Six cars were parked in the pea gravel lot. Now he got a glimpse of how large the house was. It was one of those old relics from an era that time forgot. The broad roof had shingles lined with green moss, and the grand pillars on the front porch were yellowed with age. But nothing could steal the grandeur of the place. It really was a sight.
Car parked, Chuck slapped at his shaky limbs and climbed from the car. His footsteps crunched in the gravel and he wondered if bad men—bad men with guns—were watching him from hiding spots just inside the tree line. That’s where he himself would’ve hidden.
The solid stone steps leading up to the house helped him regain a bit of his composure. Might as well look confident walking into my death trap, he thought. The front door was open with a simple paper sign on the door that said COME IN.
Thank you, oh cadre of dribbling loonies.
He went in, smelling the age of the place—all grand wood and a century of pipe smoke. He imagined high-to-do’s sipping brandy in the sprawling foyer before being ushered into the sitting room for canapés and bridge.
“Hello,” came a voice. Chuck spun around from his musings to see where it came from. The echoes in the place threw off the sound.
“Hello,” he said when he saw the man in the doorway.
The man was all baggy sweater and billowing beard, like the spawn of Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street. He raised a pipe to his mouth, sucked in a mouthful of smoke, and let it out in ticking time. “The meeting’s in here,” he said, motioning with the pipe stem.
Chuck had to resist the urge to ask the man his name. Patience, Yarling, he said to himself. If your death cometh, it cometh soon enough.
The internal monologue bucked him up. He’d faced down death before. He was no novice to the Reaper. The Chuck Yarling who walked into the study was not the Chuck Yarling who found his way to Finkleton. His step was sure. His face set. His legs no longer wobbling.
That all went to spit when he stepped into the study, surveyed the mingling attendants, and almost gasped aloud when he saw her.
Her.
He stood there, mouth agape in dumb astonishment, until she looked up at him.
The scowl was the same one he remembered, the one he loathed, the one that’d sent him into happy hysterics when their ill-bought marriage was finally crushed to pieces by the drop of a judge’s gavel. “Hate” was not strong enough a word for this woman, this poison pit of putridity. And the years hadn’t diminished a bit of her hatred. Those cruel eyes bore right through him, out the wall, and incinerated his car to ash.
His ex-wife. Ugh. How could this happen?
Chuck Yarling was not a man who wished ill will on others, but this woman, this she-devil, was one who he’d secretly hoped would be taken by X-99.
Keep it together, Yarling. Maybe she’s changed.
“He can’t be here,” the Devil’s spawn spat. Gilbreth was her name, though she went by Gilly.
The man who Chuck assumed was their host raised a hairy hand. “Let’s wait a few more minutes to see if the rest will join.”
“If he’s staying, I’m leaving,” Gilly said, rising from her chair, never once unlocking her hateful gaze.
“Maybe we should listen to the man,” Chuck said, trying to be level and kind, though he heard the hardness in his own voice. This woman, if you could even call her that, did this to him. His skin tingled with hate.
“You shut your mouth, Chuck.”
There was a gasp from some of the attendees. They were supposed to be here anonymously. They’d all agreed to it.
“That’s right,” she said to the group, “his name is Chuck. Chuck Yarling. And he lives at—”
“Enough!”
The powerful word came from their hairy host.
“Sit down, be quiet, or you will be escorted out.”
Gilly stood cowed.
For the millionth time, Chuck wondered why she so hated him. After all, it was she who had slept with half the town, drained three bank accounts, and left him to die in the ICU. No more taking it from this woman. Never again.
He was about to say as much. He was about to walk across the room, grab her by the collar and toss her out of the house himself, then wipe his hands once and for—
The explosion cleaved the room in half like a scythe through hay grass.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dottie Roth
The explosion was no surprise. Dottie had seen a great many battles in her life. In this case it was an ambush. An ambush of innocent civilians looking for answers.
She’d come as the rest had. She wanted answers. She’d found the conversations on the Dark Web. She’d been careful to only divulge bits of her truth at a time. It was easy to pretend to be someone else. She’d done it most of her adult life. Now she was doing it again, and it felt like coming home to the old family cabin in the woods, the one you spent your summers at, made memories at, became a person. Only this cabin was more like a mansion, and Dottie wasn’t hoppin’ and skippin’ up the trail.
The Immune. That’s what they’d called themselves. As soon as she’d received the invitation, Dottie knew she must go. She also knew that the gathering was ripe for the fate that befell it.
So no, the explosion hadn’t come as a surprise. Not one bit.
Whoever had done this thing, wrought this death in spectacular fashion, knew their business. Dottie had been hiding in the woods since morning. She hadn’t seen a thing except for the host arriving and the others pulling up to the strange house hours later. Dottie hoped to recognize one or more of them, but that hadn’t happened. They were all strangers, and to Dottie’s attuned eyes, they looked like innocents. The youngest looked to be in her twenties, the oldest in her eighties. There was little to compare except for the fear in their eyes, the suspicion, and a strange vitality that was hard to see, but Dottie could. Again, the numbers added up.
After the explosion tore a clean slice through the house, Dottie wondered what they’d used to make such a clean cut, there was a pause, and she wondered if they’d all been killed. Bad luck if they had.
Then the first person ran out the door, a woman with her hair on fire, tamping it with her hands as she fell end over end down the steps that she didn’t see. Dottie counted nine that made it out. Nine of the original twenty-five. What a shame. What a waste.
An older gentleman she’d seen arrive last was also the last to emerge from the mansion. He was guiding a young woman. His countenance was one Dottie had seen before. Calm. Reassuring. A soldier, she thought.
There was only one problem. She knew what was coming next. It was the only inevitable conclusion. It’s what she would’ve done in case the explosives hadn’t capped the deal.
Three forms appeared from the darkness. They took their time. No one else seemed to notice them. They carried weapons with collapsed stocks. One press of the trigger might send a rip of automatic fire into the survivors.
“Damn,” Dottie whispered as the first attendee turned and saw the approaching figures. The woman opened her mouth to scream but the rounds ripped through her face and chest before her words found the air.
The others froze. All except the older gentleman, the soldier. He walked away from the group of ragtag survivors and looked straight at the masked attacker, his every movement a mark of defiance, as if he were silently saying, “I refuse to die today.”
Dottie saw the fingers tighten on triggers.
No time like now, she thought. And she burst from her hiding spot, firing as she moved.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chuck Yarling
One second, Gilly the Ghoul was there, the next she was gone. Just gone.
Chuck had almost been blown to smithereens before. A close call with a Russian rocket. His Army experience, the sixth sense that kept him alive, kicked in.
As he grabbed people, screaming over the noise of ripping, tearing death, he pushed the stunned attendees from the room, only leaving after one last glance at where his hellish
ex-wife had stood.
But in the moment, in the face of inconsolable destruction and death, Chuck Yarling found his place again. He ran from the room now, not because he was afraid, but because he knew that was what he must do. There were people to help, lives to save, even if that meant running into a wall of flying lead the moment he stepped off the front porch. He meant something.
That feeling embraced him like a treasure that had previously been lost to the ages. And now he had it back, and he promised himself he would not let it go again.
And so he ran, and he remembered who he was supposed to be.
He saw the danger as soon as he walked down the front steps, even if no one else had.
He knew what it was like to have a muzzle pointed at his face. It was man versus man, lead versus lead. Tools of war doing the damage.
But this was different. This wasn’t war. They stalked in like animals, slow and ready. The first of the survivors went down in a hail of bullets from the three men wearing black. Their synchronicity was astounding. A second survivor went down. Chuck watched it knowing that his time was now, and yet, he wasn’t afraid. If he had his own gun, he could take a life before it took his. No way he could take out all three, but he could take one—he would definitely take one. All the gold in the world for a knife, or a .50 caliber rifle, anything.
Then it happened. A small caliber weapon from the left. The heads of one of the killers in black exploded, the body falling to the ground. One of the two remaining turned to the new threat. The other stayed with the survivors.
Then Chuck saw her. Light, delicate even, running at full tilt from the woods. Glowing lead lit her path. The second man in black went down without a sound.
Then, the most unexpected thing happened. A miracle really, the last thing Chuck Yarling expected.
The third man, who a second before had his weapon aimed right at Chuck’s face, turned and ran. Chuck almost ran after him, but one of the survivors next to him fell to her knees, sobbing. Chuck’s caring instincts took over and he knelt beside her. Chuck counted nine survivors, including himself, not including the newcomer.
She spoke, her voice barely more than a whisper, and yet everyone heard her. “They’ll be back with reinforcements.”
There were murmurs from some of the other attendees, people who’d gotten past the shock. Chuck had once seen a six foot five, muscle-strapped behemoth run for the hills crying for his mother at the first sound of gunfire.
“Call the police,” someone said.
“Screw this, I’m going home,” another one said.
The stranger cut them all off with her silence. How did she do that? She spoke again. Her words held the gravity of a modern-day Moses: “If you stay here, you will die. If you go home, they will find you and you will die.”
“So what do we do?” a man asked, looking like he might be ramping up the nerve to serve as the new leader. Only Chuck saw he was no leader. He was only a scared man. As scared of the rest of them.
Chuck wasn’t scared. He’d cheated death two times in the span of minutes. So how many times total in his life? He tried to do the math, but all he could do was stare at the woman with the gun. She had a face that was tough, yet kind. Soft, yet unbending.
And in that moment, Chuck knew without a doubt that he would go and do whatever this woman said. If she told him to jump in a pit of rattlesnakes, he would do it. If she said tackle a lion, he would do it.
One of the men, the one who had regained his nerves, scanned the crowd, then turned tail and ran. Chuck believed the woman. The man might not die in the next five minutes, but that man would die. What a waste, and for what? Ego? He’d never understood men who didn’t listen to women. He’d found that women had a certain intuition for life, something different than men. And if you listened, you’d learn a thing or two about the human condition.
He couldn’t fight the nagging question in the back of his head. He had to know.
“How do you know they’ll come find us?” he asked her.
She looked at him, then really, really looked at him, and the words she spoke both chilled and invigorated him.
“I used to be one of them,” she said plainly.
And that was all he needed to hear. He should have been afraid. He should’ve run. But something higher than himself was gluing him to the spot.
“Let’s go,” he said to the others, much to his own surprise. And for the second time that day they followed him and the woman, and for at least another day, they did not die.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Fabian Moon
Fabian took his time, savoring each and every bite. It was the last of the peanut butter. The last of the bread. They should have stayed on the toilet paper-side of the business, he thought.
Months before, he’d had plenty of everything. Cans of tuna, jars of peanut butter, loaves and loaves of bread, all doled out to the highest bidder. He’d eaten like a king, T-bone steaks, rib eye, filets, hell he’d even gotten his hands on a case of caviar, though he didn’t like the taste, but that one went for a pretty penny.
He let the peanut butter melt on his tongue and then he swallowed. Peanut butter, such a simple thing. Something he had not had since he was a kid, something that he never realized was important. There were so many things he didn’t realize were important. The one-time necessities in life were now luxuries.
Iggy stumbled into the room, sniffling, staggering like he was drunk. Fabian knew better, he’d seen the signs. His little brother Iggy was a perfect illustration of why the experts couldn’t be trusted. They had said that X-99 would phase out, that it would cycle into something less lethal. It did the opposite.
X-99 ramped up and raged like a fire out of control, devouring everything in sight. The television stations went down. Fabian hid for two days. Kidnappings, no more blood transfusions. Blood had become gold. One day, Fabian watched his own brother taking his temperature with his face beet red, and then in the next moment he grabbed a bag full of blood and administered it to himself. How they’d made their money. Celebrities and the uber rich were the ones who bought the blood driving the cost of antibody plasma through the roof. They went the crude route. No silly experimental drugs. Just the straight juice, thank you very much.
Again, the experts had said that antibodies were the answer, but soon after beginning their new venture, Fabian had realized the truth. These rich suckers bought liters worth of blood and still came back for more. That was proof it didn’t work. Fabian heard rumors about private labs being raided and ransacked. Government took over some, though those were quickly shuttered. You can’t run a lab when everyone’s dead.
Iggy wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead. Fabian almost didn’t recognize him. His face and hands were swollen. Fabian knew exactly what he was watching. The death of his younger brother was coming soon. A cruel trick of fate. They’d made more money than they could ever spend and now one of them would die.
“Did the courier already come by?” Iggy asked.
Fabian thought about lying. There’d been a lot of lying during the past week, but what could the truth hurt now? Iggy might have days. He might only have hours, so he said, “No more couriers, Ig. Did you forget?”
By the look on Iggy’s face, he had. A fever that peaked between 101 and 104 throughout each day seemed to be driving his brother mad. Memory gone, common sense too. He’d found his brother drinking out of the toilet yesterday. Lapping up the water like he was drinking from the fountain of youth.
“No couriers today?” Iggy asked again.
“No couriers today,” Fabian said. “Why don’t you go lie down? I’ll bring you something to eat and drink.”
Iggy stood there, processing, eyes glazed, sweat pouring from his forehead. Though Fabian had no idea how the man still had fluid left in his body.
Iggy shook his head. “I need some coke and an IV bag. Can you get me some?”
It was best not to argue. This could be his brother’s last meal. A helluv
a death-row dinner.
“Sure. I’ll get it for you. Go lie down. I’ll be in in a minute.”
Iggy disappeared. Fabian sat and thought, and not for the first time. He was doing a lot of that these days. What he wouldn’t give for those simple days of a crappy little pawn shop that thugs liked to break into and make his life miserable. Now he had this, a younger brother dying, neighborhoods all around empty, no more people. Bodies disappeared and then the government turned to burning corpses in public parks. Television gone to recordings and how long would that last? Would electricity go next? There’d been riots for a time. Funny, that. It spread the virus even faster.
So what did Fabian have left? Millions upon millions of dollars that he couldn’t even spend. Was this payback? Was this the universe or God or something that hated Fabian, finally knocking him down, kicking his ass, and stomping in his teeth?
It didn’t matter. He walked by the stacks of newly minted cash, then to the stash he’d purchased a week before. A week—so much had happened in one week. Who knew the world would be collapsing in on itself so soon and so quickly? And here was Fabian Moon, multimillionaire, collecting enough cocaine to kill a rhinoceros. Maybe that was the way he should do it. Give some to Iggy and then take some himself. End the pain, end the misery, finish it all.
But when he left the storage room, he only took enough for his brother. He snagged two bags of IV fluid on the way out. He didn’t even bother to lock the door. There was no one around to steal the ill-gotten money. Blood money for real. Safety, something that had been so important to Fabian months before was now a moot point. There was no one to be safe from. Everyone was gone and he, Fabian Moon, didn’t even care to think about why he’d been spared. He knew he didn’t deserve to be alive. He’d let Iggy bleed people dry for their precious blood. Ha! Precious blood that didn’t do a damn thing.
The Next Dawn Page 8
