by Jacob Rayne
As he reached the landing midway between floors, he saw movement to his left.
Then the screaming gas-masked man lunged at him.
Sylvia sat up in the hospital bed, her mind a tangle of thoughts, her body a mass of cold sweat and nerves.
She kept seeing the face of her dead husband in her dreams. In all but one of these nightmares he’d spoken to her, warning her of coming danger.
The door to the room opened and light flooded in.
A short, red-faced man swaggered in. He wore a sharp suit but it looked wrong on him, kind of like someone had shaved a monkey and sewn it into a tuxedo.
‘Mrs Arlington,’ he said. His voice was rough but his eyes shone with a sharp intelligence.
‘Yes?’ she asked. Everything about her unexpected visitor unnerved her.
‘My name is Blake. I’ve been sent to evaluate some of the things you’ve seen recently.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ Blake paused to clack open the twin locks of a leather briefcase. He pulled it open and lifted out a file. Flipped the cover open and pulled an expensive-looking pen from his inside pocket. Tapping the pen against the side of a tooth, he said, ‘According to this,’ he turned the page. ‘You reported seeing your deceased husband.’ Flicked back a couple of pages. ‘Ray, in the graveyard near your home.’
‘So what if I did?’
‘Well, if you did,’ he said, his tone suddenly more firm, ‘Maybe you’d like to know what was going on?’
‘Do you know what was happening?’
He shrugged. Clacked the pen against his tooth twice more.
‘To answer that, I’d need an accurate description of the events in the graveyard.’
‘Don’t you have that in your little file?’ Sylvia was finding it hard to mask her dislike for him now.
‘Yes, but I’d like to hear it from the horse’s mouth, as it were. So,’ he flipped to a blank page, ‘When you’re ready.’
While Goldstein stared at the atrocity that had once been Mann’s face, Hammett saw a dark shape moving through the bushes to their left.
As he turned, a thin dark spike came up out of the bushes at a vision-blurring speed. It came through Goldstein’s back and protruded from his stomach, spilling blood down to his legs.
Goldstein twitched on the end of the spike then fell to the floor.
Hammett got to the bushes in time to fire a few rounds at the dark shape before it disappeared into the ground.
He had no doubt that he had hit the figure, but his bullets seemed to have little effect.
The gas-masked man’s momentum slammed Mark’s back against the wall. White spots flickered in front of his eyes as his breath exploded out of him in a cloud of pain and anguish.
He tried to shove his attacker backwards, but he was much too stocky.
‘Knew you were still alive,’ the man said.
Mark could tell he was grinning. His features were distorted through the lenses of the gas mask, giving him a bizarre and nightmarish appearance which was exacerbated by the crazed look in his eyes.
Mark registered a blow before he’d even seen his opponent’s hand move. Blood and spit flew from his mouth.
Before Mark could react, the man had punched him again, this time in the ear. His hearing on that side was drowned out with white noise but he could hear his own ragged breathing.
The guard’s third blow sent him stumbling to his right.
The guard’s back was now to the part of the staircase that went down to the next level. He was between Mark and the stairs.
Even through the fog of his thoughts, Mark knew it’d take something drastic to save himself.
That was why he put his head down and threw himself at the guard’s belly.
The crown of his head hit the guard’s waistcoat.
The guard’s breath rushed out of him in a stinking cloud of stale pizza and beer.
He let out a cry of dismay then flew back over the top step.
Mark followed.
The world spun, Mark on top of the guard then vice versa, seemingly ad infinitum, until they landed in a tangled heap on the next floor down.
Mark blacked out on impact but ended up on top, the guard sprawled out beneath him.
Blake nodded thoughtfully as he jotted down the last of Sylvia’s statement.
‘So, to recap,’ he said. ‘You and a neighbour saw your dead husband standing on his own grave. He didn’t do or say anything. You passed out and when you came round you were in hospital with no sign of your neighbour.’
‘Yes, that’s about it,’ Sylvia said, feeling a little ashamed.
But she knew what she’d seen. She just wished her neighbour would come in to confirm it for her.
Blake pulled a strange face that made Sylvia dislike him even more than she already did.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ he said. ‘But I think you’ve been imagining things. It’s understandable you’d want to see a loved one after their death. And you have been through a lot. So, really, I’m sorry, but this is all nonsense. Pure fantasy.’
‘I know what I saw.’
‘I sure you think you know what you saw.’
‘Please, Mr Edwards. Get out. You’ve wasted enough of my time.’
Blake stood, scowled for a moment then walked out, leaving Sylvia alone with her frustration.
Frost had also seen the dark shape disappear into the ground and he levelled his shotgun at the point where he guessed the figure had gone.
‘What the hell’s going on out there?’ Abbott shouted.
He received no reply. The temptation to leave the island, just wade out to sea and never look back, was colossal, but he wasn’t leaving his men.
So, in spite of his shattered ankle, he wrapped his arms and legs round the nearest tree trunk and started to drag himself up.
From up here he’d have a better view of what was going on.
Frost pulled the trigger and blew a hole in the mud. There was no sign of anything there.
He and Hammett spun fast, their eyes frantically scanning the area.
The ground beside Frost’s feet bulged. A human hand emerged, wrapping its blood-smeared fingers tightly around Frost’s ankle and pulling him down into the soft mud.
Hammett fired a long burst at their attacker.
Both men heard a strange squeal and the hand let go of Frost’s leg. They scanned for it again.
Abbott reached a good vantage point, almost ten feet up the tree.
He pulled out the eyepiece from an old sniper rifle and scanned the island.
He saw Frost and Hammett, both bloody and distressed, aiming their guns at the ground, but he could see a dark figure in the bushes to their left.
‘Frost, Hammett, target to your left, in the bushes,’ Abbott’s voice blared over the comms unit.
Both men spun.
Frost moved towards their left, his eyes flicking back and forth rapidly.
Hammett covered him.
Frost put his back to a tree trunk then nodded to Hammett and pulled back the branches.
Hammett pulled the trigger, slamming bullet after bullet into the body of Private Mann, who, blind and terrified, had tried to keep up with his colleagues.
Mark’s head spun as if he was still somersaulting down the stairs.
The first thing his eyes registered was the flickering light above him. He felt something cold and hard against the bare flesh of his belly and looked down to see the guard’s handgun.
He started at the sight of the guard and his scary-ass gas mask. But, judging by the awkward angle of the guard’s neck and the ribbon of blood that snaked from his ear, he was dead.
Mark pulled himself to his feet, wincing at the pain that seemed to spread through his entire body.
As he stood, the man’s right hand grabbed his leg.
He cried out and fell back against the stairs, tearing his leg from the guard’s grip.
He waited a numb second, waitin
g to see if the guard came for him, but he realised the hand must have been some post-mortem spasm. The guard was dead, he was certain of that.
After a second’s thought, he leant in close and pulled the handgun from the man’s belt. It felt much heavier than he’d thought but he found the weight reassuring.
He turned and ran up the stairs, holding the gun in front of him in imitation of the cop shows he’d seen on TV.
‘Shit, that’s Mann,’ Frost shouted, at the same time as Abbott and Hammett realised this fact.
Hammett eased off the trigger and reloaded while he had chance.
A dark shape exploded out of the ground at Frost’s feet.
Frost fired both barrels of the shotgun at point blank range, right into the figure’s chest. Dark blood spattered his frame.
Hammett saw their attacker late and pulled the trigger, emptying a whole magazine into its back.
It spasmed and bled like a normal person, but it remained standing, looming over Frost.
Frost fired off another shotgun blast, hitting his assailant in the face. The skin slid off, revealing dark skull and brain, but still their target stood.
Hammett’s gun clicked empty. He discarded it and pulled out his handgun.
The figure grabbed Frost’s head and rived it right off his shoulders before throwing it at Hammett’s feet and letting out a chilling scream.
Hammett rushed in, pressed the handgun to the bulge on the back of the man’s head and pulled the trigger until the gun clicked empty.
The man let out a screeching cry then fell, his hands scrabbling at the gaping hole in the back of his head.
As Mark reached the top of the staircase he recognised his location as being near the westernmost exit.
Tucking the gun into the inside pocket of his jacket, he moved out into the crowds. People screamed and ran when they saw his blood-streaked face and clothes. Mark went with the flow and ran too.
He reached the exit in a matter of minutes and saw a few gas-masked men getting out of vans and heading into the mall. The roads around the mall were blocked off with ominous-looking hazmat signs.
Though he’d been brought up well, the sight of a BMX abandoned outside the mall’s McDonalds was too tempting, especially when he considered the journey he was going to have to make.
Mark wasn’t stupid; he knew that an operation as brutally efficient as the one that had wiped out most of the customers in the sports shop – possibly the entire mall – would have no problems finding out his home address and taking care of the loose ends.
With gunshots and screams ringing out all around the mall, he raced off across town on the BMX. He had no destination in mind, just wanted to put as many miles as possible between him and the slaughter.
Hammett spun, hearing movement behind him.
‘Is it dead yet?’ Abbott asked, looking down at the bullet-torn corpse as if it was a two-hundred-pound pile of dog shit.
‘Jesus H,’ Hammett said, clutching a hand to his chest. ‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Well, from what’s left of its face it looks like Morgan.’
‘Yeah. What do we do now?’
‘Mission accomplished. Get back to base. Then we start asking questions about who the fuck sent us here to die.’
The tall, well-dressed man leant back in his six-thousand-dollar leather chair and watched the monitor in the wall.
When the phone let out a shrill cry, he scooped it up and answered.
‘Yes?’
‘Sir, they’ve killed Morgan,’ came the voice of Blake, his dogsbody.
‘So it’s true. I take it he took most of them out first?’
‘Yeah, there’s only Abbott and Hammett left.’
‘Not bad. But I think we can do better.’ The well-dressed man toyed with a patch of stubble on the tip of his chin. ‘Yes, Blake, I’m sure we can do better.’
Hammett helped to support Abbott as he drew closer to the bleeding, prone body of Morgan Sands.
He grabbed the flap of sandy coloured hair on Morgan’s forehead and yanked the neck back.
Pulled a machete from a long holster on his side and raised it.
Swung it hard at Morgan’s neck.
The blade bit deep, sending a splatter of gore into Abbott’s face. He pulled the blade out and slammed it in again. This time, it severed the head.
‘Taking a little proof,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘So they don’t try to fuck you over for your five grand.’ After a second’s thought, he also took one of Morgan’s hands.
Hammett nodded.
Abbott looked insane with his bloody face and the blade and the severed head in his hands.
‘Let’s blow this popsicle stand,’ he said, adjusting his Stetson with a bloodied hand.
Hammett kept his gun down as he helped Abbott back to the sea.
‘That way I can keep the weight off this damned leg,’ Abbott said.
Hammett scanned around them, making sure there were no hidden enemies.
The saltwater stung their wounds as they waded around the island to the lifeboat. Hammett rowed like a demon and they reached the boat within minutes.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ the helmsman asked them.
‘That’s exactly what we’re going to find out,’ Abbott said.
His lungs crying mutiny, Mark stopped at the huge cairn of rocks that marked the town boundary. His legs were surprisingly fresh, in spite of the beatings he’d given them and all the running and pedalling.
A thought flashed into his head, so clear and unexpected that it made him cry out.
Mom and dad.
The gas-masked men would come to his home and when they did they were hardly likely to leave his parents unscathed.
He called home, drumming his fingers on his leg while he waited an eternity for someone to answer.
‘Come on,’ he muttered.
The answerphone kicked in.
He hung up and called again.
Waited six rings and was about to put the phone down when his mother answered.
His pain and fear and anguish flooded out of his mouth.
‘Mom, it’s me. Listen, you and dad are in trouble. You’ve got to get away from home.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘It’s not safe. I’ve just nearly been killed at the mall. These guys in gas masks came in. They kidnapped this drunken guy and gunned everyone else down.’
‘Mark, have you been taking drugs?’
‘Jesus, mom. No, I haven’t been taking drugs. I haven’t been drinking. Rick’s dead. Everyone in the shop was dead. Only I got away. They’ll come for me, I know it. Don’t be home when they come.’
‘Mark, I really think you should come home. We’ll—’
Mark shook his head in exasperation.
If they wouldn’t listen, he would have to go without them.
There was no way he was letting the gas-masked men catch up with him.
The journey back to base was mostly full of obscenities and promises of what Abbott was going to do to whoever had sent them to the island.
Though Hammett and the helmsman had been marines for a long time, they’d never heard cursing so inventive or vehement.
‘Of course, I can’t really give the bastards what they deserve, right now,’ Abbott said. ‘On account of this busted ankle. So, Hammett, you’re going to have to do the work for me.’
‘My pleasure,’ Hammett said, remembering the damage Morgan had inflicted upon Frost.
The boat docked at the naval base. The helmsman managed to procure some crutches for Abbott.
‘Thanks, I’ll shove this up the fucker’s a-hole,’ was Abbott’s reply when he took the crutches and set off towards the entrance.
The captain still looked crazy as he propelled himself along with the crutches, Morgan’s head swinging from his left hand like a macabre pendulum.
‘You make sure you hurt this asshole,’ Abbott said, squinting his eyes to avoid the glare of th
e sun.
They stormed inside the base and followed Abbott to the lieutenant’s office.
Even on crutches, the captain set one hell of a pace.
Abbott’s knocks on the door looked like he was trying to put his fist through the wood. He brayed incessantly until a confused and angry face appeared in the crack between door and jamb.
‘You cocksucking son of a donkey fucking whore,’ Abbott roared, barging his way into the room. ‘I ought to cut your dick off and make you fuck yourself with it, you sack of shit.’
Hammett shoved his way into the room and grabbed Abbott as he raised his crutch to hit the lieutenant.
‘Sit down,’ Abbott said. ‘We need to sort this shit out.’
Hammett shoved the door shut and locked it behind him.
The lieutenant sat down behind his desk. Now he looked more scared than confused. ‘If I can just explain,’ he said.
‘Explain this, you bastard,’ Abbott said, flinging Morgan’s head into the lieutenant’s lap.
The lieutenant flinched at the sight of the head – especially the ragged, congealing wound at the back of the skull – and put it on the floor out of sight.
‘You care to explain how this man put a good twenty rounds into Morgan Sands without killing him?’ Abbott growled.
The lieutenant shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘No, I can’t explain that. This is a classified matter.’
Hammett lunged across the desk and grabbed the lieutenant by the throat. ‘We lost seven good men on that island. All for a routine seek and destroy mission. I don’t care what you say, something about this isn’t right. There was something wrong with Morgan Sands.’
The lieutenant’s face didn’t register fear, but Hammett could feel his quickened pulse in his fingertips. The smug bastard was enjoying keeping them in the dark.
‘This isn’t something I can discuss with you right now,’ the lieutenant croaked. ‘Now get out of here before I have you court-martialled.’
‘You listen to me, lieutenant,’ Abbott said, his voice low and more menacing than before. ‘Either of us gets court-martialled and I take off your head like I have Morgan’s. Is that clear?’
