Red Asphalt: Raptor Apocalypse Book 2

by Steve R. Yeager

  “Then give me something for the pain.”

  “There isn't much left. Only for the most—”

  “Now!” Cyrus commanded. “Get it done, Doctor. Or David will carve you up next.”

  David holstered the M9 and drew a long-bladed Ka-Bar knife. It was black, but the sharpened edge gleamed. He tested the edge with his thumb.

  Andrea glanced at David. He returned her knowing look. Jesse read it as: Now. What did that mean? Now. It could have meant a hundred different things, a thousand different things. She scooted on her knees to her bag and pulled out a needle and a brown bottle half filled with liquid. She stuck a long syringe into the cork in the bottle and pulled the plunger until the chamber filled then squirted a tiny bit out and flicked the needle, showing it to Cyrus.

  “This is going to hurt,” she said to him, “but it will make the pain go away quickly.”

  “What is it?”

  “It will deaden the pain so I can fix what's broken.” She jabbed the needle deeply into the meaty part of his thigh and emptied the syringe's contents. “Now, it will be just a minute for it to take effect.”

  Cyrus pushed Eve with his shoulder. “Get up. Over next to him. Now!” He nodded when she stepped closer to David. “Open your mouth.” She did. “Now wait. David will have something for you to eat shortly.”

  He swiveled his head back to Jesse. “About the virus, tell me! If he does not, cut off his left ear first. Make sure she eats it and keeps it down.”

  David moved to comply, raising the knife. He grabbed Jesse by the ear and pulled up and out on his earlobe, stretching it, exposing the soft flesh underneath. He brought the blade closer and set it against Jesse's skin.

  Jesse could feel the coldness of the steel. He could tell the blade was sharp. He clamped his mouth shut, waiting for the cutting to begin. He swore to himself he would not cry out, not make a single sound.

  Cory's gaze from across the table made Jesse want to avert his eyes, but there was a shared courage in it, as if Cory was showing him respect for the first time. Jesse had counted on passing out quickly. He was on the verge of it already. Once he did, maybe they would let everyone go. Maybe they would believe that he was the only one who actually knew about the virus. Eve could find a way back into Cyrus's graces, or at least remain alive. Cory was useful, more useful than a tired old, half-cripple. Cyrus had seen Cory with his sword. The bald-headed man might be crazy, but he wasn't stupid. Cory was more of an asset than a liability. That left Kate. She was a survivor. She'd find a way.

  It was the only way.

  He was ready to die.

  “Doc… Doctor?” Cyrus said through clenched teeth. “It still hurts. I need more. Give me more.”

  “The pain will be gone soon. Give it time.”

  “No, now!”

  She shook her head no. He grumbled and squeezed his thigh with his hands as if pushing the pain back down his leg.

  “Please,” he said. “It hurts worse. A lot worse.”

  She said, “Oh, I'm sure it does.”

  “What?” Cyrus asked. “Why?”

  “Is it done?” David asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  David lowered the knife and released Jesse's ear. He stepped away and wiped the drool from his chin with the back of his wrist.

  “Yes,” she repeated, “it will all be over soon.”

  Jesse felt something from behind. A sudden pain, throbbing. His wrists. His hands. He realized it was the blood rushing back into his fingers. They were free. He wriggled his fingers. They tingled and felt thick and fat, like plump little sausages.

  Taking no time for consideration, he pushed himself up, spun, and lunged for the knife in David's hand. He'd taken the guy by surprise. He grabbed David's wrist and twisted both backward and downward. The knife fell away and thunked on the floor. Jesse continued his assault. He shoved David against the wall, snatched the M9 from its holster, and rammed it against the scar-faced man's forehead.

  The gleaming white eye on the damaged side of David's face tried to close, but thick scar tissue prevented it from doing so. Drool ran freely from his chin. Jesse pushed the muzzle of the gun hard against David's forehead and held it there, twisting it back and forth, just as he had done five years earlier in the refugee camp.

  He sensed the weight of the trigger as feeling returned to his fingers.

  Memories flooded back: the camp, the wellhead, the fight, his dead wife, the ring, and the empty gun. If he had only pulled the trigger when he had first encountered David, the man would not be here now. But he'd let the man live. He'd seen him run off into the darkness, laughing while he stood watching, squeezing the trigger of an empty gun repeatedly. The memory had haunted him ever since.

  Jesse hated the man, but he hated himself even more for what he hadn't done.

  This time he knew the gun was loaded. It had to be. He could feel the weight of it, at least ten rounds, perhaps twelve. He flicked the safety off with his thumb. He dug the barrel in deeper into the pink and white scarred flesh of the monster before him. The same man who had defiled his wife. The same man who had gotten away with it for all these years.

  “No!” Andrea yelled sharply.

  He squeezed, taking the slack out of the trigger.

  “No!” she yelled again.

  He pulled a little harder. The trigger moved another few millimeters. The hammer was nearing its point of maximum distance from the firing pin, closer and closer to the point of no return.

  “No,” another voice said. His brain rattled the unfamiliar voice around until he realized just who it was.

  Kate?

  Glancing back, he saw that Andrea was now on her feet. Her arms were out. Her fingers were splayed. She was pleading.

  “No,” Kate said again. She spoke in a simple, meek tone. Not a command. Not an order, just a simple request to spare the man's life.

  The word registered with him, resonated. He had heard her correctly. It wasn't Hannah speaking to him now, but Kate. She was holding a scalpel in her hand. She was the one that freed him from his bonds. She had been standing next to David when she had done so. He must have seen the whole thing.

  He had allowed it to happen.

  Why?

  Jesse continued to hold David against the wall, trying to process the new information, trying to weigh it carefully and precisely, trying to think clearly for once.

  “No!” Kate said again, much more forcefully this time. She was touching him now. She was holding onto his shirttail just as she had done when they had run from the raptors in the city.

  “I can't,” he said. His hands shook. His body trembled, balanced precariously between rage and sanity.

  “No,” Kate said one more time. She pointed at Cyrus with the scalpel.

  “What…did you do?” Cyrus asked. His words had come out somewhat slurred.

  Jesse relaxed his trigger finger, letting the hammer fall back into place slowly. He continued to hold the gun against David's head. The man did not move. Long strands of whitish drool ran from the guy's chin and hung down like icicles.

  Andrea moved to stand over Cyrus, straddling him. She placed her hands on her hips and looked down at him.

  “Alcohol,” she said. “That stuff those swine of yours brew, you know? The stuff you give everyone else while you keep the real meds for yourself. Well, enjoy it because I suspect you will feel exceptionally good soon. Then…you may not feel anything at all.”

  “Help,” he tried to say, but it came out as a mumbled whisper.

  Jesse glanced at David. He buried the gun deeper in the man's forehead. None of this made much sense. David did not cower away or fight back. Instead, Jesse felt him relax.

  “I'm sorry,” the scar-faced man said.

  “What?” Jesse whispered.

  “I'm sorry,” he repeated.

  Kate tugged again on Jesse's shirt. “He…he saved me,” she said. “Saved her.” She pointed to Eve, who was sitting in a corner cowering. “Saved her
too,” she said, pointing to Andrea.

  Jesse held onto his anger, but cracks were forming in it.

  “Help!” Cyrus yelled in a desperate whisper.

  Someone banged on the door.

  “Everything okay in there?” a gruff voice yelled.

  “Help!” Cyrus tried to yell again, his voice even weaker than before.

  The banging on the door grew louder, more insistent. The knob twisted, clicked.

  Jesse shifted positions and squeezed the trigger on the M9.

  -37-

  THE DARK THINGS

  THE HAMMER FELL on the nine-millimeter Parabellum round. The primer ignited the nearly one hundred grains of cordite powder, and the expanding gases rocketed the bullet from zero to over eleven hundred feet per second in the short expanse of four point nine two inches of barrel. The bullet exited the gun and traveled the distance from the tip of the muzzle to its intended target in less than five-thousandths of a second.

  Sebastian Cyrus sensed the flash more than saw it. The brightness reminded him of the sun rising over the mountain peaks near his hometown. He pictured himself standing again on the granite outcropping. A wave of chilled air blew past his already cold-numbed cheeks, causing his long hair to stream out behind him. He wanted to wrap his arms around himself and pat his shoulders to bring the warmth back into his limbs.

  When the bullet first struck his skull, slightly above his left eye, it encountered strong resistance from the nearly quarter-inch of bone.

  He was a teenager again, young, strong, and virile. His entire life was still ahead him, and he knew that each choice he made would turn him into the man he wanted to be. And now that he was blessed with the gift of hindsight, he regretted few of the choices he had made over the course of his life.

  Except one.

  The thick bone of his skull was no match for the copper-jacketed nine-millimeter projectile. The bullet flattened on impact, punching its way through like a tiny fist and burrowing into the soft tissues beneath.

  Facing the sun, his breath came out in misted clouds. He spread his arms and prayed for the sun to warm him fully.

  The projectile slowed as the soft tissue of his brain attempted to work like a shock absorber, absorbing the impact and spreading it out like ripples on a pond. The lead bullet expanded further and tumbled as it carved its way through his brain.

  He could see clouds forming on the distant horizon. Dark clouds. He worried they might soon block the sunlight from his view. The clouds grew darker, bleaker, more hellish, leaving him behind in stygian blackness. He felt cold. He was shivering, freezing. His fingers no longer worked as they should. His limbs no longer worked. It took eons for them to move at all. He was cold, so cold. He could hear the soft tinking sounds of ice as it formed all around him, surrounding him, cocooning him in its frozen tendrils.

  The pressure wave shoved connective tissues and fibrous membranes out of the way like a bulldozer pushing through mud. By the time the bullet had reached the trailing edge of his skull, it had flattened to the size of a quarter and was tumbling wildly.

  Then he saw it

  A hole had formed in the clouds.

  The sun! The sun!

  Bright beams of sunlight shone through and etched away the clouds like water eroding the sides of a breached dam. Warmth reached him in a rush. His chilled limbs thawed in an instance. Ice melted. His breath no longer remained frozen in his throat. The gentle warmth grew up and around him, enveloping him. It was a comforting warmth, the comfort of a mother, the comfort of the womb, a blissful state of being.

  The back of his skull shattered into bony fragments.

  A crushing black wind came and smashed the roiling clouds together. It shut off the radiant stream of sunlight falling on him. The ground shook. The pine trees in the surrounding forests all turned to ash, and blew away in an instant or an eternity, he did not know which. The land was stripped bare to jagged rocks. He wanted to scream, wanted to do something, but he could not move from the precise spot where he stood.

  The pressure wave caused by the bullet sucked his brains and bones along behind it, and ejected everything through a three-inch hole in the back of his skull as if someone had pricked two holes in an egg and had blown through one of them.

  From the bleak landscape below came things darker than the surrounding rock. They were simple moving shapes, blurry in the distance, shifting shapes, scurrying shapes, terrifying shapes.

  What were those?

  He could no longer remember his name, or even why he was there. All the knowledge he had gained during his lifetime vanished into nothingness.

  All he knew was that he was afraid.

  Because the dark things were coming to get him.

  -38-

  NEW BEGINNING

  JESSE WATCHED AS Cyrus shuddered and went still. The whole thing took less than a second. The wall behind him was painted with chunky, pink globules. The tiny blobs dripped down, collected with other blobs, formed bigger blobs, and all dribbled down the wall together like melting wax.

  There was no joy in what he had done, no pride. He had just done what needed doing.

  The door swung open. A man stepped in, followed by another. The first guy swept the room. Upon seeing Cyrus and the red stain behind him, he took one more step into the room before noticing Jesse.

  Jesse snapped the Beretta on target, aiming the automatic at the man's head. His finger felt the trigger. He recognized the familiar bend, the weight necessary for a second shot, the smooth action of a gun that had been fired thousands of times. He knew just how much pressure was needed to release the hammer. He applied enough force to stay just shy of that critical pressure.

  The man jerked his hands into the air.

  Jesse pointed the pistol at the other man. That guy turned, put a hand on the doorframe, and tried to pull himself back into the corridor outside.

  Jesse fired.

  The man froze.

  Holding the gun level, Jesse moved his arm a total of one degree in arc, lining the shot up and keeping it centered on the man's chest as the shell casing came to a bouncing, pinging stop on the floor.

  “Back inside,” he commanded.

  The man inched his way into the room backward. He looked at his hand and the doorframe. The bullet had struck between where his thumb and index finger had been, and then ricocheted into the corridor. The man nodded respectfully as he turned and came further into the room.

  The two men moved closer together while Jesse kept the gun leveled at them both, alternating between each in case either decided to challenge him.

  “He always was an asshole,” the first guy said, nodding at Cyrus's corpse.

  “What?” Jesse said.

  “Cyrus is an asshole,” the man repeated, “or was.”

  Jesse suspected a trick.

  The other man nodded, “Yeah, asshole. Hated the guy. Glad he's dead.”

  David raised his hands, palms out, fingers spread. “It's okay. Slow down.”

  The gun snapped to David again, center mass. David moved closer to Andrea, shielding her.

  Jesse followed with his aim.

  His hand began to shake.

  Shook harder.

  His whole body shivered.

  Can't, he told himself and lowered the gun. As he lowered it, the tension in the room evaporated into smoke.

  Andrea pushed past David, heading for the doorway.

  “Time we get the hell out of here,” she said. She stopped in front of the two men. “Get everyone gathered in the conference room in one hour. Got it?”

  One guy looked at the other, and then nodded. “Okay, one hour. So, who's in charge now?”

  Andrea answered his question with a glare until he nodded and left. She led them all out and up the first flight of stairs. Cory kept Eve moving in front of him. He was interrogating her about where he could find his sword, but he was stumbling and seemed like he could not keep his balance. David followed along behind with Kate next in line. J
esse guarded their rear.

  As they reached the next flight of stairs, Andrea stopped and everyone bunched up behind her.

  “What's wrong?” Jesse asked, pushing his way to the top stair.

  One of the pregnant girls dressed in a blue dress stood in the corridor.

  “Go back,” Andrea said to her. “Gather your sisters along with the children and secure the door. Hide. This will all be over soon. We'll come get you when it's safe.”

  The girl did not move. She stared doe-eyed at Andrea as if she didn't understand.

  “Do it now!” Andrea commanded, showing a side of her that Jesse had not seen until now.

  The frightened girl bobbed her head and ran off the way she had come.

  They continued climbing stairs and entering new corridors. Along the way, David spoke with others they encountered and asked them to gather in a conference room on the second level. All nodded and agreed, but two had asked where Cyrus was. David lied and told them that Cyrus was busy, and that he would brief them all in an hour, but Jesse was sure the deception would quickly fall apart when the others got there and started talking among themselves.

  Eventually, they reached Cyrus's quarters at the highest level of the complex. David shuffled them all inside and kicked the door shut. Jesse's hand went for the gun he'd stuffed under his shirt. He looked at David then stopped to wipe his sweaty hands on his jeans. He let out a long breath. Bruised and battered as he was, he was feeling much better than he had in a long time. He had just killed a man, an important man, an evil man, and it wasn't done for mercy or vengeance. He'd simply reacted. Given what Andrea had injected Cyrus with, the guy probably would have died given enough time. But the time was short and he'd done what was needed before things spun out of control.

  He'd also spared David, the man he would have killed if it were not for Kate. It would take time to sort through the torrent of feelings he was experiencing now over that, but his gut told him he was back on the right path.

  “Where is it?” Cory demanded of Eve. He was holding her by the arm and shaking her. He seemed off balance, wobbly, like he was drunk. She was crying, shivering, and trying to wrap her arms around her chest. He grabbed her wrist and held it firm.