by David Koepp
“You got me, brother.”
The cop looked at him. Brother? That was starting out awfully strong, but hey, when you’ve got only one card, you play it for all it’s worth.
“I got you doing what, Mr. Diaz?” The cop’s face was unreadable. He gave nothing away.
“Being ready.”
“For what, sir?”
“For when the day comes.”
The cop stared at him for a long moment. He gave no reason for Roberto to feel encouraged, but he didn’t ask him to get out of the car either. Roberto took that as license to continue. He shoved the rest of his chips into the middle of the table.
“Saw your tattoo. If we lived in a free country, I’m guessing you’d put III% on there, am I right?”
The cop just held eye contact, thinking.
Over the last seven or eight years Roberto was at DTRA, there had been a sharp increase in reporting on weapons acquisitions by well-armed domestic militias. He’d read those sections of the daily security briefings only cursorily, as his purview was almost exclusively overseas, but he knew enough to know the names of a few of the more prominent nationalist movements, which included the Three Percenters. An American paramilitary movement, its members pledged armed resistance against any attempts to limit private gun ownership by a tyrannical government. The name was derived from the claim that only 3 percent of the population of the original thirteen colonies fought against and defeated Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. In truth, the number was closer to 15 percent, but who’s counting when there’s a rhetorical point to be made.
The Three Percenters counted among their numbers a fair amount of law enforcement, and in fact a group of Jersey City police officers had been suspended in 2013 for wearing patches that read ONE OF THE 3%. Since then, members in public roles knew better and kept their beliefs on the down low. The southern nationalist flag tat was a popular and subtle marking.
Roberto had no doubt the cop was in. The only question was how far.
The cop held eye contact with him for a good ten seconds. Roberto looked back steadily. “The day’s coming, my man. The country we love and honor needs us to be ready.”
The cop turned the flashlight on again, playing it over the military crates in the back, taking one more look.
He turned back to Roberto. The only question was: Did Roberto look white enough to this prick to overcome his last name? The cop thought for a long moment.
“Drive safe, patriot.”
Apparently, he did. The cop clicked off the light, turned, and walked back to his car, his shoes crunching on the gravel.
Roberto didn’t stick around for confirmation. He put the minivan in gear and pulled away, not too fast and not too slow, lifting his hand up into the beam of the cop’s lights and giving a little thank-you wave as he put distance between them.
In his mind, he reverted back to his original position. I am very good at my job.
He’d be in Atchison in seven minutes.
Twenty-Seven
Within thirty seconds of when Mary Rooney fired six shots into the chest of the weird guy who’d exploded, a thought occurred to her. She’d just killed a man. The unreal fact that he’d burst in a haze of green goo was less relevant to her than the objective reality of her situation. She had committed murder—okay, possibly manslaughter, depending on how you slice it, and he had been running at them at the time. But he was also clearly unarmed, and she was holding a weapon that, in the law’s eyes, had been stolen from the State of Kansas. You didn’t have to be a legal scholar to know this would not hold up well in a courtroom.
Naomi was doubled over, holding her ears in pain, some blood seeping between her fingers. Teacake turned to Mrs. Rooney, eyes wide. “Mrs. Rooney Jesus thank you God where the hell did you get that?!” he asked, all at once, his eyes fixed on the smoking cannon in her hand.
“I have to get out of here,” she said.
“No no no, you’re fine, you’re cool, you had to, this guy, he’s infected with, like, this horrible zombie shit, there was this deer that blew up, and weird shit in the basement, and he was—he was trying to barf on us, and . . .” She was just staring at him. He trailed off, hearing how he must sound. “You’re right. You gotta get out of here.”
From around the corner ahead of them, they heard voices, low and muttering. Teacake thought he recognized Griffin’s guttural grunting. He turned back to Mrs. Rooney, took her by the shoulders, and talked fast. “Not the front, go back that way, turn right twice, go out the side door.” He pointed to the gun, still in her hand. “Dump that in the river.” She didn’t move.
From around the corner, Griffin raised his voice. “I’m armed, motherfucker!” He was full of bravado, but Teacake could hear the quaver in it.
He turned back to Mrs. Rooney. “Go!”
“Thank you,” she said. She took off in the direction he’d indicated.
“You hear me?!” Griffin shouted again. “I’m all loaded! I’m coming in strapped!”
Teacake turned and shouted back, “Griffin! Be cool, man, it’s me! Teacake!”
Griffin yelled, “I got a gun, shithead!”
Teacake bent down next to Naomi and pulled her hands gently from her ears. Naomi looked up at him. Her whole head hurt, but the left side had a strange numbness to it, a total, disorienting silence that felt like a weight. The loud, sharp ringing in her right ear more than canceled out any quieting effect the silence might have had, and her whole head throbbed. Her vision was fine; she could see Teacake was just in front of her, his eyes full of concern. His mouth was moving—he was saying something to her. She couldn’t hear a word, but she could read his face, every expression heightened and more easily understood with her attention focused on it.
Maybe not hearing him was just the right thing for her at the moment. She watched his lips; she looked into his eyes and registered every minute change of his features. She didn’t know what he was saying, but better than that, she knew what he meant. That she was going to be okay. That he would not let her down.
She saw him turn and shout angrily back over his shoulder, at someone around the corner—maybe the police were coming? She saw the smear on the floor that had been Mike, and it was moving, seething, as if still alive. It was inching toward them.
Now Teacake was pulling her to her feet, urging her to do something. To leave? Yes, that was it, he wanted her to leave, in the other direction. Whatever the danger or whatever had to be done, he didn’t want her to be a part of it. Naomi was moved, maybe because she could only feel him, and his feelings were so powerful. He was saying one thing over and over again; she was no lip reader but could recognize her daughter’s name—he was telling her to get out of there right now because maybe he didn’t matter and maybe she didn’t either, but her daughter did, and she had to take care of her.
Teacake turned and shouted something over his shoulder again. Naomi couldn’t make it out, but whoever was at the other end of the hall was coming this way, and there was danger. Teacake turned his body and shoved Naomi behind him, pushing her down the corridor in the other direction. She could tell by the strength of the shove that he would not be argued with. She staggered back and moved around the corner, just out of sight of whoever was going to come down the hallway.
She lingered there for a moment, hidden, unsure what to do next. She couldn’t hear, her head felt like it was going to split in half from the pain rattling around inside it, she had no idea who was coming, and the only person who could explain it to her had just told her in no uncertain terms to get the hell out of there. Naomi froze.
A second later, Griffin came around the corner at the other end of the hall from Teacake, gun in front of him. His body was hunched, coiled in a SWAT team crouch. He swung the gun from side to side, as if expecting someone to lunge from one of the units and go after him.
Teacake shouted to him from his end of the hall. “Griffin, you asshole, put the fucking gun away!”
Instead, Griffin put b
oth hands on the grip and extended it in front of him, pointing it at Teacake’s head as he advanced. “Hands in the air!”
Teacake put his hands up. “It’s me, okay?!”
Griffin kept coming, stalking forward on bent legs, both hands on the gun, unconsciously mimicking the movements and posture of his avatar in his copy of School Shooter. “Drop the gun!”
Teacake looked up at his own hands, which were both empty. “What gun?”
“Drop it!”
“Griffin, I don’t have a gun, okay?”
From behind Griffin, Dr. Friedman peeked out, assessing the situation. “It’s true, Darryl, he does not appear to have a gun.”
Teacake, trying to keep his hands in the air, pointed at the mess on the floor that had been Mike a short while ago. “Don’t get any closer to that, man.”
Griffin stopped, staring down at the remains. Revolted, he looked back up at Teacake, pointing the gun at him again. “Down on the floor!”
“Why?”
“Against the wall!”
Teacake, who had been about to get down on the floor, stopped. “Which?”
“Do it!”
“Seriously, you want me to get down on the floor or up against the wall?”
Griffin, hearing something behind him, whirled around with the gun. Dr. Friedman, whose right boot had squeaked on the floor, barely got his head out of the way as the barrel swung toward him, aimed wildly around the empty hallway, and then swiveled back to Teacake.
“Where is the shooter?!” Griffin shouted, bringing some focus to his ever-changing list of demands.
“He’s gone,” Teacake said, lying only in the sense that he used the wrong pronoun. “Took off as soon as he shot.”
Griffin looked down at Mike’s body again. “Who is that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Teacake said, taking a step forward.
“Don’t come any closer!”
Teacake sighed and stopped. The night had been weird, then exciting, then terrifying, and now with Griffin in the mix it was just annoying. “I don’t know. He’s got some kind of disease or something. It’s contagious. It’ll kill you. The fucking army’s coming, or at least some guy who knows the army or— Can I put my hands down or what?”
“You called the cops?”
“Yeah. Sorta. DTRA.”
“What the hell is that?”
Before Teacake could answer, a sharp banging sound from the right startled Griffin and he swung the gun around again. Dr. Friedman dove out of the way faster this time, doing a good job of not getting his head shot off, and Griffin pointed the gun at the storage unit right next to them. “What’s that?!”
Voices shouted from inside the unit, more fists pounded on the door. Griffin recognized them. “Ironhead?! What the fuck are you doing, man?!”
The voices shouted some more, the door rattled and banged, and Griffin noticed the lock, hanging unlocked in the hasp. It was enough to hold the door closed, but it wasn’t clicked shut, so if the door rattled long enough it was bound to be dislodged.
Griffin turned the gun back on Teacake. “What’d you lock ’em in there for?!”
“I didn’t. That guy did.” He pointed to Mike’s residue. Griffin frowned, his reptilian brain trying to process it all. Keeping the gun on Teacake, he moved toward the locker.
Teacake took a step forward. “Don’t, man.”
Griffin stopped, swinging the gun back on him. “Why not?”
“They’re infected.”
Dr. Friedman stepped out of Griffin’s shadow, recognizing he might have some role in this conversation after all. “Infected? With what?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Teacake said, his patience nearing an end. “Bad shit! For the last time, will you put that fucking gun down already?!”
Griffin squinted at him. There was a dead guy on the floor, his friends were all locked in a storage unit, and Teacake was the only one in the hallway. No, he would not put the fucking gun down, no goddamn way. He took two steps back from the storage unit, gesturing with his gun from Teacake to the door. “You open it,” he said.
Teacake looked at him. There was no reasoning with this lump. He looked over at the door. He saw the lock, dangling in the hasp, clicking against the sides of the metal loop as the people inside the storage unit continued to pound on the door, demanding to be let out.
“No fucking way,” he said.
“Now!” Griffin shouted, taking a step forward with the gun. As he moved, his sweaty right index finger tensed on the trigger, which he’d adjusted for maximum sensitivity. He inadvertently squeezed off a round, which leaped from the barrel and sliced through the very outer edge of Teacake’s left ear, drawing a spurt of blood before it flew the rest of the way down the hallway, ricocheting off two metal doors and finally burying itself in a cement wall.
Teacake screamed and grabbed his ear in pain. “What the fuck, man?!” he shouted. He pulled his hand back in amazement and saw it was now smeared with blood. It wasn’t much of a gunshot wound, more like a razor slice, but it was a gunshot wound, Griffin had definitely shot him, the fuckwit had shot him.
“You shot me!” Teacake pointed out.
“You shot him!” Dr. Friedman confirmed.
Griffin did everything he could to conceal the fact that he had in no way meant to do that. He took a second to erase the stunned look from his face, then stiffened, pointing the gun back at Teacake. “And I’ll do it again if you don’t open the goddamn door! Those are my friends in there!”
They were also his customers, but he didn’t bother with that detail. In his mind, there was a chance, admittedly an outside one, but at least a tiny chance that the rest of the stolen TVs could still be moved out of here before the cops or the army or whoever showed up. There was still $450 on the table, and Griffin intended to take it home with him.
Teacake needed time to think. He wiped the blood from his ear on his pants and walked forward toward the door, as slowly as he could. He kept an eye on Griffin, who was following him with the gun and an increasingly unhinged look on his face—he’d never shot anyone before—and on Dr. Steven Friedman, who was backing up, putting a bit more distance between himself and Griffin. Teacake looked back at the lock, dangling there, unlocked. The sounds from inside, which had stopped for a few moments after the gunshot, had resumed, frantic voices calling, hands pounding on the door, people demanding to be let out. Their tone of panic was rising.
Teacake got closer. He reached out to the lock. He closed his fingers around it.
From the other end of the hallway, a woman’s voice cried out. “Hey, Griffin!”
Griffin turned, and then everything happened at once. Foam exploded from the spout of the fire extinguisher Naomi was holding from about thirty feet away, and it sprayed Griffin and Dr. Friedman in the face, momentarily blinding them. Griffin swung his gun crazily and another shot went off, again by accident.
Teacake reached out to the lock and snapped it shut, and Dr. Friedman, who’d had enough of Griffin’s reckless bullshit, grabbed Griffin’s gun hand and tried to wrestle the thing away from him before he actually killed somebody.
That was all the opening Teacake needed. He turned and took off, racing down the hallway toward Naomi. She was turning as he got to her, dropped the fire extinguisher with a noisy clang, grabbed his hand, and they took off into the other hallway. They headed for the side door through which Mary Rooney had just escaped.
At the storage locker, Griffin wrestled his gun hand free and gave Dr. Friedman a ferocious shove, knocking him on his ass. “The fuck is the matter with you?!” he shouted at the dentist, wiping foam from his eyes. He turned back to the locker door and pawed at the lock. There was more pounding from inside the locker, frantic now, and the voices were changing, rising in pitch and intensity. There was panic inside the locker, the situation in there was changing, something was happening, and it wasn’t good.
Griffin shouted at the door. “Ironhead! You got my key
! You got my key, shithead!”
From inside the locker, there were sounds of a struggle and a body slammed up against the door, hard. Griffin stumbled back. Something else hit the door, something heavy, maybe another body, and the door dented outward. The struggle seemed to intensify, the shouting and screaming accompanied by unfamiliar sounds now: a low gurgle, a wet slap, the sound of a Samsung Premium Ultra 4K smashing into a million tiny pieces.
And then it went quiet.
Griffin and Dr. Friedman just stared at the door for a long moment.
“Ironhead?” Griffin asked, sotto voce.
There was no answer.
“Cedric?”
Nothing.
But then the door lifted an inch. A shadow moved inside. And with the soft scrape of metal on cement, a key slid out from inside.
Ironhead’s voice came from the other side, calm now. “Griffin?”
Griffin didn’t answer.
“You there? Griffin?”
Griffin picked up the key. He looked at Dr. Friedman.
Ironhead’s voice came from the other side of the door again, a low chuckle. “All’s cool, man. Just got a little hairy there for a second.”
They didn’t answer.
“Hello? Griffin?”
Griffin hesitated.
“You there?”
Griffin and Dr. Friedman just looked at each other, no idea what to do.
Ironhead spoke again. “Griffin? Griff?”
Griffin turned back to the door. He had waited thirty-one years for someone to use his self-chosen nickname. Hearing it was a balm on his soul.
He put the key in the lock.
Twenty-Eight
Roberto answered the phone on the first ring. “I’m a minute and a half out.”
Abigail replied, puzzled. “I had you there six minutes ago.”
“Bit of a snag. I worked it out. I’m just west of the Missouri River and about to make the turn onto White Clay Road. What have you got?”
“I got a hold of Stephanie.”