by Mike Kraus
After he cleared the rotors, Mr. Doe straightened his back and raised his arm, keeping his pistol trained on Marcus. An all-black Walther, the cold steel matched the darkness of Doe’s suit and tie to perfection, giving an appearance that wasn’t just a coincidence. Intimidation was part of Mr. Doe’s arsenal of weapons, but it was one that Marcus was far too tired to bother with caring about. Bruised, beaten and run down, Marcus was stretched to his limit. His physical condition, combined with feelings of shame and guilt over having lost control earlier and having led Mr. Doe straight to them, Marcus’s mind was no longer capable of feeling intimidation.
“Your name is Marcus, correct?” Mr. Doe stopped a few feet in front of Marcus. He held the gun with an iron grip, his arm never wavering as it kept the barrel aimed directly at Marcus’s left eye.
“That’s right. Marcus Warden.” Marcus blinked his eyes as he looked up at Mr. Doe, trying to wash away the dirt and dust that was still collecting there from the helicopter’s downwash. “Do you mind turning that damned thing off?” Mr. Doe’s eyes were cold and nearly black, and his expression didn’t change at all while both he and Marcus were speaking.
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Warden. Tell me again; where are the others?”
Marcus started to remove his right hand from behind his head to point toward the APC, but stopped as Mr. Doe’s index finger smoothly moved toward the trigger. Shit, Marcus thought, this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought. He stretched his back, moving it left to right in exaggerated circles. The cold steel and wood grain pressed up against the small of his back had turned warm, making every second more uncomfortable than the last. Having secreted the pistol beneath his shirt and pants before exiting the train, Marcus felt bad leaving Rachel and David defenseless, but one pistol wouldn’t be enough to stop Mr. Doe. It won’t be enough if I fail here, anyway.
“I already told you, Doe. Rachel was in the APC. David’s probably dead by now, based on him missing a leg.”
“You don’t seem very broken up about their deaths, Mr. Warden.”
Marcus shrugged as best as he could given that his arms were raised above his head. “I barely survived the end of the world, then I got to deal with some sort of hell creatures, then I got to drive all up and down the eastern seaboard and you just tried to kill me. I really don’t give a fuck about them, you or anybody else.”
Marcus breathed heavily at the end of his rant, his chest rising and sinking quickly. Was that too much? Doe was eying him closely, not saying a word. Shit, it was too much. Marcus tensed his muscles, preparing to throw himself to the side and grab his gun. It was a fool’s plan, but he was about to completely run out of options.
“Well then, Mr. Warden.” Doe’s arm dropped a half inch, the only sign of his lessened aggression. “If they’re dead, and you clearly will know nothing about what they knew, then your usefulness is at an end.”
Flames exploded from the end of Mr. Doe’s pistol along with a sharp crack that rose above the sound of the helicopter blades. Fire burned through Marcus’s shoulder and he fell forward, unable to stop himself from slamming his face into the dirt. He rolled as his body’s momentum continued forward, screaming in pain as his injured shoulder was scraped and bent against the ground, making the pain nearly unbearable.
“You son of a bitch!” Marcus yelled, spit flying from his mouth. “Just kill me!”
Doe held the gun to Marcus’s head. Now just a foot away, he was crouched down, staring directly into Marcus’s eyes. “I suppose I owe you that much. Tell me something, though, before I do so.”
Marcus said nothing as he gritted his teeth and breathed heavily, fighting the blood loss and pain in his shoulder.
“Which one of you was foolish enough to lead me to you?”
Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims
10:02 AM, April 21, 2038
Another knock on the door followed Nancy’s question, preventing Krylov from answering. A young man ducked in and quickly saluted the commander before leaning over and whispering in his ear. Krylov’s face remained neutral and he nodded at the man. Taking his coffee cup, he stood up and gestured for Nancy to do the same.
“Please excuse me for a few moments, Nancy. I need to tend to some urgent business. We’ll resume our conversation once I return. Until then, if you’d like to visit your companion, I’ve been informed that he’s conscious. Afonin will show you to the medical bay.”
Krylov stepped past the crewman who had spoken to him and hurried down the hall and out of sight. Grigory Afonin beckoned for Nancy to follow him and spoke in a thick accent, stumbling over his words. “Please, if you follow me.” Commander Krylov, to his credit, had nearly perfect mastery of English, and when he had spoken with Nancy, his accent was far less noticeable than any of the others on the sub.
“Please, watch your head.” Afonin pointed to the low doorway as they stepped into the hall. Turning left, Afonin walked quickly and Nancy hurried to stay with him, distracted by the numerous sights and sounds around her. After taking on the two Americans, Commander Krylov had decided to forego any pretense of stealth. The skeleton crew had quickly returned the Arkhangelsk to full power, and though most of the submarine was devoid of activity, lights, fans and electronic devices of various shapes and sizes were all powered up for use.
The walk from the room where Nancy and Krylov had spoken to the medical bay took several minutes. When she and Afonin arrived, he opened the door and stepped aside, allowing her to enter. “Knock to leave,” he spoke quickly, then closed the door behind her. Turning from the sealed hatch to the room interior, Nancy’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and she made out the shape of a body resting on a slightly inclined bed. She ran to the side of the bed and grabbed the hand of the person lying down, knowing who it was before seeing his face.
“Leonard! Thank God; you’re alive!”
Leonard’s eyes were closed, but he opened them at the sound of Nancy’s voice. His face was bruised from falling to the ground when he was shot, and he was pale, but he smiled regardless, happy to see Nancy once again. A light blanket was pulled up to his chest, and as Nancy looked down the length of the bed, she could see that the outline of his right leg stopped at the knee. Nervously she reached for the blanket to pull it up and see the extent of the damage for herself, but Leonard’s hand stopped her. He grasped her wrist weakly, trembling, and spoke softly, his voice cracking.
“Please don’t. I’m not ready.”
Nancy nodded and sat down on a stool next to Leonard. Taking his hand in hers, she held him tightly, staring at him in silence. Leonard’s breathing was ragged, though his heartbeat was strong, and Nancy could sense that he was fighting both the loss of blood and whatever drugs had been injected into his body to help dull the pain.
“I spoke to the commander of the sub, Commander Krylov, and told him what had happened.”
Leonard blinked his eyes slowly a few times, then gave up fighting the urge to close them. “Did he believe you?”
Nancy shrugged. “I’m not sure. He brought in a couple of other people who apparently encountered the swarms. Before we could keep talking he had to leave, though he said he’d be back to finish our conversation later.”
Leonard didn’t reply for a moment and Nancy looked at him closely, wondering if he had fallen asleep. After a deep breath, he opened his eyes again and looked at her intently. “Do what you have to, Nancy. This sub is our last chance if Marcus and Rachel fail. Do whatever it takes to convince him of the truth.”
“Truth shouldn’t need convincing.” A voice from behind Nancy startled her and she jumped up, turning around to see where it came from. “It’s the truth, after all.”
Commander Krylov stood in the doorway to the medical bay with another man behind him. They walked in and pulled up a pair of stools next to Nancy before sitting down. Nancy sat back down slowly, still keeping Leonard’s hand held tightly.
“Nancy, I gather that your companion’s name is Leonard. May I ask, sir, your full name
for our records?”
Leonard blinked lazily, masking the speed at which his eyes flicked between Nancy, Krylov and the other man seated next to the commander. “Leonard McComb. Professional sanitation engineer, survivor of the apocalypse and in desperate need of whisky and a peg-leg.”
Krylov laughed heartily at Leonard’s gallows humor. “It’s good to see you in high spirits! Our doctor was worried you weren’t going to pull through, but you’ve proved both his skill and your determination to live.”
Still grinning, Krylov took a small laptop computer from the man seated next to him and opened it, revealing the screen. On it was a set of open files, one of which was strangely familiar to Nancy, though she had trouble placing it at first.
“Do you recognize this information?” Krylov asked, holding the laptop closer for both Nancy and Leonard to view. Nancy looked at Leonard, trying to remember where she had seen it, when a memory returned to her and she suddenly realized what it was. “Where did you get that?”
Leonard coughed and spoke before Krylov could answer. “I’ll hand it to you, Krylov; your men are quite thorough in their searches.”
Nancy turned back to Leonard, her eyes wide as he continued, explaining the source of the data to Nancy.
“I grabbed the data stick from Rachel back at the armory, before things went to hell. I figured it would come in handy at some point, if we ever needed proof of what’s been happening.”
“Mr. McComb is correct, Ms. Sims. After his surgery, we found this data stick hidden in his belongings. After decrypting it, we were able to analyze the data in short order.”
Krylov paused and looked at Nancy and Leonard for several seconds.
“Well?” Nancy said impatiently, tired of Krylov’s delays. “What’s the point?”
“The point is that it confirms our story.” Leonard answered in Krylov’s stead, who nodded solemnly in agreement.
“Correct again, Mr. McComb. What you shared with me, Ms. Sims, was frightening, and viewing this data just made it a thousand times worse.”
“So… you’re going to help us?”
“Protocol, Ms. Sims, requires that I return to port immediately and deliver this high-value information to our intelligence service.” Krylov looked at the floor, sighing softly to himself. “However, given that there is no intelligence service, port or anything else left to speak of, I find myself forced into an awkward and unforeseen position.”
“Commander,” Leonard said, “what do we have to do to convince you to help?”
Krylov stood, closed the laptop computer and placed it under his arm. He took a deep breath, replaced the hat on his head, and straightened his back, adopting a more formal posture.
“Mr. McComb. Ms. Sims. The Arkhangelsk and her crew stand ready to aid you in the destruction of this pestilence.”
Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry
9:30 AM, April 21, 2038
Movement from behind Mr. Doe caught Marcus’s eye. Before he could stop himself, he glanced at it, though Mr. Doe didn’t appear to have noticed thanks to the sweat, tears and dirt coating Marcus’s entire face. Marcus felt his heart jump as he made out the blurry form of Rachel, who was slowly walking up behind Mr. Doe. Her footsteps masked by the sound of the helicopter, Rachel was armed with only a shovel, though even a momentary distraction was all Marcus would need to finish out his plan how he had intended.
“Hey.” Rachel’s voice was weak and strained. “Doe.”
Mr. Doe turned quickly, whipping the pistol around to face the new voice behind him. Rachel was just a few feet away, though, and lashed out with the shovel. The metal end collided with Mr. Doe’s left arm, knocking him off balance, though he still retained the pistol in his right hand. Unable to keep a grip on the shovel in her weakened state, it flew out of Rachel’s hands, clattering to the ground far out of reach.
A cold sneer, the first—and last—sign of emotion in Mr. Doe came as he leveled his gun at Rachel. As he opened his mouth to speak at her, a shot rang out. Looking down at his hand, he immediately questioned whether he had inadvertently fired his weapon or not. His finger was not on the trigger, though, and the lances of pain in his back and chest verified that the shot did not come from his gun.
Three more shots rang out in rapid succession and Rachel dropped to the ground as two of the rounds passed through Mr. Doe’s body, tumbling end over end out the other side. The final round passed through his heart, lodging in his ribcage, and sending him toppling to the ground. He fell flat on his face, like Marcus had done, but instead of trying to move or roll with the impact, he stayed where he had fallen.
Behind where Mr. Doe had been standing, Marcus was on his side, his gun still pointed at the body in front of him. His arm was shaking violently and his breathing was labored as the red stain on his shoulder slowly spread down his chest. As Mr. Doe succumbed to his wounds, his body gave a small shudder. In that same instant, the whine of the helicopter grew louder as it began to lift off from the ground on its own. Presumably controlled by an autopilot system linked to a dead man’s switch on Mr. Doe’s person, the helicopter rocketed away, though a distant explosion was heard a moment later, accompanied by a plume of smoke far in the distance.
Rachel and Marcus stared at each other over the body of Mr. Doe, neither of them speaking as they each caught their breath and tried to recover from what had just occurred. The sound of footsteps came from behind Rachel, who turned to see David slowly walking up on them, holding a piece of torn cloth against his arm. He stopped over Mr. Doe’s body and examined it before nudging the corpse with his foot. Satisfied that Mr. Doe was finally dead, he leaned down and removed the pistol from Mr. Doe’s death grip before sitting down next to Rachel and Marcus.
“Huh.” David snorted as he looked at Mr. Doe’s body. “That was sort of anti-climatic.”
Marcus started to chuckle, holding his shoulder through the pain. “For you, maybe.”
Rachel stood up and hobbled over to Marcus. She knelt down next to him and examined his shoulder. “It looks fairly clean. It passed right through, so you should be okay. We just need to clean it up and bandage it before an infection sets in.”
David got up before Rachel and headed back to the train. “I’ll be back with the medical kit in a minute.”
Rachel nodded her thanks and watched him walk off, waiting until he was halfway back to the train before speaking to Marcus.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
Marcus looked Rachel in the eye, still feeling no small amount of shame over what had happened. “I didn’t know, Rachel. I was just looking at the computer and something popped up. I can’t even remember what it said at this point.”
Rachel nodded slowly and patted his arm gently as she sat down next to him to wait for David to return. “I know you didn’t know, Marcus. For the time being, let’s keep it between you and me. David’s already strained enough as it is about your… well, whatever it was that happened before. He doesn’t need to know about this; it won’t do him any good.”
Marcus nodded and leaned his head back against the ground. The sunlight overhead was warm on his face, though the distant black clouds rolling in signaled that it wouldn’t last for long. “I can’t believe this guy’s dead. I mean, really, I thought it’d take more than this to kill him.”
Rachel sighed and stared at Mr. Doe’s body. His suit was wrinkled, torn and marred with dirt and a red stain on the ground was slowly spreading as his blood flowed along the path of least resistance. “I think it’s a rather fitting end, personally. After all he did and all I’m sure he was still trying to do, this will be his final resting place.”
“Sorry it took so long; this was all I could find.” David held up a clear plastic case filled with bandages, gauze, basic surgical tools and a small variety of medications. With a chunk of metal still embedded in his arm, he moved gingerly, not wanting to accidentally trip and drive the shrapnel further in. Rachel took the case from him and opened it, removing a p
air of gloves, a small bottle of iodine, and several bandages and a roll of gauze. She motioned for David to sit next to her and then cleaned the area around the shrapnel, instructing him to keep his arm still despite the pain. After liberally dousing it with iodine, she gripped the shrapnel with her gloved hand and gently began to pull it out.
Rachel was by no means a medical professional, but her guess that the shrapnel hadn’t penetrated far into David’s arm was correct, and the metal was quickly out. Following that was more iodine and a quick wrapping of bandages to help minimize the bleeding. After tending to David, Rachel turned her attention to Marcus, though there wasn’t much she could do for him except clean both sides of the wound, bandage him up and put his arm in a makeshift sling. With all of their immediate injuries cared for, they all walked slowly back to the train and climbed inside.
“So,” David said at last, “What’re we going to do now?”