by L C Champlin
Shitshitshit!
“Go,” Albin snapped. He dropped to a crouch and shrugged Kate onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Good man.
Nathan sprinted for the door, slid to a halt with Kate’s tag aimed at the slot. Please! Green light. Swinging around the door frame, he covered Albin, who charged through on Nathan’s heels.
Door shut but for a slit, Nathan deployed his smartphone. Camera, video, shoot through the gap. Gunmen wearing shemaghs that concealed their faces took positions around the stairs. A pair swung around the corner. The door blocked the rest as Nathan eased it shut and holstered his phone.
Abso-fucking-lutely fantastic. He ground his teeth, his knuckles white on the AK. Blocked in with bloodthirsty, masked nutjobs all over the lobby and a dying woman to get out.
A sardonic smile came as he turned to Albin, who had set Kate down, leaning her against the wall. He waited in high-ready position and looked grave as a pallbearer. “And I thought tonight was going to be boring.”
“A fate worse than death, sir.”
Kate stared at the floor, weight on her left leg. Blood trickled down her right.
While opening fire on the hostiles sounded appealing, the goal took precedence: secure transportation and escape. Nathan resumed his place at Kate’s side and moved out.
The hall turned right ahead. The words Furniture Storage #1 shone above a door on the left in the P2X’s beam. Thud. It came from behind the door. Nathan slowed. Thud. No time. One victim to rescue filled his quota of good deeds for the rest of his life.
There, the door marked Valets/Garage ahead. A reinforced glass window in the barrier provided a glimpse of the valets’ domain. Inside and to the left waited the door to the garage. A counter with drawers ran along the far wall, blank computer screens lining it like sentries.
Thud. A heavy object hit the floor inside the storage room. Pandora’s box sang a siren song to Nathan’s curiosity, but at the moment he preferred the app. With the way his luck was running tonight, the room would probably explode if he opened the door.
Left-handed, Albin covered the hall with his 1911. If whatever was fumbling and banging about in the other room hadn’t escaped yet, it probably wouldn’t in the next two seconds. Kate’s card slid into the reader. Green. Nathan shouldered the door in just as Furniture Storage #1’s door swung open.
A tangle of bodies crashed to the floor with a chorus of groans.
Chapter 15
Through the Looking Glass
Undead – Hollywood Undead
The door’s hydraulics attempted to pull it closed, but the writhing mass blocked it. The explosion outcome was looking better and better. Albin’s PD22 beam flicked over the new development, Nathan’s light joining it as he brought the AK to bear. Teeth and eyes flashed in the lights. Not terrorists . . . Albin’s cannibals. They wore normal clothing and looked human. Except for the way they moved, twitching and writhing. And . . . black drool rolled down their chins.
Sssssaaah. Hisses blended, rose, as if from steam valves. Or a snake pit.
“Get back,” Albin ordered, taking the majority of Kate’s weight while retreating.
Nathan backed into the valet room, Albin and Kate almost on top of him in the rush to slam the door. Pushing Kate onto Nathan, the attorney braced his back against the barrier.
Nathan gaped. “What the—”
“The filing cabinet.”
Nathan had already begun easing Kate into an office chair. Clang! Four drawers of steel hit the linoleum. A kick centered it, wedged the other end against the counter support. Only then did Albin peel from the door.
The blue fire burned in his eyes again as his chest heaved. He turned his light and .45 on the window. Nathan joined him with the P2X and AK.
“What . . . was . . .” Kate panted.
Thud! Nathan and Albin recoiled from the ashen visage that threw itself at the window. Teeth clicked on the glass as the . . . cannibal, junkie, whatever tested the barrier. Black mucus clung to the window as the blistered, black tongue tasted glass.
Rust-colored eyes with pinpoint pupils bugged from sunken sockets. Flat, dead-fish orbs, they could belong to a freak-show Australian marsupial. A loris maybe, or an aye-aye. Were they even marsupials? Did they even live in—Focus!
One, two, three, four.
Smartphone in hand, video. No one could accuse him of hallucinating about monsters this time. “Start the show.” Voice recognition initiated the recording. “Film.” He shoved the handheld at Albin.
Find the goddamned keys. The AK swung across Nathan’s back while he drew the H-777. It took a few whacks against his palm to get the light operational. Damn Jacuzzi.
Sickness or drugs or cultists or . . . Or maybe I’m the one on drugs. Somebody had slipped a hallucinogen in his water and in reality he now was passed out in a puddle of drool.
On the near wall, over another counter and beside a filing cabinet, glinted rows of numbered hooks with keys. But the Bentley keys wouldn’t associate with those of peasant vehicles. On a nail beside the board of hooks hung a set of keys. The tag read Back Garage. They went into a pocket just in case.
“Kate, where are the keys?”
He turned to find her almost unconscious. Damn it! “Kate.” He patted her cheek. “I know you want to sleep, but you have to stay with me.” If she dies, pragmatism began. The wolves win. That silenced it.
“Mm.”
“Mr. Serebus,” Albin began, attention locked on the cannibals outside, “could we perhaps use a different vehicle?”
“The Bentley’s the reliable choice.” Drawers slung back to their limits. Pens, stapler, miscellaneous junk. Any little black boxes with silver eagle wings and the Bentley B?
“This course of action is in no way motivated by your desire to drive a Flying Spur down war-zone streets?” Albin kept the .45, light, and smartphone on the horrors beyond the glass.
“Call it a bonus. Now, if I were a twenty-something valet with keys to a vehicle worth 200K . . .” Three plastic pen holders bearing the St. Regis crest lined the back counter. He dumped the contents: Pens, pencils, eagle-winged box. “Aha!” He raised it in triumph.
“Excellent,” Albin hissed. With a last look at the nightmares behind the window, he hit Stop on the phone and joined Nathan at the exit.
Nathan surveyed the garage through the slit window while pocketing his phone. Dim, desolate, cold. It looked damn welcoming compared to the lobby and the other door.
“Run interference.” Nathan handed Albin the keys and ID. “I’ll take Kate.” He centered Kate across his shoulders again.
“Yes, sir.”
Stack, breathe, breach. Nathan’s .45 swung left while Albin’s drove forward. Clear. Hopefully those things didn’t have friends, and neither did the terrorists.
Acrid smoke rolling in from the open exit burned his eyes and clogged his lungs. Sounds of a city in pain washed over him: horns, sirens, screams, gunfire. No wonder the ERTs weren’t flocking to the St. Regis.
On to the private parking in the garage’s rear. The interlopers dodged through the twilight, flashlight beams slicing over luxury vehicles that squatted like eldritch idols from a bygone era. Cthulhu smiled in his sleep at all this.
“There!” Nathan’s flashlight beam locked on a corrugated garage door ahead.
He handed the garage keys to Albin. They fit the lock. The attorney heaved the door up with a clatter of metal.
Looking behind Nathan, Albin whispered, “We have admirers.”
Chapter 16
Drive
Believe – The Bravery
Nathan twisted around to look. Fuck. Three cannibals, oil dripping down their fronts, stalked between parked cars, twitching with tweaker cravings. Ssssaaaaahhh! Rust-red eyes locked on Nathan. Checkout time.
Chirp. Headlights flashed on the silver—Arctica, they called it—Flying Spur as Nathan drew the key fob. Silver wings gleamed above the vehicle’s grill
, ready to soar.
Albin pulled the passenger-side door open with his left hand, pistol in his right. Nathan hunkered down and lowered Kate onto the seat.
Bang!
Nathan jumped at the gunshot, slamming back against the door frame. “What—” Behind him, the lead cannibal/junkie staggered, black blood pulsing from a bullet hole in its center of mass. Still the bastard advanced. PCP, it had to be.
A second report. Thud. Head shots grounded even the highest drug user. The second cannibal continued toward the Bentley.
Nathan clicked the center belt around Kate’s waist. At least she wasn’t still lying on the spa floor. Dying in a Bentley back seat was so much more desirable. He slammed the passenger door on the voice of reason, yanked open the driver’s side, and swung into the Fireglow leather cockpit.
Belting in, Albin glanced into the backseat. “I trust you have a plan past this point, sir?” He raised his voice over the sound system; Naim’s 1100 watts that delivered a news woman’s voice in crystal clarity.
“Of course.” Leave counted as a plan. A thrill of adrenaline tingled as the 6.0-liter, twin turbo W12 purred to life. He shot the stick into drive and eased the vehicle into the lot.
Albin braced himself, grabbing the slingshot handle and center armrest. Whenever he and Nathan didn’t use a limo, the attorney would fight for the driver’s side. His rationales ranged from “You have papers to look over,” to “Do it for appearances’ sake.” Really the blond lacked appreciation of Nathan’s driving style.
Nathan spun the wheel left and gunned the engine. G forces shoved Albin against the door.
Swerve to avoid a car wrapped around a light pole. Damn narrow streets.
The radio filtered through his concentration: “Emergency crews are working to extinguish fires on Battery St. in the Department of State building and Main Street at the Federal Reserve Bank—”
Bentley tires screeched as he slammed on the brakes to avoid ramming a panicked pedestrian. “Idiot!” One, two, three, four.
“Authorities are ordering people to make their way to safe zones at Union Square on Geary and Stockton—”
What did she say? Union? Safe zones must have ambulances. Bingo. No mention of cannibals, though. He slowed long enough to glance both ways before swinging left past the One Way sign, down New Montgomery Street.
“One way, sir,” Albin warned, pushing himself back in his seat as if to avoid advancing with the vehicle.
Headlights blazed ahead, charging them like a grizzly. Glinting steel whipped past inches from the driver’s side mirror. Nathan grunted as the Flying Spur jumped the right curb. “I’m only going one way. I’m not taking more detours if I can help it.”
Thwump! A crack of distant thunder. Rain in May?
Nathan leaned toward the wheel as he threaded between a delivery truck and a wreck. Fires licked the metal, its light a mockery of the dead streetlamps that stared down at the chaos.
“There’s been another explosion, this time at the Immigration and Customs—”
Not thunder, then.
Left on Mission Street ahead. Fuck! A garbage truck hulked in the darkness, angled across the street. A car that had rammed its rear blocked what remained of Mission. Did the entire damn city want to defeat him?
He snarled, mashing the accelerator and launching through the canyon of high-rises. Ahead continued the obstacle course of running pedestrians, earthquake rubble, and abandoned vehicles.
“You intend to deliver her to Union Square, correct?” Albin asked.
“It’s the nearest safe zone.”
“Sweeping power and phone service outages are hampering—”
At the intersection of Jessie Street, two figures staggered into the road, one in a red shirt and the other in a yellow jacket. Headlights sped toward the intersection, only to slam into the pedestrians. They flew, ragdoll limp, as the truck spun out and plowed into a parked car. Nathan’s stomach lurched as if on a roller coaster.
Still gripping the slingshot handle and center console, Albin turned to assess Kate. “Sir, her injury is hemorrhaging.” Traffic-report tone.
Then get back there and hold it, Nathan opened his mouth to snap, but the bitter satisfaction and refusal in Albin’s expression choked the order.
“You finish what you start, I recall you stating, sir. She is your concern, and she is dying.”
Jaw working, nails biting the heels of his hands, Nathan jerked the Bentley onto the sidewalk. Seatbelts locked at the sudden stop. He shoved it into park.
The seatbelt hissed aside. “Drive.” He threw the door open and pushed out.
Albin hoisted himself across to take the wheel as Nathan ducked into the back seat. “My pleasure, Mr. Serebus.”
Frowning in vicarious pain, Nathan pressed one hand over the wound while tightening the windlass with his other. Then he covered her upper body with his second towel.
As if in mockery, a siren’s bleat and scream on Market Street forty yards ahead joined the din. Red and white pulsed over the buildings like blood on upholstery. A second later an ambulance rumbled past.
Behind the vehicle, barely visible through the rear window, two dark figures separated from the flickering shadows ahead. One wore a red sweater, the other a yellow windbreaker. The two collision victims? No wonder they stumbled. Hold on . . . They moved as if receiving small electric shocks with each step.
Cannibals.
Chapter 17
Ambulance Chaser
Get Lonely With Me – George Ezra
Albin took the wheel and guided the Bentley toward the intersection of Market Street and New Montgomery Street. The comfort of driving settled over him.
Ambulance sirens squawked and howled up Market Street. “Chase it, Albin,” Mr. Serebus ordered the obvious.
“Business law, sir, not injury law.”
“Cross training.”
Albin gave a half smile.
If he followed the ambulance, perhaps he could gain their attention and convince them to at least halt. An ambulance now would spare them the trouble of locating one at the safe zone. Safe zone, a misnomer if he’d ever heard one. Herding panicked people into a pen and hoping for a positive outcome ranked as the height of foolishness.
In the rearview mirror, Mr. Serebus hunched over his project. The man who conducted his dealings with ruthless efficiency, who designed crises to create advantages for himself, who prided himself on bending laws, now felt a responsibility to carry a stranger to safety? Perhaps it stemmed from second thoughts about having entered the Berserker rage of his Norse ancestors and assaulting his former bodyguard. His efforts to save the girl acted as hyssop to cleanse the bloody hand print from his soul. Why? Mr. Serebus always asserted that he never felt guilt. Instead, he handled setbacks by striving to prevent their recurrence.
At the intersection, the Flying Spur slowed as Albin squinted in either direction. Crimson and white strobed the canyon walls a block northeast on Market Street. The siren shrieked its ode to confusion as the ambulance sped onward.
As he toed the accelerator, a mid-sized sedan flashed through the Bi-Xenons’ glare, traveling northeast up Market Street. He swung out after. Construction barriers, parked cars, wrecks, and debris from the quake clogged the artery, but wide pedestrian walks afforded passage in the Serebus School of Driving.
Mr. Serebus met challenges with the gusto of a mountaineer climbing the Alps. No, guilt did not beget his actions today. No need for guilt existed anyway. If the bodyguards had performed their duty, perhaps the terrorists wouldn’t have captured him. Thoughts of his capture and hostage status rolled behind the mental vault door. As the barrier closed, sunlight blazed around it and a desert wind blasted forth. Sweat slithered down the side of Albin’s neck, along his carotids. Then the vault sealed, returning the temperature to normal. He swallowed past a sandy throat. Memories . . .
“Nasan,” the victim in the backseat hissed. She deserved credit for
clinging to consciousness. “Where . . .”
“We’re almost there,” Mr. Serebus grated. “Is there anything I need to tell the paramedics?”
“T’anks. Tell . . . my moder . . .”
“Kate? Tell your mom what?” The question held the mingled pain and anger present whenever the Alaskan spoke of his own mother.
Albin glanced in the rearview mirror for Mr. Serebus’s reaction. The dark man spared a hand shiny with blood to cup the woman’s cheek. His angle obscured his expression.
“Jeg . . . beklager,” she murmured.
Control came as naturally to Mr. Serebus as breathing. Perhaps his drive for control prompted the rescue. Possible but doubtful, considering the severity of their situation.
From somewhere ahead, a boom of thunder penetrated the Bentley’s cabin. No, thunder originated from above, not ahead. A collision must have occurred.
Ahead, the emergency lights had halted. Albin advanced the Bentley with caution.
“What’s happening?” Mr. Serebus leaned between the front seats for a clearer view.
Ambulance and sedan slid into view. Passenger side open, the car rested with its left front buried in the emergency vehicle’s right rear corner. The ambulance’s doors hung ajar. It had challenged a row of bollards on the north side of the road and lost, glancing off one only to ram another. Judging from the smoke wafting from the crumpled fore, the truck would not help the rescue, or rather, what was beginning to feel like Mission: Unnecessary Complication.
“Ffff—” The car rocked as Mr. Serebus punched the back of the passenger seat. “Fantastic.” One hand maintaining pressure on the woman’s injury, he glared at the ambulance as if it had called down a generational curse upon him.
Figures moved at the front of the ambulance in the flashing lights and single functional headlamp.
