by Schafer, Jon
Susan had seemed unhappy to Steve lately, causing him to wonder if she was trying to be helpful by volunteering or if she was trying to get away from Mary. Regardless of her motives, she fit the need.
"You're in," he said.
Steve exchanged a long look with Heather. He knew she wanted to go but they both knew they needed someone capable to stay behind and make sure things went smooth until he and Tick-Tock returned. She gave him a smile and a patient look, telling him that she understood the reasoning behind this unspoken decision. And while she didn't like it, she would do it. She would explain to Steve later that it wasn't the responsibility she would have to take on that disagreed with her, it was the thought that they would be apart.
Turning to Tick-Tock, Steve asked again, "Now how big of a boat do we need?"
After thinking on it he replied, "Thirty-footer ought to do it."
"When I was at the Marine Laboratory I saw a whole slew of sailboats tied up at the Marina next to it," Heather said. "I was there for a whole day and it was completely deserted. No Z's anywhere."
"All right then," Steve said as he stood up. "We use the MRAP to shuttle us, our gear and the supplies we'll need down to the Marina."
"Since I can't go with you, then I'll drive you down," Heather said and then asked, "When are you leaving?"
"No sense in wasting any time. We'll leave tomorrow morning."
***
Marcia knocked on Brian Harrison's door and called out, "Good news, Mister Harrison."
Not waiting for an answer she probably wouldn't receive, Marcia continued, "We found another survivor here in the building. It's a little girl who's cute as a bug's ear. She's got this long brown hair that I would kill for, but best of all we found out she’s immune to the virus that's making everyone crazy. We think the government will be able to run some tests on her and come up with a cure, so some of us are taking her to the navy base in Key West. Isn't that great news? If they can come up with a cure, then this insanity might be over soon."
Marcia set down the tray of food she had been carrying and said, "I brought you something to eat Mister Harrison, and I just wanted to let you know the wonderful news." She paused a moment to see if Harrison would reply and after hearing nothing, turned to go back to the radio station. Marcia had only taken a few steps when she heard a muffled "Thank you." Come from behind the door. Turning, she smiled and said, "No problem, Mister Harrison, I'll keep letting you know what's going on until you feel well enough to come out."
Marcia was so happy about finally getting a reply from the elusive Mister Harrison that she practically skipped on her way back to the radio station.
Brian Harrison devoured the food Marcia left, happy that since she was feeding him, he didn’t have to forage for food at night and waste his limited working time. He could labor straight through without interruption.
Yesterday, when he had quit in the early hours of the morning, Harrison had been pleased to find that he had cut all the way through three sides of the safety glass and was almost all the way through the fourth. The compulsion to keep going was overwhelming but he forced it down. He was so close to success now that he didn't want to take the chance of being discovered. After pocketing his sharpened screwdriver and cleaning up the shards of cut plastic from the floor, he started repeating in his head the changing countdown mantra that had kept him going. Now it was, tomorrow night, tomorrow night.
As he stuffed half a sandwich into his mouth and chewed, Harrison considered the progress he had made as he started on his new mantra, tonight, tonight.
Tonight he would enter the bank and start moving the gold up to his office. Considering the logistics, he realized it might take him a few days to transport all his riches. If need be, he decided he could put the cut out panel in place and hold it there with a few drops of crazy glue. Then, with a few taps of the hammer he carried, the glass could be removed again so he could enter the bank and be put back in place permanently when he was finished moving all the gold.
Reaching around to physically pat himself on the back, Harrison was about to congratulate himself for thinking about everything when his hand paused in mid-air. Suddenly, he realized that he had missed something. The news that the food bringer had just told him about there being a cure for the HWNW disease and life going back to normal made him pause and consider the situation for a moment. He had been so caught up in planning and scheming to get the gold that he hadn't thought about what he was going to do with it once he had it in his office.
As he contemplated his options, Harrison leaned his head back against his office door and closed his eyes. The food was making him drowsy, and he knew he needed some rest before starting on the door again. Even as his brain called for sleep, he fought off his drowsiness so he could figure out how to get the gold out of the building.
After deciding the option of killing everyone in the building was too risky, Harrison decided he could load the gold into the armored car that the people down the hall had parked next to the building. He was sure he could do it without them knowing, and it seemed an appropriate way to transport his riches. Then, he could just take the vehicle and find another safe place to hide until the virus let loose its grip on the world.
As he ran the steps that he would take through his head, Harrison assured himself that he had come up with a good plan. He might have to kill one or two of the others in the building to pull it off, but they were of no consequence. They were expendable. All he had to do was get them alone and cut them off from the rest of the herd where it would be easier to kill them. He briefly toyed with the idea of taking the food bringer hostage and forcing her to help him move the gold, and then taking her with him so he had someone to use to satisfy his sexual urges. Rejecting the idea since he didn't need any complications, he knew when the world returned to normal he would have enough money to buy ten whores just like her.
Satisfied with his tentative plan, Harrison relaxed and let sleep take him.
In his dreams, Harrison found himself standing in awe at the base of a mountain of gold coins. Suddenly, a feeling of dread washed over him. Something was behind him. Without hesitation, he started to climb to get away. Someone was after his gold, but he knew if he reached the top of the hill he would be safe.
The coins slid under his feet, making small avalanches as he progressed. More than once he cried out as he felt himself slide backward. He feared looking over his shoulder at what was pursuing him and tried only to concentrate on his ascent.
In jerky images, Harrison saw himself struggle upward and slide back countless times, but he continued to make progress. He felt like he had been climbing for hours when he finally looked up and saw that he was only a few feet from the summit. A sense of peace and well being washed over him at the thought he had almost made it. He was almost safe. Then, just as quickly, this security was replaced by the overwhelming fear.
The ominous presence behind him had drawn closer. Focusing on the top of the mound, Harrison saw his sharpened screwdriver lying there. Scrambling on hands and knees as he tried to find purchase on the slippery slope of golden discs, he jackknifed his body and lunged upward to grab at the weapon. Emboldened now that he was armed, he jumped to his feet and spun around to face his attackers, instantly recognizing the thieves who had come for his gold.
At various levels on the slope of his mountain, Harrison could see his enemies stretched out like a time line of his life.
Ten feet below him, paused in mid step as if flash frozen, were the charred, blackened bodies of his sister and his brother-in-law who he had killed years earlier by setting fire to their home. This was after he found out that he was the beneficiary for his sister's life insurance policy.
Slightly behind them stood the bloody, disfigured form of his first business partner. Harrison had run him over with the man's own car to keep him from finding out that he was stealing money from their company.
To his former partner's left, crouched and looking like a gargoyle frozen
as if prepared to spring from Notre Dame itself, was a gray haired, blue faced crone with horribly twisted features. It was Harrison’s own mother, whom he had suffocated with a pillow to speed up his inheritance.
On the far right, naked to show their bruised and battered bodies were Harrison's secretary whom he had bludgeoned to death and the bank president whom he had tortured.
With a roar of rage, Harrison brandished the screwdriver to keep them back. A burst of courage ran through him, energizing his body. Stomping his foot down like an angry child throwing a temper tantrum, he bellowed, "Mine!" In a blind rage, he launched himself at his antagonists. He would kill them all.
Harrison's vision turned black as he found himself falling. All that was around him was gone. The mountain of gold, the dead, everything had been replaced by a void. He could feel the air rushing past him as he gained speed. Harrison wondered if he should be afraid but instead felt victorious. He had vanquished his enemies.
A beeping noise brought him out of his descent and back to the world in which he lived. Opening his eyes, he looked down and pressed the button on his watch to stop its alarm. With the dream still fresh in his mind, Harrison said in a thick, vicious voice, "Let them come. I'll kill them all."
Reaching down, he let his hand settle on the screwdriver.
Shaking his head to clear it, he checked the readout on his watch.
It was late.
It was time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Clearwater, Florida:
Marcia woke with a start. Reaching next to her for Jonny, she found only an empty spot on their makeshift bed. Remembering that he had picked up the graveyard shift, she also recalled why she had set her internal alarm to wake her up at such an odd hour.
After checking that Cindy was still asleep, Marcia dressed quickly. As she pulled on her jeans, she found herself smiling as she thought about how much Jonny had changed in the past few weeks. They'd been together for almost a year now. Looking back to the time before the trouble, she saw that he had been an immature boy who flitted from one thing to another with no thought to the consequences of his actions. When he asked her to come to the building and stay with him, Marcia had her doubts. She wanted a place to feel safe and secure and to be with someone she felt confident could protect her, and she just didn't feel Jonny was that person. With nowhere else to go though, she had joined the survivors at the radio station. Looking back on her decision she had no regrets. Besides being in a safe place, she also witnessed Jonny as he literally morphed before her very eyes from an irresponsible boy into a man. A man that she loved with all her heart.
And that man is probably starving, she thought.
Since the meeting earlier in the day, Jonny had worked non-stop with Tick-Tock and Steve. First helping them ready the MRAP for the trip to the marina by loading it with supplies and then standing guard while they filled it with fuel from the underground tank before coming back to the station and working his own shift and Steve's shift so Steve could get some sleep.
Marcia knew for a fact that Jonny had skipped lunch altogether and had only grabbed a quick bite for dinner. Since then he had been on the air, so for sure he hadn’t eaten. Once he got behind the microphone and went live, the physical world ceased to exist.
Walking down the hall, she glanced into Brain's office and saw him bent over a piece of equipment on his work bench, so she decided not to disturb him by stopping in to say hi. Moving to the studio, she noticed that the ON AIR sign was dark so she opened the door and stuck her head in. Jane's Addiction wafted out, singing about being caught stealing as she asked, "You hungry?"
Jonny was staring intently at the screen of the computer used to program the music. Without looking up, he smiled and said, "Starved."
"I'll run down and make you something," Marcia offered. “What are you hungry for?''
Shaking his head, Jonny looked up and replied, "No, I'll go with you. I need a break anyway. I think I kinda over did it today. Give me a minute. Let me set this up to cue some songs and I'll be right with you."
Marcia closed the door and waited until Jonny joined her. As they walked down the hall, he took her hand, filling her heart with love and hope. Love for the man with her and hope that a cure could be found so that she could have a life with him.
***
Using the doorframe as a guide, Brian Harrison ran the sharpened screwdriver back and forth across the safety glass. He could feel its point push through in spots and knew he was close.
Stopping for a moment to test the panel, he pushed against it, feeling it flex beneath his fingers. Picking up a hammer and wrapping a rag around its head to muffle any noise, he tapped along the cut he had made and was amazed as he watched the bottom panel of the security door fall onto the carpet inside the bank.
He was in.
Joy rose up in him as he stared at the opening. He had done it. Reaching out, he caressed the metal of the door as a smile broke over his face. Reaching down with his free hand, he grasped himself, realizing that for the first time in weeks he was getting an erection. The thought crossed his mind that maybe he would take the food bringer with him after all when he fled the building.
His rising joy, and erection, shriveled and died when he heard the stairway door in the foyer slam shut. Laughter reached his ears as his mind started to scream its paranoid warning. They waited! They waited while I did all the work and now they've come to steal the gold!
A girlish giggle came from the foyer.
It's the whore, Harrison thought. The one who brought me the food. She was spying on me and now she brought the others. Rage rushed through him at the idea of anyone trying to lay their unclean hands on his gold. His eyes grew wide as rage gripped him. Standing, he turned to face the entryway from the foyer to the Galleria where two dark shapes had stopped. One of them giggled.
And they're laughing at you, Harrison's furious mind screamed at him. Looking down at the sharpened screwdriver clenched in one hand and the hammer in the other, he knew he had to protect his treasure. Letting out a scream reminiscent of his dream, Brian Harrison rushed forward.
Jonny tried to think of another knock-knock joke to tell Marcia as he fumbled in the cargo pocket of his shorts for a flashlight. He finally got hold of the light and was about to say knock-knock, when he heard a shrieking noise of hatred that turned his blood cold. He whipped his head up, a look of shock on his face as he caught a brief glimpse of someone rushing toward him. With his left arm he pushed Marcia out of the way and tried to bring his other hand up to protect himself. Still gripping the flashlight in his pocket, it snagged and wouldn't come out.
Even if he could have freed it, it wouldn't have made a difference. The screwdriver was already on a downward arc toward his face.
Jonny saw a burst of stars as the point ruptured his eyeball an instant before the shaft of metal drove into his brain, bringing a veil of blackness down on him.
Marcia watched in disbelief as Jonny staggered backward from the blow that the screaming man had dealt him. She’d been laughing at one of Jonny's lame jokes and this died in her throat as she back peddled to try and keep her balance after being pushed out of the way. She heard the smacking noise as Jonny fell backward, his head striking the tile, but this barely registered as she tried to draw in a breath to scream. She focused on the shape lying on the floor and noticed a long dark protrusion sticking out of one of Jonny’s eyes. Her throat constricted when she recognized the handle of a screwdriver. She couldn’t breathe, and when she tried to scream only a squeaking noise came out.
Although the main lights in the foyer had been off for weeks, the emergency lights still had enough charge in their batteries to give off a weak glow. In this dim illumination, Marcia could see her attacker advance toward her. In a flash, she realized who it was.
She felt a small surge of hope. Mister Harrison wouldn't hurt me. It's some kind of mistake. I fed him and tried to help him. He must know that I'm his friend.
These
thoughts died, along with any hope she had, as she watched Harrison raise the hammer while screaming, "You bitch, I know what you did. You told them."
In that instant, Marcia saw that Harrison was insane and she knew her life was over. But even as she realized she was dead, the thought that filled her mind was that her life hadn't been wasted. She consoled herself that she had spent it trying to help others, to give of herself so that they could live their lives to the fullest, and she never asked for anything in return.
As she stood awaiting her fate, Marcia saw Harrison start to circle to his left, trying to force her into the corner by the front doors. Standing in place, she noticed that as Harrison moved, he left a gap between her and the entry to the Galleria. The resolve to go out without a fight left her, as a will to live filled her heart. Marcia began edging slowly toward her right, and as she glanced back to her left she saw something that made her stop.
Marcia knew she could make it to the Galleria and stay away from Harrison by circling around the Cinnabun kiosk, keeping it between them, but what if he went after the others? He would be free to kill them in their sleep if she didn't warn them. They’d never see it coming.
Looking toward the Galleria and safety, and then back toward the very corner that Harrison was trying to herd her to her death, Marcia knew she had no choice. She had to warn the others. Without a moment's hesitation, she spun to her left and lunged at the object mounted on the wall.
As she reached it, Marcia could imagine in her mind’s eye as Harrison leaned back with the hammer to get a full swing at her head. It didn't matter now; she was doing the right thing.
With both hands, she pulled the fire alarm and heard it start to ring out its warning to the others even as she felt an impact on her skull and saw the final darkness envelope her.
Brian Harrison knew he had to move fast. He had killed the two thieves, but the food bringer had managed to set off an alarm to call the others.