Mackenzie’s face broke out into a manic grin. He started laughing.
“You’re right about one thing Nick,” he said. “I am nothing. That’s what I’ve been saying all along – we are nothing. Now you’re starting to look at things the right way. You’re getting close.”
He turned around and looked into the medical room.
“Except Rachel,” Mackenzie said. “She’s something. Of that there can be little doubt.”
When Mackenzie turned around, his eyes were black.
Cody’s insides clenched in horror.
Nick’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Son of a…”
Mackenzie threw a hard right uppercut that landed on Nick’s stomach. Nick was lifted off the ground and flung back across the corridor by the force of the blow, crashing into the wall with a crunching thud.
The building shook under Cody’s feet. It felt like King Kong was outside, trying to pick it up.
Nick’s eyes were stunned. He sat up quickly, fighting for breath.
Mackenzie stormed across the corridor, his black eyes seething with rage. With those charcoal irises, he looked more like a robot than a man.
Cody tried to block Mackenzie’s path to Nick by jumping in between the two men.
With a brief swat of the hand, Mackenzie pushed Cody out of the way. Cody toppled over backwards like he’d been tackled by a freight train. The lights went out. When they came back on, he was lying face down on the floor.
“Dad!” Rachel yelled from somewhere. “Are you okay?”
Cody looked up. The corridor was spinning. “Yeah,” he said, not sure where to look for her.
Mackenzie’s fingers were clamped tightly around Nick’s throat. He lifted the pilot off the ground like Nick was no more than a kitten. Nick’s legs kicked furiously, hitting nothing but air. His eyes were bulging out of their sockets. Large veins protruded from the side of his head and choking noises spilled out of his mouth.
Crazy Diamond charged at Mackenzie. She jumped on his back, sliding her arm around his neck and trying to pull him backwards. He paid no attention to her until she reached over and tried to claw at his eyes with her fingernails.
Mackenzie jerked backwards and Crazy Diamond crashed to the floor.
Cody struggled back to his feet. Crazy Diamond leapt up to hers like a panther. They ran at Mackenzie together but this time the three bodyguards hurried into the corridor and forced themselves in between Mackenzie and his would be attackers.
Three gleaming rifle barrels stared back at Cody and Crazy Diamond.
“Let him go!” Cody yelled, looking past the bodyguards.
Mackenzie’s response was to tighten his grip around Nick’s throat. He lifted the pilot further, reaching as high as his arm could stretch. Cody’s jaw went slack. The great Nick Norton was being manhandled like a baby.
“Stop it!” Crazy Diamond yelled. She edged forwards but the guards met her halfway, blocking the route forward. “You’re killing him.”
Mackenzie looked over his shoulder at Cody and Crazy Diamond. His black eyes lingered in their direction. A second later, he released his grip and Nick crashed to the ground in a disheveled heap.
Mackenzie walked back across the corridor. He was breathing heavy. He looked like a man who still had a lot of steam to blow off.
The bodyguards stood aside, making space for their boss.
Cody and Crazy Diamond rushed over to Nick’s side. Taking a shoulder each, they pulled him back up into sitting position. Cody was relieved to see that his friend’s eyes were clear.
Nick signaled that he was okay.
“I almost had him,” he said, his voice mangled and hoarse.
Cody and Crazy Diamond pulled Nick back to his feet. It wasn’t easy given the size of the man, but Nick wrapped his arms around their shoulders for balance as he regained his legs.
Mackenzie and the three bodyguards stood on the opposite side of the corridor. Cody looked over that way and saw Rachel sitting up on the bed. She was peering out through the doorway, a shocked look on her face.
The doctor stood over Rachel like a personal guard. Making sure the little girl didn’t try to make a run for it.
Mackenzie stepped forward. His head fell back like he’d suddenly lapsed into a standing unconsciousness. His eyes were closed, his face pointing towards the ceiling.
His finger touched his temple.
Cody pressed his back up tight against the wall. He knew what was coming. But despite that his thoughts turned to Rachel. His daughter was only a short distance away and yet there was no way for him to reach her. No way without getting shot. He might as well have been standing in front of a thousand foot wall.
Rachel edged forwards on the bed. The doctor saw it and shot out a firm hand and clutching her by the sweater, pulled Rachel backwards. The young girl threw the woman a furious look.
Cody wanted to call out to his daughter. If this was it, he wanted to tell her that it was going to be alright. To say all the things he was supposed to say. But as he stood there, watching Mackenzie in a trancelike state, he knew deep down that it wasn’t going to be okay. It was anything but and he didn’t want his last words to Rachel to be a lie.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Mackenzie’s eyes opened and they were green again.
A raucous din lit up the corridor. Cody had heard it before – a bloodcurdling noise that filled his soul with a sickening dread.
It sounded louder than ever before. Maybe because it was coming for him.
The three bodyguards exchanged worried glances.
Crazy Diamond looked back and forth between Nick and Cody. Her eyes were wide with fear. She reached out and pulled both men close. It seemed important to her. This was the only comfort they had left in the world – to know that they wouldn’t die alone, without friendship.
The shredding noise got louder. It came from everywhere. It sounded like a giant tidal wave had burst through the walls of the building and was at that moment racing along the narrow corridors of the building.
Getting closer.
Cody put his hands over his ears.
“Rachel!” he yelled. But he couldn’t see her now. She was hidden behind Mackenzie and the bodyguards. Cody had never felt more terrified in his life. More than anything, it was the realization that he wouldn’t see her again. He couldn’t accept it.
The Sliders shot up from the floor. Three of them this time - black demons on an elevator ride straight out of Hell. One for each of the adult prisoners.
They were no more than a few feet away from Cody and the others. The Sliders’ blankness, their sheer lifelessness – it was chilling in its lack of detail. Even more so up close. And yet there was something in there, something at work inside that marble-like exterior – a program, a purpose, with a target in mind.
Cody’s fingers clawed at the wall behind him. It was a deep-rooted survival mechanism at work. He wanted to get away but there was nowhere left to go. It was no use trying to run either. He’d seen how fast those things could move. There was no way any human being on Earth could ever hope to outrun them.
They were dead. And if this was the end, he couldn’t make peace with it.
“Rachel,” Cody said.
The Sliders bolted forward at a dizzying speed. Cody closed his eyes and tensed up – his muscles were taut like wire, and he braced himself for the end.
He kept his eyes closed, wondering if the Sliders had already infected him. Was he numb? Was this as bad as it got? Maybe he was dead already. Maybe his brain was in the process of shutting down.
Somebody gasped at Cody’s side. It was Crazy Diamond.
He wasn’t dead.
Cody opened his eyes.
The Sliders were frozen on the spot. They’d halted their vicious attack just inches away from their targets. They were so close that Cody could have stuck out his tongue and touched the one in front of him on its black, gleaming head.
Crazy Diamond and Nick were still in one
piece beside him. The look on their faces – eyes bulging and mouths hanging open – said it all.
It had been that close.
Cody tilted his head and looked past the Sliders. On the other side of the corridor, Mackenzie looked every bit as shocked as Cody’s companions. Even more so. It was the same with the three bodyguards standing by his side. They looked dumbstruck.
Mackenzie spun around. Frantically, he pushed the guards out the way whose stiff bodies were blocking the door to the medical room.
“Move!” he cried out.
A gap opened up. Cody looked inside the medical room.
He fell to his knees.
“Rachel,” he said.
She was standing on the bed. Her eyes were locked onto the three Sliders. Both arms were outstretched, like she was pushing an invisible force away from her. Her face strained with the effort.
The doctor and nurse shrunk back into the medical room. Their feet couldn’t carry them away from Rachel fast enough. The nurse dropped onto the floor in a clumsy sitting position, his satin dressing gown sprawled out underneath him like a crumpled cloak. The doctor pressed her back up against the wall, her eyes ablaze with terror.
They all flinched when Rachel jumped off the bed.
Rachel paid no attention to them. She walked through the vacant doorway, her arms still outstretched and reaching for the Sliders. Cody noticed her shoulders were trembling. Her breathing was labored.
“Rachel,” Cody said. His voice was flimsy and hoarse – a shadow of its former self. “What…?”
But Rachel didn’t look at Cody. Slowly, she lifted her arms over her head and both hands curled into tightly clenched fists. Her eyes closed and her knuckles whitened. She held this pose in place. Then with a fierce grunt, she pulled her arms sharply downwards, tucking her elbows tight into her side.
The Sliders were flung back across the corridor. They crashed into the three unsuspecting bodyguards, their black, misty forms swallowing up their hosts.
Rachel collapsed onto the floor.
Cody ran towards her but the three guards, their bodies now possessed by the Sliders, toppled to the floor and blocked his path. They were like a moving roadblock – convulsing violently as the Fever took hold of their minds. Their twisted, wriggling bodies formed an impromptu barrier that kept Cody back.
The bodyguards destroyed themselves in a fit of madness. Cody could barely watch as they crawled onto all fours and slammed their heads against the floor, again and again, like they were human-sized electric drills.
Mackenzie backed towards the doorway. He looked at the bodyguards, not a trace of pity in his eyes. Reaching into his suit pocket, he pulled out a set of handcuffs. He kneeled down and locked the cuffs around the unconscious Rachel’s wrists. Then he scooped her up off the ground and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.
He ran down the corridor towards the front door. Rachel’s head lolled against his shoulder as he ran.
“No!” Cody yelled.
The bodyguards stopped moving on the blood-splattered floor.
Cody, Crazy Diamond and Nick went to run after Mackenzie. A volley of gunshots rang out in their ears. They ducked down, unsure of what was happening. When they looked to the far end of the corridor, they saw three men in dark suits charging towards them, their arms extended, their pistols locked onto their targets.
On the other end of the corridor, Mackenzie was running towards the door. Rachel was still unconscious in his arms.
Cody was about to take off after him but the gunfire kept coming, forcing them onto the floor.
“In there!” Nick said, pushing both Cody and Crazy Diamond towards the doctor’s room. “Move!”
They crawled inside.
The nurse was still cowering at the back of the medical room. Tears were streaming down his red cheeks as Cody, Nick and Crazy Diamond wriggled along the bloody floor.
The doctor charged forward, a look of white-hot anger on her face.
“Get out of here!” she yelled. “You sick bastards.”
Crazy Diamond jumped back to her feet. She walked up to the doctor and threw a hard right to the jaw. The doctor’s legs gave out and she fell to the floor unconscious.
“Bitch,” Crazy Diamond said, shaking out her hand.
Nick grabbed their guns off the countertop and handed them out.
“He’s getting away with Rachel,” Cody said. “I have to go.”
Nick nodded. He edged over to the doorway and peered outside.
“Shit,” he said.
“What is it?” Cody asked.
“I think they’ve holed up in one of those offices down the corridor. Looks like they want to keep us here for a long shootout.”
Cody shook his head. “Screw that,” he said. “I can’t stay here. You know what he’s going to do, don’t you?”
Nick’s face was grim. “Yeah.”
Crazy Diamond crept towards the doorway. Her elbows were tucked in tight, as she readied the Glock in her hand.
“What’s he going to do?” she asked.
“He’s going to hand her over to those things,” Cody said.
“Where?” Crazy Diamond said.
Cody shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s why I have to follow him. But if I stay in here much longer I’m going to lose the bastard.”
“We’ll stay here and cover you,” Nick said. “You make a run for it. But it means you’re going to have to face Mackenzie alone.”
“I know,” Cody said.
“I don’t like it man,” Nick said. “The odd are bad.”
“What choice do we have?” Cody said.
He looked at the three bodyguards on the blood-splattered floor outside.
“I need a van,” Cody said. “Mackenzie’s not going wherever he’s going on foot. With any luck, one of those guards might have a set of keys in their pocket.”
“Alright partner,” Nick said. “Let’s do this.” He gave Cody a tap on the arm and then turned to Crazy Diamond.
“Cover me,” he said.
She nodded. “Right.”
Crazy Diamond stood at the edge of the doorway and let off a couple of rounds of fire. At the same time, Nick dropped belly first onto the bloody floor. Sliding further out, he reached over and pulled on the legs of the nearest bodyguard. It was one of the women who’d stuck to Mackenzie like glue upstairs. She was barely recognizable as the same person.
“Jesus,” Nick said, pulling the mangled body back into the room. “Those Sliders really know how to make a mess.”
Cody grimaced as he rifled through the woman’s pockets. Everything was hot and sticky and covered in blood. He found a set of keys in the inside pocket but they were smaller keys attached to the chain – interior door keys and padlock-sized keys. Anything but a van key.
“No,” he said.
“Crazy Diamond,” Nick said. “Round two.”
She fired down the corridor but this time the suits came back with shots in return. Nick dove onto the floor, crawling on his hands and knees. He had to go further to reach the next body this time – it was the heavyset male bodyguard.
With bullets zipping back and forth above his head, Nick dragged the man’s body back into the doctor’s room.
“Oh shit,” he said, getting back to his feet and looking at the blood smeared all over his clothes. “I hope I don’t have to do that again.”
Cody searched through the man’s pockets. A panicked voice in his head was screaming at him to hurry up. Every second lost was a potential disaster. He pulled out a small wallet and a loose black and white photograph of a young woman with a kind smile. He threw them to the side. Cody eventually found a set of keys inside the man’s suit jacket and his heart leapt for joy when he saw a black flip key attached to the chain.
“Here we go,” he said.
Cody jumped back to his feet. “Ready,” he said.
Crazy Diamond and Nick both looked at him. There was an anxious expression on both their fa
ces.
“Alright,” Nick said. “We’ll cover you man. But you’re going to have to be fast. Like grease lightning fast.”
“I’ll be fast,” Cody said. “You just keep them off me.”
Nick pulled Cody in and gave him a brief hug.
“You bring her back,” Nick said. “You hear me?”
Cody nodded. “I hear you man.”
Crazy Diamond reached over and grabbed Cody by the shoulders.
“We’ll see you again soon,” she said. “Both of you.”
“Yeah,” Cody said. He picked the Glock up off the floor and tucked it into his pants.
“I’m ready.”
Nick and Crazy Diamond exchanged a curt nod. Tucking themselves in at the edge of the doorway, they opened fire down the corridor.
Cody didn’t hesitate. He ran as fast as he could down the corridor. Raucous gunfire rang out behind him. There was still a chance he could take a bullet in the back. And what of Nick and Crazy Diamond? What would happen to his friends if they couldn’t fight off the suits?
He couldn’t think about that now.
Rachel. She was all that mattered.
And she needed him.
Chapter Fourteen
Cody pushed the door open and ran outside.
A gust of foul-smelling wind hit him in the face. He could still hear the high-pitched crack of gunfire at his back, although it was fading out of earshot.
The headlights on one of the black Sprinter vans parked outside the building lit up. The engine growled and the wheels started to roll.
“Son of a bitch,” Cody said.
He watched as the van drove off in a southerly direction.
Cody pointed the flip key at the four remaining Sprinter vans. The silver van parked at the back beeped and the lights blinked. Cody raced over to it while keeping his eyes on the bright headlights receding in the distance.
He jumped into the cabin and turned the engine on. After a frantic search for the headlights, he put his foot down on the gas and the van roared down the street.
Cody gripped the steering wheel. The van felt heavy and sluggish. He prayed to God there was nothing wrong with it – that was the last thing he needed, to lose his daughter to something as trite as mechanical failure.
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