Victoria was sitting on the edge now, her legs instinctively drawing up from the spreading puddle. Her lip was quivering and her breathing rapid.
“You know something else?”
Victoria said nothing. Tears were streaming down her face. A gust of wind screaming up the building’s sheer facade moved her long brunette hair.
“You have been exhibiting suicidal tendencies, Victoria.”
As Victoria lifted her gaze and opened her mouth to rebut Carson’s claim, he let go of her wrist, leaned in, and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.
There was no mad scrabble to find purchase on Victoria’s part. Her eyes simply went wide with recognition as the unstoppable effects of Newton’s Third Law were set into motion. Like a diver entering the water off a boat’s gunwale, she simply rocked back and disappeared heels over head.
There one second, gone the next.
Strange, thought Carson. She didn’t scream or curse like nearly every other person he had sent to their death. The trivial thought fading, he turned and loped to the awaiting helicopter.
Victoria knew she was dead the moment the vial was no longer in her possession. With nothing to use as leverage, she had simply given up hope then and there. The tap on the shoulder, however, had come as a complete surprise. And as she tumbled over the edge, time seemed to slow. She caught a fleeting glimpse of herself in 4WTC’s mirrored glass. Then, inexplicably, she saw a streak of movement on the adjoining building’s mirrored surface that she knew also had to be her own fast-moving reflection. And as absurd a thought as there could be, she wondered if someone was taping her plunging to her death. She remembered seeing the desperate businessman hanging off one of the original towers. She vividly recalled how he’d performed the sign of the cross on his chest before releasing his tenuous purchase on the tower’s mangled metal skin. The sight of his sooty shirt and tattered pants flapping in the wind was indelibly burned into her memory as he let go and rocketed to the ground head first in a seated position. The same image had been captured by a photographer and broadcast over the news and plastered on the pages of every periodical and gossip mag for weeks after the horrific attack. That was definitely not how Victoria wanted to be remembered.
As she approached terminal velocity on her way to the inevitable rendezvous with Church Street, she heard the heavy percussion of the street performer’s makeshift drums riding the wind opposite her trajectory. A wave of sadness then washed over her as she thought about how badly her aging parents and old buddy Tony the security guard were going to take it when she was wrongly labeled a jumper.
Victoria didn’t feel a thing when her hurtling body knifed through the canted glass portico. Mercifully, the air was gone from her lungs and she was on the verge of blacking out when she struck the sidewalk spread-eagled and facedown.
The impact with the ground when coupled with one hundred and twenty pounds of flesh and bone coming down on top of it caused the spun-metal canister inside of her bag to implode. No longer structurally sound, the lid came off, and the aerosolized Romero virus was no longer contained.
The sound of the impact was like nothing the crowd watching the street performers had ever heard before. Kids were screaming. Mouths hinged open as men and women gaped at the destroyed body.
Even the mime screamed.
And Silver Cowboy Guy went out of character, moving for the first time in several minutes in order to step off his pedestal and search the sky for more falling bodies.
***
Tony had heard the impact from his post. Eighteen seconds after the first sound of breaking glass reached his ears, he was through the doors and traversing the sidewalk. “Make a hole,” he bellowed as he swam his way through the growing crowd. Finally parting the sea of humanity, half of whom were newly arriving tourists who had just spilled out of a double-decker sightseeing bus, Tony got his first look at what snippets of everyone’s harried conversation told him was a jumper.
The ripped-open yellow and black satchel was his first clue that he knew who the jumper was. The splayed-out head of jet-black-dyed hair was the second. Going to his knees involuntarily, he looked to the sky, pressed his radio to his lips, and made the call. “This is Officer Anthony De Luca at 4WTC. We have a fatality at the Church Street entrance.” Seeing a column of black smoke begin to pour from venting near the top of the building, he added, “Send Fire, too. Looks like a multi-alarm.”
Chapter 35
Riker was pressing his thumbs hard into his temples and staring into space through the Suburban’s glass moonroof when an open hand impacted his window. Caught entirely by surprise, he let out a string of expletives and raised his fists to the threat.
Caught head down and fiddling with her phone, Tara sat bolt upright and screamed. Not a long, drawn-out affair. More of a piercing yelp that preceded her pressing her back against her door and drawing her legs up defensively.
Having recovered somewhat from the sudden interruption, Riker craned around and caught sight of a man dressed in Wrangler’s, a Western-themed button-up shirt, and sporting a white Stetson. Even shod in cowboy boots that looked to have two-inch heels on them, when the man leaned in again, hand poised to deliver a closed-fist rap on the window, looking upward was necessary for him to meet Riker’s gaze.
Expecting to see the same hungry look the Bolt had fixed him with, instead Riker found himself staring into the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. They were watery and had a certain spark in them. It was as if they were asking him a million questions all at once. He looked the man up and down, searching for anything to suggest he may have been the victim of an attack and his unorthodox approach was just the calm before the proverbial storm.
The man’s blue jeans were stiff and new, not a spot of blood on them. Riker figured they’d probably stand on their own if they hit the floor cuffs first. They were held up by a wide leather belt with a silver and turquoise buckle big enough to give Captain America’s shield a run for its money. The tucked-in denim shirt was pressed and clean and several shades lighter blue than the pants. With pearl snap buttons and intricate threadwork on the yolk front and back, it looked like something Porter Wagoner might have worn on stage at the Grand Ol’ Opry.
Seeing nothing threatening at all about the man, Riker powered down his window.
“Hello,” said the man, the syntax perfect though his voice had a nasal quality to it. “I’m Steve-O.”
Riker looked away for half a beat and met Tara’s gaze. Shrugging, he turned back and said, “I’m Lee and”—he hooked a thumb over his right shoulder—“she’s Tara. Is your first name Steve and last name Oh? Or is O the initial your last name begins with?”
Though it didn’t appear physically possible, the man’s smile widened, revealing a mouthful of perfectly straight teeth. He said, “Just Steve-O. My last name is Piontek.”
A block distant the turbine whine rose to a howl and the thwopping of the rotors increased in tempo exponentially. Riker didn’t have to look to know the Chinook was launching from the football field.
“Where’d you come from?”
“The high school,” he said, going to his tiptoes and craning to see Tara. “The Army men were being mean so I left.”
“I don’t remember seeing you there, Steve-O,” said Tara. She regarded Riker. “Do you remember seeing him?”
Riker shook his head. “I didn’t exactly tour the place,” he admitted. Regarding Steve-O, he asked, “Were you underground with a bunch of people and trampolines and balance beams?”
Steve-O tipped his hat and his smile faded. “Lots of people in there. Monsters, too. The Army men killed some of them. Then one of the monsters attacked the Army men. Biting and scratching them. One of the Army men told me to run. To go home.”
Riker was trying to gauge Steve’s age when the man divulged the last bit of information. The red stubble on his chin and upper lip and the beginnings of sideburns creeping down from his ears made Riker think he was somewhere in his late thirties. If he was an
y older than that, he sure didn’t have the accumulated wrinkles and gray hairs to show for it.
Wondering where “home” was, Riker asked, “Were you alone?”
Steve-O’s hat brim cut the air left to right and back again as he shook his head. “Darren and Marcy were there. Marcy said the man on television ordered everyone close to our house to go to the school to get medicine. She brought us in the van last night.”
Tara asked, “Who’s us? And where are they now?”
Steve smiled again. Real wide. Then he stepped up on the running board. Invading Riker’s personal space, eyes locked on Tara, he said, “You are pretty, Tara. June Carter Cash, pretty.” He laughed and clapped his hands, the latter action forcing him to lose his balance and step back down to the road.
“Darren and Marcy,” said Riker. “Where are they now?”
Steve-O screwed up his face. He looked over his shoulder in the general direction of the school.
Riker again: “Are they still there?”
Nodding, Steve-O said, “They’re probably monsters by now.”
Tara put her hands on her face. Speaking through her fingers, she asked, “Were there any real fast monsters inside?”
Riker looked at the side mirror, then back to his sister once he saw that the road behind them was still clear.
“One inside and one in the hall,” replied Steve, his voice nearly a whisper. “Can I have a ride home?”
“Where do you live?”
“By the school.”
Riker said, “But you said you came to the school in a van.”
Again with the cherubic smile. “The older people school. Where the man shot people on the bus yesterday.”
Riker looked at Tara. “We can’t go anywhere near there.”
Whispering, Tara said, “He has Down Syndrome, Lee.”
Under his breath, Riker said, “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Technically speaking, if he goes with us and we don’t tell anyone, wouldn’t we be”—she went silent for a second—“kidnapping him?”
“What does it matter? We’ve already scoffed enough laws to earn us jail time. Might as well up the ante to a trip to the Big House.”
“You sure he’ll even come with us if asked?”
Seeing a stream of vehicles begin flitting by the end of the street in twos and threes, Riker said, “He’s a grown ass man, Tara. We can’t leave him here. Worst case scenario, we find a sheriff to leave him with.”
Tara gestured to the mirror.
In response, Riker flicked his eyes there. He saw the woman Tara thought resembled their mother. Her nightshirt was dirty and ripped down the front. Arms now free of the sleeve holes, they hung at her sides until she rounded the corner and caught sight of the idling SUV.
As if a switch was flicked somewhere deep inside the woman’s lolling head, both bruised and bloodied arms went horizontal to the road and her gnarled fingers started kneading the air.
“That’s a monster,” said Steve-O matter-of-factly.
Eyes tracking the lurching figure, Tara said, “Do you want a ride home, Steve?”
Smiling, he raised up on his toes and caught Tara’s gaze. “It’s Steve … O, pretty lady.”
Riker said, “Can we give you a lift, Steve-O?”
Totally fixated on Tara, Steve-O didn’t move a muscle. It was as if Riker wasn’t sitting there a couple of feet from him. Seemingly, the approaching “monster” didn’t exist, either.
Riker popped the locks.
The solid thunk made Steve-O blink. Then, looking as if he was slowly deflating, he went flat-footed and regarded Riker.
In the side mirror, Riker saw that the woman was nearly to the Suburban’s bumper. She emitted a guttural growl just as the helicopter circling high and tight overhead broke away and thundered off to the north.
If Steve-O had heard the change in pitch of the turbines, let alone the animal-like noises made by the thing homing in from his right, he didn’t let on.
Adopting a fake drawl, Riker said, “It’s your lucky day, Steve-O. This is the last stagecoach to Deadwood. Hop aboard, pahdna.”
Riker’s improvisation drew an even bigger smile out of the man. It also got him to board the Suburban just as the woman’s growling morphed into a long, drawn-out moan.
The hair on Riker’s arms and neck snapped to attention when the moaning reached his ears. By the time fingernails were raking the SUV’s flat side, he was pulling slowly from the curb, wondering with a bit of trepidation what other horrors would be thrown at them before the young day was done.
Chapter 36
Tony covered Vicky’s leaking body with his windbreaker, then pushed the gawkers back a few feet and waited for the first responders to show. A handful of minutes after he had secured a perimeter with the help of the double-decker tour bus operator, his supervisor had arrived from a nearby property and mercifully released him early.
With the image of the broken and twisted body of the forty-something Zen Pharmaceuticals employee he had just spoken to an hour prior to her jumping haunting his every thought, Tony trudged to the nearest subway platform. He just didn’t have the energy to go back inside the building and retrieve his lunchbox, thermos and watch coat.
Old Crow and his well-worn leather recliner was calling.
Middletown, Indiana
Riker zippered the Suburban through the residential neighborhood bordering the high school for a couple of minutes then steered onto a county road that eventually spit them out on a deserted arterial connecting Chesterfield and Daleville. From there they drove in silence north toward Chesterfield until Riker pulled the Chevy hard to the curb a few blocks east of where Commerce crossed over Interstate 69.
Along the way they had passed only a handful of vehicles moving slowly in the opposite direction. Riker’s first instinct had been to stop and ask the driver of a large 4x4 pickup what he knew about the situation in Middletown. However, that move was quickly dashed when he saw the rack full of guns behind the driver’s head and detected in the man’s bugged-out eyes the look of a trapped animal.
Riker threw the transmission into Park and scanned the street and sidewalks. All clear. He turned his attention to the reason he pulled over in the first place. Situated smack-dab between a nail salon and a dry cleaning business was a lawyer’s office featuring a rather nondescript façade. As if the goings on inside the place weren’t meant for public scrutiny, the windows were mirrored and displaying the Suburban’s reflection back at them.
The building was one level. Rising up from the flat roof was a parapet designed to hide the heating and ventilation apparatus. Darkened signage adorned the parapet above each business. Sandwiched between signs emblazoned with Dee Dee’s Beauty Salon and Im-Press-Ive Dry Cleaning was a vacuum-formed plastic number that read Saul McGill — Attorney at Law. Below the lawyer’s name and title was his business tag line which Riker felt was lifted directly from the Ghost Busters movie.
“Who ya’ gonna’ call?” Riker clucked his tongue then paused for a second.
“Stay Puft Marshmallow man was the worst villain ever,” commented Steve-O, punctuating the statement with a raspberry.
Tara chuckled. “Say it don’t spray it, Steve-O.”
Eyes roaming the mirrors again, Riker said, “We already called you, Saul. And you didn’t pick up.”
Stating the obvious, Tara said, “It’s Sunday, Lee. Doesn’t look like anyone is in.”
“But I’d bet there’s a pair of envelopes with a check in each one made out to us just sitting inside there on Jimmy’s desk.”
Tara shook her head. “That’s not how it works. We were supposed to get together tomorrow, cross T’s and dot I’s. Mainly the reading of the will. Our funds are going to be transferred electronically by Mom’s bank directly into each of our accounts. If we’re lucky, that’ll happen at midnight tonight.”
“Probably going to happen at midnight Zurich Mean Time. I think they call that Zulu hour.” Truth w
as Riker preferred his checks and cash how he liked his books—good old-fashioned papyrus. It was tangible. He could feel it and smell. He could also fold it and tuck it away for a rainy day. Or, God forbid, dogear a page to come back to when he was ready. The latter example, however, being a near capital offense worthy of a solid tongue-lashing from his late mother.
Tara whispered, “Let’s adjust our plan, Lee. Get out of Middletown and take Mom wherever it is you promised to take her. We can reschedule with Jimmy.”
Riker peered over the seatback. First he saw the NRA bag, its front bulging out unnaturally. Then his attention was drawn to the nearby strip mall where a person was emerging from around the corner of the furthest darkened establishment. Looked to be a man. Late twenties or maybe mid-thirties. Just jeans and a tee shirt and a mop of red hair bouncing with each stilted step. Still a little drunk from a wild Saturday night out? If the fella was walking home at this early hour, he surely wasn’t dressed for it.
“Is that a partier going home? Or is it one of those things you’re calling a zombie?” he whispered.
Tara pressed her face to the glass. “Can’t tell,” she answered.
As if the redhead had somehow heard the whispered query through window glass and from across the forty-some-odd foot divide, he halted mid-stride and his head commenced a slow swivel toward the idling SUV. He stood rooted for a beat. Glaring. Seemingly in thought. Then he simply jerked into action. Stepping off the short walk fronting the dry cleaning enterprise, his jaw dropped and arms rose until they were near horizontal to the pocked and pitted parking lot.
Riker's Apocalypse (Book 1): The Promise Page 17
