sounds classified-y.”

  “It is,” Jason said. “Really classified-y. As in, if you know what it is, and you tell someone, you’d probably get a visit from the U.S. government and men in black suits and dark shades.”

  “You mean MIBs? Men in black? That type of stuff?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So if it’s so secret and dangerous to talk about, why are you talking about it now?”

  “You’ve been outside, right, kid?”

  “Your point?”

  “I don’t have to worry about getting a visit from MIBs anymore because there isn’t an Uncle Sam left to send them.” He turned back to Cole. “This is Project Red Book. It has all the signatures of it.”

  “Do you know what he’s talking about, Cole?” Zoe asked.

  “Yeah,” Cole said. “But this isn’t that. This isn’t Project Red Book.”

  “It is,” Jason said. “I’m telling you. It has all the signatures of it.”

  “Like what?” Zoe asked.

  “Everything. Everything we came up with. It’s happening. Step by step. Someone is turning Project Red Book into reality.”

  “Cole?” Zoe again, with more urgency in her voice this time.

  Cole shook his head. “Project Red Book doesn’t exist. Fiction thriller writer stuff.”

  “You’re wrong,” Jason said.

  “Prove it.”

  “All right,” Jason started to say, but before he could finish, there was a loud, echoing BAM! from somewhere on the second floor.

  Cole knew exactly what it was.

  The rooftop access door.

  Someone was trying to come through.

  Something.

  “It’s about time they made their move,” the Voice said. “I was getting bored.”

  Cole wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

  “Oh, it’s not,” the Voice said, laughing.

  Before the others could say anything, Cole shouted, “Back into the APC!” He faced Jason and Elle. “You two, follow them, but not before you clean up.”

  “Clean up?” Jason said.

  “We have some water,” Zoe said, just before she turned and ran back to the armored vehicle.

  “What’re you gonna do?” Dante said to Cole.

  “Make sure they don’t get in. Now get moving!” Cole shouted even as he ran to the stairs and hopped up the steps three at a time.

  He reached the second-floor catwalk in no time and arrived at the bottom of the ladder up to the rooftop door just as another resounding BAM! shook the walls around him. The metal grates underneath his boots seemed to vibrate under the impact.

  “Someone definitely wants to come!” the Voice said.

  The good news was that it was someone, and not someones. Cole could deal with one crazy easily enough even without the rifle. But he had the AR anyway, so why not use it? The only thing he wasn’t sure about was whether to let the crazy in first. In order to do that, it would have to break down the door. And if that happened…

  “Would really make it easier for the others to try their hand,” the Voice said.

  Exactly.

  “So don’t let the dumb-dumb ruin the door for us.”

  Cole hopped up the steps, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and drawing his sidearm as he did so. The pistol would be way handier at close quarters.

  Another massive BAM!

  Some kind of metal object striking the door. If the other crazies in the area hadn’t heard it before, then they would have now. If Cole were lucky, another maniac would be on the rooftop and attacking the first one just about—

  BAM!

  “Or not.” The Voice laughed.

  He grabbed the lever and prepared to yank it down, pull the door open, and shoot whoever was out there, when he heard the distinctive sound of a scream, followed by a very solid thunk! as something else—something smaller than the first object—striking the door.

  Then there was silence.

  Cole stood still, gun in one hand, the door’s lever in the other. He listened, but there was nothing to hear. Except for the wind. He was sure he could hear the wind moving out there, skipping gravel across the rooftop.

  What had happened? Why did the crazy stop? Or maybe he didn’t, and someone else stopped him. Someone else took advantage of the man or woman’s momentarily distracted state and attacked from behind.

  “Serves him right for trying to ruin our day,” the Voice said.

  That’s one way to put it.

  “What’s the other?”

  The other one can pick up—

  BAM! as the same object that had been striking the door did it once again.

  Cole took one quick step, then another back.

  BAM!

  Then again: BAM!

  “Welp. Might as well get it over with,” the Voice said.

  Yeah, might as well, Cole thought as he reached for the door leve
r again. He got a good grip, lifted the SIG Sauer to chest level, finger in the trigger guard, and yanked the door open.

  “Showtime!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was an old man, with hard, gray eyes that seemed to bore into Cole’s soul. He was sporting the kind of wicked smile that made Cole wonder if the man hadn’t killed previously even before all this madness overtook all his senses.

  Not that Cole spent too much time thinking about that. His first shot went into the man’s chest as the crazy was lumbering inside, trying to push aside the battered steel door with one hand even as he cocked back his right, along with the spiked baseball bat inside it. What looked like nails jutted out of various points of the Louisville Slugger; it was haphazardly put together, but apparently very effective if all the fresh blood dripping from it were any indication.

  The man stumbled halfway through the door, but didn’t go down. Cole hadn’t expected him to, either. The adrenaline that rushed through their veins, that drove them into a state of bloodlust that bordered on madness (“Bordered on?” the Voice asked. “Pretty sure these suckers already crossed the line and back.”), pushed him through the pain of a bullet in his chest.

  “You missed the heart,” the Voice said. “Shoot for the heart, and he’ll go down for sure.”

  The Voice was right, of course; a shot to the heart would end the man’s life in the blink of an eye, regardless of how much adrenaline he had coursing through his body. Except that was easier said than done. Cole was good with a gun, but he wasn’t that good. There were a lot of variables that went into shooting a man in the all-important artery. For one, not everyone had their hearts exactly in the same spots, some—

  A roar came out of the crazy’s mouth as he stumbled through the opening, the bat still cocking to swing. All it would take was one strike and Cole was done for. Or if he wasn’t, then he’d wish he were with those nails digging into his face.

  Bang! and the crazy faltered a second time, pausing momentarily with one foot inside the warehouse and the other still outside.

  The crazy stopped but, again, didn’t go down. He did seem to blink, though, as if remembering what pain was for the first time.

  Cole moved the gun slightly upward and pulled the trigger a third time. The man’s brains sprayed the open air behind him as he fell backward and out, landing on the hard gravel with a hard crunching sound.

  “The door. Get the door,” the Voice said.

  Cole rushed forward and grabbed the dead crazy’s legs and tossed them outside so he could close the door. It was pitch-black out there, with a second body not far away. A big, burly man in painter’s clothes. There wasn’t much of his head left as he lay spread-eagled. Freshly dead.

  “Close the door so that doesn’t happen to us!” the Voice shouted.

  Right. The door.

  He reached for the lever and pulled the door closed.

  Except it didn’t close. It was damaged. The strike plate was dangling off the frame, and the latch was missing.

  Shit.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit.

  “That’s not good,” the Voice said.

  No shit, Sherlock.

  “Just being helpful.”

  You’re not.

  “I beg to differ.”

  Stop begging, and tell me what to do.

  “So you’re asking for help now?” The Voice laughed. “That’s a first.”

  Well?

  “Say pretty please.”

  Oh, go fuck yourself.

  It laughed again. “Again; you do know that I’m you, right?”

  Cole did know that, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to say. Besides, if the Voice didn’t know, then he didn’t know, since it was just his subconscious anyway.

  “You sure about that?” it asked.

  The darkness in front of him, from the edge of the rooftop, flickered. Cole glanced over and lifted the SIG Sauer just as the crazy appeared, jumping out of the shadows as if the night itself was spitting it out.

  A man in a tattered suit and dress slacks, loosened tie flashing in the cold night air as he ran in a straight line toward Cole. A weapon of some type in one hand, but all Cole could focus on was the tie. Why was the man still wearing his tie? It’d been days since he was infected, so why didn’t he just take it off?

  “Why don’t you ask him?” the Voice said.

  I don’t think I will.

  “So shut up and just shoot him already.”

  Bang-bang! and the man lifted into the air as if something up there had snatched him off his feet and slammed him back down on the sheets of loose gravel. A knife clanked its way along the pebbles before settling nearby.

  “That was close.”

  No, it wasn’t. The man had only managed half the distance to Cole before he could pick him off.

  “Seems closer than that. My bad.”

  Your “bad?”

  “What? Don’t the kids still say that?”

  I have no fucking idea.

  Cole grabbed the lever and slammed the door shut. Or as much shut as he could get it since the deadbolt was also gone, along with just about everything else that made the door useful.

  “Maybe you can find them on the floor and glue them back in place,” the Voice said.

  You’re not helping.

  It laughed. “I know. But it was funny, right?”

  No, it wasn’t.

  “Let’s agree to disagree.”

  Cole sighed. The best he could do was squeeze the door back into place, but all it would take was a hard wind to push it open. Which, in this case, there were plenty of outside. And it was howling loud, too, as if Mother Nature herself knew that the end of the road was on the horizon for him.

  “Buckle up, Cherry Pie, we ain’t dead yet!” the Voice said. “Even if we can’t close the door, they still gotta come in one at a time. And then there’s the thing parked behind us on the first floor, remember?”

  Right. That was his big advantage. He’d almost forgotten about that.

  “Good thing I’m here.”

  Let’s revisit that another time.

  It laughed even as Cole jumped down the stairs. He’d just landed on the final rung, then stepped off it, when there was a loud bam! from behind him.

  He spun back around, gun at the ready.

  A woman in a pencil miniskirt with a big slit in it staggered inside, her blood-drenched white blouse the only thing Cole could really make out in the semidarkness of the second floor and the darkened rooftop behind her. There was no mistaking the woman’s maniacal grin and the knife in her hand. She righted herself, then lunged at him, flying down the steps like a missile. He’d never seen someone move so fast, so recklessly.

  “What are you waiting for, a written invitation?” the Voice asked.

  Waste of bullet.

  “How you gonna shake her, then?”

  Watch and see.

  “Oh, I’m watching, chum. I’m watching.”

  Cole sidestepped at the very last second, and the woman—moving too fast, the adrenaline giving her unnatural speed—slammed into the railing, was unable to stop herself, and went right over it. She might have let out a startled gasp as she plummeted—

  Crack!

  “That sounds like a skull just turned into watermelon,” the Voice said. “Well done. Got rid of the threat and saved a bullet. I’m impressed.”

  Cole looked down just long enough to confirm that the crazy was down and out. She was down, but he wasn’t quite sure about the out part. She was still moving, right hand inching along the ground to where her knife lay. The rest of her body seemed immobile. If she weren’t paralyzed—except for her twitching right arm—he’d be surprised.

  He glanced up at the APC. So close, and yet so far away. He could make out Zoe behind the front windshield. Next to her was either Dante or Mark or one of the newcomers. It was a little hard to tell because of the spiderwebbed glass. They were looking back at him, maybe wondering why he hadn
’t already hightailed it into the safety of the vehicle.

  “That’s a good point,” the Voice said. “Time to go.”

  Not yet.

  “When, then?”

  When we’re out of choices.

  “You mean you have choices now?”

  Plenty.

  “How so, chum?”

  Cole turned around to look up the stairs at the wide-open access door above. He could hear the wind howling on the other side, but no indications another crazy was on the verge of attacking. No crunching of gravel or heavy breathing or screams. He should have been happy with that, but it just made him more paranoid.

  “Paranoia keeps us alive.”

  It makes us paranoid.

  “Same difference.”

  He didn’t know how the crazies had managed to scale the walls, but they’d done it. Who knew how many more were on the way? But to get to him, they’d have to fight their way through each other first—

  The loud—very, very loud—sound of engines starting up behind him.

  What…?

  Only a vehicle parked inside a cavernous warehouse with steel walls could generate that type of sound.

  Oh, mother…

  Such as, say, an APC with a hemi for an engine.

  …fucker!

  Cole turned back around once more, expecting something worse.

  It wasn’t worse, it was the worst thing that could have happened.

  The APC was backing up toward the front hangar door, which was in the process of sliding open. Who had opened the door? Who was driving the vehicle? And why?

  “You’re fucked,” the Voice said. “Fucked harder than fucked, actually. Royally fucked, almost.”

  Cole couldn’t disagree, even as he bounded for the stairs down to the first floor, watching as the APC he’d fought so hard to get—killed to take possession of—backed into the opening. Pitch-black darkness on the other side, except where the APC’s red rear lights extended.

  Who the hell was driving it? Zoe? Dante? Mark? Had Mark taken control? Or maybe it was the two newcomers. Was this all a trick to take the vehicle from Cole? If so, it’d be ironic.

  “A tragedy is more like it,” the Voice said.

  Either/or.

  “Definitely more tragedy.”

  Cole jumped the last three steps and ran toward the heavy vehicle even as it began to turn into the street outside. Whoever was driving—and Cole couldn’t see past the bright headlights flooding his eyes—was doing a decent enough job maneuvering, even if they did almost crash into the side of the building during the escape.