Foamers

by Justin Kassab

  Kade hated mornings more than usual. As his wounds healed, he aggravated them in his sleep, leaving him feeling worse when he awoke. They were all tired and sore. With only the four of them, running guard shifts had made sound sleep impossible, and they were carrying the weight of their missing members.

  As tired and sore as he was, Kade felt alive, as he hadn’t in many years.

  “Kade!” Tiny’s voice boomed, making Kade wonder if he was hearing things.

  X pulled the walkie off his belt and handed it to Kade.

  “Yeah?” Kade said.

  “Four Humvees following a snowplow on their way to campus.”

  Kade’s pastry fell to the table.

  “I’m sorry we’re separated.”

  All eyes fell on Kade. He could feel the weight of leadership pressing down on him, but he smiled at everyone waiting for his answer. This was what he had planned for his entire life, and he wasn’t going to let doubt stop him this time.

  “Don’t worry. This is what we are going to do …”

  * * *

  Sarge placed his left foot on the gas pedal to give his right foot a break. The whiteout was making their trip to Lambian drag on; they hadn’t been able to reach the speed limit once. At least the snow would cover their numbers and give them the element of surprise. They had rallied a total of twenty warriors, counting his squad. Against the handful of people Victoria had said were left, he didn’t want to split the spoils more than necessary.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror, where his men were sliding on their bulletproof vests and ballistic masks. Sarge smiled to himself, thinking they looked like hockey goalies from hell. Beside him, Victoria was dressed in winter camo with a black Kevlar vest overtop, and he couldn’t help but find it sexy. At first he had found her too timid for his taste, but she was gaining points.

  The Tribe had arrived on Kade’s doorstep more than five minutes ago. He was waiting in the room with the ladder, mentally preparing for what was coming. Idling in a nearby parking lot, Sarge had called for Kade to come meet them. He doubted that the Tribe would be as polite as the last time they met. He felt that five minutes was just the right amount of time for them to wonder what Kade was scheming. Luckily, Tiny had spotted them from the hospital, which took away the Tribe’s element of surprise. With the snow still billowing, it took the entire cohort to locate the five vehicles surrounding their fortress.

  Kade and X tossed the rollout ladder over the windowsill, listening to it clank against the wall. Argos and Fenris sat patiently, panting by the window with harnesses and safety hooks securely fastened to them. Grabbing the bottom of his parka, Kade zipped the heavy coat from his knees to his neck. He slid on his knuckles and pulled his hand inside his sleeve.

  “You know, I’m not a fan of running,” X said.

  Kade pulled the hood over his head, shadowing his eyes. “You don’t like my plan?”

  “I don’t like sending you into the lion’s den alone.”

  “Just make sure the running part works. I’ll be fine,” Kade said, clapping X on the shoulder. What he was really saying was that since he was already dead anyway, either way, the plan would work.

  “Good luck,” X said with a wink.

  “You too,” Kade said, then began his descent. The idea of walking right up to armed enemies didn’t appeal to him any more than it did to X, but he was hoping that if his plan worked, he’d be able to protect the rest of his group. The climb down the ladder irritated his stitches, and he thought of the lecture Tiny would give him if he ever saw her again. To think about never seeing her brown eyes again felt as pleasant as eating glass.

  He trudged through the foot of snow toward the waiting Humvee and the snowplow, knowing his plan was dangerous. Tiny had signed off on the idea, though, which gave him some hope they would come out of this alive. Her confidence in him was a constant source of strength. He never knew what he had done to deserve it, but Tiny was always there right in the nick of time to save him when he was drowning .

  For choosing people to spend the end of the world with, he couldn’t have asked for a better group. They had to be victorious, even if he didn’t live to see it. Damian had to be getting close by now, and once he was here, he could fix the foamer problem. Kade couldn’t imagine how much of a disappointment he would be to his brother if, after traveling the entire East Coast, Damian found an empty fortress.

  Kade stopped as he stepped onto the snow-covered macadam of the parking lot, bordered by trees that were nearly impossible to see, even though they were only a few yards away. He saw the red puff of a cigar against the sheet of white that hung in the air. Sarge was back. Not that Kade was entirely shocked, but he had hoped this wouldn’t come to pass.

  “So glad you made this civil,” Sarge said, stepping across the lot with a second figure that was far shorter than he was. As they closed in on him, Kade could see their Kevlar vests and ballistic masks. They seemed straight out of a horror movie.

  “Just call me Mr. Helpful,” Kade replied, hugging his coat around his body.

  “Make sure you take his walkie,” the shorter one said, and Kade immediately recognized the voice. It was Victoria, come back to make his life hell again.

  Kade didn’t bother waiting to be asked and took the walkie from his pocket and handed it over. Three more black masks filled in behind Sarge and Victoria.

  “Victoria. I’m glad to see you’ve made new friends,” Kade said.

  Victoria snatched the walkie out of his hand and pressed the button. “I know you all have a half-assed plan created by Captain Dipshit here, but you have one chance now to surrender, or we will give no quarter.”

  The other three surrounded Kade as Victoria fastened the walkie onto her belt. He kept his body still, but let his eyes search his opponents. Each was wearing a bulletproof vest and a ballistic mask while carrying an assault rifle. Even though they looked like military, these weren’t the rigid, clean-cut military of the past. These were that narrow percent that enjoyed killing. A pack of hyenas starving for blood.

  “Victoria?” Tiny’s voice said through the walkie.

  “Would you like to surrender, Tiny?”

  “You never disappoint, you little bitch. Good luck.”

  Kade spun, dropping his parka to his wrists. Running the length of his spine was the katana from his father, and tucked into his belt was a road flare. With a flick, he launched the coat onto Sarge. Continuing his momentum, he landed his rubber-knuckled fist into a soldier’s face, knocking him off-balance. Kade checked Victoria to the ground then ignited the flare. The device landed in the snow and illuminated the parking lot. Kade sprinted for cover, half surprised his plan was working.

  In all his life, in all the sports he had played, in all of his experiences, he had never felt anything like the rush currently pounding through every pore of his body. He felt his heart beating in his chest with more purpose than just pumping blood.

  Grace and Ashton opened fire on the parking lot. The flare lit the area with a pinkish hue, which made the soldiers’ shadows flicker. From their windows on the fifth, they rained down bullets. Ashton found shadows and took her shots with a hunting rifle. There was no way to know—between the snow, distance, and light�
�if they had hit anybody. However, that didn’t deter them.

  At the parking lot, a soldier clutched a bullet hole in his throat. He and his fellow Tribesmen had been running after Kade. The sudden loss of air sent him sprawling across the snow. As bullets rained down around them, Kade used the whiteout to slide behind a Humvee and draw his katana. If he could stay inside the pack he would neutralize their firearms, since they’d have a better chance of shooting each other.

  He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and made peace with the fact that he was already dead. Between the gunshots from Lambian, he listened for footsteps. If he swung too high, he’d hit the mask; if he swung too low, he’d hit the vest. Those were errors he couldn’t afford. The golden rule when fighting superior numbers was to never be overwhelmed. If he missed a swing, the Tribe would have a chance to swarm him, which would be his end.

  The first set of steps came around the Humvee and Kade spun into the charge. The tip of the sword whistled through cold air and sliced along the side of a soldier’s throat, severing the jugular and sending a spray of red across the white snow. Kade crouched low as Sarge slammed into him. The moment they collided, Kade sprang to his feet and tumbled Sarge over his back. He extended the tip of the sword straight into the path of an oncoming warrior. The man’s sprinting mass met the blade just below the bottom of his vest. Kade tried to sidestep the impaled body that pulled the sword from his hands, but his feet slid out, carving a tunnel in the snow. The dying man plowed against his wounded side.

  He spun off the hit, trying to steady his feet in the sliding snow. The impact ignited a burning fire in his damaged side. The pain coursed through him in waves, stealing his breath as his feet found traction just in time to dodge Victoria. She skidded through the snow and crashed into Sarge, as he was getting to his feet. A gunshot echoed from Lambian, giving Kade his bearings. Like a running back, he dodged through a group of four, who had come from the parked snowplow nearby to help their brothers-in-arms. Clutching for fabric, their hands pinged off him, until the last one snagged a handful of shirt and used it to tackle Kade.

  The cold snow slapped Kade’s face. All the running had left him winded, and his body was emblazoned with pain. The group of Tribesmen dog piled him. His body molded into the snow, which blacked out his vision and restricted his breathing as the thousands of crystals jabbed against his skin.

  Until that moment, Kade had felt his hope growing; by some miracle, he would be able to survive. Now he knew there was no chance. The mission he had never called a suicide mission—but always knew was one—had come to be. His only hope was that the rest of his plan would go as well as he had expected this piece to play out.

  “Don’t kill him,” Sarge shouted at the Tribesmen as he rushed toward the pile with Victoria beside him. His hands entwined in the shirts of two of the soldiers and pulled them off.

  Sarge hoisted Kade upright by his shoulders. Kade let his body go limp; after all, it worked for possums. Sarge’s weasel-like eyes glared at him from behind the ballistic mask and steamy breath rose around the edges.

  “We’ve got plans for him,” Sarge said. “Storm the dorm.” Kade slammed his forehead into Sarge’s ballistic mask. Sarge’s head hardly budged, while Kade felt as if his own brains might leak through his ears. The corners of Sarge’s mouth pulled into a wolf-like grin, and Kade recognized he was in for a world of pain punctuated by death. Sarge slammed him on the hood of the Humvee. The metal refused to budge against his weight as he withered against the unmovable force.

  Kade’s vision swam in black as he fought to stay with his body. His head hurt, his side burned worse, but both were indicators he was still alive. His searing receptors were the line to his consciousness that he clung to. His goal was to delay his death long enough for his friends to finish the plan.

  As Sarge threw him to the snow, the other two Humvees drove around to the side of the building where Ashton and Grace were in firing positions.

  Ashton opened her left eye, taking in the two vehicle-sized shapes. “It’s working. Run!”

  She dropped her rifle and pushed Grace through the doorway. They burst into the hallway and flew down the corridor to the stairwell. The two fifty-caliber machine guns mounted on the Humvees turned the walls of the fifth floor into Swiss cheese. The heavy rounds tore fist-size holes through the dorm walls like they were made of paper.

  The two guns ran empty, and the Tribesmen hurried to reload them. On the third floor, Grace busted a window with a mini sledgehammer, and Ashton aimed the flare gun. With a loud hiss, the flare tore through the snowy air like a comet. The flare landed between the Humvees and the building. Ashton and Grace ran for the other side of the building and rolled out the escape ladder. Scrambling down the ladder, Ashton wondered if she worried more for Kade or X. She couldn’t imagine losing either of them. Even though she always knew Kade would die young, she had never lived a day without him, and didn’t want to know what it would be like without his protectiveness in her life.

  On the other side of Lambian, the flare illuminated the vehicles as the two turret operators shared a shrug, disregarding the marking. It was just the sign Tiny was waiting for, and she pressed the gas pedal of the pickup. Thanks to the snowplow, Tiny, Mick, and John had been able to follow the convoy in secret, all the way back from the hospital. The pickup barreled around the bend in the road, gaining speed as it made its move to T-bone the Humvees.

  “Are you sure this will work?” Mick asked John while they lay on their backs in the bed of the pickup, their feet braced on the rear of the cab.

  “Positive,” John replied, having no clue if they would be able to absorb the impact or if they would break their legs.

  The pickup crumpled against the Humvee, hardly having the force to rock the vehicle. Mick and John gave with the impact. Mick launched himself over the side while John stood and drew an arrow. The dark forms spun their turrets toward him. With the tap of the trigger release, he launched the first arrow. By the time the projectile reached the neck of the nearest man, John had his next arrow nocked and aimed. The second arrow zoomed through the guide hitting the second Tribesman just above the collarbone and passing most of the way through his throat. John smiled to himself, but then fought the urge to puke as his stomach realized he had just murdered two people. All of this was replaced by panic as the pickup’s horn blared.

  John jumped from the bed and ran to the driver’s side door, where Tiny’s forehead rested against the steering wheel. They had miscalculated the amount of damage they would do to the Humvee, and the impact had knocked Tiny out cold. As John’s flustered hands struggled to unhook her seatbelt, Mick unloaded an entire magazine from his pistol into the side window of the Humvee. Each barrage bounced off the bulletproof glass, leaving white scuffs. He released the magazine from his pistol as he backed against the rear door of the Humvee, and slid in a loaded magazine.

  Tiny lay limp in John’s arms as he turned away from the truck, not sure what he was going to do with her, but knowing he couldn’t leave her unprotected. Three strides in front of him, a Tribesman exited the Humvee and stared at him through the howling snow. The dazed soldier struggled to bring his rifle up from where it hung. John took his brief—but only—window of opportunity. With a quick step forward, he brought his foot up as fast and as hard as he could, like he was punting a ball, and crushed
his high-topped hiking boot into the soldier’s groin. John planted a second kick squarely in the center of the man’s chest. The man fell into the snow. John dropped his knee onto the prone man’s neck. He found his own actions surprising, amazed to see what his body was capable of when unleashed. Since the hospital he felt different: remade, better, evolved. He understood what Tiny meant by Primed.

  Fighting to keep his body in place on the struggling man, John’s heart sank as a Tribesman emerged from the door behind him. John closed his eyes and hoped they would be kind enough to spare Tiny. Three shots echoed between the vehicles, and John was surprised at how painless dying was until he realized he hadn’t been shot. When he forced his eyes open, Mick was there with smoking gun still in hand.

  Mick pulled his handcuffs off his belt. In the chaos John hadn’t noticed the man under him had become unconscious. Mick rolled the man facedown and cuffed him.

  “How many are left?” John asked.

  Mick’s eyes surveyed the Humvee. “None in this one.”

  “Kade,” Tiny moaned and reached for something that wasn’t there. “I love you.”

  Mick shook his head at John. “She must have hit her head real hard.”

  Mick instinctively dropped onto his back and aimed between his knees as a Tribesman came across the roofs of the Humvees. Mick’s first shot smashed into the man’s ballistic mask, and the second hit him dead-center in the vest. The impacts spun the man like a ballerina. John set Tiny in the snow, and drew the hatchet from his belt. The silver head chopped into the Tribesman’s neck; the blood melted the surrounding snow. John yanked the hatchet free as two more Tribesmen came around the rear of the Humvee and opened fire.

  To avoid the volley, Mick rolled to his chest and scrambled for the Humvee. The rifles blasted snow into the air as a line zippered toward Mick. John stood with a blank expression on his face, completely frozen. Then, in a flash of fur, Argos and Fenris hurdled Mick, heading for the Tribesmen.