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He had driven much too far, even well before the first snowflakes had begun to stick. It had been too easy, and once he had gotten behind the wheel, he had indulged. The car had given him back the control and freedom he hadn’t felt on foot, along with a feeling of safety and he had relaxed and begun to goad his followers as he drove. He’d slow down to a near stop, let them reach the driver’s window, then speed up again with the horn blaring. But that got to be dull and he had begun to put the car in reverse at just the right time, he’d listen for the sound of the breaking bones then switch gears and sprinted forward again. So easy—so satisfying. They had scared him, and now he got some payback and wallowed in it, he had no doubt that even the Dalai Lama or the Pope would have felt the same way.
But he got complacent. He took the power and advantage for granted, so he was surprised when his reverse-and-smash technique quit working. It had happened in front of the only Starbucks in town. He had put the car in reverse and hit the accelerator with a victory holler. The car had mowed down scores of his followers, bouncing over them, accompanied by the satisfying noise of damaged and breaking bodies. He had switched gears again and hit the accelerator; the car surged forward and died twelve feet later.
“What the...Hell?!” Scott looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the leak that trailed the car, as though it had become an incontinent beast. He’d never know, but a splintered femur from one of his victims had punched through the gas tank and put an end to his joyriding.
“Oooh, God...” He murmured. His words came out weak and scared, and when he heard the fear in his voice, it almost brought him to a panic. He had to get out. Get Out! Out! Out! Out! The crowd that had followed him was now within touching distance of the trunk. He threw open the door and ran, ran until he was finally alone but also fully lost. Confused, he walked on, trying to keep warm as he worked to get his bearings, his teeth began to chatter, shivering he hugged himself against the cold. Can’t be too far, he cursed in his mind. Didn’t damn well drive across the damn state line!
Muffled gunshots rang out in the distance, the sound muted by the distance and the snow, reverberated in the silent street and guided him; He turned toward them and ran. It took him nearly an hour, backtracking and sidestepping the turned along the way, but in the end, wet, cold to the bone and breathing hard, he was back at the corner where he had last left his wife and daughter. Alone. But for the dead that had begun to gather.
Confused he walked on, trying to understand, looking for a sign that would tell him what happened or what he should do next. It was then that he saw the blood in the snow, the tracks of thrashing and footsteps. And a short distance away, under the sparse cover of the early snow the bodies of his wife and the cameraman.
Dumbstruck he ran to her side and fell to his knees. Unbelieving he swept the accumulated snow off her face, ran his fingers over her skin and in the end took her hand in his and held it shocked and numb.
He would have lost track of time but slow movements at his side got his attention. The cameraman had moved, had turned his head toward him and opened his eyes, stared at him with his inhumane milky gaze. They locked eyes as Ian rose from his cold shroud like a sleeper awaken from a deep sleep. Unhurried and with the calm of the dead he rolled to his knees and reached to latch onto Scott.
With a guttural scream Scott staggered to his feet, adrenaline surged through him and helped him forget the stiff joints, the cold, and exhaustion. He backed away from the cameraman, who staggered to his feet and began walking toward him. Scott looked around frantically; where the hell was everybody?! He finally saw the tracks — uniform and cohesive footsteps, heading inside the retail store. He sprinted for that entrance and left the dead man behind.
All coming up roses at the Roses Terrace
Cho paused long enough to make sure her team members saw her wave for them to follow, then ran into the entrance of the abandoned apartment complex. Roses Terrace. The complex was modern, it’s outside a soulless, stylish, minimalist blocky affair of cast-in-place concrete and glue-laminated sustainable wood. It had been the first such building in Prideful: one of the first buildings that heralded its impending gentrification. It looked clean and empty, and she guessed that most likely many of the units hadn’t even been rented out. There was no sign of strife, no wear or tear marked its exteriors or interiors as far as she could see. Major bonus: the doors opened when she tried them. Her team joined her in minutes and they walked into the posh atrium.
“Lee, barricade the door,” Cho commanded. “Kate—you, me. Let’s look around. There must be an inner stairwell we have to block.”
“On it.”
A quick walk through the first floor confirmed its security. They were the only ones here, the doors were blocked, and with the electricity dead, the elevator wouldn’t be going anywhere.
When their safety was confirmed they gathered in a spacious community room at the center of the building and out of sight of the street, its wall-sized windows looked out onto a large indoor yard. There they slumped on comfortable chairs and couches and rested in anxious silence. Every so often they’d look around and catch each other’s eyes, see their fears reflected there, each wondered as to what the hell they had gotten themselves into. Cho finally broke the silence.
“What’s in the bag?”
Kate unzipped the backpack. One at a time, she pulled out each article and sat it in the center of the table.
“Another medkit, rain gear, a gun...”
She lifted the last item out, held it, and paused. It was a shiny black six-cylinder revolver and she set it down on the table, close to herself, an unspoken declaration of ownership. She then removed six bullets and a map from the backpack.
“New map, with a key taped to it and an address.”
“Where's the new address?”
Kate grimaced unhappily as she spread out the map. “North? They're sending us up north, way across town.” She moved aside the new gear and provisions and set the map on the table for all to see.
“Give me a sec...” Xhiu got up and looked into a recycling bin, riffling through some envelopes and magazines. “I think I got our address. Hold on.” She left the room and headed back for the entrance. She returned in a few minutes
“Yeah, the address matches on most of the envelopes — 1398 S.W. Centennial Avenue.”
“Damn it,” Kate’s shoulders slumped, “To use this key we need to go clear across town, all the way North.”
“That’s Striker’s quadrant.” Xhiu wasn’t at all happy. “Maybe they’ll end this game. The weather outside is nuts. That wasn’t part of it, nobody was expecting that.”
“I doubt it, but you can quit if you want to. Anyway, I bet Striker also got a key and an address to get them way out of their quadrant.”
There was silence as everyone looked at Xhiu, Logan put the camera on her, in the end she surrendered. “No, I don’t want to quit.”
“Okay then. We might going for the same prize. And that gives them the advantage, so we gotta run for it,” Cho said with a dismissive shrug. “Rest up, women, we have about two hours of light. We take a quick break and if we hurry, we’ll get to the second prize today. Easy.”
“We're gonna have to run the whole way,” Kate sighed “I'm keeping this gun; arguments?”
Cho shrugged again, Xhiu remained mute, bit her lip and twisted her hands.
Kate flipped open the cylinder and slid the bullets into the chambers. “All mine, then.”
Sullen they ate protein bars and drank water, Cho kept time and gave them ten minutes before calling them back to action.
“All right, we gotta hustle,” Cho got up and put on the new backpack. “It’ll be dark soon enough and we’ll need to find a place for the night.”
“And food,” Xhiu added. “We need food. These protein bars are not cutt
ing it.”
“Yeah, and cold weather gear would be nice at least we got some rain gear there, how many sets do you have there?”
“Four,” replied Kate and handed them out. “We haven’t heard Tom for quite a while,” she muttered and looked at Logan, who just shrugged.
“No news is good news,” Cho said after a while.
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@furiousGeorge stop watching the damn show.
@simpleJen OMG chill
I hear gunshots
“We gotta go, we gotta go look for him before it gets too dark.”
Theo nodded without much enthusiasm. “And we gotta find clothes, cover. I'm starting to freeze here.”
Alvin nodded. The temperature was past being damn uncomfortable and they’d be hypothermic soon enough. The two boys were rooted to the middle of the road as Eliza framed them perfectly with her camera. Alienated, angry and fearful, she switched the filters on the camera and the image went from HD color to a grungy, grainy black-and-white tableau.
Almost fifteen minutes had passed since they had departed the building near Hillman’s Coin Store. Ty was still a no-show and they could wait no longer. Emma let the image linger for a few minutes before transitioning it back to HD color. Alvin turned and looked for her. There she was, he thought, and she had brought an extra jacket along, looking comfy while he was shivering and getting deader by the minute.
“Bitch, let’s go,” he snapped at her in anger.
Eliza smiled. Not a woman who had ever considered being called a bitch a compliment, and who put up with no crap, she gave him the finger and stared him down mutely from behind the camera until he looked away. She felt bad for him but she’d have to give him a good talking to, and point out that, as the one woman with a camera and the connections, she could make him look like shit. It’d work better than threating to break his other arm.
They went searching for Ty, half a mile down on the route they’d agreed on they saw the first drops of blood and signs of struggle and footsteps, softened by the falling snow, a few feet away on side street a crimson pool of a garish red that spread across the ground and soaked through the fresh snow before it turned into a drip trail that continued through a broken window of used appliances store.
“Noise, I hear noises from in there.” Alvin hurried closer and looked inside. Wary, he lifted the bat, ready to strike.
“He’s gotta be hiding in here.” Theo gestured toward the numerous footprints on the ground. “They followed him in. You think he’s dead?”
A gunshot from deep within the store answered his question.
“He's still alive!” Alvin smashed a wider opening with the bat and leaped in. They followed the blood and the gunshots to find five of the returned cornering Ty behind the temporary refuge of a large display of washers and dryers.
Alvin swung the bat like he aimed to hit a home run with the head of one of the attackers, the man’s skull cracked on impact with a crunching noise and he went down like a sack of rocks.
“Yeahaa!!! Bitch!” He screamed with fury and leapt back on the balls of his feet then aimed again and hit a second man with identical results and when that turned hit the ground he kept hitting and hitting until the head was a pulpy mess.
Theo made short order of one of the men with his ax, the blow at neck height almost separating the head from the body.
Only one dead man was left, another useless gunshot rang out and went wild, it punched a hole in the store front window behind them a few feet away from Eliza’s head and she screamed. Then they all heard the click of the hammer on an empty chamber.
Alvin raised his bat and set his stance to get the most energy out of his swing, he wound up for the strike filling it with rage, but before he could release the swing, Theo rushed in and sunk the sharp end of the ax into the man’s head, splitting it in two right down to the neck. Out of breath, they looked at each other.
“That thing suits you,” Alvin quipped.
“Neat huh?”
“Neat, yeah.” Replied Alvin dryly and ran to aide his friend, Ty was slumped behind one the once-aseptic looking kitchen display, now marred by ample smears of blood, mud, and snow.
“Alvin?” He looked and whispered in near tears, his gaze unfocused, his breathing shallow, and his color dusky with shock and blood loss. “Alvin?” He started to weep and tears tracked down his cheeks.
Theo gasped when he saw him. “Jesus... Almost got no meat left on his arms.”
“Yeah, look in the medkit man, quick. Hurry up.”
Good luck, thought Theo. It’s a medkit, not a miracle kit.
Ty slid to the ground as Alvin moved away the appliances that were blocking him in and holding him up. He was covered in bite marks and gouges. One eye was gone, as was one of his ears. His left forearm was just about all bones, and the right had kept enough muscle that he was able to pull the trigger on the handgun until there were no bullets left.
“Only reason he’s still alive…they didn’t bite into an artery.”
On the ground, Ty went into shock and begun to convulse, his breathing irregular and weak.
“Hang in there, man,” Alvin said as he took a hold of his friend, while Theo looked through the medkit and the prize backpack. “Hang in there. We’ll get you out of here okay? Will call for an extraction. Eliza, call Tom — Tyshon needs out, now! Hurry up!”
Eliza hadn’t needed to be told; she had her own emergency button and had been clicking on it on while filming, although since the attack was being televised, she’d have thought help would be on the way. “On it.” Almost synchronous with her response, they heard Tom’s voice in their headsets.
“Alvin, Theo, we see what happened! We’ll get someone to get you out ASAP. Hang in there, team.”
“You leave me,” said Ty, his voice a whisper of misery. “Why you leave me? I’m your best friend. Me.”
“We didn’t leave you man — we came for you. Just hang on and we’ll get you out of here.”
“You shoulda let white boy die. Not me. I'm your best friend.” Ty tears kept running down his face as Alvin tried to reassure him and Theo helped with the bandaging.
Alvin looked at him and muttered. “He’s out of his mind. He don’t mean it, okay?”
Theo shrugged. He knew Ty meant it. He and Alvin had been friends since they were embryos, if you listened to Ty go on about it, a friendship strained when Alvin showed more interest in guys than girls, and stressed when Alvin first took Theo home, fed him, and showed him care and kindness. Theo was harder than Ty would ever know and didn’t give a damn as to what he thought. Young though he was, he and his sister had passed from foster home to foster home.
That experience had thickened his skin and mind with layers of scars. He got used up and passed on until he finally managed to run away for good, and until he stopped giving a damn about everything but surviving. If “convenience sex” worked, he was okay with it. Robbing homes? Peachy. Selling drugs? Fuck, it's a supply and demand economy. He was down with most anything that would help keep him pain-free and safe, short of the really evil crap. What the hell; everyone always left him in the end anyway. So he said, “I understand,” when what he really wanted to say to the hurt man was, “Just, die already.”
There is a live, talking dead woman there
Cheryl looked at the real-time metrics: numbers, multicolored lines, and primary colors drew mountains peaks graphics, and pie charts on her tablet. The viewership was through the roof, there was nothing like blood and death to bring everyone to a party. She smiled, a thin and cold thing, and looked up from the screen, saw the hold button on the phone blinking on and on as it had been for the past ten minutes. With a soft curse, she picked up the phone; she had put on hold the production's safety manager on the ground in Oregon, thinking he’d get the picture and give up a
fter a while, but the man had stuck around.
Race the Dead (Book 1): The Last Flag Page 11
