“Sir,” Pat said, “we are trying to get to our home in Cape May. The military has ordered all residents to return to their homes and remain until further instruction.”
The Guardsman on the right huffed. “Shut up, I know what they are saying.”
Dan gave the soldiers a closer look. The highest ranked was a First Sergeant. “First Sergeant Fitzsimmons” read the name on his noticeably ill-fitting uniform. First Sergeant Fitzsimmons was leering at Marifi, particularly her midriff, which was exposed while she held her arms high above her head.
“Master Sergeant Fitzsimmons?” Dan called out, purposely using the wrong rank as he addressed the soldier. It did not distract the soldier’s leering at Marifi.
“Master Sergeant Fitzsimmons?” Dan repeated.
The corporal to his right looked at the name embroidered on his counterpart’s uniform. “Jack!” he hissed under his breath. “Master… Sergeant … Fitzsimmons!”
The leering soldier broke his gaze, as if he just realized he was the person they were referring to by the name Fitzsimmons. He looked at Dan angrily. “Yes, what?!”
“Master Sergeant Fitzsimmons, can you let us know exactly what is happening to the people?”
The man wearing the uniform with the embroidered patch listing his name as Fitzsimmons snapped back. “Be quiet. When you need to know something, we will tell you.”
First Sergeant Fitzsimmons was obviously long dead. These were three parasites that must have come across the bodies of three dead soldiers and stolen their uniforms. The third fake guardsman, who bore a uniform with the name Sergeant Jones, returned from his inspection of the truck.
“Okay, you folks can proceed to your homes, it is safe in there, but you need to leave the truck.”
“We can’t leave the truck, we need it!” Pat said, stepping forward, and the three fake guardsmen reacted immediately by pointing their weapons directly at him.
The man inhabiting the uniform of Sgt. Jones took a threatening tone. “You do as I say. If you want to go in, you leave the truck, leave the weapons, and walk home. Get it? You don’t like it, well martial law has been declared and you don’t want to break the law, do you?”
Dan looked at his traveling companions and spoke calmly to the fake soldiers. “That is fine, sir, we can walk from here. Sirs, thank you for protecting our town, we will be on our way.”
Pat and Eric looked as though they were about to protest this decision loudly, but Dan hushed them before they had a chance. “We will be on our way,” he said to the soldiers.
As they started to walk towards the town, the fake Fitzsimmons spoke again. “And leave the girl.”
Pat spun on his heels to face the man.
Fitzsimmons took a regal posture. “There is now a toll to enter Cape May, and that toll is the girl. You three, go on ahead.”
Pat and Eric started to argue, but Dan again silenced them. He exchanged a look with Marifi.
“Come on guys,” Dan said to Pat and Eric. “She will be safe here with these soldiers.” He looked at Marifi. “Won’t you?”
She did not say a word, but her eyes communicated acknowledgement.
“Let’s go guys, thank you, sirs,” Dan said as amiably as he could and he led Pat and Eric away towards the town. As soon as they were far enough down the road to be out of sight, Pat asked, “Okay what the hell is the plan? How are we going to go back and get her?”
“We’re not,” Dan answered coldly.
Pat was stunned. “What are you talking about? We can’t leave her there to be raped by those cretins!”
“What do you want to do about it?” Dan snapped back. “You have a plan to take on those three assholes with no guns? You and this friggin’ nerd take some commando lessons I don’t know about?”
“We can’t leave her there!” Eric pleaded.
Dan faked a reassuring tone. “Ah kid, what’s the matter? You got a crush on her? Trust me, you ain’t her type. Then again, Ivan was her type, so who the hell knows?”
Pat was incredulous. “But we can’t just—”
“Look, the sub holds three! Three! That’s it! No more. GET IT? She wasn’t coming with us anyway. Either she wasn’t coming, or this kid wasn’t coming, I couldn’t care less. My job is to get Pat out of here,” Dan roared. “You, Pat, not them, not anyone else!”
Dan held up four fingers that showed signs of repeated breakage in front of Eric’s face. “I’ve never been good at my gazintas, but four does not gazinta three. Someone was getting left behind, and now we know who!”
Pat and Eric both struggled internally for an argument to combat the math, but Dan was right, there was none.
A sly smile appeared on Dan’s face. “Don’t you two heroes get your panties in twist. Just wait a second, I ain’t too worried about that girl.”
At that moment, they heard a yelp in the distance and what sounded like someone crying out.
“My God, they’re raping her!” Eric screeched at Dan, hoping he would finally do something about it.
“That chick has barely made a sound all day; you think she is going to squeal like that?” Dan countered in an almost comforting tone.
There was a gunshot, and another. Two minutes later, Furio was barreling down the street. It pulled up next to them and the passenger door was thrown opened. “Get in,” Marifi instructed calmly.
Chapter 37
Wired
Gary Ragu had finished the phone call with Virgil, but for the past five minutes, he had been standing there silently staring at the cell phone. It was as if his whole world had crashed down around him and he did not know how to react to what was happening. Mike and Little V were staring at him, waiting for him to relay some sort of news from the boss.
Little V spoke up first. “What the fuck man, you going to tell us what Big V said to do or what?’
“Yeah, Gary,” Mike chimed in. “What’s the plan?”
Gary Ragu continued to stare at the cellphone. He then looked up and out the large windows that provided a great view of the Atlantic Ocean. He spoke without turning his head or looking at his two associates.
“Mike, look around the room, see what you can find that we can use for weapons. Pull the towel rack off the wall, it’s pretty heavy, can crack some skulls. We need to conserve ammo, so keep your guns holstered until we really need them. Vito, you got some of that coke left? Lay out some lines, we are going to need some courage for what we have to do.”
Gary then sat down in a stiff leather chair and continued to stare out towards the blue waters. He had been a loyal soldier to Virgil for over a decade, but everything he knew, or thought he knew, had been turned upside-down. He had just been informed that Virgil had flipped two years ago. Big V was busted during a large steroid smuggling operations and the feds had turned him informant. V justified his actions by explaining that the feds were not so much interested in his gangland ties as they were with his relationship with Maxwell Gold. Big V let Gary know that he had been gathering information on old man Gold for the past two years, and all that documentation was in the safe in the Sullivan house at Cape May.
Virgil told Gary to go get all of it, and if he could reach V’s FBI handlers, Gary could use the information to barter for his life and get out of New Jersey. It was their only chance. Sure, it was a get out of jail free pass for Gary, but get out to what? If he did turn the information over to the feds, everyone would know he also was an informant. There would be no going back to his old life; the only life he had ever known. He did not know what was worse: turning rat to save his skin, or literally getting his skin ripped off by the rabid psychos outside his hotel room door. He looked over at Little V cutting lines of coke on the glass coffee table. Some blow would help him see things clearer.
Chapter 38
Cape May
Cape May had suffered many tragedies since its founding in the 18th century, including nor’easters and super storms that ripped the historic buildings from the ground, and massive fires that bu
rned them to their foundations, but surprisingly, the apocalypse left the Victorian style houses and souvenir shops relatively unscathed.
A few fires were burning and a few bodies were in the streets and on front porches, and of course, there were random roaming Skells, but it looked as if the tourist focused town had not been as devastated as expected. The Sullivan family had maintained a summer home at the cape since the 60’s, and the secluded and isolated area with private dock served as the perfect retreat for relaxation and for special business meetings. A couple of years earlier, they’d acquired a miniature three-man submarine to support a project based out of Bermuda. Later, when still learning the navigational systems of the sub, they inadvertently found out that it could make it all the way to Cuba, which opened up several new opportunities. It had been a while since they last used it, but it always sat ready for its next mission docked at the shore house off Cape May Point.
Although the immediate surroundings of the Sullivan house showed no sign of danger, they proceeded cautiously. They made straight for the storage shed where the sub was kept. A quick check of the fuel showed it was ready to launch, so they began to move the craft towards the water. It was then that Dan noticed the front door of the house was ajar. Having been the last one to use the place the weekend before for a poker game, he knew the place should have been locked. There was no time to check for looters though, he had to get moving, had to focus, had to figure out how he was going to let the ninja queen know there was no seat for her on the sub. Did she really plan on staying behind and catching up with her husband? Could she think he was still alive? She would be a good asset to have along, more so than the kid. If it were up to him, he would do the merciful thing and put a bullet in the kid’s head rather than leave him behind to be torn to shreds, or turned into one of those things.
A gravelly voice called out, interrupting Dan’s dark thoughts and shattering the silence.
“Been waiting for you!”
Dan, Pat, Eric, and Marifi spun around, guns at the ready as the door to the stately blue and white Victorian opened. A gun held in a meaty hand emerged cautiously at first, then followed by its handler. It was Virgil.
“Calm down guys, let’s put the guns away, it don’t have to be that way,” he said.
Dan was dumbstruck. “V, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Your brother called me,” V replied in his stereotypical Jersey Italian tone.
Pat looked at Dan, who could feel Pat’s eyes burning into the back of his bald head. Was this the double cross they anticipated? Maybe Pat was right, maybe Jimmy did indeed want him out of the picture, and who else to do it but a trusted friend?
“I need a spot on that sub,” Virgil stated.
“We are sold out, got one too many as it is,” Dan said back, realizing that Marifi was no longer next to him. Where the hell is that chick anyway?
“We will come back for you, I swear,” Pat chimed in, ever the politician, making promises he could not fulfill.
“Bullshit,” V countered. “Who is the kid? He ain’t one of us, I’ll take his spot.”
There was silence, no one had lowered their guns. This was a tough call for Dan. Did he kill a lifelong friend who may be here to carry out a hit, or did he put this 14-year old nerd out of his misery before the Skells tore him to shreds to make room for V? Was this fat fuck too big to fit in the sub anyway? While this and other profound questions ran through his mind, the standoff was broken by the sound of the truck’s engine roaring back to life, and the skidding of tires. Marifi had taken the truck and left, perhaps to get the hell out of the way of the pending gunfight, or more likely, to meet up with that lunatic Ivan, who was probably holed up in a different bunker somewhere. So much for long goodbyes.
Dan had a job to do and that was to get Pat out to sea. That mission did not include the kid and did not include Virgil, so he needed to do what he had to do and take out the immediate threat. He pointed the gun at Virgil’s large frame.
“Daddy, Daddy!” The little girl came running out of the house and grabbed her father.
“Rita, I said stay inside,” Virgil said, pushing her back towards the door. Dan and Pat got a look at V’s bandaged left hand. His tone changed and he lowered his gun to his side. “I need my kid on that sub; I need her out of here. If I have to kill whoever that kid is to make room, I will do it.” Tears started streaming down his cheeks. “Please, you have to take Rita out of here.”
There was no more time for conversation. The shouting had alerted the Skells to the fresh meat, and the group could hear in the distance the sound of running feet and shrieks looking for the source. V looked over the railing of the porch where he could see down the street.
“How many?” Pat asked.
“Many,” V answered grimly.
Pat ran up to the house, grabbed Rita, took her down to the sub, and turned to Dan. “Dan, take her and the kid, get out of here. I will find another way.”
“Look, I got my orders here, and that’s to get you out of here, not the kid. I ain’t running a rescue op here, I am to get you and you alone.”
Pat didn’t listen or acknowledge, he walked up to V. “She will be safe, where is Angela?”
“She’s locked in the car over there, hopefully choking on this,” V replied and held up his bloody, bandaged left hand missing his middle finger
“V, um, I don’t know how to tell you this...” Pat began with the grimness of a doctor delivering bad news.
“Yeah, I know what’s about to happen to me, but it ain’t happened yet. Fuck, I feel like I have lost twenty pounds over the past hour,” V said, trying to put a spin on what he knew was a death sentence. He grabbed the waistband of his Nike running suit and stretched it out to demonstrate how loose it was. “Can you believe this shit? I wasn’t this thin in high school.”
Dan hated to ask, but he had to know. “Big V…what does it feel like?”
Virgil thought for a minute, as if he was assessing himself. “Ya know, it ain’t that different. My gut hurts, but I feel okay. I feel…hungry.” He sighed. “You better go. Take the kid, I am going down to delay those fucking freaks. It will take them some time to eat what’s left of my fat ass, but you guys don’t have long. Now get the fuck out of here!”
Pat yelled out, “Hey V, we saw Sister Pugs.”
V turned. “Yeah? She dead?”
Pat smirked. “She is now.”
V smiled, and with that, he ran towards the approaching mob, shooting the gun to distract their attention from the others, and they followed him down the street.
Pat yelled to Dan, “Go!”
Dan grabbed Pat by the arm. “Okay, look asshole, don’t let your phone run out of power. I can use the GPS in it to track you. I am going to drop these kids off somewhere safe and be right back for you, understand? Stay alive, and hold on to your phone.”
The shook hands and Pat ran the opposite direction down the beach. Dan had no choice, he picked up the crying girl who was still calling out for her father and put her in the sub. Eric climbed aboard and Dan pushed it into the water, boarded, and carefully navigated the craft out of the shallows.
The first Skells arrived and were pawing at the sub, but they were unstable in the moving tide and could not get firm footing to attack it. They could do no damage and soon, the turbines were going and the sub disappeared beneath the surface.
Chapter 39
Beautiful Day
Pat ran down toward the secluded area of the beach and looked for a place to hide and collect his thoughts. He needed to find a pen and paper to write a letter to his family in hopes someone would come back. Dan, Jimmy, the army, someone. If he was not alive, he wanted a final note to be found.
“Dude, sunset is going to be beautiful today,” a voice came out of nowhere.
Pat was startled by the unexpected greeting. He looked around and saw nothing.
“Up here, dude.”
Pat looked up, and sitting in a lifeguard chair was a blond
beach bum smoking a joint. He offered his hand forward and raised his eyebrows in the universal “would you like a hit?” gesture to Pat and offered the small white joint.
Pat considered, but only for a second, and refused. “What are you doing up there? Don’t you know what is going on?”
“Where else am I going to go? I live here, man, I run the dolphin tour. Name’s Big Jim.”
“You have a boat? Where is it? We need to get out of here.”
In the distance, an air raid siren began to wail. There was not one close by, but there were enough of them at a volume that the sound carried all the way to the shore.
Big Jim waved him off. “Forget it, man, the whole Navy is out there. I’ve watched boats and planes getting blown out of the water and sky all day. You go one mile off shore, and you are incinerated. No way out, man.”
The sirens were getting louder.
“I am a U.S Congressman, I will let them know who I am, and that we are not infected. They are not going to kill us!”
Big Jim laughed. “Yeah right, whatever you’ve been smoking is better than my shit. I’m sure they will quake in your presence,” the stoner said with disdain before taking a long drag.
Pat’s voice was becoming more frantic. “Listen, do you hear that sound? They are about to wipe this whole place off the map. They have lost control. If we take a chance, sail out there, we either get rescued or we get killed. If we stay here, we’re dead. If those freaks don’t rip us apart, the bombs will vaporize us. There is zero chance if we stay here—ZERO! At least out there we have a shot.”
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