As it was, he really couldn’t do a damn thing. Not with four of the insane fuckwits hanging right off his ass. They weren’t literally hanging off his ass, but they were close enough that if he tried anything besides shooting the shitbags holding up the raffle, they would smash the living pudding out of him.
He was roughly five truck lengths behind the lead pickups—the same vehicles that had their headlights punched out by full metal jackets. He perched the AUG-20 across one corner of the box bed, with a clear line of sight at that hole in the rubble. The truck was stable enough for a shot, but with only two rounds, he’d have to be point-on accurate. The Bronze was standing right behind him, like some dusted-off drillmaster from a 1970s terror squad. The Bronze gripped the hammer in his right hand, well within striking range of Top Gun’s skull. Considering all the horrible fates the Leather could inflict upon him, Top Gun figured if he did get his head bashed in, he’d be lucky.
He also figured he just didn’t have that kind of luck.
Regardless, his sonnavabitch chuggernut of a captor had given him a job to do. One job. And, incidentally, one he could do with a fair chance of success. Shooting a target in a dark tunnel, less than a hockey rink away, through a mess of concrete and fallen rock and shit.
That… Top Gun could do.
There was nowhere to extend the bipod on the AUG-20, so he simply shouldered the weapon, placed it across the box of the truck, stared down the scope, and let the reticle do the walking. The single green dot crept over a broken hedge of rubble, swept slowly from left to right. Top Gun focused on his breathing, searching for any telltale sign of life just over that pile of debris. The Vulture said there should only be two shooters back there, and that was fine. All Top Gun needed was a glimpse of hair. The top of a head. Part of a face. Given any of that, he could make the shot a kilometer out. This close, however, he could do laser surgery.
“I’m ready,” he said in a low tone.
Several trucks were parked in the tunnel, all of them drawn to one side, where the backhoe and armored truck provided some measure of protection from gunfire. One of the Leather’s trucks was backing up very slowly, guided by a half-dozen lessers, and maybe even a functioning camera or two. There were no warning beeps as the rig backed up. No warning lights.
The rear doors were chained.
The Vulture had explained the plan to Top Gun.
Shoot anyone he could see.
But Top Gun knew that crooked cock-nose had something else planned. A contingency plan in case the rodents holding up the show refused to lift their faces for the camera. That plan involved those godawful bladders. And the mindless they packed away in a twenty-wheel transport trailer.
A small unit of Leather formed up just behind Top Gun, the surviving leftovers of that initial charge. One of them carried two of those sickening bladders, hanging from his hands like a pair of glistening sausages.
Top Gun noticed that the grunt had no boots on.
In fact, the grunt crouched low, almost invisible in the dark, as he disappeared underneath the backhoe.
Top Gun flexed his fingers before gently caressing the curve of the AUG-20’s feather trigger.
31
“You hear something?” Gus whispered.
“No,” Collie whispered back.
He hesitated, his ears perked like satellite dishes, but could not discern anything outside of the low growl of motors. However, something had drawn his attention. He lifted his head, just enough to peek over the rubble. Collie watched him, not exactly at ease by what he was doing.
Nothing moved among the freshly killed carrion littering the slope and beyond. Past the armored truck and backhoe, the Leather’s trucks were still in place, but Gus could see dark heads weaving about. The thought of sending a bullet or two in their direction might buy them a little more time. He was just about to suggest that very thing, when the lightest flutter from somewhere in front of him got his attention.
Gus drew back in reflex, not quite understanding what he was looking at in the dark.
When the piss bag exploded right across his face.
32
Top Gun had a shot.
Matter of fact, he had a great shot, of a set of narrowed eyes and a hairless head that resembled the ass end of an egg. The shot was even improving, and Top Gun waited for just a little more face, before he put a shell right between those squinty eyes.
His finger tensed on the trigger—when the target’s face was suddenly blotted out.
Top Gun looked up from the scope in confusion before quickly taking up aim once again.
And just off-center of the reticle, just to the left of the killer dot, a full torso came into view.
*
A black bag whipped across Gus’s face and exploded with all the pus-filled energy of an oversized pimple caught between two fingernails. He staggered back, clawing the thing from his face as a stomach-curdling stink filled the air.
A few droplets hit Collie, and she instantly realized what had happened.
As Gus staggered backwards, she rose and rushed across that empty space, exposing herself from the sternum up. The stink was stunning, a putrid, gaseous nebula that was borderline debilitating. She pushed through that toxic haze and grabbed Gus by his shoulder, yanking him down and out of sight. They landed hard, with him sputtering and spitting.
“In my mouth,” he grunted, groaned, and scrubbed his bare hands over his face. Collie tried pulling them away, but he resisted. “Even my eyes.”
“Use your sleeves,” Collie told him, glancing in the direction of their pursuers, seeing none.
Gus used his right sleeve, let out a frustrated “fuck” before switching to his left. That seemed to work better.
“Right across the chops,” Collie said.
“Eeeyeah,” Gus confirmed through clenched teeth.
In truth, he had taken the piss bag clear across the face, where the ends of the thing had clapped his ears a split second before its shifting, warping mass burst upon contact. His scalp and face dripped. His beard and neckline were soaked. The sensation was horrible. His face burned and crawled, as if maggots were feasting upon his skin.
“Oh, you stink,” Collie hissed.
He nodded, eyes squeezed shut, as if permanently blinded. He blinked hard and attempted to focus.
Collie returned to the mound. She took a breath and rose on one knee, letting loose a barrage of pistol fire, lighting up the dark. She then briefly checked to see if anyone was coming and then hurried back to Gus.
“Can you run?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Come on, then.”
“Bruno and Cory are back?”
But Collie didn’t answer. She hefted him to his feet and, glancing over her shoulder, pulled him toward her.
“Everything’s blurry,” Gus muttered, pawing at his face.
“I know.”
“Can’t see shit.”
They ran, an off-balanced gait that didn’t improve. Collie looked over her shoulder—no pursuers… yet.
“We could’ve held them back,” Gus cringed.
“Not with you like this.”
“Face feels like there’s shit growing out of it.”
Collie chose not to comment as she glanced back toward the tunnel entrance again.
“Wait,” Gus said. “Look.”
Collie turned her attention back to the access tunnel that led deeper into Whitecap.
And saw the growing glare of headlights.
33
The egg-shaped head was out of sight before Top Gun could take a bead on it, and at least two of his sphincters clenched at the missed opportunity. He remained in position, waiting for the target to reappear.
It did.
About ten seconds later, two feet from the initial spot.
And it cut loose with gunfire.
Great booming shots of fire shrieked past Top Gun, forcing the Leather around him to duck for cover. A few rounds smacked into hoods and winds
hields while others ricocheted off concrete.
Then nothing.
Top Gun hunkered down behind the tailgate. A hand touched his shoulder.
The Bronze.
The forbidding executioner was hunched over like the rest of them. It turned its masked features toward Top Gun, close enough this time that he saw the gleam of cold black within the eye slits.
Unsure of what to do, Top Gun blinked, waited for the commotion around him to settle down, and wisely kept his mouth shut.
Footsteps then, a dull pounding of soles on pavement and other organic matter.
The Bronze looked away from Top Gun.
The Leather who had thrown the bladder was pointing frantically towards the tunnel opening.
“They’re running!” he exclaimed.
A second later, dozens of the Leather broke into a run. They rushed by the Bronze, who was receiving orders from the Vulture.
Upon finishing, the Vulture hurried to the forefront.
The Bronze and the other three Leather guarding Top Gun pulled the man up by his arms and hauled him forward by his throat leash. As a unit, they hurried after the others. The Vulture had arrived at the mouth and was overseeing his leather-clad minions as they climbed up the slope and peered into the dark beyond.
Faint at first, the Vulture recognized a set of headlights approaching from within the tunnel, partially obscured by the silhouettes of two fleeing figures.
The Vulture motioned for Top Gun. The lessers brought him forward and dumped him onto the edge of the concrete slabs. The Vulture pointed toward the two escaping shadows.
“Stop them,” he ordered in a strained voice.
Top Gun set up his rifle.
34
Almost a hundred meters out, Collie and Gus stopped running, and Cory pulled up alongside in what appeared to be a huge golf cart without the overhead canopy.
“You guys okay?” he asked, his face concerned. He looked at Gus and immediately crinkled his nose. “Jesus, you shit yourself or something?”
“Yeah,” Gus replied, still attempting to clear his eyes. “Or something.”
Collie pushed Gus towards the back of the vehicle. The cart’s doors were only waist-high, leaving the EV very open, much like a convertible. Polished railing ringed the passenger seats. Collie upended Gus into the backseat, where he tumbled hard to the floor.
Collie grabbed his ankles and shoved his legs clear.
“They coming?” Cory asked.
“Probably.” She climbed into the rear, perching herself in the tiny cargo hold in the rear.
“All right,” she said, grabbing the railing. “I’m in. Go.”
*
Top Gun saw the figures clamber into the little buggy. He saw one upend another, heaving the unlucky bastard into the back seat. A set of boots stuck up in the air. Those he ignored, choosing to track the vehicle’s turn and focusing on the first target acquired.
Top Gun ignored the Leather standing around him. He guided the green reticle over his target and kept it there. He hissed softly, releasing his breath.
And fired.
*
Hunching over the steering wheel, Cory turned the rig around. He put his foot down on the accelerator just as a metallic scream buzzed by him, and a bullet hole as fine as a spider’s web punctured the EV’s windshield on the passenger side.
From where he was, splayed out on the EV’s floor, a blurry-eyed Gus watched as Collie landed in a crouch in the rear trunk area. She leaned forward as if gripping a rail… when her back exploded in a startling burst of black matter. A warm wetness spattered Gus’s face and hands. There was no warning, just a lethal combination of speed (brought on by Cory stomping on the pedal) and forward inertia.
Then she was gone, tumbling forward, out of the cart and onto the hard pavement.
With a pain-filled squawk, Gus hauled himself up as Cory swerved right and left, trying to make the EV as hard a target as possible. The rocking slammed Gus into the seats and floor, battering him before he finally got to his knees. He pulled himself up and immediately looked back.
Speeding away from them was the ghostly eye of the distant tunnel entrance.
Collie was nowhere in sight.
“Cah…” he huffed, his voice cracking and his eyes watering. He blinked hard, pawed at what was left over, and hunkered down, gripping onto the railing.
No Collie.
Not a trace.
But there was plenty of her blood sprayed across the trunk, and her Sig Saur right in the middle of it all.
“She’s gone?” Cory yelled out.
But Gus didn’t answer him, transfixed by that terrible void, and the glaring light near the end of it all.
All the while, the EV sped down the throat of Whitecap.
35
A short time later, shadows crowded around the dead soldier. The Leather assumed she was a soldier by her uniform, just as easily as they saw she was dead by the baseball-sized hole through her chest.
One of the Leather stooped and flipped the dead woman over, allowing the Vulture to step in and inspect the kill. Shock filled the soldier’s staring eyes as blood dribbled from that grisly crater, airing out the right side of her ribcage. A mild trace of scent hung about her carcass. The Vulture frowned.
“Get her out of the way,” he rumbled with venom, in case the mindless would be distracted by her. That would not do. That would be a waste of time.
Flicking fingers to get the lesser moving, the Vulture turned and stared down the tunnel. Several of his minions flanked him, stretched across a clear three-lane strip of pavement.
He peered into the dark, where the fleeing vehicle had escaped. A vehicle that was practically soundless. Without a word, he strode back towards the light, where his minions were already preparing to reanimate the backhoe.
In his wake, two of the Leather dragged the dead soldier off the path by her ankles. They quickly hauled her over to a gutter, which separated the wall from the pavement. There they dropped her and, for good measure, shoved her back against the wall with a few well-placed boots.
Boots that left bloody prints as they walked away.
*
The dark receded, the tunnel walls now a glossy larva white. Black ribs rose to the ceiling, connecting to spines of gray piping. Rings of light hung from that constructed backbone, flashing overhead at precise intervals as if trying to calm Gus’s grief-stricken mind.
Collie crouching.
Then her back exploding in a black flare. That sight was going to haunt him for a long time. A very long time. The desire to be done with it all filled him, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up on the bottom of the EV’s floor and hope that Cory drove it over a cliff. He couldn’t go on. Not now. Not without her. She was the direction he needed, the driving force he very much depended on, and the lady that, gradually, over time, had captured his heart. As cliché as it sounded.
The ceiling lights flared overhead like calming sunspots.
Then they slowed.
Gus covered his eyes. He didn’t care. Didn’t care when Whitecap’s spinal cord of lights and pipework disappeared into a stainless-steel maw crenellated with blunted tusks. The EV braked hard and the world shifted, rolling him into the rear of the driver’s seat, where he saw the brass gleam of a lost Loonie on the carpeted floor, right below the cushion springs.
“Where’s Collie?” Bruno asked, distracting Gus.
“She’s gone,” Cory answered, the EV bouncing as he got out of the vehicle.
“Gone?”
“Yeah.”
Silence then, but someone said “shit” in a stunned tone.
“What’s the plan?” one of them asked. Maybe the one called Jeremy Walton.
“Level five,” Sarah Burton said with a dazed sigh. “She said get to level five. So that’s where we go.”
More silence.
Followed by hands grabbing Gus and lugging him out of the rear seat. He stood in a drunken stupor, not resisting.
<
br /> “Oh man, he stinks,” Jane Wong said.
Yeah, well, life stinks, Gus thought blackly. Life was just a black crusted shithole and he was a dingleberry hanging off it. All he wanted now was to be done with it.
“All right, we go,” Sarah Burton said. “Gus, we’re leaving.”
Leaving.
He didn’t take his eyes off his stained boots. Leaving sounded just fine to him.
“Maybe I’ll leave, too,” he said and looked up for the first time.
The lighting system wasn’t completely on, and more than three-quarters of them were dark, powerless plates. The ones that were on, however, produced cones of pallid light. The islanders were in a hangar—no, a garage, of massive proportions, where reflective white lines split apart into parking zones. Cars and trucks filled some of those spaces, gleaming underneath that sparse light. Way off near the back, where the light barely touched, were what might’ve been a pair of backhoes. Extensive pipework and clusters of huge panel boxes adorned the walls. Some of those boxes were fire stations. A set of enormous doors—perhaps steel or titanium—marked the entrance. Their edges were lined with rectangular blocks, designed to interlock in a precise seam when closed.
Beyond the doors was the tunnel they had just traveled through.
The lights began to wink out at that moment, right up to the doors, creating a void in its wake.
“Hey!”
Gus turned around. Bruno was there, pirate-cap Bruno, looking more scared than pissed-off but putting on a face, because little Monica was standing not a foot behind him, red-eyed and jittery as if she were just coming to her senses after a serious fright.
That sight brought Gus back to his senses, and he faced Bruno. “Yeah?”
Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King Page 25