He pointed at Rachel.
“A little golden-haired beauty like that? They’d pay a lot of money to get their hands on you princess.”
Cody took a deep breath.
“You’re not a cop,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Are you? You stole that Ford Explorer out front. Didn’t you, mister? You stole the uniform and the gun. What I want to know is what happened to the cop you stole them from – did you kill him? Is he still in that police car out there? In the trunk?”
The man’s smile faded.
“Do you really want to know?” he said.
“I do,” Cody said. As long as you stop looking at Rachel.
“Wait till you hear about the day I’ve had,” the man said. “First thing, I went over to my parents’ house to see if they were still alive. Hadn’t heard from them in a long time. Guess I should’ve checked up on them sooner. Some son I am, huh? Turns out they weren’t alive. My best guess is that my dad had the Fever. He’d bludgeoned Mom to death with a golf club before hanging himself in the living room. Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t the Fever that got him. He was always teetering on the edge of crazy, the old bastard.”
“I’m sorry man,” Cody said. “Really I…”
The man held a hand up, indicating that he wasn’t finished.
“Anyway,” he said. “I was sitting in the back garden after that, trying to process what I’d seen and that’s when I heard them talking.”
“Who?” Cody asked.
“The couple next door,” the man said. “Tom and Linda Wagner. Well they had a plan, didn’t they? The city was toast but that’s okay because Tom and Linda had a plan. Whoopee-doo! And they were talking it over, unaware that I was listening on the other side of the garden fence. Somebody they knew, I guess it was Black Noah, had invited them to the airport. Apparently there was a plane – a big one, not one of those paperweight deathtraps falling out of the sky. It was going to get them out of San Antonio. Yes sir, Tom and Linda were being offered a free ticket for the Ark. The select few, middle-class and beautiful, had been chosen.”
The man wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
“I thought about asking them,” he said. “Straight up. Can I come with you please? My family are dead and I ain’t got nothing anymore. But I knew what they’d say – limited space and all that crap. They always thought I was bit weird. But it didn’t matter because I heard everything I needed to hear – Gate A5, Alaska Airlines – come as quickly as you can.”
He tapped the barrel of the gun off the silver San Antonio police badge. It made a loud clinking noise.
“Now here’s the good part,” the man said. “I knew that whoever was organizing this escape pod wouldn’t take me. So I thought to myself, what if I turned up at the party dressed as someone else? Let’s say an authority figure, someone they wouldn’t dare refuse.”
He laughed like it was supposed to be funny.
“So I took my old man’s car and I drove downtown,” he said. “Holy shit, it’s bad there. Like there’s some real fire and brimstone biblical shit going on. Place was swarming with cops, still acting like they were king of the hill. But hold on I say, because the hill is on fire! Well those cops were so scattered and disorganized that it was easy pickings. Nobody cares about their authority anymore. Found me a crowbar, sneaked up on this old boy about my size and build, and WHACK! Took the uniform, put him in the trunk and drove as fast as I could straight here.”
“The cop’s dead?” Cody asked.
“Oh yeah,” the man said. “If you’d seen the state of his head you wouldn’t be asking.”
Cody hesitated. “But they didn’t let you on the plane, right?”
The man lowered his gun.
“You’re a smart guy,” he said. “Black Noah took one look at me, pointed his shotgun at my head and told me to get-the-fuck-outta-here. Cop or no cop, he said – you ain’t getting on my plane. His plane? There were several guns on me. Not what you’d call a warm welcome.”
“Look,” Cody said. “I’m real sorry about your folks. It’s tough to lose your family like that, I know. But I’m trying to protect my daughter from the Black Storm. You wouldn’t begrudge her a way out of this mess, would you?”
The man looked thoughtful for a second.
“You know something pal,” he said. “Yes I would. Why should I be the only one getting screwed today?”
Cody ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.
“You’re not well mister,” he said. “You’re not thinking right. Please just…”
Cody gasped. He saw something over the man’s shoulder.
The Black Widow was in the terminal.
She was approaching the young man from behind. She came slowly, floating down the terminal building like a ghost traipsing through the corridors of a haunted house. There was no life in her features – only those silver orbs, gleaming on her deathly pale face.
Her long black mourning dress trailed behind her like a vast, sprawling cloak.
Rachel must have seen it too because she dug her fingers deep into the back of Cody’s hand, her nails slicing through his skin.
Cody wanted to say something – to warn the man. But it all happened so fast. The Black Widow glided towards the young man and entered his body.
She vanished.
“Dad,” Rachel said. “Do you…”
Cody gave her hand a squeeze. “Yes.”
The man whimpered like a frightened child. His emerald eyes lit up, his body stiffened, and for a second it looked like he was about to keel over in shock. Then his shoulders drooped as he appeared to relax. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked over at Cody and Rachel.
His green eyes had dulled to charcoal black.
The man’s expression had also darkened. His pallid grey skin was dry and wrinkled, making him look much older than his thirty or so years.
The gun was pointing at Cody and Rachel again.
“Why won’t they let me on the plane?” he said. His voice was shaking, like a little child on the brink of tears. “They sent me away. What am I supposed to do? I’m alone. My parents are dead. Why doesn’t anyone want to help me? And now you want to leave me alone too. What is it with you people? You think you’re so much better than everyone else. Aren’t we supposed to stick together at times like this?”
Cody let go of Rachel’s hand. His fingers moved towards the gun tucked into his waist.
“Hey man,” he said. “It’s the Black Fever talking, you understand? You gotta fight it.”
The young man laughed. He was pointing the Smith & Wesson back and forth between Cody and Rachel like he was playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
“No I’m just tired,” the man said. “Tired of being treated like shit by everyone. Tired of living. Aren’t you sick of it all? You look exhausted mister. Well I can help you with that. I’m going to do you a favor. Ain’t nobody going to take your little girl from you. No breeder mob will touch her, I’ll make sure of that. Yeah, how about this? How about we stay together forever in this airport – all three of us? One shot each, that’s all it takes.”
He smiled at Rachel, bearing his teeth like a wild animal.
“I’ll do you first little girl,” he said. “Close your eyes.”
The gun stopped moving. It was pointing at Rachel.
“No!” Cody yelled. He threw his hands up in the air, pleading with the man to stop.
Bang!
Cody pushed Rachel as hard as he could. He possessed the superhuman strength of a parent witnessing their child in extreme danger. In that moment, he was sucked into another world where time slowed down, where colors were brighter and more intense, where sound was clearer, and the entire universe was inside him.
Rachel dodged the bullet. She fell out of range of the gunfire, rolling onto her side and curling up into a tight ball on the ground.
When Cody saw that Rachel was safe, he returned to the lesser plane of existence. This was where pain still existed. Almost immediately
, he felt a searing heat coming from his side and when he looked down he saw blood pouring from a wound at his side.
“Shit,” he said, dropping onto one knee.
He heard the fake cop walking towards him. Cody looked up at the man and saw that his eyes were like two black moons stuck to his head.
“It’ll be alright,” the man said. “I’m here. I’m here.”
Cody kept his hand pressed against his left side, applying pressure to the wound. He was leaking.
His fingers fumbled at his waist, trying to reach the Glock tucked underneath his shirt. But he was grasping at nothing – his hands couldn’t keep up with his brain.
“It’s going to be alright,” a voice said.
The man was standing over him. Cody looked up and saw the black pistol pointing at his head.
“I’ll see you on the other side brother,” the man said. “I won’t be far behind. And neither will your little girl. It’s better this way.”
Cody closed his eyes. His head dropped, like he was baring his neck to the blade of a sharp axe. He didn’t even have the strength to beg for his daughter’s life anymore.
Rachel. I’m sorry.
There was an explosion of noise. It sounded like something else blowing up in San Antonio. Had the end of things come at last? Maybe the old city would go into the history books at exactly the same time as ex-Hollywood superstar, Cody MacLeod.
He waited for the darkness to envelop his mind. But nothing happened.
Cody dared to look up and just as he did, the man in the police uniform toppled over like a falling statue. There was a trickle of dark blood pouring out of his mouth and running down his chin. One hand was reaching towards a massive, bloody hole that had been ripped open in his chest.
“Die motherfucker!” a booming voice yelled.
Cody heard somebody running. Footsteps came closer. It sounded like a Greek God striding over the clouds on Mount Olympus.
“Cody!” a man’s voice yelled. “Are you okay man? Talk to me.”
Cody felt himself being dragged up to his feet. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand but once he was back on two legs, he leaned on the other man’s shoulder for support while he regained his composure.
He looked at the man’s face and grinned.
“Nick?” he said. “Is that you?”
“Hell yes,” the man said, laughing. It was a deep glorious rumbling sound that shook the floor.
It was Nick Norton. He was standing there in all his splendor – six foot five, two hundred and eighty pounds, and built like a linebacker with boulders for shoulders. His black skull was shaved almost to the bone and he was sporting a pencil thin goatee that Cody immediately loathed. Cody had expected to see Nick strutting around in his beloved pilot’s uniform but to his surprise, the big man was wearing a navy blue t-shirt and dark pants. He looked like he was about to head off for a round of golf with the boys.
A black and tan rifle was hanging at Nick’s side.
“What took you so long asshole?” Cody said. “You had to wait till I got shot before riding to the rescue?”
Nick wrapped his arms around Cody and squeezed him tight. Cody yelped. It felt like he was hugging a grizzly bear.
“Good to see you!” Nick said.
Cody winced under the weight of the man’s tree-trunk arms. “You too,” he said. “Although that beard is ugly as hell man.”
“Fuck you too,” Nick said with a grin.
Like Cody, Nick Norton had been a beloved child star in the 1980s. But in the man’s own words he’d ‘grown pissed off with playing the token black kid in all those coming of age movies about white kids and their stupid white problems’. Acting wasn’t a man’s game anyway, not according to Nick. As a result of his dissatisfaction with the industry, he’d bailed on Hollywood at fifteen and went off to join the air force.
“Dad!”
Rachel ran over and wrapped her arms around Cody’s neck, nearly strangling him in the process. He’d just survived a near death encounter and now the two people he loved most in the world were trying to kill him with hugs.
“Oww!” he yelped, pressing a hand against his wound.
“My God!” Nick said, taking a step back and looking at Rachel. “Little Rachel MacLeod, is that you? The last time I saw you, you were about the size of my thumb.”
Rachel laughed.
Cody kneeled down to inspect the damage on his side. Nick stepped forward and beat him to it. He lifted Cody’s shirt and took a good look.
Nick looked unimpressed, like he was staring at a shaving cut.
“The bullet grazed you, that’s all,” he said. “Just a flesh wound.”
“It hurts man,” Cody said.
“Don’t be a pussy,” Nick said. He looked at Rachel and his face was instantly apologetic. “Sorry Rachel.”
“She’s heard a lot worse than that,” Cody said.
“Can we go now?” Rachel said, looking at them both. “Is the plane ready?”
“It’s ready now you’re here,” Nick said, holding the rifle across his chest. “Fashionably late I might add – so much so that I decided to come looking for you guys. Good job I did, right? I see this dead asshole wasn’t in any hurry to leave.”
13
Cody, Rachel and Nick set off towards Gate A5. They’d been walking in that direction no more than ten seconds when a strange, shuffling noise stopped them in their tracks.
They turned around.
The corpse on the floor was twitching.
The three of them stood there, watching in horror as a spasmodic jerking of the dead man’s muscles proceeded to throw the lifeless body back and forth across the blood-splattered surface. It looked like his soul was a prisoner, trapped inside the mortal flesh.
Cody knew better. The man’s soul – if he’d had one – was long gone.
Nick pointed his rifle at the convulsing corpse. “What the…?” he said. “He can’t be alive. I just put a hole in that guy the size of West Virginia.”
“He’s not alive,” Cody said.
The body stopped moving. A spray of black mist shot out of it, like steam rising from a kettle. It hovered in mid-air, lingering above the dead man.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nick said.
The dark mist swayed gently, like it was dancing to soft music. A statuesque woman was reborn out of the cloud – the black vapor at the edge forming the arms, while legs sprouted out of its underside. Two silver orbs materialized at the top, along with last but not least, a deathly pale head. It was a graceful, artistic formation of life. In any other context, it might have been beautiful.
“It’s her,” Rachel said.
The Black Widow’s face was a blank canvas. There was no emotion, no sign of anything resembling life. She was a seven-foot doll. Yet she didn’t need facial features to express her intent towards Cody, Rachel and Nick.
She glided slowly towards them.
“This is bad,” Cody said.
“I’m going to shoot the bitch,” Nick said. He rolled the rifle to the side, the muzzle still pointing at the Black Widow. He checked the magazine, then ran the action and rolled the weapon back onto his shoulder. All in a matter of seconds.
“Don’t,” Cody said, putting a hand on the muzzle of the rifle. “It’s a waste of time. You can’t hurt her with a gun.”
“You got a better idea?” Nick said.
Cody shook his head. “No.”
“Dad,” Rachel said, taking a forward step. Her eyes were locked onto the Black Widow. “She’s coming for you. I can…feel it.”
“Rachel,” Cody said, putting a firm hand on her shoulder. “Come on, we’re going to have to make a run for it.”
“No,” she said.
Rachel looked at Cody. He saw the defiance in her eyes – bravery, foolishness, hard-headedness, call it what you will. It was a familial trait, passed down from mother to daughter. Kate had been a stubborn mess of a woman in life – the drugs, the glamour, the neve
rending hope of making a comeback and reclaiming the spotlight once again. She wouldn’t let go of the dream. She chose her path and it was to walk the road of excess that supposedly led to William Blake’s palace of wisdom.
The Black Widow glided forward. Rachel stood her ground.
“Rachel,” Cody said. “Do you hear me? We have to go now.”
He grabbed a hold of her arm and dragged her away.
“No Dad,” she said. “She’s coming for you.”
“C’mon Rachel! She’s coming for all of us.”
Cody tried to pull Rachel back but a sharp pain flared up in his side. He winced and was forced into loosening his grip on Rachel’s arm. He doubled over in pain and Rachel took advantage, managing to wriggle free of Cody’s weakened grip.
She ran towards the Black Widow.
“Rachel!” Cody yelled. He pressed a hand to the wound on his side. It was bleeding profusely.
Rachel didn’t listen or turn around. She kept running towards the Black Widow, the teddy bear swinging at her side.
“Stop!” Cody yelled. He was about to chase after her again but Nick threw a heavily muscled arm out, blocking Cody’s path. Nick pointed to the rifle in his hand.
“You’re no use right now partner,” he said. “Let me take care of this.”
Nick gently shoved Cody out of the way. With the rifle in hand, he watched Rachel running towards the Black Widow. Slowly, he took aim.
“Don’t shoot my kid,” Cody said.
“I’ll try not to,” Nick said. His index finger teased the trigger. Then he fired.
Crack!
The first shot went through the Black Widow like an arrow flying through the mist. The Black Widow kept coming forward and Nick fired again but with the same outcome. He was shooting at a ghost.
“Damn it,” Nick said, lowering the rifle. “How are we supposed to fight?”
Mega Post-Apocalyptic Double Bill Page 56