Nano Z (Book 2): Salvation

by Brad Knight

  The spiked fist of the brute broke through. Seeing the huge mace-like hand made his choice much easier.

  “Out back. Now!” ordered Mack. He hoped that his shotgun would be enough to take out the meat puppet coyotes.

  They both ran to the back door. They could hear the clanging sound of the puppet coyotes outside. Amber desperately looked for a weapon. She found none.

  “I’ll go first. You stay in here,” said Mack as he reached for the back door handle.

  “Give me the gun. I’ll go out.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You’re hurt, I’m not. Who do you think will stand a better chance?”

  She’s got a point. Her way would make more sense. Mack pushed Amber away. Then he quickly opened the back door and slipped outside.

  Now what? Mack found himself standing in front of six snarling meat puppet coyotes. They slowly inched towards him. He aimed his shotgun at the closest one.

  A hail of gunshots erupted from behind the coyotes. Mack heard and felt bullets whiz by his head. On instinct he cowered, not wanting to be shot.

  When the smoke cleared, all six of the undead coyotes were down. And Mack was left stunned and confused. Then he heard a voice.

  “Put the gun down, sir. Do it slowly.” Standing in the shadows behind the liquor store were a group of five men. All of them were heavily armed with military grade assault rifles. The men were dressed in the same black SWAT gear that Mack had seen numerous times since the outbreak. Only it was heavier, more armored. They were Galatea Systems security.

  “Why, so you can shoot me?” Mack asked the question loudly. His hope was that Amber would hear him on the other side of the door.

  “Drop the gun or that’s exactly what we’ll do!”

  Better do what he says. I can’t shoot them all. Mack raised his arms above his head. Then he laid down his shotgun slowly.

  “Now turn around and face the wall!” The Galatea SWAT guy was referring to the back of the liquor store.

  Unexpectedly, the back door of the store swung open. Amber came running out. She looked to be in a panic. The Galatea security members opened fire on them.

  Mack had no time to think. He tackled Amber. Bullets flew over their head and ricocheted off the wall and metal door. What the hell is she doing?

  The meat puppet brute emerged from the back door of the liquor store with a head full of steam. Immediately the security team’s gunfire focused in on the brute. But it had very little effect.

  Mack and Amber didn’t stick around to see the Galatea security team get annihilated. They got up and ran. Both of them could hear the screams as they fled.

  Amber turned her head to see if she and Mack were being followed. She didn’t see anything, but heard the guttural sounds of the meat puppet brute.

  “Don’t look back just…” Mack started coughing, violently. He slowed down. Then as his coughs got progressively worse, he was forced to completely stop and go down to one knee.

  “Shit,” said Amber as she ran back to him. “C’mon.” She tried to help Mack up. “Jesus, you’re heavy.”

  Amber took another look back. She saw a figure running away from the liquor store towards them. In that moment she wished that she picked up the shotgun before getting away. They were defenseless.

  “I need you to help me,” pleaded Amber as she tried to walk with a mostly limp Mack draped around her small shoulders.

  Amber kept looking back. She started to be able to make out the details of the figure coming towards them. It was a member of the Galatea security team. His uniform was torn up. In the darkness the blood he was covered in looked like oil.

  Behind the security officer, the meat puppet brute was in hot pursuit. It caught up with him, and Amber watched as the brute pounded on the security officer with both hands, like a gorilla, until he was reduced to a bloody pulp.

  There weren’t many places for Amber and Mack to hide. In front of them was a parking lot. Behind them was a monster. One of them was hobbling. The other was unarmed. They were thoroughly screwed.

  The only question left was if Amber and Mack would die running, struck down from behind. Or would they die defiant, with a fight. Either way, there was no hope for them to keep on living.

  “Looks like this is it, big guy,” said Amber as she turned herself and Mack around to face the charging meat puppet brute.

  “Seems so, girlie girl.”

  They stood and waited. Simultaneously, they decided on option “C”. They weren’t going to die running. But they weren’t going to fight the meat puppet brute either. That would’ve been futile. Both lived much longer than either of them had any right to. If it was time for it to end, a least they faced that end together.

  Is that…? Mack heard the spinning rotors of a helicopter. Through the night, a spotlight shone down on the charging meat puppet brute. Then he heard an eruption of gunfire. It was louder than normal guns.

  Fifty caliber rounds reigned down from above, peppering the huge behemoth. It wasn’t enough to put down the beast for good, but it did stop it in its tracks. And that brief opening was all Mack and Amber needed.

  Using a nearby overpass for cover from the surely hostile helicopter, they fled. They heard the guttural sounds of the meat puppet brute and the loud hum of the fifty caliber behind them. That time, neither looked back. Instead, they kept moving and looked for any shelter.

  A food truck! That’s not ideal, but it works. After all, beggars can’t be choosers. Mack pointed at a food truck left abandoned on the side of the street. Amber changed their course to head towards it. They just hoped that it was unlocked and open.

  When they reached the food truck, which was little more than a trailer that could’ve been towed by a pick-up, Amber leaned Mack against the wall near the door. Then came the moment of truth. She held her breath and tried the door handle. It was open.

  The stench of rotting food needed to be endured. Both Amber and Mack were willing to tolerate it in order to get off the street. In order to do that, the former needed to help the latter get inside.

  Once in, they stayed silent. Amber looked for any potential weapons. She found a large knife used to chop vegetables. And that was it. That wouldn’t do much against the meat puppet brute if the helicopter failed to deal with the hulking monster. But it was better than nothing.

  “Is it coming?” asked Mack as he sat on the floor, propped up against a wall inside the food truck.

  Amber got up and headed towards the closed serving window. She slowly opened it up. The creaking noise it produced made her cringe.

  Visibility wasn’t great outside. There was a lack of light due to the power being out. Even with her eyes adjusted as much as they could be, Amber saw nothing aside from a few normal meat puppets aimlessly wandering around.

  “I don’t see it.” She sat down next to Mack. “What was that thing? It didn’t look like the others.”

  “I have no clue. And I’m not sure I want to know. Just as long as we don’t run into it again, I’m good. We can wait here for a little bit, then we have to move again.”

  Despite everything that went wrong since they escaped The Golden Pony, Mack was going to stick to the plan. There would be no sleep or real rest until they got out of Las Vegas.

  Amber got up. She looked carefully around the food truck. Under one of the counters was what looked like a freezer. Inside, in tepid water, she found some cans of soda. She eagerly took two out, and after offering one to Mack, she chugged the other. It was warm, but not flat. It tasted great.

  Damn, this is actually pretty good. Mack never liked soda. It was a bit too sweet for his tastes. With that said, the warm can of cola he drank in the food truck was heavenly.

  Amber moved over to the door once she was done drinking her soft drink. Like the serving window before, she just cracked it open enough to look around. She spotted an old family station wagon parked in the lot the truck was posted in front of. The problem was, it was the only car in the whole lo
t. Getting there would leave them exposed. So they had to move fast.

  “What are you looking at?” asked Mack.

  “Our way out of this city.” Amber went over to Mack. She knelt down. “There’s a car parked out there. I think I can make it.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Mack as he tried and failed to rise to his feet.

  “I’ll go alone. You stay here. It’ll be quicker that way.” Amber hugged Mack to reassure him, and herself.

  She opened the food truck door and immediately ran towards the brown station wagon. A meat puppet stood in the way between her and the vehicle. With a swiftness that almost looked practiced, she stabbed the creature in the forehead and retracted the bladed weapon so fast that she barely broke her stride. If Mack had seen her, he would’ve been proud.

  The door to the station wagon was locked. No matter. Amber struck the driver’s side window with her elbow, but it didn’t break. She hit it again, and the glass shattered.

  Mack heard the glass shatter from inside the food truck. That meant that any nearby meat puppets, or even worse, Galatea security, heard it too. He waited with bated breath and listened for the sound of a car engine.

  There were no keys in the ignition or behind any of the fold down mirrors. Amber didn’t know what to do. That was until she remembered the good ole days when she could waste a whole night watching bad movies or playing video games. In those fictional stories, characters would hotwire cars. She would try her luck doing the same thing and hope that there was some shred of truth to it.

  Amber popped off the covering on the ignition. The small metal piece flew off surprisingly easy. That was the simple part. She reached into the newly opened hole and pulled out some wires. Confronted by the multiple colors with no knowledge of which ones she needed, she decided to try them all.

  With her knife, Amber started stripping the insulation off of each set of wires. She kept looking up and checking on the food truck. The process was taking a while but she was confident that she was making progress. The teen could pull it off, and she knew it.

  Are those footsteps? Mack heard something outside the front of the food truck. He started to get up so he could take a look, but he was thrown back down violently.

  The meat puppet brute ran at full speed and slammed shoulder first into the food truck. That caused the trailer to almost topple over. After letting out what sounded like a roar, the massive creature started rocking the truck back and forth.

  Mack tumbled around inside the food truck. Rotted food, sodas, cooking utensils, pots, pans and water tossed with him. It was chaos. And the meat puppet brute had no intention of stopping until the trailer was turned over.

  Amber looked up from the bunch of wires in her hands. She saw the trailer being rocked back and forth. Though she couldn’t see the meat puppet brute, she could hear it. If she didn’t hurry, Mack would be screwed.

  The exposed wired cut at Amber’s hands as she hurried to try and figure out which wires to connect to which. It was a trial and error process. Though less than ideal, she had no choice but to go about it that way.

  Mack felt like a piece of underwear in a dryer set to a high spin cycle. There was no time for him to catch his breath or his bearings. He knew that eventually he’d hit his head or neck on something and get seriously hurt. The problem was, he couldn’t do anything to get himself out of his situation.

  Oh damn, it’s going to flip it. Hold on old man. You can’t die here. Mack felt the food truck tilt a little further. Then just as he predicted, the trailer was flipped over. The meat puppet brute pushed it so hard that it actually rolled a couple of times.

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, work!” Amber started to panic inside the old brown station wagon. The fact that the food truck got rolled with Mack inside raised her anxiety to new heights. Luckily for her, surviving in the post-apocalyptic U.S. forced her to get real good at working under pressure.

  The old brown station wagon’s engine started to turn. It took a couple of times until Amber actually got the engine started. Once it was humming she shifted gears from “P” to “D”. Without any hesitation she drove towards the meat puppet brute.

  Laid out on the top of the food truck interior, Mack was in a bit of a haze. He was dizzy from all the rolling. The extra pain didn’t help. At that point though, the latter didn’t matter that much. Things couldn’t get worse.

  Mack heard the car engine outside the overturned food truck. He knew he needed to get out and get to the station wagon so he and Amber could escape. Problem was, he doubted that the meat puppet brute outside would just let him go.

  The meat puppet brute started pounding on the over-turned food truck. Each blow bent the relatively thin metal. Mack needed to get out. He’d take his chances outside with the beast rather than get crushed by it inside.

  This is what it’s come to? I’ve been reduced to crawling away? Mack was on all fours inching his way towards the food truck door. Above him, the ceiling (or floor) was slowly but surely caving in from the meat puppet brute’s brutal pounding.

  Amber had to drive out of the parking lot, which had dividers that separated it from the street, preventing her from driving straight towards the food truck. Once in the street she aimed for the brute. Her foot slammed down on the gas pedal and the old station wagon accelerated towards the hulking monster.

  The meat puppet was too busy trying to get to Mack to pay attention to the ton or so of metal speeding towards it. All Amber had to do was keep the station wagon on target. That was easier said than done.

  There were other meat puppets in the street between Amber and the brute. They were attracted by all the noise. Compared to the bigger brute, they weren’t nearly as intimidating. The teen had no problem knocking them out of the way with the front bumper.

  Just before reaching the meat puppet brute, Amber turned on the headlights. It made the beast turn just before impact. Instead of turning on the brights she should’ve remembered to buckle her seatbelt.

  The force from driving a car into a big heavy meat puppet at nearly forty miles per hour was a little more severe than Amber predicted. Without safety restraints, she was thrown forward into the steering wheel. She busted her lip on the wheel and may have been a little concussed.

  With a major headache and blood dripping down from her mouth, Amber looked to see if her plan of attack had the intended effect. The brute was knocked off its feet, but it quickly started getting up again. In her mind, there was only one option. Hit it again.

  Amber put the car in reverse and backed up only enough to provide room for her to accumulate some speed again. The brute was up and a little stunned. If she was going to hit it once more, she’d have to do it quickly. Something told her the monster wouldn’t passively or patiently wait for her to make her next move.

  He stopped. It’s now or never. Noticing that the pounding on the ceiling (or floor) had stopped, Mack quickened his crawl towards the food truck door. If the meat puppet brute was to snatch him up and kill him upon exiting, that would be better than dying in that trailer.

  Mack pushed open the food truck door and threw up. He got half of his body out when he heard the sound of screeching tires. Amber had managed to get a car. There was hope. But where was the monster?

  Amber aimed the old brown station wagon at the meat puppet brute. She once again floored the gas pedal. The vehicle sped towards the monster who was ready for it that time.

  Before Amber could hit the brute with the front of the station wagon, the beast swiped at it. The force from the blow dented the passenger side door and caused the wagon to spin out of control. Not skilled enough to get her vehicle under control, she failed to prevent it from slamming into a nearby light pole.

  Mack was up and out of the food truck. He hid behind one of its corners and watched Amber try to ram the meat puppet brute. What he ended up witnessing was her car being knocked away and colliding with a light pole.

  Amber! Without thinking it through, Mack ran towards the ol
d brown station wagon. The pain that racked his body seemed to melt away. Adrenaline took over. He was going to reach his charge no matter what.

  The meat puppet brute would have seen and taken Mack out if it weren’t distracted. Up above, the helicopter was back. It reacquired its target after losing it under the underpass. And it opened fire.

  Amber slipped in and out of consciousness. Through that concussion fog, she saw the driver’s side door next to her open. It was Mack. He gently pushed her to the passenger side. Then he took the wheel of the still running car.

  Mack quickly turned the old brown station wagon around and drove fast in the opposite direction of the meat puppet brute and the helicopter. He didn’t look back. The only times he took his eyes off the road were to check on Amber in the passenger seat. She was dazed and had a bloody lip but she appeared to be okay.

  The density of the buildings around the station wagon started to diminish. Mack and Amber were reaching the end of the Las Vegas city limits. They thought they were home free. Then they heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter.

  Let’s push this old bitch to its limits. The door gunner in the helicopter started sending fifty caliber rounds down at the duo. Mack took the first turn he saw without slowing down. All four tires skidded as the old station wagon barely avoided slamming into a chain link fence.

  Mack did everything he could to try and evade the helicopter attacking him and Amber. He took every side street and alley in an attempt to dodge the hail of bullets raining down from above. Despite all his best efforts, the old brown station wagon was riddled with bullets. But that didn’t matter. What did was that the passengers weren’t hit.

  Finally, Mack managed to pass the city limits. The helicopter still followed them but had stopped firing. All he could figure was that their pursuers ran out of ammo.

  About five miles out of Las Vegas, the helicopter finally turned around and headed back towards the city. Mack and Amber had made it out. Though they were in terrible shape, they were alive and uninfected.

  Can’t say I’m surprised. The old brown station wagon started to die. Mack heard the engine slowly shut down. Smoke bellowed out of the bullet holes in the car’s hood. Every meter and gauge on the dashboard started to wind down towards “empty” or zero.