The Sixth Wicked Child

by J. D. Barker

  He held a gun in one hand and cell phone with the bright flashlight shining in the other.

  He’d pushed the door open with the leather toe of his shoe, he hadn’t held the doorknob at all.

  Clair tore the white wire from the hook in the door and tossed it aside, pulled the door open, and jumped into Nash’s arms with so much force she nearly did knock him over. Her face was nestled in the crook of his shoulder when he grabbed her and pulled her deeper into the hallway.

  “Run!”

  118

  Poole

  Day 6 • 6:03 AM

  Poole spotted Bishop. Saw him jump from a white van only to disappear again into the crowd. Not before he caught eye contact with that woman from Channel Seven, though. Poole started that way, but it seemed the thousand people around him had also decided to head for that very same spot, and the crowd became so thick, Poole found it hard to breathe.

  A few feet ahead of him and to his left, an older woman lost her footing and went down. The crowd seemed to carry her for a moment, then she vanished somewhere below. Poole elbowed his way over to her, helped her back to her feet. Another moment, and she might have been trampled. He saw a little girl in her mother’s arms, clutched against her chest, no more than eight or nine years old. The mother was trying to move in the opposite direction from everyone else, no doubt attempting to escape the mob of people, but like the old woman, the momentum of the many carried her with them. Poole got to her, shouted for her to get behind him, and she did, but then he lost track of her as others moved to fill the little bit of empty space he created.

  Up ahead, where Bishop must have been, the shouts were deafening and somehow growing louder. Not just cries for Bishop anymore, but cries to get out. Cries to stop. Cries for help.

  When Poole caught sight of Porter, he was at least thirty feet away, also heading toward Bishop. It was a fleeting glance, but Poole was certain it was him, and for one quick instant, their eyes met. For that moment, all else dropped away. It was in that moment that Poole saw Porter’s shoulder tense, traced his arm, his hand, down into the pocket of his jacket. It was in that moment that Poole realized Porter had a gun. All of this in under a second. He lost sight of him again as his own hand instinctively went for his weapon and freed the Glock from his shoulder holster.

  119

  Porter

  Day 6 • 6:04 AM

  Lizeth Loudon stood twenty feet to his left.

  Anson Bishop was less than a dozen paces away.

  Detective Sam Porter took the .38 from his pocket, raised the weapon above his head, and fired three shots into the air.

  The crowd froze.

  The voices silenced.

  With the echo of gunfire, momentum shifted, turned, began to push away from Bishop rather than toward him. When the space between them cleared, Porter trained the weapon on the other man. “Set down the water bottle, now!”

  Bishop froze, turned toward Porter. The water bottle, now uncapped, dangled from his fingertips.

  Porter leveled the gun, a clean shot at Bishop’s chest, if he took it. His finger tightened on the trigger. “I’m not going to ask you again!”

  Bishop nodded, slowly crouched, and placed the open water bottle on the cracked asphalt. “It’s just water, Sam.”

  “Drop the gun!”

  Poole.

  Special Agent Poole pushed through the crowd into the open space, his gun on Porter. “Drop it! Now!”

  Porter shook his head and shouted at Bishop, “Step back from the bottle!”

  To Poole, he said, “The virus is in that water bottle!”

  Bishop shook his head. “It’s just water. You brought the virus here, Sam, not me. I wouldn’t do something like that.”

  “He planned to infect everyone,” Porter insisted.

  Bishop took a step closer. “How was breakfast, Sam?”

  As Bishop took another step, Porter shouted, “Don’t move!”

  Bishop drew closer. “You brought the virus here, not me. If anyone infected all these people, it was you. Everyone around you.”

  How was breakfast, Sam?

  A shot rang out, loud and harsh. Porter heard it a moment after the bullet tore through his chest from the rooftop of one of the surrounding buildings. He didn’t remember falling to the ground, but when his brain registered what was happening, that’s where he was. Poole was on top of him, wrestling the gun away.

  There was an explosion then, a deep rumble, that came from the direction of the hospital.

  120

  Poole

  Day 6 • 6:05 AM

  “Hurry, they’re coming.”

  At first, Poole thought he misunderstood him, but Porter repeated the same phrase a moment later, his spittle tainted red with blood.

  Poole pressed hard on the wound in Porter’s chest, leaned closer. “Who’s coming?”

  “Weasel…he called me…he said he had evidence…meet him…”

  Poole frowned. “Evidence of what? You’re not making sense, Sam. Try not to talk—you’re losing a lot of blood.”

  He tore open Porter’s jacket.

  The bullet, fired by one of the snipers on Washington, struck Porter high in the right side of his chest. Porter’s breathing was labored, each breath a quick gasp. “I think the bullet punctured your lung. Just lie still—paramedics are coming.”

  “I ate the breakfast,” Porter said. “Infected. Get…away.”

  Porter bucked, tried to knock Poole off, but Poole held fast.

  “Father, forgive me,” a female voice said from somewhere behind Poole. She tossed a black and white composition book onto Porter’s bloody chest and disappeared into the crowd before Poole could get a good look at her. Nothing but a wisp of brown hair. He shoved the book aside and applied more pressure to the wound.

  About ten feet to Poole’s left, four uniformed officers from Metro held Bishop down on the ground while two agents from the Bureau stood over him. His hands were behind his back, secured with plastic zip-tie handcuffs. As they hauled him to his feet, his eyes fixed on Porter, on the gun a few inches from Porter’s fallen hand, then met Poole’s for an instant before he was turned and dragged through the crowd toward a waiting patrol car.

  A large, black cloud of smoke filled the sky deeper into town—near Stroger, if not the hospital itself.

  Porter coughed.

  Blood sprayed over his shirt.

  His eyes rolled up into his head.

  A paramedic dropped to the ground next to him, another on his other side.

  To the first one, a woman in her late twenties with short red hair, Poole said, “I’m FBI. I think the bullet punctured his lung. He was conscious up until a moment ago.”

  “His pulse is weak. BP is seventy-three over fifty-five.” She had Porter’s shirt open, examining the wound. “Step back, please. I’ve got him.”

  Poole did as he was told.

  The other paramedic handed her a package labeled QuickClot and some bandages. He looked up at Poole. “I just came from your communications van—SAIC Hurless has been poisoned. Something in his coffee, we think. You might want to get over there.”

  Poole looked in the direction of the van. Hurless, Dalton, and the tech who had been tracing Porter’s phone, all in there. He turned back to the paramedic. “What about Dalton and the tech?”

  He injected Porter with something. “Just Hurless. The others are okay.”

  A third paramedic arrived, this one with a stretcher. He set it on the ground parallel with Porter.

  “Is he breathing?” Poole asked.

  None of them answered.

  With a practiced movement, two rolled Porter to his side while the third maneuvered the stretcher under him.

  “I’m staying with him,” Poole said.

  “Clear us a path,” the female paramedic said. She held an IV bag a few feet above Porter with one hand while pressing a finger first to Porter’s wrist, then to his neck. When she noticed Poole watching her, her fingers dropped aw
ay, and she wouldn’t make eye contact.

  Together, they pushed their way through to the ambulance parked at the curb, the bloodstained diary tucked into the waistband of Poole’s pants.

  121

  Diary

  Stocks dead.

  “Get his gun,” Vincent said, looking down at Stocks’s lifeless body.

  “Stocks? What’s happening up there?” Welderman called up from the base of the stairs.

  Stocks was dead. Very little blood came from the back of his head where Vincent hit him, but I could see the white of his skull under the matted hair and torn skin. He’d cracked the bone.

  “Get the goddamn gun,” Vincent repeated. He moved to the side of the doorway and pressed his back against the wall, ready to strike the next person who came into the room.

  With a shaking hand, Libby reached down and picked up the gun.

  I took the weapon from her. I knew what was coming, and I didn’t want her to know what it felt like to take a life. I didn’t want her to ever know that feeling.

  On his bed, The Kid groaned.

  Tegan’s face was white. Kristina was pressed up against her, still looking down at Stocks’s lifeless body.

  “Stocks? I’m coming up!”

  “Hurry!” I shouted. “I think he had a heart attack!” I quickly knelt between Stocks and the doorway, blocking any view of his ruined head. My finger on the trigger, I hid the gun behind his body. I didn’t know much about guns, but this was a revolver, so I didn’t think it had a safety. I hoped it didn’t have a safety.

  Vincent pressed so tight against the drywall I thought he might disappear into the wallpaper. He nodded at me quickly, the wrench above his head, ready to swing.

  Welderman came up the stairs two at a time. Before I saw him, I saw his shadow on the wall, looming larger with each thud of his feet. When he reached the doorway, time moved so slow. I’m not sure if it was the sight of Stocks on the floor, or the look of fear in Tegan’s eyes, or Paul standing in the corner, or me crouched down, but something gave him pause. He froze just outside the doorway.

  Vincent had expected him to come into the room, and he had started to swing the wrench when Welderman’s footfalls were just outside the door. If Welderman had kept going, the wrench would have hit him square in the jaw. Because he stopped, Vincent hit him high in the forearm instead, just below his shoulder. More of a glancing blow. Welderman staggered backward, fumbling for his gun.

  I raised Stocks’s revolver and fired, three quick shots. I didn’t have a chance to aim, and the first bullet struck the wall a few inches from his head. The gun kicked back for the second and third shots and those went wild—one further up the wall behind him, the other into the ceiling.

  Welderman jumped back against the hallway wall, pictures falling around him, then he rolled to the side and disappeared down the steps as I fired a fourth time.

  “Give me that!” Vincent snatched the gun from my hand and ran down the hallway after him.

  I heard two more shots. Neither had come from Vincent.

  122

  Diary

  I wanted my knife, but I didn’t have my knife, Oglesby had my knife. Father would have told me to use the wrench, so I scooped it up, and I followed after Vincent.

  I spotted him briefly near the bottom of the stairs. Then he rounded the corner toward the parlor as another shot rang out. The bullet smacked into the plaster near the front door, spraying the air with dust.

  Someone yelped at the top of the stairs. I think it was Kristina.

  Vincent crouched outside the parlor as another shot came. He quickly pointed at the front door. I understood—there were only two ways in and out of this house, and Welderman was moving toward the back door in the kitchen.

  Another shot. This one so close, I heard it whiz by my head.

  Vincent fired in the direction of the parlor.

  I dropped to the floor, crying out as pain shot up my broken arm. I scrambled for the front door, pulled it open, and rolled across the porch, down the steps to the grass. By the time I stopped moving, the pain was so bad my vision went white. I might have broken my arm again. There was no way to tell with the cast.

  I forced myself to stand and ran around the side of the house to the back door.

  I found Finicky in the kitchen, a butcher knife in her hand. “You little shit.”

  She came at me, far faster than I anticipated. She wielded the knife with something between skill and fear—quick swipes back and forth at arm’s length, trying to drive me back. Instead, I barreled at her with all my strength. The knife came at me, and I raised my arm with the cast, brought it up hard. I caught the side of the blade, deflected it, and my cast smacked up under her chin. Finicky’s head jerked back, cracked against the kitchen counter, then she fell to the floor.

  The blow hadn’t killed her, but her breathing came in quick, shallow gasps. Her right arm jerked and spasmed.

  I dropped the wrench and took up her knife. Not my knife, but a knife, and the blade felt good in my hand.

  From the parlor, I heard another shot. Whether from Vincent or Welderman, I couldn’t be sure.

  Cold sweat trickled down the side of my face. My arm throbbed with my heartbeat, such heavy thumps it felt like they would break the cast from the inside. I tried to ignore the pain, to will it away as Father taught me.

  I crossed the kitchen.

  The door between the kitchen and parlor was closed. Flimsy and double-hinged, designed to open in either direction. Hardly thick enough to stop a bullet, but with it closed, I had no idea what was happening on the other side.

  Another shot.

  The report had a deeper sound to it than the one I heard when Vincent fired—this had to be Welderman shooting. Vincent had a revolver. While I had never shot one before tonight, I’d read about them in plenty of comics. Most only held six bullets. I had fired three shots upstairs, and I saw Vincent fire one more. At best, he had two shots left. Maybe less, if any of the others I heard had been him. Father would have searched Stocks for additional ammunition before heading downstairs. I was not my father.

  Two more shots.

  Definitely Welderman, not Vincent. If Welderman was still shooting, it meant Vincent was still alive. He was probably in the hallway just outside the Parlor.

  I kicked the door. It swung open into the room. With the adrenaline, everything moved in slow motion. I took it all in—Vincent barely visible opposite me in the hallway. Welderman was crouched behind the couch, sideways, his gun up. When he saw me, he spun in my direction, squeezing off shots as he came around. Vincent dove into the room, slammed onto the hardwood floor, and fired twice under the couch, maybe an inch off the floor. The first bullet punched through the baseboard to my left, the second bullet caught Welderman in his right foot.

  Welderman dropped back onto the couch and was already trying to get back up when I ran toward him and jumped.

  He pulled the trigger again, and something hot cut into my thigh.

  The butcher knife pierced his neck about an inch below his Adam’s apple. I held the knife as Mother had taught me—with my palm pressed against the base of the hilt so my grip wouldn’t slide—and I felt pressure as the tip first sliced through skin and muscle, then more resistance when it punctured his windpipe. The blade caught in bone at the back of his throat and blood sprayed out everywhere, hot against my skin.

  I dropped to the side of him, rolled off the couch, and found myself on the floor.

  I landed on my broken arm, and this time the pain won. I don’t remember passing out. To nobody in particular, I only remember saying, Weasel is still in the van.

  123

  Diary

  Paul slapped me.

  When my eyes opened, I saw his hand coming at my face for a second time, and I turned away, barely fast enough to avoid the blow.

  “He’s awake!” Paul shouted over his shoulder. He was sitting on my chest, holding me down. “Don’t move—that prick shot you.”


  I felt a burn, something horrible in my thigh, and when I tilted my head, I saw Libby pouring peroxide over a tear in my jeans.

  “The bullet just grazed you. It could have been much worse.” She dabbed at the wound with a dish towel from the kitchen and fished a roll of gauze from a first-aid kit at her side. I had no idea where she found that. She went around my leg several times, pulling the gauze tight.

  On the couch, Vincent was going through Welderman’s pockets, dumping the contents on a side table. Welderman stared at nothing, a blank, dead gaze. His clothing was soaked in blood, the couch too, the surrounding furniture. I probably hit his jugular; nothing else explained all the blood. The butcher knife was on the floor near his feet.

  “Finicky’s in the kitchen,” I managed to get out, trying to look back that way.

  “We found her. Tegan and Kristina are tying her up,” Paul told me. “She’s still alive. You should have hit her harder.”

  “Can you get off my chest? I can’t breathe.”

  “Sorry.” Paul rolled to the side and got to his feet.

  Finished with my leg, Libby wiped the blood from my face. Her expression was filled with a mix of concern, fear, worry, anxiety, yet somehow she managed to smile, and that smile was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She hovered over me for a moment, then bent down and kissed me. Her lips soft, warm, perfect. “I think I love you, Anson Bishop.”

  She said this quietly, only for me. For that brief moment, I forgot about the pain in my leg, my broken arm. There was only her and me, and I told her I loved her too.

  Turns out Paul heard us. His face flushed as he looked away.

  “Found his keys,” Vincent said from the couch. He also had Welderman’s gun and at least one extra clip. “I’m going after Weasel.”

  I tried to sit up. “I’m going too.”

  “No you’re not.” Libby frowned.

  I forced myself to stand, reigniting the pain in my thigh and arm. “I have to.”

  “Let Vincent and Paul go.”

  “We all need to get out of here,” Paul said. “We don’t know who’s coming back and when. His eyes fell on Welderman, all the blood. “Both him and Stocks were cops. There was that other one out there…they’re all dirty. We can’t let them find us here.”