Three men had charged up the stairs with their buckets sloshing. So intent were they on fighting the fire, they didn’t take a second look at Josh. If Harve, Jackdaw, or Steve—or worst of all Trace—came into the hallway, it would certainly be another matter.
Two more men raced up the stairs with the buckets as Josh screamed for more help. That was six men taken care of. One dead, five fighting the fire. In his time in the mansion, Josh had never counted more than seven different men on duty. Often, men would be called in from outside to get their briefings, and plus, there’d be the parents of the hostage children who were out in tents under cursory guard who would be brought in as necessary, but that was it. Josh and Poppet were being kept in the mansion only because they had no children there at Parkopolis to use for leveraging their cooperation, though Poppet might have been there anyway as one of the kitchen girls.
Harve, at this time of the night, would be out in the garden in his tent, and that left just Trace, Lacy, and perhaps a couple of stragglers.
“I think that’s far enough, don’t you, Mr. Standing?”
From a door behind him, Lacy stood with the thick, evil-looking Colt Cobra in her fist. She came onto the landing and pressed the gun into Josh’s spine.
“Ever resourceful, I see.”
“I’m just raising the alarm, that’s all. The guard let us out. I didn’t want to see the place burn.”
“He let you out and gave you his gun? I must say that’s very trusting of him. His next performance review is going to be quite the hoot. What are you planning on doing with said firearm? Shooting the flames out?”
She pressed the barrel into his back so hard that Josh bent at the knees.
“Drop the gun over the banister.” Josh did as he was told, and the Colt clattered onto the marble below. “Now, start walking. Down.”
As Josh took the first step, he doubled over in a coughing fit as the smoke thickened around him. It wasn’t all faked—his lungs were rasping, his throat burning. Lacy was taken by surprise as he doubled, and bumped into the back of her legs as she stepped onto the stairs. Josh reached back, still coughing, and caught her gun arm and lifted it. Lacy fired off two shots before Josh had the gun from her hand. Before he could use it, she pushed him in the back and he began to topple forward; still hanging onto her arm, Josh dragged Lacy with him and, in a second, they were in a flat spin down the staircase. A rolling mess of limbs and gunshots as the Cobra bounced and blasted around them.
They came to rest in a heap at the bottom of the last stair landing, sprawled onto the cool marble aching, both of them still struggling. Lacy was a wildcat, scratching and biting, her bony knees thudding into Josh from all angles. She spat and cursed, and her nightgown was of a silk that made her slippery like an eel. Josh had dropped the gun, and it had bounced six feet away. He had both of her wrists now, but she was three times as strong as she looked. Her feet pummeling his midriff, he tried to block her with his body, but she was fast and determined.
In the end, Poppet shot Lacy in the side of the head.
She’d come down the stairs as the pair had fought, nonchalantly picked up the Cobra, and used it. The last expression on Lacy’s face wasn’t one of surprise, but of annoyance.
Josh got to his feet feeling like he’d broken a rib and turned his ankle. There was the taste of blood in his mouth, and as he explored his cheek with his tongue, he found that in the tumble down the stairs he’d bitten a sizeable chunk out of the lining of his mouth.
He spat a bloody gobbet of smoky phlegm onto the floor and led Poppet towards the main door.
If everything had gone to plan, once Jayce had seen the smoke, then Josh had fifteen minutes to get clear of the mansion before hell would be visited upon it by way of a rocket-propelled grenade.
The main entrance was free of guards—they were on the upper floor, desperately fighting the fires Josh had started. No one seemed to have noticed or cared about the crumpled body of Lacy on the floor in a widening puddle of blood and brains, or they had seen there was nothing they could do and gone on to fight the fire. Their first concern was with the burning house.
On the veranda now, Josh, chest still raw, took Poppet’s hand and they hurried down the steps two at a time as other people came up carrying buckets slopping water. They jogged into the blissfully cooler night, but the feeling of heat at Josh’s back from the burning building almost canceled that out.
Josh looked back at the house, seeing that his attempt at arson had been so much more successful than he could have hoped. The flames were licking across the roof now and dancing around the chimney. Flames guttered behind several windows, and glass was smashing and tinkling down in the heat. There was a full-scale panic on. A tide of people were coming from the tents outside the mansion’s gardens. There were screams and hollers, and as he dragged Poppet to where they had to be next—for the most important part of the plan—Josh was certain he could hear a few laughs and snickers from the assembled throng.
In the crowd now, they would be more inconspicuous, but it slowed them down. If they were going to make it to the cage in the ground to release the children, they couldn’t be held up in any way at all.
Josh felt panic rising as he shouldered through the bodies, dragging Poppet along with him. The sight of the burning mansion was keeping inquisitive eyes off him, but that didn’t make his desperation to make it to the children any less.
Then, for a glorious second, they were through the crowd and back into the air. Josh went into a flat sprint as he saw the trees and the raised platform which held the cage beneath.
He was a good fifty yards away when he saw Trace stalking towards the platform from out of the trees. As one of his men lifted the cover and swung it back to open up the space beneath, Trace stood on the lip. He said something into the cage below him that Josh could not hear—not over the sound of the crowd watching the burning mansion or the rapid thudding of his feet on the grass.
Josh was still twenty yards away when Trace lifted the MP5, aimed down into the darkness, and began to fire, the muzzle flash of his gun lighting up his face like the crazy carnival light of the burning mansion.
19
The German Shepard howled as its paws dipped into the fire in its eagerness to get to the king rail. The pan went over and the mastiff barreling in behind it diverted to picking up a mouthful of the hot flesh before it bounded into the bushes. The other dogs, filthy and harsh-ribbed, a mixture of purebreds and mongrels, turned their attention to Tally and the others.
Henry’s forearm went into the mouth of the German Shepard as it lunged for him, snarling. Greene was rolling in the dirt with a Labrador mix, black and mangy, trying to go for his throat while he covered up his face like a boxer protecting himself from an onslaught.
Tally’s ankle was hot with pain, as a dog that might have had Collie in it at some point kept going for the leg she was kicking out with.
Greene rolled and screamed as Henry shoved down with his forearm, widening the dog’s jaws and punching it hard in the chest. The dog sprung away long enough for Henry to draw his SIG and loose a couple of shots. The Shepard howled as one of the bullets took it in the haunches, but it still managed to scrabble away, leaving a trail of crimson on the ground and the leaves. At the sound of the shots, the dogs attacking Tally and Henry were startled into letting go and running into the undergrowth.
Henry fired shots after them, but it seemed he wasn’t willing to kill the animals outright when self-defense wasn’t required.
“They’re just doing what we’re doing,” he said later as he put a cold compress on Tally’s swelling ankle. “Just trying to survive. Did you see their ribs? They were starving.”
The skin over Tally’s ankle hadn’t been broken, but the force the dog had applied to it would make walking a pain for the next couple of days. A couple of days they couldn’t afford to lose.
What they had also lost were the beans and king rail. It was too dark now for Henry to go back to the m
arsh and see if he could zero in some more, but he’d said he would go in the morning so at least they would have something inside them when they set off again—something other than what came out of a can.
Greene had been uninjured by the dog trying to get at his throat, but his jacket was torn down one arm, and he’d dug a gouge into his cheek on a sharp stone when he’d rolled on the ground.
“Damn dogs,” he said to himself several times as Henry saw to Tally’s ankle. “Damn, damn dogs.”
Tally could hear the hiss of cold murder in Greene’s breath, as if the spiritual hipster who’d spent the late afternoon and evening meditating, and getting his biorhythms in touch with his inner chi––or whatever he’d been doing—had now been internally replaced by a killer android dog hunter, who was working on his kill-plan just behind his eyes.
It was quite the change.
“You’d do the same, Greene,” Henry told him as the other man whispered “damn dogs” one more time.
Greene’s eyes flicked towards Henry in response, and Tally could believe that the murderous thoughts he was expressing about the dogs could easily be transferred to a human.
It poured ice water all the way down her spine.
Later, when Greene went away to deal with his bodily needs, Tally whispered to Henry.
“Did you see the way he looked at you?”
Henry was checking over his rifle before settling down.
“I don’t suppose I’m on his Christmas card list after what I said to him yesterday. He’s a dork and a nerd. You know what they’re like. They sit in their parents’ basement going to war on the internet and anti-social media. Put them in a real situation and they don’t fare so well.”
“But so many people have been pushed over the edge since the supernova. I saw it on the Sea-Hawk with some of the probationers, and the crew––they turned into maniacs at the click of a finger. I think we need to keep a closer eye on Greene. I’m kinda regretting telling him it was okay for him to come along…”
Henry shrugged. “He carries good pack. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll keep an extra close eye on him.”
“So will I.”
“Then I guess we’ll be fine,” he said, though not in a way that convinced Tally, that was for sure.
Five days after the dog attack and three miles outside of Grangetown, they came across a pitched battle between two groups of fighters that had spilled onto the road.
From an off-ramp onto the forecourt of a half-burned Shell gas station some fifty yards ahead, they watched as a battle erupted, boiled, and then did something completely unexpected. Henry had motioned the three of them to get off the road quickly as the fighting groups had exploded from behind the gas pumps and out of the mini store.
But Greene froze.
There were about twenty people to each side of various ages and genders. They were hitting each other with whatever had come to hand. Chair legs were being used as clubs, bike chains as whips. There were knives and hammers. It was a fight to the death.
That was until Greene, who was still rooted to the spot above Tally and Henry, was seen.
It was as if all the heat had suddenly been taken out of the fight, and the combatants had forgotten not only that they were fighting, but what they were in a fight about in the first place. There was blood dripping from wounds, great tears in their clothes, and their hair sat matted with dirt and grease. But they were also frozen in a moment in time, as if a switch had been thrown which caused them to stop their individual attacks and focus on Greene as Tally yanked him by the jacket into the dirt.
“Hey!” Greene protested, but Tally pulled him flat to the earth.
“Do as you’re damn-well told!” she hissed as she looked back over to the group of fighters, now stock still and looking directly at them.
There was a three-count when it could have gone either way. They could have returned to hacking lumps out of each other, and Tally and the others could have snuck into the forest and skirted around the strange gas station skirmish. But as Tally could have predicted, given their luck, their three-count had only been the precursor to a headlong rush towards the group crouched by the side of the road.
Even if they drew their weapons now and began firing, the fighters would be upon them before they’d dropped a quarter of them.
As the fighters set off in ungainly sprints towards Tally, Henry, and Greene, the young woman screamed “Run”—and this time, Greene did as he was told. He was up first and leaping over the crash barrier at the side of the road to plunge into the trees. Henry pulled Tally up and, vaulting the barrier, they both followed Greene into the spaces between the trees.
There was a steep slope leading away from the road, and the beech were growing with random spacing. This wasn’t a managed forest where you could expect trails and avenues. This was old forest that had been left to do its own thing for far too long. Although the ground they were running over was loamy and springy, they had to dodge sideways at every other step.
The crash through the trees behind her told Tally the story of a number of the fighters giving chase. This was not a pursuit they were going to give up easily. What had motivated them to attack not just each other, but people they randomly saw on the road in that moment, couldn’t be guessed at in all the crazy madness Barnard’s Star had visited upon the world. Escape was now the only option; analysis could come later. If they survived.
The hill became steeper and Tally found her strides becoming longer, but she was landing with less precision every time.
Several times as she crashed downwards, she thudded her arm into a beech trunk, sending stunning shocks through her body. Just as her ankle was getting back to normal after days of limping on it, she was threatening to turn it again at almost every step. All it would take was to come across a gnarled root and she’d be looking at so much more than a swollen ankle. She could be presented with a fracture that could end her life here and now––because the attackers would be on her in moments.
Henry bobbed into view a dozen yards ahead, threading himself through the trees like a slalom skier. Greene then appeared to Henry’s right, his arms and legs pumping, his pack thumping against his back as he crashed on down.
Tally’s days of free-running hadn’t prepared her for running for her life through obstacles such as this. Give her a thin wall to flip over, a rail to slide, or two roofs to jump between until she hit a thrilling shoulder-roll on the other side and she would be in her element. But there was no run allowing her to be free here. The trees milled together like a flock of angry birds, whipping her with the wings of their branches.
Henry and Greene were now elusive, and her ankle was starting to ache again. It had been too much for her. Damn Greene and his unwillingness to follow orders.
Damn Greene.
Damn dog.
Damn…
With a crackle and a crash, the ground gave way beneath Tally and suddenly she was free-falling into the black earth, with no sense of when she might land.
Damn Greene.
“I don’t think we need to keep her upstairs in the room. Let’s see how it works out down here.”
“Donald,” Maria said, but she wasn’t talking to Donald. She was sitting at the kitchen table, looking through the window out into the yard. Towards her grave. “Donald,” she said again, and sighed.
Donald himself was pacing near the stove, hands deep in his pockets, his face longer than ever. Storm was outside throwing sticks for Bobby, but Maxine had been able to pick up the tension in the boy’s manner. She knew there was a world of hurt and pain in him––some of it about the current color of things, for sure, but much more about the separation with Josh and the breakdown of his parents’ relationship. Storm had stopped mentioning Josh entirely now, and Maxine believed it was because the boy didn’t what to dump his stuff on her plate.
He was a good, young man. He deserved so much better than this––his parents splitting up, his sister lost, and his grandma so chan
ged––so much more than Maxine could give him right now.
Dale Creggan, Laurent, and the Hats had finished their inventory and were long gone.
The heart-stopping moment when Creggan had asked about the lodge where Maria had been hidden from them had passed. It had quickly become apparent that he wasn’t asking about the lodge because he thought that Maria would be hiding there, but because he thought there might be supplies there that ought to be listed on the inventory.
“You might want to haul crates of corned beef five miles up the side of a mountain by hand, but I don’t,” Donald had told him. “I’m not as young as I was, my grandson is recovering from cancer, my daughter isn’t a packhorse, and, anyway, you’ve seen what we have here. Our real valuable resources are out in the paddock or penned in the yard. No hiding them in a fifteen-by-fifteen shack deep in the woods. But, guys, you’re free to go up and look. I’m not going to stop you.”
That had seemed to be enough for Creggan, and as he and his men had left the M-Bar, Maxine had watched from an upstairs window as they’d made their way at a lazy speed along the road back towards Pickford, and not in the opposite direction, across country to Alleghany Mountain.
All the same, as soon as they’d been out of sight, she’d nearly run to the lodge to release Maria and bring her back to the ranch as quickly as she could.
Her mother had been sitting pretty much where she’d left her, resting in one of the chairs but chained to the stove. Maria had actually smiled as she’d looked up when Maxine had opened the door. She hadn’t returned the hug that Maxine had given her in any meaningful way, but the fact that she’d allowed it without trying to bite out her daughter’s throat had been a definite improvement.
The walk back down to the M-Bar had been brisk, but had been conducted hand in hand rather than with them tied together at the waist. Back at the M-Bar, Maxine had sat her mother in the kitchen, and when Donald had returned with Storm from feeding the animals, he’d been astonished to see his wife sitting in the kitchen while Maxine sat beside her, cleaning her mother’s nails and combing the knots out of her hair.
Supernova EMP Series (Book 2): Deep End Page 17
