by Justin Bell
Broderick turned left down one of the side streets and kept walking. “The scene is pretty nasty,” he warned. “You guys may want to hang out outside while I check things out.”
Long, empty stretches of road reached into the smoky darkness like fingers. Passing through residential areas, they started to come upon thick clutches of businesses, brick and concrete buildings, small one-level offices, companies mixed with peoples’ houses. It was quieter here than it had been deeper in the city, sirens inaudible. The persistent burnt smell was still there and the vague taste of smoke on their tongues.
“Couple blocks,” Broderick said, pointing forward. Jackson and Clark followed the direction of his movement and didn’t even see the shift of dark on dark to their left, the sliding of a shadowed figure peeling away from darker shadows between two buildings. The figure crept close to the buildings on the right side of the road, moving forward at a swift, but silent pace.
Broderick turned. “Stay right— watch out!” He saw the figure seconds before it leaped into action, the shadow solidifying as it jumped, bursting from a dark absence of light behind it. Clark whirled, but was hit before he could turn all the way around, a shoulder slamming him in his left ribs, ratcheting agony all up his left side. He struggled to bring his other hand around with the pistol clamped between two fingers, but the figure shifted, sending its other arm axe-chopping forward, cracking into the ex-Marine’s forearm and knocking his gun to the pavement. A swift punch followed by an elbow punted Clark to the pavement.
Jackson took a step forward, but the figure leaped over Clark and kicked out, hitting him in the chest with the thick sole of a combat boot. Jackson’s feet went out from under him and he pinwheeled, stumbling backwards, striking the road underneath him, pinning his backpack beneath his sprawling form. Broderick was already pulling the pistol from its holster, but the mysterious attacker turned on him, bolting across the street incredibly fast, faster than he could get his pistol up. A hand shot out, knocking his weapon arm askew, pointing the pistol up into the sky, then a second arm shot forward, palm-first into Broderick’s chest, knocking him stumbling backwards, feet skipping on sidewalk. The figure moved with him, moving in close and fast, slamming him spine-first against the brick wall, coming up close, snatching the weapon from his own hand and pinning the barrel tight to the side of his yellow-hooded head.
It happened in seconds and even in the low light of night, Broderick’s eyes, wide with alarm, looked face-to-face with a mask almost exactly like his. A mask he recognized.
“Davis?” he barked, his voice rasping. “Sergeant Davis? You survived?”
Broderick couldn’t see Dean Davis’s face behind the mask, but he could picture the curled lips, the angry snarl of teeth within.
“Yeah, it’s me, Schmidt,” the voice growled. “The only one left alive. Team Ten is all dead, thanks to you.”
“Davis, come on. I know, things have gone sideways today—”
“Sideways? You call this sideways? Chaboth gunned down in the streets? You screwing everything up ever since? Everyone we know on the team dead? That’s sideways?”
“Sergeant, it’s not too late.”
“Oh it’s too late. It’s well past too late.”
Broderick felt the cold, rounded tip of the gun barrel poke hard into his right temple, pressure increasing.
“We can fix this,” Broderick stammered. “We can help figure this out if we work together.”
“Everyone else who worked with you is lying on the street in their own blood. That’s not gonna be me.”
“Dean,” Broderick said quietly, reverting to the man’s first name to try and refamiliarize himself. “please. This won’t solve the world’s problems. This won’t bring anyone back.”
“It’s time to stop talking,” said Davis. “It’s time to start dying.”
***
Broderick’s teeth dug together, grinding, his face clenched and muscles tensed. At his right temple he felt the slow push of metal on bone, the thin covering of flesh doing little to soften the pain.
“Dean, we can work this out,” he said desperately, feeling his life floating up out of his body, lifting from his containment suit like the light, gray smoke that had been choking them all night. Davis’s forearm dug tight into Broderick’s throat as he leaned in, pressing him against the brick, the pistol clutched tight and shoved against the side of his head.
“There’s nothing more I need from you,” Davis snarled.
“A cure. We can cure this. We can save the world,” Broderick replied, his voice choking as he spoke.
“I don’t give a crap about the world,” Davis replied. “All I care about right now is taking you out of it.” The pistol pressed, Broderick closed his eyes, bracing himself, knowing that no matter how hard he tensed his muscles, this was going to end in seconds. Perhaps that was for the best. Maybe Davis had been right when talking about the young girl he’d wanted to shoot, maybe a single bullet was more merciful than coughing up your liquified lungs. Maybe this was a blessing, after all—
“Don’t!” the shout was short and swift, movement following the voice immediately. Davis shifted his stance, glancing left just as the man bolted from the shadows, charging. The sergeant brought his weapon around, but he hadn’t been expecting the interruption and wasn’t quite fast enough, the man’s full weight barreling into him from the left. He felt the impact under his left arm and his feet left the ground as this strange man lifted him up and threw him sideways. Davis buckled as his shoulder hit, curling and rolling, the pain jolting that entire side of his body, and still the man he couldn’t quite see pressed forward, leaping, jumping on him, tackling him down.
Davis hurled a fist in a tight arc, colliding with the man’s jaw, and his head snapped back, shifting his weight. The sergeant rolled, pushing, forcing the man off of him, sending him sprawling backwards onto the pavement. Following up, he moved into the man’s sprawl, lunging forward, slamming his shoulders down to the ground, rearing his head up and shooting it forward, splitting his attacker’s nose with the crown of his hooded head, careful not to strike with the gas mask.
The other man grunted in pain, trying to bring his hands up to staunch the flow of blood, but Davis reared back his fist and threw it forward, pummeling the stranger’s face once, then twice, then lifting his arm a third time.
“Don’t move!”
Davis halted in mid punch, his clenched fist quivering with barely contained rage. He looked up in the direction of the voice and saw Clark, who had brought himself upright again, holding his pistol in two practiced hands, leveling at him.
“Get off of him, Sergeant,” Broderick said from a different angle, and Davis swung around in that direction, seeing that he, too, had his pistol out and aimed. His breathing came in strained chokes, bursting from the filtration mask in synthetic hisses. Looking down below he saw the man on his back, his face streaked with red, and he recognized him.
It was one of the guys who ambushed them. One of the group who had killed Major Chaboth. The only one who had survived. He glared at him, trying to put the pieces together in his head, but not able to quite make them fit. Looking over at Broderick again, he saw the canvas duffel bag at his feet, it had fallen to the ground and spilled open, and it was full of semi-automatic rifles.
His eyes roamed from Broderick to Clark, then back to Broderick as he stood slowly, lifting his hands in mock surrender.
“Sergeant Davis, stay right where you are.” Broderick took a cautious step forward, his weapon aimed at his former teammate. The only teammate he had who was still breathing.
Davis shook his head. “This isn’t over, Schmidt. This isn’t even close to over. You have no idea what Pandora’s Box you’ve opened.”
Broderick hesitated. There was a tenor to Davis’s voice, a strange cadence that unsettled him. “What do you mean?”
Davis shifted left as if he was going to run and Broderick torqued his waist, moving the pistol, but then the sergea
nt charged the other direction, whirling right and bolting.
“Watch it!” Clark shouted, adjusting his aim slightly and firing twice with the pistol. The blasts were loud, the muzzle flashes extraordinarily bright in the dim light, but the bullets whined off into the black, showing no sign of impact. Running feet slapped on pavement, fading into nothing as Davis charged down the side street, swallowed by the encroaching shadows.
Broderick stepped over to where the man was laying on the ground and extended a hand to help him up.
“Thanks,” he said.
The man on the ground nodded, letting himself be lifted up into a standing position. “Thank you,” he said. “You saved my life back there.”
Broderick looked at him. “You were one of the guys who ambushed us. Your friend killed my teammate.”
“My name is Javier,” the man replied. “And yes, I am sorry. My friend did that, I still don’t know why. Bad things happen, and people do things you would not expect.”
“Kind of like the guy who just tried to kill me, huh?”
“Yes, like him. Like any of us, I suppose.”
“Well, I appreciate the save,” Broderick said, bending over to scoop the discarded duffel bag from the street. He slipped it back over his shoulder. “The two of you okay?” he asked, looking over toward Clark and Jackson. Clark was helping Jackson to his feet.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Clark replied. “Ego’s a little bruised, but we’re good.”
“Don’t feel too bad. That dude was one of the ex-Marines I warned you about. He spent quite a while in Force Recon before ending up tagged to my team. Getting knocked down by him is nothing to be embarrassed by, especially since you’re still breathing afterwards.”
“Force Recon?” Clark asked. “Those are some nasty snake eaters. How does a dude like that get tagged with a bio-weapons team?”
Broderick opened his mouth to answer, but paused, realizing that he actually didn’t have an answer for that question. The Research Institute at Detrick had tasked him as being their military liaison, but nobody had really given him a clear explanation as to why. Of course, he hadn’t asked.
“I think we’ve got more important things to worry about at the moment,” Broderick said.
“Amen, brother,” Clark replied. “Longer we’re in this city, the more crap seems to come our way.”
“Where are you all headed?” Javier asked.
“We’ve got one place in Quincy to check out before we skip town,” Broderick replied. “One block that way.”
“And once you leave the city?”
“Next stop’s Connecticut,” Jackson replied. “Aldrich. Small town outside Hartford. I’ve got family there.”
Javier nodded.
“What about you?” Broderick asked. “Where’s your family?”
Javier shrugged. “My parents live just outside Boston. Honestly, I don’t even know if they’re still kicking. After today, I’m leaning more and more toward they’re probably not. Dad’s got respiratory problems. Mom can barely care for him.”
“You heading back for them? Or you feel like tagging on to this caravan of handsome studs?” Clark asked.
Javier chuckled. “Never been to Connecticut. Can’t be worse than what’s going on here.”
Broderick nodded. “Well, let’s hit the market first, then we’ll move on from there.” He started to walk away, the others falling in behind him.
“Wait, did you say the market?” Clark asked. “A little grocer’s? In this neighborhood?”
“Yeah,” Broderick replied. “Right down this way.”
Clark shook his head and let his eyes drift closed. “Dang, man.”
“What’s the matter?” Jackson asked.
“My buddy Dom owns a market right down the road here. It’s his place.”
Broderick laid a hand on Clark’s shoulder. “Sorry to hear that, Clark. Everyone in the market was lost. All but one.”
“There was a survivor?” Jackson asked. “Like me?”
“Similar,” Broderick replied. “Little girl, not much more than ten, I wouldn’t think.”
“And you left her there before?” Jackson asked, not even trying to hide the incredulity in his voice.
“Not by choice. She took off running. I’m hoping if we approach her a bit more cautiously this time, we might convince her to come with us. She might hold the key to what makes this thing work.”
“Well, I lived, too,” Jackson said.
“True,” Broderick replied. “But both of her parents died. She should have shared the majority of her genetic structure with them. If she lived and they didn’t… well that could go a very long way toward isolating the genome that is resistant to this thing. As long as…” he didn’t want to finish the statement.
“As long as what?” Clark asked.
“Well, it’s a genetically engineered attack. We have no idea how it might mature. How it might adapt and learn to attack newer environments. Newer hosts. It’s a complete unknown.”
“Well, that’s not at all frightening.”
The four men continued walking, the small market now emerging from the smoke and shadows ahead of the cherry red Cougar in the rear employee lot, the love of Dominic’s life. The car that Clark had painstakingly helped him restore over the past three years. He halted, just staring at the vehicle, wondering how a simple collection of sheet metal, plastic, and tires could instill such an emotional reaction in a man, especially a man who had served in the Marines. A man who had faced death head-on and hadn’t blinked. A man who had watched more than one friend die, on the battlefield and off.
Just seeing the red car put a swift stab into his chest, his heart clamping tight.
“I’m not going in there,” he whispered.
Jackson and Broderick stopped, turning toward him, with Javier stopping just behind.
“That’s my friend Dominic’s car,” he said, nodding toward the Cougar. No one said a word, they just stood there for a moment. From the outside, things looked normal, the front lot, the cars in back, the small market a wide, one-level building, just a typical downtown mom and pop grocer’s. The low light didn’t allow them to see what was inside, the windows only reflected the smoke and dim light of their surroundings, hiding the carnage inside, much to Jackson and Clark’s relief.
“It’s fine,” Broderick replied. “Just hang out here, I’m going to go inside and see if—”
“Wait a minute,” Clark interjected.
“What?” Broderick asked.
“The car. I think I saw someone inside.”
“Inside the car?”
Clark nodded and strode forward, checking to make sure his pistol holster was accessible, but covered by his shirt, so as not to scare a child if that’s who this was.
“Take it slow,” Broderick whispered. “Last time we caught sight of her, she took off, scared.”
“Maybe you should hang back,” Clark replied, looking at the man in the bright yellow protective containment suit and alien-looking gas mask.
Broderick nodded and did as Clark suggested, slowing his walk and drifting back, letting the others approach the car first. Even in the low light, he could see the shape moving beyond the rear window, almost looking frantic now as men approached.
“Take it easy, honey,” Clark said, loud enough for whoever was in the car to hear. “We’re friends.”
Jackson moved toward the door as Clark stepped back. He slowly reached out, easing the door handle softly up, then pulled it toward himself, slowly opening the thick, metal door with a screech.
She bolted out before he could even react. A swift, small blur, the girl leaped from the seat, hit the ground and ran, squeezing between Jackson and Clark, with Javier turning just in time to see her scream past him at a dead run. Broderick stepped out from behind the wall of the market, opening his arms. She screamed as he converged on her.
“No, no, let me go let me go!” she yelled as he moved in closer, then swarmed her with his arms, wra
pping them around her squirming form, squeezing and holding her thrashing body. She clenched fists and beat on his chest and arms and shoulders, crying and yelling the whole time.
“I’m a friend, honey! A friend!” he yelled. “I’m not going to hurt you, none of us are!”
“Everyone’s dead in there!” she screamed. “They’re all dead!”
“I know, sweetheart,” Broderick replied softly as her thrashing slowly started to ebb. “I know.” He could feel her entire body clench, then relax, almost as if deflating, dropping down into a loose sack of flesh and contained bones. He tucked her in tight, holding her close, pushing her cheek to his shoulder in an embrace. The child had given up the fight wholly and completely, collapsing in his arms like a collection of thick, wet spaghetti, and he could feel her chest heaving within his arms.
Broderick lowered himself to a kneel, setting her down on the sidewalk, her feet somewhat unsteady, but still supporting her. Using his left hand, he held her upright, precariously balanced, and reached up with his right hand, unfastening his gas mask.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Javier as he walked closer. Broderick ignored him and pressed a release mechanism, popping the face plate off with a loud click and low hiss of escaping pressure.
“See?” Broderick asked. “I’m just a person. Just a normal person like you.”
“I’m not normal,” she whispered. “I didn’t die. I’m not even sick.”
Broderick smiled. “Look around you, sweetie. None of us are sick. We all feel pretty normal.”
The little girl looked around at the men surrounding her and they all made sure to show some friendly smiles as her eyes passed over the unrecognized faces. Her mouth firmed and she swiped a snatch of tears from her eyes, then sniffled long and hard, but stayed where she was.
“What’s your name?” Broderick asked. She was still clutching onto his hand and she turned back toward him.
“Melinda. Melinda Silva. Everyone calls me Mel.”