by Jack Quaid
“Hold him, and not let go,” Shelby said.
“And then what?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. She hadn’t really given it much thought. “Go somewhere quiet. Maybe a little shack in the country somewhere. Try to get away from all this.”
“What if this is everywhere?”
“There has to be somewhere safe,” Shelby said. “I’ll find that somewhere. What about you?”
“I’m going to go to every prison that these metal bastards have built and burn them to the ground until I find Sasha,” Knox said. “After that, I don’t know. I might have a couple of beers.”
Shelby checked the GPS signal. The light was almost flashing as fast as her heart was beating.
“It’s on this floor,” she said, pointing at the door. “Through there.”
Knox leaned up against the door and put his ear to it, closed his eyes and listened for a moment before shaking his head. “I can’t hear anything,” he whispered.
Shelby stepped forward and wrapped her fingers around the knob. “Then let’s go.”
“Wait,” Knox said, grabbing her wrist. “Who knows what’s on the other side of that door? We could be walking into hell. Or we could be walking into something much worse.”
“What’s worse than hell?” Shelby asked.
“What?”
“That we could be walking into? What’s worse than hell?”
“I don’t know,” Knox said. “Listening to the Bee Gees?”
“I don’t think the Bee Gees are on the other side of that door.”
“Bloody hell, I’m just saying, prepare yourself,” Knox said.
Shelby pulled out her Remington from its holster and checked that it was loaded, then looked up at Knox. “Let’s go.”
They both took a step back and squared up with the door.
Knox flicked the safety off the MP80. “Just for the record,” he said. “If the Bee Gees are on the other side of the door, I’m still pulling the trigger.”
Thirty-Nine
Shelby kicked the door in. She panned the shotgun, but it was dark and there appeared to be no movement anywhere. She flicked on her flashlight, and the beam of light shone across the floor. It was an office space filled with rows of desks and motivational quotes on the walls. She held her breath and tried to listen for any noise, but all she could hear was her pounding heart.
She knew she should move slowly. She knew she should make sure that all the threats were neutralized. But with Isaac so close, everything Shelby knew was thrown out the window.
She marched through the office, panning the flashlight into all the dark corners of the 83rd floor. Then, even more carelessly, she called out his name at the top of her lungs. There was nothing Knox could do about the situation, so he trailed behind and covered her with his MP80 as best he could.
“Over here!” Shelby yelled. “He’s over here.”
She ran as fast as she could in between the desks and chairs and photocopiers. She was so close that the GPS watch didn’t blink red, but stayed a consistent red.
“He’s just around here. He’s just . . .”
Shelby stopped dead in her tracks. Knox saw her whole body slump, but he couldn’t see what she was looking at. “Bloody hell! What is it?” he said.
Shelby didn’t answer. She kneeled down and picked something up.
“Is he there?” Knox said.
Shelby didn’t answer. She didn’t even move.
Knox lowered his weapon and moved quietly around to see what it was she held in her hand. A Reebok Pump sneaker with a GPS tracker inside. Isaac’s Reebok Pump sneaker.
He looked back over to see Shelby’s face in the dim light of the flashlight. The expression on her face wasn’t sadness, it wasn’t anger or frustration or distress. It was despair.
Forty
For a long time Shelby didn’t move. She kneeled down and held a tee-shirt close to her face. “He was here,” she said. Her voice was barely louder than a whisper. “In this building. He was here.” She looked up at Knox, her eyes filling with hope. “Maybe he’s still in the building somewhere?”
Knox looked at the piles of clothes that she’d found in the corner. They were a mix of all sizes—children’s, men’s and women’s. He looked at the dried blood on the windows. He looked at the layer of dust on the desks and keyboard.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“We have to look.” Shelby jumped to her feet and pulled her Remington. “We have to go floor to floor and find him.”
“Shelby,” Knox muttered. “He’s not here.”
She wasn’t listening and started off, but as she went to pass by him, Knox grabbed her arm.
“DON’T YOU TOUCH ME!”
“Get a grip on yourself. He hasn’t been here in months,” Knox said. “Nobody has been here in months.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“You don’t have a choice,” he said. “In five minutes we lose our ride, and I don’t fancy going out the front door.”
Shelby looked at him with disgust and hatred. “Where’s your guts?”
“I’m full of guts,” Knox said. “But I’d prefer not to see them ripped out of my body by a toaster.”
Shelby’s eyes hardened. “Are you with me?”
Knox shook his head. “I won’t die with you tonight.”
“So be it,” Shelby said, and a moment later she was gone.
Knox clocked his watch. “Shit,” he said under his breath.
Fifteen minutes were up.
Forty-One
The fire escape door busted open, and Knox stumbled onto the roof of the World Trade Center. He was out of breath and his legs felt as if they were on fire, but relief washed over him when he saw the chopper. But it wasn’t the only helicopter on the roof. A Black Hawk sat next to it, and next to that was Mad Dog with a gun to Happy’s head. His three soldiers raised their M16s to point them at Knox, and Knox just sighed.
Happy was less than impressed. “Friends of yours?” he asked.
“I don’t have any friends.”
“I can see why.”
Knox shifted his eyes from Happy to Mad Dog. “What the hell are you doing?” He motioned to the rest of New York City. “We should be fighting them, not each other.”
“You and I have unfinished business,” Mad Dog said.
“I thought we were cool?”
Mad Dog shook his head. “Does every woman in my family have to sleep with you?”
“No,” Knox said. “But they have.”
“I don’t think you’re helping the situation,” Happy said.
“Where’s the girl? Where’s Shelby Storm?” Mad Dog asked.
“Dead,” said Knox. “Droid killed her downstairs.”
The fire escape doors swung open, and Shelby ran through them. Sweat was dripping down her face as she wiped her brow and took in the scene around her.
Shit.
“I thought you were going out through the lobby?” Knox asked.
“Now I kinda wish I had.”
Knox inched his hand toward the MP80 that was slung over his shoulder.
“Now, do you think that is such a wise idea? Because I really don’t,” Mad Dog said as he pushed the barrel of his weapon deeper into Happy’s temple.
“Do what you want. I don’t give a shit about him.”
Mad Dog pulled the trigger. Blood sprayed out in a pink mist into the night sky as Happy’s body fell to the ground without much fanfare. Mad Dog shifted his aim to Knox.
“Are you out of your bloody mind!” Knox yelled.
“I think maybe I am a little out of my mind,” Mad Dog said. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay for the things you’ve done.”
“He’s going to kill us both,” Shelby said, only loud enough for Knox to hear. “What do we do?”
Knox scanned the scene. Their options didn’t look good. He took the only one he thought they had and stepped in front of Shelby like some sort of human shield.
“What are you doing!?” Shelby asked.
“There’s no point both of us dying here tonight.”
It took Shelby a moment to catch up to what he was suggesting. “No.”
“When they open fire,” Knox said, “make a run for it.”
Mad Dog’s face scrunched up. “How very gentlemanly of you. I suppose you want some last words as well?”
Knox nodded. “Yeah, shoot straight, you bastard.”
“Wait! No!” Shelby yelled.
Mad Dog pulled the trigger. A round exploded out of the end of the barrel and was chased by another one straight after. The first one hit Knox square in the chest, the second only inches from his heart.
Shelby caught his falling body and helped him to the ground. This was her chance. She was meant to make a break for it, she was meant to run, but she forgot all that as soon as the first rounds were fired. Shelby held Knox in her arms, blood pooling underneath him. Knox coughed up blood, grabbed the collar of her leather jacket and pulled her close. Shelby waited to hear his final words of wisdom.
His lips touched her ear, and he spoke. “Run, you idiot.”
Even in death he was still a son of a bitch.
She sat up and looked at Mad Dog with hate in her eyes. Then she glanced to the handle of the Remington over her right shoulder.
“You know those EMP shells won’t work on us,” Mad Dog said with a smirk.
Shelby palmed the Beretta strapped to her thigh. “Who says I have EMP rounds?”
Mad Dog’s smile dropped.
She yanked up the sidearm and blasted half a dozen rounds his way. She didn’t aim, she didn’t have time. All she needed was for them to dive for cover, and with six rounds headed their way, that was exactly what they did. The seventh round she fired was the one she took a little more time with. Shelby lined up the back of Mad Dog’s head in her sights and didn’t think twice about it. She pulled the trigger. The round blasted through the air, and that was the story of Mad Dog. Just another dead asshole at the end of the world.
The other soldiers pulled up their weapons.
That was when Shelby took off running. She didn’t head for the stairs, she ran to the edge of the South Tower instead. She wasn’t convinced it was the best idea she’d ever had, but it was the one she was running with. She put a foot up onto the railing and catapulted herself over the roof and into the darkness.
Shelby fell quicker than she thought.
The wind slapped her face, stung her eyes and felt like ice.
The sidewalk came up fast.
She only had seconds.
Shelby dug her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out the stainless steel ball that Sue referred to as “The Last Resort.” She fumbled for the red button, and it wasn’t until that moment that she figured maybe her plan wasn’t as well thought out as it should have been, but she wasn’t really in a position to be choosy.
She pressed the button, and a ball of high-density rubber wrapped around her just as she hit the sidewalk.
It may have saved her life, but it did her hair no favors. Shelby stumbled and kept her eyes shut to try to stop her head from spinning. When she finally did open her eyes she didn’t like what she saw. She was surrounded by more U.S. Army soldiers than she cared to count. A ragtag bunch of old men and young boys, and every one of them had some sort of rifle or gun aimed at her.
She gave a coy wave. “Hi, boys.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
Dear reader,
Sometimes I pick up a novel and judging by the cover I know there’s probably going to be a car chase or someone is probably going to blast into space, or there might even be a shootout or two in it. Never in a million years did I think I’d open World War Metal and find Meat Loaf battling a dinosaur with a great big medieval sword in his hand. So I guess it really is true; you can’t judge a book by its cover.
Thank you for having a read of our new mad release. If you’re looking for some more Shelby Storm craziness, then you can join everybody’s favourite, gun toting, robot crushing supermodel as she hits the road and travels across the madness that has become the United States of America.
In World War Metal Vol: 2, the droids have a plan to destroy humanity once and for all! They’re drilling down into the core of the Earth and once they do that, it’s all over man. They’re going to drop a bomb in there and split the planet in two!
Abigail has seven days to hot tail it from Manhattan to LA and put a stop to the end of the world. But don’t kid yourself, this is not your typical everyday road trip. Abigail will come up against glam rock hair bands turned scavengers, gun-toting soccer moms and she’ll learn the truth about what happened to her son.
World War Metal Vol: 2 has often been referred to as The Godfather Part II of this trilogy… but y’know, with killer robots and stuff.
To download Abigail’s next adventure head straight over to Amazon.
And if you want to leave a quick review for World War Metal Vol: 1 it would be totally cool if you could do so on Amazon.
We hope you had fun! Thank you for reading! You rock!
Luke Preston and everybody at Electric Mayhem.
Also by Jack Quaid
World War Metal Vol: 1
World War Metal Vol: 2
World War Metal Vol: 3
Captain of the Universe
arcade squad
Star Defender
Game Over
Escape from Happydale
Escape from Bastard Town
Escape from Slaughter Beach
Exorcist 90210
The City on the Edge of Tomorrow
A Coin Operated Future
A Fist Full of Credits
For a Few Credits More
The Good, the Bad and the Artificially Advanced
Atomic Pussycat
Hard Boiled: Vigilante Reloaded
Hard Boiled: Out of Exile
Hard Boiled: Extraction