by Stu Jones
She walked to a nearby drawer and removed the semiautomatic handgun, causing more murmurs among the patients.
“Hey, it’s fine. There’s no harm in checking,” Jenna said, wincing at a fresh round of gunfire, followed by screams from outside. “Terry, you got this?”
Terry nodded, resolute.
Jenna pushed through the medical-bay doors and entered the hallway. Her mouth, dry from the combination of nerves and dehydration. She swallowed and held the handgun up to give it a function check. Just because she knew how to operate a handgun didn’t mean she had to like it. The gun wasn’t for her; Jenna kept the gun for the rest of them, those at the station who could no longer defend themselves.
Arriving at the front double doors, she shook her head and steadied her nerves. The mutants couldn’t have returned—though maybe they had. Maybe they had overcome Courtland and Dagen and the rest. There was only one way for her to find out. With a heave, she shoved the doors open and raised her gun as the door slammed against her, crushing her hand against the frame. She cried out in shock and pain, falling back to the ground, where she cradled her throbbing hand.
Before she knew what was happening, several brutish men yanked the door back open and grabbed her. After dragging Jenna to her feet, one man held her tight by both arms, while the other mocked her. “Careful, love. You could hurt someone with this thing,” he said, dangling the gun before her. Jenna whimpered, her hand throbbing while the thug traced the outline of her breasts with the gun barrel.
“You look familiar to me,” he said. “Have we met?”
“Please, just take me,” Jenna pleaded. “There’s no need to hurt anyone else.”
“Oh, yeah?” The man behind her laughed.
“Please, just take me.”
“Hey, man. The lady wants you to take her. What are you waiting for?” he said with a giggle.
The thug leaned in close. “I swear I’ve seen you before. Wait, yeah. You were the woman Dagen brought in last year when we controlled this place!”
Jenna grimaced and turned her face away.
“Yeah, man. Let’s do her,” the thug said, panting. “I don’t mind walking down that street again. It looks like she needs to be reminded that she still belongs to the Coyotes.”
The other man laughed.
“She doesn’t belong to the Coyotes,” another figure said as he stepped up alongside them. “She belongs to me.”
“Bullshit! We found her first. Get in line, Raith.”
“Malak said I could have her. She’s mine,” Raith said, a dark finality in his tone.
The bigger thugs began to mock their own. “But Malak said…Malak said.” They laughed. “Just because he put you in charge of this raid don’t mean you get to tell us what to do.”
In a move that stunned them all, Raith jammed a short knife into the side of the front thug’s neck, jerking it free, wiping it on his pants and putting it away as though nothing had happened.
Jenna moaned in terror as the thug behind her cussed and backed away. A thin stream of blood shot from the wounded thug’s neck. Gurgling with shock and pain, he tried in vain to cover the gushing wound as he fell to his knees.
“This one belongs to me,” Raith said, raising his voice and grabbing Jenna’s hair with a jerk. “You can let her go, or you can die like your friend here.”
The thug released Jenna and held his hands in the air. “Yeah, Raith. It’s fine. Be cool, man.”
“The time for being cool has passed. Go take your ignorant ass and do what we came here to do.”
The bigger thug nodded, and after taking one last look at his dying friend moved back into the station. Jenna gasped again as the thin man pulled her by her hair outside and across the courtyard while the thugs raided the station. Jenna’s skin crawled, and her head swimming with painful memories as she was pushed against a truck, her arms restrained behind her back.
“What are you going to do?” she managed.
“First we watch the show, my dear. Then you and I will embark on our little honeymoon.” He smiled as he turned her around to face the station.
“Jenna!” a woman named Claire called from across the courtyard. “I’m sorry! They said they’d kill me if I didn’t tell them where they were!”
“No, Claire. You didn’t.” Jenna yelled though she knew with absolute dread the answer to her question. Moments later a line of children was herded around the front of the building before them.
“No! Don’t do this, please. If there’s anything human in you, don’t do this,” Jenna begged, as tears filled her eyes.
Raith smiled, his expression, one of sheer wickedness. “Children are so innocent, even in times like these, are they not? Look at them. Holding hands and smiling. They have no concept of what’s about to happen to them.”
“Please!” Jenna cried. “Do whatever you want to me, but don’t harm them.”
“You know, you’re an exquisite creature,” Raith cooed, looking Jenna over. “Even now you care nothing for yourself. I’m really looking forward to this—to us.”
Jenna watched as the children shuffled toward the double doors. She couldn’t contain herself any longer. “Run, children! Run away as quick as you can!”
The kids looked at her with confused expressions as they continued to walk into the building, following the bandits’ orders.
“Run! Don’t go in there, please!” Jenna screamed.
But her cries fell on deaf, unknowing ears, as the last of the children shuffled in and the last of the bandits came out, pouring a trail of gasoline.
“No! No, please, don’t! Please!”
Raith nodded to one of his men, and the man secured the last of the doors. Several others lit Molotov cocktails.
“No!”
Jenna’s voice cracked as a multitude of fire bombs were launched at the building. It burst into flames with a rushing whoosh. Jenna’s legs buckled as the children screamed. She writhed and wrenched at her bonds, her body quaking in horror. The slap came hard and fast as she was dragged into the truck, buckled in, and secured.
As the truck started, Raith yelled something to his men about where to meet up. Then they were moving, the flames belching the smoke and the ash of its victims into the sky. Tears of fear and loss ran down Jenna’s face as she begged God to keep her spirit from breaking. She was completely alone now.
All is lost.
Courtland opened his gait as he crossed the hilly bluff that overlooked the station, each long stride reaching farther than the last. The black smoke of the fire gushed into view as he heard the sound of screams in the distance. They were the screams of children.
“Lord Jesus, carry me forward,” the giant gasped, consuming every morsel of oxygen that made its way into his lungs as he propelled himself forward.
Cresting the ridge, Courtland could see the barricaded radio station as flames snapped and flew from all the doors and windows. Jenna, Terry, and all the sick and wounded were in there. A glance at the open cellar door confirmed his darkest fears. The children were inside too.
He was moving down the hillside, each jarring step threatening to split his healing wounds, but he didn’t care. As the last of the screams began to fade, he felt the finality of the moment give new life to his inhuman strength.
“Lord God, make me your messenger of justice!” was all Courtland could manage as he flew toward the station, extending his glimmering blades. He felt his body surge as every limb bristled with an electric fury. Nearing the main gate, he watched as several trucks sped through. He caught a glimpse of a woman who appeared to be Jenna strapped into the front seat of the lead vehicle.
“Jenna!” Courtland cried as it flew past. The skinny man driving sneered as he went. Without losing his stride, Courtland ducked his shoulder and slammed into the second vehicle, a pickup with a bed full of bandits. The truck flipped, launching the flailing bodies of several men into the air. A few others rolled with the truck and were crushed beneath it, their screams cut s
hort.
Moving with reckless abandon, fueled by the power of God, Courtland mastered his empowered form as the mass of Coyotes fired upon him. Picking up the disabled truck, he spun, flinging the vehicle into the courtyard the way an Olympic athlete throws a hammer. The truck-missile landed amidst the bandits like a meteor striking the earth. An explosion of sand and debris rained down over their mangled forms, the truck grinding to a stop above crimson streaks in the dirt.
Wild with poisonous hate, the rest of the bandits charged Courtland, their assault rifles blazing with fire. He moved toward them in righteous anger, raising his blades to shield himself as the bullets flew past, failing to strike.
“Shoot that big bastard already!”
“I’m shooting him!”
“I can’t hit him!”
“How about that?” Courtland said, snarling. He bent his knees and launched himself forward, swinging his blades while crossing the distance between them in a flash. The bloodcurdling screams lasted only an instant as he tore them apart.
As the last thug ran in terror, Courtland dropped his blades and launched into the air after him. He crossed the thirty-yard gap in no time, crashing to the dirt behind the terrified goon. The man spun and tried to attack the giant as Courtland seized him in two massive hands.
“You’re a big fucker, aren’t you?” the man spat.
Courtland raised the thug to eye level, shaking as he spoke. “You like murdering innocent people—innocent children?”
“I like skinning them,” the tattooed thug said, “but I didn’t get to this time.”
“Who put you up to this?”
“We’re the Coyotes, bitch. We do what the fuck we want.”
Courtland squeezed the man’s throat with a meaty hand. “Who put you up to this?”
“Gakkkk. He’ll kill me!”
“What do you think I’ll do?” the giant roared, as he turned the man to face his slaughtered comrades.
Flames licked at the charred windows as the Coyote shook, realizing his fate had been sealed regardless of his answer.
“Malak. He calls all the shots. No one opposes us.”
“I do. Where is he now?” Courtland asked in a menacing tone.
“He’s taking care of your friend Kane, and his family. Gonna do ’em up right.”
“And where are they taking the woman in the truck?”
“Raith is taking her somewhere. Then we’ll all meet back up and head West.”
“What’s West?”
“He’s got something big in the works. Arizona or New Mexico is what I heard. I don’t know, man. I swear.”
“Swear on the lives of the children you just murdered!”
A strange calm settled over the man, and he smiled. “I enjoyed hearing them scream.”
Courtland felt a sting of righteous anger as he dragged the man to the front of the building, talking through clenched teeth as he went. “You Coyotes have a sickness that has no cure. Like rabid dogs, you just have to be put down.”
“Yeah, kill me. Do it. I ain’t afraid.”
“You should be. It’s the fire that comes after these flames you should fear.”
“I don’t believe in that shit!” the man spat.
Courtland smoldered. “It’s existence doesn’t require that you believe in it!” he barked, as he flung the man through one of the flaming windows and into the blazing furnace.
As the thug howled and shrieked through his final moments, Courtland turned and caught his breath for the first time. He looked at the dust trail that still lingered from the first truck as he dropped to his knees and clasped his hands. His worst fears had been confirmed. Malak wasn’t dead after all. He was exacting his vengeance against Kane at this moment. Courtland cringed with the pain of agony and failure.
“Why, Lord?” he called out, as black smoke poured from the doors and windows of the station. “What is your purpose here? I tried to help these people, these children. You entrusted them to me and gave me the power to fight for them—And for what? So they could die at the hands of these fiends? I can’t believe that what we tried to do was all for nothing! We’ve been conquered,” Courtland murmured, lowering his head and wiping his face.
The giant’s portable radio crackled to life. “Courtland,” a voice called through the static.
The giant fumbled, keying up the microphone. “Dagen?”
“What’s your status?”
“Not good. Where are you?”
“It took a few minutes for me to crawl back to the truck, but I’m en route to the station.”
“Don’t come here, Dagen. There’s nothing left. They murdered everyone.”
“What?”
“Even the children.”
A moment of silence passed. “Who did this?” Dagen said.
“The Coyotes. We stopped one monster just to have another take its place. They’ve destroyed us here. Kane and the others are in terrible danger.”
“Is Jenna alive?”
Courtland paused and turned to look at the flames pouring from the station. “I don’t know. They took her. They left before I could stop them.”
He paused, waiting for Dagen’s response, but the radio remained silent. After an eternal moment, it crackled to life again.
“Which direction?” came Dagen’s solemn reply.
“I can’t be sure. I think south on the coastal highway. Dagen, they’ve got a truck full of goons guarding her. I don’t think you can—”
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” Dagen interrupted with an iron resolve. “If they’ve got Jenna, I’m going after her. They’ll have to kill me if they want to stop me.”
The rugged tires of the battered Jeep Wrangler slid across the dusty gravel. As the vehicle came to a full stop, Dagen grabbed the frame of the vehicle and hoisted his body from the seat to gain a better view of the highway below. The corners of his mouth twitched upward as he took in the lingering dust trail, a sign that a vehicle had passed recently. Dropping back down, he grabbed his right leg and placed it on the gas pedal. He shoved his hips forward, causing the tires to spin and go. On the passenger seat next to him lay a pair of military binoculars, an MP5K submachine gun with three thirty-round magazines, and the bolt-action rifle wedged between the seat and the center console.
Dagen knew all too well about the men he was about to confront. He knew he would face superior numbers of brainwashed, rabid sociopaths. Because he had almost no functional use of his legs, he knew the only course of action available to him was absolute and overwhelming violence in the form of an ambush. It was the only chance Jenna had to survive. Dagen knew the Coyotes wouldn’t hesitate to skin and scalp him alive unless someone recognized him, which was unlikely considering the attrition rate for a group like theirs. For an instant, he considered the possibility of finding Malak in the vehicle and how strange and dangerous it would be to encounter that sick bastard once more, now from the opposite force.
Pulling himself forward against the steering wheel and craning his neck upward, he could just make out the rear end of the fleeing truck through the dust. He watched as it meandered left and out of sight, down the coastline. Willing the vehicle ahead, Dagen knew he had a real chance. He hammered his fist on the steering wheel and shouted, “Here we go! You can do this!”
He was familiar with this stretch of road. He knew the vehicle had passed out of sight only to follow the highway through what used to be the Francis Marion National Forest. He also knew he had a fairly straight shot along his current path. At full speed, he could come out ahead of them where the scenic highway came back into sight. From that position, Dagen would make his move.
He forged ahead, a look of determination like a permanent expression on his face. After a few minutes, Dagen slid to a stop along the bluff and retrieved the MP5K sub gun from the passenger seat. He inserted a thirty-round stick into the magazine well and slapped the charging handle down. He took the second and third magazines and shoved them into a large pouch in the f
ront of his load-bearing vest. Resting the gun across his lap, he retrieved the bolt gun. After bending the side mirror as far down as possible, he stuffed an old rag into the wedge between the mirror and the frame to create a suitable shooting platform. Adjusting his body into position behind the rifle, he supported the rifle as best he could. After double-checking the scope, which now had a distracting crack in the glass, Dagen was ready.
After just a few minutes, the truck rose back into sight as it made the climb back up the highway. Dagen swallowed once and licked his lips, his heart hammering inside his ears. So much was at stake. What if he missed? His equipment had taken a beating, and he couldn’t be sure the rifle scope was still zeroed after his tussle with the Sick.
He exhaled, took another breath to steady his heart. It was a long shot, close to seven hundred yards on a moving vehicle. He might hit Jenna if his shot was off. Even if by some miracle he made the shot, there was still a chance that she could get hurt in a crash or at the hands of her captors.
“Come on, Dagen,” he whispered. “Get your head together.” He watched through the cracked glass and made a slight hiss through his teeth as he began to make out Jenna in the front passenger seat. He’d have to take the shot head-on. If he waited, the truck would begin to angle, and things would become much more complicated.
Holding the rifle close against his shoulder, Dagen found his eye relief and took several controlled breaths, lowering his heart rate as he worked the action and drove a round into the chamber.
“All right, God,” he whispered. “If you’re out there and you care at all about what happens to this woman, I’m going to need your help with this.” He took another breath and let it out slowly. “I’m begging you. I can’t do this on my own.”
After one final breath, he allowed the stillness to wash over him. He tracked his crosshairs where he knew his target would be, and with a final breath, he exhaled halfway and began a slow and steady trigger squeeze to the rear. With a crack, the rifle recoiled. Dagen continued to hold his breath as he watched through the fractured glass of the scope. The windshield of the truck spider-webbed, throwing bits of glinting glass like tiny diamonds into the air in front of the driver. Dagen watched as a crimson spray formed against the inside of the windshield. The truck began to fishtail, sliding across the dirt and tossing a few goons from the bed as it went. Catching a tire, the vehicle rolled, slid across the road, and came to a stop upside down.