Dark Days

by Bradley, Arthur T. , Ph. D.

  “That’s right.”

  “So you didn’t kill her fiancé?”

  “I did, but it was self-defense.”

  “And you didn’t have sex with her in your room last night?”

  Mason said nothing.

  “I see. And how might you explain her ending up in the trunk?”

  “That wasn’t my doing.”

  “And yet here you are with her.” Dix shrugged. “You can see how it looks, Top.”

  Mason let his eyes move from one man to the next. All four watched him like wolves getting ready to take down a cornered animal.

  “I discovered that Locke is murdering infected people and using them in his food bars. He’s doing all this to try and shut me up.”

  Dix let out a chuckle. “Is he now?”

  Mason pressed his lips together. The trap was too tight. There was simply no easy way out. It was time to either chew off his foot or let the wolves take him.

  “The way I see it,” said Dix, “you have two choices. You can either return with us to the New Colony to stand trial, or you can try to shoot your way out of this.” He glanced back at Cam and Red. “As good as you are, I don’t see that option working out for you.”

  Mason squared himself, his hand hanging loose beside the Supergrade. He had learned a long time ago that bad situations were best faced head on. Asking why it was happening was counterproductive at best, and debilitating at worst. Dix was right in one sense. There was no way he was going to win in a shootout against the four of them, especially standing exposed on the bridge the way he was. But just like French, Dix was forgetting something—the value that each person puts on his or her own life.

  “There’s a third option,” he said, forcing his voice to stay calm.

  “Oh? And what’s that?”

  “You can take the girl back to Locke, and let me go on my way.”

  Dix looked over at Beebie. The big man shook his head.

  “Beebie doesn’t like that option. He likes to see people get their due. You of all people should understand that.”

  “I don’t think you’re considering all the benefits of option three.”

  “No? What are we missing?”

  Mason met his stare. “Option three allows you both to live.”

  “Come again?”

  “You know me well enough to know that when I tell someone I’m going to kill them, they might as well start digging a grave.”

  “So?”

  “So, I’m telling you now—if you force me to draw, I’ll put you down first.” He looked over at Beebie. “Beebie will go next. Cam and Red will likely get me and Bowie, but it won’t change what happens to the two of you.”

  Beebie took a step toward Mason, but Dix brought a hand up between them.

  He turned back to Mason.

  “We’re listening.”

  Mason glanced around. There wasn’t much to work with. He couldn’t trust them to let him cross the bridge. Once they were out of pistol range, they would pick him off with their rifles.

  “I’ll go down onto the barge. If you want me bad enough, you can come and get me. If you decide it’s not worth the trouble, you can load up and take the girl back to Locke.”

  Dix’s lips turned up into a smile.

  “I like it.” He looked over at Beebie. “What d’ya think, big man?”

  “Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”

  Dix said to Mason, “How’s a count of sixty sound?”

  “Better than fifty-nine.”

  He nodded. “Anytime you’re ready, Top.”

  Mason gestured toward Cam and Red.

  “Tell them to hold their fire.”

  Dix turned and hollered, “Hold your fire, boys! He’s going aboard the ship.”

  The two looked at each other, confused, but lowered their rifles nonetheless.

  Mason motioned to Bowie, and together they backed toward the edge of the lift. If Dix or Beebie went for their weapons, Mason was determined to shoot them both. Doing so would all but ensure his death at the hands of Cam and Red, but he was, if nothing else, a man of his word.

  In the end, neither came to pass. Dix waited until Mason reached the edge of the lift before starting his count.

  “Sixty! Fifty-nine, fifty-eight…”

  Mason turned, jumped across the small gangplank, and disappeared into the wheelhouse. Bowie was a half-second behind him, barking and woofing as he went.

  The hunt was officially underway.

  Mason did his best to silence the voice in his head that was busy grumbling about the injustice of having to square off against his own men. The whole affair was repugnant and grossly unfair, but it was also the reality he now faced. As he had told many a young soldier, the first step to staying alive was accepting the shithole that you found yourself standing in.

  After acceptance came identifying anything that might improve one’s chances of survival. In this case, Mason concluded that fighting it out with four men in close quarters was far better than an open-air shootout. Plus, it didn’t hurt that he had previously explored a portion of the ship, giving him a slight advantage in terms of knowing the battlefield.

  Like every lopsided conflict, the key to winning would be dispatching his enemies one at a time. Mason knew each man well enough to know their respective strengths and weaknesses.

  Dix prided himself a commander, a man who could put together a strategy and drive men toward its execution. But Mason had witnessed how he was frequently impatient, tending to act quickly and often without careful consideration for his safety or that of his men.

  Beebie was a monster, through and through, fearless and powerful. His weakness lay in that he tended to rely on that strength to see him through difficult situations. When in doubt, he squeezed the life out of anything in his way.

  Cam was by far the most ruthless of the group, a man all too willing to set aside mercy for expediency. But he was selfish and felt little loyalty to others, making their allegiance to him equally as weak.

  And then there was Red, the loner of the group, clever and cunning, but likely to break off and hunt Mason on his own terms.

  Mason promised himself that he would make every effort not to kill his former teammates. Through no fault of their own, they had become Locke’s unwitting pawns. With that said, however, he could not afford to forget that the enemy was just that—the enemy.

  All of this passed through his mind as he dashed down the ship’s stairwell, Bowie skittering along behind him. As soon as they reached the bottom level, Mason dropped to his knees and squirmed through the crumpled door. Bowie pressed a wet nose to his back, as if nudging him to get a move on.

  The canting of the ship’s deck worked both for and against Mason. While it made it difficult to traverse, it also put much of the deck out of view from the lift above. That meant that he could move about with relative impunity, at least until Dix and the others came aboard.

  The boat was enormous, making the deck a veritable maze on which to navigate. He suspected that the men would likely split into two groups, one pair going below deck and the other searching topside. They easily outgunned him and would likely conclude that two rifles against his pistol were decent enough odds. And they would be right.

  Leaning against the tilt of the vessel, Mason sprinted toward the jumble of shipping containers. The deck was painted with a red gritty substance that reminded him of the clay used on expensive tennis courts. Even so, it was wet from water sloshing up over the railing, and he had to be careful not to lose his footing.

  He approached a narrow channel created by several of the shipping containers. One of the larger forty-foot units had toppled off the others and now pulled taut against a single polyester strap holding it in place.

  Having served as an Army Ranger in some of the most inhospitable places on earth, Mason considered himself well versed in the use of booby traps. Some relied on explosives, others used spring-activated projectiles, and still others incorporated various
types of deadfalls. Nearly all were designed to direct energy toward the enemy.

  He studied the dangling container, wondering whether there might be a way to use its precarious state to inflict injury. Carefully unlatching and opening one of the container doors, he let the sunlight spill in to highlight its contents. Pallets had been upended, and large sacks of bleached wheat flour lay throughout. The dusty white flour had settled on the walls, floor, and ceiling like a thick layer of cocaine. At the back of the unit was an identical set of double doors.

  An idea came to him. It was far from foolproof, but then traps rarely were.

  He looked over at Bowie. “It’s time to see if we can catch us a mouse.”

  Even with the odds in their favor, Dix knew better than to underestimate Marshal Raines. The man was rattlesnake-fast with a gun, not to mention clever and bordering on heartless. As he had proven only the day before, he could carve a man from belly to sternum and pause only long enough to ask someone to pass the jam. The fact that he had gone completely off the reservation, resorting to murder, rape, and kidnapping, didn’t come as a complete surprise. A disappointment, yes, but not a surprise.

  Everyone was filled with a mixture of good and bad, and normally Dix tended to be rather forgiving of a man’s shortcomings. Lord knew he had his own. But Marshal Raines had become something that he couldn’t forgive: a hypocrite who hid behind a badge.

  Beebie, Cam, and Red stood in a small circle, waiting for Dix to formulate some kind of plan. Brooke had retreated to the cab of the truck Locke had provided for their pursuit.

  “Listen up,” he said. “If we’re to have any hope of taking Marshal Raines without at least one of us eating a bullet, we’re gonna need to work as a team.”

  “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you’d just shot him when you had the chance,” Cam pointed out.

  “Easy for you to say. Beebie and I were the ones in his line of fire.”

  Cam didn’t protest any further. They had all seen Mason work his Supergrade, and none wanted to be on the wrong end of it.

  “He’s one man with nothing more than a pistol,” said Dix. “If we can keep from doing something stupid, this should be a done deal.”

  Red glanced back at the truck.

  “Any chance he might be telling the truth? That this is all some big setup?”

  Dix shook his head. “I’d like to believe it, but too many things don’t add up—Cash, the woman being taken prisoner, his fleeing from The Farm without so much as a word to any of us. My view has always been that if it walks like a horse and shits like a horse, it’s a safe bet that it’s a horse.”

  Red nodded. “Just a shame, that’s all. I kind of liked the marshal.”

  “Hell, Red, we all did. He saved Beebie and me from being monster chow only yesterday. But for the next few minutes, we’d better all get our heads on straight. We just declared war on a man who knows war better than any of us.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement. If they were going to do this, they needed to go in with both barrels loaded.

  “Rule number one,” said Dix. “We do everything slow and careful. Nobody try to be a hero.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” muttered Cam.

  “If you spot him, try to pin him down to give the rest of us time to gather on your position. Don’t wait for a clean kill. Wing him. Put a bullet in his gut. Do whatever you have to in order to slow him down.”

  Beebie stepped forward. “Let me get my hands on him, and I’ll slow him down.”

  “Don’t worry, Beebie,” he said, patting the big man’s shoulder. “You’ll get your chance.”

  Dix led the group to the narrow plank, and one by one, they crossed over. They had seen Marshal Raines dart through the captain’s deck, but they moved methodically, first clearing the door and then the metal staircase beyond. The door at the bottom of the stairwell was crushed at the top, almost certainly from the collision with the bridge. The bottom corner had been bent outward, requiring that they drop to all fours to crawl through.

  Dix motioned to Red. “You’re the smallest.”

  “No way. That sonofabitch is probably waiting on the other side with his tomahawk.”

  Dix was about to remind him of who was in charge when Beebie stepped forward and bumped the door with his meaty shoulder. The top corner broke free, and the door swung open. All four men ducked to the sides of the open doorway and peered out.

  The ship’s deck was a labyrinth of colorful shipping containers, many of them strewn about from the ship having nearly keeled over. A few had broken open, their contents littering the gritty red deck.

  “Lots of places to hide,” Cam said, moving a wooden match from one side of his mouth to the other.

  Beebie poked his head out and peered around the wheelhouse.

  “There’s a door further around. The marshal could have gone down below.”

  “I say we stick together, clear the deck first, and then go down after him,” said Cam.

  “Problem with that is it gives him time to set up defenses, maybe even a trap or two,” countered Dix. “I think it’s better if we move on him quickly while he’s still on the run.”

  Beebie nodded. “I agree.”

  Dix said, “Cam, you and Red head down below. If you spot him, fire off a few shots. Beebie and I will do the same if we discover him hiding on the deck.”

  Cam and Red slipped through the doorway and around to the hatch that led into the belly of the ship. When they were out of sight, Dix nudged Beebie and pointed to the back of one of the shipping containers. He nodded, and together they sprinted through the doorway and across the slanted deck.

  Standing with his back pressed to the cold metal container, Dix warned, “Watch out for his dog—he’ll work you like a chew toy.”

  Beebie clutched his AK-47. “I’d hate to do it, but I’ll deal with Bowie if it comes to that.”

  Together, the two carefully maneuvered lengthwise along the ship’s deck, bounding from one shipping container to the next. As they approached one whose door was slightly ajar, Dix leaned his head around and took a quick glance inside. Pallets loaded with sacks of flour filled most of the space. He studied the scene for a moment. The flour on the floor looked slightly disturbed, as if someone had walked across it and then hastily sprinkled fresh flour over the top to cover his tracks.

  He inched the door open and squatted down to study the flour more carefully. And that’s when he saw it—a single paw print along the inside wall of the container. He pressed his lips together. Mason had missed it.

  There was another door at the rear of the container, which meant that the marshal might have escaped out the back. But if he had, why bother hiding his tracks? No, thought Dix, the marshal and his dog were inside the container, hiding behind one of the pallets stacked with flour.

  He motioned to Beebie to circle around back.

  The big man nodded and shuffled to the other end of the shipping container. When he was in place, Beebie leaned around the corner and gave him the thumbs up.

  Dix crept inside the container, silently rolling his feet from heel to toe. He listened.

  Nothing.

  He inched forward with his rifle pressed tightly to his shoulder. All he needed was a glimpse of a boot or a wag of Bowie’s tail, anything to confirm their presence before opening fire. When he was five steps in, Dix’s gut suddenly clenched. Pivoting slowly, he stared at the flour-covered walls.

  Suddenly, everything felt wrong.

  Mason lay atop a shipping container, some twenty feet away. Bowie rested beside him, not quite sure what game they were playing but enjoying it nonetheless. In one hand, Mason gripped the taut yellow webbing, and in the other, his knife.

  There were a lot of things that could have gone wrong with the trap. Dix and Beebie could have missed the container altogether. Even if they had peeked inside, they might not have noticed the paw print and fresh dusting of flour. But when things work, they work. And Mason watched with a
sense of professional satisfaction as Dix carefully advanced into the metal box.

  He waited for a slow count of five before running his knife along the heavy strap. There was so much tension on the webbing that it snapped with the slightest kiss of his blade. The container toppled sideways with a thunderous clang and began sliding across the deck.

  Beebie raced after it, shouting for Dix to jump, but it was moving too fast for that. The container plowed through what remained of the ship’s railing and disappeared over the side. A couple of seconds later, a loud splash sounded as the giant metal box smashed into the water twenty feet below.

  Beebie swung his rifle around, searching for a target. There wasn’t one. Realizing that he was exposed, he scrambled behind a nearby container, disappearing from Mason’s sight.

  “Sorry, Dix,” Mason said softly. “I know you didn’t want to go swimming.”

  The dog’s ears stood up and he stared intently at his master.

  “Stay close. Beebie’s next, and he won’t go down without a fight.”

  He rolled across the roof of the shipping container and dropped down the other side. Bowie clambered after him, half as graceful but with twice the energy.

  Mason turned and studied the deck. The one thing he knew for certain was that he didn’t want to square off with Beebie in any kind of unarmed altercation. Even with Bowie’s help, such a fight would be a tossup at best. His first thought was to try to trap Beebie inside one of the containers, perhaps finding a way to brace or lock the door. After what happened to Dix, however, it seemed unlikely that Beebie would risk entering any of the remaining metal boxes.

  It took Mason less than a minute to spot his next trap. A shipping container had toppled from a tall stack, landing on its side on top of another container. The doors of the fallen container had burst open, and one dangled down to partially block the narrow walkway between the rows.

  Mason grabbed the end of the door and lifted it slightly. It was heavier than he had anticipated, weighing perhaps three hundred pounds. Being hinged at one end made it easier to move, but the trap would still be a challenge to set up.

  His goal was to make a simple deadfall. He would brace the upper container’s door on top of the lower one, making a T-like structure. When the lower door was pushed out of the way, the upper door would swing down and sandwich the person between the two. A three-hundred-pound door swinging down from a height of nearly nine feet should be enough to knock Beebie unconscious, if not put him in traction.