Outbreak (The Outbreak Series Book 1)

by Victor Deckard

  “I take it she’s some kind of sorcerer or something?” I inquired making no attempt to conceal my sarcasm.

  “Yep,” he replied, but before he could elaborate on that yet another thunder rumbled from behind.

  The ground began to shake again with a booming growl, but this time it affected us only slightly. Our truck swerved a wee bit before Frank managed to straighten it out. However, the two pursuers of ours were undergoing great troubles. Looking back over my shoulder, I watched the two black military trucks swerve maniacally back and forth; the drivers must be spinning the steering wheels like crazies trying to regain control over their fishtailing cars.

  Yet another uproar boomed through the street followed by a series of sharp, breaking sounds. The blacktop right behind us began to crack as the tremors increased, long clefts snaking along the road, some of them running across the street and crawling their way up the fronts of the buildings. Here and there burst open gaping holes, which edges quickly crumbled and fell off causing holes to expand even more. A huge section of the street seemed to sag, clefts running in all directions, cracks snaking up the walls, covering the entire buildings. Looked like the whole block was on the verge of collapsing in on itself.

  And it all was happening right behind us. For some inexplicable reason, all that boisterous chaos inflicted next to nothing harmful on us. Sure, the trembling earth had our car shaking and swerving due to the earth quaking, but other than that we were out of harm’s way. The ground was breaking up only behind us; all the cracks tearing the blacktop appeared behind our truck; they snaked their way along the street, but not a single one of them drew level with our truck; also, not a single one of the gapes burst open ahead of our vehicle. All of that made it seem as though the earthquake was doing its best not to do any harm to us and to interfere so far as possible only with the two black trucks chasing us.

  However mysterious it sounded, I thought that after all Frank may have been right about Mother trying to help us.

  The ground shook violently again. A horrifying jolt resulted in blasting several fresh gapes in the road and sending a few new clefts all over the street. Some of them ran across the nearby buildings, splitting them apart and wreaking vast destruction on them. The houses shuddered, coming apart, easily crumbling like cookies, pebbles fell from the roofs, big chunks of concrete ripped out of the walls, showering the road and crashing to much lesser pieces on impact.

  Two drivers were straining to rule out a collision with debris on the road as well as dodging the deep gaps and huge snake-like crevices that kept appearing in front of them. One of the drivers cut suddenly to the right shoulder of the road to avoid the big chunk of concrete that had crashed onto the road a few feet ahead of the truck just a second ago. The driver seemed not to notice a nearby large building being on the brink of falling apart. When he finally realized the bulling on his right was about to collapse, the driver abruptly threw the truck in the other direction.

  But he was too late. When the vehicle commenced moving away from the house, it had already given way in a cloud of brick and concrete dust rapidly expanding in every direction and swirling in the wind. The heavy front wall split apart from the rest of the building and smashed down, dead onto the fleeing truck, burying it under the blocks of concrete and rebar, killing instantly the shooter on the roof and crushing the vehicle as effortlessly as if it had been made out of tin foil. The entire building was reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds.

  And then the truck itself exploded, the fireball erupted from the ruptured gas tank, orange flames darting skyward, thick plumes of smoke billowing up in the sky.

  “One down, one to go,” Frank remarked excitedly, looking in the rearview mirror. “Way to go, Mother!”

  Yet the earthquake had died down already. The ground ceased trembling, the uproar fade away into nothing, and new holes and cracks no longer emerged. The second truck was still chasing us.

  “Mother’s weak because she’s being held hostage,” Frank explained. “As far as I know, some device people invented suppresses her powers. So she can’t act at full strength. So it’s up to you to take out the second truck, Jack.”

  Before I had a chance to do anything, Frank exclaimed, “Hang on, bro! I’m gonna turn.”

  There was an intersection up ahead. Not slowing down, Frank yanked at the steering wheel, taking the right turn with the tortured tires screeching and the engine roaring. I was thrown hard against the passenger’s-side door. On having our vehicle going in a straight line again, Frank mumbled, “Oh shit.”

  I sat up and looked out the windshield. Two more black military trucks sat across the street, completely blocking it off. Between the two vehicles was an empty space, yet it was too narrow for us to squeeze through. The big fifties manned by two shooters on the trucks’ roofs were already getting beads on our vehicle.

  “Turn back!” I said aloud.

  “Too late,” Frank answered, looking in the rearview mirror again.

  I glanced back. The truck had already negotiated the intersection and was catching up with us now. We got in a bit of a jam. All three shooters on the trucks’ roofs were about to open fire, in merest seconds our vehicle was going to get peppered by suppressive gunfire, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to preclude that.

  Our vehicle cut suddenly to the right, jumped over a curb onto the sidewalk, and moved on. I cast my gaze forward to see what Frank had in mind. Between one of the trucks sitting across the street and the front of a stone bulling remained a small gap. And Frank aimed our vehicle directly at that narrow opening, recklessly planning on getting through it.

  “Turn back!” I shouted warningly. “It’s too small! We won’t fit!”

  “We will fit!”

  All of a sudden the din of the three .50-caliber heavy machine guns drowned out the roar of our vehicle. Frank stomped on the gas pedal, causing our car to race at full speed now. Seeing that he wouldn’t change his mind, I pulled the seatbelt down across my chest, fastened it on, and braced myself for the impact. Heavy rounds punched holes through the windshield, eventually shattering it. Frank and I quickly hunched down and shielded our faces against hundreds of glass shards showering us. One of the bullets, having bored through the back of my seat, passed over my head so close I could feel its hot slipstream on my scalp. Another bullet struck the headrest of my seat, blowing it apart in a flurry of shredded leather and stuffing flying everywhere.

  Frank kept guiding our truck into the gap and, finally, our big vehicle leaped into it. I had no doubts about the outcome of this trip. Our truck was sure to get stuck in that small gap. We wouldn’t budge and would become sitting ducks for the shooters.

  I was wrong. Somewhat. Our truck didn’t get stuck in the gap but surely it slowed us down. Both side-view mirrors were rent off splintering apart in explosions of glass and plastic, the fender on the right side of the vehicle scraped against the stone wall in a shower of sparks, the left fender grazed the parked truck on our left, the tortured metal crunching, the screeching sound drowned out even the deafening clatter of the machine guns. And all the while the shooters racked our vehicle with heavy gunfire, .50-caliber rounds pinging through the roof, bouncing off the hood, and shattering all the side windows.

  “C’mon, c’mon!” Frank shouted, pounding his hands hard against the steering wheel.

  Eventually, we got out of the gap. Frank cut the steering wheel to the left, taking the vehicle back onto the road, the tires screeching.

  “There we go!” Frank cried out enthusiastically. “Been a helluva ride, hasn’t it, bro?”

  However, it was far too early for throwing a party. It was far too early to greet our getaway with glee. Because it wasn’t over yet.

  The drivers of the black trucks sitting across the street had already begun to wheel their vehicles after us. They would be in pursuit of our car in nothing flat.

  “Dammit,” Frank cursed after he looked in the rearview mirror. “Tho
se guys are determined to ruin us. You gotta do something, Frank.”

  Then, out of the blue, it dawned on me that I had three fragmentation grenades on me. Having pulled one of them from a pocket on my vest, I peeked back. One of the three trucks was leading and the others had fallen in behind it. Both rear trucks were on either side of the leader, taking care not to cross their line of fire so that all three shooters could have their line of sight unobstructed by friendly trucks.

  I pulled the pin off and brought my hand holding the grenade back before tossing the frag out the shattered rear window. It hit the blacktop and rolled backward toward the approaching trucks. The driver of the lead vehicle, having seen the impending danger, veered the truck hard to the left to avoid the grenade just before it blew out. The shock of the explosion had the vehicle swerving back and forth, the driver straining to bring the car in a straight line. But other than getting the truck out of control, the explosion didn’t seem to inflict any damage either on the car or its occupants.

  I pitched the second grenade out the rear window, taking care to aim properly. Not that it mattered; the drivers saw me fling the grenade toward them and got out of its path. But not all of them succeeded at the task. One of the three drivers either had noticed the grenade too late to do something or his movement had been impeded by the other trucks. Anyway, the grenade reached the truck, rolled under it, and exploded there. The truck rolled over, crushing the screaming shooter and skidded on its roof in a spray of sparks spewing from beneath the upside-down roof and leaving the long gory smear behind it. Finally, the upturned truck came to a halt at the shoulder of the road.

  “You got him, Jack. Well done!” Frank said approvingly. “One down, two to go.”

  I was trying to conceive a tricky plan of taking out the two big trucks with only one remaining grenade. Yet there wasn’t enough time for concocting some brilliant plan of devastating the two trucks at once, seeing that the shooters had already lined up their iron sights guns on us. Hence, I jerked the ring free and flung the last grenade out through the rear window, hoping as hell that the last grenade would do us some good.

  No dice. Having taken what had happened to the flipped-over truck into account, the two remaining trucks swerved sharply to get out of the grenade’s way once they saw it rolling toward them. The grenade exploded when both drivers were able to put enough distance between them and the grenade to be surely out of its range, which left them completely undamaged by the explosion.

  All of a sudden, our vehicle was pinned in a circle of the glaring white light of a powerful spotlight. Even above the growl of our truck’s engine, I heard the distinctive rumble of a helicopter’s rotor blades. On leaning out of the passenger’s-side shattered window, I saw a chopper following us through the air just above the power cables and streetlights, barely clearing them. Its rotors whipped up a fierce wind around our truck. The intense light of the powerful spotlight aimed directly at our truck made it all but impossible to discern any features. All I could tell from its general outline was that the chopper was large and menace-looking. Then the chopper dropped even lower, and I could make out a door gunner behind a big .50-caliber machine gun.

  “We got a problem,” I said to Frank, having climbed back into the cab.

  “Big fucking helicopter problem?” Frank snarled through his clenched teeth. “Yeah, I guessed as much.”

  All at once the chopper and the shooters manning the trucks’ machine guns opened up. Once again our car was under yet another onslaught, which was even more ferocious than all the previous ones due to the chopper with an additional powerful gun having joined up with the other chasers.

  One of our truck’s rear tires suddenly blew out sending the vehicle fishtailing violently.

  “Them cocksuckers are starting to really piss me off!” Frank shouted trying to take back control of our swerving car. Another tire ruptured to pieces with a resonant bang. Our truck went skidding, turning sideways, the momentum carrying the vehicle toward the left shoulder of the road, the car completely out of control now.

  The headlights suddenly picked out a shut-down grocery store, looming ahead of us, rapidly filling the view.

  “Hang on!” Frank yelled just before the truck smashed headlong through the storefront, shattering it to thousands of glistering scraps pelting our car’s roof like a heavy downpour. The truck plowed through racks with out-of-date magazines, food stands, and shelves until Frank slammed on the brakes, having the vehicle pull to a stop just before the rear wall.

  “Bail out!” Frank shouted at the top of his lungs.

  I punched the seat belt release button and jerked the door open just as Frank did the same. We got out of the bullet-riddled vehicle in time to see the two trucks screeching to a halt in front of the grocery store. The shooters were hastily rotating the heavy machine guns to aim them at us. The spotlight of the chopper hovering above the street was directed straight at the broken storefront.

  “Back!”

  We had barely vaulted over the counter, dropped to the floor, and ducked our heads, hunkering down when the shooters unleashed the devastating barrage on the store. Bullets permeated the air, bursting racks and shelves, tearing old magazines to pieces, cratering walls and wooden paneling, shreds of paper, splinters, chunks of masonry flying everywhere and raining on us from above like hailstones.

  Frank shouted something to me gesturing with his hand back toward something behind him. I heard his voice but couldn’t quite make out what he had just said. Frank had to lean forward close to my ear to be heard over the deafening roar of the machine guns.

  “There’s a backdoor over there,” Frank shouted.

  “Alright, let’s go!”

  Even before I could start crawling toward the aforementioned direction, Frank stopped me by placing his hand on my shoulder.

  “I’ll stay here, bro,” he said.

  It took me by surprise. “What?”

  “I’ll take care of them pricks,” Frank explained.

  The clatter of the machine guns from the outside ceased suddenly. We pricked our ears for any sounds from the street so that we could learn what our foes were planning to do next. It was totally quiet now, though.

  “Go, bro,” Frank said finally, lowering his voice to a whisper and beckoning with his head toward the backdoor behind him.

  “If you stay, I’ll stay too.”

  “No. Someone’s got to keep them bastards occupied while the other makes his way out.”

  He was right to a certain extent, but anyway I wasn’t about to go away, for I didn’t like the idea of leaving my brother behind.

  “I can be of service to you,” I said. “I can lend you a hand with punching their tickets.”

  “And you will, brother. When we’ll get to rescue Mother. But for now, you’ve got to split this place.”

  “Do you really think I’m gonna up and ditch you, leaving you to fight the whole fucking squad of armed to teeth grunts on your own?”

  A small, nearly unnoticeable smile curved his thin lips. Behind his smile lurked something both familiar and, at the same time, elusive, something that I couldn’t immediately recognize, although his smile rang a bell somehow.

  “That’s really nice to see you care about me. Wish it could always be this way.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked, perplexed. “We’re brothers, aren’t we? Sure we look after each other.”

  Before Frank had a chance to reply, the sound of glass crunching came from the entrance. Apparently, some of our chasers had just gotten into the wrecked store and now were warily forging forward toward the counter we were hiding behind. They picked their way through the debris they had caused by the recent heavy gunfire. The wreckage lay all over the floor, so despite the soldiers’ making all-out effort to cause as less noise as possible, every now and then some of the glass shards or wooden splinters crunched under their feet.

  Frank raised himself a mite and peeked warily over t
he edge of the counter. Then he ducked his head just before a gunshot shattered the silence around us, the round darting above our heads to tear into the back wall in an explosion of dust, chunks of plaster raining down to the floor.

  “Wait here,” Frank barked to me and then just melted away, just disappeared as if he had dissolved into air in a heartbeat.

  Our chasers discharged their weapons once more. But they weren’t firing in the direction of the counter now. I hazarded a quick peek over the surface of the counter. Two men standing in the middle of the room were discharging their weapons, firing one volley after another at one of the far dark corners of the room. There was seemingly nothing in there; however, they kept firing in that direction.

  I was about to get back under cover when I saw Frank materialize behind them. The two shooters appeared to be oblivious to it. My brother raised his pistol at shoulder level and shot one of the triggermen in the back of his head. When the second man, startled, whirled around at the sound of the gunshot to see his now dead mate slump to the floor, Frank had already dissipated in a fraction of a second only to reappear a few feet away from him and waste him too. The whole clash had lasted less than three seconds. Both men dead now, Frank instantly returned behind the counter next to me.

  “Okay, listen,” he said. “There’re more of them in the street. Not to mention the chopper. And there’s no time to argue over trifles. I ain’t having this bickering. You gotta go. Now. I’m gonna let them have it with both barrels. But I’m gonna need to take care of them all alone. Your staying in here will be a burden on me. Until fully recovered, you’re almost just so vulnerable as an ordinary person. Any stray bullet will easily finish you. I don’t wanna take this chance, bro. Leave now so I can focus entirely on fighting those twerps without having to distract my attention from them to look after you.”

  After what I had just observed I had no doubts about my brother’s ability to handle this situation by himself.