by A. M. Geever
“Go,” Alan shouted, shoving Mario’s shoulder.
Mario walked across the kitchen tiles, the grit of the fire suppressant from the extinguisher crunching into the layer of grease beneath it. They walked through the mudroom, then the garage, to the Mercedes. Michael’s face, pale and pinched, his gray eyes filled with terror, looked out at Mario from the back passenger seat.
“Where is he?” Alan said.
“The trunk.”
Alan made a sound like a smothered sob, but it was angry, not hopeless. “Open it!”
“I don’t have the keys,” Mario said, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. From his peripheral vision, he could see someone walking up the long drive—a guard. They were going to be caught, and then they’d all be dead.
Alan shoved Mario around the end of the car. Emily looked back at them, eyes fearful.
“Let us go, Alan!” she cried.
Alan said, “Turn off the car and open the trunk, Emily, or I swear I’ll shoot him!”
“Okay,” Emily said, “I’m turning it off.”
Alan grabbed Mario’s shoulder again. Anthony and Maureen stared at them through the backseat window, wide-eyed. The trunk release clicked audibly, almost echoing in the silence. The lid flipped up, and Alan, gun still pressed against Mario’s head, stepped behind the Mercedes.
“Dom,” he cried. “Oh no, Dom!”
Dom’s muffled voice was cut short when the car lurched backward. Mario stared, not understanding. The rear bumper hit Alan with a dull thud, then he disappeared from sight, the car thumping over him. Dominic’s muffled screams competed with the squealing tires. Mario’s feet were rooted to the spot. His brother-in-law had been run over. What had just happened?
“Shut the trunk! Get in!”
Emily’s voice snapped Mario from his frozen shock. Dominic was struggling to get out of the trunk, screams lost in his gag. Mario punched him twice, short, savage blows, and shoved him back inside. He slammed the trunk shut, then ran around the car, yanking the passenger side door open and diving inside.
“Are you okay?” Emily asked, her voice terse.
The car jerked as Emily finished backing up. He winced at the thumps that could only be Alan.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. He looked to the children, crying and huddled in the back seat. “Are you okay?”
“Daddy!” one, or maybe all of them, wailed.
“It’s okay,” Mario said, anger and worry intertwined as he looked into the traumatized faces of his children. “You have to buckle up. Now!”
When they didn’t comply, Mario hoisted himself through the seats. The car jerked forward, and he almost face-planted into Maureen’s lap. Reaching for her seat belt set Anthony and Michael into action. By the time Mario twisted into his seat, the guard he’d seen walking up the drive was behind them. The gate ahead was opening—they streaked through, tires squealing as Emily turned south. She yanked the steering wheel to turn the skidding car east on the Oregon Expressway.
“I thought you turned the car off,” he said.
“Electric, remember? It’s silent, and Alan was too distracted trying to kill you. Where are we going?”
“Fremont,” Mario answered as the dark streets of New Palo Alto streaked by. “I came on the Dunbarton Bridge, but—”
“We can’t take that,” Emily said, eyes on the road. “We can try the Charleston Street Gate.”
“Okay,” Mario said, struggling to gather his thoughts. “But you can’t drive us through.”
Emily frowned. “You’re right. We should switch. You can try to pass for Dominic. You look enough alike.”
“Where are we going, Mom?” Michael asked, his voice tight with anxiety.
Emily cast a sidelong glance at Mario. He turned to the children in the back seat.
“Somewhere safe, Michael,” he said, reaching out to squeeze Michael’s knee.
Emily pulled the car to the side of the road and opened her door. Mario had already pulled the handle and was turning away to do the same when he heard Maureen whisper to Anthony.
“Is that Daddy?”
“Yeah, honey,” he said. “It’s me. It’s Daddy.”
“It’s Daddy,” Anthony said.
At Anthony’s confirmation, Maureen’s brow smoothed a little. “I wasn’t sure.”
Mario forced a quick smile at the children, then got out of the car. Emily waited at his door. “Are we going to get out of here, Mar?”
“I don’t know.”
He hurried around the car and got back inside, then sped down the street. Tension filled the air, pressing against Mario like a yoke. The children had fallen silent in the back seat. Emily twisted her necklace nervously. Then a muffled thump began in the back of the car.
“Quit kicking, Michael,” Emily said.
“I’m not!”
Emily twisted in her seat toward him. “Then what is… Oh shit.”
It was Dominic, in the trunk.
“Should we stop?” Emily asked.
Mario’s mind raced as he turned the corner and gunned the engine. They were almost to the gate. He’d have to knock Dominic out to get him quiet again, but what if it didn’t work? What if Dominic got away?
“We’ll have to chance it,” Mario said.
“What if he pulls the emergency release?” Emily said.
Mario had forgotten about that. “I don’t know, Em.”
“Are we going to be okay?” Anthony asked, his voice tremulous.
“Just hang tight, Anthony,” Mario said, glancing at the pinched, frightened faces of his children in the rearview mirror. “We need you kids to be quiet—” Mario stopped the car. “No.”
“No?” Michael squeaked.
“Kids, listen to me,” Mario said. “When we get to the gate up there, I need you to cry. Start fighting with each other.”
“I’m scared,” Anthony said, on the verge of tears.
“I know you are,” Emily said, and Mario realized she was crying. “I’m scared too, but just do what Daddy says, okay?”
As soon as the children realized Emily was crying, the switch flipped. Anthony started to cry—for real. A moment later, so did Maureen and Michael. Mario turned the last corner, his nerves thrumming like a high voltage wire. The border wall was three blocks ahead of them, brightly lit, and growing larger and more imposing every second. Mario couldn’t remember being this scared, ever. He’d been in danger before, on his own and with others, but never with his family—not like this.
He’d always feared for their safety, feared what the Council might do to them, especially when he first defected so he could try to get the vaccine back. He’d barely been able to think straight, he’d been so afraid for them. But this…those other times didn’t come close.
Mario flicked down the visor along the top of his window and pulled his hair into his eyes as he turned left onto Loma Verde Avenue. The tall concrete border wall was straight ahead. This was the only other entry point into New Palo Alto where there wasn’t a double wall, because of the wetlands on the other side of the Bayshore Freeway. Instead, there was an interior holding area made of chain-link fence attached to a steel frame. The lights were daytime-bright, and the sight of so many guards slicked Mario’s body with sweat.
The kids were all-out wailing as he stopped the car at the guard booth outside the holding area. Mario hit the button to open the window once, the buzz of the motor that controlled the window lost in the din. The guard shot out of the booth and hurried to the car. Mario glanced out the window quickly, then looked straight ahead.
“Mister Santorello,” the guard said, surprise evident in his voice, as well as relief. “You’re okay! Security hasn’t been able to locate you since… After the…” His voice trailed, an acceptable characterization of what had happened back at the house clearly escaping him. He peered into the back seat. “Is everyone all right?”
“No thanks to you,” Mario snapped. “Open the goddamn gate.”
“Uh�
�we were told to seal the exits, sir. After what happened to Mister Reynolds.”
So, Alan was dead, as he’d feared.
“By the same people who failed to protect him?”
“Well, um…” the guard stammered.
Mario turned his head, just catching the man’s eye while trying to keep his face inside the window and out of the bright light.
“We need to get somewhere safe, since none of you can do your job,” he said, the danger of their predicament fueling the fury in his voice.
Emily was still crying, trying to console the children, to no effect. Her maternal instinct to soothe them couldn’t be circumvented, Mario knew, because it was all he wanted to do, too, even though they needed the distraction their distress provided.
“Sir, I don’t know—”
The guard wasn’t cooperating, and he knew he couldn’t play it safe. If he did, they were never getting out of here. Mario leaned out the window. He pushed some of the hair in his face aside and looked directly into the guard’s watery blue eyes. The guard recoiled, taking an involuntary step backward, as the color drained from his face. He gulped so loudly that even over his hysterical children, Mario could hear it.
“My husband was just murdered,” he said, a deadly promise in his voice. “I need to get my sister-in-law and her children somewhere safe, and that’s not here. Open the fucking gate before I get out of the car and break your neck.”
The guard nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He took another step backward. Then he raised his arm, making a circling motion with his hand before he turned and almost ran to guard’s booth. Immediately, an obnoxiously loud buzzer sounded. Yellow lights along the top of the holding booth flashed in time with the buzzer, and the inner gate began to slide open to the side, like a single elevator door.
Despite every instinct in his body telling him to rush, to flee, Mario drove the Mercedes into the holding booth at a snail’s pace. The gate behind them rattled shut. Emily looked at Mario, eyes bright with fear, her hand pressed to her mouth. After a torturous age, which in reality was only thirty seconds, the outer gate began to lift, pulled up inside the massive concrete wall.
As soon as there was enough clearance, Mario floored it. The Mercedes catapulted forward, streaking into the night like a rocket.
Ten minutes later, they sped south on the Expressway. Mario checked his mirrors and scanned the road ahead with a compulsive alertness. He kept expecting the black SUVs of Council Security to appear his rearview mirror, as implacable and relentless as Mad Max, until they ran them down. Emily had mostly quieted the children. Her own lack of tears had helped, but Mario couldn’t blame her for any loss of composure. They were in danger; if he hadn’t needed to bluster their way through the gate, he would have cried, too. Dom had quit banging in the trunk, which Mario hoped was a good sign. He knew they needed to stop and make sure he was secure, but that would have to wait. They had to get away first.
A clunk jarred Mario from his thoughts. “What was— Shit!”
The lid of the trunk sprang into the rearview mirror. Mario jammed on the brakes, so hard the tires squealed. In the back seat the kids cried out in fright.
“Mario, what’s—?”
Emily’s question was lost as Mario jammed the car into PARK and scrambled out. “Stay in the car,” he barked.
A good ways behind them, Dominic was struggling to his feet. Mario wasn’t sure how fast he’d been going, but he’d never have tried jumping out of a car at the speed they’d been traveling. Dom was lucky he wasn’t dead.
Mario sprinted for his brother. He wasn’t sure where on the Expressway they were, since the walls blocked the view. The only area with a lot of tall buildings was downtown San Jose, and they hadn’t gone that far. Dominic had regained his footing and was running, faster than Mario would have credited. His head start on Mario grew. Dom had always been a swift runner. Whatever he’d hit leaping from the car, it hadn’t been his legs. Mario raised his hand, shading his eyes from the lights ahead, and saw a walled-off exit ramp.
Mario pushed himself harder, lungs burning with effort, cursing himself for jumping out of the car and making chase on foot. He hadn’t expected Dominic to be able to flee. I’m not going to catch up, he thought, even as he dug deep, calling on reserves of energy his muscles screamed they didn’t have. But Mario knew better. He knew he could push, could hurt, could keep going. It was just that Dom knew it too, and was too far ahead of him, still that eighth of a mile.
Without stopping, Mario pulled the Sig from his waistband at the small of his back. He pointed the gun in Dom’s direction and fired—a warning shot, no need to sight up. Dominic was out of range, and Mario knew it, but maybe it would be enough to stop him.
Dominic slowed, about fifty feet from the first concrete wall, and looked over his shoulder. Mario kept up his flat-out run. He could see that Dom’s hands were still tied in front of him, his face a pale oval under a dark mop of hair. He looked at Mario for a long moment, then turned away and ran at the wall. Mario watched in wonder as Dominic jumped, his arms upraised, and managed to catch the top. It had to be ten and a half feet, and Dominic got his hands on it.
Still Mario ran as Dom struggled to climb the wall. Despite the poor purchase his dress shoes would give, he managed to swing a leg up and get his foot over. Mario stopped. Gasping for air, he raised the Sig. He might get lucky—if you could call getting a clean shot on your only brother lucky. Despite everything that his brother had done, this wasn’t what Mario wanted, it wasn’t how he wanted it to end, but he couldn’t let Dominic get away. Not just because he would raise the alarm that Mario was back in San Jose if he got through the zombie-infested territory around them. Not just because if he got away, it would make their goal of overthrowing the Council more difficult. He had to get him because of everything else. His brother had imprisoned his family, and Mario knew he would have killed them—even the kids—if he thought it would work to his advantage. He’d been behind the attack on LO, and people Dominic had never even heard of—good, kind people whose only crime was wanting to live and help others—had died. He’d embraced the self-serving depravity of the Council, actively participated in the subjugation of the people of Silicon Valley, persecuted the weakest and most vulnerable, so that he could become powerful and rich. His brother had tried to kill him, and Doug, all so he could keep what he had. He didn’t care about the cost, because it would always be other people who paid it. And he’d tried to kill Miranda. If the attack had been successful, if she hadn’t lost the baby, he might have killed their child, too.
Mario sighted up and took a deep breath. Dominic got his leg the whole way over the wall and sat upright astride it. Mario exhaled and squeezed the trigger. Dominic jerked, then fell from sight, but he couldn’t be sure he’d gotten him. The jerk could have been overcorrecting his balance. Maybe he hit him, but even if he had, he doubted it was fatal.
Mario stood for another few seconds, catching his breath, staring at the wall at the top of the ramp. Below the roar of blood in his ears he could hear zombies moaning, the gunshots having attracted the attention of the wretched, undead souls wandering in the Expressway’s shadow.
He turned away. Emily stood by the car in a puddle of light from the open door. The pale faces of his children peeked out the back window, shining like a beacon, beckoning him closer. He cast one last glance over his shoulder, then ended his pursuit of the man who had once been his brother.
31
Tension ricocheted inside Doug’s body, his frustration with Mario and his fool’s errand having nowhere to go. It had taken everything he had to not punch him, hopefully hard enough to knock him out.
“Going to get himself fucking killed,” he muttered angrily. “And I’ll be the one who has to tell Miranda.”
He turned and walked back through the garage door, then into the kitchen. Skye and Tessa were sitting at the table, yawning widely.
“Where’s Mario?” Skye asked him.
Doug
shook his head. “Don’t ask.”
Her eyebrows raised, probably because of his preemptory tone. “Now I have to.”
In the next room, Doug heard Rupert and Adams’ voices, discussing where everyone would sleep. Doug collapsed into the chair next to Skye.
“He went to check on his family, who just happen to be in one of the most fortified places in the Valley. Because that makes sense,” he added, sarcasm heavy in his voice.
“Oh,” Tessa said, surprised. “What is he—”
“He’s not thinking clearly,” Skye said.
“No shit.”
As Rupert and Adam entered the kitchen, Doug reached for the glass of water he’d left on the table when he’d seen Mario skulking into the garage. He started to glug the water down.
Rupert said, “Tessa, you’ll be in the guest room off the family room. Through there,” he said, pointing. “You look exhausted.”
“I am,” she said, yawning again.
Skye looked at Rupert expectantly. “Where are Doug and I sleeping?”
Doug choked on his drink, water spraying across the table. He started to cough and shot Skye a bug-eyed look of What the fuck? Realization dawned in her eyes.
“Not together,” Doug sputtered, coughing.
Mortification coursed through his veins. Rupert and Adam weren’t idiots. They knew he and Skye were together in every sense of the word, but Christ Almighty… It was times like this that he really wished Skye was Catholic.
“Of course, right,” Skye said, her face flushing crimson. Apologetically, she said to Rupert, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Rupert shook his head at her, then chuckled. “It’s quite all right, my dear.”
But they did end up together, making love on the floor of Skye’s room like teenagers. That hadn’t been Doug’s plan. He’d genuinely meant to just say good night. But when she kissed him, her lips warm and soft and yielding, her supple body pressed lightly against his, it was like being sucked into a vortex of desire as strong and irresistible as the event horizon of a black hole. The next thing he knew they were on the floor, half their clothes discarded while they moved together, fiery and silent. The tiny squeak Skye made when she came had made him laugh… She’d sounded just like a mouse. He had to hand it to her, though; she’d been quiet.