Chapter 56—Little Choice
Mark drew his jacket more tightly around himself. The temperature of the night air in the city was dropping rapidly to freezing. A siren wailed, speeding straight toward him. He ducked into an alley, avoiding the police car as it passed by.
He sighed. He had no idea what to do. Mark had heard nothing from Heather or Finster. He could only assume the fighting had ceased and Rooke’s plan was thwarted. But he could not very well ask anyone. No doubt they have my picture up all over the city.
After he’d left the funeral home, he’d spent the rest of the day hiding out in abandoned buildings. People were finding the city safe once more and coming out of their homes. He, on the other hand, had to keep moving. The wee hours of the night were slipping away fast. Soon it would be daylight and he’d be exposed.
His options were limited. The office and apartments were likely teeming with cops. Not that I can really go home anyway. There was nobody left to threaten his father. He assumed Gene would’ve turned him over to the police as soon as he showed up on the doorstep.
I should leave the city. That seemed sensible. Escape the inner city and head for the outskirts. Maybe even hide in Leonard’s house. They’ve probably already raided it and found all they want. If not, maybe there’s another house in that neighborhood where I can stay. I’ll be far from the cops. With that goal in mind, he set off for the more upscale area.
Light snow was falling. He picked up his feet as the pile grew steadily, reaching a couple of inches. Avoiding detection was pretty easy for Mark. All the emergency workers were concerned with helping the citizens, not solely searching for him.
He had seen several people mourning in the streets over dead bodies. Mark turned away from each scene. I didn’t do that. Emeryl or Rooke did. Yet telling himself this didn’t ease the shame gnawing at his insides. To him they were unknown faces, not anyone he had actually talked to, unlike Lydia’s parents. That fact lessened his guilt a little. He did his best to squelch the thought of the numerous dead and tried to distance himself from the carnage during his trek to freedom.
Within a couple of hours, he had escaped the city. As he walked, he chastised himself. “This is great,” he said to no one in particular. “What a mess.” He hadn’t meant to inflict any of the harm that had occurred that day. But he had played his part in it nonetheless.
He heaved another deep sigh. All Mark wanted was to rest somewhere warm with a nice meal and forget all about today. Today had been awful for everyone. He wanted nothing else to do with Rooke or Whyte.
When he arrived at Leonard’s house at last, he found police tape covering the door. That hadn’t stopped someone from ripping off some of the tape and entering. Mark cautiously pushed open the door and crept in. He wiped his snow-covered shoes on the welcome mat and brushed off his jacket.
The stench had returned, overpowering his senses. He gagged and covered his nose with his shirt. Rooke must’ve been here, but Mark didn’t hear anyone in the house now. The wreckage from the earlier fight was hard to see in the dark. He tried to avoid causing a stir, afraid that Rooke might still be there. He checked the bottom floor, finding nothing except shadows, which seemed to play tricks on his mind. When he climbed the stairs, he heard a soft moaning and crying from Leonard’s bedroom.
Mark sidled up to the door and peered in through the open crack. There was Rooke, kneeling over the bed, hands on his head. Lying on top of the bed was an open casket. A pair of dress shoes was sticking out at one end. Mark gulped, wondering how Rooke could stand the corpse’s smell. “I’m sorry, Dad,” Rooke said over and over. “I’m a screwup. I can’t do anything. I’m so, so sorry.” Within the man’s reach were a rifle and a pistol.
Backing away from the door, Mark stepped into a body. He nearly yelped, but a hand clamped over his mouth and whispered “Quiet.” He looked up at Heather, her scarf covering her own nose. She dragged him away from the bedroom door and into Rooke’s work area. The computer had been set back in place and several files were pulled up on the screen. She released Mark. Then she picked up some papers from the computer’s printer and removed a flash drive from the computer.
“Where’s Finster?” Mark asked.
“Dead,” Heather said, reading through the papers.
Dead? Mark fell against the wall. Dead? He looked at Heather. She was examining the computer screen. Finster was dead. It was a difficult idea to process. Overwhelming, really. “He’s dead?” Mark asked. She nodded. “How?”
“The funeral home’s walls and floors collapsed on top of him. Crushed him.”
“And everyone else?” Mark asked.
“Emeryl and his gang were rounded up, dead or alive. The BEP agents are all fine. And Rooke came here in his hearse.” She jerked her thumb to the window. Mark glanced out. In the backyard was an open hearse, now being buried by snow.
Heather looked at him. “Good to see you’re alive, Mark.”
“So what now?” Mark asked. “You going to kill Rooke?”
“I’m out of ammo,” she said. “He would shoot me before I could take his. There’s no time anyway.”
“No time? Why? Do we have to regroup?”
She shook her head, stuffing the papers and flash drive into a duffel bag. “No. It’s over. I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?” Mark’s heart jumped into his throat. “What? Why?”
“Because I’m not going to continue to be Whyte’s little pet, jumping through hoops, stealing and killing at his command,” she said, zipping up the bag. “He won’t provide me with a cure, so I refuse to stick around. Besides,” she said, glancing at a clock on the wall, “no doubt he’s heard what happened and will be sending his people here ASAP. Since I won’t help him anymore, he’ll be sure to kill me when he kills Rooke.”
Mark followed Heather as she left the room. “I’ll go with you,” he whispered. “I don’t want to stay here either.”
“No,” she said, rushing down the stairs. “I prefer to go alone. No offense, but two people are slower than one. And I can’t risk that with Whyte. Just go wherever you want. I wouldn’t advise going to the cops. Whyte will get to you one way or another if you do.”
First his home, then his job, then Finster, and now Heather. Mark was slowly losing the people closest to him and everything around him. He was truly alone. He wouldn’t allow her to leave without him. “No, please!” he said too loudly. “Take me with you! I can keep up!” He latched onto her arm.
Heather leaned down, staring him in the eye. She stroked his cheek and smiled. She pulled down her scarf and opened her mouth to say something. His mind began to feel fuzzy, like he was somewhere between slumber and wakefulness. His field of view fogged over. Too late Mark realized what was happening. No, he thought, his mind even slurring its words.
“I’m sorry,” Heather said, her eyes sympathetic. She bundled her scarf around her deflated neck. Then she buttoned her coat. “Do whatever you’d like, but don’t follow me. Good-bye.” She started to leave, but knelt and faced him again, those sympathetic eyes returning. “One last thing: Get out of here and don’t join Whyte. You’ll lose yourself otherwise.” Then she was gone, out the door without another word.
He stretched out his arm, touching the doorknob. But he couldn’t open the door. He wanted to follow but could not, her gas influencing him to turn away. The conflicting urges rooted Mark to the spot, wavering back and forth. He was unwilling to sleep and felt afraid that Rooke might come down the stairs during the night. But he never did.
Sunrise scattered the darkness, snatching the world into morning. As the shadows in the house retreated, so did the cloud from Mark’s brain. The smell of the corpse was now overpowering. He was exhausted but shook his head to try to clear it. There was no chance he could catch Heather now. Mark hit the wall and grabbed the doorknob. He tossed her advice aside. I’ll go to the cops. I should’ve done that long ago.
Before he could open the door, he heard the approach of faint, rumbling
engines. Mark flattened himself against the wall and looked out the window near the door. Two cars pulled up to the house and several men exited. In the early sunrise, they were mere silhouettes against the powdery white ground. But Mark could make out the shapes of guns in their hands.
He sprinted up the stairs. He spun frantically this way and that, unable to decide on what he should do. Should he hide? Warn Rooke? Jump out a window? But they’d track his footprints in the snow. The front door opened. Mark flung open the nearest door in the hall next to Leonard’s bedroom. It was a small closet with little space, but he pushed aside the hanging clothes and closed himself into it. He waited and listened.
On the edge of his hearing was the lightest of sounds. Ke-reak. Ke-reak. They were climbing up the stairs. Mark held his breath. The group was inching closer, closer to his spot, almost upon him. They passed by the closet. In five seconds Mark heard the crying stop. Muffled voices, a brief struggle, then a gunshot. Mark jumped at the noise, his heart hammering in his chest. “You, give me your gun,” someone said. Then more footsteps.
Suddenly, the closet door opened. A dark hand reached for him. Mark swung his arms, but the person pulled him out of the closet and threw him down. He tried to twist to look up at the man’s face, but a large black boot planted itself in the middle of his back, pinning him to the carpeted floor. Mark had glimpsed how the person resembled the various mercenaries under Emeryl’s command. Guns and grenades were strapped to his belt. He was in all black, and warmly dressed for the cold.
Mark heard the others spread out, checking every part of the house. He looked past a man and saw into Leonard’s bedroom. Rooke was lying on the floor. A person dressed in red winter gear emptied all the unspent bullets from a pistol into a pouch, then placed the pistol in Rooke’s lifeless hand. Mark leaned out so he could see Rooke—and immediately regretted it. There was a hole in the man’s head.
“So, who is it?” the man standing by Leonard’s room pointed with his chin at Mark. He wore dark sunglasses and a green ski cap. Mark saw an orange glow behind the shades, as though his eyes were as dazzling as the sun and had to be hidden.
“A kid,” the red one said, exiting Leonard’s room and approaching Mark. He removed his sunglasses, revealing intensely blue eyes. He stared down at Mark, and then took out a cell phone. “The phones are back on,” he said.
“Reckon it’s that Mark fellow?” the green one asked.
“Looks like it.”
“No kidding? Roy, maybe we should call Whyte.”
“Already on it,” Roy, the man in red, turned away from Mark to dial.
Meanwhile, one of the mercenaries approached the green man with documents in his fist. “Oliver, sir, we found it. Looks like it was almost finished.”
“So he was telling the truth for once,” Oliver, the green one, said. He looked off into space, not meeting the eyes of the mercenary or perusing the papers. “Saves us a little trouble. I don’t suppose he left any detailed notes on the whole process?”
“No, sir.”
Oliver sighed. “The boys will have a devil of a time picking it apart. Did you take care to erase everything else?”
“Yes, sir. Didn’t look like anything was disturbed.”
“Well, the cops aren’t exactly going to do an investigation right away when the city needs them, now are they? They’ll be back later, but we’ll be long gone by then.”
Roy turned in Mark’s direction and motioned to the mercenary to remove his foot from Mark’s back. “Here, c’mon.” He helped Mark to his feet. “You know anything about this? The strength and invincibility formula?”
“Rooke mentioned he was nearly done with it,” Mark said as he stood.
Roy handed his phone to Mark. “Whyte wants to talk with you.”
Tentatively, Mark accepted the phone and said hello. “Markus Bell.” The way Whyte said his name twisted Mark’s stomach into knots. “I’ll be quick. I know that Heather is alive. Probably fled the scene before my men arrived, yes? Left you holding the bag as it were, in the company of a madman.” When Mark didn’t answer, he continued. “I’m prepared to keep you on as an employee. Give you an upgrade. You’ll be working directly for me if you accept.”
Mark knew that with Whyte, there was no choice in the matter.
For a moment, he considered rejecting the offer. He was upset with Heather and might have accepted to spite her, if not for Whyte. Nothing good had come from his being employed by these people. He thought about running and jumping out the window. The mercenaries watching him only had bullets, which couldn’t touch him. He would only need worry about falling off the grid to hide from Whyte after he escaped the mercenaries.
Then he looked up at Oliver. The man was leering at Mark, a wide, sparkling grin adorning his face. But the glow that Mark had noticed before was brighter now. From behind the sunglasses, tiny flames licked the rims. What untold power the man possessed, he didn’t know. The fear Mark had felt when he’d first met Whyte returned tenfold, breaking his resolve to escape. Mark shirked away from the fire in the man’s eyes and pressed the phone to the side of his head. “Alright.”
“Excellent,” Whyte said.
Mark handed the phone back to Roy, who uttered an “Uh-huh,” then “Got it,” before pocketing the phone. “Let’s go.” Mark followed in the middle of the group without question. Together, they left the house, entered the cars, and drove off toward the sunrise. Mark turned in his seat and watched Golden Springs disappear into the distance, wondering if he would ever see it again.
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Dustin Martin
About Dustin Martin:
Dustin Martin is a lover of science fiction and fantasy, as his writing usually reflects, and loves all kinds of plots, from grand adventures to character-driven stories. He draws much inspiration from authors in these same fields and his Christian faith.
Dustin is currently putting himself through school as an English major. When he isn't writing or studying, Dustin is often listening to music or enjoying a book.
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