by Justin Bell
“What exactly is this all about?” asked Lisa’s father taking a step forward, stepping between Lisa and the soldiers. “You can’t just barge onto my property!”
“Lisa Martin?” one of the masked soldiers asked, leaning to look at her.
“Yes?” Lisa asked. She understood her father’s staunch resistance to this sudden infiltration, but she couldn’t lie… she was intrigued by just what was going on here.
“Please, can you come with us?”
Lisa and her father exchanged glances, then she looked back at them.
“Why, what is this about?”
“Ma’am, we have orders from Mayor Harris. Someone with your skill set is needed downtown. Please get in the vehicle.”
She took an uncertain step backwards. “I can’t. This is… I don’t understand.”
“Stay away from her!” Lisa’s father barked, moving forward. Three of the soldiers peeled away from the group and descended upon him. The first whipped his arm back in a tight arc, grabbing at her father’s loose-fitting shirt, clutching at his shoulder to turn him. A second came forward and grabbed one arm while a third grabbed the other, struggling to hold him there, pulling him back away from his daughter. He struggled, but all three of them held him hard and fast.
“Dad!” Lisa screamed. “You can’t do this! My mother is inside! She’s sick!”
Two more soldiers moved forward and grappled with Lisa, pinning her arms back and dragging her toward the truck, her feet kicking.
“Dad!” she screamed again as her father was pushed to the ground, landing awkwardly on his left shoulder. “Dad, I’ll come back! I’ll find a way to come back!”
“Lisa!” he shouted back, but she was already being half dragged half carried up into the transport, the engine grinding even as her captors struggled to get her inside. Finally everyone piled back into the truck, and the engine roared, a deep, long growl, tires spinning, throwing wet mud and shorn grass in rooster tails behind them. The back end of the canvas topped truck spun around, the tires caught, and the vehicle leaped forward, bolting back down the dirt road it came from. Without hesitation, the police cars repeated the maneuver, pulling tight turns, digging at the dirt, and they were gone as well, hot on the heels of the transport truck.
Lisa’s father pushed himself up onto his hands, putting all his weight on the left side, clutching at a stab of pain in his ribs with his right. As he watched, the sun hovered low in the sky and the taillights of the vehicles were swallowed by the early morning fog.
Chapter Nine
Broderick led the way, maneuvering through the narrow hallway shoulder-first, his rifle clutched in both hands, barrel pointed at the stairwell. Carefully he took the stairs two-by-two, leading up at a sharp angle into the darkened hallway above.
Jackson was directly behind him, the Heckler and Koch short-barrel shotgun out of his backpack and held in front. Clark was close behind, the canvas bag full of miscellaneous weapons bouncing lightly on his shoulder as he navigated his hefty frame up the narrow stairwell. Javier and Melinda brought up the rear, everyone walking slow and with purpose.
Not only was the stairwell narrow, but it was dark and scattered with debris along the ridged surface of the steps. Trash and other refuse Broderick didn’t want to think about crunched underfoot as he stepped up and forward. Even in the low light he could see ornate graffiti etched on the slanted walls, and he could feel the uneven surface as his arm pressed against the bannister as he moved upwards. He bristled at the thought of Melinda living in this environment, but tried to consider her parents’ situation, knowing that if given a preference, they would have much rather lived in less squalor themselves. Up ahead, he could see the stairs ending at the second level.
“What floor?” he whispered, glancing back towards the rest of the group.
Melinda held up two narrow fingers and whispered, “Two seventeen.” Broderick nodded, acknowledging that this was indeed her floor. He stepped through the door, ignoring the stairwell’s continued ascent and moved into a hallway which drove down into shadow, doors scattered along each ratty, worn-down wall. The light was even dimmer here, dim enough that he could barely see, and he reached into a pouch on his vest, withdrawing a small flashlight. Screwing it into a mounting joint near the front of his M4 Carbine, he activated the slender beam and a pale white glow cut through the darkness of the hall, revealing scrapped and worn wooden floors and what appeared to be two dead bodies.
Broderick whipped his head around. “Hold!” he hissed. “We’ve got corpses up here!” The rest of the group froze as he approached the bodies, panning his light across their slumped forms. One of them was half-sitting against the wall, hands splayed out and neck bent at an awkward angle. He showed no immediate signs of sickness. The second body was face down, a drying puddle of blood forming under where his nose and mouth would have been.
A low rustling was audible down the hallway ahead, a strange sound of scuffing and moving. Someone was up here, and that someone was alive. Broderick peeled away from the bodies and turned as Jackson and Clark moved toward him, leaving Javier and Melinda in the stairwell behind them.
“I’m hearing movement up ahead,” Broderick whispered. “Not sure where, but somebody is here.”
“Could be someone friendly,” Jackson replied.
“How many of those have you met today?” Clark asked. “I mean besides my own fat, gracious keister, anyway.”
Jackson shook his head. The hallway was quiet, the whole building was quiet, almost silent, actually, and he was reminded of his own apartment building a short time ago. Which also reminded him of the gunmen who had chased him and Clark out under threat of bodily harm.
“I say we get Mel into her apartment and get out as quick as we can,” Jackson said. “Get on the road.”
Broderick nodded his agreement. Behind him there was another scuffle, then the muffled thump of something hitting the floor.
“I don’t suppose the first door is hers?” asked Clark.
Broderick shook his head. “She’s two-seventeen and the first door starts at three. About three quarters of the way down on the left.”
“Oh, so right where that noise is coming from, then,” Clark said. “Perfect. Our luck continues at its exceptional level.”
“Did the Marines teach you that attitude?” Jackson asked with a smirk. “Probably just the neighbors or something. Only one way to find out.” He stepped around Broderick and walked down the hall, careful to make his way around the bodies on the floor. Broderick reacted quickly, turning and lighting the way, Jackson’s shadow blocking out half of the flashlight’s beam.
“Take it easy, Crossfit,” Clark hissed, bringing up the rear.
Up ahead there was another low scrape, then a door whirled open, banging against the wall. In the scant edge of the light, Broderick saw motion, two figures moving from the apartment, and for one brief moment they didn’t look human, they looked like twisted, angled insects, walking on two legs, long arms draping low to the ground, whirling, threatening to pounce.
“Hey! Who’s there?” one of the shadows asked.
Broderick took a step back, letting his light settle and saw that no, they weren’t insects at all. They were men. Men wearing jet black tactical uniforms and next generation protective masks. Their goggles were large, oval, clear domes, with a trio of cylindrical filtration systems attached around the curve of their jaws. He’d seen these masks before while working with Team Ten. They were typical government issue.
“Sorry!” Jackson barked. “We just need to get into an apartment. Friend of ours needs her stuff. No harm, okay?”
The two men didn’t move. As Broderick’s eyes adjusted he could see that they both held weapons in their hands, Sig Sauer M17 semi-automatics. Each man’s opposite hand held a metal flashlight, both beams angled toward the battered wooden floor. They both glanced at each other and Broderick thought he saw the hands holding their weapons twitch almost imperceptibly. He tensed his own g
rip on the M4, keeping the flashlight trained on the two men. The hallway was nearly silent, the only sounds the artificial hiss of air intake from the filtration masks down the hall.
“Gentlemen?” Broderick asked. “Can we get access to that apartment?” He glanced out of the side of his eye and saw Clark drawing back as well, his military experience setting off red flags just like Broderick’s was. Jackson remained where he was.
“Jack,” Broderick whispered, hoping it was low enough for the men ahead to not hear through their complex filter systems.
Jackson turned.
Broderick moved his head slightly, encouraging Jackson to pull back, and he finally recognized the request, taking one slow, cautious step toward the door they’d just come from.
The two men must have noticed the shift. With little hesitation, their hands shot up, Sig’s clutched tight, flashlights coming up and around, white light bearing down on the three men in the hallway. Suddenly, Broderick was very glad Javier and Melinda had stayed behind in the stairwell.
“Move!” shouted Broderick as the two men opened fire, pistols singing, muzzle flashes snapping the hallway into swift bursts of white light. Jackson fell back and broke left, chunks smashing from the plaster wall where he’d been standing. Broderick fired his M4, two short barks, the weapon kicking in his hand. His first two shots threw down one man, knocking him back onto the floor, his masked head smashing off the wood, pistol skittering across the floor. The second man threw himself right, slamming into the wall with his shoulder, adjusting his aim and firing his pistol, narrowly missing Broderick, twin shots buzzing just right of the soldier’s ear.
“Back in the stairwell!” Broderick shouted, pushing back, firing again, but missing the other gunman in his frenzy. Clark and Jackson threw themselves into the door, spilling out into the stairwell, forcing Javier and Melinda to scramble down the steep flight toward ground level. Just as the door swung back toward Broderick, he hit it with his palm and shoved it back open, then angled left, heading toward the stairway up to the third floor, making his movement obvious. Behind him, the man in black kicked the door back open and followed, heading to the stairs up to the next level, ignoring the stairs going down. Pistol shots fired as Broderick rounded the tight angle of the stairs, which wrapped around themselves going up. Chunks of the wall shattered at his left shoulder as he barely rounded the tight corner, then he charged up the next flight, spinning. A flash of motion near the bottom caught his eye and he fired two single-shot cracks from the carbine, but the figure jerked backwards, both shots missing and smacking into the floor and lower wall.
Broderick spun and pushed himself up the stairs, moving as quickly as he could, hearing the scuff of feet behind him, then drove himself sharply right as more gunfire echoed from below, more plaster shards breaking apart and spraying him with hot, broken sheetrock. Footsteps rocketed up the stairwell, and Broderick halted his retreat, spinning and lifting his weapon, counting the steps, then thumbing the weapon to full auto. Enough was enough.
In a blur of motion, the man in black emerged from around the corner, and Broderick slammed down on the trigger, the M4 chattering in fully automatic, the barrel thrashing as it erupted. Muzzle flashes exploded and as the man rounded the corner, he was picked up and thrown backwards, slamming back-first against the wall, spider-web cracks walking out from where his spine connected with the surface. Broderick charged down the stairs as he hit the floor and with one swipe of his booted foot, kicked off the filtration mask, revealing the man’s face underneath. He was clean shaven, his mouth twisted into a pained sneer, his eyes squinting closed.
“Who are you?” Broderick barked, shouldering his weapon. “What are you doing here?”
The man in black coughed, a wet, broken sound, but he did not speak. He would never speak again. His eyes widened as if in surprise, and then he simply laid still.
***
“You sure you want that stuffed animal?” Jackson asked, lowering himself to a crouch, putting a comforting hand on Melinda’s shoulder as she retrieved a large, stuffed hippopotamus from a basket under her bed. There weren’t many toys to speak of in her room. A simple metal frame bed and mattress sat against one wall with pale pink sheets and a floral quilt. She had a fiberboard dresser with one foot shorter than the others, so it lilted at a strange angle. The carpet in her room was worn and threadbare, and there were no princess decorations on her walls, no cute and frilly decor around her windows, no dollhouses or Barbie dolls, just the essentials. Bed, dresser, desk. But Mel had visibly relaxed when they brought her in here, leading her carefully around the dead bodies scattered in the hallway, right through the main door to her apartment. It had already been unlocked, and Jackson had recognized the door as being the one the men had come out of when they’d surprised them.
“Yeah, I want this one,” Mel replied, tugging the stuffed hippo tight to her chest, her voice sounding more like one belonging to a six-year-old than a ten-year-old. Not that Jackson blamed her. Standing up, he located Javier, who was pulling a school backpack from a hook on her bedroom wall and walked over toward the group. He made a stop at the small, crooked dresser and began sliding open drawers, easing out small, pink and white clothes, stuffing them into the backpack.
“I like your room,” Javier said from the dresser, looking toward Mel.
She beamed. “Mom and Dad let me design it however I wanted to. I got to pick out the dresser at a tag sale.”
“Very nice,” Javier replied. Mel walked over toward him and stepped close, looking through the dresser right at his hip.
“Whoever those military guys are with has gotten close,” Broderick whispered as he came into the bedroom. Clark was behind him in the kitchen, looking for any food or other necessities they could bring along.
Jackson nodded. “This was the apartment they were in, wasn’t it?” he asked without looking directly at the scientist.
“Yeah.”
“Wonder what that was about.”
“The two guys aren’t talking.”
Jackson nodded. “Thanks, by the way. You saved my bacon.”
Broderick nodded and looked at him. “You did the same for me back in the alley, no matter how ungrateful I was.”
A scant light had begun to crawl through the windows, the first signs of approaching dawn.
“How are you doing, Mel?” Jackson asked.
“Okay,” she replied.
Javier looked over at him and got the message. He knelt down next to her and rested the backpack on the floor, putting two calming hands on her shoulders.
“We need to go, sweetie, okay? We need to leave.”
Tears welled up in her eyes and she looked toward the floor. Jackson felt a hitch in his throat. The apartment was nothing special, with only the bare essentials. Nothing about it really said “home.” But it was home to her, and as he looked down at her, talking to Javier, he could see the realization forming that she would most likely never see it again.
“Anything else you want?” Javier asked. “Anything at all?”
Mel shook her head, the hippo still squeezed tight in the crook of her arm. Clark emerged from the kitchen behind them and called to her, waving Mel over to him, and she followed the directive.
“You’re good with her,” Jackson said to Javier, nodding at him.
Javier smiled wistfully. “Thanks. I… I had a kid sister. I guess I relate to kids better sometimes.”
Jackson let his gaze drop slightly, then looked up again. “And you’re okay with just leaving? I thought you said you just had your parents?”
Javier’s face twisted slightly, firming up as he stepped forward, past Jackson. “My sister died. A little while ago. Before all of this.”
“Oh,” Jackson said softly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
But Javier had already walked past and was in the kitchen, well beyond earshot. Jackson stood in the empty bedroom, looking at it all, wondering when any of them would see four walls and a ceiling again. Hope
fully sooner than he thought.
Drawing in a breath, he walked from the room and followed the others out into the hallway and off toward the next stage.
***
Smoke still engulfed the city of Boston, coating the entire landscape in the faded gray of dusk even as the sun moved across the east, shifting cloudless skies from pink to blue. On the streets below, it might as well have been evening, a persistent, hanging cloud rolling from the center of town, emergency responders still desperately fighting the fires that seemed to be increasing, not decreasing as time went on. Most of the resources had been drawn to the plane crash in the center of downtown, west of Logan Airport, the massive commercial jetliner cleaving one of the towering skyscrapers, dropping buildings and aircraft both down into the busy urban area. There had been no attempt made as of yet to calculate the dead or dying, especially once three more crashes followed the first, though the other three were in somewhat less populated areas.
All of this combined with reports of spontaneous serious illness as far west as Illinois, as far north as New Hampshire, and as far south as New Jersey combined to project an air of futility among news media and a sense of exasperation with government officials who suddenly had battles on multiple fronts to fight, with no idea what was going on at each end.
“You got power at your place?” Grady asked as he crouched down, looping thick chains through the handles of the twin glass doors. The dark blue uniform moved along with him, military style khakis and an official looking button-up shirt neatly pressed for the day’s work. He remembered thinking as he ironed his shirt that morning how futile the effort was, looking nice as you faced down your dying city, but it was routine, and if nothing else, Grady Southworth was a man of routine.
“Nah, man,” replied Irving. “Our power goes out when the wind blows sideways. We’ve had nothing all night.”
