Wormwood Dawn (Episode IV)

by Crae, Edward

  Dan closed his eyes, pushing against the steering wheel with his weakened arms. He knew it was no use; he would go through the windshield and probably die; splatting against the street right along with the mutant.

  But, hey, it was only the second floor. Maybe he would—

  Chapter Eleven

  Were those drums? Something loud and banging; regular, in a pattern. Drowned out, but still loud as fuck. The sounds echoed in Dan’s head; bouncing around inside his skull like a death metal symphony—or some James Horner epic.

  No… they were distant gunshots.

  Dan couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see anything. There was no light. Why? His body was racked with pain; intense pain. And where there was no pain, there was numbness. What the fuck was going on? What had happened? Where was he?

  He took a deep breath. It was hard, and his back hurt when he did. But the breath was there. It went in and out. He could hear it. He could hear his own moans as the pain coursed through him; feel the stinging, stabbing sensations of broken bones.

  Pain meant he was alive.

  He was alive.

  He forced his eyes open, seeing the swirling dark blues and orange colors of dawn. Everything was blurry and shifting before his very eyes.

  But he was alive.

  He blinked, fluttering his eyes until they built the strength to open fully. He stared, dazed, at the side view mirror of a car. His head was leaned against the inside of the door, and his own image stared back at him.

  Jesus, he thought. What a fucking mess.

  Blood covered most of his face. His nose looked broken; not too bad, but slightly swollen along the bridge. There was a cut above his right eye—or was it his left? He couldn’t tell just yet. He stared at himself for a moment, wondering what had just happened. He remembered driving off the edge of a building, falling in slow motion… why?

  He saw his own eyes widen as he realized he had crashed to the street… and why.

  He shot upright, ignoring the pain and frantically looking around him. The street was dark, lit only by the dim orange light on the horizon and the moon that hung low in the sky. There was a firefight in the distance, not too far away, but far enough to where he was not actually a part of it.

  He looked in the passenger seat. His Sig lay on the floor in front of it, along with his backpack. The windshield was shattered, as were most of the other windows. The car’s hood was crumpled and destroyed. The car was totaled.

  But he was alive.

  Robert.

  Dan grabbed the Sig and backpack, slinging the pack over his shoulder and pulling the door handle. It was stuck. He slammed his body against it, gritting his teeth with the pain. It was shut for good. He climbed out through the busted window; nearly stumbling when hit the street. He checked the magazine of the Sig, slowly creeping around the front of the car.

  In the rubble, Robert’s mutated body lay severed in two. His bottom half was smeared underneath the car; nearly unrecognizable. His top half lay sprawled out on the asphalt; his arms straight out and still, like some alien Jesus crucified right onto the pavement. His face was destroyed, and the broken jaw, lined with jagged and broken fangs, hung open in a strange jack-o-lantern fashion. Pools of antifreeze were all around him, and some of it coated his skin. It had burned him like acid, and ate away at his strange, white flesh.

  What was left of him trembled, and there was a choking sound as he struggled to breathe. Dan approached him, looking down in triumph. Robert’s right eye lens was torn, and underneath was a pale, veiny eyeball with a single black dot that Dan guessed was his pupil. It was trained right on him.

  Dan grinned through his pain, lowering the rifle and pointing it right at the disgusting, mutant face.

  “Game over, asshole,” he said. “You lose.”

  He fired, splatting what was left of Robert’s head. It exploded in a shower of black blood and green, gloppy brains. Dan stared for a moment, feeling a wave of victory flood over him. He stared up at the sky, imagining his Dad looking down at him; nodding his head in approval.

  Victory.

  As he turned to scope out the street, he remembered the shadows. They had helped him for some reason. They saved his life, stopping Robert from doing whatever the hell he was going to do. Then, they had torn him away and attacked, disappearing when Dan had regained his bearings.

  What the fuck?

  “Thanks?” he whispered.

  The firefight was increasing in ferocity in the distance, toward the main area of the campus. He had to get there. The dorm was his route, he remembered. Without looking back, he stumbled toward it, limping slightly with the pain that wracked his body. He stopped for a moment, long enough to fish a few Vicodin from his supply. Then, he continued.

  The double doors came into view, shattered, but flung open this time. He hadn’t remembered opening them; he and Vincent never made it there. Something must have come this way. He shook his head and sprinted toward them, stopping on the outside to peer in through the IR scope. Nothing. He crept inside, looking left and right as he silently padded down the hall.

  The dorms on the ground floor were ransacked; most of them containing the bodies of students that had apparently been executed or torn to pieces by mutants. He found another, heavier door, complete with a stairwell sign. He opened it and crept inside, closing it silently behind him.

  The stairway leading down was dark. He looked through the scope, seeing nothing but dark green, and started down them. They went down three flights, and Dan stopped at every landing to scope out each flight before continuing on.

  Finally, after what seemed like descending into Hell itself, Dan reached the final landing. Before him was a steel door, unlocked and stuck open with a door stop. Through the dim light that filtered down from the stairwell windows, he could see a plaque underneath the door’s small window that read To Cyberinfrastructure Lab.

  Bingo. Vincent was right.

  Dan slipped through the door, squatting just inside to scope out the long, dark hallway that stretched out before him. About one hundred yards ahead, the faint glow of artificial light formed globes along the walls. The mercs had power. That was obvious. Among the globes, two figures walked casually toward him. They were guards, most likely.

  …and they were doomed.

  He would wait and watch; letting them come close enough to be sure that they were alone. Though he had not yet sighted the Sig, the scope was close enough to his sight picture to be fairly accurate. He was confident he could hit them from a reasonable distance. The question was whether he could take them both out quick enough to prevent being discovered.

  You’re a natural sniper, son, he heard his father say in his head. But don’t ever join the military. The Government doesn’t deserve people with talent. Use that talent to protect yourself and your family.

  His family. Drew and Jake were his only family. Vincent had been like a brother, too. But now Vincent was lying headless in the street, and his head was probably being kicked around by zombies in some weird, macabre soccer game.

  That was a fucked up thought.

  Dan crept forward, sticking close to the glossy cinder block wall. He stopped periodically, peering through the scope to judge the guards’ distance. They were still heading in his direction, casually strolling as if they had no fucking clue they were about to die.

  He began to hear their voices as they came within around sixty yards. Though he couldn’t understand them, they were apparently joking about something and laughing in a disgusting, fake military manner.

  He would enjoy killing them.

  He lowered himself to a prone position, looking down the scope, and holding the rifle up with his elbow. He could tap one in the head, taking him out instantly, and maybe fire a double tap quick enough to take down the other before he called out. It was worth a try.

  He aimed for the head of the merc on the left. The guy was holding his head fairly still as he listened to his partner’s endless droning. He would pref
er to blow off the other guy’s head, but now was not the time for amusing kills.

  He tested his quickness, swiveling his view over to the other guy to see how fast he could do it. He repeated the motion three times; satisfied that he could. Then, he closed in on his target, slowing his breathing, taking note of his heartbeat. He then held his breath, waiting for a good thump of his heart to pull the trigger.

  When the black crosshairs centered on the merc’s face, he fired, then quickly swiveled to the right and double-tapped the other. The two men fell noiselessly—mostly. There was a plastic clank as their rifles fell to the floor. But nothing else followed.

  Grinning, he stood and sprinted to them, shouldering his rifle and dragging their bodies behind a stack of boxes. The light here was much brighter, but still shadowy. Soon, however, there would be no place to hide. He would have to use strategy instead of stealth. That was worrisome; as Dan wasn’t really possess much “Strategery,” as Dubya would say.

  He quickly searched their bodies, finding that each was carrying a silenced Ruger .22; not very powerful, but absolutely noiseless. They were made for point blank shots, and a .22 round straight into the skull was always deadly. The round was too small to come out the other side and would bounce around inside until it lost momentum, shredding anything in its path.

  He tucked the .22s in his thigh pockets, and grabbed the mercs’ extra magazines. With one last gloating grin, he left them behind, creeping down the hallway until he reached a corner. He peeked around, looking through the scope. It was clear up until the next corner.

  He quietly sprinted there, peeking around again. The hallway was longer in this section, and the lights were more frequent. He didn’t need the scope to see the two guards standing side by side, facing away from him. This would be a good opportunity to use the Rugers.

  Strapping the rifle to his back, he drew the pistols and stood in a crouching position. Though he wasn’t the quietest stalker in the world, the subtle whir of machinery would cloak his approach and he could reach them without being heard. He thumbed off the safeties and crept forward, his heart racing.

  “Did you see that redhead shit her pants when Burke put a bullet through her head?” one of them asked the other. Dan stopped to listen.

  “Yeah,” the other laughed. “That’s why I joined this chicken shit outfit. Shit like that.”

  “I can’t wait to get put on the execution line,” the first one said. “I’m itching to put out some lights. Fuck these people.”

  “You got that right.”

  As the two men laughed, Dan’s anger built. He gritted his teeth, rising to a standing position behind them and pointing a Ruger at each of their heads. He fired simultaneously, dropping them like flies, barely making a sound.

  He crouched over their bodies, rolling them over to look at their stupid faces, and gloat over them. One of them had shit his pants.

  “Sorry, dickheads,” he mocked. “You joined the wrong side.”

  Bypassing the growing pools of blood, Dan continued forward. The hallway split off, going right and left, with a door facing him directly. A sign on it read, Maintenance. He stopped, unsure as to which way he should go. He wasn’t even really sure what he was looking for. Vincent had said Drew was digging graves, and Jake was doing something else. Whatever the two of them had been enslaved to do, they would return to the same place every day. There had to be a common area.

  There was another sign next to the door with arrows pointing either way. Server Farm was to the left, and Battery Storage was to the right. He supposed the maintenance area would lead to the common areas of the building. That was logical. He peeked through the tiny window, seeing a storage room beyond. It looked like a good place to start.

  He pushed open the door and slid inside. He stood among an array of shelves and racks holding cleaning supplies, various tools, and spare parts. It was a large room, longer than it was thin, and the shelves lined either side, with another long shelf along the middle. The smell of bleach and other cleaners was strong, but Dan could still smell the stench of blood and other bodily fluids. A mop sink in the right hand corner behind him was the source. It was stained and filthy, and the mop heads that were piled in it were dark brown with old blood.

  This is probably what Jake was doing. Poor fucker.

  There was another door ahead, probably to an identical hall. There was no window on this one; nothing to look through to see what was beyond. He would have to wait and listen; only opening the door when he was absolutely sure it was clear.

  He pressed his ear against the metal, slowing his breathing in order to hear better. There were faint voices beyond, and the occasional watery splat. The voices seemed to belong to two men speaking under their breath; quietly and cautiously, not loud and careless like the guards.

  As he listened to their tone, Dan realized who they were, and what they were doing. These were prisoners, and they were performing their assigned duties. They were prisoners he would rescue, but not before returning to the dead guards and stripping them of their weapons.

  An insurrection needed weapons, after all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dan laid the two rifles next to him as he crouched near the door. On the other side, the voices had moved closer to him, and he could almost make out specific words. But, as intently as he listened, the whispers were just too faint to be intelligible.

  What would he do? There was no way of knowing whether there was a guard in there with them. If he burst in, he would risk getting shot, or risk getting the two prisoners shot. One guard could be easily handled; but two, three?

  A muffled explosion sounded from above, followed by a slight tremor. The lights dimmed suddenly, and Dan backed away from the door as he heard a shout from inside.

  “Get down on the floor!” the voice commanded. “Get down now!”

  So, there was a guard in there with them. He heard heavy footsteps moving away from him, and the frantic shouting of the guard speaking into a radio. Dan reached out and grabbed the door handle, pulling the door open and raising his rifle in one quick motion. The guard turned back to him just in time to look Dan in the eyes before a hail of bullets tore into him.

  The guard staggered back, dropping his rifle and radio. Dan stepped forward into the room, moving past the prisoners and turning to face them. They stood cautiously, glaring at Dan in confusion. They were dressed in orange jumpsuits, grizzled and unshaven.

  “Grab those rifles,” Dan said, “and follow me.”

  The prisoners looked at each other briefly, and then picked up the rifles Dan had set just outside the door. They each examined their weapons carefully, nodding to Dan once they were ready.

  “I’m looking for some friends of mine,” Dan said. “A big guy named Jake; you would know him if you saw him. Another guy named Drew; about my height, with glasses and a shaven head.”

  “I know Jake,” one of them said. “He cleans up the interrogation rooms. I don’t know about Drew. There are a lot of people here.”

  The other chimed in, “He’s with the grave detail. I’ve met him. You must be Dan.”

  Dan grinned. “That’s me,” he said. “Where are they?”

  “Everyone sleeps in the classrooms,” the first man said. “But I think the shit has just hit the fan. They’ll start executing prisoners now.”

  Dan nodded, turning. “Then let’s go.”

  He sprinted toward the opposite side of the room, stopping at the door and looking through the window. Another explosion sounded from above, and the sounds of gunfire erupted from one floor up.

  “They’re doing it,” the first prisoner said frantically. “They’re fuckin’ killing people!”

  Dan ripped the door open, looking left and right before stepping into the hallway. “Lead me to the classrooms,” he said.

  The two men took the lead and dashed down the hallway toward the first turn. They stopped near the corner, peeking around, and nodded. Dan followed them around, keeping his rifle trai
ned on the hallway ahead. Heavy footsteps sounded from an intersection about twenty feet up, and the three men crouched and readied their rifles.

  Four mercs came into view, turning in their direction; only to skid to a stop as they saw the three men. Dan and his two companions dropped them quickly, and they sped forward to pilfer the mercs’ ammo.

  “Those rifles are 5.56,” Dan said. “Anything that looks like an M16 uses the same rounds. Grab those mags.”

  He checked his own ammo supply. He had three more full magazines, but had the feeling he was going to need more.

  “The classrooms are two floors up,” the first prisoner said. “That’s the ground floor. The only door open to the outside goes right into the inner courtyard. The rest are blocked off.”

  “Then we’ll have to come back this way,” Dan said. “Lead on.”

  The two men led Dan to the nearest stairwell. The door was locked, but the first prisoner had the key.

  “Trustee,” he said as he unlocked it.

  They mounted the stairs, each of them keeping their weapon ready as they watched above them. There seemed to be a bustle of activity on the first floor they passed, so they quickly climbed up to the ground floor, hoping no one came into the stairwell behind them.

  Another blast shook the building. The three men could hear the roar of shouting prisoners rioting against their captors as they were led into the courtyard.

  “The interrogation rooms are on this floor,” the first prisoner said. “He would have been working when this firefight started. He’s probably still there.”

  The prisoner opened the door, peeking to either side. “To the right,” he said. “The rooms are clearly marked. I’m not going with you. I have to find my son.”

  Dan nodded, shaking the man’s hand. “Thanks,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Doug,” the prisoner replied. “Thanks for the help. I hope you find your friends.”

  He went left, running along the wall in a crouched position. Dan truly hoped he would survive, and that he would find his son.