Stage 3 (Book 3): Bravo

by Stark, Ken

  Of course, the first consideration was the man's intelligence. He'd only met Detective Sergeant Gary Hansen once, and loathe as he was to admit it, he found him to be a highly intelligent man. One didn't make the rank of Detective Sergeant by chance, after all. And besides, stupid died quick. In which case, the man was already dead and he'd taken his whole family with him. So, alright then, let's say that this smart man had managed to keep his loved ones alive long enough to get here. What then would a clever man, a clever policeman do, when he arrived at a theoretical emergency shelter and found nothing?

  He would have radioed in, of course, but by then he would've heard only static. And the power was out, so no cell towers and no phones. So what does he do? He has his family in the car, the city has gone mad, the roads are nigh impossible to navigate without a big rig and a cowcatcher, there's no help coming, and he has zero contact with the outside world. So what does he do? What does this clever man, this clever policeman... do?

  He threw a signal down to Addison and roared the big truck to life, wheeling it directly onto the football field.

  “If they're alive, they're here,” he said, just that simply. “If they're not here, they're dead.”

  Not surprisingly, not a single objection was raised, and all eyes were suddenly glued to the windows, as Mason pulled the truck onto the practice field. Alphas came thundering in from all sides to either rage against Gloria's flanks, be crushed beneath her giant wheels, or come apart like sock puppets on her cowcatcher. A quick glimpse in the mirror showed the Mustang faring no better, but it could have been much worse, Mason knew. If this had been one of the big universities, or if it hadn't been summer, the swarm might easily number in the thousands. So, all things considered, he considered that dozen-plus almost a blessing.

  Two more alphas tore across the field directly in front of the Peterbilt and exploded against the cowcatcher. And whether Alejandra took that as inspiration or she simply wished to relieve some of Mason's burden, she suddenly tore past them in the Mustang, shaking alphas loose like a dog shaking off fleas. One alpha slid under the car and had its legs crushed to pulp, and another happened to come dead center and was met with somewhat more permanent results. Then, Alejandra set upon what appeared to be a personal crusade to destroy the rest. She slid on the grass, executing a perfect back-end drift that knocked one little cheerleader-alpha high in the air, then she came back at the swarm and tore straight through the thick of them. Two more bounced off the grill, and one flew up and over the roof. Then, the car skidded to a stop on a wide lawn on the other side of the concourse and spun around, kicking up dual pinwheels of soil. It picked up speed with the roar of a lion and took down another two alphas in spectacular fashion. Then, it slewed about in another 180-degree turn and sent one more cartwheeling over the roof.

  And on and on it went. She tore down one side of the truck and up the other, and when two or three creatures happened to be close enough together, she lit into a series of donuts that had them bouncing this way and that off the Mustang's back end. She tore back across the road, aiming the car into and through those few that remained. Then, she came barreling back at full speed. One quick turn of the wheel and a pull on the handbrake later, and the car spun a full 180 degrees, parking itself precisely parallel with the Peterbilt, not three feet away. A hand came up, a thumb was raised, and the Mustang fell dutifully back behind Gloria as if nothing at all had happened.

  “Lord have mercy...” Inez breathed.

  “It must be past lunchtime,” Christopher offered, humorlessly. “That girl gets hangry...”

  Mason pulled the truck onto the main concourse and followed it up to and between the first two buildings. One building had the high-windowed aspect of a gymnasium. The other was filled with office cubicles. Administration, probably. Neither showed any signs of life.

  No barricades.

  No boarded-up windows.

  Nothing.

  And up ahead was just more of the same.

  No army trucks.

  No soldiers.

  No emergency vehicles.

  Just more dead buildings in a dead city.

  He realized then that it was pointless. This place was no sanctuary, and it never was. His mind began to run wild with speculation on what this might mean for Becks and her survival, and for any hopes he might once have had of knowing one way or the other.

  Then, a single echo stepped out from the corner of the gymnasium, and as it was crushed into paste under Gloria's wheels, he suddenly realized what he should have spotted the second they'd entered this place.

  Something was wrong with the picture. Well, not wrong, exactly. To be precise, something was missing, and it wasn't the machine gun nests or the Red Cross tent or the girl with the donuts. While everyone else was looking to the buildings and to the windows and everywhere else at once, Mason focused his attention on the concourse itself.

  There were spatters of gore everywhere, and much of the concourse wore a patina of old blood turned brown by the sun. Evidence of the carnage that must have gone on here in those first few days. Such sights were familiar now. Unremarkable. So commonplace as to almost border on the mundane. But this place was different. Something here was made resoundingly conspicuous by its very absence.

  “Where the hell are the bodies?” he finally said aloud. But before anyone could respond, the concourse opened into a wide courtyard and the question answered itself.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph…” Inez gasped as the truck squealed to a stop.

  There were bodies here.

  Lots of bodies.

  Too many bodies to count.

  But where they were normally scattered about wherever they fell, someone at Skyline had done some housekeeping. Now, the bodies were stacked, but not in a haphazard fashion as if someone had simply dragged them aside to keep the way clear. No, these bodies had been put to use. The courtyard was enclosed, save for wide gaps between most of the buildings, and someone had taken it upon themselves to close off one of those gaps by stacking dead bodies across it like sandbags.

  It was a grisly sight, but an endlessly fascinating one as well. Four feet high and several bodies thick, that single wall might represent a hundred or more corpses. A cloud of flies as thick as smoke hovered over the carnage, and beneath them, more than a few fat, slovenly rats fed at their leisure. And on the other side of the concourse was another such wall in the first stages of construction, between the administration building and the next one in.

  As he watched, one of the bodies shifted and a single, over-stuffed rat the size of a house cat emerged. The animal threw one snarl at the truck, and lumbered casually away.

  “I don't like this...” Christopher said from the back.

  Mason was way ahead of him. This was not the work of a few desperate survivors in those first days. Some of the bodies were so fresh, the blood still glistened wet where it had pooled.

  Sarah's back stiffened, and she scooted Mackenzie off of her lap. “Mace?”

  He was already on it. He stomped the clutch and slammed the truck back into gear. But before he could make another move, a masked man suddenly appeared on the other side of his window, with a gun aimed directly between his eyes. And then another appeared on the other side, with a gun trained on Sarah. Then, more masked men rushed out to cover both the Peterbilt and the Mustang. His heart sank in his chest.

  Not a word was spoken inside the truck. There was no need. They'd all discussed every imaginable what-if scenario at length, up to and including what Mason had dubbed their 'failsafe.' And on that failsafe, they had all agreed most vehemently. If there ever came a moment where they were outmanned and outgunned, and the only options left were to either surrender or die, every single one of them would choose the latter. They would rather die fighting than live a few more minutes or hours or days at someone else's feet. With a crystal-clear understanding of all the horrors mankind could mete out on its own, the consensus was, 'If we're going down, we're going down together.' />
  And now, looking out at the guns bristling all around them, Mason knew that moment had come.

  He didn't say a word.

  He didn't have to.

  They all understood the situation, and they all knew how it worked.

  They'd wait for him to make the first move, then all hell would break loose. Some might die, maybe all of them, but no matter. Better that, than the alternative.

  His hand came slowly off the wheel and drifted down to his lap, making the face behind the gun flinch. The man had a bandana or kerchief covering much of his face, but there was no hiding the youth in his eyes. He was young. Early-twenties. Maybe even younger. Pupils dilated. Skin blanched. Sweating, but not from the heat. Classic acute stress response. Fight or flight. The punk was scared, but the pistol in his hand didn't waver an inch, and his finger was white on the trigger. Scared or not, the punk wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet in his head.

  Mason crept his hand down to his thigh and felt the grips of his pistol against his wrist. If he'd been alone in the truck, he would have made his play right then and there. He'd duck back to buy himself a fraction of a second, whip out his gun, and fire blindly through the door. But the moment anyone started to shoot, they'd all start shooting – including the man on the other side of the truck with a gun trained on Sarah. He'd only have time to get off a round or two, then Sarah would die, and Mack would die, and the rest of them would follow. And so, in that awful eternity of fractions of a second, he did the math.

  The twenty-something punk was scared. Scared shitless, but trying hard not to look it. The man on the other side was the same. A fresh-faced kid. Scared, but lethal. One more masked man standing in front of the truck like a fool. Slender. Willowy. Tiny, even. Around the Mustang, three more. One on each side and one standing stupidly behind. All of them had handguns. No automatic weapons. Single shots only.

  Good.

  The truck was still in gear. If he kept his hands off the wheel to put them at ease, then popped the clutch and slammed the gas pedal to the floor, he might catch them by surprise. Maybe the punks on either side would take that microsecond to grab for a handhold instead of pulling the trigger. Or maybe not. That part was out of his control, so he didn't give it a second thought.

  Whatever happened from then on was up to fate. So, okay then. Floor the accelerator, duck, turn the fool in front of the cowcatcher to hamburger, and come up with all guns blazing and hope for the best.

  The three men covering the Mustang would start shooting as soon as Gloria roared, but none of those idiots had ever come across anyone like Alejandra before. The girl was smart, and she was quick, and she was every bit as ruthless as Mason. Right now, she'd have one foot on the brake, one on the gas, and her hand resting idly on the gearshift. At the first sign of... well, anything... she'd throw the Mustang in reverse and bring up her Tommy gun, and then God help those motherfuckers with what she'd do next.

  Mason eased his other hand from the wheel and laid it casually on his left thigh, inches from the door. When he popped the clutch, he'd throw open the door and give the punk one more thing to worry about. It might even buy him another microsecond.

  He spared a glance out of the corner of his eye and saw Sarah with her hand resting lightly on her own door handle. So as usual, she was right inside his head. A faint chuffing of metal against leather coming from behind ─ Inez and Christopher drawing their weapons and getting ready. And as for Mackenzie, she was crouched between the seats, wiping fake tears away from her eyes with one hand, even as her other hand crept slowly toward the revolver on her hip.

  Jesus, that girl! Here she was, staring death in the face, and she was putting on a show just on the off-chance that it might buy them another second.

  Alright then. They were ready. All of them. Ready to fight, and ready to die.

  He crept his hand an inch closer to his gun and got ready to pop the clutch. But just as he was about to make his move, a man came out from behind one of the buildings, waving his arms in the air and hushing orders to the ragtag army. Mason's first instinct was to use that moment of confusion to his advantage. But he held off, and just like that, the guns at both windows suddenly disappeared and he was left gaping at the oddly familiar figure storming up to the truck.

  He slid the gearshift into neutral and popped open his door as the twenty-something punk with the gun stepped back to make way for the man who was clearly in charge.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” the man growled, every word dripping with contempt.

  Mason greeted Detective Sergeant Gary Hansen with a derisive snort.

  “Good to see you too, Gary. Somehow, I knew it would take more than Armageddon to kill a stubborn prick like you.”

  CHAPTER VII

  “Turn that damn motor off, asshole!” Hansen stood on the step, snarling up at Mason. “I said, turn it off! Now!”

  Reluctantly, Mason complied, then he threw a thumbs-up to Alejandra, and the rumbling Mustang was silenced. With that, Hansen gave a quick series of hand signals to the others, and the masked men spread out, taking up positions at all four corners of the courtyard and lowering their bandanas. It was only then that Mason had a good look at the gunmen. All of them were young. Too young. The twenty-something punk looked to be the oldest of the lot. The rest were just kids. Eighteen. Nineteen at the most. And not all of them were men, after all. The one that he'd envisioned turning into a smudge of hamburger on the cowcatcher was a girl. Tiny. Pretty. Nose full of freckles. The kind of girl who might've just walked out of a Coppertone commercial.

  As he watched them spread out, every single one of them did a most curious thing. Every single one of them tucked their handguns away and brought out another weapon from behind their back or from over their shoulder or from a clip on their belt. It was their version of his own group's SBDs. But that wasn't the curious thing. What caught Mason's attention was that while the twenty-something punk slipped his pistol carefully into a holster on his hip, the others were entirely casual about how and where they put their own guns. Waistband here, back pocket there, and then, the girl with the freckles slipped her own 9 mm pistol into the breast pocket of her shirt, and Mason finally got it.

  “Son of a bitch...” he said aloud.

  That firearm had to weigh three pounds at least, but the shirt barely sagged.

  Hansen followed his gaze and smirked. “That's right, asshole. Colleges aren't exactly known for their weapons stores. So, I took a page out of John Dillinger's handbook.”

  “The guns are fake...” Sarah breathed, dumbfounded.

  “You sent children into harm's way with... with toys?” Inez screeched from the back, then she came out and stared daggers at the man. “Toys?!”

  “Not toys, Madam,” Hansen corrected her. “Some were carved out of wood, some were moulded from plastic.”

  As she fumed and sputtered, he ran a quick eye around the other occupants of the vehicle. He glared at each of them in turn, softening his expression ever so slightly at the sight of pretty little Mackenzie. Then, the snarl returned in full as he settled his glare back on Mason. “I hope you'll do these children a favor and make as much noise backing the hell out of here as you made on the way in, asshole,” he said. And with that, he stepped down from the truck and became a traffic cop, waving the Mustang back.

  “No! Gary, wait!” Mason jumped down from Gloria and was immediately met by the point of an arrow.

  It was the kid who'd been on Sarah's side of the truck. Young. Smooth-faced. He looked like he'd be more at home on a skateboard than in an armed camp. But his hands were steady, and the metal bolt in that ridiculous homemade crossbow looked like it could bring down a buffalo.

  “Gary, I came here looking for Becks,” Mason said past Sk8rBoy. But at the mere mention of her name, a lump rose up at the back of his throat and all he could do was plead. “Just tell me she's alive, Gary. Please, just tell me Becks is alive.”

  He watched the man's shoulders slump, and saw his chest ris
e and fall in a sigh. And as that lump in his throat grew into an all-consuming anguish that threatened to burst his heart from his chest, he heard a timid voice from behind him hush a single word.

  “Mace?”

  He spun on his heels, and there she was. Tall, slim, and with a mane of ebony hair framing a face so beautiful that it might have inspired Alexandros to carve the Venus de Milo.

  It was her. It was Becks.

  And yet, there was no running into each other’s arms. No embrace. No teary-eyed kiss that went on and on. They simply regarded each other across a ten foot gulf that encompassed a million miles of heartache.

  Mason finally found voice enough to say, “Hi, Becks.”

  The girl forced a smile and looked to the sky, sending her mane of hair into a mad whorl and Mason's heart into a tailspin. There was a time when he'd considered that toss of the head adorable. She'd want to go out, he'd want to stay in, and she'd smile and look to the sky in a 'What am I going to do with this man?' kind of way, and it made him love her even more. But flash forward a year, and that move became something else. She'd ask another couple over for dinner, he'd spend the evening grumbling, and she'd smile and look to the sky, and it would take days to get things back to where they'd been. By the time another year vanished, he'd say one of his usual stupid things, she'd smile and toss back her head, and then she'd walk out. And on one of those times, she never came back.

  Just then, the freckled-faced girl gave a little whistle like the chirp of a bird, and everyone in Hansen's underage army readied their SBDs. Becks put a finger to her lips and went running to where the girl was stationed on the far side of a building with a concave front that made it look as if a giant had taken a bite out of it. Mason was about to follow, but Detective Sergeant Gary Hansen cut him off at the pass.