Edge of Survival Box Set 1

by William Oday

  A cloud puffed off the exterior wall.

  He took a breath and squeezed again. The delta at the other end of the sights dropped to the courtyard as the bullet hit him in the hip.

  Ahmed fired again, a little higher this time.

  The delta fell to the ground and clutched at the leaking hole in its chest. Red bubbles spilled out onto the ground.

  Ahmed fired another bullet to end the being’s suffering. It did. He lined up another shot on a woman.

  No, not a woman. A beast that threatened his daughter.

  His eternal soul be damned.

  He would never allow these wretches to claim his daughter. May Allah judge him in the light of this terrible end.

  The shaking in his hands steadied as he pulled the trigger. A miss. He fired again and hit the delta in the stomach. It dropped to the ground cradling the red spilling from its belly.

  With the decision made, the action came quicker.

  BANG.

  BANG.

  Another delta fell. Ahmed emptied the magazine on another and fumbled to replace it with a full one.

  More deltas came over the wall. The courtyard below littered with their dead and dying bodies.

  There were too many. Or they were too few.

  Ahmed spent another three bullets taking down another delta, but he saw the futility of it.

  Glass shattered downstairs. He looked down and saw one battering at the plywood covering the first floor window. Two more beat on the front door. More glass shattered as a few others flowed around the house looking for the easiest way in.

  Ahmed’s legs went numb as he heard the sound of wood tearing apart.

  “Fall back to the hall bathroom,” Mason shouted from the other bedroom. “Go!”

  Ahmed raced to the door and guided Noor into the hall.

  A loud groan made Ahmed jump. It was too loud.

  And too clear.

  “Baba! I left mama’s necklace in the kitchen!”

  “Forget it,” Ahmed shouted as he grabbed her hand to pull her to the bathroom at the end of the hall. It was their final defensive position.

  “I have to get it!” Noor shouted as she wiggled free of his grasp.

  Her small, fragile form slipped down the stairway.

  “Noor!” Ahmed shouted. “Noor!”

  Someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him roughly around.

  In a fog, Ahmed reacted without thinking. He raised the Beretta and fired.

  Mason grabbed his wrist and cranked it over as the gun fired. A bullet punched a hole in the ceiling.

  Ahmed stared at the man he’d nearly killed.

  Mason stared back with cold, hard eyes. The eyes of a killer. The same eyes his wife must’ve seen before bullets tore through her body.

  Ahmed wondered at the cruelty of it all. To be killed by this man. The same devil that had killed his wife. His precious daughter lost to the savages.

  What was the point of life when such cruelty prevailed?

  “Get everyone into the bathroom!”

  Mason shoved Ahmed away and then bounded down the stairs. Roaring fury with a raised pistol in each hand, he looked like the coming of death itself.

  Perhaps he was.

  57

  They hurried to the bathroom and crowded in. Ahmed closed the door so that only his arm with the Beretta extended stuck out. He cursed himself.

  Why had he let his wife’s murderer run after his daughter?

  Why had he not done it himself?

  Confusion, rage, and shame bubbled like acid in his stomach.

  Mason had saved his daughter from the deranged police officer. Ahmed could not deny that truth. Did perhaps some part of his rational mind understand that only Mason could save her, if anyone could?

  Ahmed couldn’t recall consciously engaging in that train of thought. Had it been too fast to remember?

  Or was the reason much worse?

  Was he too cowardly to leap into the jaws of death to save his own daughter, just as he had been too weak to save his wife?

  Was his cowardice to doom the two most important people in his life?

  He cursed himself silently. He didn’t deserve Allah’s grace. He deserved an eternity of misery, of punishment, of pain. May Iblis take his soul.

  The chattering of the others behind was a distant hum to the volume of the accusations in his heart.

  He had tried to be strong. To protect his family from harm. He had failed. Failed in every meaningful way. And so his life was worthless. Worth nothing and so could be spent without regret. If Noor was to die, the decision was easy to follow.

  He wondered if throwing himself into the arms of the deltas was spiritually no different than suicide.

  He wondered why he even bothered wondering.

  Because it didn’t matter. Not if Noor was taken.

  If that happened, nothing mattered forever more.

  Gunfire erupted downstairs and the wailing and screaming intensified.

  Ahmed threw the bathroom door open.

  She would not die alone!

  He ran down the hall screaming at the top of his lungs, “Ana aasifah! Ana aasifah!”

  He slammed into a body flying up the stairs. The impact sent the Beretta skittering down the stairs. It no longer mattered. He welcomed death.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Mason shouted in his face.

  Ahmed blinked hard and realized it wasn’t a delta come to claim him.

  Mason carried Noor over one shoulder. He spun Ahmed around and shoved him down the hall. Feet thumped the stairs behind them.

  They all piled inside and slammed the door shut just as clenching hands arrived.

  Mason lowered Noor to her feet. She clutched Nalasif’s necklace tightly in her hand. Though not worth his daughter’s life, it was as precious as a material possession could be. The golden Farvahar pendant was a symbol of ancient Iran. The flat, stylized rendering of spread wings and tail feathers with a robed man in the center spoke to Zoroastrian roots and the Persian empire that spread its beliefs. Though born in Iran, his wife had always rejected the modern Islam of her homeland and clung to the deeper traditions that ran in her blood.

  Her rejection of his faith had always been an uneasy truce between them.

  Though the necklace represented an ancient religion he thought blasphemous, it also carried his wife’s blood and ancestry. And for that, it was precious.

  Noor burst into tears as Ahmed wrapped her in a suffocating hug. “I’m sorry, Baba. I’m so sorry.”

  “Innah bikhayr, qalbi. Innah bikhayr.”

  “Back away from the door!” Mason shouted.

  Ahmed stared at him in a haze of confusion and wonder. Mason had saved his daughter a second time. Did such a man deserve to die for a sin committed long ago? Could the present cancel out the past?

  He didn’t know. He kissed Noor’s forehead and wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks.

  They all pressed together toward the opposite end of the bathroom. The little chimp leaned out of Beth’s arms and reached for his daughter. Beth let Noor take him. The chimp touched a trail of wetness on her cheek and then put the finger into his mouth. He snuggled up into Noor’s neck and her tears turned to a smile as she stroked his back.

  The bathroom was not large. Not large for the number of people packed inside. Mason’s family. Elio and his mother. Iridia holding Mr. Piddles. Himself and Noor.

  Mr. Piddles yowled nervously in Iridia’s arms. She held him close, whispering assurances in his ear. She stepped into the shower and helped Maria in after her. Elio and Theresa pulled tight together. Beth backed up with all of them behind. Ahmed guided Noor to Beth who helped her into the shower.

  Mason stood at the front, only a couple of feet from the door as it shuddered and shook from the impacts on the other side. He held two pistols forward waiting for the first brute to break through.

  Ahmed had thought nailing a second bedroom door to the inside of the bathroom door had seemed silly. He didn�
�t think so now.

  The pounding outside shook the walls. Dust billowed out of cracks forming around the door frame.

  Mason handed him one of the pistols. “Take it. Make every shot count. I’ve got one extra magazine for you.”

  Ahmed accepted the weapon and lined it up on the door. He was stupid to have lost the Beretta, but he would give a good account of himself before the darkness claimed him.

  He stepped forward to join Mason. Their shoulders touched and Mason glanced at him for an instant.

  Wood splintered as the first door started to give way.

  “Beth! Don’t let them take the kids!” Mason shouted.

  Beth drew her pistol and turned toward those behind her. “I won’t.”

  Mason looked at Ahmed with eyes that could’ve cut throats. His jaw hard and unyielding. The smallest nod of his head said it all.

  Ahmed returned the acknowledgement.

  There was no escape.

  They would die.

  They both knew it.

  But they would not die quietly. And they would not allow these fiends to take their children.

  Ahmed said a silent prayer. He didn’t know how Allah could judge the righteousness of their actions in such a situation. He did know one thing.

  He wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.

  58

  MASON’s heart thudded in his ears. The pounding in his chest was like a beast trying to break out of a bony cage. The surge of adrenaline threatened to swamp his reason. He took a deep breath and held it, fighting to maintain his reason. To hold on to the steady voice in his head rather than succumb to the chemical madness urging him to survive.

  The screaming and yelling outside the bathroom door projected a physical tension. Their madness broke like towering waves on his drowning resolve.

  A thunderous crash sounded and the door shook. Another crash and the interior door, the last layer of defense, splintered in the center.

  Mason aimed the Glock at the crack. It would soon give way and whatever appeared in its place was going to eat a few hollow points.

  Ahmed shouted something but it didn’t register. He bumped Mason’s shoulder.

  “What?”

  “Did you hear that?”

  With his eyes still focused on the growing fissure in the door, Mason broadened his awareness. He heard it.

  Another thunderous impact and the crack tore open with a fist smashing through it. The fist pulled back and then an eyeball appeared. It glared at them with hungry intent.

  BANG. BANG.

  Two rounds punctured the eyeball sending the body thudding to the floor. The remaining deltas screamed in rage. Numerous hands grabbed the edges of the splintered hole and yanked it open wider.

  BANG. BANG.

  BANG. BANG.

  Mason fired into the hole knowing he was doing heavy damage, and also knowing it wouldn’t be enough. He counted off rounds and replaced a spent magazine before the last one cleared the chamber.

  At his shoulder, Ahmed banged away until the slide locked back. Mason grabbed the spent pistol and gave Ahmed his replenished one. He slammed in another magazine and got back in the fight.

  The slide locked back on Ahmed’s pistol. Eight rounds later, Mason’s did as well. He dropped the Glock and whipped out his folding knife and expandable baton. The center panel of the door was almost completely ripped out. The only reason they weren’t getting through was that a large delta had been halfway through when Mason had put a bullet in his brain. Grimy hands and ragged fingernails ripped through the man’s flesh trying to yank him back and out of the way.

  The delta’s body broke loose and disappeared beyond the door. A delta with a matted beard of dirt and blood jumped through the opening reaching for Mason. His outstretched hand came within a few inches before the whistle of the baton shattered the bones in his wrist. He screamed and Mason thrust the baton forward, shoving him back into the chaos of bodies behind. Another leaped through before Mason could raise the baton. The momentum slammed them both into the bathroom wall.

  Mason shoved the knife up into its belly and twisted. The attacker crumpled to the tile floor as yet another took its place. Ahmed wrestled with another that hadn’t yet gotten all the way through.

  “Beth! Do it now!” His own voice sounded far away, buried beneath the keening whine in his ears.

  Beth pointed her pistol at Theresa. Tears raced down her cheeks even as her hand held steady. “I’m so sorry, baby.” She shook her head. “So sorry.”

  Theresa cowered away in the corner of the shower. Elio stepped in front of her. “Don’t do it!” he shouted.

  BOOM.

  A massive concussion outside blew the door off its hinges. It knocked Mason and Ahmed down like blades of grass in a hurricane. Smoke and particulate matter swirled in the air.

  Mason lay on the floor trying to catch his breath. He wiped debris out of his eyes. Through the hazy blur, he saw deltas falling left and right. The hallway flashed with gunfire, but all he could hear was the high-pitched whining. He touched his ear and felt the warm slick blood before he saw it.

  A blur of fur swept by as Mr. Piddles streaked out into the hallway.

  The last of the deltas fell and the blinding flashes in the hallway subsided. A large figure in black tactical gear appeared in the doorway. A black mask and goggles hid his face.

  Mason tried to rise.

  “Stay down!” the operator yelled as he pointed a submachine gun at his chest.

  59

  Mason slumped to the floor looking for his weapons as he did so. The knife wasn’t in view. It was likely buried under one of the delta bodies wedged in around them. He looked back and saw everyone on the floor, inside the shower and out, slowly recovering from the grenade blast.

  The operator looked back down the doorway. “Clear!”

  Another man appeared in the doorway. A thick fur-like sideburn clung to one of his cheeks. The other cheek had a patch of raw, red skin where a sideburn used to be. A substantial paunch hung over the belt line of his pants.

  The operator grabbed the man’s shoulder. “Sir, we need to restrain these people first.”

  The man flung off the restraining hand. “Iridia! My darling daughter!” He clumsily stepped through the bodies on the floor and grabbed Iridia’s hand.

  “Daddy!” Iridia said as she held to the side and hugged him.

  So this was Anton Reshenko. The man that had unleashed an assault team on his home. The man that had killed Juice and Linda.

  He was going to pay.

  “You must come with me, dear,” Anton said. He passed her into the protective arms of the man in black. “Let nothing happen to her!”

  He turned and spotted Clyde in Noor’s arms. His eyes lit up spotlights. “Give me the chimp!”

  Noor cowered in the corner and turned to shield Clyde.

  Anton lurched over and yanked the little chimp out of Noor’s arms. He held it by the arm like a dirty rag. Clyde howled and cried trying to reach Noor.

  Beth screamed. “No! Don’t take him!” She lunged for Clyde but tripped over one of the bodies on the floor.

  Anton stepped around her and passed it to an operator waiting at the door. “Secure the primate!”

  “Yes, sir,” the man nodded and disappeared down the hall.

  Beth screamed and struggled to rise. She was going to try something stupid.

  Not before he did, though.

  Mason spotted the baton partially buried in bits of wood. He slowly reached for it, wrapping his fingers around the handle.

  Anton turned to him. “I am Dr. Anton Reshenko. You are Mr. West, I presume?”

  Mason wasn’t in a chatty mood. He swung the baton up at the forearm of the operator. The end of the metal shaft connected with a satisfying crunch. He scrambled to his feet and drove a shoulder into the injured man’s sternum and drove him backwards out into the hall.

  He raised the baton and chopped down at Anton’s head but stumbled mid-swing.
The angle changed and caught him on the shoulder. Anton crumpled to the ground like his bones had turned to jelly. The baton rose for the death blow.

  SHUCK-SHUCK.

  “Drop it!” Another operator appeared at the door pointing a Mossberg 500 at Mason’s chest.

  A baton versus a shotgun might’ve been a fair fight under the right circumstances. But the operator had the drop on him. It would punch a hole in his chest before the baton moved an inch.

  “Okay,” Mason said as he opened his fingers and let the baton fall to the floor.

  “Step back!” the operator yelled.

  Mason did as ordered while also scanning the room for an opportunity to turn the tables. Nothing came to mind. There just weren’t a lot of options when a professional had a shotgun pointed at you.

  The operator helped Anton to his feet and pulled him into the hallway.

  Anton cradled his left arm in his right. He groaned and cursed. He stared at Mason with murderous eyes. “Take them with us. All of them. Except that one.”

  Another operator appeared and dragged Ahmed into the hall. He returned and grabbed Beth. “Let’s go!” He dragged Beth out of the shower and passed her to another operator standing in the hallway.

  “No!” she shouted and struggled to break free of an unyielding grip. “Don’t leave him!”

  They were not going to take his family. Mason lunged for the rifle hanging from the man’s chest when the butt of another rifle smashed into his cheek.

  The impact torqued his head to the side and dropped him to the floor in a heap.

  The muzzle of the rifle pointed at his forehead as a black boot doubled him up with a kick to the stomach.

  “Don’t kill him!” Anton yelled from the hallway.

  The operator pressed the muzzle hard into Mason’s forehead. It felt like the man was trying to dig a hole through his skull with a blunt stick.

  “Why not?”

  “Let the deltas find him,” Anton replied.

  A voice echoed in from the hallway. “Sir, we’ve got incoming contact outside. We need to get moving.”