by Stark, Ken
“It's worth a few extra minutes,” Mason concluded, once and for all. “The raid on the library will only be a diversion anyway. The objective is Gloria, and the only way to get to her is through building five.”
“And you're sure that the best way to do that is by splitting up?” Teddy asked for perhaps the twentieth time. “Are you really sure?”
“I'm sure,” he told her, trying his best to convey the confidence he wished he could feel. “As long as we all do what we're supposed to do, we'll be back together and out of this place before sundown.”
“And where do we go then?”
Mason was about to answer, but Addison beat him to the punch.
“Any-fucking-where but here,” he said, earning him an enthusiastic, “A huevo!” from Alejandra.
But they wouldn't make their move just yet, apparently.
“These people are exhausted,” Hansen said to him. “They need chow and sack time. Three hours.”
He was right. It was barely noon, and Mason felt like he'd been up for days. Some of the others looked even worse than he felt.
“Two hours?” he suggested.
“Three,” Hansen repeated. “Plus one more to make preparations.”
Mason didn't argue. It would still leave five full hours of daylight. Plenty of time to get everybody killed.
On that note, those with any energy left helped themselves to the stores of food and drink, and those who were too tired to eat either curled up in a chair or stretched out on one of several couches to get some shut-eye. Soon enough, the only sounds that could be heard in the place, were the rattling of spoons against the insides of cans, and the occasional snore from those already lost to the world.
“I wish I could be like her,” a tiny voice said, close to Mason's elbow.
He looked up from his can of peaches to see Teddy crouched at his side, nibbling on a handful of potato chips she'd stolen from one of the smashed vending machines. The 'her' to whom she referred to was obvious. Alejandra was splayed out on a nearby sofa, sound asleep and connected to the couch by a little line of drool.
Addison appeared over Mason's shoulder then, slurping from a can of condensed milk.
“So do I, kid,” he said in a hush. “But we'll get there. We'll all get there.”
Or die trying? Mason added silently.
“You should try to catch a few winks while you can, Teddy,” Addison told her, then he took one last swallow from the can and smacked his lips. “You know, whoever discovered the joy that is cow's milk must have been into some seriously weird shit.”
Teddy giggled and proceeded to curl into a tiny ball at the end of Alejandra's couch with room to spare, and Addison belched once and wandered off to find a place of his own.
With that renewed quiet, a somniferous little mewl from Mackenzie drew Mason's attention to her and Sarah, fast asleep in each other's arms. Despite the situation, or perhaps because of it, his heart melted at that idyllic little scene. With all of the madness of the world swirling about them, here were mother and child, wrapped in a blanket of love and peace and calm.
This is how it should be... he declared to himself. This is how the world is supposed to work. This, right here...
A sudden snort broke the reverie, but it was only Hansen in the middle of one nightmare or another. The man's head was flopped back, and his mouth was hanging open, but that single snort was followed by no others. Mason merely scowled daggers at the sleeping man and let him be. Then, his eyes drifted over to Becks in the next chair, and his heart melted again. Dark, flowing mane framing an exquisite face. Beautiful long legs tucked lithely beneath her body as if that overstuffed chair offered all the room in the world.
Good God, she was beautiful! How he'd ever persuaded that gorgeous supermodel of a woman to join him for a cup of coffee at Starbucks that day was a complete mystery to him. And why she'd ever agreed to a second date was simply too unthinkable to imagine. Then, it had become more. While he'd savored every minute of those days together, he had also been afraid for every one of those minutes, that the days would inevitably come crashing to an end.
Surely, she'll wake up, he'd thought to himself more times than he could ever have counted. One day, she'll realize that she could do so much better, and she'll be gone. After thinking those thoughts for long enough, he'd closed himself off to protect himself from the eventual hurt. Then, the words became real. After two years of his bullshit, she finally dumped his ass on the curb. Now, he looked upon that face he never thought he'd see again, and he thought the words he knew he'd never be able to say out loud.
I'm sorry, Becks. I'm so sorry I made you leave me...
He deposited the half-empty can of peaches on the floor and wiped the mist from his eyes, then he chanced to look Mackenzie's way and saw one big green eye half-opened and watching him. He leaned across the arms of the chairs and kissed her on the cheek, whispering, “It's all good, Mack.” Once her breathing slowed, and her half-lidded eye shut tight, he lowered himself back into his chair.
He dropped his chin to his chest and allowed his eyes to close, and his mind began to swirl with images. Sarah and Mack. Him and Becks. Becks and Hansen. Alphas and Echoes. Wilders and Creepers. Before he could make heads or tails of what he was seeing, he snapped awake to find Alejandra standing over him, spooning pudding into her mouth from a can the approximate size of a scuba tank.
“So, we gonna do this or what?” she said, licking chocolate from her upper lip.
“Huh? What?”
He checked his watch. Three o'clock. Christ! He'd been out for nearly three hours.
“I guess you're only human after all, huh, Mace?” she quipped, wandering off with her keg of pudding and dodging all of Addison's efforts to help himself to a spoonful.
Fuck. He'd slept for nearly three full hours, but apparently, no one had bothered to explain it to his body. His back hurt, his shoulders ached, and his eyes felt as if they'd been filled with gravel. And yet, when he surveyed the room, there was Hansen, not having had any more rest than he, yet as fresh as a daisy and inspecting the troops as if it were the first day of boot camp. Twenty-plus years his senior, and the old man was showing him how it was done.
Fucking awesome.
He stretched hard enough to feel the popping all along his spine. Then, he sluggishly pulled on his boots, hauled himself to his feet, and joined the others as they made preparations.
Four of the youngsters were hard at work on a crossbow-bolt assembly line. One of them had salvaged strips of hardwood from somewhere, and Donn and Christopher were busily whittling them into shape before passing them down the line. There, Mack and Teddy fitted each of the pointed shards of wood with little plastic crescents cut from plastic storage containers, fixing them in place with dental floss and glue.
“Will they work?” Mason had to ask.
In answer, Teddy cocked her crossbow and loaded one of her newly made bolts. Then, she let fly at the far wall. It carved a beautifully straight path through fifty feet of air, pierced a plaque of the founding fathers, and buried itself halfway through.
“Okay, so they work.” He shrugged. “May I?”
Teddy handed him the weapon with a grin, and he finally had his first close look at the crossbow itself. It was mostly pine from what he could tell – hand-sawn, hand-chiseled, and fitted together with glue and screws. The working end of the thing was a length of PVC pipe attached to thick nylon string, with a crescent-shaped foot-claw at the end to provide power for the draw. It was crude but ingenious. As he handed it back, he did so with an appreciative nod.
“Very impressive. It beats the hell out of a chunk of rebar. But how did you...?”
She stopped him right there. “It wasn't me, it was Kumiko,” she said, the smile gone and her lips drawn tight. “I just picked it up. After.”
There was that word again.
After.
The only use of the word after from this point on was suddenly made crystal clear.
&nb
sp; After was now a word to pinpoint the moment in time when someone died.
“Tupperware isn't nearly as good as feathers,” she said, returning to her work. “But the curve of the plastic gives them a pretty good spiral.”
Mason gave her a final nod and turned to go. But she suddenly reached out and grabbed him by the hand, freezing him to the spot.
“Please, Mr. Mason,” she said, her eyes verging on tears. “Tell me everything's going to be okay?”
Christ almighty...
He closed both of his hands around hers and looked her directly in the eyes. “I'm sorry, Teddy, I can't,” he told her. “I honestly don't know if anything will ever be okay again. But I promise you that you are not alone. Whatever happens, we're all in this together. Understand?”
“I suppose,” she allowed, but just barely.
“I mean it, Teddy.” Mason caught the girl's eyes before they could drop all the way to the floor. “It's hard enough finding good people in this world, much less friends. Believe me when I say – even the most antisocial, misanthropic misfit doesn't want to be entirely alone. Take it from someone who never learned how to play well with others. If there's even one person in this life you know you can count on, then you hold on to them and you never let them go.”
Just then, Becks emerged from the kitchen with Inez at her side, and just like that, he knew the truth behind his words. “Look around the room, Teddy. You have more true friends right now than most people make in a lifetime. These people will do anything for you. Hell, kiddo, you hit the jackpot!”
She smiled and sucked back her tears. Then, she reached up on her tiptoes and graced Mason's cheek with a kiss.
“Thank you, Mr. Ma─” she started to say, but corrected herself quickly with a sweet, “Thank you, Mace.”
Mackenzie didn't even bother looking up as she giggled, not quite to herself, “No more strays, my butt.”
Teddy went back to her work station, giving Mackenzie a playful shove on the shoulder and receiving one in return. As both girls giggled and shared secretive little hushes, Mason went to where Diego was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Before him were two empty shotgun shell boxes, a crystal fruit bowl nearly overflowing with gunpowder, and his fanny pack filled with .33 calibre slugs. The perfect size for a high-powered slingshot.
As he pried open the last of the shells with a paring knife, Addison swooped in to help himself to the bowl of gunpowder and began spooning it carefully into a plastic Pepsi bottle already filled to the brim with screws, and nails pried from whatever baseboards and doorjambs and electrical fittings he'd been able to plunder.
“No sense letting it go to waste.” The man shrugged.
“Just make sure I'm nowhere around when you set that thing off.”
“Trust me, Mace, if it actually comes time to use this bad boy, ain't nobody gonna be around to complain about the noise.”
The thought was less than reassuring, but he let it go.
“Looks like we're just about ready,” Sarah said, sidling up beside him and resting a hand on his shoulder as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
And as if it was every bit as natural, Mason reached up to give her hand a squeeze. “Looks like. You still alright with Hansen coming along?”
“Not really, but he's capable enough and it's not worth a fight. Honestly, Mace, I'm more upset about leaving Mack behind.”
“Sarah, if there's any part of this plan that you aren't comfortable with...”
“Oh please, Mace. I haven't been comfortable for a long, long time.”
“You know Inez loves Mack like a daughter,” he assured her, “and Christopher and Addison are like two over-protective big brothers. And Alejandra...”
“Alejandra would take on the world for that girl,” Sarah finished for him. “I know, Mace, I know. She'll be in the very best of hands. But I made a promise to myself that I would never be apart from her again, and here I am, leaving her behind.
“Hey.” Mason let go of her hand, but only so he could wrap his big arms around her. She buried her face in his chest, and he gently stroked her hair. “You're not leaving her behind, Sarah. You know that, and she knows it, too. You're only going to be a stone's throw away, and if we do this right, there'll be so many people packed inside Gloria by the end of day that you'll be begging for a little elbow room.”
“Doubt it,” she said, craning back her head to flash him a smile.
They held each other for a few moments longer, then Sarah gave him a loving pat on the chest and peeled herself away to go help Mackenzie assemble the last few tail-fins on the last few crossbow bolts, leaving Mason to wander over to where Inez, Becks, and a couple of the college kids were hard at work. Apparently, they had scavenged every blade they could find in the kitchen, including one particularly nasty-looking meat cleaver. Now, they were busily attaching individual knives to various lengths of wood.
“Look at this!” Richie declared, proudly presenting a six-inch carving knife strapped to a three-foot length of broom handle. “It's like a Roman gladius. Cool, huh?”
“You call that a gladius?” Sk8rBoy William scoffed, bringing up a rounded length of pine with a ten-inch butcher knife taped to one end and the meat cleaver to the other. “Now that's a gladius!” he crowed in his best Australian accent.
One last carving knife remained unclaimed, so even though he already had a sheathed knife on his belt, he helped himself to that last blade, and slipped it into a belt loop as a just-in-case. Then, he pulled Becks aside to where the others couldn't hear. “Becks...” he began, but quickly found himself struggling to find the right words, any words, to tell her the rest.
She reeled him in and threw her arms around his neck. “Mace, please take care of yourself. I didn't realize how much you meant to me before... before...” She sniffled once, but only once.
“Oh, Mace, I am so sorry. It was all my fault, and...”
“Bullshit,” he cut her off with a hush in her ear. “It was all me, Becks. I knew it then, and I know it now. I was mad at you for a while, but really, I was just mad at myself. If anyone's to blame, it's this big dumb asshole you kicked to the curb.”
She attempted a protest, but he stopped her short and held her all the more tightly because of it.
“I love you, Becks. You know I'll move heaven and Earth to get back to you. But if anything happens─”
Now, it was her turn to stop him short, and she did so with her lips pressed lightly against his. The kiss lingered, and when at last it ended, she gave him that familiar hair toss that had always brought him to his knees.
“You come back to me, Mace,” she told him in no uncertain terms. “Promise me. You're a man of your word, so promise me you'll come back, and I'll believe you.”
Christ, Becks... I might as well promise you the moon...
“I promise,” he lied.
“I believe you,” she lied back.
And with both lies hanging in the air, Mason tended to one last order of business. “Becks, I have to ask you for a favor. Could you please look after Mack?”
“Oh, Mace, you don't have to worry about Mack. She'll be in good hands while you guys are gone. Why, Alejandra alone would...”
“No, Becks,” he cradled her head against his shoulder, “I'm asking you. I trust every one of these people with my life, but I need to know that she has you.”
The rest of the words went unspoken, but the message was clear. What he was asking went far beyond the next hour or the next day. In fact, it might go on for however long a lifetime amounted to these days.
“Of course,” she told him, sincerely. “Of course, I'll take care of her, Mace.”
I promise... he expected her to add, but she didn't, and for that he was glad. That word suddenly had little meaning anymore.
She leaned back to flash him a smile. “Wow, Mace. I have to say, I never had you pegged as the family type.”
She'd meant it to lighten the mood, but it couldn't have backfired in a
more spectacular fashion. They had planned to start their own family once. A lifetime ago.
“And all it took was the end of the world.” He shrugged. “Who knew?”
His attempt at humor lay beside hers like dead mackerel on the beach, and all that remained was a pair of naked, broken hearts.
“I'm sorry, Mace.”
“I'm sorry too, Becks. But what happened, happened. Life goes on.”
“Hopefully,” she tacked on, grimly.
“Yeah,” Mason sighed. “Hopefully.”
With one last kiss, they reluctantly pulled themselves apart.
While Becks turned her face from the others, Mason went to where Alejandra was sitting on her couch and lowered himself down beside her. The vat of pudding sat beside her Tommy gun on the squat coffee table, while she ran a sharpening stone down the length of the machete held lovingly in her lap.
She didn't bother to acknowledge his arrival, but when he made the mistake of reaching for the spoon sticking up from the pudding, she cautioned him, “Mace, I'll tell you what I told Addison. You touch my pudding and I'll gut you like a deer.”
He figured that she was probably joking, but decided it best not to test the theory. “You're pissed, right?”
“No me importa.” She shrugged, but her tone said otherwise. “You'd rather have that tamarindo watch your back, como quieras. It's your call, Mace.”
“Ally, I'm not in charge here. In spite of what others might think, this is a true democracy. We all have a say. All of us.”
“A bunch of children and a grumpy old man,” the girl scoffed, not taking her eyes from the stone singing its way down the blade.
“Hansen's right about one thing, Ally. There's no such thing as children anymore,” Mason told her outright. “They're young, yes, and they haven't been through what we have, but they haven't exactly been sitting around playing Xbox, either. And despite whatever issues I have with Hansen, I know he's a good man. He's an insufferable, arrogant, blowhard dickhead, but he's an insufferable, arrogant, blowhard dickhead we can trust.”
