by Scott Sigler
So instead of riding in glory, the emperor of Chicago walked toward the hotel. He walked slowly, and far back from the still-advancing second wave. Steve stayed a few steps behind Jeff so the bull’s wide body would block any stray fire.
Hundreds of bodies lined the streets, victims of mines, snipers and grenades. Where dying flames didn’t burn, the pavement ran red with blood.
As Steve advanced, his third wave came out of hiding. They slid out of cars, stepped out of doorways, all carrying weapons that had yet to be fired. They walked toward the hotel. There were thousands of them, so many and so thick it looked like a well-organized parade.
The third wave included most of the Converted who had been soldiers in their former lives. Each of them managed ten civilians. The soldiers communicated via hand signals, runners, cell phones, and most also had some form of radio or walkie-talkie that the scavengers had found in electronics, toy and sporting goods stores. Where the first wave had been cannon fodder, as had most of the second, the third wave was an organized combat force.
General Brownstone had gone up ahead to get a closer look. She jogged back toward him.
“General, have we entered the hotel yet?”
“No, Emperor,” she said. “The human perimeter is collapsing and the building is on fire, but there is still resistance. Shouldn’t be long now. The third wave is already setting up the containment ring — nothing is going to get out of that hotel alive.”
Containment. That was the key. They’d kill Cooper Mitchell, then kill his killers and — God willing — forever wipe out his horrid disease.
Steve checked his phone: 4:19 A.M. The battle had taken only nine minutes. In warfare, apparently, things happened fast.
He pulled his coat tighter and watched the hotel burn.
REUNITED
Gunfire. Flames. Yelling and screaming, the sounds of panic, of fury, all barely audible over a high-pitched ringing.
Tim lifted his head. His body felt numb.
Cooper Mitchell struggled to his feet. The man looked terrified and shell-shocked. Clarence was still down, unconscious. His gas mask was gone. A long piece of metal jutted out of his shoulder blade, blood trickling from his CBRN suit.
The sight of that blood brought Tim out of it. He pushed himself to his knees, scrambled across the rubble to Otto’s side. The shard hadn’t penetrated that far. There wasn’t time to do things properly, so he grabbed the shard and yanked.
Clarence twitched, moaned and rolled over.
Tim looked around for a bandage, a towel, anything remotely clean to press on the wound. Gunfire and the explosion had shredded his medical supplies, scattering them all across the burning lobby.
He helped Clarence sit up, waved Cooper over. Cooper stumbled toward them. Tim grabbed the man’s hand and pressed it against Otto’s wound.
“Keep pressure here,” Tim said. “Press hard.”
Clarence’s lip curled up, his eyes scrunched tight in pain.
“My weapon,” he said. “Someone find my weapon.”
Tim heard a shout above the unending din, a single word: grenade!
Something exploded across the lobby, close to the front door. A Ranger fell back crying out in agony. Tim stood and started toward the wounded man, but Klimas sprinted through the doors and cut Tim off.
“Feely, run! Take the package to the stairwell, move!”
Tim reached for Cooper, then saw Otto’s pistol on the floor. He snatched it up, shoved it into Otto’s hands, then pulled Cooper toward the stairwell door at the rear of the lobby.
Tim looked back, saw Klimas lift Otto to his feet and push him toward the stairwell. The SEAL commander suddenly wheeled, fired at three men who ran through the entrance: pop-pop, slight turn, pop-pop, slight turn, pop-pop. The three men fell to the floor.
Another explosion hurled shards of metal, stone and wood across the lobby.
Cooper reached the stairwell door first. He pulled it open as Tim rushed through and stepped on the landing. Otto reached the door, pushed Cooper inside hard, then held the door open with his body. He aimed out into the lobby and started firing his pistol.
“Klimas,” he screamed, “come on, get in here! Feely, take Mitchell upstairs!”
Tim again grabbed Cooper’s arm.
“Come on,” Tim said, then started up the steps.
And stopped cold.
One landing up stood Margaret Montoya.
Tim stared at her for a long second. She stared back. Both of them were too surprised to move.
Margaret reached for the gun strapped to her right thigh.
Save Cooper save Cooper save Cooper
Tim slid his body in front of Cooper, put his hands down and back, hemming him in.
Margaret raised her pistol, pointed it at Tim’s face.
Tim wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t — they stayed locked wide open. He wondered if his brain would be able to process the muzzle flash before the bullet ended his life.
Clarence stepped in front of him, his weapon aimed at his wife.
“Margaret! Put it down!”
Tim saw her face change, instantly morphing from a hateful, snarling-eyed visage to a soft expression of love and concern — like someone had flipped a switch.
“Clarence,” she said, “Tim is lying to you. I’m not infected, he is. Kill him before he kills us.”
The heavy stairwell door slammed open. Klimas came through, his weapon up and aimed at Margaret in a fraction of a second.
“Otto,” he said. “You got this?”
“I do,” Clarence said.
Clarence’s aim didn’t waver. Neither did Margaret’s.
Klimas turned, opened the stairwell door a few inches and fired into the lobby. He yanked a grenade out of his webbing, pulled the pin, underhand-tossed it through the small gap, then slammed the metal door shut.
Tim heard the grenade explode, heard men and women screaming in agony.
An army of psychos and monsters were closing in from behind. An armed and infected Margaret Montoya blocked the only escape. If Clarence Otto didn’t shoot his wife, Tim was going to die one way or the other.
SHARPSHOOTER
Cooper Mitchell was standing right there. Right there. Margaret had checked her suit, it was safe, had to be safe, the Antichrist was just a half-flight down and she couldn’t die not now, not now, not when her people were coming.
Clarence stood in front of Tim, who stood in front of Cooper Mitchell. The look in Clarence’s eyes: pained, yet committed to doing his job. He wanted to believe she wasn’t infected.
“Margaret,” he said. “Put it down.”
Why hadn’t she just fired right away? She’d frozen, surprised by Tim, shocked to see her target right in front of her. She’d missed her chance.
“Clarence, listen to me,” she said. “Honey, Tim is one of them. Why do you think he told everyone I was inf—”
A crack sound echoed through the stairwell as something slammed into her hand. Her pistol clattered against the wall, then hit the concrete floor. She took a step back, looked at her hand… blood, spurting all over her CRBN suit… her index finger… gone.
She staggered, slumped down the wall.
But he didn’t shoot, I was looking right at him…
Clarence ran up the stairs toward her. Down by the landing door, she saw Klimas, his rifle pointed at her.
A curl of smoke drifted up from the barrel.
HUSBAND AND WIFE
Clarence grabbed Margaret’s pistol to secure the weapon, but there was no need — Klimas’s single round had blown the trigger clean off, snapped the guard into two jagged metal pieces.
He grabbed his wife by the shoulders, righted her.
“Margaret! Are you okay?”
A stupid thing to say. Her finger was gone She was bleeding all over the landing.
He heard voices, both in his headset and from the people around him. He heard Klimas urging Tim and Cooper up the stairs, telling them to head to
the eighth floor, heard feet hitting concrete.
Margaret looked stunned. Blood spurted from her finger stump. Clarence holstered his weapon, knelt before her and grabbed her right wrist.
“Hold on, baby, this is gonna hurt.”
He squeezed down on the stump. Direct pressure. He had to stop the bleeding.
A man ran past behind him, then another.
Margaret looked at him. No sense of pain in her eyes, just a dull shock. Shock… and hate.
“Otto, get out of the way.”
The voice of Commander Klimas.
Clarence turned quickly, keeping his body in front of his wife.
The SEAL commander had his weapon pointed slightly off to the right so it wasn’t aimed directly at Clarence’s chest.
“Otto, get out of my way.”
Clarence held up his hands. “Please, don’t do this.”
She couldn’t be infected. It just wasn’t possible. She was the mother of his child.
Klimas stepped to his left, trying to find a shot. Clarence lunged right, cutting off any angle.
Clarence didn’t even see the rifle butt come up before it slammed into his chin — not hard enough to do serious damage, but hard enough to knock him aside.
The rifle butt snapped back to Klimas’s shoulder, the barrel aimed at Margaret’s face.
Tim Feely screamed down from a half-flight up. “No! We need her alive. Trust me on that.”
Clarence again put himself between Klimas and Margaret.
The SEAL’s lip curled up in frustration. He lowered the barrel.
“You better be right, Tim,” he said. “Fuck. Let’s move.”
Something big slammed into the stairwell door, hard enough to bend it inward.
Klimas turned, fired three shots through the metal door. He reached behind his back, then tossed two things onto the concrete landing next to Clarence.
“Look at her magazine,” Klimas said. “If there’s only one round gone, that’s the bullet she used to kill Bogdana. Then the decision is yours. We’re going to the eighth floor where there’s a way out. We’re not waiting for you.”
Klimas sprinted up the steps.
Clarence looked at what the SEAL had dropped — two zip strips, one grenade.
He felt hands fumbling for his weapon.
He turned instantly and did something he had never thought himself capable of doing: he hit Margaret.
A short left to the jaw, snapping her head back. She let out a moan, sagged weakly.
Bullets tore through the dented metal door, kicking up puff-spots of concrete when they sparked off the cinder-block walls.
Clarence’s left hand grabbed the zip strips and grenade, shoved them into his pocket even as his right drew his Glock. The door rattled once from someone hitting it, then bounced open.
He fired three times at the first movement. Bodies ducked away, leaving the door to automatically swing shut.
Her weapon… her magazine.
Clarence grabbed the ruined pistol and shoved it into his empty thigh holster. He reached behind Margaret’s back, lifted her and tossed her over his shoulder even as his feet carried him up the concrete steps.
His legs drove him to the next landing. Behind him, he heard the first-floor stairwell door slammed open, this time from something bigger than just a man.
A roar, an inhuman sound that echoed through the enclosed stairwell.
Clarence bounded up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time despite Margaret’s extra weight.
He heard footsteps behind him. Footsteps and a deep, giggling growl.
Careful to keep Margaret on his shoulder, Clarence shoved his pistol into his webbing belt, then pulled the grenade Klimas had given him. He squeezed the handle, lifted the grenade to his mouth, bit down on the pin and twisted his head to yank it free.
He tossed the grenade behind him, heard the handle flip away and bounce off the wall with a hollow, metallic ting.
Four seconds…
He kept driving upward, two steps at a time.
Two seconds…
He made it up a flight and a half before the bang rattled the stairwell, shaking the air and the concrete alike. Farther back, he heard a scream of pain, a scream just as inhuman as the roar had been.
Push, push, push… don’t think about how your legs burn, and don’t you dare think about Margaret…
Chest heaving, he reached the eighth floor. He heard yells from farther down the stairwell, but they weren’t as close as before. He opened the door and carried Margaret into the hallway.
He turned the first corner he saw, getting out of sight of the stairwell door. Chest heaving, he set Margaret down. The right side of her jaw was already swelling. Blood ribbons coated her hand. She blinked slowly, tried to sit up. He gently pushed her back to the floor, needing only a tiny amount of pressure to do so.
“Margo, hold on. Just hold on.”
He had to check her weapon, see if Klimas was right.
Margaret clutched weakly at his forearm. “Get… off… me.” She looked at him with nothing but hate in her eyes.
This isn’t my wife… this isn’t Margaret…
Clarence drew her ruined pistol from his thigh holster, looked at it.
She couldn’t be infected. Couldn’t be.
He pushed the release and slid the magazine free. There wasn’t time for it, but he couldn’t help himself. He counted off the rounds. Eleven.
The weapon held twelve.
Just one round missing.
Margaret pushed at him, pushed hard. “Get off me! Give me the gun, honey, they’re coming to get us! Save the baby!”
The baby.
Was she pregnant? Or was that another lie, created to manipulate him? She had played him for a fool.
He pocketed her magazine, then pulled out the zip strips.
She saw them and started to scream — not a scream of fear, but the guttural, throat-ripping sound of an enraged, trapped animal.
“Don’t you tie me up you needle-dick motherfucker! Get your fucking hands off me!”
Clarence grabbed her arms, flipped her onto her stomach.
“I’ll cut off your balls and feed them to you, you stupid nigger! Let me go, let me go!”
She squirmed, but she wasn’t strong enough to fight him. He wrenched her wrists back. Her still-bleeding stump flicked blood across the hallway carpet.
With one hand, Clarence held her wrists together. With his other, he looped the zip strip around them, then yanked it tight.
“I hate you fucking insects we’re going to kill you all kill you all!”
Clarence stood, lifted her and again threw her over his shoulder. His exhausted legs burned instantly. He ignored his body’s complaints, thumbed the “talk” button.
“Klimas! I’m on the eighth floor, where the fuck are you?”
A WAY OUT
Clarence stumbled toward Room 829. He recognized the two SEALs crouched by the door: Bosh and Ramierez. Inside, he saw the big one, Roth, using a combat knife to saw through the drywall.
Farther in, Klimas was peeking through heavy curtains. Tim Feely and Cooper Mitchell sat in the middle of a king-size bed, trying to stay out of the way. Two more SEALs stood near Klimas. Their name patches read HARRISON and KATANSKI.
Clarence smelled smoke… the fire from the first floor, spreading. The room felt hot.
Klimas turned, saw Clarence and Margaret. His gun came up fast. Harrison and Katanski also brought up their rifles. Roth remained focused on the wall.
Margaret kicked and thrashed. “Please don’t shoot me! I didn’t do anything, please!”
Her hatred and anger had vanished. Now she sounded like a normal woman, a terrified woman. There had to be a way to save her, save the baby. Feely could do something, he could beat the infection. He just needed the right equipment and time to do the research, that was all.
“I’ve got her,” Clarence said. “She’s my responsibility.”
Klimas took a
step closer. “You tied her up. You checked the magazine, didn’t you.”
Clarence said nothing.
Klimas nodded. “She shot Bogdana. Put her down, Otto.”
Clarence knew that Margaret had to die. His brain told him that, but his heart shouted a different message.
“No,” he said. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
Feely slid off the bed, his hands out in front of him, palms up.
“Everyone just take it easy,” he said. “Klimas, I told you, we need her.”
Klimas didn’t look away from his stare-down. “Why?”
“Because she’s infected,” Tim said. “She’ll contract Cooper’s hydras, the thing that kills the Converted.”
Margaret stopped squirming.
Clarence forgot about the gun. He looked at Tim.
“You want to use my wife as a weapon?”
Tim started to talk, but coughed instead. Clarence felt a sting in his eyes. He smelled burning wood, melting carpet, odors filtering up from the fire below. Wisps of smoke curled near the ceiling.
Tim thumped a fist against his chest, coughed again, then continued. “Otto, if you’re right and she’s not infected, then she’s got nothing to worry about.” He looked at her, spoke sweetly: “Isn’t that right, Margopolis?”
Clarence felt her shaking her head. “Our baby,” she said, her words choked with deep sobs. “We don’t know how it will affect the baby. Keep Cooper away from me, honey, keep him away.”
Roth walked over, spoke to Klimas. “Commander, it’s ready.”
Klimas’s eyes narrowed. He lowered his weapon.
“Otto, I’m getting Cooper and Tim out of here,” he said. “If Margaret moves funny, I’m wasting her, and if you do anything to stop me, I’ll waste you. Got it?”
Clarence nodded. “Fair enough.”
Klimas tilted his head toward the man-size hole Roth had cut into the drywall. Through it, Clarence saw concrete.
“That’s the exterior wall of the hotel,” Klimas said. “It abuts another building that’s only a foot away. We’re blowing through both and entering that building. Then we’re descending to a tea shop that’s on the ground floor, at the corner of Pearson and Rush. I’m hoping the building is empty, and we can make it down without much of a fight. From there, we’re going to figure out a way through the enemy lines.”
