The younger man watches worriedly as the truck swings out of the parking spot and, with an engine roar, takes off down the row of trailers.
It’s still raining, but the worst of the storm has passed. As he speeds up the dirt row, Lucas checks his phone and finds that he’s back up to two bars. “Gracias, Cristo,” he mutters, already scrolling through his contacts, looking for one in particular.
The number rings three times and disconnects; he spits a curse and tries again.
“—llo? Mr. de— —ra?”
“We’re being attacked!” Lucas snaps, swerving to a stop next to Condy’s trailer. “We have sharps out here!”
“—can’t hear— — —arps? Did you— — —”
“I need backup! I have at least a hundred civilians gathered in the community center—”
The call disconnects. When Lucas looks at the phone, he finds that the two bars have become ‘No Signal’. He bites down on his frustration and shoves the phone into his coat pocket, resolving to check it again every few minutes.
Lucas climbs out of the truck and heads straight for the front door of Condy’s trailer, shotgun in hand. He secretly wishes he’d listened more closely to what Io was babbling about the old man — something about him acting ‘crazy’. But Condy is one of the most level-headed people in the site, a bastion of sanity compared to most residents. Lucas can’t wait to get him caught-up on the situation and seek his input.
A minute of door-pounding later, no one has answered, and Lucas is beginning to look around for needle-bodied threats. “Mr. Condy!” he calls again. “I need to take you to shelter! Mr. Condy!”
He tries the door and finds the lock shattered. Probably Io’s handiwork. Steeling himself for an awkward encounter — the old man might be napping, or in the shower — he pulls the door open and steps inside.
The trailer’s interior is hot, suffocating, and pitch-dark. Lucas stands dripping in the doorway for a moment, instinctively holding the shotgun a little closer.
Clackety clackety click
He jumps a little, then peers deeper into the trailer. There is Condy, seated at his desk with shoulders hunched forward, eyes riveted on the screen of his laptop. Next to it glows the blue orb from Io’s rave toy, nestled in a dock hacked together from spare parts.
“Mr. Condy,” Lucas says. No response. “You need to come with me. There are sharps in the site.”
Another explosion of typing. The old man is entranced, only taking his eyes off the screen to occasionally gaze into the blue orb’s depths. Lucas has never seen a sober man so mesmerized — at least, he hopes Condy is sober.
He steps closer and waves a hand between the old man and his computer screen. Condy registers the movement, grimaces distractedly at it, then resumes typing.
Lucas draws a deep breath, accepts the fact that he is officially the only sane man left within shouting distance, and switches the shotgun to his other hand. “I’m going to take your arm and guide you out of the trailer now.”
The moment Condy feels the touch on his arm, he yelps and flinches away. In the glare of the laptop screen, he blinks up at Lucas with hazy confusion. “Whozzat? Luke? That you, Luke?”
“Yes, it’s me,” he grits. “We need to evacuate to shelter.”
The old man stares at his laptop screen for a moment, then abruptly snaps it shut. “I think I almost have it figured out. I made a preliminary macro, but of course, there’s no way I can test it without a dead body.”
Lucas heaves a sigh and tries to urge him to his feet. “Is that so?”
“I’ve made contact. And it’s better than I expected — I can rent services.” Condy slides the laptop into a sleeve and slings the strap over his shoulder. “Still haven’t figured out the conversion rate on miracles, but can you imagine? That’s why I picked such an extreme use case. If we can bring back the dead, who knows what—”
“Is there some medication you need to bring?”
Condy blinks at him. “What? Bring where?” Stare. “What medication?”
“Never mind.” He eyes the rave toy, then looks around and picks up Io’s backpack. “Everyone’s waiting for us at the community center.”
Mumbling to himself about miracles and script shortcuts, Condy slips the glowing orb back into its mace-like case and clicks it shut.
Lucas checks his phone but still has no signal. “We need to get moving.”
The cobbled-together chassis is too delicate to carry, so Condy carefully wraps it in a grocery sack and tucks it inside another. He ties the handles to his laptop case’s strap; the mace, he clips to the bag with a handy carabiner. “I’m ready.” He peers toward the front door. “Is it raining?”
“Arkansas weather,” Lucas mutters, leading the way back outside. He holds the shotgun at the ready in case any needle-covered nasties have arrived.
Condy tries to lock his front door, then mutters about it being busted. At last, he comes down the little wooden steps, looking around like a man awakening from an embarrassing daze. “Where’s your pal?”
“At the community center with everyone else.” Lucas leads the way around the front of the truck and unlocks the passenger door, holds it open.
“What about Io? I think she might be hurt. Or something.”
“Not last time I saw her.” He watches the old man climb in. “One of those needle things almost had me, and she fought it off with her bare hands—”
“Hang on! The hell are you talking about?” Horror sweeps over Condy’s face. “There are sharps in the camp?”
“Only one so far, but I’m not taking any chances. Buckle up.” He shuts the door and heads around to the driver’s side. The moment he’s in and the key is turned, he pulls into a hurried three-point turn. His door bangs shut loud enough to startle them both.
A white haze has rolled into the site, dropping his visibility to only a few yards. He starts back down the dirt road as fast as he dares.
Condy sits frozen in panic, a hand to his mouth, staring into space. At last, “The sons of bitches won’t stop opening portals in my vicinity. I didn’t mean to signal them. I only wanted to communicate within our dimension. I had no way of knowing—”
“Mr. Condy, I understand that these events are upsetting, but I need you to focus on—”
“I think this might be my fault,” the old man whispers. “I swear, I didn’t touch the goddamn laptop since I left Gothic, but today, the moment I— Oh noooo.”
“I can assure you that you had nothing to do with this.” Lucas grinds his teeth, winces at a flare of pain in his bruised chin. “Sometimes, the punch is coming, and the only question is ‘who gets to stand in front of it’.”
—flitting through the mist up ahead—
Lucas slams on the brakes, skidding in the rain-soaked mud. They come to a stop with the truck’s nose pointing slightly to the left. They’re nearly to the end of the row; white trailers extend ahead and behind on both sides, disappearing into the fog.
“Did you see that?” he demands, reaching back to put a hand on the shotgun propped against the backseat.
Condy stares at him, eyes haunted. “Kid, I want you to know that whatever happens to you, I never intended it. You did nothing to deserve getting caught in my fuck-up. You might be the only person in this God-forsaken camp I’ve ever respected—”
Lucas finally tears his eyes from the road and stares at the old man. “What?”
“I wish I cared about anything half as much as you care about your job. I-I mean, who ever heard of a hard-working Mexican, right?” (Lucas shoots him an incredulous look.) “But if you’re smart, you’ll drive straight out the gate and get us as far away as—”
“I’m not leaving the site until—” He glances ahead at the road.
There’s a six-foot-tall ‘X’ standing in front of the truck.
Condy screams. Lucas is already shifting gears, and slams the gas so hard, the engine roars. They surge forward, into, and through the standing ‘X’. It shatters
against the front hood, and writhing leg sections scatter over the windshield, gouging lines in the glass.
“Don’t stop!” Condy cries, holding his laptop case tightly against his chest. They clear the last trailers and speed toward the community center. Condy looks past Lucas and into the grassy field. “Jesus! There’s millions of ‘em!”
Lucas chances a single look out his window and sees blackness writhing across the winter-dead grass. His breath leaves his chest as if he’s been punched in the gut.
Passing up the empty parking spaces, he heads around to the office side of the building, thankfully the farthest from the field. They bounce off the edge of the road and into the grass. “See that first window?” he snaps, reaching back for the gun as he pumps the brakes. “That’s our way in! Run for it as fast as you can — I’ve got your back!” He brings the gun forward, sets it across his lap, then lets it go and tears the laptop bag and shopping sack from Condy’s shaking fingers. “Don’t carry shit! I don’t want you dropping it and—”
“I can’t leave it!” The old man tries to snatch back his precious cargo.
Lucas throws the items into the back seat. The truck slides to a stop and Lucas cuts the engine. There’s a horrible sound on the wind, a high-pitched squeal of styrofoam against ice. The flood of sharps approaches, each writhing monster a new nightmare.
The two men bail out, Condy moaning about the laptop. Just in case the old man decides to turn back, Lucas meets him at the front of the truck, grabs him roughly by the sleeve, and urges him forward. Black shapes writhe around the far corner of the building. “Hurry, hurry!” he orders, aiming the shotgun one-handed in that direction as he follows the old man to the window.
Condy shoves the window the rest of the way open and tries to get a leg up over the sill, then grunts in panic.
Two black hands appear, grab hold of Condy’s shoulders, and wrench him inside with a yelp. Lucas follows, swinging up over the sill with ease. The room inside is dark and weirdly quiet; the building has lost electricity.
He drops the shotgun on the floor, snaps the window shut, and begins piling up boxes to block the glass. They won’t provide much protection, but hopefully it will block enough noise to keep the monsters from noticing the window at all. Besides, the desks and tables are gone from the room, leaving a violent mess of papers, computer equipment, and office supplies.
Condy has been pulled upright by an irate Io. “Where is it?” she demands, shaking him with surprising strength.
“I don’t have it! It’s in Dumbfuck’s truck! He made me leave it!”
“When the flood passes, you’re getting it back!”
He swallows loudly and tries to pry her grip off his shirtfront. (Lucas is no help; now that the window is blocked off, he’s on his knees in the room’s wreckage, trying furiously to fix something in the dark.) “Listen, kid, I might need it again—”
With a soft grunt, Io lifts the old man up on the tips of his toes. He yelps and wriggles, but she has a firm grip on his shirt. “I need it more!” she growls. “I can’t make things right without it!”
“Me, neither!” he insists, trying to kick her.
“All I’ve wanted to do since I got here was leave!” Tears well in her eyes even as she shakes him threateningly. “Just give it to me and I’ll—”
She goes rigid for half a second, then limp. Boneless, she drops to the floor. Condy nearly falls after her, but regains his balance and backs away.
Lucas stands with his stun gun in hand, having just loaded a cartridge and then immediately applied it to Io’s back. “Thank God, something finally went right,” he mutters, and disconnects the spent wires from the weapon.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” Condy shouts. “I had that under control!”
“Keep your voice down.” Lucas kneels beside Io’s shuddering form, rolls her onto her side, and puts her wrists together behind her back. “She’s wanted by the director of the GQZ. Do you think it’s a coincidence that this shit-storm started barely an hour after she got here?”
“That’s not her fault!” Condy whispers furiously. “It’s mine!”
“She’s dangerous, and I’m not letting her run around loose anymore.” For want of handcuffs or zip-ties, Lucas unplugs a computer monitor, tugs the cord loose, and uses it to tie Io’s wrists. “I need to try calling him again.”
Io groans shakily, then jerks and tries to sit up. “Let me go!”
Lucas shoves her to the carpet and holds her down. “If you try to escape, I will shock you again.” He draws his phone from his pocket and tries to dial, but the call immediately fails. “Mr. Condy, I need you to check on the situation in the main room for me. I don’t trust this one unless I’m sitting on her.”
“You’re making a big mistake,” Io insists, struggling to stay calm. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m not going back there. You don’t know what they’ll do to me—”
“One more word out of your mouth and I will stuff a sock in it.”
Condy doesn’t want to leave the two, but the main room is eerily quiet, while the flood outside has built to a fever pitch. He moves to the door and, peering out, finds the evacuees organized into a loose ring around the dimly-lit basketball court, facing outward. Inside the circle are the sick and elderly. Everyone standing is armed with makeshift weapons gathered from around the building — chairs, table legs, screwdrivers—
Two tables have been set on their sides as shields facing the main doors, which in turn have been barricaded with every other piece of furniture in the building. There are the desks from the office, and the long folding table from the laundry room, and even one of the washing machines.
Zechariah paces before the doors, a strange black spear in his hand. Condy rubs his eyes; it looks like the spear is part of his arm.
The walls vibrate with the roar of a needle-giraffe. The evacuees cry out in panic and shock, most dropping their weapons and clapping their hands down over their ears. The roar’s effect is muffled by the walls, but several of the weakest elderly vomit on the basketball court.
Condy slides down the door and sits gulping for air. Even Lucas lets out a shuddering moan and blinks hard against the nausea. Io tries to buck him off, but he leans down on her, pinning her with his weight. She lets out a little shriek and struggles harder. Condy swallows his bile, trying to form the words to demand that Lucas stop being a little prick and—
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT
Everyone in the building ducks at the explosions of gunfire outside. Zechariah stares at the doors with renewed excitement.
In the shadowy office, Lucas lets out a relieved sigh. “The cavalry is here!”
For the next few minutes, all they hear is bombardment and shouting. Just outside the community center, the parking lot has become a battlefield.
BAM BAM BAM, comes a heavy knock at the main doors. “This is Gothic Quarantine Team Alpha!” a man shouts through them. “Open these doors and prepare for evacuation!”
The people in the basketball court cry out and hurry past Zechariah to begin dismantling the barricade.
“Do not panic! We have the situation under control! Form an orderly line!”
“Let me go!” Io shrieks, and this time she bucks almost hard enough throw Lucas off.
With the furniture barricade pulled apart, the double doors swing open and the evacuees stream out. Five helmeted soldiers slip in, guns ready but pointed at the court floor, surveying the scene. At the sound of Io’s cries, they move to the office doorway.
Two soldiers immediately move to subdue Io; a third helps Lucas to his feet. “Mr. de la Mora?” he asks, voice distorted by his heavy helmet.
Lucas blinks up at the soldier. “The Director received my call, then?”
“I did, and I apologize for that bit of secrecy; I didn’t yet know that you could be trusted. Then I walked in and found you with our stray asset in an armlock.” He looks toward the still-struggling Io. A soldier has placed her in a hea
dlock with his sidearm pressed to her temple, while the other binds her wrists and ankles with thick metal zip ties.
To his own surprise, Lucas is horrified. He’s arrested his share of unstable, struggling maniacs, but these men treat her like a ferocious wild animal, the life of which is cheap.
The Director releases a catch under his chin and lifts his helmet up over his head. The face revealed is African-American, mouth twisted in a permanent frown. His black hair is cropped short and severe against his scalp. When his dark eyes return to Lucas, the shorter man feels probed for unspoken weaknesses.
“First Sergeant William Drews,” he introduces himself, holding out a hand to shake. “And as of recently, Director of the Gothic Quarantine Zone.”
Lucas suddenly recognizes the man’s voice from months before, and can’t help his jaw falling open. “You’re the one who set off the blue pulse!”
“For all the good it did,” he confirms solemnly, shaking his hand.
“I kept expecting to see you doing sponsorships, or receiving medals, or something.”
“Working in the GQZ certainly makes time fly.” He glances down at their captive again; to Lucas’ renewed horror, they’re trying to muzzle her. “She may have had a weapon with her, like a black mace. Have you seen it?”
“I— Yes, but it’s out there.” He waves vaguely toward the front of the building, somehow reluctant to draw the man’s attention to his prized pickup truck.
“Then we’ll recover it in good time.”
“She told us it was a toy.”
“Far from it. In human hands, it is a powerful weapon.” He shifts his arm so that his jacket opens a little, and Lucas spies an identical weapon hanging from his belt.
Io snaps her teeth at a soldier’s fingers. “She swore that they would never be used against us!”
The Director fights not to roll his eyes. “I’m glad you saw through its charade,” he tells Lucas. “We’ve been trying to get this one back into containment for weeks.” (More gunfire explodes from the direction of the grassy field.)
New Night (Gothic Book 2) Page 5