“Peter Pan is the story of a little boy who lives on an island called Neverland. He lives with a group of other kids called the Lost Boys. Neverland is a magical place and Peter is magical, too. He can fly. Peter Pan meets a girl named Wendy who comes to help take care of them. They battle pirates and have all kinds of adventures.” She looked over the children and paused. Once she had created just the right amount of tension, she continued with a smile. “You children remind me of the characters in this story. Your life is a great adventure. You fight zombies instead of pirates, and you may not be able to fly, but you sure can run like the wind. I’ve seen you in action, and you can all fight and protect yourselves. You also always take care of each other.” She paused again for emphasis. Spreading her arms to encompass everything around them, she said, “This is your Neverland. This is your magical place.”
Many of the expressions on the children grew serious as they contemplated the comparison. “I want you to listen to this story carefully. I want you to embrace the meaning of the story. You are safe here now. We need to protect ourselves and be careful, but this is the place for your great adventure. Don’t be afraid to play and be children again. There are no more grownups telling you what to do all the time. There is only me, and I am on your side.”
The room remained silent, but there were tears welling in a few of the children’s eyes. Jacqueline felt hopeful that this could be a turning point. She opened the book, took a deep breath, and said, “Chapter 1. Peter Breaks Through.” Looking up, her heart fluttered to see all the kids eyes glued to her, enraptured. She cleared her throat and started. “All children, except one, grow up…”
CHAPTER THREE
Back at the compound, a team was being gathered for an assault on the industrial complex. “It’s ground zero,” said Mace. “It has to be.” Addressing Bo and a roomful of soldiers, he felt positive of his assessment. Angela was fidgeting in the back, eager to get back to the complex to finish it off. The longer they waited, the greater chance something could go wrong.
“I want the whole place leveled. Not a single brick left, you all hear me?” Bo pointed towards the explosives that were carefully packed in crates. “This night doesn’t end without a big hole in the ground where that building used to be. Let’s not waste any time. If they’re in there, I don’t want to give them any chance to escape.”
“Right,” said Angela, unable to stand still. “Let’s just get this over and done with.”
As they turned to leave, Shawn nudged her and whispered playfully in her ear. “This reminds me of a Christmas song.”
She looked annoyed. “Now’s not the time.” A second later she couldn’t help herself. “Okay, which one.”
“Oh holy night.”
“Ha ha. You’re brilliant,” she said flatly as they headed back towards the truck. She jumped in the driver’s side door and gave Shawn a quick, full-bodied glance as he slid into the passenger side. “We get this done right and you may be singing joy to the world later on.” She winked, and Shawn immediately broke out in a sweat. He’d been wanting her for weeks, but every time he'd made any type of sexual advance, she’d brushed him off.
“What’s gotten into you?” he asked as he twisted his body around to face her. “What makes you think I can be had that easily?”
As she barreled back out through the gate, she laughed heartily. “You’re a man, aren’t you? My guess is you started getting chubby as soon as those words left my lips.”
Shawn couldn’t help but crack up. “Just call me Chubs,” he said with a laugh.
“Just what I thought.” She kept her eyes peeled on the road as they raced towards the complex. “I just hope you don’t turn out to be Mr. Quick-Draw-McGraw.”
“No worries, there,” Shawn chuckled. As he stared at the dark landscape that bounced around in front of them, he said slowly and seductively, “I’m going to have your body trembling all night.”
“Big talker,” she said, although she felt the first stirrings of arousal. “Let’s just concentrate on the damn mutants before you get too distracted and lose blood flow from your brain.”
Shawn started laughing again as he turned towards her. “You know how many times I’ve tried to initiate this type of conversation?”
Angela shot a quick glance at him as she drove. “Of course I do. Are you kidding me? I wasn’t about to start anything until I was sure about you.”
“Sure about me?” Shawn was now studying her as she drove. “What part of me weren’t you sure of? Did it have anything to do with my skin color?” Shawn was black.
A grin spread across her face as she concentrated on driving in the dark. “To be honest, I’ve never been attracted to a black man before, but the dating pool just isn’t what it used to be.”
Shawn erupted with laughter. That had been a running joke on the journey from San Francisco. “So what makes you think I won’t just hit that and run, cause that’s just what I like to do,” he teased.
“Because I’ve got you wrapped around my little finger and you know it. Once you get a taste of this, you’re going to beg for more.”
The two soldiers held on in the truck bed directly behind them to keep from getting jarred around. They both had huge grins on their faces. The back window was slid open an inch, and they could hear enough of the conversation to know what was going on.
Directing the spotlight towards the industrial complex, Mace immediately noticed the open door leading to the building as they approached. Angela slammed on the brakes as she reached the fence, seeing it for herself and hopping out of the vehicle in complete frustration.
“Damn it! That was closed before!”
Four other 4x4’s pulled up behind her. Everyone exited quickly and in orderly fashion, and within a few seconds nineteen men and women gathered together to discuss the altered situation.
“They might be gone. They could be anywhere,” said Mace, peering through the darkness around them with his flashlight. “We need to check out the interior, but we’re gonna need to leave some bodies out here in case they’re out there and come back.”
Angela slapped Shawn across the shoulder. “Me and Chubs here will take point going in. I’m not gonna miss an assault.”
“You’re on,” Shawn said in all seriousness. He swung back to lock eyes with Mace. “You covering?”
“Absolutely. I’m right behind you. Anything moves take it out.”
“No problem there.”
The two soldiers from the back of the truck took up positions ten feet away, spreading out and facing away from the building. “We’ve got you covered out here,” said one. “If there’s nothing in there, let’s just blow this dump and get the hell out of here.”
Four men were already busy unloading two crates of explosives, pulling out the detonator cords and blasting caps, while the remaining thirteen prepared for the assault on the building.
With a team gathered to the side of the entrance, Angela took a deep breath. She stared at the open door as they quietly counted down from three. On cue, she barreled through the door with Shawn right behind her. Her heart raced as she scanned the area quickly with a flashlight taped to the bottom of her automatic weapon. “Clear!” she yelled as Mace and the others entered behind her, spreading out in a fan to cover as much space as possible. The interior was pitch black and crowded with machinery and pallets of raw materials. They would have to split up into groups to cover the entire building.
Angela flashed the light across the side wall and stopped on the badly decomposed body of a man close to the entrance. She spotted the 9mm on the floor by his slumped body and crouched down, snatching it with her right hand and stuffing it in the back of her jeans, never taking her eyes off the surroundings.
Flashlights crisscrossed beams of light over the entire building as the groups moved forward in the darkness, slowly navigating around the large industrial equipment and pallets. There were continuous whispers between the groups to ensure no friendly fire casualties. The b
uilding was larger than they first thought, and they were all covered in sweat as they slowly moved forward through the black interior.
Angela whispered quietly to Shawn without turning her head. “It’s too dark and quiet in here.” A drip of perspiration inched down the side of her face as she carefully jerked the muzzle-light in a controlled pattern, moving forward incrementally. “It reminds me of a Christmas song,” she added faintly. Despite the light remark, her voice carried a small tremor.
Shawn trailed directly behind her, his heart pounding as they maneuvered around another large piece of equipment. “You are the craziest bitch I ever met,” he murmured softly. A second later he couldn’t help himself and whispered, “Which one?”
“Silent night, stupid. What else?”
They finally all came together as the machinery ended, meeting in front of a set of wide double-doors that led to another room.
Angela stood just to the left of the doors as everyone gathered around behind her. They all remained deathly quiet. She looked back at Mace who was positioned to her right and nodded towards the doors. Shawn repositioned his weapon as he waited for Mace to kick it in. No one made a sound, listening for any sign of activity on the other side.
Mace took a deep breath and lifted his boot, giving the right door a solid kick as Angela slipped through with Shawn directly behind her. The first thing Angela saw was the flash of teeth as the beam from her flashlight made contact with an infected. Mace heard a shriek, but before he could react, the room was filled with the sound of automatic gunfire. He rushed through, pointing his flashlight-muzzle at different positions within the room, but there were no moving infected in sight. Within seconds the room was filled with armed soldiers, all actively lighting up the room in search of the living dead. A mutant female was sprawled on the ground fifteen feet in front of them, her muscular face and body riddled with bullets from Angela and Shawn’s rifles. All the lights pulled in to focus on her.
No one said a word as they stared. Angela was breathing heavily and about to make a smart remark when a sloshing sound came from somewhere in the building. They lifted their lights to inspect the room. There were two large tanks that covered almost the entire room, with complex piping running from one to the other.
As Mace surveyed the room, he noticed a catwalk that ran along the left edge of the building above the tanks, and he followed it to the metal stairway that started behind them. He moved quickly towards it, scaling the stairs and focusing his flashlight muzzle inside the tanks. As he walked towards the center, he could see the reflection of liquid about three quarters high in the partial light. He noticed something sticking up and rested his beam on it. A pair of red glowing eyes focused intently on him just above the line of liquid.
He could hear the clomping of other soldiers’ boots as they climbed the stairs behind him. He continued to stare at the eyes as they slowly rose up from the liquid, revealing a full-sized mutant infected. A sickening shriek emanated from its throat and more water sloshed as more infected rose from the liquid depths. They had been lying at the bottom of the tank, their bodies covered with soft pustules that were filled with oxygen to help with the transformation process.
The infected had not completed the mutation but were awakened by the gunfire. Pure outrage erupted from within the tanks as the infected broke the water’s surface, their strong legs preparing to leap out of the tanks and attack.
The room was illuminated like a strobe light by gunshots as the vats were sprayed nonstop with rounds from the M-16’s. Liquid starting leaking onto the floor from spouts created from gun rounds that punctured the metal walls, and shrieks rose in volume as the infected raged. The gunfire continued until the shrieks were all silenced. When the barrage finally stopped, the only sound that remained was the steady trickling of liquid as it hit the floor.
“Let’s blow this fucker up!” yelled Angela loudly. “You were right,” she said to Mace. “This is ground zero.”
Outside, as the explosive experts finished wiring the building with C-4, Shawn took Angela off to the side. “I want you so bad right now,” he whispered.
Angela reached up and gave him a slow sensual kiss that grew more intense as it continued, their tongues wrapping around each other as she reached behind and squeezed his rear. She pulled back and whispered seductively in his ear, “I want you, too. I’m already getting wet thinking about it.”
Shawn pulled away an inch. “Oh shit, don’t say that. I don’t want to be walking around here all night with a raging hard-on.”
Angela reached down and rubbed him before moving forward and pressing herself against him. “I hope you do keep that erection all night,” she whispered. “You’re gonna need it. You’re mine. Later on. You hear me?”
From the shadows, a mutant infected watched them. It was the last one. Overcome with fear, it trembled as it turned away. It started to run, moving in the opposite direction of the complex and the camp. The faster it ran, the more the fear turned to rage. By the time the explosion came, it was already miles away.
CHAPTER FOUR
After two chapters, the kids were losing interest in the Peter Pan story. It was not the children’s version Jacqueline had been expecting, and she had trouble following the story herself. Growing frustrated and a bit depressed by the lack of response, she was ready to give up. Rummaging through storage boxes in Evelyn’s barn to take her mind off the disappointment, she couldn’t believe her luck when she plucked a VHS copy of the Disney version of Peter Pan out of a cardboard box.
Sitting Indian style on the floor of the barn, she felt almost giddy as she sifted through the extensive collection of Disney movies, reminiscing fondly about the brief period in her childhood when she could still fantasize about magical kingdoms and princesses. Her mother had been drug-addicted and abusive and at a young age she had become responsible for her younger siblings.
“This is what I remember,” she said warmly as she looked at the movie cover. “Not some dang English nonsense made for English brats.” She started giggling to herself as she inspected the tape inside to try to determine if it was still playable.
“They’re going to experience the Peter Pan I remember if it kills me.”
There was a wind turbine on the property that provided enough energy for about 4 hours a day. The only TV in the house was a 32” flat screen tucked away in Evelyn’s room, connected to a dvd/vhs combo player. Not bothering to hide her excitement, she scooted all of the kids out of the house an hour before story time to get everything set up.
The TV and components were heavier and more awkward than she thought, but she was finally able to drag everything in and get all the wiring hooked up properly in the living room. Sweating and a little frazzled from the effort, she rang the cow bell repeatedly and waited for the response.
The children weren’t particularly enthusiastic as they entered the room. She hadn’t revealed the movie to them, and they had just assumed that story time would consist of the continuing Peter Pan story. As Woody shuffled into the room, he noticed it had been rearranged and a TV was now situated on top of the coffee table facing them.
Peering at Jacqueline, he asked quietly but with a cautious sparkle in his eyes, “Do we get to watch TV?”
Unable to contain her smile, Jacqueline glowed as she faced him. “Yes, Sugar, tonight we get to watch TV. I found the Disney cartoon of Peter Pan in the barn. You’re going to like it much better than the book.”
At the mention of a Disney movie, smiles began appearing on many of the children’s faces. Jacqueline realized that she hadn’t seen this much enthusiasm from them since the day Jade had led them on a knick-knack smashing frenzy months earlier.
“Let’s all sit on the floor, smaller children in front. If you want a pillow, grab one now from the couches or from your rooms.”
The kids scrambled as they raced to be the first to grab pillows or cushions from the couches. Those that were too late ran to their rooms squealing, their eyes and mannerisms
conveying the excitement they felt about watching a cartoon. It was an instant change in their demeanor.
Jacqueline’s heart was beating as hard as theirs as she turned on the TV and started the movie. She moved quickly to the rear of the room where she sat down on the floor and watched their reactions.
Mesmerized from the very beginning, the kids eyes danced as the story unfolded. Hands clapped on knees during the songs, with little arms actually hanging in the air during “You Can Fly!”
Every once in a while a kid would scream something out. “The Lost Boys wear costumes like us!” one boy said. Woody added, “And they have slingshots like us, too!”
While the boys were glued to the action when Peter fought Captain Hook, it was the tender scene when Wendy sang “Your Mother and Mine” that brought tears to every single child in the room. Sniffles filled the air and a couple of kids broke down and sobbed, being comforted by others. They had all lost their mothers. They weren’t just the Lost Boys, they were the lost children. They were the children of the apocalypse.
By the time the movie had ended, the tears had dried up and the enthusiasm had returned. Jacqueline clapped her hands to get their attention. “Today is the first day of your new adventure! You are all my heroes, and I am your Wendy. I will give you all the love you will allow into your hearts, and I will be like your mother if you will let me. Now go, explore, and learn to fly!”
Laughter filled the room as two boys jumped up, ready to battle each other. “I’ll slash you to ribbons,” one said as he held up an imaginary sword towards his friend.
“I’ll cut you to pieces!” was the appropriate response as an imaginary sword swung in his direction.
“Poppycock! You’re a codfish!”
More boys joined in until the imaginary swordplay turned to roughhousing. The girls jumped out of the way as boys tumbled across the living room floor. The girls were too preoccupied with thoughts of mermaids and Indian princesses to get too upset.
Children of the Apocalypse (Mace of the Apocalypse #3) Page 3