by Riley Flynn
With Finn at his heels, Alex ran again. From tree to tree, and when he was in line with the professionals and their Cadillac barricade, he switched sides.
He pressed up against the back entrance of the bar. The noise was deafening. Between the wet slaps of the automatic fire and the shimmering metal clink of the falling casings, he didn’t need to worry about being quiet. Every sound he made was lost in the storm of gunfire.
Alex kicked against one of the back doors of the bar. It gave way. There was no one else inside, he could tell. The air was still, the sound from outside muffled. The gang members had ransacked the innards, turning over everything in their search for valuables and booze.
Keeping low, worried about stray bullets, Alex made the short run to the front of the bar, jumping and avoiding the obstacles, the broken furniture scattered everywhere.
From the bar, facing the street, Alex could see straight into the heart of the fight. Out from Danny Boy’s into the circled Cadillacs, with professionals on either side, shooting outwards. Every pane of glass in the front of the bar was gone.
Crawling into the space below the window, every sneaker step found the shattered shards and they crunched beneath the feet.
A line of shots rattled in through the window, eating chunks of plaster out of the ceiling. The heavy thud of the bullets lodging into the building could be felt in the chest.
Finn nestled up against Alex’s legs, the sheer volume almost too much. With a hand, he tried to offer the dog comfort. But it would get worse before it got better.
There was no door anymore in the bar. Probably kicked out by the gang members. It didn’t matter. They had to cross the street. The safest way was to run straight through the center of the professionals.
They were facing outwards; their armored cars would provide some cover. Alex’s T-shirt and jeans didn’t fit with either team’s uniform. This might cause confusion, at least for a moment. Enough for him to slip through to the other side of the street.
There had been a long mirror laid out behind the bar. It had been broken a long time ago. Before they pulled into Rockton on their bikes, at the very least. But there were still pieces of the mirror strewn across the floor.
Alex fetched one, retreating back to his position beside the door. Pulling Finn in close, he leaned the shard of mirror out into the empty space.
There it was. The other side of the street. A small gap between two buildings which would take him right into the alley behind the drug store. From there, it was a short run to the gate and the wall behind the hideout. Without distractions, it could be done in thirty seconds, easily. But this wasn’t a clear run.
Alex looked down at the rifle in his hand. He heard round after round thumping into buildings all above his head. The dog tilted its head to the side, watching. This was the moment. They had to move. The shard of mirror chimed against the floor as Alex ran out of the door and into the fray.
34
He ran out through the door, into the street, straight for a gap between two hulking black Escalades. The dog ran at his side, its head held low. There was no need to shift the rifle from his back, to hold it in his hands. Any firefight would be lost before he had a chance to loose a shot.
Instead, Alex ran deeper and deeper into the hornet’s nest and listened to the bullets buzzing overheard.
From the other end of the street, the gang members were firing. Whereas the professionals were grouped together in one tactical unit, their opponents had spread out across the town. Some were climbing up buildings, others running through side streets. One, Alex could see from the corner of his eye, snapped and ran straight for the ring of armored vehicles.
He was gunned down in a second, his body twitching in the street.
But no one watched Alex. Every eye focused on the enemy. No one expected a stranger to run, sprinting, from one of the abandoned buildings. There was no need to be quiet.
Each footstep was lost amid the whirring gunfire, the snap of the sonic booms, and the metallic rainfall of empty casings striking the ground. One man running was not enough to be heard.
Still, Alex stayed low.
Even if he was not seen, a stray bullet could catch him in the leg or the chest. Out there, there might be one round with the name ALEX EARLY stamped along the side. He could survive a plague and die of lead poisoning.
Finn, still running on puppy legs, followed his every step. When the human stopped, the dog halted. When the human ducked or weaved to a side, the dog echoed the movement.
Running from the bar to the ring of cars, they synchronized their movement and, abruptly, Alex found himself pressed up against the cold metal of an Escalade trunk, grey bullet marks chipped away at the black paint. He ducked, salvaging his breath.
Right next to him was the portable satellite, still whirring and turning, locking into position. Casually, leaning out, Alex knocked the device to the ground. The dish still tried to turn, the internal motor struggling.
It stopped. Broken.
No one had seen him. For a second, Alex watched. These professionals moved with a skill served only by practice. As the gun emptied, their hands worked together, flipping around the triple-stacked magazine, eyes never dipping from the targets on the horizon.
Even those in suits worked with the same, steady hands. Professionals was the right word, he knew.
Alex ran again. No time to waste.
He darted through the cars, waiting for someone to spot him.
But they focused on the gang members, still coming at them from the other end of the street. The exit was there. The gap between the last two cars, the space to run through and he’d be out on the other side, ready to run right down the alley.
There was one man, suited with a tangle of white cord wrapped up over his ear, balanced beside the gap. He was holding an M-16, swiveling his hips and aiming along the rooftops. Every few seconds, he’d release a short, sharp burst.
A red cloud might burst into life on a distant roof top. A body might crumple against the ground, weapon clattering from lifeless fingers.
Alex would have to squeeze into the space behind him. Best to take it at a run.
Clicking to Finn, he broke into a sprint.
There were ten feet between him and the gap, then seven, then five. The man turned around, spotted Alex, started shouting. The words fell on deaf ears.
The guns were too loud, Alex moving too fast. The man held up a hand, making his demands clear.
Stop.
No time to stop. Alex had the speed. Before the man could swing his gun around and aim, Alex leapt. Into the air, hurling his feet first. A messy, unpracticed kind of kick. Both legs up before him, thighs flexing at just the right moment, the soles of both sneakers landed hard on the man’s chest. He fell.
Alex hit the ground too, but he’d been expecting it. Finn beside him, he rolled, got back to his feet, and ran the last few feet to the space between the cars. There it was. Someone was shouting behind him. Didn’t matter. Keep running. Cross the open street. Duck to avoid any bullets. Into the alley, screeching on heels slipping in the dirt as the corner came. Run around the corner and stop.
Shoulders curled up tight, lungs caught in a vice, Alex felt like he was about to vomit. Now, he turned to grab his rifle. If all the professionals were tucked away in their circled wagons, the gang members might be anywhere.
To make it through this last distance, this short sprint to the rear of the house, he’d need to be careful. A time for stealth.
Two hands grabbed Alex by the neck and threw him to the ground. His spine caught the brunt of the fall, the pain sending shockwaves down his back and into his legs. Scrambling to his feet, he saw one of the professional men standing above him, two dusty footprints stamped across the lapels of his black suit.
He moved for the rifle, but the man was faster. He kicked the ankles out from under Alex before he could even loosen the strap from his shoulder. The rifle fell to the ground, a sound lost amid the firefight a s
treet over. Dropping elbow first on to Alex’s chest, the man grunted. It felt like a rib cracking.
There was a ripping sound; the man was distracted. Finn had his teeth wrapped around the man’s ankle, a cut of cloth already torn from the trouser leg. As the man fought off the dog, Alex staggered to his knees. They were weak, could hardly hold his weight. Forming a fist, Alex fell forward and caught the man’s jaw. Together, they fell into the dirt, the dog chasing after them, barking.
They were locked together, arms tucked under arms, trying to find an inch of space. As Alex tugged one way, the man’s knee hit him hard in the hip. Without any limbs free, Alex jutted his head forward, breaking his opponent’s nose. It only made him angrier.
The two fell apart, a foot or two between them. There was a pistol tucked under the man’s arm. Every time he swung a punch or ducked out of the way, the jacket flapped loose. Don’t let him get it, every one of Alex’s instincts screamed. Keep him close. Lunging with a tackle, he took the man back to the ground.
Finn was struggling to find a grip. Biting, snapping, growling, he tried to take the professional’s leg in his mouth and drag him away. A polished shoe jerked out, catching the dog right on the shoulder, knocking him back against the wall. The dog lay down, toiling under the blow.
As the two men tussled and tangled on the ground, neither able to find any purchase, the professional’s hand reached out, searching. As Alex found himself pinned down to the floor, unable to pack any weight behind his punches, he saw the man lean back, one arm stretched up into the sky. There was a rock in his hand, a sharp one, as big as a baseball. It was aimed right at Alex’s head.
The hand swung down. It stopped.
The man cried out in pain. Seizing his moment, Alex snatched the pistol from inside the holster, held it up towards the chest and fired. And fired again. And again. The rock fell from the hand, which dropped down to the man’s side. The face contorted, staring at Alex. Confusion, fury. Shock. It was all there to read.
Without a word, his eyes glazed over and the man collapsed. Finn still had a huge chuck of thigh in his mouth, shaking it back and forth.
“Finn. Finn. Stop. He’s dead. Come on.”
The dog’s ears pricked up, able to distinguish Alex’s voice even in the commotion. The pistol was still in Alex’s hand. Looking closely, he saw that there was no branding. No serial number. It was quite unlike every other gun Alex had ever seen. He unclipped the magazine to see that each round had a red tip. Unexplained.
“Who the hell are you guys?” Alex asked the dead man.
Throwing the pistol to the ground and fetching his own rifle, Alex was about to run. But an idea struck. Kneeling down beside the body, Alex traced the white wire as it looped out of the man’s ear and down inside his jacket. It didn’t seem to have an end. Checking around for signs of life–no one in sight, everyone too busy shooting one another in the main street–he grabbed hold of the wire and pulled.
A long, white worm sprang forth. Alex kept tugging, dragging a longer and longer length of wire from deep down inside. And then something caught. It wouldn’t budge. Lifting the lapel of the jacket, he saw a small black box, caught beneath a button in the inside pocket. He released the button and the entire device, attached to the wire, came free.
He turned it over in one hand, and it buzzed occasionally, sharp bursts of static from the dangling earbud. Alex pocketed the device. But there was something else. Further inside the pocket, peeking out over the top, were pieces of folded paper inside a plastic wallet.
Without reading them, he slipped the papers from the dead man’s pocket to his own and turned back to the alley.
Rifle perched between two hands, Finn padding at his heels, limping, Alex marched along the alley. He didn’t run. It wasn’t far to the gate, to the entrance to the hideout, but the route might be lined with danger.
As if to prove his point, Alex spotted a gang member crawling along the rooftop of a building above him. Raising his rifle, he positioned the man in the crosshairs, aiming just below his bald head, right at the spot where his vest met his chest. Finger on the trigger, Alex watched him move.
The gang member was young. Younger than Alex, almost certainly. A revolver in his hands, the man was firing wildly into the street below. He was laughing, a sound which was taken up by his friends in the town. But every time the gang member looked down, adjusted his feet, a moment of worry passed over his face. Even in a firefight, he was afraid of slipping.
Seen through the crosshairs, it made Alex pause. A tiny sliver of humanity at the worst possible moment. To get back to the hideout, passing under this man was essential. Readjusting his stance, holding his breath steady, he knew what he had to do.
A bullet hit the man’s shoulder, knocking him off balance, and he fell from the roof. He landed right in front of Alex, the crash snapping his neck with ease; the man’s death mask was fixed with that moment of panic, the worry of slipping to the street below.
A river of blood began to pour out from under him and Alex had to check the barrel of his gun for warmth, worried that he had been the one who had shot. He didn’t remember pulling the trigger. The metal was cold. It had been someone else.
Turning back to the alley, Alex could see the gate at the rear of the house.
This time he ran.
35
One hand held the rifle strap tight across his shoulder, the other pushed against the peeling paint of the gate into the walled garden. He’d left it open, only expecting to be out for a short spell, searching around the town. That felt like hours ago.
In reality, barely twenty minutes had passed since the cars had rolled up the street. The sun was high in the sky, sitting behind a blood-colored cloud. The fall light bled into the afternoon.
In through the gate, the dog in quickly, Alex slammed it shut. The sounds of gunfire still roared through Rockton. They grew more intermediate, more spread out. The two sides were carrying the fight farther than the main street. Pushing the bolt across and locking the world out, the garden felt more secure.
The walls were a lie. Tall enough, Joan said the original owner had been a private man, not well liked in the community. His tumble-down yard, the weeds and overgrown grass, seemed to be all that was left of him. That and the walls, designed to keep the world out. But they were only one brick thick. Symbolic more than secure. But everyone inside felt safer inside.
Alex ran through the abandoned area of the house and up the rickety stairs. His hands pounded so hard against the door of the apartment, the sound could wake the dead. Too loud. It didn’t matter. Fists rained down faster, desperate to be let in. “It’s me, it’s me,” Alex announced. “Joan, open up.”
The sound of the locks moving stopped the knocking. As she inched open the door, noticing there was only one person on the other side, Joan seemed to sigh. Finn ran in through her legs, searching for Timmy. The two were inseparable, the patient and the puppy. Both hoped to grow out of the titles soon.
“What the hell is happening?” Joan motioned to the closed curtains, to the packed bags. “We heard the guns.”
“That gang. They’re back. Them and someone else.”
“Oh my God, you’re bleeding.” She ran toward Alex, taking a towel from the kitchen to tend to the wounds.
“It’s not my blood. I’m fine.” Alex knocked her hand away. “You’ve put everything together?”
“As soon as I heard the guns, I got worried. Timmy told me what to pack. We’ve got everything, I think. The rest is already with the car.”
“We’ve got to move fast. Is Timmy fine, can he move?”
Still walking with a limp, Timothy Ratz stepped into the room. He was thinner than Alex had ever known him. Now, in the dim of the apartment, the scantest of light creeping in through the blinds, the full ravages of the disease were apparent.
Whatever muscle there had once been–and it had never been much–had wasted away. The skin was drab, blotchy. The red hair, once an electric mess, wa
s flat and plain. Rusted, rather than radiant. The one eye, the left one, was grey and drained, just like the others. A walking corpse, but walking, at least.
“I’m ready as I’ll ever be. Just give me a gun.”
Alex threw him the rifle. Stumbling, stepping back on a heel, Timmy caught the weapon. Tired fingers checked the rounds. He stood up tall. Ready to move.
The bags were heavy, full of medicine and food. Most of the guns were already in the car, fitted to the gun racks Timmy had designed. The tow-hitch, dumped somewhere back in town, meant they would be deserting the motorbikes. There was no other choice. The car might just about be ready, if Alex had followed instructions to the letter, but there was no time to fit the trailer.
Together, the three of them moved down the stairs and into the garden. They went over the plan again. Timmy to lead, carrying the rifle. Joan next, with one of the bags. Alex would follow, watching the dog, with the final two bags heaved on his bag. A beast of burden. But there was no other choice. Who else was going to carry the supplies? The sick note? The pregnant woman? The dog? This was it.
The route was simple. Run from the hideout straight to the rear of the church. They stood in the yard, between the two Triumph motorcycles, ankle deep in overgrown grass, and the ricochets and gunshots whirled around. There was fighting in every direction. But no time to avoid it.
They ran straight through the gate. Timmy, taking the lead, already with the rifle stock up against his shoulder. Any shot, Alex wondered, and he might be knocked off his feet. Joan ran behind him, trying to hide her heavy belly from the world. The barrel of the rifle cleared a path before her and she ran on and on.
It took a minute to reach the chapel. Looking up, they could see pockmarks and bullet holes all up the wall, covering the steeple. They stole a quick look down the main street, where the professionals had taken charge of the street while the gang were roving through the back alleys, doing as they pleased.