by Sam Sisavath
Cut the head off the snake and the body falls.
He pulled back and waited. The building’s wooden wall felt flimsy behind his back. It wasn’t going to provide him with a lot of protection when the bullets started flying, but at least they couldn’t see him from either the front driveway or the rooftop.
Any time now, Mike.
The former lieutenant had been careful to make his way down the street before looping back toward the hospital so that he couldn’t be seen. He was now perched on a big billboard fifty meters from the end of the parking. The sign featured a man in a suit and tie smiling brightly, holding a wad of cash, with the caption “The Lafayette Hammer.”
Will didn’t have to wait too long before a gunshot split the calm afternoon.
Mike’s bullet may or may not have hit anyone. Will couldn’t see and didn’t care to look. Mike was firing on semi-auto, spacing out his ammo and trying to distract the guards on the ground and on the rooftop in equal measure. Almost instantly, there was return fire. Will didn’t worry about those, either. The distance was too vast, and unless someone up there had a long-distance riflescope, Will didn’t think they had a snowball’s chance in hell of actually hitting Mike, and vice versa.
He slipped out from behind the building and took another look at the men gathered outside the hospital lobby. The ones at the Humvees had moved into defensive positions behind the heavy vehicles, while the children inside smartly made themselves small. The men in hazmat suits weren’t shooting back yet, probably because they couldn’t locate Mike’s position.
Will took aim, raising the rifle slightly over the roofs of cars in his way, and shot the first man in the left hip. The man jerked, stunned, and turned around, presenting his entire body. Will shot him again in the chest.
He immediately swiveled his rifle, picking up another man in a hazmat suit, this one standing farther away from the Humvee than the others. The man saw his comrade go down and turned frantically in Will’s direction. Will shot him in the face, shattering one of the gas mask’s lenses. The man’s head jerked back and he crumpled to the driveway.
The others reacted as Will slipped back behind the side of the building. They opened fire in his direction and predictably, the wall didn’t stand a chance. Chunks of cheap wood chipped and came undone as Will began moving away from the corner. Then one of the snipers on the rooftop joined in, his bullets punching through the wall and digging into the concrete walkway.
Two down. Ten to go.
When the building he was moving across began chipping at a faster rate, Will picked up his speed toward the other end before slipping around to the back. He leaned out to gauge what was ahead of him.
There was nothing between him and the main hospital building except for sixty meters of open driveway and some trees. A few trees. So few, it was pointless to even spend a second counting them. As far as he could tell, there was absolutely nothing to keep him from being seen and shot at.
This is gonna suck.
He unclipped the radio from his hip. “Mike.”
“You ready?” Mike said through the radio.
“No, but count it down anyway.”
“Good luck,” Mike said. “On the count of three. One, two—three.”
There was a hellacious spurt of gunfire as Mike switched his rifle from semi-auto to full-auto and unleashed on the building. Will counted to two, then began darting across the open ground, praying Mike’s fusillade would do what it was supposed to—keep the rooftop snipers from looking down at him.
Will had gotten ten meters into the open when he risked a glance up and saw the closest man on the rooftop crouching, firing back in Mike’s direction. Mike’s bullets were speckling the north tower and falling short.
By the time Will was halfway to the west tower, the men gathered outside the lobby had spotted him and turned their guns on him. Bullets slashed through the air around him, tore chunks off the concrete driveway, and shredded the branches of a tree over his head. Will kept as low as possible, zig-zagging, making himself into an erratic target. A couple of bullets came dangerously close, but he was getting by.
That is, until he felt a sharp pain in his left arm, just above the elbow, as a round finally found its mark.
He had left a bloody trail behind him by the time he reached the west tower, sliding against the rough brick wall and moving away from the edge just as it was obliterated by gunfire.
He was separated from the north tower by only thirty meters, and the bullets were coming fast and furious as everyone on the ground concentrated their fire on him now. They must have also realized Mike had no chance of hitting them from his location. Soon, they were going to come charging, taking advantage of their number. They had to know it was just him by now against—how many were left?
Still too many.
He grabbed a black handkerchief out of his pack and wrapped it tightly around his arm over the squirting hole. Blood seeped out as he tightened the fabric and winced. Good enough for now.
He had been listening, but hadn’t heard any sounds of approaching footsteps, even though Mike had stopped firing by now, either to reload or switch weapons. At least, Will hoped that was what Mike was doing at the moment. The lack of noise coming from Mike, either through the radio or from his rifles, made Will slightly nervous.
Don’t die on me yet, Mike. I still need your diversion.
A sudden and eerie silence fell over the city as everyone seemed to stop shooting at almost the exact same time. It was so quiet Will didn’t have any trouble picking up the unmistakable noise of a Humvee’s engine roaring to life, followed by thirty-seven-inch military-grade tires spinning against concrete.
Oh, hell.
He leaned out from behind the corner and saw what he expected to see—one of the Humvees coming right at him, two of the hazmat suits racing behind it, while a third man was emerging out of the rooftop opening, where a gun turret was supposed to go. Now that he was looking at the Humvee from the front, Will saw that it had two thick sheets of metal soldered onto the grill, like the wedge on a snow plow.
The third man hanging out of the Humvee’s rooftop saw him and opened fire with an M4.
Will pulled his head back as a section of the corner shattered near his head. He took off along the length of the west tower, wondering how pissed off Lara was going to be when she found out he got killed going up against a Humvee.
Because he was fucked. He was truly and royally fucked.
Whose bright idea was this again? Oh, right, yours.
To add insult to injury, Mike was probably dead. Or dying. Or wounded. Either way, he was on his own.
Will was still ten meters from the other side of the tower—and elusive safety—when the Humvee appeared behind him, its tires sliding to a stop with a loud, menacing crunch. Will spun, lifting his rifle. He hadn’t turned all the way around when he heard two quick shots and—turning fully—saw the man in the turret opening disappear back into the Humvee. Will didn’t know what had happened, or why the two men in the back of the vehicle were shooting, except not at him. They were shooting up at the rooftop.
He pushed aside the questions and fired at the front windshield of the Humvee, aiming over the metal wedge and at the figure behind the steering wheel. It took nearly half of his magazine on full-auto before his bullets punched through the spiderwebbed glass and reached the driver, who seemed to flinch in his seat before slumping forward violently. The man must have also stepped on the gas in death, because the vehicle lurched right at Will.
He dived out of the way, flattening his back against the tower wall as the Humvee blasted past him, stopping only after it had rammed into a Toyota Camry parked along the curb, the metal wedge eviscerating the smaller car’s side like it was a plastic toy.
Will expected to see the two men running behind the Humvee take their shots at him, but they were nowhere to be found. He hurried away from the wall, glanced up at the rooftop, and saw a solitary figure looking back down at him, wavin
g.
Gaby.
He waved back, though he swore she was wearing one of the hazmat suits. Or was he seeing things?
A moment later, Gaby disappeared back behind the edge of the rooftop, and Will jogged to the corner, reloading as he went. He looked out and glimpsed the backsides of the two hazmat suits racing back to the north tower and the remaining Humvees.
He shot the closest one in the back, but before he could take down the second one, the man darted behind a supporting column.
Two of the remaining three military vehicles had come to life and were already moving slowly down the driveway, picking up speed with every second. The man who had hidden behind the support column rushed forward and threw open one of the doors, diving inside. Will saw children in the backseats of the Humvees, flailing against the window, screaming silently back at him.
He watched helplessly, feeling about two feet tall, as the fleeing vehicles circled the driveway, turning into the street, and disappearing like ghosts.
Suddenly he was alone on the hotel grounds, surrounded by empty cars and bodies.
Will unclipped the radio. “Mike, come in.”
He waited, but there was no response.
“Mike, come in.”
Nothing.
“Mike, talk to me, man. You still there?”
Shit.
The man he had shot moments ago hadn’t moved from the spot, gas masked face turned on its side. Will searched his pouches and collected spare magazines, before moving toward the front lobby, watching for signs of movement from the left-behind Humvee. When he was sure there was no one there, he turned his attention to the hospital doors.
The front driveway curved slightly to the right and toward the front doors before curving back left again. Will stepped over the bodies and spent a few seconds looking in at the remaining Humvee, then at the tire tracks of the two that had fled. Fresh motor oil stains on the driveway and the familiar scent of spilled diesel remained in the air.
He wasted another second staring into the lobby, at the creatures he knew were inside, even if he couldn’t see them. They were watching him back, waiting, because that was what they did best.
And why not? They had all the time in the world.
Will turned and kicked something on the ground. He looked down at a dirty, ragged pink Hello Kitty plush doll. Will picked it up and stuffed it into his pack without thinking.
Above him, the familiar whine of a turbine engine started up. Jen’s helicopter.
Will glanced back across the parking lot in the direction the Humvees had gone.
“The creatures, they have a plan,” Jones had said. “It involves the kids. I don’t know any more than that. Just that they’re concentrating on the kids now…”
CHAPTER 14
GABY
It sounded like a war was raging outside the building. Not that Gaby had time to process what was happening beyond the hallway of the tenth floor. There were more pressing matters, such as the heavy footsteps approaching the other side of the rooftop stairwell door.
Gaby didn’t have to wait for very long before the doorknob began turning.
She strafed the door from left to right on full-auto, then just for good measure, from top to bottom. She didn’t stop firing until she had emptied the entire magazine. She heard the sound of falling bodies on the other side of the door, the clattering of weapons against solid concrete.
She took two steps away from the door, moving sideways in case someone fired back, then calmly ejected the magazine and slapped in a new one without thinking about it.
Shoot, reload, and repeat.
Then she waited for a reply of some kind. Bullets. Gunfire. Screams.
There was nothing.
Behind her, the others shuffled nervously. They were farther down the hallway, but they might as well have been standing an inch behind her because they were making so much noise. Or maybe that was just her imagination. Her senses were heightened beyond belief.
She couldn’t make out anything through the two dozen or so holes she had put into the door, only the dull, gray wall in the background. So that was a good sign. If anyone were still alive, she would have seen movement flitting across the holes.
The radio clipped to the dead man in front of her squawked again, and she heard the same deep male voice: “What the hell was that? Where did that come from? Gary? Janice? Someone answer me!”
Muffled gunshots, like firecrackers, echoed from the other side of the radio.
Then Benny was suddenly crouched next to her, breathing too hard. “Now what?”
“I need you to open the door.”
He gave her a terrified look.
“Just throw it open and step out of the way,” she said.
Benny summoned his courage, slung his rifle, and moved toward the door, stepping over the dead body from earlier. Gaby glanced back at Amy, Jen, and the kid with the button nose, keeping low to the ground twenty yards behind her. They were watching her closely, waiting.
She looked back at Benny and gave him the go-ahead nod.
He began counting down to himself, then grabbed the doorknob and pulled in one quick motion.
Gaby’s finger tightened against the trigger, but she didn’t have to press it. There were two bodies in hazmat suits crumpled on the stairwell landing before her, blood dripping from holes in the fronts of their uniforms. She had put almost as many bullets into the two bodies as she had the brick wall behind them, and there was a fine white concrete cloud hovering inside the LED-illuminated room.
Gaby stood up and looked back at Jen. “We have to go up.”
Jen grinned back at her. “After you, G.I. Jane.”
“G.I. what?”
“G.I. Jane. That movie with Demi Moore?”
“Who’s Demi Moore?”
Jen shook her head. “Never mind. Let’s go.”
Gaby looked at Benny. “You okay?”
He nodded. “Rooftop?”
“Yeah. While they’re still busy with whoever is out there. Maybe Will. Maybe Mike. Or both.”
“Let’s do it, then,” he said.
She could almost believe there was some bravado in there somewhere, if she didn’t know for certain he was scared out of his mind. She didn’t blame him. To Benny, Jen, and Amy, this was probably the first time they had actually seen combat, before or since The Purge. It hadn’t been quite as uneventful for her.
“Stay behind me, okay?” she said.
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he nodded back.
Gaby stepped into the stairwell, rifle at the ready in case someone poked their head down from the top of the stairs. There was no one, so she continued toward the first step and went up. Benny’s labored breathing followed closely behind. She wished he wasn’t moving so close to her. If she turned around now, she would crack his skull with the rifle. Didn’t he realize that? Probably not.
Amy and Jen entered behind them with the kid.
She made it all the way up to the door without encountering resistance, probably because whoever was up there was too busy shooting at someone else. How many were on the rooftop right now? Definitely more than one, because the shooting never stopped. The only way that could be possible was if someone else was firing while another person reloaded.
She looked back at Benny, still standing too close behind her. “I need you to open the door for me again.”
He nodded, then moved forward and gripped the door handle. The door opened outward, so he would have to push out. It was hot in the stairwell, and Benny’s face was already slick with sweat. She could feel her own perspiration running down the sides of her face.
“Try to stay to the side,” Gaby said. “Don’t move into my line of fire. Whenever you’re ready…”
Benny turned back to the door and began counting to himself. Then, taking a deep breath, he opened the door, rammed his entire body into it, and stumbled outside, losing his footing on the loose, graveled rooftop along the way. He was still carrying th
e medical supply bag, and its weight probably hadn’t done him any favors.
Gaby rushed past Benny. She saw wide open skies, but no one in front of her. The door had opened up into the center of the rooftop, and the first thing she saw was Jen’s helicopter, sitting where she had last seen it.
Loud, booming gunfire erupted from behind her on the other side of the stairwell access building.
She turned to her left and navigated as fast as she could around the building. A woman standing at the edge of the rooftop wearing a white hazmat suit turned in response to the sound of Gaby’s boots.
Janice, I presume.
The woman hesitated, just as Gaby assumed she would. Even without wearing the gas mask, the fact that she was still wearing a hazmat suit caused the woman to waste precious seconds processing the information. While she was doing that, Gaby shot her once in the chest, and because she couldn’t be sure, shot the woman a second time even as she was going down.
She heard gravel shuffling loudly and swiveled to her left, seeing a man in a hazmat suit standing on the other side pointing his M4 at her. She stared into the barrel of the man’s rifle, while her own was still in the process of coming up, knowing, but unable to accept, that she was too late, she was dead—
She flinched at the loud sound of gunfire and waited for the pain. Except there was none. Instead, Gaby watched the man crumple in front of her as two bloody dots spread across his chest like bright red watercolor.
Gaby looked over and found Benny standing on the other side of the rooftop access building, numbly lowering his AR-15. He looked almost stunned by what had just happened, his eyes glued to the dead body in front of him.
There was a loud roar from below them and Gaby snapped out of it first, hurrying to the edge of the rooftop and looking down. There were four military Humvees parked in front of the lobby, and one of them had made a wide U-turn and was picking up speed. There was a man poking his head out from a circular hole in the roof while two others jogged behind the vehicle, using it like some kind of moving shield. They were making a beeline toward the west tower.
