by Jon Land
Krill could only guess. Just load his shells into the most accessible tubes as quickly as possible and then take his leave.
He tucked the small bag containing his shells into his right hand and advanced toward the nearest mortar tubes. The barge was heavy and stable, but its wet surface was slippery. He lowered his bag to the deck when he reached the first row of tubes, just behind some of the larger Roman candles. He had centered one of his altered shells over a tube, about to drop it in, when he heard a strange sloshing sound. Krill turned in time to see the Indian he recognized from the picture in McCracken’s file lunging for him from the starboard side of the barge. Impact carried him sideways toward the edge, but not before he let the shell drop. It sank down the tube into firing position, ready to be shot into the air.
Josh never stopped running, not even when his breath turned to hot, burning gasps in his chest. But he ran without clear destination, without purpose. He weaved through the rapidly emptying northwest section of the park, hoping to lose himself but quickly seeing the futility in that strategy. By the time he reached Liberty Square near the Hall of Presidents, pursuit by the Men seemed to be closing from all directions.
Boxed in, he dashed onto the boarding platform for the three-tier riverboat that was moored before him. Josh dashed along its length and reached the end just as footsteps thumped across the platform in his wake. Desperate, he jumped into the water and paddled frantically behind the cover of the huge boat. Reaching its aft side, he caught Tom Sawyer’s Island in his gaze and began swimming toward it.
The boy was halfway to the island before he was spotted.
“Follow him!” Fuchs ordered his men who had reported from the scene. “Don’t let him out of your sight!”
The men obeyed. The first group on the scene plunged off the riverboat into the water and swam after Joshua Wolfe. They had closed the gap considerably by the time the boy reached the shoreline of Tom Sawyer’s Island, stumbling, falling and finally regaining his feet. The dual islands, especially this one, offered plenty of places to hide in the form of thick brush and crevices, not to mention the mine and cave. And hiding was exactly what the men expected Joshua Wolfe would do.
But instead he stayed on the move, smashing through the thickets and racing along the paths leading to the footbridge connecting this island with its twin.
“Subject confined to second island, Colonel,” reported the first Group Six man to reach the still wobbling footbridge into his walkie-talkie. “We have it surrounded from the shoreline.”
Fuchs had abandoned the tunnels beneath the complex to be present when his men captured Josh. Nearing the riverbank, he boarded the ferry and waited for it to transport him across. The colonel thought quickly. There was almost nothing on the second of the two islands, except for more foliage and Fort Samuel Clemens.
“Hold your positions until I arrive,” he ordered.
The logistics along Main Street U.S.A. worked to the advantage of Harry Lime’s Key West Irregulars, especially since the panicked rush of people prevented the Group Six troops from using their superior numbers to full advantage. Captain Jack, Jimmy Beam and Johnny Walker settled into a hit-and-run, guerrilla-type strategy. Meanwhile, Papa and the Sandman, dressed in his customary bathrobe with extra ammo weighing down the pockets, had managed to splinter the opposition by luring isolated small groups into the Walt Disney World Railroad station and Main Street’s City Hall. There they could be picked off in confined spaces that significantly reduced the advantage of superior numbers.
The park was emptying at a remarkable clip, the chaos transferred to the monorail station where people forced their way onto train after train, pounding on the doors when they closed without allowing them to board. Many gave up on the effort and simply ran to get away.
Inside the ice cream parlor Harry Lime and McCracken reloaded and prepared themselves to rejoin the battle.
“Can I make you a sundae before I leave?” Blaine asked Susan, who was still perched behind the counter for cover.
“I’d settle for you coming back to get me.”
“Count on it.”
“Find Josh, Blaine.”
McCracken stole a glance at Harry before responding. “Count on that, too.”
Lime led the way back onto Main Street U.S.A., firing the last shells from his grenade launcher. When it was empty, he stripped a pair of submachine guns from his shoulders and glided down the sidewalk with one in each hand. McCracken snatched a similar weapon from one of the opposition corpses and pocketed a pair of extra clips for it as well.
Most of the lighting still had not been switched back on, keeping Main Street in a dull glow. The pall of smoke from explosions and gunshots hung low in the thick, moist air. Except for the combatants, the immediate area was deserted. People had fled leaving their souvenirs, tote bags and backpacks behind to mix with the blast-riddled debris and bodies claimed by the battle. McCracken had seen entire towns leveled by warring parties, but there was something even eerier about this.
Fresh gunfire strafed the street from the side opposite them, originating on the first floors of all three main buildings smoldering there. Blaine and Harry ran down the sidewalk letting go with nonstop barrages that shattered what little remained of the windows and turned the contents of the shops into a shambles. For a time they were actually firing back to back, exchanging fresh clips for exhausted ones almost in unison. Then Harry took a hit in the shoulder and discarded the weapon he’d been holding in that hand. He lunged over the sidewalk and joined McCracken beneath the overhang of the old-fashioned cinema.
“Don’t look like my boys can hold all of ’em back, Captain.”
“Then let’s see what we can do about the ones who got by them,” Blaine said to Harry as the first of the fireworks burst in the sky, showering them with light.
Wareagle tried to spin away from the edge of the barge back toward the mortar tubes, specifically the one in the center where he’d seen Krill insert his charge. Krill, though, held Johnny off, fighting for time. The two giants grappled across the edge of the barge, jarring some of the mortar tubes forming an obstacle course that threatened to trip either up with a single misstep. Each tried to topple the other off so as to complete his task: Krill, the loading of his two remaining shells; Johnny the disabling of the mortar tube loaded with the first.
Krill’s inhumanly long arms and apelike forearms held Wareagle at bay and kept angling for his throat. Johnny realized that just maintaining the stalemate would be a tall order, never mind overcoming this adversary. The elongated face before him looked like a skull with a coating of flesh-colored paint, dominated by bulging eyes and protruding teeth.
Krill’s already misshapen features distorted into a snarl. Without warning he snapped his head forward, leading with those awful teeth. Johnny reeled backwards but still felt a burst of piercing agony when Krill’s mouth-mounted razors tore a piece of his cheek off. Krill snapped his neck forward again, and this time Wareagle risked freeing a hand to wedge against the monster’s chin to hold off the assault.
The move worked at the expense of leaving one of Krill’s arms free and he instantly fastened it upon Johnny’s throat. His fingers were obscenely long and thick, allowing him to close all the way around Wareagle’s expansive neck. A less muscled man would have perished to a crack of cartilage almost instantly. But crushing Johnny’s throat took more effort than Krill had anticipated, which surprised him enough for Wareagle to twist to the side and ease the pressure on his windpipe. In the process he withdrew the hand pressed against the monster’s chin and rocketed it forward with all the force he could muster.
The Indian’s tightened palm flattened Krill’s nose and staggered him. Krill backpedaled briefly, a low growl rising from his throat before he swept his other hand outward, fingers curled like a claw.
Johnny felt his shirt tear and flesh rip as if a bear had raked a paw across it. Krill swiped at him a second time in the opposite direction and the fiery pain struck Joh
nny again, a bloody X now drawn down the center of his chest. Krill used that X as a target for a knee hurled upward. Johnny’s breath exploded from him in a rush. He felt the monster’s hands curl round his head to snap his neck and he thrust his hands out for a comparable hold.
But the extra length of Krill’s arms proved too much to overcome, and Wareagle felt his neck starting to give against the determined resistance of his powerful muscles. A crack followed which sent a burst of tingly static down his spine and turned his legs rubbery. He tried to lurch backwards, but Krill took advantage of his move by thrusting out with both arms against him.
Johnny realized he was airborne only in the instant before he landed hard on the calm lagoon surface. He sank into the black water and instantly splashed back upward. Krill’s toss combined with the currents had spilled him ten feet from the barge. Even from that distance Johnny could see the monster approaching the mortar tubes with another of his canisters in hand. A series of powerful strokes got him back to the barge and, as he reached a hand over the edge to help pull himself up, the first fireworks of the evening shot into the sky, fired from far down the row of mortar tubes.
The sudden burst of brilliant light from above sent Krill’s hands clinging to his eyes. The second deadly shell he had pulled from his bag went clattering to the deck and rolled away. Krill staggered, eyes lost behind his palms. Johnny pulled himself back atop the barge as another half-dozen mortar tubes spewed their initial shells simultaneously.
McCracken continued to fire barrages of bullets, salvaging a weapon from another downed Group Six man everytime the one he was wielding was exhausted. He and Harry zigzagged their way down Main Street U.S.A. toward the front of the Magic Kingdom where the rest of the Key West Irregulars continued to make their stand.
A mad figure in a bathrobe rose above them atop the train station, holding submachine guns in both hands. Blaine could see the bloody splotches staining Sandman’s white robe and knew he was ready to go to sleep for the last time. He dashed ahead of Harry toward a concentration of Group Six men pouring fire Sandman’s way.
Before he could get there, the Irregulars he recognized as Jim Beam and Jack Daniels rushed the enemy from behind and cut them down just as Sandman at last fell backward. Blaine swung to his right at the sound of fresh gunfire in time to see Papa emerging in a sprint from City Hall. Bullets traced him from both levels and dropped him in the middle of the street an instant before the entire building went up in a fiery blast, taking out untold numbers of Fuchs’s men.
“Shit,” Harry moaned, leaning over Papa’s body. “Shit!”
He let go with a wild fusillade just as Blaine reached him.
“Come on!” Blaine urged, yanking him upward.
“It ends here, Captain!” Harry screamed between rounds.
“No, it doesn’t, Harry. Not even close.”
Johnny Wareagle slid silently across the barge beneath a sky bursting with light, skirting between the mortar tubes jettisoning their magic contents into the air without pause. He could see instantly that Krill was still blinded by the resulting bursts of light. The first few rows of tubes that had yet to fire must have contained the more elaborate, climactic American flag display, which would explain why Krill’s deadly shell had not been fired off yet.
Just as the monster seemed to finally be adjusting to the wash of light filling the night sky, the bright spray from double rows of Roman candles erupted in a constant stream. He screamed and stumbled, barely holding fast to his third shell, the second teetering dangerously close to the barge’s edge.
Krill’s attention was so rooted on the mortar tubes that he never noticed Wareagle had reclaimed the barge. Johnny attacked by springing through the Roman candle spray. The lunge sent agony down his spine, centered in his neck, which had locked solidly in place.
Krill was lowering his third shell blindly toward another of the mortar tubes when Johnny slammed into him from behind, ignoring the wrenching pain that came on impact. Krill flew over the tubes and crashed to the barge’s surface between rows of mortars that began to erupt instantly again. The shell flew out of his hand and rolled into the water. Silhouetted by the dazzling light, Johnny grasped the tube in which Krill had loaded his first shell and tore it from its mounts.
Krill roared and threw himself on Johnny just as the mortar plopped into the water. Their struggle took them back in front of the first rows, a flurry of blows finding Wareagle despite the monster’s watery, half-closed eyes. Behind Krill he could see the first rows of mortar rubes finally come to life, and almost instantly the sky showed the forming shape of an American flag. The shells lifted off one after the other without pause, spreading into red, white and blue designs that stitched a pattern in the thick night air.
For Krill they didn’t exist, too bright to see. But he didn’t have to see Johnny to double him over with a fresh series of savage strikes with fists that felt like cannonballs. A few stung Wareagle in the neck and his legs simply dropped out, the feeling gone in them. Sensing his vulnerability, the blinded monster leaned over and felt for something to grab on to. His hand grasped the Indian’s coal-black ponytail. Krill yanked hard and drew Johnny upward, a desperate animal pouncing on its prey.
The sky continued to explode with color, shells rising upward with loud pops from the mortar tubes, joined now by the nearest row of Roman candle spray kicking up white sparks.
As soon as he was upright, Wareagle threw his chest forward and rammed Krill to throw him off balance. Johnny then pushed off with what little his legs would give him, enough to stagger the monster backward toward the sea of hot, sparkling white. Krill seemed to realize the Indian’s strategy and tried to lurch forward. But his feet slipped slightly on the wet surface of the barge and then deserted him altogether. He fell backwards, flailed his arms about desperately for purchase on something to hold on to.
Then the light swallowed him. His eyes exploded in agony in the instant before the heat ate at his flesh. He screamed and lunged away.
Blinded, he lurched straight into the path of a trio of mortar tubes in the first row which fired their shells simultaneously into him, turning the monster into a shroud of blinding, fizzling color. His mouth opened for a scream that never came; his arms stretched impossibly wide to each side, shaking as if electricity was pulsing through his body.
Johnny collapsed to the barge’s deck and watched as Krill caught fire. All at once, the flame became an inferno that dropped for the water. The monster’s upper body had just flopped over the barge’s starboard side when his huge bulk simply locked in place. It spasmed once and then lay still. The stink of burning flesh continued to assault Johnny’s nostrils as Krill’s legs smoldered, and he watched the shape of the unfinished flag etched against the skies over the Magic Kingdom.
Sal Belamo had emerged from the Jungle Cruise only to be caught in the initial swell of panic, twisted about and carried by the crowd. He managed to extract himself briefly before being stampeded by another rush which separated him from his pistol. The force of the crowd actually carried him along, his feet barely touching the ground. It was all he could do to remain upright. Suddenly one of his legs got tangled in a thicket of limbs and he went down hard, scrambling to avoid being crushed by the advancing hordes.
The feeling of relief Sal felt upon escaping the mobs was short-lived. As soon as he tried to stand upright, an excruciating pain shot through his ankle.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, exasperated. He was in no shape to join McCracken in the battle raging up the street now and had no weapon, even if both legs had been functional. Further, it didn’t seem as if his presence would mean very much anyway. McCracken needed more help than Sal could provide alone under even the best of circumstances.
That didn’t mean he was giving up. There had to be something he could do.
He leaned back against the fence overlooking the dinosaurs to take the weight off his twisted leg. Turning, Sal found himself just about eye level with the robotic T.
rex.
A thrill surged through him.
“Why not?” he asked out loud. “Why the fuck not?”
The lights from the uncompleted flag began dying in the air, returning the sky over Fort Samuel Clemens to relative darkness. Joshua Wolfe sat huddled atop a rampart gazing upward. He had already pulled the vial containing the remainder of CLAIR from his pocket and pinched it between his knees. Taking deep breaths to steady himself, he twisted the vacuum sealer off and carefully extracted the tube of the compound he had created at Group Six. He removed the top from it as well and, after only the shortest of pauses, poured it into the vial already two-thirds-full of CLAIR.
The effort brought the resulting compound dangerously close to the top. Josh knew it would take several minutes for the chemicals to mix and the proper reaction to take place within the unbreakable space-age polymer. He screwed the vacuum seal back in loosely, fidgeting with it until he was confident it would pop off if forced from his hand.
Let Fuchs come after him now. Just let him … .
Why wait to release the vial’s contents? What was the difference? His life was over anyway. He belonged to Fuchs and the others like him, men who wouldn’t be happy until the means of life and death was in their hands. Josh could give them that and the world would be an even more fucked-up place as a result. Might be doing that same world a favor if he ended things right now, saved humanity the bother of a miserable future.
“Josh? Can you hear me, Josh?”
The colonel’s voice echoed through the stillness of the night, coming from somewhere nearby, as more fireworks exploded overhead.
“Go away!” Josh yelled back.
