Fall of Man (Book 1): The Break
Page 16
Yes, Fiona was young, and she used to have plenty of time to experience love, but that wasn’t the case now. At least, not if what was happening outside was also going on in the rest of the city, the state, and the whole country. Hell, maybe the world. If everything he sensed was true, then no, Fiona didn’t have plenty of time left to experience love.
But of course he didn’t say any of that.
He said instead, “You’ll like Bear Lake.”
“What’s it like?”
“Peaceful. Wooded. There’s a lake in our backyard.”
“Wow. Did it cost a lot?”
“A pretty penny, yeah.”
“But you could afford it.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do before all of this, anyway?”
“I ran a security company called RistWorks.”
“RistWorks? Never heard of it.”
“Most people haven’t.”
“What do you guys do?”
What did we do, Cole thought, but he said, “We provided security around the world.”
“What kind of security?”
“All kinds of security.”
Fiona made a face. “You don’t want to tell me, is that it?”
“I would, but you wouldn’t understand anyway.”
“Why? Because I’m not smart enough?”
“No. That’s not it.”
“Why, then?”
He sighed.
“I wanna know,” Fiona said.
“Because it’s not part of your world,” Cole said. “What my company provides is not a part of a lot of people’s world. And that’s how it should be.”
She shook her head and squinted at him. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Be glad you don’t.”
“I feel like you’re patronizing me.”
“I’m not.”
“I’m not stupid, you know.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I could have finished college if I thought a degree in art history was useful.”
“Art history is always useful.”
Fiona smirked. “Yeah, if you wanna teach art history. Unfortunately for me and my student loan, that wasn’t something I wanted to spend my life doing.”
“How much do you owe?”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Just curious.”
“Way too much.” She grinned. “You wanna help me pay it off?”
“No, I don’t think you have to worry—” he started to say, when a loud crash! cut him off.
He spun around, dropping the remaining Lunchables and reaching for the Glock in his front waistband, even as the very clear and unmistakable sound of glass pelting linoleum tiles filtered through the closed side door that separated the garage from the office.
The front door!
“What was that?” Fiona gasped.
“Get back inside the car!” Cole snapped even as he rushed toward the door.
“Cole—”
“Get inside now, and close the door! Lock everything!”
He thought he might have heard Zoe’s voice somewhere in the background, but Cole didn’t look back so he couldn’t be sure if Fiona had even obeyed his instructions. He didn’t have time because he could already see a round face filling up the security glass on the other side of the door in front of him. Bloodshot eyes, as wide as saucers, peered in through the glass that separated the garage from the office. And though he didn’t know how, Cole could swear he could hear the man’s heavy breathing as adrenaline coursed through his veins at impossible—and untenable—velocity.
Cole had been hoping the crazies would stay away, that assaulting the garage would leave them vulnerable to other crazies waiting to pounce. It would have been a tactically bad idea to open yourself up to a rear attack, and any general worth his salt could tell you that. Dante had come up with the same notion.
But apparently both of them had overestimated the intelligence of these crazies. Or, at least, this one, looking in at him.
One half of the man’s face was covered in dry blood, and his eyes were wild and bulging, veins popping like firecrackers along his forehead. There were barely any irises left and almost a sea of white ocean remaining. Those abnormal eyes zeroed in on Cole, and if there was any humanity left in them, Cole couldn’t see it. Not even a hint of it.
There was nothing looking back at him except a desire to murder him. To end him.
Cole was halfway to the door when the crazy smashed the window with something large and heavy and metal. A black Maglite flashlight, blood covering nearly 80 percent of its length, came through the suddenly created opening.
Cole lifted the Glock but didn’t shoot. He waited instead for—
The crazy disappeared from the window’s one-foot-by-one-foot frame. Not that he went anywhere. He backed up just far enough to—
Boom! as the man crashed into the door on the other side.
The door moved against the impact, but it held.
For now.
Boom!
The doorframe trembled more noticeably that time.
Boom!
The collision of flesh against metal didn’t just vibrate inside the garage, it had to be making a hell of a ruckus outside the auto body shop, too.
Boom!
And it was going to attract attention. If the other crazies hadn’t heard when the security guard broke his way through the first door—
Shit. The crazy had managed to bust through the other door, and they were made of the same material—
Even as that realization popped into Cole’s mind, the door in front of him broke loose, the locks and latch flying through the air, and snapped open. A big elephant of a man lumbered inside, slightly thrown off balance by his own ferocious forward momentum.
“Welp. Now he’s inside,” the Voice said.
The crazy quickly righted himself, twin nostrils flaring, while cheeks rippled with every movement and breath. He gripped the Maglite in his right hand, blood dripping down his cheeks. He was wearing a dark navy-colored security uniform, and something that looked like a smile creased his cracked and bloodied lips.
Cole let the man take two steps toward him, the Maglite rising as he moved to strike.
He still didn’t squeeze the trigger until the crazy was close enough that Cole was sure he wouldn’t miss.
He fired.
And he didn’t miss. He would have had to be blind to miss from this range.
The security guard’s head snapped back, and he collapsed in a pile about four feet in front of Cole, the flashlight clattering to the oil-stained concrete floor and rolling forward until it vanished underneath the Grand Caravan.
The clink! of the Glock’s spent brass casing as it sprang loose, then bounced once on the same floor, before finally settling a few feet away.
The gunshot was loud, like thunder inside the confines of the garage.
“Cole?” Zoe said from somewhere behind him.
“Stay inside!” Cole snapped.
“What—”
“Stay inside!”
He stayed focused on the open door—the smashed open door—into the office because he could hear it.
The thump-thump-thump of shoes pounding on the ground, getting louder and louder—
“Here they come!” the Voice shouted.
And they came.
The first one through the door wasn’t what Cole had expected. It was a girl, much too small for her age, long, black mane covered in dirt and debris, flowing behind her as she raced through the opening. Her right arm was cocked back, a long machete, blood covering the sharp blade, gripped tightly in her hand. A white shirt with a yellow smiley face greeted Cole.
But there was no mistaking her eyes. Those bloodied, red eyes.
“Forget what she used to be!” the Voice said. “She’s not that anymore!”
Cole knew that, but knowing and doing something about it—
“Emily! Think about Emily!”
A third figure rushed through the opening.
A man. Bigger than the girl. But then, he’d have to be, wouldn’t he?
The crazy crushed the girl’s head under dark black boots as he all but lunged through the door, something that looked like a hammer in his right hand. It, too, was cocked back and in search of a victim.
“You gonna give it one?” the Voice asked.
Hell no.
He shot the man in the face. Like the girl’s, this crazy’s head, too, jerked back before the rest of his body fell in a pile on the floor, somewhere between the girl and the security guard that had opened the way for them.
Three bodies filled the garage now, but they weren’t going to be the end of it. Cole knew that because he could hear them coming. He also heard someone screaming from beyond the office, followed by the ping! of something metal striking something else with resounding fury. Maybe another human skull. Maybe an arm or a leg.
“Crazies killing crazies,” the Voice said. But that’s not going to last long, is it?”
No, it wasn’t.
Cole turned and ran back to the Grand Caravan. He didn’t have very far to go, and either Zoe or Fiona must have been watching him through the tinted window this entire time, because the side hatch slid open as soon as he made the move.
It was Fiona, looking out at him with wild, scared eyes that shouted, “What now?” even though nothing came through her slightly-parted lips.
“Get behind the wheel!” Cole shouted at her.
“What?” Fiona said.
“Get behind the wheel! We’re leaving!”
“It’s still dark—”
“Now! Now now now!”
Chapter 21
Cole grabbed the lever holding the garage door in place and yanked it, then snatched the handhold and began pulling the door up, up, up until there was enough momentum that the rollers took over and did the rest of the work for him. The thick sheet of 12-gauge metal slid up and curved backward along with the rails—
A silhouetted figure rushed toward him, a baseball bat swinging wildly in a stream of moonlight.
Cole barely managed to dodge the man, sidestepping to his right as the bat swooshed past his head. If it’d landed, it would have been a killing strike. Or, if not, then Cole probably wouldn’t have been able to get up from the oil-slicked floor where he would have fell in a pile.
But it didn’t connect, and he had avoided it in time.
“Lucky!” the Voice said.
The crazy immediately spun around. Another big man in dirty (bloodied?) overalls, bloodshot eyes, darker and even redder in the semidarkness of the unlit garage, locking in on Cole even as his mouth snarled.
Cole shot him, the 9mm round drilling through the space between those same eyes dripping with blood.
The body fell, and Cole immediately turned, the Glock in hand, ready for more.
He searched the darkness outside the garage for faces, but there was just the familiar sight of a trash-strewn sidewalk and the congested streets beyond. Cole had no illusions he had avoided detection when he sought shelter inside the auto body shop earlier, but he’d been counting on the crazies not attacking and exposing themselves to each other.
That had proven correct…until it didn’t.
“Time to vamos!” the Voice shouted.
Definitely time to vamos, Cole thought even as he heard the Dodge’s engine start up and bright headlights sprayed him from behind.
He turned, shielding his eyes with his empty hand.
Fiona was leaning out the open driver-side window of the Grand Caravan. “Come on! Get in already!”
Cole started to do just that when a bald man in a black blazer and white dress shirt emerged from the back bumper of the minivan. It should have been impossible for Cole to make out the fresh blood dripping from the man’s chin and clothes, but it wasn’t, thanks to the lights from the Grand Caravan.
The crazy didn’t bother going for the car. He’d spotted Cole and made a beeline for him, cocking back the butcher knife in his right hand. Dark liquids flitted from the blade and splashed the side of the vehicle.
Cole shot the man in the chest, and the crazy seemed to stumble and stagger but didn’t go down.
“Two’s the charm,” the Voice said.
Cole fired a second time, aiming for the man’s chest again—it was a massive target, the blazing white of the dress shirt making it easy to pinpoint in the black spot that the crazy had stumbled into. The 9mm bullet struck the man in the side of the neck instead of his chest, and a large spray of blood arced through the air and splashed the side of the minivan even as it lurched forward suddenly.
For a second, Cole thought Fiona was going to run him over and was ready to dive out of the car’s path. But the Dodge stopped barely a foot from striking him, the sight of a frazzled Fiona behind the steering wheel, visible through the cracked windshield, not quite giving Cole the boost of optimism he was looking for.
Sudden movement as something else came through the door that separated the garage and the office.
At the same time, Cole heard a shriek, followed by a scream, from somewhere outside the building.
More crazies killing crazies.
“As long as they’re not killing you!” the Voice said. “Which is what this one’s trying to do, buddy!”
Not that Cole spent more than a few milliseconds wondering if the man staggering toward him was friend or enemy. The figure was tall and seemed to be dragging a leg behind him. He appeared freshly wounded, but there was nothing wrong with the machete in his left hand as he struggled his way toward Cole.
Cole shot the man in the chest, and he went down but didn’t stay down. Instead, the crazy tried to get up, but was having trouble. Cole took aim to finish the man off.
“Save your ammo!” the Voice shouted. “You might need every single bullet before this is over!”
The Voice had a point.
“Just a point? It’s a goddamn great point, buddy!”
Cole agreed and didn’t fire. He didn’t have to anyway. The crazy was having trouble just getting back on one leg, never mind both.
The Grand Caravan’s side hatch slid open, and Dante leaned out. “Hey, you coming or what?”
Cole grinned at the kid and jumped inside, the teenager slamming the hatch closed after him with a resounding bang!
Cole hurried to the front, shouting, “Go, go, go!” even as he dropped into the passenger seat.
Fiona didn’t need any further encouragement. She stepped on the gas, and the car burst outside the garage port, down the driveway, and hit the drop that connected the auto body shop to the street, with wild indifference. Fiona immediately turned right, jerking on the steering wheel with, from what Cole could see, everything she had. Without him having to tell her, Fiona hopped onto the narrow sidewalk to bypass the street and the many cars blocking her path.
“Where are we going?” Fiona shouted.
“Keep driving!” Cole shouted back.
“But where are we going?”
“Doesn’t matter, as long as we’re not stopping! We do not want to stop in the middle of the street, do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“I said, do you understand?”
“Yes!” she said, this time shouting it. “I understand, goddammit! Don’t stop! Don’t give those fuckers the chance to attack!”
“I guess she does understand,” the Voice said.
Yeah, I guess she does.
Fiona clutched the steering wheel with both hands, leaning slightly forward to see where she was going. Bright headlights lit their path, but it was like driving through the dark heart of the ocean, with no other lights outside except theirs in the entire universe at the moment.
He didn’t say an
ything as Fiona ran over debris on the sidewalk and crashed into obstacles. He didn’t say anything, mostly because none of it did anything to slow them down; either because they weren’t hitting anything big enough, or the Grand Caravan was just that big and unstoppable. He was wagering it was probably a little of both.
Cole checked on the others.
Ashley was holding onto her seat’s armrest as if she’d fall out of the moving vehicle if she let go even a little bit. But other than that, she seemed okay. Terrified, but okay. Zoe was strapped in next to her daughter, her injured arm fastened with the sling Cole had made for her out of clothing and strips of fabric, all held together with duct tape he’d found in a toolbox inside the Grand Caravan’s back.
Dante sat next to the closed side hatch, and gave Cole an It’s all good nod and a smile that Cole almost believed he meant it. Almost. The teenager was scared, just like the mother and daughter. Cole had seen too many kids in combat and could easily tell the difference between bravado and fear. This was a little of the former, but mostly the latter.
“Everyone good?” Cole asked.
“Fine and dandy,” Dante said.
Ashley nodded, but didn’t ease up on her seat’s armchair.
Zoe gave Cole a forced smile. “We’re okay. What about you?”
“Fine and dandy, too,” Cole said.
“So, um, do you know where we’re going?” Fiona asked from the driver’s seat.
Cole turned around—
Whump! whump! whump! as the minivan’s tires went over something that wasn’t supposed to be lying on the sidewalk.
“Oh my God, oh my God, what was that?” Fiona asked.
“Those were the tires going over bodies,” the Voice said.
Cole agreed with the Voice’s assessment, but he said, “Don’t worry about it. Concentrate on what’s in front of you.”
“But what was it? What did I just run over?”
Cole glanced at his side mirror, not that he could see much of anything beyond the fading red taillights of the minivan. “Looked like garbage. It’s just garbage.”
“Oh, thank God,” Fiona said. She sounded relieved, either because she believed him or…she wanted to.
Cole focused on the sidewalk in front of them. Storefronts to one side, abandoned cars to the other. Some vehicles had overrun the curb, forcing Fiona to slow down and go around them. When she had an open stretch, she gassed it.