Pandemic

by Scott Sigler

  Far behind, he saw some of the pursuers — soaking wet, chests heaving with big, deep breaths — giving up the chase. They would die within twenty-four hours, but not before, hopefully, exposing dozens of others.

  We did it, Margo … we did it.

  Tim looked around. Roth was moving again, struggling weakly to rise. Blood matted the right shoulder of his letterman’s jacket. Just to the left, on the other side of the cannon’s base, Klimas clutched at his bloody, ruined knee.

  And in the middle of the bed, Cooper Mitchell, standing tall and flipping a double bird at the pursuers.

  “How’s that taste, motherfuckers?” Cooper grabbed his crotch and shook it. “Lick it up! Lick it allllll up!”

  Engine 98 lurched. A grinding noise joined the diesel’s gurgle. The truck started to slow.

  Tim saw the street signs: State and Banks. They weren’t far from Lincoln Park now. Two long blocks and they’d be on the green grass.

  He heard a noise up above. There, two spots far off in the sky … helicopters?

  Rescue. They had done it. They were going to make it.

  Then he saw something else, something much closer … something hanging from a tree by its oversized, yellow-skinned arms.

  Engine 98 drove directly underneath it.

  The monster let go.

  GOOD-BYE

  Paulius didn’t see it drop, but he saw it land in the middle of the truck bed, almost on top of Roth. In that frozen, awful moment, Paulius noticed the monster had almost a full head of curly red hair. He wondered if the person had been Irish.

  A pale, sore-speckled arm stabbed down: a bone-blade slid through Roth’s letterman’s jacket, deep into his belly. The creature lifted the 250-pound man like he was nothing. Lifted, and threw — a screaming Roth sailed off the back of the truck to land hard on the pavement.

  Paulius gripped his knife and reactively started to get up, but the agony of his ruined knee stopped him cold.

  The wide-headed monster turned, locked eyes with Paulius. Rippling muscles drove its arm forward. Paulius flinched right — the tip of the bone-blade slashed the side of his neck before it punched through the cab’s back wall.

  A powerful blast of water caught the monster full in the chest and face, sent it tumbling over the equipment box. It smashed through the rear window of an Audi.

  Fire Engine 98 pulled away.

  Paulius reached up with his left hand, pressed it against the right side of his neck.

  He felt blood pouring down.

  Fifteen meters back, Roth managed to get to his knees before the horde descended upon him. A muscle-monster drove a bone-blade straight into his back. Paulius heard Roth’s final scream, then the man vanished beneath a swinging flurry of knives, axes and lead pipes.

  The water cannon’s powerful stream slowed — what had been a steady, straight blast now curved down, the landing spot quickly growing closer as the pressure faded.

  “Shit,” Clarence said. “We’re empty.”

  The truck suddenly started to wobble left and right, wobble hard.

  Paulius heard another new noise. Over the grinding engine, over the sound of metal scraping pavement, and over the ravaged vehicle’s broken rattle each time it hit a bump, he could just make out the thumpa-thumpa of rotor blades.

  And also, something else …

  The roar of motorcycles.

  CHICAGO BULLS

  Steve Stanton’s biker gang rolled to a stop at the T-intersection of North Avenue and North State Parkway. The park — flat and green, dotted with snow-covered, leafless trees — lay behind them. The wind had finally died down. It was turning into a beautiful day.

  There were five motorcycles now: the four he’d started with, plus one man who’d brought a Stinger missile from downtown.

  One block south on North Parkway, a shattered fire engine shivered its way toward them. How was that thing even moving? The windshield had so many splintered holes it looked white rather than clear. Torn metal lined the bottom where a bumper had once been. No grille, just a squarish, black hole with an oddly bent dead man jammed into it.

  The thing wobbled, left-right, left-right. Shredded tires flapped visibly.

  Steve pointed at one of his bulls.

  “You, go kill the driver.”

  The yellow-skinned beauty didn’t ask questions, it just sprinted down the street on impossibly thick legs.

  Steve looked at the others. He made a cutting motion at his throat.

  “Kill the bikes,” he said. “Get that Stinger ready. Let’s finish this thing.”

  The bulls did as they were told.

  When the last motorcycle’s gurgle died away, Steve heard something else.

  He turned to look back.

  Since his conversion, he hadn’t felt fear. Not once. That emotion swept over him now — not even fifty meters away he saw a helicopter coming in just over the park’s sparse trees. He thought back to that girl in his office, the one who said the helicopters she saw “looked mean.” Now Steve understood what she meant.

  “Well, shit,” he said, then he felt strong hands wrap around his waist and roughly pull him to the right.

  THE EQUALIZER

  The Apache pilot made a judgment call. Those were monsters standing at the park’s edge … genuine, straight-from-a-nightmare monsters. They were the bad guys. Ergo, anyone standing side by side with monsters was a bad guy as well.

  Five men, five motorcycles, four monsters.

  “Light ’em up,” he told his gunner.

  From inside the helicopter, the Apache’s M230 chain gun sounded like a staccato, three-second roll on a toy snare drum.

  Thirty-millimeter rounds tore into flesh, metal, grass and concrete, kicking up chunks of dirt, puffs of blood and flashing clouds of smoke. All targets dropped. The pilot saw a monster running right, carrying a small man in his arms. The pilot started to call out the target, but one of the fallen men rose to his knees, struggled to bring a long tube up on his shoulder.

  “SAM,” the pilot said.

  Another three-second drum roll answered.

  The man didn’t drop so much as he disintegrated.

  “SAM neutralized,” the pilot said. “New target running right, get him.”

  “Tracking,” the gunner said, but it was too late — the monster dove through the window of a gothic, white-stone apartment building.

  The pilot looked down the road, to the approaching fire engine. Another monster there, rushing headlong toward the battered vehicle. The creature was too close to it: chain gun fire would also hit the truck.

  The Apache pilot slowed to a stop and hovered, just thirty feet above the park.

  “Wait for targets of opportunity,” he said. “Be careful, we can’t hit our people.”

  “Affirmative,” the gunner said. “Should we elevate and hit that mob chasing them?”

  “Negative,” the pilot said. “Those assholes are already taken care of.”

  END OF THE LINE

  Fire Engine 98 vibrated as if it was driving on an endless road of deep potholes. The motor finally died. The truck rumbled along on momentum alone.

  Clarence heard the newly energized roar of the trailing mob — they saw their opportunity to finish the task.

  He turned to look forward. Ahead, clouds of smoke floated up from shredded bodies and mangled motorcycles. A yellow-skinned behemoth rushed straight for them.

  “Klimas, your knife!”

  The SEAL offered it up handle-first. Clarence took it, saw that Klimas had a blood-covered hand pressed hard against the side of his neck.

  “Tim! Help Klimas!”

  Clarence felt the cabin shudder from impact, heard the crunch of breaking glass, the deep-throated growl of a monster and the scream of a man.

  He slid up and onto the cabin’s roof, hands and legs spread wide to try to stay on the still-lurching vehicle. He slid forward across the slick, eight-foot-long, bullet-ridden surface.

  Clarence looked up in time to s
ee the engine bearing down on the motorcycles, the bodies and the sidewalk and park just beyond them. The truck ground over the obstacles, hitting so hard the cab bounced up, throwing him into the air. He came down hard, face smacking against the pockmarked metal. The knife flew from his hand.

  The truck’s front end plowed into the snow and dirt and grass … the knife skittered across the roof … Clarence pushed forward. The knife slid off the cabin’s edge … Clarence reached out and down.

  He caught it.

  Half hanging over the roof, he looked into the cabin, saw a broad, yellowish back on top of concave spider-webbed glass, and the flailing, bloody hands of the man trapped beneath.

  Fire Engine 98 finally rolled to a stop.

  Clarence raised the Ka-Bar knife high. He plunged it down into the monster’s neck.

  The thing barked out a noise of confusion, surprise and pain, a single syllable that could have been a question mark. It reared up hard and fast, its head crunching into the cabin roof right below Clarence’s waist, knocking Clarence up and forward and off — the frozen ground came up fast and smacked him in the face.

  Cooper Mitchell had still been facing out the back of the truck and flipping off the horde when Engine 98 hit the motorcycles and the sidewalk curb. The truck had decelerated quite suddenly — Cooper had not. He’d flown across the truck’s bed, stopping only when his head smashed into the water cannon’s metal post.

  Tim’s hands pressed on Klimas’s neck. To his right, Cooper rolled weakly, clutching the back of his head, face screwed up tight.

  “Mitchell, get up,” Tim said. “The helicopters are here!”

  Tim heard the roar of a crowd; he looked back — the horde was rushing in, weapons held high, blades glinting in the morning sun. Not even fifty meters away and closing fast.

  He took his hands off Klimas’s neck, slid one arm under the man’s legs, the other behind his back. There wasn’t time to do things right. Tim pushed up as hard as he could, groaning with effort as he tried to lift the heavy man onto the equipment boxes and dump him over the edge.

  THE GRIM REAPER

  The horde closed in. They could see the red truck that they had chased across the city, now just fifty yards away. So close … so close. The humans had sprayed them with water. Such a strange thing to do, but the Chosen would dry out soon enough.

  The Chosen knew the motorcycles had carried their emperor. As they ran, they shouted to each other, in shock, in sadness.

  He’s dead!

  The emperor got shot!

  No way he lived through that!

  Few of them had met the emperor, but they all remembered the emperor’s final order: kill Cooper Mitchell.

  Forty yards …

  They saw a small man push a bigger man over the edge of the truck. The bigger man fell hard to the ground below. The small man leaped over the side.

  Thirty yards …

  They saw another man stand up in the back of the truck, swaying, confused, his hands clutching the back of his head.

  As a unit, they all recognized the man. They had all seen the pictures, and many of them had watched the video. It was him: Cooper Mitchell, public enemy number one.

  The horde let out a unified roar. They had him now. They rushed down the street, so many of them that the humans didn’t stand a chance.

  Twenty yards …

  The AC-130 was too high up for the engines to be heard. So far away, in fact, that the horde didn’t even hear the plane’s guns go off.

  The street transformed into a flashing hell as 1,800 rounds per minute of 25-millimeter high-explosive fire tore into bodies, vehicles and pavement.

  The horde started to scatter even before the first 105-millimeter howitzer round landed right on the dividing line of North State Parkway, pulverizing bodies, knocking cars on their sides and rattling the snow off of bare branches.

  Confusion reigned. People took cover in buildings or sprinted back down the street, moved anywhere but toward the fire truck. They didn’t know what was happening; they only knew they had to run and hide.

  The emperor had ordered them to kill Cooper Mitchell, but he had given another order as well … the order to evacuate the city. The mob’s will broke. The survivors fled, heading for their assigned vehicles, for the cars and trucks and buses and motorcycles that would take them north, to Milwaukee, take them east, to Michigan City and South Bend, take them south to Springfield, Champaign and beyond.

  The exodus began.

  MONSTER

  Clarence knew he had to move, but his ice-cold body wouldn’t react, wouldn’t obey.

  He heard something big land next to him, something that was still making a squealing noise.

  He also heard Margaret’s voice: Get up, baby … get up …

  The fog cleared. Clarence reached out, use the shattered front of Engine 98 to help him rise.

  In front of him, the muscle-monster did exactly the same thing.

  Clarence stood just in front of the driver’s seat, the monster just in front of the passenger seat. The knife still stuck out of the creature’s neck. Jets of blood squirted out in red arcs that fell on the park’s white snow.

  The monster reared up to its full height: eight feet tall and very pissed off. Yellow hands flexed into fists. Arms vibrated with fury, making the blood-streaked bone-blades shake and shimmer.

  Clarence wanted to turn and run, but his body wouldn’t let him. It was all he could do to stay on his feet.

  He was done for.

  The creature brought its right fist back to its ear, aimed the bone-blade at Clarence’s chest.

  I’m sorry, Margaret … I’m not going to make it …

  A clink of metal on broken glass. Just inches from the monster’s left temple, the barrel of a Benelli shotgun slid across the bottom edge of the windshield housing.

  The monster turned.

  “FUUUUCK …” it had time to say, then the shotgun jumped and the monster’s face disappeared in a spray of blood and yellowish flesh. The creature fell to its back, twitching.

  Through the windshield, Clarence saw the ashen face of Ramierez.

  “Hooyah, motherfucker,” the SEAL said.

  Clarence turned, letting the bullet-ridden truck carry his weight as he slid to the driver’s door. He opened it.

  Bosh was slumped down in the seat, covered in his own blood. He was still blinking, but not for long. The monster had torn his throat open. Clarence could see the front of Bosh’s vertebrae.

  Clarence shut the door. Out in the park, he saw a Seahawk helicopter coming in fast, nose tilted up for a landing.

  “Everybody out!” he screamed as he stumbled around to the other side. “Move, move! Get to the chopper!”

  He opened the passenger door to see that Ramierez had passed out again, shotgun still clutched in his hands.

  Clarence lifted Ramierez out of the truck and started toward the helicopter. To his right, Tim stumbled along, supporting the limping weight of Commander Klimas.

  Just one man missing, the only man who really mattered.

  Clarence stopped only long enough to shout over his shoulder.

  “Cooper! Come on!”

  GAME OVER

  Cooper Mitchell’s head hurt, really, really bad.

  He saw the horde scatter. Despite the pain, he felt elated. He’d won.

  “Suck a bag of dicks, you fucking douchebags.”

  He looked up to the sky, saw a slow-moving plane — just a dot, really, but whatever it was, it had ended the fight. Too bad it hadn’t arrived sooner; Roth might have made it.

  Cooper had blood all over his hands. His blood, pouring out of a cut on the back of his head. He was probably going to throw up soon, thanks to the eye-narrowing throb going boom-boom-boom inside his skull.

  He grabbed the water cannon’s post, used it to pull himself to his knees. He put his right hand down to press up, felt something smooth and hard beneath it — the fire axe.

  His pistol was empty. For tha
t matter, he didn’t even know where the thing was. He grabbed the axe handle, lifted it as he stood. His legs felt like rubber. He sat on the bullet-ridden metal box and slid his legs over the side. He dropped, almost fell when he landed.

  His right hand held the axe handle. He pushed the top of the head against the ground, used the axe as a cane. There wasn’t one spot on his body that didn’t hurt.

  The helicopter. Right there. He’d made it.

  Cooper heard movement behind him. He turned sharply.

  Not five feet away, slowing to a stop, was the Monster Formerly Known as Jeff, and hiding behind him, head not quite reaching Jeff’s massive shoulders, was Steve Stanton.

  Steve looked terrified. His eyes darted everywhere, but always flicked back to Cooper.

  Only a part of Cooper noticed this, because he couldn’t stop looking at Jeff — huge body, pale yellow skin gleaming from a sheen of sweat, mouth open, chest heaving slightly from exertion. So goddamn big. And those massive arms, the bone-blades jutting from the backs of his hands.

  Jeff raised a hand to his head. His fingers flipped back imaginary hair.

  “COOOO​OOPEE​EERRR​RRR …”

  “Hey, buddy,” Cooper said. He didn’t feel afraid this time, which made no sense at all — Jeff was a thing, a thing with fucking bone-swords for arms. And yet, Cooper had won. He couldn’t die now … it simply was not possible.

  Steve pointed a shaking finger at Cooper. “Jeff, kill him! Skin him!”

  The Monster Formerly Known as Jeff blinked slowly. He took a step forward.

  Cooper held up his left hand, palm out: stop right there.

  “It’s me, bro. It’s Coop. Don’t do this.”

  Jeff lifted a gnarled, yellow foot to take another step forward, then put it back down. His face was distorted, misshapen into a mask of evil, but Cooper could still read his lifelong friend — Jeff didn’t want to attack.