A shadow fell across him.
Caleb raised the rifle, but as his left hand reached forward to balance the barrel he realized the mag well was empty; the magazine had been stripped away. He had, at various times of his life, imagined the moment of his own death. These imaginings had not included lying on his back with an empty rifle while a viral tore him to pieces. Perhaps, he considered, that’s the way it was for everybody: Bet you didn’t think of this. Caleb dropped the rifle. His only hope was his sidearm. Had he racked it? Had he remembered to free the safety? Would the gun even be there, or had it, like the rifle’s magazine, been stripped from his person? The shadow had taken the form of a human silhouette, but it wasn’t human, not at all. The head cocked. The claws extended. The lips retreated, revealing a dark cave dripping with teeth. The pistol was in Caleb’s hand and rising.
A burst of blood; the creature curled around the hole at the center of its chest. With an almost tender gesture, it reached up with one clawed hand and touched the wound. It raised its face with a bland expression. Am I dead? Did you do that? But Caleb hadn’t; he hadn’t even pulled the trigger. The shot had come from over Caleb’s shoulder. For a second they studied one another, Caleb and this dying thing; then a second figure stepped from Caleb’s right, shoved the muzzle of a shotgun into the viral’s face, and fired.
It was his father. With him was a woman, barefoot, in a plain frock, the kind the sisters wore. Her hair was the barest patina of darkness on her skull. In her outstretched hand, she held the pistol she had used to fire the first, fatal shot.
Amy.
“Peter…” she said. And melted to her knees.
—
Then they were running.
No words were passed that Caleb would later recall. His father was carrying Amy over his shoulder; two other men were with them; one of them had the shotgun his father had cast aside. The portal was open; a squad of six soldiers had formed a firing line in front of it.
“Get down!”
The voice was Hollis’s. All of them hit the dirt. Shots screamed past them, then ceased abruptly. Caleb lifted his face. Over the barrel of his rifle, Hollis was waving them on.
“Run your asses off!”
His father and Amy entered first, Caleb following. A barrage of gunfire erupted behind them. The soldiers were shouting to one another—On your left! On your right! Go, go!—firing their rifles as, one by one, they backed through the narrow doorway. Hollis was the last to enter. He dropped his rifle, swung the door around, and began to close it, clutching the wheel that, once turned, would set the bolts. Just as the lip of the door was about to make contact with the frame, it stopped.
“Need some help here!”
Hollis was bracing the door with his shoulder. Caleb sprang forward and pushed; others did the same. Still, the gap began to widen. An inch, then two more. Half a dozen men were piled against the door. Caleb swiveled his body so his back was braced against it and dug the heels of his boots into the earth. But the end was ordained; even if they could hold the door a few minutes longer, the virals’ strength would outlast them.
He saw a way.
Caleb dropped his hand to his belt. He hated grenades; he could not put aside the irrational fear that they would detonate of their own accord. Thus it was with some psychological effort that he freed one from his belt and pulled the pin. Holding the striker lever in place, he angled his face to the edge of the door. He needed more space; the gap between the door and its frame was too narrow. Nobody was going to like what he was about to do, but he had no time to explain. He stepped back; the door lurched inward six inches. A hand appeared at the edge, clawed fingers curling with a searching gesture around the lip. A chorus of yells erupted. What are you doing? Push the goddamn door! Caleb relaxed his grip on the grenade, freeing the striker lever.
“Catch,” he said, and shoved it through the opening.
He thrust his shoulder against the door. Eyes closed, he counted off the seconds, like a prayer. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…
A boom.
The ping of shrapnel.
Dust falling.
* * *
58
“We need a corpsman over here right now!”
Peter lowered Amy to the ground. Her lips moved haltingly; then she asked, very softly, “Are we inside?”
“Everyone’s safe.”
Her skin was pale, her eyes heavy-lidded. “I’m sorry, I thought I could make it on my own.”
Peter looked up. “Where’s my son? Caleb!”
“Right here, Dad.”
His boy was standing behind him. Peter rose and drew him into a fierce hug. “What the hell were you doing out there?”
“Coming to get you.” There were scratches on his arms and face; one of his elbows was bleeding.
“What about Pim and Theo?” Peter couldn’t help it; he was talking in bursts.
“They’re safe. We got here a few hours ago.”
Peter was suddenly overcome. Thoughts crowded his mind from all directions. He was exhausted, he needed water, the city was under attack, his son and his family were safe. Two medics appeared with a stretcher; Greer and Michael lifted Amy onto it.
“I’ll go with her to the aid station,” Greer said.
“No, I’ll do it.”
Greer took his arm above the elbow and looked at him squarely. “She’ll be fine, Peter—we did it. Just go do your job.”
They bore her away. Peter looked up to see Apgar and Chase striding toward him. Above them, the gunfire had fallen to random spattering.
“Mr. President,” said Apgar, “I would appreciate it if in the future you did not cut it quite so close.”
“What’s our status?”
“The attack appears to have come only from the north. We’ve got no sightings elsewhere on the wall.”
“What do we hear from the townships?”
Apgar hesitated. “Nothing.”
“What do you mean nothing?”
“Everybody’s off the air. We ran patrols this morning as far west as Hunt, south to Bandera and as far north as Fredericksburg. No survivors, and almost no bodies. At this point, we have to assume they’ve all been overrun.”
Peter had no words. Over two hundred thousand people, gone.
“Mr. President?”
Apgar was looking at him. Peter swallowed and said, “How many people do we have inside the wall?”
“Including military, four, maybe five thousand, tops. Not a lot to fight with.”
“What about the isthmus?” Michael asked the general.
“As a matter of fact, we got a call on the radio from them a couple of hours ago. Someone named Lore, wondering where you were. They didn’t know anything about last night’s attack, so I guess the dracs missed them. That or they were too smart to try to cross that causeway.”
Above them, the guns fell silent.
“Maybe that’s it for tonight,” Chase said. He scanned their faces hopefully. “Maybe we scared them off.”
Peter didn’t think so; he could tell that Apgar didn’t think so, either.
“We need to make some decisions, Peter,” Michael cut in. “The window’s closing fast. We should be talking about getting people out of here.”
The idea suddenly seemed absurd. “I’m not leaving these people undefended, Michael. This thing has started. Right now, I need everybody who can hold a pitchfork on that wall.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
From the catwalk: “Contact! Two thousand yards!”
—
The first thing they saw was a line of light in the distance.
“Soldier, give me your binoculars.”
The spotter handed them over; Peter brought the lenses to his eyes. Standing beside him on the platform, Apgar and Michael were also scanning north.
“Can you tell how many there are?” Peter asked the general.
“They’re too far out to tell.” Apgar unclipped the walkie on his
belt and brought it to his mouth. “All stations, what are you seeing?”
A crackle of static, then: “Station one, negative.”
“Station two, no contact.”
“Station three, same here. We’re not seeing anything.”
And so on, around the perimeter. The line of light began to stretch, though it appeared to come no closer.
“What the hell are they doing?” Apgar said. “They’re just waiting out there.”
“Hang on.” Michael pointed. “Thirty degrees left.”
Peter followed his aim. A second line was forming.
“There’s another,” Apgar said. “Forty right, near the tree line. Looks like a large pod. More coming in from the north, too.”
The main line was now several hundred yards long. Virals were streaming in from all directions, moving toward the central mass.
“This is no scouting party,” Peter said.
Apgar bellowed, “Runners, get ready to move!” He turned to Peter. “Mr. President, we need to get you to safety.”
Peter addressed one of the spotters: “Corporal, hand me that M16.”
“Peter, please, this is not a good idea.”
The soldier passed Peter the weapon. He freed the magazine, blew on the top round to clear any dust, reseated it in the well, and pulled the charging handle. “You know, Gunnar, I think that’s the first time in ten years you’ve called me by my first name.”
The conversation ended there. A low, rumbling sound rolled toward them. With each second, it increased in intensity.
“What am I hearing?” Michael said.
It was the sound of feet striking the earth. The mass continued to thicken, its great, heaving volume barreled toward them. In its wake, a cloud of dust boiled high in the air.
“Holy God,” Peter said. “It’s everyone.”
Apgar lifted his voice over the din: “Hold fire till they reach the perimeter!”
The horde was three hundred yards out and closing fast. It seemed less like an army than some great spectacle of nature—an avalanche, a hurricane, a flood. The platform began to hum, its bolts and rivets vibrating in rhythm to the seismic impact of the virals’ charge.
“Will that gate hold?” Peter asked Apgar. He, too, had given up his binoculars for a rifle.
“Against this?”
Two hundred yards. Peter pressed the stock of the weapon against his clavicle.
“Ready!” Apgar bellowed.
One hundred yards.
“Aim!”
Everything stopped.
The virals had halted just beyond the edge of the lights. Not just halted—they were frozen in place, as if a switch had been thrown.
“What the hell…?”
The mass began to divide into halves, creating a corridor. Starting at the rear, it flowed down the middle with a rippling on either side. The motion seemed somehow reverential, as if the virals were making way for a great king to pass among them, bowing as he passed. A dark shape was pushing forward through the heart of the horde. It appeared to be some sort of animal. It approached the city with painstaking slowness, the corridor unfurling before it. All guns were trained on the spot where it would emerge. A hundred feet, fifty, twenty. The front wall of virals separated, opening like a doorway to reveal the shockingly ordinary figure of a person on horseback.
“Is that him?” Apgar said. “Is that Zero?”
The rider moved forward into the lights. Halfway to the gate, he brought his horse to a halt and dismounted. Not “he,” Peter realized. She. The glare of the spotlights ricocheted off the lenses of the dark glasses that obscured the upper half of her face. A scabbard containing some kind of weapon, a sword or long gun, lay slantwise across her back; crisscrossing her upper body, she wore a pair of bandoliers.
Bandoliers.
“Holy goddamn,” Michael breathed.
Peter’s mind was tumbling down a hole in time. “Hold your fire!” He raised his arms high and wide above his head. “Everyone stand down!”
Her back erect, the woman angled her face toward the top of the wall. “I am Alicia Donadio, captain of the Expeditionary! Where is Peter Jaxon?”
* * *
59
Thirty minutes had passed; everyone was in position. Standing back from the portal, Peter nodded at Henneman.
“Open it, Colonel.”
Henneman turned the wheel and backed away. From inside the tunnel came a slow clop of hooves. A frisson of energy rippled through the line of soldiers facing the portal; all guns were raised, all eyes arrowed over the barrels. A shadow elongated across the wall of the tunnel; then Alicia emerged. One hand held a short rope attached to the horse’s bridle; the second lay easily at her side. Her hair, that distinctive red crown, was pulled tight to her scalp, its length corralled into a densely woven braid that fell midway down her back. On her upper body she wore a T-shirt without sleeves, revealing the muscularity of her arms and shoulders; below, loose trousers, cinched at the waist, and a pair of leather boots. A quick scan of the crowd, the lights of the staging area rebounding off the lenses of her goggles like search beams, another step forward, and there she paused, awaiting instructions.
“Move forward,” Peter said. “Slowly.”
She advanced another twenty feet; Peter ordered her to stop.
“Blades first. Toss them forward.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
He had a sudden feeling of unreality; it was as if he were talking to a ghost. “The blades, Lish.”
She glanced to Peter’s right. “Michael. I didn’t notice you standing there.”
“Hello, Lish.”
“And Colonel Apgar.” Alicia gave a quick nod from the chin. “It’s nice to see you, sir.”
“It’s ‘General’ to you, Donadio.” The man’s arms were folded over his chest; his face was a hard scowl. “Mr. President, say the word and this is done.”
“ ‘Mr. President’?” From Alicia, a wry frown. “You’ve come up in the world, Peter.”
The old banter, the jokey tone: was it a trick? “I said, take them off.”
In a manner that struck him as leisurely, Alicia unbuckled the straps and tossed her bandoliers to the ground.
“Now the sword,” Peter said.
“I’m here to talk, that’s all.”
Peter lifted his voice toward the top of the wall. “Snipers! Target the horse!” Then, to Alicia: “Soldier, isn’t it?”
If he’d rattled her, she didn’t show it. Nevertheless, she drew the scabbard over her head and lobbed it forward.
“Now the goggles,” Peter said.
“I’m no threat, Peter. I’m just the messenger.”
He waited.
“As you like.”
Off they came, revealing her eyes. Their orange color had grown stronger, more piercing. Time had not moved for her; she hadn’t aged a day. Yet something was different, a quality not so much seen as felt, like the prickling of a storm’s approach long before the clouds arrived. Her gaze did not wander but held him straight. A look of challenge, though now that her face was unconcealed, there was something naked about her, almost vulnerable. Her confidence was a ruse; feelings of uncertainty lay beneath.
“Hit the lights.”
Three portable banks of sodium vapor lamps were positioned behind him. They went off like a gun, blasting Alicia in the face. As her hands flew upward, half a dozen soldiers charged forward and shoved her face-first to the ground. With a loud whinny, Soldier reared up on his hind legs and pawed violently at the air. One of the soldiers jammed the barrel of a pistol against the base of Alicia’s skull while the others covered her body.
“Somebody control that animal,” Peter barked. “If it makes any trouble, shoot it.”
“Leave him alone!”
“Colonel Henneman, shackle the prisoner.”
As two soldiers led the horse away, Henneman holstered his pistol, stepped forward, and chained Alicia’s wrists and ankles. A third chain
connected the shackles behind her back.
“Rise and face me,” Peter said.
Alicia rocked upright into a kneeling position. Her eyes were clamped shut, her face angled down and away from the harsh glare of the lights, like someone dodging a blow.
“I’m trying to save your lives, Peter.”
“You have an interesting way of showing it.”
“You need to hear what I have to say.”
“So talk.”
A moment passed; then she began: “There’s a man—more than a man, a kind of viral, but he looks like us. His name is Fanning. He’s in New York City, in a building called Grand Central. He’s the one who sent me.”
“So that’s where you’ve been all this time?”
Alicia nodded. “There are things I never told you, Peter. Things I couldn’t tell you. The viral part of me was always stronger than I let on. The feeling got worse and worse—I knew I couldn’t control it for long. Right after Iowa, I began to hear Fanning in my head. That’s why I went to New York. I intended to kill him. Or he could kill me. I didn’t really care which. I just wanted it all to be over.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Believe me, I wanted to. I wanted to slice his damn head off. But I couldn’t. The viral that bit me in Colorado wasn’t Babcock’s. It was Fanning’s. It’s his virus I carry. I belong to him, Peter.”
I belong to him. The phrase was chilling. Peter glanced at Apgar to see if the full meaning had registered. It had.
“Fanning and I had a deal. If I stayed with him, he’d leave you alone.”
“Looks like he changed his mind.”
She shook her head emphatically. “I didn’t have any part in that. By the time I figured out what he was doing, it was too late to stop it. All along he was waiting for you to spread out, your defenses to drop. It’s Amy he wants. If I bring her to him, he’ll call it off.”
The City of Mirrors: A Novel (Book Three of The Passage Trilogy) Page 45