by LC Champlin
Both. “Albin’s not coming back. We have to deal with that fact. Now, we all need some sleep.”
A moment of silence passed before Denver shuffled toward the hall. “I miss him.” Albin or her father? Or both?
Nathan retreated to his room, where he returned to the office chair. He leaned back. A muscle spasm in his chest unleashed a fresh tsunami of pain. “Fff!” He hugged his ribs as agony’s talons gripped him. Deeper than flesh and bone it tore at him, to the dividing of soul and spirit. He squeezed his eyes closed against the tears.
Chapter 78
Citizen’s Arrest
Fly on the Wall - Thousand Foot Krutch
Nathan leaned against the side wall of the Musters’ house, gazing back at the cold, silver eye above. The wolves kept silent; the red-gold eyes in the dark of his mind remained closed. No longer did Skoll, Chaser of the Moon, keep the night from tarrying. He had abandoned his duty, leaving Artemis to rule the night and hunt the wild beasts.
“Twilight has come, and your hunt has ended,” Nathan murmured. Rather than satisfaction, the victory brought only nausea and fire in his gut.
Retching seized him, doubling him over. Again. Pain everywhere, wrapping him like the coils of a snake: unrelenting, uncaring, unbearable.
He surrendered to the spasms.
Then they retreated, stealing his energy and leaving pain in exchange. With a shaky breath, he slid down the wall to sit on the ground, head back. The sea breeze cooled his clammy skin.
“It’s just . . . the med . . . side effects.”
Overhead, the eye stared down at him, unblinking and unbelieving. At least it hadn’t turned to blood and the sun hadn’t turned to darkness. Yet.
His radio hissed. “Nathan, do you copy? This is the Marlin Drive roadblock.”
He fumbled the HT out. It jumped from his shaking hands. Fuck. When he recovered it—“I copy. What is it?”
“I’m sorry to wake you, but there’s an issue. We opened the roadblock to let a car out, but then a bunch more came out of the side roads and tailgated the first one out.”
“What are they doing?” Pain embraced him as he pushed himself up.
“They’re heading out to the end of Marlin Drive, to the island.”
The island—rather, the pseudo island—where he’d exiled Wong. “I’ll be there ASAP. Keep me informed of their actions.”
Stepping into the front yard, he closed the gate behind him.
“Nathan—”
His hand went for the Glock. But Amanda, not a foe, stood on the porch. “You heard too, I take it.”
“Yes. And I don’t think they’re going to throw a surprise party for the people there.”
“Come on.” The Sierra chirped as he unlocked it.
As he swung in, Amanda climbed into the passenger side. “I was afraid this would happen,” she grunted as she reached for her seatbelt.
Anticipated better described his thought on the matter. Mob justice proved thorough and effective, assuming one held a lax interpretation of justice. “There was nothing for it, Amanda.” He turned left on Davit, headlights washing over the upscale homes. “We can’t have a repeat of the Eduardo fiasco.”
“Maybe they’ll just kick them out of the neighborhood.” But her troubled expression belied her hope.
“Perhaps.” Not likely.
At the Davit / Marlin intersection, the guards waved him through as he turned right.
As he forged toward the end of Marlin, a line of headlights approached from the island. Amanda sat up. “That’s them! Pull across the road to stop them!”
“The truck isn’t long enough.” But he angled across the centerline to humor her. Unsurprisingly, the convoy jumped the sidewalk to roar past him.
“Where are they going?”
Nathan swung in behind the line, like the tail car of a funeral procession. “They want to use the cannibals as executioners.”
“I’m calling the security team. Maybe—”
“No. We’ll be risking starting a civil war. Wong caused a cannibal horde to destroy our neighbors. Is stopping them to save her really worth it?” He spared her a questioning glance as he followed the vehicles south on Redwood Shores Parkway.
“But this is mob rule!” she insisted, stabbing a finger at the convoy. “If they get away with this, where will it end? Witch trials—saying people brought in cannibals? McCarthyism—accusing people of sympathizing with the group that caused the cannibals? Or—”
“McCarthy was the one who was persecuted. There were Communists in the government, including the people he implicated. And Mrs. Wong and her cronies did use the frequency generator to bring cannibals. They confessed.”
A sigh of exasperation escaped Amanda. “I know, I know. There are three things that cannot be hidden long: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”
Ahead, the convoy neared the Heron Court Apartments.
“Serebus,” Sarge barked over the radio. “What the fuck is this? Are you evacuating?”
“No, we’re dealing with an internal affair.”
“We’re not your cops. Remember that. Sarge out.”
Amanda grabbed Nathan’s shoulder, making him flinch—and snarl in pain at the movement. “Sarge could stop this!”
“By gunning down the perpetrators? Even if Sarge stops them at gunpoint, it won’t stop the animosity between Wong and everyone. It might become violent, since the people already hate Sarge.”
Slumping back, Amanda shook her head. “So we’re just going to watch them kill Wong?”
Yes. “We’ll see.”
Ahead, the convoy pulled into Heron Court’s southwestern parking lot. Nathan stopped at the entrance. A few of the members angled their vehicles so the headlights pointed left and right along Lanyard Drive. Caught in the beams, cannibals—likely left over from when they had overrun the complex a few days earlier—turned to stare at the visitors.
At the convoy’s center, a Range Rover popped its rear door. Shadowy figures inside heaved two human-sized bundles onto the pavement. The headlight spilled over the detritus: Wong and her crony, hogtied but not gagged. They blinked in the brights. Unadulterated rage contorted Wong’s face, but shock froze her cohort’s features.
“I’m going out there.” Seatbelt hissing aside, Amanda shoved her door open.
Sssssaaaaaahhh—from every side. Movement between the cars. Figures darting through the headlight beams—
“Wait.” Lats braced, he caught her elbow.
“Nathan, let go. If you won’t help them, I have to!”
With timing only God could engineer, a gout of black oil splashed across the captives. Screams that excoriated the soul tore from them as they writhed. No escape for them, and no hope.
Amanda closed the door, jaw slack, horror riveting her gaze.
Justice had been done, albeit with all the propriety and deliberation of a lynch mob. No more would Wong complicate his efforts. Tonight would go down as the night of retribution against his enemies.
The posse members filed out of the parking lot. Wong and her ally twitched on the ground, eyes bulging. Around them gathered the cannibals. They watched as if waiting for a butterfly to emerge from a chrysalis.
“Go.” Amanda looked away from the monsters.
Nathan pulled a U-turn, heading back up Redwood Shores Parkway. The last sight of the doomed perpetrators’ eyes blended with the tail lights ahead. The criminals deserved their fate. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. If he hadn’t stopped Wong and her idiots, they would have caused more trouble and perhaps brought harm to his people. No, for a society to survive, the leader must possess his people’s loyalty.
Amanda continued to gaze out the passenger window. No doubt she saw flashbacks of the oil slopping across the doomed. She would understand the need for this action eventually. Hopefully.
The convoy rolled onto Davit. The Range Rover passed Keelson; Nathan followed. It turned right on Anchor Circ
le, then pulled into a driveway, apparently oblivious to the tail. Nathan slowed as the Rover’s driver exited. Chas’s mother. No surprise there. Three others—two men and a woman—followed her out.
The house’s front door opened, Chas taking up most of the doorway. “Mom, you did it, didn’t you. Why—”
“Good question,” Nathan interrupted, stepping out of the Sierra and striding into its headlights. “Do you feel justice has been done?”
The woman and her cohorts glared at him. “Did you really think exile was all they deserved? She sent cannibals over there”—gesturing toward the northern shore—“and cost those people their lives. It’s justice that she turns into one of those things.”
Slamming the truck door behind her, Amanda joined Nathan. “Maybe, but that doesn’t give you the right to act like a barbarian.”
“Mom,” began Chas, trotting into the driveway, “just because Dad—”
She rounded on him. “No. Chas, I will not sit idle while those monsters eat people. I’m not losing anyone else.”
“Okay if other people want to kill those murderers, but why do you have to be the one to do it?” A cry entered his voice. “It won’t bring Dad back.”
Ignoring Nathan and Amanda, she stormed up to her son. “Don’t talk to me in that tone. I realized something when I caught you breaking curfew tonight, and you said you were out killing those monsters: what’s the point of you risking your life if people like Wong can bring more in and get away with a slap on the wrist?”
Chas threw his arms up in frustration. “But not you, Mom!”
Enough. “I understand why you did this,” Nathan put in, “and I don’t deny that they committed a terrible crime. But if you attempt to take justice into your own hands again, know that justice will find you next. Eye for an eye, and the world goes blind. Cannibal for a cannibal, and the world goes to Hell.”
“How could you, Heather?” Amanda spat, shaking her head in disbelief. “You’re no better than Wong.” With that, she swung back into the Sierra.
Nathan followed. “I’m sorry, Amanda,” he sighed, grip tightening on the wheel. “I never meant for it to be this way.” I truly didn’t.
Chapter 79
Standoff
King - Zayde Wolf
Sunday morning dawned, smog-dimmed and smoke-flavored.
In the lab of the research building they had commandeered, Dennis hunched over a circuit board while Nathan studied the scientists’ reports. Nathan hadn’t surfaced from their notes in hours. Not his favorite way to spend a Sunday morning, but it beat lying in an infirmary bed with a chest tube between his ribs. Last Sunday seemed centuries ago.
Dennis looked up from testing the current. “I know you’re worried about the government’s aerial lay-down, but if they were going to kill us, they could just let the cannibals take their toll.”
“Perhaps, but logic has never been their forte.”
“True. And we don’t know what the chemical will do. We also don’t know how long the cannibals will last. They might die out in a week or two. There’s so much we don’t know. Like, are they able to process the . . . sustenance they take in? Do they excrete waste? How do they avoid bacterial superinfection?”
“All the more reason to finish the control system soon. Any more headway on that?” Nod to the circuit board.
“I think so.” Dennis grinned. “It’s going to take a little more work to get it perfect, but I think it’ll work for a short time now with the ‘polarity’ switched, so to speak. Well, it’s more than that, of course, but that’s the easy way of thinking of it.”
“I am aware; I read the full report and the schematics.” Excitement pulsed through Nathan’s veins, hot and strong. “Remember, you have to control for radio interference.” He strolled over, tilting his head as he studied the green board with its various components.
“Right, right.”
While Nathan spent time with Arete Technologies’s hardware developers, his passion lay in software design. The intricacies of language and the variety of outcomes one could create proved for more fascinating than the confines of hardware. What he wouldn’t give to have Mikhail at his side again. That traitorous fucker, after all Arete had done for him—
“Let’s test it.” Dennis barely had the words out before he darted out the door.
As they made their way toward the storage units and their deadly contents, Dennis continued: “If this works, we’ll be able to protect ourselves from threats of the cannibal variety. We could set up a shelter for everyone.”
“It doesn’t protect us from humans, unfortunately. However, if we use this tool correctly, we may be able to kill two predators with one stone, so to speak.”
“With your and Badal’s help, we should have the bugs worked out of the ReMOT’s programming too. Those files you say the mercenary—Sarge?—gave you really helped. I still can’t believe he handed them over!” Dennis laughed.
“Yes.” Though secret, the alliance with Lexa had begun paying dividends. What tax he would pay on them remained to be seen, however.
When they reached the cannibal enclosure, the men stopped to regard the monsters beyond the wire. The blighted souls looked up at the visitors.
Ssssssaaaaaahhh.
The Dalits dropped to all fours, then charged the fence. Dennis took a step back, but Nathan held his ground. The vomit could not reach them at this distance.
“Here goes nothing.” Dennis flicked the frequency to10, full power.
“Or everything.”
The light flickered, indicating a frequency generation.
“Come on,” Nathan breathed. “Come on, you fuckers.”
The Dalits slowed their scrabbling at the wire. They dropped to all fours, shaking their heads as if an off-key soprano had begun wailing. Perhaps from their perspective one had. Still in quadruped position, they backed up. Then they turned and loped from view behind the buildings.
“My God.” Dennis gaped, first at the absence of cannibals, then at the presence of the machine.
A wide grin sliced across Nathan’s face. “By George, I think we’ve got it.”
++++++++++++
Nathan adjusted the binoculars to fit his wider-set eyes. Bereft of optics, the guard beside him fidgeted with her shirt hem.
Down the Bayshore Freeway rumbled a Stryker, as black and imposing as the devil’s coach from legend. It veered eastward, down the exit to Redwood Shores. It would reach the guard post in under three minutes at its current speed.
Nathan lowered the binoculars, squinting against the noonday sun. “It appears we’re not finished dealing with them.”
“They’re probably back to tell us to evacuate,” the woman suggested.
“In light of the situation, I have no doubt.”
He made his way into the road to stand in front of the roadblock at the intersection of Davit and Marlin. He’d advised Amanda to stand by while he dealt with the military. Hands up in the universal stop gesture that doubled as a means of showing he meant no harm to the armored behemoth, he held his ground.
The Stryker rolled to a halt twenty yards short of running him down. “By order of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the National Guard, you are to evacuate this area within the next four hours. Gather your belongings and proceed onto the Bayshore Freeway. If you are unable to access the freeway, use alternate routes south. You will not be allowed to return until the area is cleared. If you refuse to comply, you risk death or extreme injury from the affected individuals. This is a mandatory evacuation. You are not—I repeat, not—permitted to remain here.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” Fucking government, forcing them to make bricks without straw, and whipping them if they failed. Fucking dictators.
“You will be traveling down a fortified route.”
“By fortified you mean the government will kill us if we set foot outside our lane.”
&nb
sp; A pause. “You have five hours. Begin your preparations now. We will return to verify that you have complied.”
Engine roaring, the vehicle performed a U-turn, then accelerated back toward the freeway.
“What are we going to do now, Nathan?” The guard had turned almost as pale as her white tank top. “How are we supposed to—”
“We begin to pack, but I believe the government will rethink their timeline.” Nathan gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, we haven’t come this far to give in without a fight.”
Chapter 80
Behind Enemy Lines
Centuries - Fallout Boy
With the neighborhood engaged in packing, Nathan headed back to the Sierra. He needed to—
“Nathan!” Chas?
Indeed, the young man trotted down the sidewalk toward him. “What is it?” Cannibals? More government agents? His right hand opened, ready to draw the pistol.
“I just . . .” Slowing to a halt before Nathan, Chas looked away. “I just—” Their gazes locked then as the teen pulled to his full height, just under Nathan’s. “I want to thank you for helping us. I’m sorry my mom—” He choked on the words.
“I understand why she and the others did what they did.” Nathan placed a reassuring hand on the youth’s shoulder, but Chas kept his gaze on the sidewalk. “The world we’re used to is no more. We can’t call 9-1-1 when we want justice. Mrs. Wong and her sympathizers brought their fate on themselves.” With a little help from their enemies. “Your mother did what she thought she needed to for the protection of her family and neighborhood.”
Chas looked back to Nathan. “She shouldn’t have had to. Now that Dad’s gone, I need to be the one to protect her and my sister. I know that now. Nathan”—he stepped back—“I’m going to protect my family, even if I die trying. I’ll do whatever it takes. If you need me to—”
“Chas.” Hand up to slow the flood of righteous loyalty. “You can help me by watching over your family. It’s going to be a struggle unlike any we’ve ever faced, but rest assured, we will win this.” Once the control of the cannibals belonged to Nathan, the uphill battle would transform into a ski run down the bunny hill. “Trust me.”
