Spore Series | Book 5 | Torch

by Soward, Kenny

  “Of course.” She breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.

  Kim pointed at the screen. “Okay, now tell me about the people.”

  “We’ll want to talk with Anthony and Bonnie Brewer right away. They’re the chief scientists.” Jessie flipped through their pictures and some facts about them before she moved on. “Then we have Jens Mueller, Chief of Security. This guy has an interesting background. He was a soldier in Yugoslavia during the Bosnian war, though his role was unclear except that he fought with Bosnian-Serbs in the region. He moved up the ranks and even held a position in the United Nations before Burke recruited him.”

  “Bottom line,” Bryant said, “he’ll be a tough bastard. He’s not going to respond to anything but decisive force.”

  Bishop raised his spoon. “Speaking of tough bastards, I saw Lexi today. At least I think it was her. Based on the description--”

  “You what?” Jessie stared at him.

  He shoved a spoonful of stew into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “When we were fighting back on I-40, I spotted a van pull in behind the pickups blocking you guys in. The van had a big wolf on the side. A woman got out. Dressed in black. Looked more like an assassin than a soldier. She knew her way around a rifle, too.”

  A sense of dread struck Jessie in the gut. “That’s Paul’s van, and that was definitely Lexi.”

  “Yep,” Bryant agreed. “I didn’t even see her.”

  “Anyway, she fired on the trucks. Helped us escape. I wasn’t sure at first, but then I had some time to think about it.”

  “It’s not totally unexpected,” Jessie cocked her eyebrow. “She could have gone anywhere in the country, but she followed us. She doesn’t want Burke harmed. What does that tell you?”

  “I agree,” Kim conceded. “She needs him for something.”

  “She’s still dangerous. She’ll try to snag Burke if she gets a chance, I just know it.” Jessie pointed to her tablet screen. “But not if we get inside Redpine.”

  “Let’s make it happen,” Bishop said. He dropped his spoon in his bowl with a hard, clinking sound. “What’s the plan?”

  Jessie’s gaze roamed across the group. “Here’s what me and Bryant were thinking.”

  Chapter 15

  Randy, Tulsa, Oklahoma

  An image of Tricia flashed behind his eyelids. She looked immaculate in her fresh jeans and a white jersey with his number written in navy blue on the front.

  14.

  She stood on the sidelines of an immensely wide football field, the artificial turf vivid green in his head. A breeze kicked up and fluttered her light brown hair. Her hazel eyes stared at him with commanding ease.

  She waved him out onto the field, her expression hard. “Up soldier! You’re going in, Randy. Come on!”

  He blinked and shook his head, unable to believe what he saw. He winced as a sharp sound pierced his ears. Pain spiked in his forehead, and his back ached like someone had taken a bat to it.

  “I’m injured,” he called to her. “I... I can’t go in.”

  “Come on, soldier!” Tricia shouted again, waving him harder onto the field.

  Randy looked around, but they were the only two people on the field. No teams waited, and no fans filled the stands. Something sweet and oily gripped his nose, and the blaring sound grew louder.

  “I can’t, Trish.” He felt dazed as more pain blossomed behind his eyes.

  Tricia leaned forward and placed her hands on her knees like they were standing in a huddle. “I’ll run a slant. You’ll hit me with a laser beam bullseye pass right between the numbers.” She pointed at her chest. “You got that, Tucker? Friggin’ bullseye. Let’s go, boy. On three, ready?”

  Randy squeezed his eyes shut, but the image remained.

  Tricia clapped her hands once and turned around. She leaned forward in a wide receiver position, glancing over her shoulder with the gleam of a smile. She opened her mouth and made the quarter back sounds.

  “Blue, fourteen! Blue, fourteen!”

  “Wait, Trish!” He raised his voice and tried to wave his hand, but it lay limp on his leg. “I can’t even feel my arm. How am I supposed to throw a pass?”

  “Hut!

  Hut!”

  “Tricia, wait!” Randy’s cries were drowned out by the blaring car horn and sweet, sickly stench of antifreeze, underpinned with a dash of hot oil. He clenched his hand, trying to feel it again. He tried to wiggle his legs.

  He couldn’t move.

  He couldn’t stop the play.

  “Hike!” Tricia said. Her voice reverberated in his head like a gong.

  Randy jerked back from the steering wheel, the car horn piercing his skull, brain shrinking from the noise.

  He looked around. It was the middle of the day, and he sat in the driver’s seat of a Hyundai sedan. The front end was bent upward and half wrapped around a tree. It leaked steaming fluids and hissed like a dying snake.

  He tried to move, but his body wouldn’t respond. His knees hurt. His head hurt. His right arm had gone numb.

  Car engines roared distantly through the streets, hunting him. Hating him. The soldiers hadn’t been happy about the raid on their armory, and they’d followed him two hundred miles to prove it.

  With a deep grunt, Randy peeled his air filtration mask back and dropped it in the seat behind him. He reached his right arm across his body and grabbed the door handle. His fingers finally worked, and he popped it. It stuck after swinging out six inches, so he threw his shoulder into it and shoved it out another foot.

  He grabbed his rifle out of the passenger side and peeled himself from the driver’s seat, leaving bloodstained cloth behind.

  He staggered out of the car and into a suburban yard. Turning in a circle, Randy took in his surroundings. The streets stood frozen in time as they’d been just before the spore outbreak. Only the overgrown grass and wrecks showed something wasn’t quite right.

  A truck had run up in a yard and crashed into a front stoop. Across the street, a sleek Cadillac had sideswiped an economy car coming in the opposite direction. They’d both turned inward toward the sidewalk, pinning themselves against a retaining wall.

  The person driving the Caddy was still in there. Dead and devoured by fungus.

  Tires squealed, getting ever closer.

  Randy glanced at the nearest houses and then at the Cadillac. He could go for it on foot, but he wouldn’t make it far. Not with his shot up back and bruised knees. He could try the Caddy. The keys were undoubtedly inside, though he’d be taking a chance on how much fuel it had. Would it even start?

  He gave a soft sigh and a wince, then he turned and fast-hobbled out of the yard and across the street to the Cadillac. He placed his rifle on the hood, threw open the door, and stared at the corpse inside.

  He was relatively certain it had been a woman. Her head rested to the right, hair hanging over in yellow-green strings. Her face was a combination of white bone and grayish fungus, spotted black where nutrition remained. One thin arm clutched the steering wheel, skin so tight it looked like rice paper patched with fungal growth.

  Randy shook his head and reached in to drag her out, but he stopped himself three times while searching for the best handhold.

  A second car horn blared in chorus with the Hyundai, and a spike of panic drove him to act. He grabbed the woman by the opposite shoulder and ripped her from the vehicle. Only her top half came, spilling out of the car in a puff of dry dust and spores. Her organs were infused with mycelium strands, and he pulled them apart like corn husks to throw her into the street.

  He grabbed one leg and tore it from the seat with dry ripping sounds. Then the other. He pulled out strips of her, tearing pieces of clothing from the seat. He tossed it all to the road. He started to get in but turned to pat through her remains until he found the vehicle’s keyfob in what once had been her front pocket.

  He fell into the seat and swatted the cloud of spores swirling around his face. He pushed the start button, and the big Cad
illac engine coughed and roared to life.

  He quickly put the vehicle in reverse, backed up, and turned around. Then he hit the gas.

  Unlike the Hyundai, which had little acceleration, the Caddy shot him forward like a rocket. So fast, in fact, that he nearly plowed into a parked car before swerving around it.

  Wind whipped through the open windows, clearing out the thickest of the dry spores, and Randy sat pinned to his seat by the sheer thrust. He might have grinned if the pain wasn’t eating him alive.

  He wove through the suburban streets with no idea where he was going or how he would escape the pursuing hounds. Part of him hoped they would give up, but he knew better. He was responsible for blowing up a thousand pounds of ammunition and weapons. He’d killed at least two of their soldiers, maybe three.

  And they’d come way too far to give up.

  A black van flew across the road in front of him, screeching to a stop in a cloud of burning rubber. Randy whipped the wheel left and then right, tires squealing as he navigated around the van and shot through the intersection.

  His head spun as he straightened the vehicle. He swallowed dry. Dust and spores and blood coated his throat. He was dizzy and nauseous, yet he pressed on.

  The sounds of engines grew distant, and he flew out of the residential area and pulled to a stop at the end of the road. While his sense of direction was shot, turning left should take him deeper into more subdivisions. A right would put him on I-44.

  Common sense dictated he should hide in the dense clusters of residential streets. But he had a V8 Cadillac. If he got to the expressway and turned south, there’d be no way they could catch him. He’d be scot-free.

  A grin tugged the right corner of his mouth. He hit the gas and whipped the Caddy onto the main strip of road, pushing it to sixty with his back pressed against the seat and his arms straight.

  He sped along until he found signs for the I-44 turnpike. He angled right again, taking the sharp turn in a wild fishtail he quickly corrected for. Once lined up, he gunned the car forward, peering over the sleek hood as the road zipped by beneath him.

  He barely slowed on the entry ramp as it curved slowly to the south, and his hopes rose as his pursuit slipped farther way. He squashed the gas pedal harder, bringing his speed to eighty in the space of two seconds.

  Without even trying, the Cadillac hit a hundred and ten so fast Randy pressed the brake to slow down. Cars sat stalled on the shoulders, some wrecked, at least one resting in the middle lane which he neatly zipped around.

  All it would take was one clogged stretch of road to turn him into minced meat. Two miles flew by in a blink, and he passed signs for Tulsa, Oklahoma.

  “How the heck did I get this far from home?” He knew the answer, but it seemed impossible. A botched raid, a harrowing expressway chase lasting two hundred miles or more. Pursuers who held a grudge like nothing he’d ever seen.

  “St. Michael’s Raiders didn’t come after us this hard after we beat them twice in a row in the state semi-finals.”

  Randy shook his head and alternated his glances between the road and rearview mirror. He suddenly narrowed his eyes. What was that flash of movement behind him? He checked his side mirrors but found no signs of pursuit.

  He relaxed in his seat. Maybe he was seeing things. His body shook with exhaustion and dehydration. He desperately needed a place to sit and lick his wounds before he attempted a long and circuitous route back home.

  Holes popped through the top of his Cadillac, quickly followed by beams of daylight sifting down. Two more holes appeared next to him, burying themselves in the passenger seat and kicking up dust.

  He swerved to the right and glance up, spotting the blue bottom and landing skids of a fast-moving helicopter.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Randy sputtered and shook his head.

  Gunshots popped off, but he hit the gas and shot forward, pushing his speed up to ninety and then a hundred again. He glanced in his side mirror to see the helicopter right on his tail. A man leaned out of the crew compartment, tethered by his waist. He raised his rifle and fired a pair of bursts. Randy nudged the vehicle back to the left.

  More rounds rained down, piercing his roof and burying themselves in the rear seat cushions. His back windshield shattered, drawing an aggravated cry from his throat.

  “You assholes,” Randy shouted. He’d have to exit the expressway before the rifleman chewed him up. Then they’d have eyes in the sky and wheels closing in.

  His hands shook. His eye twitched. He’d been shot. He could feel it. Blood dripped down the small of his back and into his pants, making for a sticky mess.

  Maybe this was the glorious moment he’d been waiting for. The final heroic act of a man at the end of his rope. A more honorable way to die than sitting in his room while the spores turned him into that woman he’d pulled out of the car minutes ago.

  Bullets peppered the concrete next to the Caddy, and he kicked the speed up to a hundred and ten. Then a hundred and fifteen. He passed cars in a blur, certain the next bend would be the final roadblock he’d ever see.

  The sign for a Tulsa exit zipped by, and he saw a great big curve for it coming up ahead.

  With a whoop and a smile, Randy threw the car into the right lane and leaned on the brake, causing the chopper to fly past him. He hit the exit ramp doing ninety-five, clinging to the inside lane, dropping the speed to eighty-five and holding it there. A low squeal of tires rose from the pavement, holding its pitch.

  A sensible person would have slowed down even more, but Randy held his position. He wouldn’t budge. Either he’d make it around the bend or shoot off the road and roll end-over-end to his death.

  The car began to slide, creeping across the lane as he gripped the wheel with numb hands. His shoulders clenched so tight he thought his head might pop off.

  The inertia forced him toward the driver’s side door, but he threw his weight to the right, leaning over the center console as if it made any difference at all. The chassis shivered. The wheels shook. He was certain the tires would lose their grip, and he would soon be airborne.

  But the treads stayed fixed to the hot pavement, and the curve relinquished its death grip on his vehicle. Gravity returned and straightened itself out, and Randy settled back in his seat. He gave a weak whoop, throwing his fist in the air as the sweat on his face cooled in the whipping wind.

  He flew down a long straightaway. A glance in the rearview showed his daring move had sent the pursuing helicopter two or three hundred yards off course. It had recovered and was making its way back to him over a patch of distant woods.

  Randy laughed wildly, maniacally, and turned his attention to the road ahead, searching for a place to hide.

  Chapter 16

  Moe, Tulsa, Oklahoma

  “I’m just about done here!” Melissa called out through their comm channel. She pulled the fuel hose from the chopper and ran it back into the hanger where she began recoiling it for later use.

  They tried to leave the refueling stations as they’d found them. Or in better shape, if possible. If everything worked out, they’d fly back this way with serum and vaccine, and they wanted to ensure their return stops were in good order.

  As the ladies jogged to the chopper and prepared it for takeoff, Moe and Trainor remained in position, guarding the small air pad located at the Tulsa Air National Guard Base.

  Aside from the spinning rotors and turboshaft engine noise, the afternoon was quiet. They’d seen no one at their last two stops since leaving Shocky’s, and Tulsa sat in silence, baking beneath the midday sun.

  While there’d been no outward signs of people, they’d found a dozen corpses on the airport lot and inside the hangar. Moe was shocked to see how the fungal infestation had decayed the bodies to mere husks of their former selves. They lay hollowed out and dry as dust with strands of vegetative fibers fixing them to whatever surface they’d died on.

  It brought back bad memories of Bakersfield.

&n
bsp; With two more stops to go before they reached Little Rock, wearing their air filtration masks would be a hot, sweaty pain. But he was glad they had them. He didn’t want to breathe a trace of whatever lingered in the air.

  “Okay, people. Mount up.” Captain Bryant had reverted to her normal commanding tone after loosening up at Shocky’s.

  Moe and Trainor met on the way back to the chopper. The taller man elbowed his shoulder good naturedly.

  “Look lively, old man.”

  Moe threw his shoulder out, knocking the thinner soldier to the side a few steps. “Careful. I’ve got old man strength.”

  The two shared a chuckle as they stepped aboard the aircraft and slammed the side door shut behind them. Moe turned and sat down, strapping himself in next to the soldier.

  “We’re ready back here,” he said, relaxed as they prepared for liftoff.

  “Roger that,” came Melissa’s reply. Her tone dropped with the professional drone of a helicopter captain. “I want to thank everyone for flying Bryant’s US Tours. Please stay seated and buckled up at all times. We have no flight attendants, but failure to comply will result in your immediate ejection from my aircraft.”

  Moe and Trainor chuckled as the turbo engine picked up its intensity, whirring louder as the skids lifted from the air pad. Moe’s stomach sank as they gained altitude and banked hard to their right.

  “We’ll be bearing due east and a little south, heading for Little Rock. Next stop--”

  “Captain check your eleven,” Hicks interrupted her. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  There came a pause before Melissa replied. “I’m seeing it. That’s a fast-moving car. Looks like it’s fleeing the scene of a crime.”

  “I don’t see anything on the road. What are they running from--”

  The helicopter suddenly jerked to the left in a dizzying change of pitch and sound. Moe gripped his rifle to his lap, eyes darting around.

  “What’s wrong? Melissa?” He kept his voice steady but imagined them spinning out of control. Despite his fears, the aircraft righted itself and banked back to the right.