Victoria reversed her motor cart and drove toward the melee.
Halverson whipped out his Mossberg and fired blasts at the creatures mobbing Sean and Ron.
Scores of ragged creatures were now piling out of the broken display window. As soon as they stepped onto the sidewalk they surrounded Sean and Ron.
Ron continued to try to fight free of the ghouls.
Meanwhile, Sean sank to the sidewalk in a heap, unconscious from loss of blood that still flowed from his wounded neck. The gutter ran with his blood. Ghouls crouched over him, sealing his fate.
Halverson discharged more rounds into the ghouls.
Mannering entered the fracas firing both of his Glocks as Reba drove him toward Halverson’s cart.
There were simply too many of the creatures, and Halverson and Mannering both knew it.
Halverson also knew that Sean was beyond help and that Ron had been infected when the ghoul had bitten his nose off. Nevertheless, Halverson and Mannering tried to barge their way through the ghouls to free Ron from the grasps of the creatures.
But the sidewalk was thick with creatures that kept pouring out of the shoe store.
Any moment now, the creatures would polish off Sean and Ron and turn their attentions to Halverson and the others, Halverson knew.
“We better pull out of here,” he said as he fired another blast at the creatures with his shotgun.
Mannering heard one of his Glocks click empty. “We don’t have much choice. There’s no way we can mow down all those things without more firepower.”
“And all this racket we’re making will attract more of those things. We may end up getting hemmed in,” said Mannering, craning his neck around making sure the coast was clear behind them.
“Where’d Newton go?” asked Victoria. “I think he got away.”
“He ran into the road somewhere. We’ll never find him. He can take care of himself.”
Becker drove up to them after hanging back on the sidelines. “We don’t have time to worry about a stupid iguana for Christ’s sake. We need to get out of here.”
“And thanks for your help,” said Mannering.
“I was guarding the money.”
“Oh yeah. I guess that’s why you didn’t run away. You wanted to make sure all of the money’s safe.”
“Stop it,” said Reba. “Let’s just get out of here while we still can.”
The creatures were finishing tearing apart Sean and Ron and were now moving as one in an undulating wave of lurching limbs in the direction of Halverson, Victoria, Reba, Mannering, and Becker.
A fat male creature with slicked-back black hair was chewing on Sean’s or Ron’s bloody liver as it shuffled in the crowd. A cloud of buzzing flies converged around the creature’s head. Indifferently, the creature gulped down some of the flies as they congregated on the liver that was dripping blood on the sidewalk.
Victoria looked away in disgust.
“I’m getting Shawna now,” she said and drove her motor cart westward with Halverson riding shotgun.
Reba and Mannering followed in the next motor cart.
Becker’s cart trundled after them.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The sun was peeking over the horizon, throwing the first faint oyster light of day over the cityscape that reeked of destruction, both literally and figuratively. Where once protruded the hard right angles of buildings’ cornices jostling to cram the skyline, there were now, for the most part, the uneven, sloping edges of charred, caved-in, smoking roofs of a city bowing in defeat.
“What a mess,” said Victoria.
Still, some of the buildings had managed to survive the fires and remained intact.
“We’re not dead yet,” said Halverson.
“I hope my house didn’t burn down. If Shawna’s not there, I don’t know where else to look for her.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll find out soon.”
“At least, we can see those things better in the daylight.”
“And they can see us better.”
“You sound like you’re the one who’s worrying.”
“Just being realistic.”
They drove down Wilshire to 26th Street. They made good time now that the sun was out and they could see where they were going. The problem of the derelict motor vehicles in the road remained. To avoid them they kept on the sidewalks.
As long as they didn’t run into any of the ghouls shambling around, they should arrive at Victoria’s house soon, decided Halverson.
He heard a rumbling overhead like that of a plane. Eagerly, he looked up. It might be a passenger jet, he hoped, meaning there were more survivors of the plague.
“Is that a jet?” asked Victoria, pricking up her ears at the roaring.
It was flying awfully low for a passenger jet, decided Halverson. In fact, it wasn’t a passenger jet.
“No,” he answered.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s a drone.”
He recognized it. It had the gawky, unmistakable shape of an MQ-1 Predator. Besides using them for recce, the Agency used them to take out al-Qaeda terrorists in the Middle East. The federal government wasn’t allowed by law to use armed drones domestically. The question was, what was it doing here?
Halverson heard honking behind him. He turned his head around.
It was Reba and she was waving at the drone.
“There’s a plane,” she said.
“It can’t hear your honking from here. Only those creatures will hear you.”
Reba brought her cart to a halt. She ceased honking.
She and Mannering gazed into the smoke-hazy sky and waved excitedly at the drone.
Victoria stopped her cart.
Becker followed suit. Likewise, he commenced waving at the aircraft.
“They’re coming to rescue us!” exclaimed Reba, smiling.
“They can’t see us,” said Halverson.
“Why not? They’re not flying very high.”
“That’s not a plane.”
“What do you think it is? A bird?”
“It’s a drone,” said Mannering, less exuberant now, and lowered his hands. “The government flies those things over Afghanistan. They don’t have pilots.”
“It still has a camera,” said Becker, who continued waving at the aircraft. “They use drones for surveillance. The government’s probably searching for survivors of the plague.”
“Drones are also used to attack people,” said Halverson. “That one’s an MQ-1 Predator. It’s used to kill terrorists.”
“It is a weird-looking plane,” said Victoria, shielding her eyes from the sun as she watched the silver drone cruising overhead.
“They’re searching for survivors,” insisted Becker.
“The government’s prohibited by law from flying armed drones in domestic airspace,” said Halverson, eying the drone suspiciously. “You should know that as an ex-senator.”
Becker shrugged it off. “These are special times. We’re in a catastrophe. The government’s using everything it can to save our country and the citizens in it. That’s the great thing about drones. They can be used in search-and-rescue missions in hostile territory.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Mannering from his seat beside Reba.
Becker stood up in his cart and waved at the drone.
“Then why are they sending a Predator?” said Halverson. “Why not an unarmed Global Hawk?”
“Because that’s all they’ve got. How do I know?” Becker stopped waving. “And how do you know so much about drones?”
“I already told you. I’m a journalist.”
“You know way too much for a mere hack.” Becker hung fire. “Why do you think they sent the drone here?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s obvious,” said Mannering. “The drone’s flying recce. The government wants to get some idea of the scope of the disaster.”
Halverson raised his pump-action shotgun to take aim at
the drone. He wondered if he could hit it from this distance.
“What the hell are you doing, you idiot?” said Mannering. He glowered at Halverson. “That’s our only chance for help you’re trying to shoot down.”
Halverson lowered the shotgun.
He didn’t like the idea that the drone had suddenly appeared after he had learned of the government’s involvement in creating the mutant virus that had wreaked havoc on mankind. He didn’t believe in coincidences.
But how could the Agency have found out exactly where he was? he asked himself. It was simple. They could have traced his call. But why send the drone? To keep tabs on him?
The drone kept flying in the same direction through the smoky sky without altering its course. There was no indication the craft had registered the presence of human life, decided Halverson.
“They didn’t see us,” said Reba, crestfallen.
“They can’t see though the smoke, maybe,” said Mannering.
“It might turn back any minute now,” said Becker.
“I’m not waiting,” said Victoria. “My house is just ahead.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Victoria drove two blocks down 26th Street to her compact Spanish-style yellow-painted stucco bungalow that had a pitched, red, pantiled roof. She didn’t care if the others were following her or not. The sooner she found Shawna the better.
Her house hadn’t burned, she saw with relief. That in itself was miraculous.
She turned into the driveway and parked in front of the garage door.
“Nice crib,” said Halverson, admiring the cozy bungalow with its red-tiled roof and small windows with black wrought iron grilles.
“I like it.”
“You’re lucky it didn’t burn down,” said Halverson.
“I know. If only Shawna’s all right.”
A terracotta footpath led from the driveway to the varnished wooden, chased front door of the bungalow.
“I hope she’s here,” said Halverson.
“If she’s not, I don’t know where else to look.”
“I know what you mean. I don’t know where to look for Dan.”
“Your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe he’s at home.”
Halverson had never thought of that. It was so obvious that he had glossed over it. But it didn’t help.
“The problem is he moved recently and he didn’t get a chance to tell me his new address,” he said. “We don’t see each other very often. He lives here, and I live in Virginia.”
Reba and Mannering pulled into the driveway behind Victoria.
“I thought you were waiting for the drone to return,” Victoria told Reba.
“We can wait here,” said Reba.
“We figured you might need help,” said Mannering.
Becker pulled into the driveway.
“Look who the cat dragged in,” said Reba.
“I used to hate my job, dealing with all the riffraff and morally challenged scumbags of the world,” said Mannering. “Compared to this plague shit, that was heaven.”
“Morally challenged?” said Becker, pretending to be impressed with Mannering’s selection of words.
“You act surprised that a cop could have gone to college and gotten a degree.”
“I thought you spent all your leisure time getting soused.”
“That came after college.”
“When you had to deal with the riffraff.”
“And don’t forget the morally challenged scumbags,” said Mannering, staring pointedly at Becker.
“Are you trying to insinuate something?”
Mannering said nothing.
“If the shoe fits . . . ,” chipped in Reba.
Becker shot her a dirty look.
Halverson and Victoria clambered out of their motor cart.
Mannering followed them as they trod the curved path to the door. A foot-high green ceramic planter with pink begonias bracketed either side of the doorjamb on the terracotta patio.
When they reached the door, Halverson and Victoria noticed it was hanging ajar some two inches.
Not good, decided Halverson.
Victoria took another view of it. “Shawna must be here.”
She shoved open the door and strode eagerly into the living room.
Halverson and Mannering exchanged looks. Halverson raised his weapon, and Mannering did likewise.
Guns at the ready, they slipped into the living room.
“Shawna!” called Victoria.
A foreboding silence filled the house. A white lace curtain stirred at the behest of a breeze that stole through the open window into the living room.
Halverson didn’t hear anything other than the rippling and gentle slapping of the curtain’s fabric in the wind.
A brightly colored throw rug lay in front of a fawn leather sofa that faced a fifty-inch flat-panel high-definition plasma TV mounted on the wall.
Halverson cast around the room, saw no signs of life.
Victoria headed down the hallway into Shawna’s bedroom. Victoria couldn’t restrain herself. She sprang into the bedroom and searched for Shawna.
A little girl was sitting on a wooden stool watching a blank TV screen, her back toward Victoria.
Victoria was beside herself with joy. Overcome, she just stood there watching Shawna for a moment.
Victoria came to her senses. She decided she wanted to capture this moment for eternity. She withdrew her cell phone from her purse, trained the video recorder on Shawna, and said, “Shawna.”
Shawna turned around slowly.
Victoria had the video recorder on and was watching Shawna through the lens as Shawna turned her head.
“It’s me, sweetie,” said Victoria.
Her face drawn, her eyes hollow, Shawna was hanging her mouth open as she turned around, got to her feet, and approached Victoria. She was wearing a pink pinafore that reached her knees.
Shawna looked terrible, decided Victoria as she lowered her cell phone. She decided she didn’t want to record this moment for posterity.
Her hair a mass of snarls, Shawna trudged toward Victoria with outstretched arms.
Halverson burst into the bedroom. He shoved Shawna away from Victoria with his shotgun’s muzzle.
Shawna tripped over her feet and fell to the floor. She landed on her knees.
“What are you doing!” cried Victoria.
“She’s one of them,” said Halverson.
Shawna struggled to her feet, her face livid. She continued to hang her mouth open exposing yellow and black cracked teeth.
“She’s just suffering from stress and exhaustion,” said Victoria, holding out her arms beckoning to Shawna.
Shawna gazed at Victoria through clouded eyes and trudged toward her.
“Shawna’s dead,” said Halverson. “That’s not Shawna.”
Shawna clasped Victoria’s outstretched arm and drew it toward her gaping mouth in order to bite it.
Halverson could not bring himself to kill the creature. He knew it would break Victoria’s heart. But if Shawna bit Victoria and infected her, it would mean a death sentence for Victoria.
Mannering blustered into the bedroom. His eyes fell on Shawna leaning over to chew Victoria’s forearm.
“Kill it for Christ’s sake!” he blurted.
His words shook Halverson out of his trance induced by indecision.
The Persuader was a long weapon and Shawna’s bedroom was snug. Halverson didn’t have much room to wield the shotgun.
In order to discharge it he had to back away from Shawna and Victoria to gain enough room to whip the Persuader around and level it at Shawna’s growling face.
At point-blank range he blew the creature’s head off, even as Victoria screamed, “No!”
The creature’s brain and gobbets of skull splattered the bed’s flowered counterpane. The rest of the creature dropped to the floor with a thud.
Victoria burst into tears.
H
alverson attempted to mollify her, but she fought him off.
“You killed Shawna,” she said.
“Shawna was already dead,” he said. “That wasn’t Shawna.”
“That was a ghoul,” Mannering told Victoria. “He had to kill it to save you from being infected.” He pointed at the corpse crumpled on the floor. “Look how decomposed the body is. It was already dead.”
Victoria glanced at Shawna’s cadaver for a second. She could not stand the sight any longer. Overcome with grief, she looked away. Sobbing, she sat on the bed.
“There was nothing else I could do,” said Halverson.
He knew he had made the right decision. Yet he felt queasy eying the dead girl.
A six two overweight thirtysomething male figure filled the doorway. He was wearing a black suit. His cashmere and wool jacket’s collar had been torn off and was dangling askew around his neck. His yellow silk tie had gotten turned around somewhere along the line so it was hanging down his back.
Scowling with white-filmed eyes, the creature lurched out of the doorway toward Mannering.
Mannering plugged it twice in the chest with his pistol.
The suit jerked back a step but didn’t fall. It wasn’t dead. It wasn’t even wounded. But the creature’s retreating permitted Mannering enough time to bring his pistol to bear on the thing’s forehead.
Mannering squeezed his Glock’s trigger. The round drove into the thing’s forehead and tore a tennis ball–sized hole out of the back of the thing’s skull, taking with it bone spalls and blobs of brains that slammed into the wall behind it and dribbled down the ecru paint.
“We gotta get out of here,” he said.
The creature fell back against the wall and slid down it until it sat dead on the floor. The creature’s head drooped forward on its white-shirted chest.
Halverson snagged Victoria’s wrist and wrenched her off the bed. “We have to go.”
“There may be more of those things in here,” said Mannering.
He craned his neck around, checking to make sure no creatures were sneaking up on him from behind.
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