CANNIBAL KINGDOM

by John L. Campbell

  The boy let out a throaty chuckle, hands curled into claws, and charged at Kylie.

  Like the agents on the plane.

  Fear and anger collided within her, and as the kid arrived she did not run, but planted her feet and punched him in the face, putting her shoulder and body weight into the blow. There was an explosive crunch of bone and the boy was knocked flat.

  “Kylie, what did-?” her mother shouted

  The boy snarled and got to his feet, his face now a bloody mask, nose flattened and both front teeth knocked out. That hit should have made him stay down! Kylie looked around quickly and spotted a piece of debris, a three-foot strut of heavy aluminum twisted at each end by the impact. She snatched it up. The kid lunged, catching hold of her short jacket and bit, teeth (minus his incisors) ripping into leather. Kylie screamed and pounded at his head, knocking the wide-brimmed Amish hat free. The boy ignored the blows, hands scrabbling at her as he let go of the jacket and moved to bite her hand.

  It was the instant she needed, and Kaylie swung the aluminum strut like a baseball bat. There was a dull crack when she connected, just above the boy’s left ear.

  The Amish boy crumpled, landing on one side and quivering like a sleeping dog in the midst of a dream. His hands pawed at the earth, and one eye rolled up to glare at her. The boy snapped his teeth and let out another thick chuckle. Horrified, Kylie let out a cry and began hitting him in the head with the impromptu bat, striking again and again, heedless to what was spattering across her face and making gruesome, spotted patterns on her hands.

  When the boy was no longer twitching, she let out a wail and stumbled away, holding onto her weapon even as the tears started to flow. “Mommy,” she cried.

  Ignoring her own pain, Patricia stood and went to her, pulling her close with one good arm. “Shhh, it’s okay, honey. It’s okay now. Shhh. It’s the virus, baby,” she said through her daughter’s sobs, “you didn’t have a choice. It has to be the virus.”

  They stayed like that for a while, then Kylie sniffed and wiped her face on a jacket sleeve, smearing blood across her skin. She nodded slowly. “I’m okay,” she said, looking into her mother’s eyes for signs of condemnation over having killed a child, seeing only her mom’s concern. “I’m okay.” She let out a rush of breath.

  Patricia nodded back.

  Kylie went into the wreckage of the front half of the plane a few minutes later. Patricia heard rummaging sounds, a cry of revulsion, and then her daughter returned no longer carrying the bloody strut, but an armload of first aid supplies. She dropped the items on the ground. “The pilots are dead,” she said, looking away and blinking, reliving the scene in the cockpit. “I found a sling in the medical kit.” She helped her mother put it on, and Patricia sighed relief as the pressure instantly came off the fracture. The rest of the supplies consisted of alcohol and peroxide pads, bandages and some individually wrapped pain relievers. The young woman stuffed it all in her jacket pockets. She kept a break-and-shake ice pack for her swollen eye. At least she could see out of it now, but not much. She thought she must look like a cage fighter who’d come out on the losing end of a match.

  They looked around. The field was ringed with woods, a darkened farm house at one edge about a quarter mile away near a large barn. Nothing moved in the field or near the buildings.

  “Someone will come for us,” Patricia said. “The Secret Service tracks these planes, they’ll know we went down. And I’m sure the agents on the plane called for help when…when things started to happen.”

  “I didn’t hear anyone call for help,” Kylie said. “One of them said Bank Vault, like a code word, but no one reacted to it.”

  Patricia frowned. Bank Vault. It was familiar, something from a briefing maybe? She wasn’t making the connection. She and Garrison had had so many security briefings over the past four years. She was sure it would come to her when her head didn’t feel like it was filed with damp mattress ticking.

  Kylie looked at the sky. “It wasn’t even sunset when we were in the air. We’ve been down for a while. Someone should have been here already.” She huffed. “I don’t even know what state we’re in!”

  Patricia looked at the unmoving Amish boy, then quickly looked away. “Pennsylvania, maybe? Ohio?”

  Kylie started back toward the back half of the aircraft, from which they’d emerged. “A radio. All the agents had-”

  The air was split by a half-second of high-pitched, otherworldly squeal, and then the world turned white as that section of aircraft (and the wings carrying the fuel) detonated. Both women were hurled to the ground, hair and eyebrows singed as a heat wave washed over them. A full minute later, Kylie regained her breath and managed to rise, gasping at the scorched-tasting air as she helped her mother to stand. Hitting the ground so hard hadn’t done Patricia Fox’s arm any good, and she hissed at a pain that the sling couldn’t alleviate. Together they hobbled around to what remained of the nose of the executive jet, putting it between them and the fire.

  “Someone will find us now,” Patricia finally said.

  “Yes,” Kylie said, looking toward the darkened farmhouse. “Someone.”

  They stood there for a while as the color drained out of the sky, yielding to an indigo night. The blaze of burning jet fuel caused orange demons to dance across the field, and their shadowy cousins to caper among the nearby trees. There were no wails of sirens, no beat of helicopter rotors or probing searchlights, only the crackle of flames.

  Kylie looked at her mother. “Daddy…?”

  Patricia hugged her daughter one-armed. “He’s fine. You know how well protected he is.”

  “Like we were?”

  Patricia couldn’t respond to that, and when she didn’t, Kylie went once more into the shattered front fuselage. She emerged carrying a holstered pistol and a matching leather pouch holding two loaded magazines. “There was a dead agent near the cockpit. I couldn’t tell who it was…his face…” She coughed. “He doesn’t need this anymore and we do.” She clipped both the holster and magazine pouch to the waistband of her torn, designer jeans.

  “My phone was back there,” said Patricia, looking at the blaze.

  “Mine too,” Kylie said. “I thought of that, checked the bodies up front, but the agent didn’t have one and the two with the pilots were smashed. But we’ll find one.” The fire was exhausting the fuel and the flames were receding, allowing nightfall to reclaim the field. The darkness of the trees grew increasingly menacing.

  They looked toward the distant farmhouse – as black and forbidding as the woods – and by unspoken agreement started walking across the field in the opposite direction.

  -22-

  DARK HORSE

  The Harrison School, Vermont – October 29

  Devon kept out of sight at the side of the window, looking down onto a green space of lawns and a few old oaks, a sidewalk crossing in front of the building where he and Captain America had taken shelter. The office of an unknown professor was dark around them, the only light a thin, grayish glow coming through the window. Outside, the lamp posts lining the sidewalk had come on automatically hours ago. A clock on the office wall ticked past midnight.

  “Thought I told you to stay away from there.” Marcus Handelman had pulled the professor’s desk chair to an angle in front of the door, and sat with his pistol in hand. In the darkness, Devon could see little more than the white of his dress shirt, his back crossed with the black X of his shoulder holster.

  Devon didn’t move from the window, and didn’t respond to the agent’s warning. Instead he looked at the night – still and empty – and said, “No one’s coming, are they?”

  Handelman paused before answering. “We don’t know that. They might just be delayed.” Both their voices were just above a whisper.

  “The phone hasn’t rung,” Devon said, “and no one answers when you called them back. No one answers any of your calls.”

  The agent said nothing. Devon was right. No one had shown up, not a c
ar from Secret Service backup, not local law enforcement. His repeated phone calls to Washington had not reached a duty officer or anyone else. Only endless, unanswered ringing, occasionally punctuated by an answering machine. 911 was the same, as well as the other numbers he’d memorized; the Service field office in Burlington, the White House, the FBI office in Boston, his supervisor’s cell phone. When he punched zero for directory assistance (something he couldn’t remember doing since he was a kid) he got a recording telling him to try again later. There were other numbers he might have called – the Pentagon, DEA, the US Marshals, any federal law enforcement agency – but all those contacts were in his cell, and he didn’t have it. The professor’s office didn’t have a hard-copy phone book. He wondered if they even made those anymore.

  “Our safest bet is to hold position,” Handelman said. “They know where we are, we need to be patient. Please move away from the window.”

  Devon didn’t, and Handelman didn’t fight him on it.

  The fifteen-year-old watched a night breeze make the oaks sway gently, and the wall clock ticked to twelve-thirty before he spoke again. “You shot a kid,” he said softly.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Are you okay about that?”

  “Perfectly okay,” came the reply.

  The words made Devon turn. “You’re lying.”

  Handelman said nothing.

  “Have you ever had to do that before? Shoot someone, I mean?”

  The agent hesitated as if unsure how to answer the question, then said, “When I was overseas with the teams, yes. Not during my time with the Service, though.”

  Devon looked back at the window, seeing his own, ghostly reflection in the glass.

  “Are you okay with what I did?” Handelman asked.

  The boy shrugged. “It wouldn’t change things if I wasn’t. I guess I get it. I didn’t really know him. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “I’m sorry you had to. I’m sorry I had to.” The agent rose from his chair and walked to stand at the other side of the office window, looking not at the boy but outside. “It’s okay to be upset about it. It was a terrible thing.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  Handelman shook his head. “Even tough guys get upset when they have to do something…like that. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. Just means you’re human.” The agent was quiet for a moment, then, “I’m not sorry for doing it, though. And it might not be the last time I have to before this is over.” He caught the boy’s eyes. “You understand that, right?”

  Devon nodded. “It’s your job.” He expected a speech about duty and self-sacrifice. Instead Handelman said, “Right, it’s my job, and if you get killed your dad will fire me. I need the healthcare benefits.”

  The boy laughed, though he didn’t want to. “Ass. You work for the Secret Service, not the White House.”

  Handelman snorted. “You’re an ass. Your Dad’s the Man, the big boss. Don’t fool yourself.” Then he reached out and gripped Devon’s shoulder. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Just stay close and listen, okay?”

  “Okay.” The mention of his father caused a frown line to crease Devon’s forehead. “Do you think my dad’s okay?”

  “Are you kidding? Your father is the most heavily protected man on the planet. He only gets the best agents, not second-stringers like me who watch over pukes like you.”

  Devon smiled. Handelman had to be one of the very best, or his father would never have allowed him to watch over his son. “What about mom and Kylie?”

  “Safe,” Handelman said without hesitation. “Again, the best agents we have, I know them all. And as for your sister, can you think of anyone stupid enough to tangle with Kylie? Her Detail would end up saving the bad guy from her.”

  Devon shrugged, but smiled again. His mom’s word for Kylie Fox was feisty. His dad used piss and vinegar. He’d heard that her detail had other colorful terms for her. He wanted to feel better, but the frown line remained in place. “Do you think-?”

  Handelman cut him off by putting a finger to his lips, then pointing out the window and down. The boy saw them at once; a trio of figures moved slowly across the green space, disappearing for a moment as they passed behind trees, then coming into view again. One was a boy Devon’s age, wearing the school uniform of khakis, dark blue jacket and striped tie. The other two were grown men, one older and wearing a tweed sport jacket, the other younger, a red-head with a buzz cut and a dark suit. A coiled radio earpiece dangled from a clip on one of his jacket lapels.

  Devon recognized them; Handelman’s supervisor, Special Agent O’Brien, the biology professor who didn’t like his dad’s politics…

  And Devon’s roommate Sean.

  They were slightly hunched, heads swinging left and right as if searching for something. In the light of the lamp posts Devon could see that each was bloody, their clothing torn. He didn’t like the way they moved. It looked unnatural for a reason he couldn’t explain, or at least unnatural for people. And then the light touched their faces, making Devon recoil. Their eyes were like silver coins, vaguely luminescent and nowhere near human.

  After he regained himself, Devon whispered, “They’re different from the people earlier. They’re not dazed or raging like the others were. They look…” he frowned, “deliberate.”

  Handelman nodded silently. He didn’t like the way they moved either, and it was oddly familiar, something he’d seen before…a way he had moved on certain missions overseas. Stalking behavior. Killers looking for a target.

  The trio approached the building and moved out of sight below the window. “It’s about to get real, Devon,” Handelman said, then pointed to a corner of the office. “Go crouch down over there.” The agent’s tone had changed from funny older brother to no-bullshit operator, and the fifteen-year-old obeyed at once. Handelman took position facing the door, arms extended, pistol gripped in both hands and pointed at the wood, right about where a chest would be if someone was standing on the other side.

  Devon knelt beside an overflowing bookcase, staring at the outline of the door, feeling his heart accelerate. It was as if he could already hear the smashing wood, the roar of his protector’s pistol and the howls of the silver-eyed trio as they rushed in, nothing but teeth and grabbing hands, and…

  He swallowed hard. Keep it under control.

  They waited, straining to listen. Only the tick of the wall clock.

  And then there was a sound, a muffled laughter echoing down the hallway beyond the door. It sounded choked, not like a real laugh. Both of them tensed.

  The phone on the professor’s desk went off with a shrill and deafening urgency, making them jump. Devon lunged for it and snatched the receiver out of the cradle, knowing it was too late. In the silence of this night, that single ring would have traveled the entire building.

  “Hello?” Devon said in a whisper, expecting to hear a man, the Secret Service duty officer calling back at last. Instead there was a pause, followed by a soft whimper and a girl’s voice.

  “H-hello? Is anyone there?”

  “Who is this?” Devon asked.

  “Sandra,” said the girl, sniffling, her voice a quaver. “Sandra Block. I’m in the gymnasium. Where is everyone? Who are you? I saw…I saw… I was just pushing extensions and-” It all came out in a rush, a frightened girl talking too fast.

  “I’m Devon,” he said, cutting her off. “I can’t talk too long.”

  Handelman glanced back and shot the boy an evil look, mouthing the words, hang up.

  “I can’t talk at all, Sandra. I’m sorry.” He was about to hang up, but the girl’s voice rose several octaves and she started to cry. “Please don’t go! My parents are…my brother was at the chess match…someone was biting and…they’re all like them now! I saw them! I ran and I’ve been hiding. There’s people out there, but they’re not people. Help me, I’m in the gym, help me.”

  Devon hadn’t felt true heartac
he in his life until this moment, and he didn’t know why he said what he said next. “We’re coming, Sandra. Stay where you are and don’t use the phone again. We’re coming, we’ll find you.” He hung up before she could say anything else, then unplugged the phone in case she called back.

  Standing only a few feet away, Agent Handelman shook his head slowly without looking at Devon.

  There was nothing from the hallway for a while, and then the echo of more laughter, abrupt and barking. It was impossible to tell if the source of the noise was nearby or deeper in the building. Handelman was a statue, his service weapon aimed at the door.

  The building went silent.

  The wall clock ticked, reaching one in the morning.

  Devon felt like the air and silence were smothering him, wanted to ask questions, wanted to move, anything to break this insane waiting. Why had he told the girl they would come for her? He only had a vague impression of a few girls among the spectators at the tournament, for he’d been fully concentrating on the matches. Had she been there when his opponent attacked, when people went crazy and turned on each other? She must have been. Handelman was pissed, he could tell. What had made him think that his bodyguard was going to take him wandering around school looking for some hiding girl? He shook his head, ashamed. He’d made a promise to her, and he didn’t lie. If he and Marcus didn’t find her, someone else – something else – would. He couldn’t live with that. Handelman wouldn’t like it, but if Devon went looking, he’d have to follow. That was that. The boy felt better at his decision, a strength that came with resolve.