“How long?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “Not long.”
Cody nodded. “Do you know how far they’ve…?”
He was cut off by a noise coming from the street.
Footsteps. They were light, a gentle pitter-patter skipping over the snow. It sounded like someone who was trying to sneak through the city undetected, but doing a terrible job at keeping quiet.
Rita hurried along the rooftop, trying to catch a glimpse of the runner. She leaned her head over the side. The rifle was pointing streetside.
“You see anything?” Cody asked.
Rita dropped to her knees, her fingertips grabbing a hold of the edge for support. She leaned over a little further.
Her jaw dropped.
“What?” Cody said, noticing the shocked expression on her face. “What is it?”
“I think it’s a kid.”
“A kid?” Cody said.
“Yeah,” Rita said. “I think so.”
Cody turned to Rachel. He felt a surge of anger swelling up inside.
“You see what you did with your stupid stunt?” he said. “You scared the crap out of some street kid who was hiding out down there. Maybe he was sleeping in one of the other cars when you flipped that one over for kicks.”
Rachel glared at Cody. She had the same penetrating scowl as her mother.
“We need to go after that kid,” Rita said.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Cody said. “We’ve got work to do here.”
Rita stood up and dusted a layer of black snow off her coat.
“And what if it was Rachel wandering the streets by herself?” she said, looking at Cody. “What if she had no one to look out for her? Wouldn’t you want someone like us to help her if they could?”
Cody looked towards the street. He shook his head.
“It might not be what it seems,” he said. “It probably isn’t.”
“And what if it is?” Rita said. “C’mon man, I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Will you? Knowing that we might have left a child out here to freeze to death? That shit’s not good for my mind. Whoever that is down there, they won’t make it alone. Not for long.”
Cody sighed. She was right and yet a loud voice at the back of his mind told him it was a bad idea. Besides that, it was an unwanted distraction – they were supposed to be overseeing Rachel’s training. That was still the most important thing.
Wasn’t it?
But Rita didn’t let up. After the words had stopped, she kept pleading with her eyes.
Cody sighed and slid the Glock back into the holster. Then he gave Rita the smile she was looking for.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.”
3
Cody and the others ran downstairs as fast as they could.
There was nothing outside. No sound. No kid. Only a wall of silence that stretched across San Antonio for miles. The only thing that had changed since they’d first gone into the Robert E. Lee building that morning was the car that was now lying upside down in the middle of the road.
It wasn’t swaying anymore.
Cody glared at Rachel. She didn’t seem to notice.
They stood on the sidewalk, listening for a moment. Rita’s face was a mask of concentration, her eyes and ears alert as she sought some trace of the runner. She turned to the left and looked along the street, holding a finger up so that nobody interrupted her concentration.
The sound of crunching snow. It was faint but it was there in the distance.
“Up there,” Rita said, pointing towards the sound. “C’mon.”
They followed the footsteps, taking a sharp turn east onto North Main Avenue. Looking around, they were surrounded by a huddle of ugly tower blocks and square buildings – a huddle of haunted houses to occupy a city full of ghosts. Everything was dark and out of focus. Let it stay that way, Cody thought. He felt no desire to linger here any longer than they needed to.
The footsteps stopped up ahead and left a gaping silence. A moment later something else – a different noise, came drifting down the street towards them.
A child was crying.
Rita, who’d been leading the pack in its pursuit of the runner, slowed down when she heard it. With a finger pressed to her lips she crept further up the street while Cody and Rachel stayed close behind her. It was obvious by the careful manner of her step that Rita didn’t want to spook the kid.
Cody drew his pistol. Kid or not, he wasn’t taking any chances.
Rachel walked at Cody’s side. Her stride was the most carefree out of all of them, like she wasn’t really paying attention to what was happening. Cody had the feeling that some part of her was back on the roof of the Robert E. Lee building, still tinkering with the city lights.
“Sounds close,” Cody said, listening to the sobbing.
“I see him,” Rita said, pointing straight ahead. “End of the street. In the grass.”
“Got it,” Cody said. “Just one?”
“I only see one,” Rita said.
They found the child cowering in a small patch of dead grass. It was a little boy, about twelve-years-old, with dirty brown hair who looked at the approaching strangers with wide and frightened eyes. He was tucked up next to several coffin-shaped flowerbeds, which spewed out a mass of dead, strangled weeds that had at some point succumbed to lack of sunlight. There was a scattering of wooden picnic benches close to the flowerbeds. Cody thought that the area might have been a small public garden, an oasis of green in contrast to all the concrete and metal.
They walked towards the boy. Rita was still on her tiptoes, like she feared the presence of a hidden crevasse underneath the black snow.
It was Rachel who walked ahead of the adults. Cody saw her take the lead and wanted to reel her in. But it was too late.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asked the boy.
Cody and Rita scanned the area, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Any sign that they were being tricked. Visibility was dire. They could only see so far into the distance, even with two strong flashlights at their disposal.
The boy took one look at the rifle in Rita’s hands. His eyes nearly burst out their sockets and he tried to claw his way back through the snow in reverse. He bumped into one of the flowerbeds and had nowhere else to go. This only frightened him further. His fingers dug deep into the soft black snow, holding on for dear life.
“Don’t kill me,” he said. His voice was a whimper.
Rita lowered the rifle slowly.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” she said. “Look, I’m putting the weapon away. Okay?”
Rita brought the rifle further down so that the barrel was pointing at the street.
Cody lowered the Glock to his side. He didn’t feel great about doing that but as soon as Rita had lowered her Savage rifle, the boy’s petrified face turned towards Cody.
“We’re here to help,” Cody said. “That thing with the car back there, it spooked you right? Well that was our fault. It was an accident. Right Rachel?”
“Sorry,” Rachel said.
The boy said nothing.
“Are you alone?” Rita asked.
“Why do you want to know?” the boy asked.
Rita shrugged. “Just want to know. Okay if I come a little closer?”
The boy didn’t answer. Rita tiptoed forward anyway, keeping the rifle by her side. Cody walked beside her and he almost bumped into Rachel who’d stopped dead in front of him.
“Dad,” she said, looking over her shoulder.
“What is it?”
“Something’s wrong.”
Cody heard a rustling sound nearby.
The noise came from somewhere behind the young boy. Cody’s heart sank right away. A voice screamed in his head, yelling at him to raise the Glock, to spin around and shoot at anything that moved. Either that or run.
They’d been stupid. Now it was too late.
Four men leapt out from behind the flowerbeds
. Street urchins. They were dressed in grimy, dirt-stained winter coats that looked like they’d been lifted off the streets. All four of the heavily bearded men were wearing black beanie hats, which were pulled low over their foreheads. There was a slightly unhinged look in their eyes as they came forward, each one carrying a pistol in their hands and pointing it at Cody, Rachel and Rita.
One of the men smiled. His front teeth were missing, which added to an already gruesome appearance. Cody couldn’t help but think that this gang belonged in a Dickens novel, alongside the likes of Bill Sykes and Fagan in nineteenth century London.
“Good work Jack,” one of the gunmen said, speaking in a thick West Texan drawl.
The boy’s gap-toothed grin almost reached his ears. Standing up and shuffling backwards, he took his place behind the four adults.
“Don’t try anything smart now,” the same gunman said, pointing a finger at the rifle in Rita’s hand. “We got more guns than you.”
He looked at Rachel and gave her a twisted grin.
“You too missy,” the gunman said. “I know all about you and you’d best behave sweetheart. I got this gun right here pointed at your daddy’s brain. You so much as blink in a way that displeases me and I’m going to splatter his bits and pieces all over the snow. You understand me?”
Rachel looked at Cody. He nodded, hoping that she understood.
Cody heard a clutter of footsteps off to his right. He looked that way and saw five other people walking towards them in a hurry. They were dressed in the same disheveled winter clothing: well-worn coats, hats and hoods pulled over their heads. Thick beards and dirty faces. A couple of them were carrying flashlights. They had guns too – pistols mostly, but one of them carried what looked like a shotgun.
They were tramps with attitude. A real ragtag army for sure.
“Oh shit,” Rita said. She looked at Cody and didn’t have to say anything for him to understand what she was thinking.
“I’m sorry. I’m…”
She was cut off by a solitary set of footsteps at their back.
“Jesus,” Cody said.
How big was the ragtag army?
Somebody was standing directly at Cody’s back. Cody could hear this person, whoever they were, breathing. Not only that, he could feel it blowing onto his skin. A gust of warm breath touched his neck and although Cody was curious, something stopped him from turning around. Rita and Rachel kept their eyes to the front too.
A gloved hand tore the Glock out of Cody’s grip.
The person at their backs walked down the line in what seemed like slow motion. Rita’s rifle was likewise snatched out her hands.
Seconds later, a cloaked figure walked in front of the three captives. The person, whose head was buried underneath a large hood, was carrying their guns – one in each hand. He walked over towards the emaciated looking boy that the toothless ragtag had called Jack.
The jet-black cloak swayed in the icy breeze.
Jack looked up at the cloak’s hidden face. The boy smiled and his rotten teeth looked like broken stones in his mouth while his eyes spilled over with adoration. The kid reminded Cody of a little dog, his mouth drooling in anticipation of praise and reward.
Cody felt the cold barrel of a pistol pressing up against the back of his head. A second gunman had also snuck up behind Rita and pushed a gun against her skull.
Rachel turned around, looking at the two gunmen. Cody knew she was thinking about doing something. Her eyes had already narrowed in concentration, but then she must have thought otherwise because she turned back to the front and kept quiet. Cody breathed a sigh of relief. With a gun on the back of her dad’s head, Rachel was smart enough to know that her gifts weren’t fast enough to make a difference.
The cloaked figure dropped Cody’s Glock on the grass. He kept the Savage rifle in his hands however and leaned forward to examine the weapon more closely. One of his black-gloved hands wrapped itself around the barrel while the other gripped the stock on the opposite end. With a single thrust, the cloak pushed down and bent the rifle, bringing the two ends together. The weapon groaned as it was disfigured into the shape of a horseshoe.
The cloak dropped the rifle like it was a piece of trash.
“Thanks,” Rita said. “Thanks a lot mister.”
The gunman standing behind Rita struck the barrel of his gun off her head. Rita yelped and tilted her head forward to try and put some distance between the pistol and her skull.
“What the hell’s going on?” Cody said. He was looking at the cloak. “What do you want with us?”
The cloaked man – Cody was fairly certain it was a man by the broad shoulders – stood in silence with the most of the ragtags gathered at his back. About ten seconds of uncomfortable silence followed Cody’s question. Then the cloaked stranger pulled at the fingers of the black glove on his right hand. He peeled the glove off slowly, one finger at a time.
Cody’s blood ran cold. The man’s hand was covered in scars. The fingers looked slightly crooked, as if they didn’t work properly anymore. Then the second glove came off and it was the same thing.
The mangled hands reached towards the head. Slowly they pushed back the hood to reveal the cloak’s face.
Cody heard Rachel let out a quiet shriek.
“Hello again,” Mackenzie said. He looked back and forth between Cody and Rachel. There was a half-smile on his face.
“Oh Jesus,” Cody said. He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.
Mackenzie was barely recognizable as the sharp-suited, handsome man who’d caused them so much trouble several months ago. Like his hands, Mackenzie’s face was horribly scarred. It was a mess, like he’d tried to shave with a lawnmower. A maze of deep grooves and lines smothered his features against a backdrop of painful and tender-looking red skin. There was a black patch fastened over Mackenzie’s left eye. Mackenzie’s remaining good eye, the right one, was barely open and the lid badly scarred around the edges. His hair was still long but whereas it had been well groomed before, now it was wild and ragged. There were scattered bald spots on the top of his head where the crows had pulled the hair out in chunks.
It was a miracle he was even alive. Cody recalled how hard the birds had gone after Mackenzie in Brackenridge Park that day. It wasn’t something Cody was ever going to forget and in fact, he’d seen the action replayed in his dreams in the first few weeks that had followed their return from the park.
“You look surprised,” Mackenzie said.
“That’s one word for it,” Cody said.
Rita looked at Mackenzie. Her jaw had almost dropped to the ground.
“Is that really you?” she asked.
Mackenzie nodded.
“It’s been a long time,” he said, looking at Rita. “If memory serves me well, you were one of the Resistance soldiers who refused to cooperate. I never forget a face. That was a smart decision you made, all things considered.”
“Yeah it was,” Rita said. “I heard what you did to Harry and the others.”
Mackenzie smirked slightly.
“What do you want?” Cody said.
“Oh I don’t know Cody,” Mackenzie said. “Take a wild guess.”
Cody nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Well I guess you’re pissed off about what happened to your face. Real sorry about that. Tell me something, does that lady doctor still have the hots for you?”
“She’s dead,” Mackenzie said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Your good friends Nick and Crazy Diamond saw to that. As they did with all of my former colleagues.”
“What a pity,” Cody said. “She was a charmer that one.”
Mackenzie raised a delicate hand to his face. He touched the red skin, as if to soothe something that was burning.
He was staring at Rachel.
“Don’t look so worried,” he said to her. “It’s just my flesh that burns. This sort of thing isn’t important. It doesn’t matter to the likes of us – not for much longer anyway.”
“
Well that’s very decent of you,” Rita said. “Now if you’ll just let us go we’ll be on our way and…”
“We’ve been watching you,” Mackenzie said. “Up there on the Robert E. Lee building. You’re getting ready aren’t you? I understand your optimism, especially after what happened last time. But you know that when they get here you don’t have a chance against them Rachel. They’re more powerful than you can imagine. Look around you for God’s sake. They did all of this from a great distance. Now they’re coming here.”
“What do you want Mackenzie?” Cody said.
“Nothing’s changed since we last met,” Mackenzie said. “When they come I’ll be waiting with the girl as my welcome gift to them. I underestimated you last time Rachel. And do you know what? So did they.”
Rachel glared at Mackenzie. Her fingers curled into a tight fist.
“Don’t do anything stupid Rachel,” Mackenzie said. “Think before you act.”
Mackenzie pointed a gnarled finger to the gunman at Cody’s back. The pistol barrel felt like a tube of ice pushing up against Cody’s skull.
“You’re powerful Rachel,” Mackenzie said. “No doubt about that. I’ve seen it with my own eyes and it’s incredible. I can only imagine what you’ve become over these past few months with regular practice.”
“Let us go,” Rachel said. “Or you’ll find out what I’ve become.”
Mackenzie shook his head.
“You’re too confident,” he said. “Let me bring you back down to Earth for a second Rachel – you’re not that fast. There’s a bullet just inches from your father’s head. But go on, little girl. Call the birds again why don’t you? See if your dad isn’t lying dead in a pool of blood by the time they get here.”
Cody glanced at his Glock. It was still lying at Mackenzie’s feet.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Mackenzie said, looking at Cody. “They’ll be here soon. Until then we’re going to keep you with us at all times. You and Rachel. It’ll be fun. Some daddy and daughter time – I remember what that was like back when I had my own little girl.”
Mackenzie’s face darkened.
Mega Post-Apocalyptic Double Bill Page 76