by Joe Hart
The younger man scrambled toward him and drove a knee into his side where the gunshot dribbled fresh blood. Gray screamed, a sound like a strangled bird coming from his mouth, and clawed at him, raking a runner of red down the side of his neck, but Darrin struck him again, his knee a wrecking ball of bone. Gray blinked, his eyesight like looking through a windowpane left to the weather for years without cleaning. Darrin’s shape stood and moved a short distance away, bending over as if to look for something. Gray rolled to his stomach and pressed himself onto his hands and knees.
“You got me a bit there, Sheriff,” Darrin said before hawking and spitting a ball of blood onto the floor. “Definitely a better fighter than your shithead deputy was. He died flopping on the floor and pissing his pants. Take that thought with you into the nether.”
Gray’s vision watered and then cleared enough for him to see Darrin pick up the pistol from an inch of seed. Launching himself up like a sprinter coming off the blocks, he ran the three steps between them as Darrin tried to bring the weapon to bear. He caught the younger man’s wrist and swung it high over his head, a pulse of three shots erupting from its barrel into empty space, before bringing it down over his knee.
Darrin’s arm broke, both bones folding over so that it bent in three places instead of two.
The pistol escaped his grip and bounced, disappearing into the wheat pile once again. Darrin let out a moaning grunt and pulled a cylinder from behind his back with his functioning arm, a long needle-like tip springing from one end. Gray shoved him backward, running with him toward the wall and the waiting grain elevator that leaned there.
Gray slammed him into one of the large bins that scooped up the seed and Darrin strained forward, stabbing the pointed weapon at his face. The tip of the needle traced a line of fire across Gray’s cheek and he turned, wrapping his hand around Darrin’s wrist. He wrenched the younger man’s hand at a painful angle and stared into his defiant eyes. Slowly the weapon rolled out of his grasp and Gray ripped it away.
With a flick of his hand, he spun the cylinder around and plunged its tip it into Darrin’s chest.
There was a muffled, wet snap and Darrin’s eyelids widened, his eyes rolling up into his head. Gray looked down at the handle and saw that his thumb rested on a smooth button set within the weapon’s grip. Darrin’s legs jittered once and then his knees folded beneath him and Gray let him drop to the floor where he tipped face-first into the wheat. He landed on the weapon’s handle and several shimmering points poked from his back, glazed with blood. Darrin’s body shuddered once and then lay still.
“You really are something, Sheriff.”
Gray spun away from the corpse and watched Vincent Barder enter through the open man door. Smoke whirled around him in wreaths of yellow and a manic grin cut the bottom of his face. He held an oblong black tube in both hands with a stubby handle attached to one end. A light blinked in a green dot on its far side. The man’s injured leg was wrapped in a white, elastic bandage stained red at its center and he limped slightly before stopping a dozen yards away.
“I’m surprised Darrin wasn’t able to best you, he’s wily and tougher than my other two boys. Was, I suppose I should say. I’m assuming you killed Adam as well since you’ve made it this far.”
Gray said nothing and shifted his eyes to where Darrin’s pistol had vanished beneath the seed.
“I wouldn’t make any sudden moves, Sheriff. This is a tranquilizer that shoots accurately within a hundred yards. I’ve taken the liberty of loading it with darts holding lethal doses of tetrodotoxin. If one strikes you, you’ll be dead in under a minute.”
“How did you get up here?”
“Oh Sheriff, do you think I would build such an elaborate underground system without making sure I had more than one way out or in? By the way, that was a nice trick with the knife down in the operating room, I didn’t check your boots, something I won’t overlook again. Nonetheless it wasn’t something I couldn’t fix with some bandages, pain killers, and a little snifter of adrenaline.”
The doctor’s eyes shone, not a trace of color was visible around the black holes that had once been his pupils.
“Let’s take a walk, shall we?”
“Where?”
“Downstairs. I’m sure you’ve located Siri and the other women are held up with her in the room if I’m correct. I’m guessing you also have some sort of signal to tell them it’s you before you enter, so let’s go round them up and get back down to the business you so rudely interrupted us from.”
A flicker of movement over Barder’s shoulder drew Gray’s attention but he looked back at the doctor’s face quickly.
“One question for you, Vincent.”
“Yes?”
“You retain all the knowledge of your medical training even when you’re your true self, right?”
“Yes, why?”
“Just wondering.”
A large shape darkened the doorway behind Barder.
He sensed it and tried to spin, bringing up the tranquilizer, but a massive hand caught its barrel and stopped its motion.
Danzig glowered down at the doctor for a split second before sending a fist into the side of his head. Barder fell as if heart-shot and lay spread-eagle on the cement, a line of blood drooling from his open mouth. Danzig spun the tranquilizer around and aimed it at the doctor’s limp form.
“Dan no!” Gray yelled, rushing forward.
Danzig raised his eyes from sighting down the barrel and squinted at him.
“Why the hell not?”
“Siri’s about to give birth and this sack of shit is the only one qualified to help her.”
Danzig stared at the back of Barder’s head and Gray almost expected him to fire the tranq anyway, but after a moment the giant lowered it to his side.
“Holy shit, Dan, I thought you were dead.”
Danzig’s eyes watered for a split second and then he began to cough. Big ratcheting coughs that rumbled up from deep within him. He bent over from the exertion and finally hacked out a globule of mucus the same color as the air.
“Fucking smoke. My lungs are on fire. I was holding back that cough for the last twenty minutes. You haven’t seen my mask, have you?”
“No. They took the rounds out of my pistol too. The only reason they didn’t lock up the Snippers was because I don’t think they knew what they were. You still didn’t answer me. How the hell did you take a shotgun blast to the back and not have your guts hanging out the other side?”
Danzig managed a small grin and opened his coverall. Beneath was a black, mesh-like shirt that glinted in the dim light. Gray moved closer and put his fingers on the clothing. It wasn’t cloth at all. The shirt consisted of miniscule links of dark steel, like a fishing net, yet infinitely smaller and more finely woven.
“I’ll be damned,” Gray said.
“It’s the prototype I took off the wall in my shop the other day. Mixture of tungsten carbide and titanium. Flexes like clothing but becomes solid in a microsecond when hit with a high-velocity projectile. Turns into a shield. Nothing short of an armor-piercing round can get through.”
Danzig tapped his chest once and the shirt jingled. The giant smiled.
Gray threw an arm over the other man’s shoulders and hugged him before drawing away.
“Unbelievable,” Gray said.
“Still hurt like hell and knocked me out. But don’t go getting all misty on me.”
Danzig began to cough again, the ragged hackings so raw it made Gray wince.
“Let’s get this bastard downstairs and wake him up so he can help Siri, and we’ll see if we can’t find your mask.”
Danzig managed to nod and grabbed ahold of Barder’s arm, hauling him off the floor as if he weighed no more than a sack of flour. Gray pressed a hand to his throbbing side, his palm became warm and sticky at once. He moved to the man door and peered out into the gloom.
The sky was on fire. A red haze boiling into orange coated the horizon from end to
end. The trees quaked and wavered before its light, worshippers before their alien god finally arriving from some other world. The wind blew in revolt against the flames, but they were coming. There would be no stopping the fire.
He turned to find Danzig standing near the hatch holding Barder over one shoulder like a child.
“Let’s go,” Gray said.
Chapter 43
After knocking twice, Gray slid the card over the electronic eye and opened the door.
Lynn was ready, off to one side holding his knife in white fingers, her face a rictus of strain. When she saw him and then Danzig close behind, she visibly sagged and came forward, closing her eyes as she leaned into him.
“Told you I’d be back,” he said.
“No you didn’t.”
“Sorry to get your hopes up.”
She laughed and released him, turning to Danzig as he set the doctor down. She pecked him on the cheek, standing on her tiptoes to do so.
“Gray said you were dead.”
“You know him, full of shit,” Danzig rumbled.
“Darrin?” Lynn asked, turning back to Gray.
“Taken care of.”
“So what are we doing with him?”
“He’s going to deliver Siri’s baby.”
Rachel looked up from where she sat, holding Siri’s hand. Joslyn stared at him from across the room cradling both the small boys.
Lynn took a step back. “What? No. Absolutely not.”
“Lynn, there’s no other choice. What if there’s a problem with the baby? We could lose it and Siri.”
She shook her head. “You want to have the monster that brought her here, held her against her will, deliver her baby? Screw that, Mac.”
“He’s all we have. The fire’s too close to leave now and the baby’s closer than that.”
Barder groaned from where he lay on the floor. His arm waved weakly and he licked his blood-sodden lips with an equally red tongue.
“We ask Siri,” Lynn finally said, looking at the awakening doctor. “We do whatever she says.” Her gaze left no room for argument and when he looked at Rachel and Joslyn their faces mirrored Lynn’s.
“Okay.”
He moved to Siri’s bedside and knelt, putting a hand on her wrist. Her eyes had been squeezed shut but she opened them when he touched her.
“Siri, you have to make a decision. Barder is here and he’s under our control. Now we can lock him in another cell or we can have him help deliver the baby, it’s your call.”
Siri looked around the room, her gaze finding each of them as they watched her. Her face crumpled as another contraction washed over her and she held Gray’s hand, nearly crushing his fingers into a single digit. She panted, blowing lungfuls of air out that made her sweat-soaked hair sway like a dark curtain in a draft.
“I want my baby to live. He helps, but if he does anything, you kill him.” She held his gaze for a moment and then gritted her teeth, bearing down before releasing a short cry.
Gray stood and moved to where Barder stirred. He flipped the doctor over with one toe of his boot. Vertigo consumed him for a span of seconds and it was as if the room were being tossed end over end. His feet were light and then heavy on the floor, simultaneously losing and gaining gravity, over and over. A hand fell on his shoulder, steady and sure and Danzig was there, close beside him.
“You need to sit down, Mac, you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“I’m okay.”
“Bullshit.”
The room was gray, tinged with black at its corners, like his house after the fire. Ashes and char.
He was falling.
Danzig caught him and eased him to a sitting position in the corner of the room and someone was taking the key card from his pocket. Lynn’s face was there and then gone, words floating back to him as if through a thick fog in early morning when the sun hadn’t had a chance to burn it away. There was a long buzzing drone and then the sound of wind blowing through a partially open door. The static crackling of burning things. An inferno raging, devouring the world. The flames were on him, he was burning, his side was on fire.
Gray opened his eyes and saw Lynn’s face and the ceiling beyond. His back was pressed against cold cement and the bullet wound felt as if a hot coal had been shoved inside. He hissed and tried to sit up.
“Relax, I’m putting a coagulant gel on it. It was leaking blood and you passed out.”
A high keening came from the far side of the room and he searched Lynn’s face for an answer.
“She’s having it right now. Barder’s delivering it.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Ten minutes, maybe. I just gave you a shot of erythropoietin. Barder told me it would boost red blood cell production and I made him take a shot of it first to make sure it wasn’t harmful.”
“Get me up.”
“Mac, no—”
“Up.”
He got an arm beneath himself and levered into a sitting position with Lynn’s help. His head spun for a sickening span and then slowed and stopped. His vision doubled and then melded together which caused his stomach to leap for the back of his throat, but he swallowed, taking deep breaths as Siri cried out again.
Barder was at the end of the bed, his hands between Siri’s legs. Her lower half was covered with a stained sheet and a large stainless steel pan sat on the floor full of soapy water that steamed into the air. Danzig stood two feet behind the doctor, the tranquilizer gun pointed at the center of his back. Siri’s upper body was propped on four pillows, her cheeks two blazing points of red that made Gray think of the fire above. Rachel and Joslyn held each of Siri’s hands in their own, their voices low, speaking encouraging words to the laboring woman. In the furthest corner the two young boys sat side by side, miraculously giggling as they took turns trying to tickle one another.
“Okay Siri, I want you to breath for just a second and don’t push,” Barder said, his face a mask of concentration. “The head is almost out.”
Siri breathed in puffs, inhaling only after every fourth exhale. Her face twisted and her head fell back as another cry escaped her and became a full scream at its end.
“Good, good. Okay, now—” Barder paused and scooted closer to the bed.
“No funny shit or you’re dead,” Danzig growled, prodding the doctor in the back with the tranq’s barrel.
“The cord is around its neck, I have to free it,” Barder replied.
Gray managed to get his feet beneath him and accepted a bottle of water Lynn held out. He drank, pouring the liquid down his throat so fast he didn’t know if he’d actually taken time to swallow.
Danzig looked over Barder’s shoulder and then flicked his eyes to Gray’s. He nodded once and then stepped back to give the doctor room. Siri breathed faster, moaning in closer and closer intervals.
“There,” Barder said, sitting back on his heels. “Push now, Siri, hard as you can.”
Siri’s hands were claws, gripping the other women, her knuckles like pearls in the light. She took a deep breath and then held it and tipped forward until she sat almost upright, finally letting a cry come out between her teeth that brought the hairs up on Gray’s neck. Barder worked beneath the sheet, pausing every so often to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead. The gloves he wore shone wetly and the fingertips were tainted with blood.
“Come on, Siri, again. Push, harder this time, we’re almost there.”
Gray moved closer to Danzig, his legs gaining more and more feeling as the walked. Lynn stood by his side, her shoulder pressed against his arm. Beneath the sheet the baby’s head was fully visible as well as one shoulder. A ropy length of umbilical hung down in a fleshy U. As Siri strained the other shoulder appeared and the baby slid out of her in a single slick movement.
Barder’s hands caught it with delicate finesse Gray was sure only surgeons possessed. Quickly he began to work mucus free of the infant’s mouth and nose by gently stroking its neck and throat in opposite directio
ns. One of the baby’s arms, beet red and shining, stretched out, flailing as if it were asking for help.
There was a moment of complete silence in the room as everyone waited, balanced upon the sound they strained to hear.
A blob of viscous fluid fell free of the newborn’s mouth and it let out a clucking cough that coalesced into a shaking cry. Its arms flailed, quivering in movement common only to new life.
“It’s a boy,” Barder said, looking down at the tiny body he held. “A boy.”
A beat went by and Gray tensed, noticing Danzig raise the tranquilizer to the side of the doctor’s neck.
“Give him to Siri,” Danzig said.
Barder remained motionless for a second and then looked up, his gaze taking them all in as if he’d forgotten they were there.
“I will but first I need to cut the umbilical. Someone hand me the plastic clamp.”
Lynn stepped forward to a small tray resting beside the still steaming disinfectant bowl. She plucked a short, plastic wrapped item from it and opened it, taking care to not touch the clamp directly. Barder placed the instrument around the glistening cord an inch from the infant’s stomach and clicked it shut as the tiny boy continued to wail.
“Don’t you cry, little one,” Barder sang almost beneath his breath as he stretched the cord out straight beyond the clamp. “There’s no reason to pout, a miracle inside your mommy and now the doctor brought you out.”
“Don’t you sing to him you sick fuck.” Gray said stepping forward. “Don’t you dare.”
Barder glanced at him and then looked back at the child in his arms. A short smile flitted across his lips and was gone. He turned and grasped a clean sheet from the table beside the bed and wrapped the squalling boy in its folds.
“Give him to me,” Siri said in a breathless voice. She could barely raise her arms but she did so, reaching for the bundle.