by Sean Platt
“You might wanna think twice on that, kid. If you think there’s any way in hell they’re gonna pick to save your girlfriend over ole Quiet Eyes, then you’re not the sharpest Crayola in the box.”
“So, what am I supposed to do?” Luca said, his voice rising an octave higher than he wanted, and cracking along the way. “If I bring Paola back, she’s going to want her mother.”
“And if you bring back the mother, she’s gonna want her boyfriend. All the more reason to listen to ye ole Boricio. Hell, I’ve got an even better idea: Bring back your girlfriend and Godzilla, then save the rest of that juice for yourself. The old fucker said that tic-tac-toe, it was three in a row that would fuck you up so bad you couldn’t save anyone else. So, why not stop at two?” Boricio nodded with a smile as if the idea had just occurred to him. “I’m telling you, it’s a bad time to be an old fucker. There ain’t one goddamned Perkins left out there.”
Luca hadn’t thought about it, but Boricio had a point. How old would he be if he saved three people? Would he be old like his great grandpa, Sal, who died two years earlier at 99? Who would take care of Luca if he aged that far? It wasn’t like doctors were around. Or medicine, or any of the things you needed when you got old. He wouldn’t be able to move fast, making him an easy meal the next time they ran into monsters.
“Ah, well, at least I can see you’re thinking about it,” Boricio said. “About damned time you started giving a shit about yourself! I imagine you’ve not yet had the chance to make a boneless beef burrito with a bitch tortilla yet, but I’m guessing you haven’t. And I’ve gotta be honest,” Boricio cackled, “ain’t nothing better in this wide, blue world than blowing a load of cock snot and having a pair of lady lips to catch it. And it don’t matter if those lips are camping up north or down south. Believe you me, Rip Van Freakshow, you bring Mary and her little lamb back, and you’ll be too droopy dicked to take the skin boat to tuna town. And seriously, fuck that shit with a crowbar, kid. Save one lucky fucker, my money’s still on Godzilla, and consider yourself Santa Claus.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Luca turned from Boricio sighing, his stomach twisted from all the gross words that he didn’t quite understand.
He finally said, “I have to do what feels right.”
Boricio looked at Luca, eyebrow arched, shaking his head in resignation. “I don’t think I like where this is going,” he said
“No, you won’t,” Luca said, marching past Boricio, then down into the basement where they’d been held — the basement where Mary and Paola died. He was going to do what he couldn’t before, save them both — whether Boricio liked it or not.
“Damn it, kid!” Boricio said, though he didn’t put up a fight.
Luca stepped inside the darkness, past the corpses littering the ground, until he found Mary and Paola’s bodies, lying just as they’d left them.
They looked so pale. So dead.
No way are they coming back.
Luca wondered how much damage he could repair. Could he heal a gunshot to the head? What if a big chunk of the girl’s brain had been damaged?
What if I bring her back and she can’t think right anymore?
Maybe I should find someone without brain damage?
Stop stalling — you don’t have much time.
The evil is coming.
Luca wasn’t sure if the voices in his head were made from truth or fear, or if it even mattered.
He dropped to his knees and laid his hands on Paola’s face, feeling the familiar warmth flow like a current, spreading through his body and into Paola’s.
Luca glanced at Boricio, who was shaking his head as he watched. Luca closed his eyes, avoiding distraction.
Please, wake up, Paola.
Please.
Luca wasn’t sure what to expect — whether he’d take a trip inside the girl’s head as he had before, or if she’d simply wake up as though she’d been sleeping.
Neither was happening. After a full minute, Paola was still nothing but dead.
“Come on!” Luca cried, opening his eyes, and looking at Paola. He shook her shoulders. “Please, wake up, Paola! Please!”
Luca squeezed his eyes shut tighter, both hearing and feeling Boricio pace by his side, probably ready to tell him to stop trying, with more words that would make Luca sick.
No, I have to do this. I have to bring her back.
Luca thought again of how Paola had died, until he could feel the anger coursing through him. Anger at Brother Rei. Anger at his inability to save Paola or Mary. Or Rebecca, Desmond, Linc, or any of the others he could have saved. Anger at whatever the hell took his family from him last October.
The warm current flashed brighter, then flowed faster inside him, like someone lit a fuse. It burned hotter than it had before; the heat was suddenly everywhere inside him, flowing from his body and into Paola. Luca could feel her skin warming at his touch. He opened his eyes as Paola’s eyes opened, too.
Her eyes met his, and her mouth parted, but her ragged voice couldn't crack into words. Paola could only cough instead.
“Shh,” Luca said, tears of joy streaming from his eyes. “You’re alive.” He smiled. “You’re going to be okay.”
Five
Edward Keenan
Somewhere in Georgia
March 28
FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT …
Three days had passed since their capture.
Ed and Brent were shackled beside one another, handcuffed to giant metal shelving in the grocery store’s stockroom as four Black Mountain Guardsmen took turns, along with the kid, Billy, keeping watch. The power was out, but enough daylight was spilling through the skylights to see by.
Lisa, the woman from the parking lot who had lured them inside the store, was standing guard. Ed wished he’d followed his instincts and simply shot her and the kid when he first saw them. But that would have freaked Brent out, big time, just as it had with Teagan when he took out those men in the gas station.
One more reason I should’ve fucking gone alone.
Ed glared at Lisa, lounging in a reclining leather office chair — the kind where executives sat, not the hourly workers — while thumbing through a stack of magazines left behind on the crate by either the guards, or maybe some of the vanished employees before the world went adios.
Lisa hadn’t sent more than a few words in their direction since their capture, at least anything beyond the occasional order to, “Shut the fuck up!” or the vague promise that she’d tell them the shit they needed to know, when they needed to know it.
Ed had overheard enough from the others last night while pretending to sleep, and he figured he knew enough to know what was going on.
Ed said, “They’re not coming back for you.”
“Excuse me?” she said, looking up from her magazine. Her response sent Ed from suspicion to certainty – Lisa would love for Ed to give her an excuse to use the Remington 870 propped against the wall beside her.
“I said they’re not coming back. The rest of your squad.” Ed grinned. “How long since you last heard anything?”
Lisa ignored Ed and turned to Brent. “You wanna tell your friend to shut his face?”
Brent turned to Ed and smiled, “She said to shut your face.”
Brent was in remarkably better spirits than Ed would’ve imagined. Perhaps, he figured, it was because Lisa, and the others, had been far nicer to Brent than they had to Ed. They were treating Ed like he was some sort of treasonous spy, while practically apologizing to Brent for the inconvenience of holding him hostage. Ed figured they were working Brent in preparation for splitting the two of them up — to help turn Brent against Ed, in hopes that he’d surrender intel on Black Island.
“You know that isn’t protocol, right?” Ed said. “I don’t know how different Black Mountain is from the Island, but way I figure, protocols can’t be that different. Little things, sure. But not something like, don’t ever fucking contact your squad. Something happened. So, the
only question is, how long are we gonna sit here and wait for more of them aliens to come at us?”
“Until I fucking say so, all right?” Lisa yelled, voice cracking right in the middle where it mattered the most.
Ed nodded, “Oh, I see,” his eyes widened in mock surprise, “You’re not the one in charge, are you? Your commander is out there, eh? And you’re afraid of leaving and getting reamed.”
He watched her eyes as they pretended not to see him.
He continued, his confidence growing muscles. “And I’m guessing you’re not moving because you’ve either dropped the ball a few times already and are worried that you’ll make the wrong decision. Or . . . you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared,” she said, no hint of emotion.
“You’d be stupid not to be scared, Lisa,” Ed said, using her name to worm inside her head. “I’ve seen these things do some scary shit. They nearly killed my daughter.”
She looked up, “You’re with your daughter?”
It worked. Maybe.
“Well, I was. And I’m gonna level with you right now. God’s honest truth, because way I see it, there’s no point in lying. The people on Black Island are holding onto her until I do this job for them.”
“What’s the job?” she asked.
Ed wasn’t sure if he should continue with his honesty, but if they got a hold of Brent before he and Brent were able to get their stories straight, they’d find out, anyway. Besides, they’d already taken the picture of Boricio from his wallet. And if they were in fact already seeking him, then the jig was already up. May as well consider changing teams, even if only long enough to just get away.
“They want me to find someone and bring him back to the island.”
“Who?” Lisa asked.
“A man named Boricio. The guy in the picture you lifted from me.”
“Ah, Boricio,” Lisa said. “Interesting.”
“You looking for him, too?” Ed asked.
“Not exactly.”
“What’s that mean?”
The door in the front of the stockroom crashed open, killing their conversation and drawing their attention. A pint-sized steroid case named Rojas ran inside the warehouse, holding his M16. He looked — for the first time since Ed had met him — nervous.
“We’ve got a problem, Sergeant,” Rojas said.
“What?”
“The parking lot. There’s a shit-ton of them out there.”
“A shit-ton?”
“Hundreds!”
Ed’s eyes widened. No way he heard Rojas right. He’d never seen more than two dozen together.
“Hundreds?” she asked, “Are you fucking with me?”
“No, Sergeant. They’re out there, like they’re waiting for us to come outside.”
Lisa swallowed, visibly shaken.
A gunshot suddenly echoed from somewhere inside the store.
“What the hell?!” Lisa shouted, grabbing her shotgun and running out the door behind Rojas, leaving Ed and Brent handcuffed to the shelving.
“Hey!” Ed screamed to no one.
Shit!
More gunshots echoed inside the store, followed by the sound of crashing glass.
Ed looked down at his cuffed right hand, and pulled as if he’d somehow get loose, despite hours of trying already. Brent frantically tugged at his own cuffs, also without luck. Ed scanned the area, searching for anything he could reach with his left hand or feet, but there wasn’t anything that hadn’t been there 10 minutes earlier.
More automatic gunfire, followed by more shattering glass, then more gunshots again. A man screamed — a quickly fading scream, thick with death and torment, followed by more blasts, rapid fire — the M16.
“Shit, they’re inside the store,” Ed said, now looking up at the shelves above him to see if anything was there he could maybe shake down. The only thing he could see above him was more of the same — wrapped pallets of cardboard boxes and neatly stacked cases of soft drinks.
More gunshots, then another scream. Another Guardsman. Or maybe the same man in even more pain. The scream was chased by the deafening thunder of what sounded like someone throwing cars across the store. Ed could only imagine the hellish chaos on the other side of the warehouse door.
Soon, he realized with a terrible clarity, he wouldn’t have to imagine it at all.
As if fate was reading his mind, the door at the front of the stockroom banged open and two of the loping dark aliens crashed through, immediately spotting Ed and Brent — snacks held captive.
“Fuck!” Brent screamed as he began to pull harder, the cuffs digging deep into his wrists.
Ed wondered if Brent might pull his own wrist off to get away. Ed began to pull at his own cuffed hand as the aliens stood fully upright, towering in triumph as they approached, as if enjoying the conquest as much as the coming kill.
Ed met the black, glassy eyes of the creature closest to him.
“Fuck, you things are ugly,” he said as he stopped pulling on his cuff, and instead braced for whatever defensive measure he might be able to make. He had one hand and two feet, and would be damned if he allowed the first, or first five of the fuckers, to kill him.
Brent was tugging hard and screaming, “Oh God! Oh God! I don’t want to die!”
Ed would have tried to talk him down, but Brent was in a fat panic, and Ed couldn’t afford to pay attention to anything but the approaching threat as it stepped forward, stopping six feet in front of him.
He thought of Jade back on the island, and hoped like hell that Sullivan would keep her safe. That his counterpart — the other Ed — wouldn’t, or couldn’t, be so cruel as to kill his doppelgänger’s daughter.
The two creatures stood side by side. The one on the left opened its mouth and screamed its unholy shriek, digging into Ed’s skull like razors scraping over his nerves.
“Come on, you fucker!” Ed growled through gritted teeth, as he squatted, rolling from foot to foot, preparing to move — as much as possible — and kick the fucker as hard as he could.
The one on the left ran toward him, clawed hand raised, ready to swing down and tear Ed’s face to Big League Chew.
Ed fell on his side, pushed himself forward as far as he could, then swept his feet out, knocking the alien down, on top of him.
Ed screamed as he brought his knees up and into the alien’s chest, then head butted the creature as hard as he could in its face. The alien screamed, then slid back as Ed kicked out, hooking the alien by the neck, and yanked it back into the metal shelving beside.
The creature screamed as Ed twisted his body and kicked it square in the face, his boot pushing through its soft head, and pushing whatever bones it had back into its skull as its body fell into death spasms.
Brent screamed as the second alien ran toward them.
Ed’s boot was stuck in the first alien’s face.
Fuck!
Ed struggled to pull his foot free, but the creature was charging too fast. He hoped like hell Brent could do something to protect them.
A gunshot thundered through the warehouse, causing instant pain, and whistling, inside Ed’s eardrums. The alien fell to the floor in front of him, its head caved in, and black goo oozing out onto the gray concrete.
Ed looked up to see Lisa standing with her shotgun, and Billy with his Glock 22.
She raced toward Ed, then slid to a stop just inches from him, holding the keys to his handcuffs.
“Hold them off!” she yelled at Billy, who took aim at the aliens spilling through the door and into the warehouse.
Lisa slid the key into the keyhole, but it slipped and fell to the ground.
“Fuck!” she said, glancing back as the aliens barreled down on Billy. He opened fire. She grabbed the key and put it into Ed’s other hand, “You do it!”
She grabbed her shotgun, then fired at the aliens pouring inside. Lisa would run out of shells soon. She needed Ed’s help.
Ed slid the key into the hole, clicked the hand
cuffs open, then handed Brent the key. He ran to Billy, who had a second Glock in his waistband. Ed grabbed it, not even bothering to see if the clip was full, as an alien soared toward them on all fours, shrieking.
Billy’s gun was out of ammo but he kept pulling the trigger, either not realizing, or not knowing what else to do as the alien came toward him, ready to bite.
Ed stepped in front of Billy at the last possible second, and the alien’s open mouth came up to bite Ed instead. Ed shoved his hand, with the gun, into the alien’s mouth and pulled the trigger twice.
The alien’s body went slack as the back of its head exploded in black goo and bits of fatty meat and fleshy bone. Ed flung the alien from his body, then brought the pistol back up to fire at another charging alien.
Lisa blasted it down before Ed had a chance.
Ahead of them, one of the men, Rojas, entered backward, firing his M16 at aliens following him.
All the aliens that had made their way inside the stockroom were lying in piles. “Come on!” Ed screamed, above the whistling in his eardrums. “We’ve gotta block the door!”
They raced toward the door as Rojas dispatched the last of the approaching aliens, then slammed the door shut. Ed slid the lock shut. It looked strong, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Ed and Brent pushed four wooden pallets between the door and the immediate wall, stacking one on top of the other to keep the bottom of the door secure.
Aliens began to bash against the door from the other side, as if to test the lock’s integrity. Ed wasn’t sure how long the lock, or makeshift braces, would hold up to dozens of aliens battering their bodies against the door.
Ed looked toward the back of the stockroom. It was shaped in a giant L, and he would have bet his left nut, and maybe even his right, there was at least one other entrance into the room from the back of the store. That meant aliens could be storming in to flank them. They had to find safety now. He looked up and saw that the top shelf was close enough to one of the skylights that they might be able to stack some stuff to climb out and onto the roof.
