Zoe and Dante were coming toward him, moving faster than he thought they were capable. Fiona, one hand clinging to Ashley’s arm, followed closely behind them. They were already halfway to him when Cole opened his door and jumped out, then circled the humming vehicle. At that moment, the Grand Caravan was the only working—and oh so loud—car in the entire city as far as he knew.
Cole grabbed the side hatch and pulled it open, said (as calmly as he could muster), “Go, go, go.”
Zoe abandoned Dante to Cole and grabbed Ashley with both hands, practically yanking the girl out of Fiona’s grip. The three women disappeared around the minivan while Cole nodded at Dante, who held out both arms like a child waiting to be picked up by a parent.
Cole felt exactly like that as he got a good grip on Dante (for a guy who weighed “a buck ten,” he was a handful) and lifted him out of the wheelchair, turned him around, and deposited him into the waiting back seat. Zoe had already climbed inside from another door and quickly helped Dante buckle in while Cole grabbed the wheelchair and pulled it toward the back. By the time he got there, Fiona had climbed over the back seats and pushed a button, resulting in the back door slowly lifting open for Cole.
“Goddamn, would you look at this, like a well-oiled machine,” the Voice said with what Cole thought was a mixture of amusement and…was that admiration?
Goddamn right, Cole thought as he lifted the wheelchair and placed it into the back and slammed the door shut (too loud) and hurried around the idling vehicle. He slid the side hatch closed first, then gave the street another last look.
The Labrador had lifted its head and was staring at them with curiosity, but it hadn’t moved from its spot. There were no other movements from the stores to the left of Cole, from the ones to the right of him, or any of the ones up and down the streets.
It was all going well.
Maybe a little too well.
“Captain Cliché,” the Voice said, laughing.
There was nothing out there, no imminent threats that he could see. It made him think they’d gone through all the trouble of rushing for absolutely no reason. He felt almost stupid, having fully expected to fight his way to the Grand Caravan when there was nothing—absolutely nothing—waiting for them outside the apartment.
There were no signs of the office drone or any of his fellow crazies.
There were just the dogs, the flies, and the insects.
Cole climbed into the driver’s seat and closed the door—but didn’t slam it—and powered up the window. He looked into the back as Zoe was strapping herself in. Ashley and Fiona were already buckled up behind her, along with Dante.
“We good?” he asked.
Zoe looked up and smiled, and for the first time all day, it was genuine. “We’re good. We’re all good.”
He returned her smile, then turned around and put the minivan into gear and stepped on the gas.
The mutt nearby hadn’t bothered to leave when he turned on the engine, but it did now when the vehicle started moving. It took off, leaped onto the sidewalk, then turned around and watched them, maybe waiting to see what they would do or if they would deny it the rest of the half-man it had been feasting on.
Cole turned the minivan and maneuvered it around the mess of flesh and chrome and metal in the streets. There were a lot of cars. Too many. He had gone about fifty meters when the street became impassable, and he had to go up the sidewalk in order to pass a series of cars buried in each other’s sides and rear bumpers.
There were even more bodies up here, and more dogs and other animals trying to stay alive. Most of them scattered when the Grand Caravan rumbled toward them, Cole zig-zagging the lumbering vehicle around the various obstacles. When he couldn’t go around, he used the Dodge’s plentiful grill to pound his way through and its big tires to go over.
“How far to Bear Lake?” Dante asked from the back.
“Ten or so miles to the highway, then twenty more miles after that to Bear Lake,” Cole said.
He almost smiled to himself. All that worry, the calculations, and almost leaving Dante behind because he was afraid the kid would slow him down. If Zoe hadn’t insisted—promised him she would be completely responsible for the teenager—Cole might have done just that.
As he continued driving on the sidewalk—crunching bottles and garbage cans, then the whump-whump-whump of the tires going over bodies, the sheer number of which seemed to grow with every ten meters or so—Cole felt a euphoric surge of relief. He kept one eye on the rearview mirror, watching Dante beaming at Zoe sitting next to him, and Fiona and Ashley strapped in behind them. They were a happy bunch, like they had just survived certain death and were now headed to Disneyland or something just as fun.
Dante looked forward and caught his gaze. The kid smiled and nodded, and Cole returned it.
“And to think, you almost left him behind,” the Voice said.
But I didn’t.
“You almost did.”
But I didn’t.
“You almost did.”
It was useless arguing with himself, so Cole concentrated on the street outside the slightly dirty windshield. The roads were getting more clogged, forcing him to stay on the sidewalk longer than he wanted to. He had dropped the minivan’s speed to twenty miles per hour, and at this rate it was going to take hours to travel ten miles—
BANG!
Cole slammed on the brakes almost the same time he heard the sound of metal piercing metal, followed by a loud scream.
He looked back just in time to see a long, sharp object sliding upward, until it disappeared back through the slit it had pierced through the roof of the Grand Caravan. The scream was coming from Zoe, who was grabbing at her left shoulder as blood poured out between her fingers. Dante, sitting in the seat next to her, was wiping at his blood-smeared face, the lens of one of his glasses having somehow been sprayed with Zoe’s blood.
Inside his mind, Cole heard the Voice laughing. “Well, you didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?”
Actually, he had.
For a while there, he actually had.
Chapter 18
A sword.
Was that a sword?
“Yeah, I think that’s a sword,” the Voice said.
Are you sure?
“Yes.”
A sword?
“Yes!”
It wasn’t just any sword. In the second or two Cole glimpsed the blade, he could see it was slightly curved, with an elaborate floral pattern along the side. And sharp. It was impossibly sharp—and it’d just gone through Zoe’s shoulder.
That’s a katana. How the hell did he get his hands on a katana?
“Why don’t you ask him?” the Voice said.
“Mom!” Ashley’s piercing scream cut through Cole’s inner thoughts as the girl struggled to get out of her seatbelt. She looked like a fish out of water, trying to fight against a fisherman’s viselike grip and losing badly.
“Fiona, keep her down!” Cole shouted.
“Ashley!” Fiona said as she all but jumped on the girl.
“What should I do?” Dante shouted.
“Stay in your seat!” Cole said.
“Yes, sir!”
Cole glanced up when he heard the bang-bang-bang! of frantic movement directly above him, on the roof of the Dodge.
Fucker’s on the roof!
“Sounds like it,” the Voice said. “So what are you gonna do about it?”
Cole jammed his foot down on the gas, and the Grand Caravan picked up speed.
“That’s one way to do something about it!” The Voice laughed.
Another squeal of metal against metal—
Cole jerked his body sideways as the point of the katana pierced the ceiling above him and nearly embedded itself into the top of his skull. Instead, it only managed to nick his right ear, drawing blood. But it was better than if it’d taken the whole ear off.
He glanced up as the blade disappeared back up through the elongated hol
e that hadn’t been there just seconds ago. A pair of bloodshot eyes, semi-darkened against the bright canvas of the sun in the background, glared down at him through the slim opening.
“Holy shit, you’re bleeding!” someone shouted from behind him. Dante. That was Dante. Or Cole thought it was Dante, anyway, because he didn’t have time to acknowledge the Voice or stop the mild bleeding.
More scrambling above him as the crazy maneuvered around, trying to get—
An echoing thwump! as the front tires of the minivan went over something on the sidewalk, followed shortly by another thwump! as that same something went underneath the rear right-side tire.
“That’s probably a body,” the Voice said.
Probably, Cole thought, but of course he had no way of knowing.
Or caring, at this point.
A body was a body, and a dead man didn’t feel it when they got run over. Hell, a dead man didn’t feel much of anything, anymore.
“Cole!”
He snapped a quick look behind him.
Fiona, still struggling with Ashley, while nearby Zoe leaned over the sidearm of her seat as blood poured out of her. Her eyes had rolled up in her sockets, and she looked, for all intents and purposes, either dead or unconscious. He didn’t believe she was dead; the katana had gone through her shoulder and blood was dripping from it, but that wasn’t a killing wound.
At least, not yet.
Not for the next few minutes, anyway.
Bang-bang-bang from above him as the crazy moved around again, repositioning himself.
Fuck you, Cole thought as he slammed his foot down—but this time on the brake instead of the gas.
Boom! as whoever was up there lost his footing and slammed down on the roof. But Cole knew the man was still up there, because he didn’t see a body falling off either sides of the minivan. The man didn’t roll down the windshield or appear in the rearview mirror, either.
“He’s still up there, the determined bastard,” the Voice said.
Cole agreed and shoved his foot back on the gas pedal, and the Grand Caravan lunged forward and barreled through a newspaper vending machine, scattering sheets into the breeze. A screaming headline about trouble in the Asian market smacked against the windshield before being ripped away by the wind.
“Cole!”
That was Fiona.
Or Dante.
Or Zoe.
No, not Zoe. Zoe was in her seat, trying not to die. Or unconscious. Or already dead. Probably unconscious from the shock of pain and blood loss.
“Or dead,” the Voice said.
No, not dead.
“She could be dead.”
She’s not.
“What do you care if she is?”
I don’t.
“You sure?”
Yes.
“You sure?”
Cole focused on swerving around cars and obstacles as he began alternating between the streets and sidewalk. Zigzagging helped to keep the crazy on the roof off balance, not that Cole could shake the man despite how hard he was trying. The guy either had hands of glue or—
“Fuck!” a male voice (Dante. Cole was sure that was Dante that time.) screamed from the back just a split second before the familiar squeal of blade against metal echoed.
Cole glanced back as Dante recoiled in his seat, the long and glimmering point of a katana barely a foot in front of his face. The teenager stared past the blade’s point (“Damn, that is one sharp blade!”) and back at Cole.
“Stay down!” Cole shouted.
“I’m staying down, I’m staying down!” Dante shouted back, even as he clung to the seat of his chair. “But what about—”
“Shut up, and stay down!”
“Yes, sir!”
Squeeeek! as the katana disappeared back through the hole in the roof and another shaft of sunlight pierced through the newly-formed opening.
“That is one determined fucker, all right,” the Voice said.
No shit!
Whump! whump! as the Grand Caravan ran over a dead body, or something soft and fleshy, on the sidewalk. It didn’t matter where Cole turned the minivan; there was always something in his way, forcing him to slow down or go around it or right over it.
Bang-bang-bang! from directly above him as the crazy moved himself forward again to get a bead on Cole.
Not this time, fucker! Cole thought as he slammed on the gas.
For two seconds, anyway, before he shouted, “Everyone, hold on!” and smashed everything he had down on the brake.
The Dodge skidded, threatening to overturn as Cole jerked on the wheel. It might have actually gone down on its side before rolling over onto its roof if it didn’t crash into a parked white Land Rover first, and came to a sudden stop.
Thwump! as something landed on the hood in front of Cole.
The office drone.
The fucking office drone.
The man had managed to stay on the Dodge despite Cole’s erratic driving, but he hadn’t been able to stay on the roof after the crash.
The crazy landed on the hood on his stomach, his face already pointing in the right direction—straight at the windshield and Cole on the other side. The katana was gripped tightly in the man’s right hand, the curved blade moving—
Fuck! Cole thought as he jerked to the right as the blade, somehow, pierced the windshield.
Instead of going through Cole’s chest, the Japanese sword embedded itself into the seat half an inch from Cole’s left shoulder.
“Close one!” the Voice shouted.
Too close. Way, way too close.
Red eyes flared in the sunlight, and a mad grin, surrounded by a mask of dry blood, peered in at Cole through the cracked glass.
For what seemed like an eternity, but was probably just a few seconds—if even that—the two of them gazed into each other’s eyes. At that very moment, Cole realized that the crazies weren’t crazy at all—they were monsters. Maybe even demons from hell, as Zoe had said. This thing, right here, didn’t want anything from Cole or Dante or Fiona or Ashley or her mother.
It didn’t want them.
It wanted to end them.
And that was it. That was all it had come to this world to do.
To put an end to them.
…to put an end to them…
The drone pulled the sword out of the windshield at almost the same time Cole shoved the minivan’s gear into reverse and rammed his foot down on the gas. The car jerked backward, and the crazy did exactly what Cole thought he would: He scrambled to his knees, blood flitting from his eyes, as he lifted the sword over his head to drive it back through the windshield with the full force of both hands.
Cole slammed on the brake before the drone could do that, and the man, unsecured on the hood, lumbered forward and crashed into the windshield, flattening against it like a pancake. Blood from his face smeared the glass as Cole took out the Glock and shoved it against the windshield, the muzzle directly in front of the office drone’s face.
The bloodied eyes widened for a split second.
Bang! as the gun bucked in Cole’s hand.
The empty brass casing ejected into the front passenger seat as the crazy’s head snapped backward, before the body began rolling, and rolling…
Cole stepped on the gas, and the sudden momentum sent the body rolling off the hood and off the side.
A single, undramatic thwump! as the rear right tire ran over another corpse, this one just a bit fresher than the others.
Then Cole was back on the street, avoiding cars at twenty-five miles per hour, while Fiona did her best to keep Zoe from bleeding out in the back.
“Fiona,” Cole said. He glanced back once but was too paranoid another crazy might jump out at—or, like the last one, on top of—them to do it again.
He concentrated on the streets and sidewalks and buildings and alleyways. There were too many alleyways, too many buildings, and too many rooftops.
The rooftops.
He didn’
t know why, but he was almost sure there were people up there, watching them drive by.
“Fiona!” Cole shouted.
“What?” the young woman shouted back.
“How is she?”
“She’s bad!”
“How bad?”
“Really bad!”
“Well, that explains a lot,” the Voice laughed.
Cole risked a look up at the rearview mirror.
Fiona was almost crawling over Zoe, pressing—or trying to—a bundle of shirts against her shoulder. But she was doing a bad job of it and looked as if she was afraid to hurt Zoe.
Zoe was still unconscious, her head lolling lifelessly to one side. Was she even still alive?
“Press harder,” Cole said.
“What?” Fiona said.
“Press harder! You have to stop the bleeding.”
“But I don’t want to hurt—”
“You won’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, God, this is gross.” Fiona moaned, but she did what Cole told her, and pressed harder down on Zoe’s shoulder with the cloth.
Ashley had gotten out of her seatbelt and was kneeling on the floor next to her mother, crying while clinging to Zoe’s unresponsive hand. Dante remained in his seat, looking every bit like someone who hated his physical limitations.
“You’re doing good,” Cole said. “Just keep it pressed against her wound. You won’t hurt her.”
“Are you sure?” Fiona asked.
“The only way you’ll hurt her is if you don’t press hard enough and she keeps bleeding.”
“Okay. Okay…” Fiona said, more to herself than to Cole, he thought.
Cole wished he could have given her and the rest of them more assurances, but the truth was, there was none to give. What had just happened with the office drone was just the beginning, and the road to Bear Lake was going to be a long one.
A long, winding minefield.
“I guess you better be careful, then,” the Voice said. “We know how dangerous minefields can be, don’t we?”
Yeah, he did.
Unfortunately, he did.
Fall of Man (Book 1): The Break Page 14