Inhuman screams of agony reached his ears, faintly, even up there. The covered positions they’d targeted cleared out, fast, the people looking like little miniatures running in every direction to escape the flames. Most people probably hadn’t actually been hit, but no one in their right mind was going to stick around to burn to death.
The planes veered around for another run.
Abram looked away. He’d seen more than enough, already.
The Jeep came down, all four wheels connecting with the dirt below. The force of the impact compressed the shocks, or something, because the next thing Gary knew, the Jeep had bounced up onto the right two wheels, threatening to tip. Gary spared a momentary glance to his left and noticed the man who’d been standing through the sunroof was gone—perhaps thrown from the vehicle? Good riddance. From the passenger seat, he grabbed the steering wheel and yanked hard to the right, and at last, the vehicle yet again had four wheels on the ground. He pointed an AK-74, modified with a shortened barrel and folding stock, out the side window at a particularly brave-but-stupid Burnsville man on a full-sized quad, pacing the Jeep from only about ten feet away. Its rider pulled the hammer back on his own pistol.
Yeah—too slow, sucker. Gary didn’t even have to watch to know his heavy bullet hit home, center mass, dropping his predator off his quad ATV. It would have been nice to watch him fall, tumble, and die, but Gary was busy chasing off the other dozen quads stalking him. More like herding him. It was clear they knew he was the general, the H-R-I-C, the head redneck in charge. If it hadn’t been for that whiny little bitch, the one ruining everything on the loudspeakers, it would have been easy to lure the quads into a deadly net of crisscrossing bullets, or even one of the “sighted in” mortar targets, spots the mortar crew could hit time after time because the angle and windage were already known. But they’d sent only one mortar shell downrange, and he was pretty sure they’d been aiming at him, not the assholes hunting him.
Man, they did not deserve the honor of chasing him down. Cowards. If there were any justice in the world, he thought, he would be hunting them down, one at a time. But, just like when Abram had locked him up for killing a man in self-defense, or when Gary had had to flee the compound or die—while Abram, that loser, stayed behind and in charge—Gary knew exactly how much justice the universe would just hand over to him. Black had been right—he had to make his own justice, or become the victim of someone who would.
And that damn woman, barely old enough to drink a beer before the CME event, had ruined Gary’s perfect battle plan, and turned his idiot sheeple against him for no damn reason. Was it his fault Wyatt was stupid and got himself killed? Was it his fault the whole town had lined up to bend over for Black and him? Nope. But she’d made it sound like he somehow did all those things by himself. And it had all come down to mere minutes, when he had finally figured out where the hell that stupid broad had been getting onto the town’s speakers, the PA system. If she had taken only two minutes longer to turn his people against him, he’d have ended her and her pretty-pretty-princess face before she got the chance. But no, she had a town wired for sound, and he had a CB that only his unit leaders could hear. The sheeple would listen to whoever was doing the talking, like most of their kind.
Damn lemmings.
An engine revved up behind him, bigger than the ATV pack that pursued him. He recognized the tone, of course—it was that damned SUV that had been trying to catch up for the last half a mile. That was bad, because a heavy vehicle like that wasn’t as vulnerable, the occupants harder to sight in on. But even worse, he’d caught a glimpse of the man driving. Nick. It was hardly believable, really. Nick was only one step up the evolutionary ladder from cockroaches—he seemed to keep going no matter what life threw at him. That was the price Nick had to pay for being too much of a coward to just end it all, fast and on his own terms.
And yet, that cockroach had somehow gotten lucky, and had survived long enough to grow a spine. Stupid of him to stay with Abram, then. If Nick had any balls, he could have bargained a much better position for himself and his ridiculous, sappy family, just by opening the door on Gary’s cage back at the compound. The man was yellow on the inside, though. He let fear stop him from rising, or even taking better care of his kids. Fool.
Well, Nick’s newfound spine was going to get him killed. He hadn’t left Gary much choice.
Gary stood so half his body rose up through the open sunroof, weapon snapping to his shoulder with practiced ease. He didn’t even have to think about what he was doing as he let out half a breath, held it, and squeezed his AK-74 trigger.
Bang, Bang, Bang. Three shots rang out in under two seconds, and a quad driver took one in his arm, sending the man’s rifle flying. One of the other rounds struck a rear tire on the man’s quad, and in an instant, that man took a nasty tumble as a result, dancing with his own 400-pound ATV at over thirty miles an hour. No one would likely survive a crash like that, not these days.
As soon as he’d fired, his eyes roamed, looking for Nick’s SUV. Where the heck had they gone?
Three bullets struck the SUV, lined up like ant tracks, but none came within a foot of Gary. He ducked down, reflexes kicking in before he realized what he was doing. More muzzle flashes from other ATVs told him that had probably been a smart move, though.
A thought struck Gary, then. Damn that sonuvabitch Black. If Gary had followed his own instincts, he wouldn’t have blown away a townie and then sat, vulnerable, on a bridge. What was the word for that kind of guy? Hubris. Black thought he was smarter and just plain better than everyone around him, and just because he was usually right, he’d never stopped to think about what could happen as a result of the plan he’d ordered Gary to follow. Because of Black, and his hubris, Gary had blown away a man who wasn’t a threat to him, and hadn’t slept well since. And because Gary had murdered the man, it had given jackass Abram the fuel he needed to spark a fire of resistance—and twenty of Clarks Crossing’s most loyal fighters died in an ambush that never should have happened.
The fact that Gary had saved himself in that resulting ambush, a choice he would make again in a heartbeat, had been all the seed-of-doubt the bitch on the PA system had needed to bring the whole house of cards crashing down. He felt bile rise up in the back of his throat as he considered whether his own people would have believed someone little older than a kid—and a woman, even—if he hadn’t proven to them he could kill casually?
He glanced out the front window, seeking the sun to get a sense of what direction they were driving. Toward the rail depot…Damn. That’s where the least reliable fighters had all been reassigned. If he could have turned around and survived, he would have. At least the troops on the other end of town were loyal. They might have cried out for a trial, or some such idiot idea, but most of them would have at least followed his orders until he got everyone out of Black’s quagmire alive.
On the bright side, as he looked out the window, he saw a way out. “Turn left between those bushes. Now!” When his driver cocked his head, confused, Gary just grabbed the steering wheel and yanked on it. His SUV fishtailed, but the driver quickly got the tires gripping again and glared at him until Gary grinned. “Look, we’re in a steep-ass ravine. Follow it. They won’t find us until we come up out of it.”
That would be near the rail junction, if he remembered the scouts’ maps and notes right. From there, he had a straight shot back to Clarks Crossing, ahead of any stupid rumors or traitor fighters. Grab a handful of peeps he could trust, a few of the vehicles they’d scrounged up that still ran, and as much of their supplies as he could carry. He just needed a little bit of luck until he was clear of the town’s sheeple and his own fickle fighters, down at the ravine’s other end. He could hear the noisy quads’ engines, scattered all around him in their search. It would only take one of them to notice the ravine too early…
Though it was a nerve-wracking few seconds that felt like hours, Gary spotted the ravine chokepoint he’d been expecting.
Scouts had reported it, though he had not confirmed it or its utility with his own eyes until now. Thank goodness, though, the chokepoint matched the description they’d provided. The ravine grew narrower, but deeper and smoother, for the last roughly one-third of its length, so he could make his driver go faster, and then it terminated in a low, smooth incline of compact soil and rock. Basically, a ramp out of there. To both sides, similar ramps existed. The scouts had guessed it was used as a placer mine, once upon a time, but Gary had thought it was far more likely created by the area’s natives, long ago, probably for some kind of weird, hippie-native agriculture system.
Didn’t matter. It was a way out that let him speed up instead of slowing down, and kept him hidden until he did so. Beyond it, the side-spur rail joined the main railroad track, and he could drive northward right next to the railroad ties the whole way back to Clarks Crossing—ahead of anyone who might have something to say about him plundering them and bailing.
On his handheld, he risked broadcasting. It seemed unlikely they had anything that could figure out his location from that, at least not on the fly in the battlefield. He didn’t address any specific unit. Instead, he gave a code word that the units he had in mind would understand to mean it was meant for them—and another code word telling them to launch a very particular contingency plan. “Charlie One Actual to the Flying Tiger. I repeat, Flying Tiger. Be advised, y’all are cleared for blue falcon. I say again, Flying Tiger, you are clear for blue falcon, A-S-A-P. Charlie One Actual, out.”
He didn’t bother listening for any response. There would be none, at least not by the units who had any business knowing about it.
He looked at his aide, driving. “Go faster, man. Get us the hell out of this ditch, and get our asses back home.”
The driver nodded. As he did so, the corners of his mouth turned up.
Gary shrugged. “What’s amusing, dude?”
The driver’s smirk widened. “Nothing, sir. It’s just that ‘blue falcon’ is a rather ironic choice for password on this op.”
Gary frowned. That was news to him. Sumbich probably could have mentioned that before the operation launched…Well, whatever “ironic choice for password” meant, it wasn’t important. The aide worked for him, not the other way around, and—
Gary gasped as the Jeep hit the ramp, easily going thirty or forty miles per hour, and his stomach threatened to come up through his throat as it flip-flopped around while the Jeep came back down. He almost shouted a mighty yee-haw, but the excited call died in his throat suddenly. Up ahead, something was moving. What the hell was it? It was definitely moving, but he couldn’t figure out what the heck it was. Siamese-twins deer? Melted-wax moose? A living pile of elephant crap? Increasingly ridiculous ideas came to mind as he tried to identify what on Earth he was looking at, up ahead.
52
Through the haze of a pain that consumed not only his thoughts, but his ability to have thoughts, Palmer saw movement ahead. Something like gauze seemed to cover his eyes, though. Palmer reached up and, with the back of his hand, swiped across his eyes. Piercing agony shot through him, on his face and hands alike, and he looked down at his hand, confused. He had some weird sort of glove on. He could see clearly again, though, and saw that two short lines of thin hairs grew from the back of his glove.
Eyelashes? Confusion and a vague horror washed over him, but he was quickly distracted from that mystery by a more confusing one—he found he couldn’t blink anymore. His eyes burned of dryness only a couple of seconds later.
Whatever.
It didn’t matter. Help was at hand. There had to be a first aid kit on that SUV—it was a black Jeep! Gary drove one. Gary carried first aid kits in every Jeep he rode in. What was his idiot pit bull doing so far away from the battle lines, though? Despite his pain, Palmer almost grinned as it occurred to him that the battle had to be going better than they’d planned. It had to be damn near over, because Palmer no longer heard any gunfire, and besides, it was the only explanation for why his loyal thug would be away from his precious little army.
Palmer forced a grin, and tried to wave, but the pain made waving impossible. It took an iron will like his to stay focused, even through the pain that engulfed every inch of his flesh, seemingly inside and out. As he grinned, he felt…rain? He looked down at his arm. His jacket sleeve was picking up raindrops as he looked at it, but weirdly, the rain was reddish black. Equally weird, his jacket looked all lumpy, and it looked shredded. Maybe the train wreck had been worse than he’d thought. The surface of his jacket was patchy, at best, and thick strands of…yarn?…seemed to stand out from within the jacket’s missing or shredded outer fabric layer.
Help. That was it, that was why he was walking. He was waving, he realized. To whom? He tried to squint, to better see whatever was moving toward him. He’d forgotten, and now he couldn’t see more than the moving thing’s color and…an outline! A Jeep. It was coming toward him, though. Palmer’s heart leaped with joy as one thought hit him: Gary. Followed by a vague notion that Gary was going to help him with…something. Huh, why wasn’t he fighting the town, what was its name…?
Maybe the fight was over. Gary was coming to give him the good news. Outstanding, because as crappy as Palmer felt, and despite a dull pain that covered him from head to toe, it seemed pretty clear he could use a hand getting to wherever he’d been going before spotting Gary’s Jeep.
Weird. Why was Gary not off fighting against that one town, the one that didn’t want to give up its ridiculous supplies? Must be good news. Palmer moved his feet in the vague direction of the Jeep, thankful it was coming toward him, and fast, because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe Gary would know what was wrong with him. Palmer made a note to ask if Gary remembered why he had asked him to come see him. He didn’t remember asking Gary to come by his office, but clearly, he had done so.
Palmer tried to wave, as Gary approached even closer, but his arm was too tired. Oh well. He smiled, instead, but was immediately distracted by the feeling of rain falling on his arms…
The horrible racket of noise, from the Jeep settling back down with all four wheels again on the ground after vaulting off what amounted to a ramp, left Gary’s ears ringing. Because of that, it took him a moment to become aware of a deep rumbling sound. “Keep going,” he said to his aide, and cocked his head to listen. Engines! He looked over his shoulder, only to find half a dozen ATVs sweeping toward him in a curved line. The side mirror on Gary’s side disintegrated as a flurry of little lights flared, even in the daylight. They were shooting at him. And behind them, an SUV, with a familiar-looking figure stuck halfway out of the vehicle’s sunroof, with a rifle. Somewhere along the way, Nick had swapped seats to take over gun duty, just so he could be the one to take the shot himself. That made this personal.
Crap. Someday soon, he’d have to pay that punk a personal visit. But he had to get away, first.
The only saving grace was that he’d greatly extended his lead, certainly to the point where it was unlikely some Johnny-come-lately city slicker like Nick had any chance of actually shooting him, even braced on his SUV’s roof. Their vehicle was bouncing merrily along the same ravine he’d just left. He almost smiled at that, but was too distracted by whatever was slowly bounding across the highland-desert terrain. It looked, at first, like a couple of those giant black trash bags, the ones contractors used to haul off grass clippings or all those leaves they raked up every autumn. But plastic bags didn’t tend to move in a steady, straight line, especially when there was no wind so far as he could tell by glancing at the tall grasses that grew in patches all over the place.
The driver said, “That thing’s in our way. You want me to slow down, so we don’t hit it?”
Gary’s upper lip twitched with his frustration. “With all them quads waiting to jump us? Nope. If it won’t move, I guess it sucks to be it.”
In response, his driver shifted into fourth gear. The Jeep c
ould handle such speeds on flat land like that, but it still made his teeth vibrate and clack together. With each passing moment, however, his discomfort became a more distant concern, because they were drawing close to the garbage-bag-monster thing in their path.
Only a moment later, Gary realized the thing was moving on two legs, somehow, though the way it moved was unlike any living creature Gary had seen before. It stood almost as tall as an average person, but every inch of its bulbous, glistening skin was saggy and mottled like the fat strip on a T-bone steak, perhaps, and Gary couldn’t decide in that moment whether it was mostly black or if most of it was a shade of red so dark that it looked black. Some jagged, white thing protruded from its misshapen, almost conical head—but the cone shape looked more like a result of the front and back halves shifting downward, reminding Gary of a jack-o-lantern left out for weeks after Halloween was over.
Melted? No way, that’s stupid.
But as stupid as it sounded, that’s exactly how it looked to Gary as the Jeep streaked ever closer, the impression growing stronger rather than fading as details became apparent the nearer they got. The hair on Gary’s arms and across the back of his neck stood on end, the flesh rising up in goosebumps as a shiver ran up his spine and spread across his scalp.
And then, that disturbing, creepy monstrosity looked right at Gary with giant, perfectly round, unblinking eyes that took up nearly half its face. That was disturbing, in ways that Gary barely recognized, much less understood. Far worse, however, Gary felt a sudden certainty that he’d seen this nightmare before, somewhere. It was familiar, deeply…
Gary couldn’t shake the horrid feeling that blob…somehow knew him.
Gary cocked his head. He felt a sudden and absolute certainty that the creepy, bulbous eyes weren’t meant to look that way.
EMP Crisis Series (Book 3): Instant Mayhem Page 39
