Then I lost consciousness, a flash of certainty that I would never awake. Not even enough time to wonder what was on the other side. Was it better than here?…or to say good bye to Sarah.
• • • •
When I awoke it was to a reality far darker than my tomb, a world composed of pain and despair. Sarah had been taken from me, swallowed up into the belly of the beast.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
At first I thought I was dead. Then the pain told me I was alive. Shouldn’t be any pain in the after life, my mind said. Shouldn’t be dark either. I must still be in the tunnel, entombed. I sat up, horrified, and suddenly realized the smell was wrong. It was clean, maybe a bit stale, but definitely not the moist, fetid odor of the tunnel, the stink of a grave.
Then a light flickered, flared to its zenith, became part of a kerosene lamp, and two hands grasped my shoulders. My eyelids slammed shut, and I reflexively pulled back from the light.
“Mac, it’s me. You’re safe—way deep in the mall’s basement. We’re here with you.”
It was Weasel. I sensed movement behind him. Something haltingly approached; a raspy damp warmth persistently swiped at my cheek. Duke.
“Water,” I rattled. “Real thirsty.” When I had drunk deeply, I asked, “Where’s Sarah? She OK?”
My eyes opened to slits, gradually becoming accustomed to the light. I saw their faces, the sadness, the reluctance to speak. My ears were fine, but I heard nothing from my friends. No reassurances. I looked at Stevie, at the edge of the light. Haunted look in his eyes. I started taking in details. Duke’s coat was bloody on his right flank. He was limping. His right front leg had a splint on it.
Where was Merlin?
In a corner, behind the light a form was hidden under a blanket. It sat up. Merlin. Blanched, washed out. The lower half of the blanket was a dark stain, color of a red oak leaf. He was weak from blood loss.
“I tried, Mac,” he said. “Me and Duke tried like hell.”
Weasel was in front of me, on his haunches. Duke was still there, lying now on his left side. Mouth open, tongue hanging out, eyes focused on me.
“Mac…” he began.
“Shut up,” I said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“I gotta tell you what happened.”
No fucking thanks. I don’t need a confirmation. I see all of you. Your wounds. Your despair. Don’t put it into words, Weasel. Please no. I can’t bear to hear it spoken.
“Sarah—,”
“No!” I screamed it at him. Pushed him back, roughly, cruelly. Stood up only to be knocked back down by a wave of vertigo. We were on the same level. Weasel up on his elbows, looking at me. Me back on the floor. He wasn’t mad. Maybe another man would have been, being shoved like that. “Please don’t tell me, Weasel.” I looked at him, imploring him to silence. “She was…” I couldn’t find the words.
He looked at me as if I were someone he recognized but couldn’t remember from where. Then he suddenly knew, saw the person I was, a man grieving, still in denial, and reached into a pocket of his fatigues and pulled out a scrap of paper, pushing it toward me.
“She ain’t dead, Mac,” he said. “Least ways I’m pretty sure she’s not. Take a look at this.”
The crumbled paper, ripped from a child’s school notebook, yellow with age, peppered with grease spots, contained a message, written in a childish scrawl that belied its import, a communication that at once gave me hope and then tore it away when I realized she was in their camp.
GOT YUR FUN HOL MCAL. COME GET HER BEFOR I DECID TO RINT HER OUT.
• • • •
The entire story came from three sources—Weasel, Stevie and Merlin. If Duke could have talked, he would have chipped in too. He was in the middle of it all.
The first thing I asked was how long had I been out. Translation: For what length of time has Sarah been in the hands of those monsters.
“About ten hours,” Weasel said. “It’s almost dark, same day as the attack.” He leaned forward, close to my face. “We already got a plan going, Mac. Sorry we had to start without you, but time isn’t an ally in this situation.”
“Let’s go,” I said, trying once again to stand. “What do you need me to do.”
“Whoa, boy,” Weasel said, gently holding me back. “We got a few more things to do, including getting you back to speed. We know where the Messengers are. We’re going in 24 hours. Couple of hours before sunset tomorrow.”
“Fuck that, Weasel,” I said. “She could be dead by then.”
Stevie entered the conversation. “I know how you feel, Mac. Me and Weasel feel the same way. But he’s not going to kill Sarah.”
“Are you a psychic now?” I asked. “That’s what they do, Stevie. Kill people. And with women there’s some very nasty rituals that occur before the deed.”
“He still wants you, Mac,” Stevie said. “Sarah’s the ticket. The note said for you to come get her. After his losses at the AON Building, the taunting you subjected him to, the men he lost, the wounds he suffered when Duke had him by the throat—the man must be obsessed with taking you out…Plus we got another thing going for us now that will ensure her safety for awhile longer.”
“What’s that?”
“The truck. We almost nailed him with it. He knows if he hurts her we’re coming after him and driving that beast right up his ass. No where to hide from something that big.”
I thought about it. Not an easy task with my brain still befuddled from the grenade blast and tunnel collapse. I didn’t like it at all. She wasn’t safe. She was alone. The Messengers were completely uncontrollable and totally unpredictable. It was like leaving your chickens with a dog pack for safe keeping.
I laid back and closed my eyes, trying to clarify my thoughts. What if The Babe kills her, rapes her, butchers her, leaves her body displayed for me to find so I’ll go berserk and come after him? That would work.
I told Weasel and Stevie.
“You’re still a little scrambled, Mac,” Weasel said. “You gotta trust me here. Me and Stevie looked at this thing seven ways from Sunday, picked it apart and put it back together. We love her too, you know. A few weeks ago, he may have done that, killed her to piss you off. But now that he’s seen that truck, real close, mind you, he ain’t lookin’ at you in the same light anymore. You’re too big to piss off because now he knows you can definitely hurt him.”
“The only way he can get at you now,” Stevie said, “is by lying and cheating. Sarah’s still alive. The truck makes you too dangerous for him to kill her.”
Listening to the urgency in their voices, hearing their concern wrapped around each word, it suddenly came upon me that I was missing a crucial point: They loved her too and were just as frightened as I was. Just because they loved her in a different way didn’t mean that they loved her any less. And who was I to be measuring quantity and quality of love? The bond over the years had become so strong that none of us would feel the loss of another any more than the rest. Like everything else of import in our lives, we had to go through this together. Pain would be shared. Joy would be shared.
“Tell me the plan,” I said.
It took them about an hour.
• • • •
“Do we have time for you to tell me what happened at the compound?” I asked later. “Merlin, do you have enough strength?”
“Weasel stitched me up,” he said. “Bleeding’s stopped. If I don’t die of an infection, I’ll be fine in a week or so.”
He dragged himself over to us, closer to the light. We moved in his direction, but he stopped us.
“I have to start moving,” he explained. “You need me when this goes down. Sarah needs me.”
We were way deep in the depths of the mall, beyond the range of sunlight. When I began to process more clearly, I picked out the giant generators and heating and air conditioning equipment that surrounded us, ghost machines from the 20th dancing in the lamplight. We were in the machine shop/power plant of the mall.
Too much like the tunnel for me, but it was safe.
When Weasel and Stevie explained the set-up to me, how we hoped to rescue Sarah, I understood why we weren’t able to use the generator to provide light. When Merlin reached the circle we had formed around the lamp, I retrieved his blanket and made him comfortable. Duke was laying beside him.
“Sarah and I were both out when we heard your shots through our earpieces,” Merlin began. “Then we heard you breathing real fast…”
“I was crawling like hell to get away from the booby trap,” I explained.
“Then the explosion that we later figured collapsed your tunnel exit. Then nothing.” Merlin paused there, trying to get the chronology straight. “We couldn’t make any noise, and we couldn’t run over to your tunnel because there were soldiers in both our areas. We were hidden, but if we broke out, they’d see us. Sarah started whispering your name real intense over and over. ‘Mac. Mac. Mac. Answer me, Mac,’ she kept saying. I started to say something to her and she said, ‘Shut up. Shut up. I hear breathing.’ And sure enough, I could hear you breathing through my ear piece. There wasn’t any more gunfire because the house had already gone up and the Messengers didn’t have anything to shoot at. Most of their screaming was at least a hundred yards away.”
I knew what happened next, because I had seen Sarah in action too many times. Merlin confirmed it.
“Sarah told me and Duke to stay where we were, she was going to help. But I couldn’t let her go alone. Not after everything that’s happened…” His voice started to break up. He rubbed his eyes and asked for the canteen. I realized I hadn’t smelled any of his reefer, knew that he had some.
“Duke and I only made it halfway,” he continued. “There were soldiers everywhere, looking for more tunnels that had been blown out. Sarah was talking in my earpiece. Told me she’d made it to your tunnel but there were soldiers there. I could here her shotgun blasts while she was talking. Man, she was calm. She told me she couldn’t leave. Said you would never leave her. Ordered us to get Weasel and Stevie so we could dig you out before it was too late. I told her Duke would never go. Then her shotgun stopped.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Lucky they didn’t kill her.”
“She said they all were backing off. Figured they wanted her alive. Told me to get the hell out. Duke had chosen to go with me. That he’d follow. Turns out he did. But we left a few seconds too late. Got fired upon. Both of us were hit.”
“Why didn’t they finish you off?” I asked.
“Three of ‘em on our side saw us. Started shooting. When I returned fire and they focused on me, Duke took one of ‘em out. I took the other two. Told Sarah goodbye. Then we both limped off. Headed for Fox Valley Mall. I could here Sarah firing her AUG when we left. She asked me to please hurry. Even said ‘please’ to me while she was trying to keep them away from you.”
Weasel picked up the story from there.
“Me and Stevie figured to go take a look. Found Merlin and Duke up on 59 near that big super highway. They wouldn’t have made it much further. Threw ‘em in the back and Stevie patched ‘em best he could while I headed back to the compound.”
“We barreled over the hill full blast,” Stevie continued. “The truck even left the ground. But we headed down the other side, there wasn’t anyone left. It had been too long. Probably an hour between the time Merlin and Duke escaped and we found them. Ten more minutes to the compound. We dug you out. You were laying on top of your weapons, breathing real shallow. I think the oxygen in the tunnel was just about exhausted.”
“Then we searched for Sarah,” Weasel said. “Thanked God when we only found Messenger corpses. That’s how we came upon the note. It was staked to the fence with one of Sarah’s knives. Then we brought all of you back here and went to work on getting Sarah back.”
“You think this is going to work?” I asked, referring to the complex operation they had laid out for me earlier.
“We got the bait,” said Weasel. “We got some power with the truck. Power is what gets people to listen to you, Mac. All we need to do is get them to bring Sarah to us. That’s your job. If they do, we can get her back.”
• • • •
Weasel and Stevie went back to work. Help was coming in the morning, they said, and there were still details to attend to. I helped Merlin with the maps. Fourteen was what we needed.
We managed five hours sleep that night, awakening before dawn. I felt my strength was back enough for me to help during the day, but they told me no. Rest up.
In twelve hours we would go to the Messengers camp to begin negotiations for Sarah. You’ll need all the strength you can muster, they said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
We knew where the Messengers were. Everyone did. Can’t hide a boil on the end of your nose. Their latest headquarters was Wheaton College, a small private school best known in the 20th for its affiliation with the famous preacher, Billy Graham.
It was late on a sunny September afternoon when I slowly presented the truck to the Messengers, moving North on President Street, maneuvering around the rusters when I could, nudging them off to the side with the truck’s superior mass when there was no way around. Weasel was in the back with the HK belt fed and several assault rifles. Stevie had dropped off a few hundred meters back. He would set up when we read the situation. Merlin and Duke couldn’t make the trip. Their wounds made them a liability. They were back at Fox Valley, recuperating. We would need them both tomorrow.
We were going to negotiate for Sarah’s release. It was what the fat man wanted. Sometimes you did what the enemy wanted, Weasel said. They would have to produce her—walking, talking, intact. If they didn’t, we would remain, the three of us and the truck, until the stain that was the Messengers was removed. Or we were.
I pulled the truck up a little rise and stopped, straddling the railroad tracks of a commuter line, facing north. We had encountered no one on our journey. In an hour the sun would set. Sarah had been with the Messengers for nearly a day and a half. If all went well, she would have to remain for yet another night. We had to get them to our choice of ground for the exchange. We would not operate on their turf.
I put the huge vehicle in neutral, engaged the emergency break and opened the door, standing on the running board to survey the territory. Except for viewports/gunports, the cab was sealed with armor. Above and behind me, Weasel also stood to have a look, temporarily leaving the safety of our homemade gun turret. His hand remained on the machine gun.
On either side, beginning on a street that bisected President a half block ahead, rows of apartment buildings, three or four story units, lined the street. Filled with students a few decades ago, they were now home to Satan’s Messengers. A block away on my left, I could see the college’s football stadium. Beyond that was the Billy Graham Library. We had visited it many times in the past several years, scavenging for books and disks.
Across from the library a three acre hill of tall grasses dotted with ancient oaks, some still majestic, some fallen, rose up to the main campus. All of the brick and granite buildings on top of the hill were intact. Birds sang and scolded; squirrels darted through the trees. There was no sign of human movement.
“Nice quiet day in the suburbs,” Weasel commented. His voice came in through two channels, via the comm set and the normal air borne mode. Stereo with a millisecond delay.
“They know we’re here,” I replied.
“Yep.”
“Stevie,” I asked, “where you at?”
“‘Bout a hundred meters behind and west of you,” he replied. “Got a intermittent buzzing sound in this ear piece. Can you hear it?”
“No problems with the comm sets. Stay loose. We’re going to bring them out. Don’t set up until we reach a final spot.”
“And watch your back, boy. They may have guard posts out there,” Weasel warned.
“Not to worry, Weasel,” Stevie replied. “I spent six years hiding from these bastards. They won’t see me.”<
br />
I reached for the air whistle in the cab and gave it three short blasts. The results were immediate, like poking a stick into a hornet’s nest. From the apartments nearest us, rifle barrels suddenly appeared in the windows. A few exploratory shots rang out to our left, careening off the truck’s armor. Weasel answered with the belt fed HK, a short burst obliterating the window and probably the shooter.
Birds rose from nearby trees, beating a noisy exit from the intrusion on their lives. The guns remained in the windows. But none of the Messengers chose to attempt a further test of the truck’s armor shell. Silence returned.
“Hoist the flag,” I told Weasel.
A white towel on a broom handle went up in the corner of the truck’s bed. To us it meant a willingness to talk. To the Messengers it may have been a handy target. We were about to find out.
I put the truck in first and slowly descended the slope, waiting for the bullets to fly, hoping they would allow us to proceed. I turned left on the road that led to the main campus. In a couple of blocks it would put us in front of the library. The weed infested street, bumpy from the loose slabs of concrete that had buckled over the years, led us beneath a canopy of trees.
From the protection of the turret, Weasel put a couple of long bursts from one of the assault rifles into the trees. Leaves and twigs floated down in front of the truck. No bodies came crashing to the road. As we pulled closer to the main campus, creeping at about five miles per hour to check their defenses, my comm set began shorting out. Static, a far away, garbled voice, static, silence.
“Stevie,” I asked, “you OK?”
“Yeah. You hear that too? That’s what I was talking about. Could their walkie talkies be jamming our signal?”
Blood of the Dogs_Book I_Annihilation Page 40