Their stand-off was interrupted when Lex and Brett burst into the hallway, stumbling somewhat dramatically out of the stairwell’s entrance. Ambie, startled by the arrival of Conn’s teammates, disappeared inside the duffel bag quick-smart with a squeak and a whimper, all pretences of bravado suddenly gone. Conn seeing his chance, hastily pulled the zip shut, leaving the smallest of gaps to allow Ambie some fresh air.
“Got ya now, ya little fucker!” he teased, in a low voice, hoping the others wouldn’t hear him.
Conn moved towards the intertwined figures of Brett and Lex, a fleeting sensation of jealousy taking hold inside him. This possessive feeling didn’t last long, however. Conn’s eyes bulged as he took in Brett’s gruesome wounds, realizing Lex was the only thing keeping him on his feet. Admittedly, Lex looked rather battered as well, covered in filth and dust, and her left cheek slashed open. Yet, even with her injuries, she still looked better than Brett did.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Conn’s voice came out shaky as his eyes ventured from the man’s face to his chest, and then his torso.
Lex halted just in front of Conn, panting heavily from the effort of carrying Brett down four flights of stairs. As hard as that was, she couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to carry him up four flights of stairs in such a state.
“Neanderthals…” Brett’s hushed voice trailed off, his eyes glazed over.
“We need to get out of here,” Conn told them, eyes lingering on the long slashes engraved into Brett’s sallow skin. “C’mon, let’s head for the trucks, we need to get you some first-aid.”
Brett’s reply came in the form of a thin smile. Conn could see it in his eyes; he was on the verge of unconsciousness. Brett didn’t have much left in him. Lex didn’t look great either; her energy levels were clearly flagging as well. Brett was a big guy and while Lex was certainly fit, lugging Brett around had clearly pushed her to the limit.
“Let me take him,” Conn said to Lex, extending an arm. “You lead the way.”
Brett slipped his arm around Conn’s shoulder and Lex stepped away, her expression grateful. Making the exchange Lex thought she heard a squeal as Brett’s limp frame collapsed against Conn.
“What was that?” Lex eyed Conn suspiciously.
Conn looked at his duffel bag and then at Lex. “Nothing,” he shrugged, trying to be nonchalant.
Lex stood for a second, unsure what to make of Conn’s reply. Her eyes considered the duffel bags gripped in Conn’s left hand and the assault rifle dangling awkwardly in his right. With Brett draped over him the way he was, Conn was going to find it hard to operate his AR-15. Lex’s eyes travelled back to the duffel bags.
“C’mon, he needs medical attention!” Conn urged struggling to hold Brett up whilst carrying his two bulging bags and assault rifle to boot, just as Lex had expected.
“Give me your AR,” Lex said, her eyes snapping away from the two sacks in Conn’s possession. “I’m out of ammo,” she said, showing Conn her MP-5.
“Last clip,” Conn passed her his assault rifle without a second thought. “Make it count.”
Lex didn’t say anything, she just nodded in reply.
Hurriedly making for their pick-ups, the trio broke out into the streets of Brookeborough leaving the hospital- and all of its primordial horrors- behind. Night had fully descended upon the city by this point, a panoply of stars twinkling overhead with the moon three-quarters full. The pale satellite hanging overhead, cast a silvery veil of light over the small city. Thankfully, this meant Conn and the others didn’t need to rely on their torches. All the same, slowed by their injured comrade, Lex and Conn struggled to keep a good pace, despite the relatively clear conditions.
Brett screamed intermittently as they weaved their way through the ghostly streets, Conn trying to hush him in case he attracted the wrong kind of attention. In their haste, to get to their vehicles, none of them caught sight of the wraith-like figures straggling behind them, skulking about in the shadows.
Making it to the two Fords, Lex wrenched open a rear door belonging to the big grey truck, preparing to help Conn load Brett in. Somewhat absent-mindedly, Conn passed Brett to Lex and then without bothering to help her situate the injured man, he made for the blue F-350. Lex watched, in stunned disbelief, as Conn inconsiderately began unloading his duffel bags into the back of the blue Ford’s cabin.
“Conn,” Lex said wide-eyed, and confounded, “a little help, please!”
“Shit, sorry.” Conn scuttled back towards her, closing the door to his pick-up behind him with a quick backwards glance.
Just as Conn reached Brett and Lex, he stopped dead in his tracks, the colour washing from his face.
“What is it?” Lex saw the change in him immediately.
Conn didn’t reply. He didn’t need to, because Lex was able to see for herself what the problem was.
All around them, hunched figures materialized from their dark surroundings, creeping out of buildings and alleyways like flies headed straight for a piece of freshly-dumped shit. The ensemble of scraggy humans were attired in tattered clothing, rags really, their faces covered in dirty smears. They clutched myriad makeshift weapons, mostly metal pipes and baseball bats, with a few blunted and rusted kitchen knives, mixed in for good measure. Many of the filth-laden individuals sported black eyes as well as missing teeth, and in several cases, both. Some even had noticeable bald patches dotted about their heads, probably the result of some vitamin deficiency, or so Conn guessed. After all, the life of a reiver certainly wasn’t an easy one. The shambling collection of human beings were reminiscent of zombies, recently raised from the grave, emaciated and stringy: they were the living dead; the dregs of post-Flux society if there was even still such a thing as society, anymore.
“Reivers…” Conn breathed, honestly taken aback by their sudden appearance.
All this time, he had been waiting for them to show up, to pounce on them. Now, here they were. Conn had expected to encounter them on the road proper, but apparently not. The reivers had other ideas, it seemed.
One of the bandits approached, detaching himself from the larger group. He was a skinny male, but muscular, in a pair of trousers that only reached half-way down his stick-like shins. Still, he seemed to be in better condition than the others following him. In addition to his impressive degree of muscular definition, his complexion was much haler for one thing. The unidentified man held up a black revolver, levelled at Lex, presumably because she was the only one now armed, out of the three from Havenfort. The man’s ashen face was fairly clean, compared to that of his compatriots, his small, piercing green eyes juxtaposed against his wan skin. The bandit’s long, straight, black hair was held back, by a red bandana, knotted behind his ears. Conn noticed in his other hand he gripped a walkie-talkie.
“Weasel, here,” the man raised the device to his lips, speaking into the receiver, “got ‘em!”
Almost right away, the night air was unexpectedly filled with the brash roar of motorcycle engines. Headlights flashed and horns blasted, announcing their arrival a few moments later, riders and their bikes rounding street corners to swoop down on the Havenfort trio’s position. There must have been at least two dozen of them, emerging from all directions, surrounding Conn and his companions.
“Huh?” Brett struggled to open his eyes.
Conn watched as one olive-skinned biker, riding a Harley with tall ‘ape-bars’, pulled up behind the skinny guy with the gun. This reiver, presumably the boss (going by the way all the others crept away from him as he pulled up), was dressed in a pair of worn-out blue jeans, and a heavy, and rather cracked, leather cut-off. The man’s long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, his thick lips framed by a handlebar moustache. Stepping off the bike, Conn noticed he had a pistol tucked into his waistline.
“Good work, son,” he told the skinny man who called himself Weasel, clapping him on the back as he ambled up beside him. Guessing by Weasel’s prominent oriental features, Conn wasn�
��t convinced the two individuals shared any real familial connection.
Next, the boss-man approached Conn and the others. He had a rather casual air about him that Conn didn’t like. The biker didn’t say anything at first. Instead, he silently looked over the three of them with his small, beady, black eyes. Out the corner of his field of vision, Conn could see Lex had the AR-15 trained on him. Something the biker hadn’t let go unnoticed himself.
“You’d best lower that weapon,” the biker spoke to Lex calmly. “If you know what’s good for you. You’re surrounded, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Fuck you!” Lex barked, anger flashing in her dark eyes.
“Why thank you for the offer, darling,” he smiled. “Old Chuck could do with a new fuck-puppet. My old one’s rather clapped out, to be honest. And I imagine you’ll do just fine.”
Chuck is it? Conn thought quietly.
“Don’t you touch her!” Close to collapse, Brett tried to move forward, drooling a mixture of blood and saliva, and coughing.
Conn for his part, kept quiet. Instead, he watched the situation unfold, mentally weighing-up his options. He was desperately trying to figure a way out of the situation. Lex could easily take out Chuck using the AR, but could she take out his revolver-wielding sidekick as well? Lex definitely couldn’t take out the others, even if she got the drop on the first two. There were too many of them; the reivers would just overwhelm them using nothing but pure numbers.
“Easy, hero!” Chuck the biker switched his gaze from Lex to Brett, now doubled over and coughing harder. “I might just make you my bitch, as well!”
Chuck eyed Brett as he hacked, a disgusted look imprinted on his bushy face.
“Then again, going by the look of you, I might only get half-a-fuck out of you.”
There were several long seconds of silence after this. Conn noticed something change in the biker’s eyes. It was almost as if they grew darker. Old Chuck’s mood seemed to change with the weather. The man’s concentration was broken when a horrendous, deafening crack issued from above. As one, Chuck’s caravan of reivers as well as Conn and his team, all looked skyward. Pale clouds rolled over head, thunder rumbling vociferously with them. There would be rain soon, by the looks of it.
“Okay, no more fucking around,” Chuck growled. “Give us the keys to the trucks, and maybe I’ll let you live.”
“What’s to stop you blowing our heads off after we hand them over?” Conn finally spoke. “Presuming we cooperate, of course.”
“Nothing,” Chuck sneered, flashing a mouthful of rotten, yellowed teeth. They looked like they hadn’t been brushed in years.
They probably haven’t. Conn reminded himself.
Conn noted Lex still hadn’t lowered the AR, keeping it trained on the bikie. This was the only thing keeping Chuck, and his lackeys, at bay. The leather-clad man was nervously snatching looks at the menacing carbine in between the rolling cracks of thunder. The heavenly commotion was right above them now.
“You three are starting to test my patience-” Chuck told them as thunder boomed overhead, drowning out the rest of his sentence. Still, Conn didn’t need subtitles to know Chuck was at the end of his tether.
After a while, the thunder rumbled off into the distance, giving them the chance to talk uninterrupted. At least, until the next batch of reverberations arrived.
“Now hand over the keys,” he stared at them. “Or I’ll kill you, and take them anyway.”
“Try it,” Lex growled, tightening her grip on the assault rifle.
Please Lex, stay cool. Conn thought silently. Don’t do anything stupid.
More thunder barked above, the heavens sounding like they were in the process of being rent open by some angry, unseen deity. Conn’s heart was thumping against his chest as he eyed the biker warily, unsure what he might do. The guy was looking agitated and the din wasn’t helping his mood, each crackle working to unnerve him, chipping away at his relatively cool exterior. Chuck looked at Brett, who was almost unconscious and then at Lex, who refused to lower her weapon. Finally, he rounded on Conn, rancour in his glower.
“Talk some sense into her, will ya?” Chuck bellowed, another clap of thunder sounding, as if to accentuate his demand. “Give me the fucking keys!”
Conn wasn’t looking at Chuck, though. In fact, he was barely listening anymore. Rather, Conn was looking beyond the profile of the fuming biker. In the distance, growing larger with every second was a hulking great, reddish brown figure. Walking on two legs, its head and tail moved parallel to the tarmac as it traversed its way up Main Street. Conn struggled to conceal his smirk when he realized the crackling thunder was working to obscure the monster’s approach.
“What the hell’s so funny?” Chuck asked angrily. “You’re gonna be dead in a minute- you dumb fuck!”
Droplets of rain began to fall, gradually growing louder as they pattered off the hard ground around the mass of people, one after the other in quick succession. Nature, it seemed, was working in tandem with the awesome predator stalking towards the collection of mostly-unsuspecting humans. Conn didn’t respond to Chuck, he just kept watching the beast over the bikie’s shoulder.
Rain pouring harder now, the dull red creature slowly came into focus, plodding up Main Street, moving in a fashion similar to a giant bird, dipping its head as it went. The beast was massive, its humungous frame supported by two muscular legs, each ending with three clawed toes. Conn estimated it was close to forty-feet in length, from the end of its snout down to the tip of its tapered, whip-like tail. Previously, when he had caught a glimpse of it chasing the herd of Parasaurolophus, Conn briefly entertained the idea that it might be a Tyrannosaurus, but now he was sure it wasn’t. Apart from its overall size, Conn noted the giant reptile’s forelimbs were too long to belong to a T-Rex. Still, it was a theropod. It was comparable to a T-Rex, but not the same. The dinosaur had a similar round, bony, ridged cranium, with long, powerful jaws, containing curved, dagger-like teeth. The top row of which hung over the bottom lip when its mouth was closed. While its underbelly was pale, its maroon hide was lashed with thick, black stripes, similar to that found with a tiger’s camouflage. Furthermore, running from its crown, down the dinosaur’s neck, along its back, and most of its tail, were tall, savage-looking, spiked proto-feathers. Likewise, lining the sagging, leathery dewlap that hung from its trunk-like throat, were the same spiky appendages. Its yellow eyes, framed by hard, prominent ridges, zeroed in on the humans, picking out its preferred targets.
The towering dinosaur’s scientific description was Giganotosaurus carolinii. However, those who had survived the Flux preferred to simply call it G-Rex.
19.
Suddenly, the theropod took off running, heading straight for them all. Signalling its attack with jaws extended and head held aloft, the Giganotosaurus let out an ear-shattering roar, the vibrations of which worked their way into Conn’s bones. Snatching a quick look at the small puddles forming near his feet, Conn witnessed the small bodies of water rippling as the beast sounded off, before he returned his gaze to the dinosaur proper. In that moment, all eyes were fixed on the giant killer. The G-Rex barrelled down the cluttered street, each and every stride shaking the very ground it walked on. Using its big head, the dinosaur knocked cars out of its way like they were nothing, all in an effort to get at the small, loitering prey items, clustered in the centre of its territory.
Those reivers on foot, either fled or latched onto a comrade with transport. Conn watched, admittedly with some delight, as the G-Rex snatched up one reiver who failed to get his bike engine started in time. Snapping its jaws shut around the man’s upper-body, it lifted him into the air, mercilessly wrenching him away from his bike. The man’s legs kicked the air animatedly, dangling from the G-Rex’s powerful, clamped maw, his body pinned in place by its knife-like teeth. Flicking its head back, the Giganotosaurus didn’t waste any time, devouring the flailing human in a few quick bites.
Conn managed to tear his gaze
from the rampaging dinosaur for a second, to look at Chuck. At the same time, the biker turned to face the Havenfort trio taking his chance and reaching for his pistol. Recognizing the threat, Lex didn’t hesitate- she blew Chuck away with a quick spurt from her AR-15 whilst Conn and Brett could only watch. Chuck’s chest exploded in a series of red gouts, before he fell backwards, head slapping hard against the glistening tarmac as he landed. Lex pivoted slightly, still holding up Brett, aiming for Chuck’s skinny adjutant, but Weasel was nowhere to be seen. It was as if he had just disappeared.
“Let’s get out of here!” Conn told them, snatching Chuck’s pistol- a well-oiled Beretta- from the dead man’s waistline. Lex had been so quick on the draw that Chuck hadn’t even managed to remove the gun from his jeans.
“Help me get him in the truck,” Lex motioned with a nod of her head at the limp figure of Brett.
Conn inspected him for a moment. Brett didn’t look any fitter than before, still he couldn’t say the guy looked any worse. With some difficulty, Lex and Conn deposited Brett inside the rear cabin of the grey Ford, laying him down across the cushioned seats. Slamming the door shut behind her, Lex spun around, suddenly colliding with Conn. She had expected him to be making for his truck already. The two of them stood for a moment, silently watching the other, all hell breaking loose around them; the night air filled with rain drops, and beastly roars, and terrified screams. Eyes locked, Conn grabbed Lex by the nape of the neck, and moved to kiss her. Their lips met, tongues wet and eager, exploring one another. Hearts racing, the two became lost in one another, at least for a moment. Then, as suddenly as their embrace had begun, it ended.
“Go!” Lex slapped Conn’s chest.
Stepping backwards, she refused to take her eyes off Conn as she went for the grey pick-up. Conn, equally reluctant to let her go, jumped into the cabin of the other vehicle, watching her the whole time.
Flux Page 12