Just then, a horrible cry came from Callahan as he tried to get Larry to his feet. Larry had his hands clasped around Callahan’s head, and smoke was rising up between Larry’s fingers. He let go, and Callahan collapsed to the ground, his head continuing to smoulder. Kulik was swinging around an M-4 he’d taken off one of the Wipers when Larry charged past him and out of the missile room.
Finn struggled to his feet and rushed to Callahan’s side. The smell of burning flesh made Finn’s nose crinkle. Even as he approached, it was clear Callahan was dead.
“Ninety seconds before impact,” Zhou howled. Sweat was pouring down his face as he called Kulik over to help him activate the self-destruct sequence on the Trident.
“Larry ain’t going anywhere,” Kulik said. “We’re submerged.”
Zhou shook his head. “Unless he’s heading to the nuclear reactor. There’s a chance he might be able to send it into meltdown.”
Zhou and Kulik were punching buttons on the missile launch panel when Finn headed for the door.
“Finn, don’t!” Joanne pleaded.
“I don’t have a choice,” was all he could say before he raced off to find Larry.
Dana
The Wipers that had come bursting in with Jeffereys were on the ground now, clutching their heads. So, too, were Aiden and Nikki. Glancing over by the far wall, Dana saw a crumpled form she knew was Bud. He’d been thrown back when the doors were blown open and as strong as her need was to see if he was all right, Dana couldn’t take that chance until she knew where Jeffereys was.
With her finger on the trigger of her AR-15, she moved out from behind the row of computer servers to get a better grasp of the situation.
A dozen men in ratty leather outfits lay sprawled near the entrance. The Wipers had stopped screaming in pain, but they looked confused, as though stirring from a deep sleep into unfamiliar surroundings.
The first thing she did was to remove the magazines from their AKs as well as cycle out the remaining rounds from the chambers. Jeffereys was nowhere to be seen. She went so far as to check the room with the glowing lights, but didn’t see a thing. Must have run off when he saw his men hit the ground, she figured. For a scumbag like Jeffereys, that wasn’t surprising.
When she got back to the main control room, she found Nikki rising unsteadily to her feet, rubbing her head.
“Are you all right?” It was a dumb question, given she’d been on the ground not 60 seconds before, but what else could one say when years worth of memories were downloaded all at once?
Nikki was slow to respond, and Dana became worried.
Does she still remember who I am?
Nikki glared at Dana quizzically. “I think I’m OK.”
“What’s my name?” Dana asked.
A smile appeared on Nikki’s face. “You’re Dana Hatfield. How could I ever forget you?”
They dropped down to Aiden, who was lying on his back.
Nikki still seemed to be in a fog. “Oh, no. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Pressing her fingers against his carotid artery, Dana felt for a pulse. “Not yet, but it’s very faint.”
Dana leaned Aiden forward and hoisted him over her shoulder. The pain in Nikki’s face made her own heart break.
She then went over to Bud. His eyes opened as she approached. The poor guy’d been hit with a double whammy. Thrown against the wall and then slammed by the pulse. She helped him to his feet, and the four of them prepared to leave. The Wipers – a name which no longer seemed to be relevant – were standing, many milling about aimlessly like patients in an asylum. Most likely, they would soon regain the full measure of their faculties, although it was anyone’s guess what sort of people they would become. They were former accountants and doctors and grocery clerks turned murderers who would now need to carve out new identities.
Dana carried her rifle with one hand, the other steadying Aiden over her shoulder as they passed the Wipers and fled through the glowing chamber.
“You were right about not blowing this place up,” Dana told Nikki. They were both looking at the light as they circled around to the underground railway.
The walk back to the cars outside would be a long one, but foremost on Dana’s mind was New Jamestown and what, if anything, remained. She was in the middle of convincing herself that Finn and the others had managed to stop the catastrophe when the satellite phone crackled to life. “The nuke’s been disarmed.” The sound of Zhou’s jubilant voice warmed Dana’s heart. “I repeat, the nuke has been disarmed. A big hunk of metal’s gonna fall out of the sky near New Jamestown, but that’s about it.”
Then she heard another voice, one that sent shivers up the back of her neck.
“Drop the rifle before I waste you all.” Jeffereys had apparently been waiting by the tracks to ambush them. So much for her theory that he’d run away.
Dana set her rifle down.
“Kick it over.” She did. “Good.” Jeffereys picked it up and flung it away. Then he turned to Bud. “You, too, lover boy.”
“It’s over, Jeffereys,” Bud told him. “Didn’t you hear Zhou? The nuke’s been disarmed. Your army is gone, and Larry is all you’ve got left.”
“Shut your mouth,” Jeffereys shouted as he took aim.
Dana stepped forward and kicked the rifle out of his hands, nearly falling over herself since an unconscious Aiden was still on her back.
Jeffereys scrambled to grab his AK when Dana shouted for them to re-enter the control room. As they hurried back inside, she kicked herself for having tossed away the Wipers’ weapons and ammo.
Many of them were still shuffling around the control room when Dana and the others hurried through.
On the right near a row of hardhats hanging from hooks was a door marked Power Plant Floor.
“This way,” she yelled. Jeffereys was probably right behind them, and she hadn’t gone through all this to be shot right when the world finally had a shred of hope.
They burst through the door and came to two rows of massive metallic transformers, each bearing high-voltage stickers. Overhead a mishmash of wires connected each of the giant cylinders together. Dana hoped it would help them stay out of Jeffereys’ line of fire, but it certainly wasn’t somewhere they could hide forever.
They ducked behind one of the transformers, where Dana set Aiden on the floor. Nikki helped Bud sit.
“If your hands are wet, don’t touch a damned thing or you’re liable to get fried,” Dana warned them.
“Wasn’t intending to,” Bud replied, holding out a pair of palms caked with dried blood. “Tell me you have a plan.”
“I was kinda hoping you still had that Glock.” she said, with a touch of desperation.
Bud shook his head. “When those doors blew, I barely kept my shirt on.” And he was right, the fabric was shredded and soaked red.
Dana stood and peered around the corner as Bud said, “I hope you’re not about to do something foolish.”
She turned back and winked at him, just as he had done from his New Jamestown prison cell when he unholstered her SIG. “I got a mean right hook, don’t you remember?”
Bud’s fingers went to the edges of his cheekbone. “How can I forget?”
That’s when she heard gunfire and saw a handful of the former Wipers gunned down as they ran into the plant. Jeffereys was a sadistic bastard all right, taking out his frustration by executing his own men now that they had become useless.
She couldn’t stay here and risk Jeffereys finding Nikki and the others. She decided to take a chance and cross open ground in order to hide behind one of the other massive energy receptacles. The idea was to ambush Mr. Itchy Trigger Finger as he went by. Sounded reasonable enough when you’re dealing with a gun-wielding sociopath.
Jeffereys was clomping down the metallic stairs, the sound a disturbing reminder of those basement stairs in San Francisco he’d come down when she was tied up and helpless. With fear rising up into her throat, Dana struggled to fight it. Taking a deep
breath, she burst out and sprinted across open ground.
The rattle of gunfire was immediate and sprayed the ground around her. Dana slid behind one of the transformers as though she were coming into home plate.
“Think you can hide from me, you bitch?” Jeffereys screeched. He sounded drunk with bloodlust.
Dana circled around the outer edge of the transformer, moving closer to Jeffereys. If she could pop out where he wasn’t expecting her, then she might be able to neutralize the advantage of his AK.
Crouching, she was waiting for him to pass when she spotted a sticker on the metal chamber which read Energy Storage Unit. These weren’t transformers at all, they were giant batteries. Tevatron had cracked one of the holy grails of the energy industry, finding a way to bottle electricity that wasn’t used immediately.
The clicking of Jeffereys’ heels closing in snapped her back to reality. But the noise stopped just short of coming into view. He was standing beyond her line of sight, but what was he doing? Without a weapon of any kind, Dana knew she couldn’t risk being seen first.
Then footsteps again, these ones faster. They were coming around from the other side. That’s when she heard him rush up behind her. Dana sprang to her feet, but it was too late. Jeffereys was already there, pointing the AK right at her face, smiling as though he’d just taught her an important lesson: “Don’t mess with the big boys.”
His finger squeezed the trigger, and the AK clicked empty. Jeffereys’ eyes grew wide. He’d emptied it killing those Wipers and shooting the ground at her feet as she’d sprinted from one storage unit to another.
Dana grabbed the barrel and rammed it up into his face, breaking his nose. Blood poured from his nostrils, but Jeffereys’ shirt was already saturated. She remembered then Bud saying how he’d shot him as Jeffereys ran out. Dana went to hit him again, and this time Jeffereys blocked the blow and head butted her in the face. For a moment, her vision went black. Then another burst of pain as Jeffereys sent a crushing blow to the side of her head. Dana staggered, holding her arms up to ward off any further attacks. Her vision was coming back in bits and pieces, and when she saw Jeffereys coming in again, she ducked, then swung, but missed. A cut over her eye was blurring her vision even more. Jeffereys could tell and was laughing now, swinging furiously. He backed her into one of the storage units marked Danger High Voltage, intending to fry her to a crisp, when Dana spotted Nikki move up behind Jeffereys and swing a piece of pipe at his head. The force of the crack split his ear open. More blood, and now he was covered in it, but the blow only stunned him. Jeffereys spun to grab hold of Nikki, who screamed. That’s when Dana snatched him by the collar of his leather vest and flung him toward the storage unit. He struck the metal surface, and his body began to convulse violently; the blood oozing out of him acting as a conductor. Dana and Nikki stepped back in horror as Jeffereys’ body began to smoke and then disintegrate into ash.
Bud came limping around the corner, wincing with the pain of broken ribs and a wounded leg. All three of them looked on in amazement at the pile of soot that had once been a man.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Dana said.
Nikki blinked the sight away. “I have. At the Grand America. Alvarez got real angry at a captive named Mary something, I never did get her last name. His touch turned her to ash.”
“Maybe he figured out a way of tapping into this power source?” Bud asked.
Dana wasn’t sure. But the question left her with another thought. What if The Shift had changed people in ways they were only beginning to understand?
Finn
The blazing-red battle stations light was flashing throughout the sub’s narrow corridors as Finn hurried toward the reactor room. Although nearly twice as big as a 747, with every inch of space devoted to one purpose or another, it still managed to feel cramped and claustrophobic.
Finn checked the magazine on the AK-47 he’d snatched from one of the Wipers, saw it was full, and held it at the ready.
He entered the section housing the missile tubes that rose up from floor to ceiling, and ultimately, to hatches at the top of the sub. Nothing here was wasted. Sailor’s bunks were nestled in and among the missiles, and Finn made sure to check as many as he could in case Larry was waiting to ambush him. The sickening sight of what he’d done to Callahan was playing over and over in Finn’s mind. Larry’s hands had been like lava and had made the sailor’s skin turn to cinders.
Nearing the reactor room, his nose caught the smell of burnt flesh, a sure sign he was heading in the right direction.
Then came Zhou’s voice over the loudspeaker. “Finn, he’s breached the reactor room. You better get there quick.”
Finn was at a full run now, his head still swimming from the onrush of memories he thought he’d never see again. Some of the more painful ones he could do without.
The sub’s showers and medical room came next, and Finn was picking up speed, weaving past obstacles and through hatches as quickly as his legs could carry him. At last, he came to a door with the radiation symbol. Peering through the glass porthole, he caught sight of Larry, his hands flat on the control panel, smoke rising from his palms. He was trying to cause a meltdown within the reactor by frying the electrical equipment.
Finn tried the locking wheel, but it wouldn’t budge. Larry must have welded it shut on the inside with those toasty fingers of his. Warning lights inside were flashing like crazy along with the faint sound of a voice warning of an impending meltdown. Larry knew it was over and was trying to take them all down with him.
Now Larry was coming closer, moving toward the door, sweat pouring down his face, the veins along his forehead bulging out. “It may surprise you, Finn, but there is no such thing as death. Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed. A French chemist is supposed to have said that. I’ll be back again, eventually. You and your friends on this sub, however. Well, this life is the only one you’ll ever have. How does it feel knowing it’s about to end?”
The flesh on Larry’s face was starting to bubble. Finn dropped the AK, turned, and ran back to the missile room. He could only imagine radiation was already flooding past the protective doors and into the rest of the sub. They didn’t have long before their skin began bubbling away as well.
When he arrived, Zhou and Kulik were helping Joanne to her feet and ushering confused Wipers into the corridor and up toward the front of the boat. Donavan was on his feet, too, gagged, his hands bound behind his back.
“I couldn’t stop him,” Finn said. “The nuclear reactor’s going into full meltdown.”
“But the sub’s 30 meters underwater,” Joanne said. “We’re trapped.”
“The escape trunk at the front of the sub has room for eight,” Kulik said, pushing Donavan ahead of him. “Once we equalize the pressure, we can swim to the surface just like the Navy Seals do.” Kulik winked at Finn. “Long as you can hold your breath.”
Overhead, a female voice warned of a radiation leak.
“The Wipers,” Joanne said. “We can’t just leave them.”
She was right. A couple were still on the floor in the missile room. “Go,” Finn told them. “I’ll catch up.”
“The escape trunk is one floor up,” Zhou told him. “We’ll wait as long as we can.”
The thought of going back to save the very people who had nearly killed those closest to him was a hard pill to swallow. But he knew leaving them down here to die was a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life, a life that wouldn’t last much longer if he didn’t hurry.
Less than a minute later, Finn was back in the missile room. Two Wipers were on the floor near the entrance. One was unconscious, and the other was leaning against a bulkhead, rubbing his head like he’d taken a knock to the skull. Finn knew what he must be feeling, but it wasn’t simply physical pain, it was severe disorientation.
Finn shook the man, who was already awake. “Can you walk?”
He glanced up at Finn as though h
e were a mirage.
Finn hauled him to his feet, then went to lift the other Wiper before realizing the second man was dead.
That female voice warning of a radiation leak came on again as Finn and the remaining Wiper went to leave the missile room.
Larry stepped into their way, grinning as he grabbed the Wiper by the neck. Smoke rose up from searing flesh. The man tried to scream, but couldn’t make a sound. He collapsed and was dead before his body hit the floor.
“I was hoping I’d catch you before you left,” Larry said, wiping his hands. Most of the skin on his arms and face had peeled off, exposing the tips of his cheekbones. His head was a grotesque dome, absent of hair or flesh. “You came to the reactor with the intention of killing me, and I wanted to give you a second chance.”
Finn was backing away, searching around for a weapon.
“You don’t need anything but your bare hands,” Larry told him. “Convicted criminals in ancient Britain were strangled and thrown into the bogs. I’ve done such horrible things, Finn, and I want you to punish me.”
The smell of sulphur was strong, and Finn’s only thought was getting to the escape trunk before this sub became his tomb.
“Punish me, and I’ll let you go,” Larry said, his lips black and cracking.
Nikki had told them the evil inside Alvarez had somehow migrated into Larry, and now he could see Larry wanted it to live on in Finn.
Callahan’s body was on the floor beside him. Tucked into the belt was that .45 1911 he’d taken off one of the Wipers.
“Attention,” the computer’s soft female voice warned. “Radiation levels critical.”
“I told you before I was going to kill you,” Finn said.
Larry was coming toward him, a twisted grin plastered all over his melting face.
“And I always keep my promises.” Finn rolled and snatched the pistol from Callahan’s waistband just as Larry sprang to wrap him in a fiery embrace.
Finn emptied all seven rounds, riddling Larry’s head and face with quarter-sized holes.
Primal Shift: Volume 2 (A Post Apocalyptic Thriller) Page 31
