by Jerry Ahern
Michael Rourke smiled. He had discovered himself—he wondered if most people discovered themselves too late as had he.
There was still the knife—still the little knife in his sock. He could pick the knife up from inside his emptied boot where it was now, use the knife when they came for them at dawn. He assumed it would be dawn, no desire to ask Madison, to make her remember.
He could kill some of them, with the knife, with the martial arts skills his father had taught him, kill some of them and before they got him, kill Madison, to spare her the torment of being skinned alive by the cannibals, to spare her that.
Michael held her more closely. One thing his father had taught him well—to never give up.
And very suddenly too, as he now felt he understood himself, he felt that he understood his father’s torment—the woman Natalia. If there were anything to forgive his father, he forgave it.
Life was to be lived. Michael touched his lips to
Madison’s forehead, felt her stir against him, felt her hands searching for his face, her lips finding his. To be lived, he thought—as long as it could be.
Chapter Forty-One
He had decided to wait—they were not bound, merely blindfolded. There had been no ropes in evidence, no manacles—only the prods and the admonition not to try to escape.
He could feel the shifting in temperatures as they moved, hear sounds he recognized from having read of them—an air lock. The Place was hermetically sealed—it was how it had survived the holocaust. But the price for survival had been too high.
A second door opened and he was urged through with the prods, but they were not activated.
Voices—he had counted six as, blindfolded, they had first been led into the corridor.
Six men—he could kill six men, then perhaps escape with Madison into the hills beyond the Place. He could fight off the cannibals again. “Wait here,” one of the voices from the blackness called.
A clicking sound.
Madison had told him before the business-suited men had come for them. There were shackles built into the wall where she had been left for the ones she called Them. He had seen them when entering. The shackles required no key but needed to be opened with two hands and the shackles were so placed as to keep the victim spread-eagled against the wall.
It would be in the farthest reach of the cave, nearest the mouth, he knew—he could feel the. coolness of the air on his flesh. , “Come with me. Do not try to resist/’ one of the anonymous voices called from the darkness.
Michael Rourke had never liked orders, he reflected. His right hand—toward the voice in the dark-ness. His left hand—toward the blindfold which covered his eyes.
The right hand—it found flesh, twisting, rip-ping.
The left hand found cloth—twisting, ripping.
He blinked his eyes tight against the misty light—it was dawn, the sun rising beyond the mouth of the cave, shafts of yellow light like hands across the cave floor as he ripped the flesh of his enemy toward him, his left hand punching forward into the face of the business-suited guard as the man raised the cattle prod in his defense.
The nose—Michael shattered it. Wheeling, back-kicking, his heel found the groin, driving the body back and away from him, his right hand reaching down to find the cattle prod, the other five of them coming for him, closing, Madison, the blindfold pulled from her eyes, screaming,
“Look out, Michael!” Michael sidestepped right, ducking, wheeling— there had been a seventh man. He should have realized—the cattle prod hammered down toward him, but his right hand and left hand held the wooden prod and he rammed his prod back, into the abdomen of the seventh man, doubling him forward. Michael loosed the prod with his left hand, his right still holding the prod, snapping out in a wide arc, across the nose of the nearest of the five men coming for him, the man falling back.
Another prod slicing the air toward him, his right arm going up, blocking the prod with his prod, his body half wheeling left, his right foot snapping up and out, into the abdomen ol his opponent, then his right arm snapping back, hammering the prod across the man’s face, knocking him down. Three remained, two of them starting for him, their prods held like sabers, the ends of the tips glowing hot orange with the electrical pain they could cause. Michael started toward them, hacking the air before their faces with the prod, one of them falling back, Michael wheeling to the second, feigning a strike with the prod, the man dodging, Michael wheeling half right, a double Tae Kwon Do kick to the chest.
The second man—he was driving fast, the prod in both hands to block a blow from the hand or arm. Michael drew his feet together, jumping, upward, his right leg flashing outward, the flat of his combat-booted right foot impacting the prod at the center, the prod splintering, breaking, the man holding it falling backward, losing his balance, regaining it as Michael dropped, his knees springing, taking the fall, the prod still in his own right hand out, aimed toward the face of the man.
The man edged back, Michael thrusting the prod forward, Michael sweeping the, prod left to right, the man’s head bobbing back, Michael wheeling half right, a double Tae Kwon Do kick, the man dodging as Michael had known he would, Michael holding the prod in both hands now, ramming it outward in a straight line for the man’s Adam’s apple, a scream, the smell of burning flesh as the edge of the prod impacted skin, the man caving in, falling back—dead, Michael realized. The last men—he was going through the air lock—to lock them out, to leave them…
for Them. Sounds, guttural, barely human if human at all, from the mouth of the cave.
Michael looked back once, shouting to Madi-son. “Run—for me—hurry!” The ones she called Them were coming.
Michael’s right hand found the coat of the escaping guard, jerking back, the man lunging with his cattle prod, Michael’s prod fallen, Michael’s left hand snapping forward, the heel aimed for the base of the chin. The man ducked—
Michael’s hand impacting the base of the nose, breaking it, driving it up and through the ethmoid bone into the brain.
The air lock door was jammed half open, but the body sagged, Michael throwing his weight against the door—but it closed, a clicking sound as it locked. Michael turned. The mouth of the cave—dozens of the cannibals, their stone axes held high to strike.
Beside him—Madison hugged at his left arm.
Michael reached down to the cattle prod, holding it now in his right balled fist.
His left hand—he found the knife hidden on his left leg.
He clenched the steel in his left hand.
“Stay behind me—won’t let them get you.”
Trapped, the air lock door closed, the cannibals filling the mouth of the cave in greater numbers by the minute. Michael Rourke stood his ground.
“Michael—we—“
“Just stay behind me,” he told her. “Behind me.”
He could see the lust for blood in the eyes of the cannibals as they approached.
Chapter Forty-Two
The panel of rock had slid back into position-it was as if the door into the Place had never existed, Michael Rourke thought. He felt Madison’s hands behind him, touching gently at his neck where his shirt stopped. “Michael—kill me.”
It was the first, time she had used the word. “Make me die.” He looked at her—no longer did she think in terms of “goes”—and as he looked at her, he whispered, “If it comes to that, I won’t let them have you. I love you.” A tear, a solitary tear, left the corner of her right eye and started to journey across her cheek. Then her eyes were rimmed with them. Michael Rourke looked away.
The cannibals, the ones she called Them, the spawn, he realized, of the rigid population control inside the Place, were closing. One of them could have been her father—Madison’s—or her brother. He had seen no cannibal women, which meant there was somewhere a village.
Women, children—children who would grow to become this, he thought.
Survival.
There were some price
s too high—the cannibals paid such a price, the ones in the Place paid it as well. Inhumanity had spawned inhumanity. He had left one of the bodies on the ground, the man still alive—for an instant. A stone axe cleaved into the skull. A dozen of the cannibals [ell on the body, snarling, growling, snapping their teeth at each other, dismembering the body, hacking it to pieces, Madison screaming, “Michael!” One of them had the man’s left leg over his shoulder, the leg dripping blood. Another of the cattle-prod-armed guards—this one already dead, his body fallen on by another group of the cannibals, torn, the flesh ripped, one of the cannibals biting into the raw flesh of a human thigh dismembered from the hip joint and from the calf.
The other bodies—Michael edged back with Madison pressed behind him as the other bodies were one after another set upon, torn, some of the cannibals lapping blood from their victims.
One of the cannibals—a human ear being chewed half outside the right corner of his mouth—turned from his meal, staring.
He gestured toward Michael, Michael watching.
There was a grunting sound—another of the cannibals turned, blood dripping from both corners of his mouth.
More of the cannibals turned toward them now, some of their axes catching in the sunlight as it grew to till the cave, red glistening from them, the wetness of human blood.
A cannibal started for him—slowly, his axe raised. As the cannibal lunged, Michael stabbed the cattle prod forward, the hot end impacting the cannibal’s right eye. There was a scream, more hideous sounding then anythingMichael had ever heard and the cannibal fell back, whimpering.
A memory, he wondered, of the pain of the
AQ
electric sticks?
Michael brandished the prod, ready, waiting— waiting for what he knew was inevitable.
Three cannibals now—the first one crawling off, holding his hand to his eye—three now came toward Michael. Their axes were raised high. A sound—deafening, like rolls of thunder, then a woman’s voice. “Hold it—or we will kill you all!”
The sound of a submachine gun—he remem-bered it from his childhood. A man’s voice—not his father’s. “She means it—so do I.” The cannibals turned one by one, slowly, parting slightly, in two waves, a corridor forming from the rear of the cave, where Michael stood ready to defend Madison, to the mouth of the cave.
Backlit, a shadow because of the sunlight behind him, Michael recognized the man at the center of the mouth of the cave, a gleaming Detonics .45 automatic in each fist.
The voice—a voice he had not heard for fifteen years, a voice almost identical to his own, a voice. “If you understand English, let them pass. Let them come to us.”
There was no answer from the two waves of the cannibals which flanked him, flanked Madison. Michael waited.
His father’s voice again. “Michael, come ahead —slowly. Keep the girl beside you, not behind you. Slow—don’t do anything sudden.” He answered his father. “All right, Dad.”
“They don’t speak English—I’m sure of that by now. But they remember enough to understand. When you’re close enough, I’ll toss you a gun— loaded and ready to go. They won’t let you out of here.”
Michael looked behind him, to Madison. She whispered, “He is your father—you are in his image.”
Michael felt himself smile. “Stay beside me— and if we get out of here alive, still stay beside me.”
“Always,” she whispered.
He leaned toward her, touching his lips to her forehead. Then he looked back toward the mouth of the cave. The black jumpsuited woman holding the M-16 was Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, Major, KGB—he knew her face well, like he knew the face of the man at the other side of the cave—the high forehead and thinning hair, but no glasses. He smiled—Annie had been right. Paul Rubenstein wouldn’t need them.
“Major Tiemerovna,” Michael called. “Good to see you after all these years.”
“Michael, you are your father’s mirror image.”
“I know that.” Michael nodded, holding Madi-son’s body against him, his left arm around her slender shoulders, the knife in his left fist still. He walked forward, calling, “Mr. Rubenstein— or is it Uncle Paul?”
“Paul’s fine. Chronologically you’re older than I am now.” “This is Madison—she doesn’t have any other name. But she will—I’m going to marry her. Or whatever it is you do when the people outside are cannibals and the people inside are religious fanatics who use genocide for population con-trol.”
John Rourke, from the mouth of the cave, his voice so low Michael could barely hear it, whispered, “Madison—daughter.”
“We can’t leave here. The people inside—we have to stop them,” Michael called, walking slowly, cannibals on each side of them now, closing behind them as he looked into Madison’s eyes.
“All right, son—if you feel we should,” his father answered. “Just keep coming.
Steady. Even.”
“What are you gonna toss me?”
“My CAR-15—remember, it’s not an M-16. One of these days maybe I’ll change it around.”
“All right. Thirty-round stick?”
“Thirty-round stick,” his father answered, the cannibals closing tighter around them.
“If it’s a choice, Dad—“
“I know. Madison—I promise,” his father answered. “There will be no choice,” Natalia’s voice echoed through the cave. He liked the sound of it—firm yet feminine, warm yet with something his father had told him was once termed “cool” to it. “We will all get out of here alive.” “You’re lovely. I see why my father feels like he does for you. He told me once, before he took the Sleep, so I’d care for you if something went wrong and you awakened and he didn’t. He loves you.”
“You have a big mouth,” his father laughed from the front of the cave. “I’m your son,” Michael called back, ready with the cattle prod—to thrust it into his first atiacker to free his right hand for the CAR-15. He saw his father move, slowly, stabbing one of the pistols into his beit, all but his father’s face clearly visible now in the growing light inside the cave. A silhouette—a scoped assault rifle, the stock a different shape from that of an M-16, the barrel seeming shorter.
“What happened to your guns?”
“Inside. They have an arsenal in there and they don’t do anything but clean it—don’t even know how to use guns.”
The cannibals were tightening around them.
“Michael, you and Madison stop moving. I’m coming to you.”
“John!”
His father didn’t answer Natalia. He began to walk, the CAR-15 in his right hand, almost casually it seemed, his arm hanging down at his right side. In his left hand, one of the Detonics pistols.
Michael stopped, holding Madison tighter against him, some of the cannibals starting to reach out to touch at her or at him. “She can go between us—Madison can,” his father said, his voice low, like a whisper.
He could see his father’s face in greater resolu-tion now—the dark-lensed aviator-style sun-glasses, the cigar clamped tight in his teeth, the teeth perfectly even, perfectly white. “Can she use weapons, son?” “I will try,” Madison stammered from beside him. “Good girl.” His father nodded, the right corner of his mouth raising in what looked like a half smile.
The cigar wasn’t lit.
John Rourke stopped walking, less than a yard separating them. Slowly, he reached out his right arm, extending it to nearly full length, the CAR] 5 inches from Michael’s chest. “Give Madison that stick—don’t drop it. Make your play when I do. Natalia and Paul’ll back us up.”
Michael pushed the cattle prod into Madison’s right hand. Her hand was trembling.
Michael raised his right hand to the rifle, closing his fist onto the pistol grip, inserting his trigger finger through the guard, his thumb finding the selector, verifying that it was set to fire.
He lowered the rifle to his right side.
He watched his father.
John Rourke reached slowly into a side pocket of his Levi’s, his right hand reappearing, the Zippo lighter in it.
John Rourke flicked back the cowling.
Michael Rourke could hear the sound of the striking wheel being rolled under his father’s right thumb.
Flame—blue-yellow, steady.
The cannibals shrank back, grunts, sounds, hisses. “You didn’t tell me you were a specialist in mob psychology.” Michael smiled. “You pick things up, son.” His father stabbed the tip of the cigar into the blue-yellow flame and the flame flickered now, smoke exiting his father’s nostrils as his father drew his head back.
The lighter—the cowling flicked closed.
The right hand moved to the right side pocket, the thumb hooking in the pocket for an instant, then the lighter disappearing. “Count to three.” “One,” Michael almost whispered.
“Two,” his father murmured.
Michael’s father’s right hand flashed to the Detonics pistol at his belt.
Together, father and son. “Three.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Natalia repeated the word under her breath in the instant it was said. “Three.” The muzzle of the M-16 raised as the thought passed through her, the assault rifle responding as though it were one with her will, firing, short three-round bursts, high, over the heads of John Rourke and Michael Rourke and the girl named Madison, into the cannibals behind them.
Father and son stood back to back, the girl between them, the CAR-15 making fire from Michael’s hands, in John’s clenched fists in the twin Detonics stainless pistols, the heavy thud-ding sounds they made, bodies falling. The rattle of Paul Rubenstein’s MP-40, the shrieking sounds oi ricochets, the reverberating oi the gunfire and the screams of the dying in the confines of the cave mouth.
Rourke’s .45s were empty, she realized, not seeing him shift guns, but hearing as the dull thudding sounds were replaced with the sharper, explosive cracks of the Python. Her own M-16
empty—as it fell to her side on its sling, both her hands found the butts of the Metalife Custom L-Frames, Rourke’s .357 Magnum still firing as her own ,357s began to discharge. A cannibal fell as he lunged for her, then another and another. Her revolvers were empty and there was no more gunfire except for the light cracks of Paul’s Browning High Power.
