Escape From Metro City

by Mandel, Richard

  Everybody got out of the patrol car, partly to stretch their legs but mostly to stare at the barricade. Everyone brought their weapons with them but they held them loosely, given the complete absence of any visible or obvious threat. None of them noticed as the raven which had been following them up the highway alighted in a nearby tree. It was quite alone, and it looked with interest down on the four small humans standing by their car not far away from the big and imposing barricade that blocked their way.

  "Good God," Lisa finally managed to say.

  "Si," Raul said. "Holy Mother, what could have done this?"

  "I've got a good idea as to what, although I didn't think Pandora had any here," Mercy said. She turned to Cy, and there was an anxious edge in her voice as she spoke. "We've got to get out of here, right now."

  "Why?" Cy said. He had automatically tightened his grip on his weapon as she spoke. "What is it?"

  "An ubermensch, I'm guessing," Mercy said, "and it's probably still in the area."

  "Jesus," Lisa exclaimed, immediately bringing up her AK-47. She had suddenly become tense as a bowstring. She held her weapon at the ready and was slowly sweeping it around, looking in every direction for their perceived foe.

  "No comprende," Raul said. "What is ubermensch?"

  Even as Raul asked his question, Cy had quickly moved back to their car. Mercy had turned and was talking to Raul while Cy reached in, grabbed the mike for the police radio with his left hand, pulled it out as far as he could so he could prop his shotgun's stock on his left forearm and keyed it. "Zulu Tango Four, this is Corporal Rappalo. We need immediate evac now, over."

  "What's up, Corporal, over?"

  "Given the evidence, Ms. Parks believes that there's an ubermensch loose in the area, over."

  "What's that, over?" the pilot asked.

  "The thing that piled up this roadblock so fast and so quickly, over," Cy immediately shot back. He too was looking around uneasily. "Call General Ryan and tell him. He probably knows about them. Emphasize that we're in immediate danger and we need out of here now, over."

  "Will do, Corporal. Over and out."

  Even as Cy finished with the radio call, Mercy had been speaking in low tones with Raul. His eyes opened wide as she finished. "You are serious, Mercy?!" he asked incredulously.

  Mercy gave him a faint smile. "Si," she answered softly. "Now you know everything we know about what's out there."

  Raul shook his head. "¡Lagartos saltano!" he exclaimed, brandished his new long gun and looking around in the same manner as Lisa and Cy already were.

  "What did he say?" Mercy asked. She too was brandishing her own M-16 and looking around.

  "Oh, nothing," Cy responded, but shooting Raul a wink and a grin. Raul grinned back. Mercy frowned, but said nothing.

  Just then the car's police radio squawked. "Home Plate to Corporal Rappalo, this is General Ryan. Home Plate to Corporal Rappalo, this is General Ryan, over."

  Cy let go of his shotgun's stock with his left hand, reached into the police car so he could grab the radio's mike, and pulled it out as far as its cord would allow, and cradled his shotgun on his left forearm while keeping his right hand on its pistol grip and trigger. "Home Plate, this is Corporal Rappalo. I read you, over."

  "Zulu Tango Four has filled me in on what's happened. I'm authorizing them to come in for an immediate touch-and-go pickup. It's against my better judgement, but I don't see that we have a choice. You haven't seen any of those blasted crows around, have you?"

  "No, sir."

  "Any zombies?"

  "No, sir. Strangely clear, but that might be our new friend's doing."

  "Zulu Tango Four, over?"

  "No sir, not a sign of either one, over."

  There was a pause, and then the radio came to life again. "Okay. Corporal, as soon as Zulu Tango Four is down have your people in there as fast as they can so they can get up and out of there. Understand me, son?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Ryan, over and out."

  Raul looked at Cy. "What is touch-and-go, senor?"

  "That's what the Air Cav does whenever they've got to do a pickup in a hot LZ, I mean landing zone," Cy answered immediately. "What happens, Raul, is that the chopper comes in at high speed and barely touches the ground, hovering just long enough for us to get on board, and then it takes off at high speed. That's why they call it touch-and-go." He now looked at everyone and spoke loudly, with a note of command in his voice. "Everyone stay together by the car! When the chopper comes in, run as fast as you can to it and grab something as you get on! It may take off while you're still climbing on board, and we don't want to drop anybody when it takes off."

  "Understood," Lisa said, moving in close but still doing her visual sweeps.

  "Si!" Raul said, coming up from Cy's other side.

  "The quicker, the better," Mercy said, also moving in close.

  The sound of the approaching Hog grew louder as it descended and came closer. Everyone could see it as it came in, its Army green paint scheme making it quite visible against the black clouds that were slowly rolling across the darkened sky. Both it and the whole area were lit by the light radiating from the Pandora complex. All of its outside lights were on, and the spillage was more than enough to light everything around it for some distance with an unnatural grey glow. There was a smell like ozone in the air, along with the whirring sound of the approaching Hog's rotors and the regular rumble from its motor. It was now close enough for the four on the ground to make out details of its chain guns, to see the Army gunners standing at the ready behind their machine guns on the door pintle mounts, constantly sweeping the ground below them and looking for their unseen foe. They had good reason for doing so. Within seconds the Hog would be down on the deck and at its most vulnerable. If the enemy both they and the Metro City survivors feared was still in the area, then that was the time when it was most likely to attack. That is, unless it chose to attack now.

  Suddenly and without warning a utility pole rocketed skyward from a clump of trees just past the entrance to the Pandora complex. Only the crew of the Hog could see where it came from. All the survivors could see was that pole, which looked brand new and had probably been stacked by the road for impending utility work, suddenly take off into the air like a ballistic missile on full burn. It was heading directly for the descending Hog, on a course as straight and true as an arrow shot from a bow. The four survivors below could hear over the police car's radio as the pilot cursed, and see as he jinked his Hog hard to the right. He narrowly avoided that first pole, but not the second. It had shot up from the same clump of trees towards the Hog as soon as the first was halfway on its way, and whatever had hurled it upward had correctly anticipated the Hog pilot's dodging move. That second utility pole hit the Hog with such force that it was knocked upward, as the pole pierced its bottom and rammed its way up through its motor, stopping only when it hit the spinning main rotor. The main rotor stopped too, and the fatally wounded Hog immediately flipped over and started to go down, the anguished cries of its pilot and crew sounding on the police radio, but only briefly. Within a second of it being hit, the Huey Hog exploded, dropping a fierce rain of metal shrapnel and flaming debris below.

  Cy's group immediately scurried to the nearby shelter of a tractor-trailer rig that had been turned on its side and placed as part of the barricade blocking the highway. They huddled up against its overturned trailer, watching as the main body of the Huey Hog, blazing fiercely and tumbling in its downward arc, fell squarely on the MCPD squad car. There was another explosion almost as fierce as the first one, and the four survivors could feel its fierce heat as they went to their knees and covered their faces with their arms. They could hear metal shards being driven by high speed peppering part of the barricade on either side of them, but fortunately none of the hits were close. After that it was over. All they could hear was the sound of fierce flames burning, and all they could smell was acrid smoke. They uncovered their faces and opened their eye
s to find the MCPD squad car a fiercely blazing ruin, with the main body of what was left of the Huey Hog sitting on top of it. Part of the thrown utility pole that had downed it was still sticking up and out of it, its creosote-soaked wood burning fiercely. It looked for all the world like an oversized middle finger stuck up by some angry pagan god and held towards the four survivors to mock their escape attempt from Metro City.

  The survivors weren't given time to recover from that terrible event. Even as they looked upon that horrifying scene, there was the sudden and immediate sound of a large mass in motion in the air. Cy was the first to react, looking around and up and immediately swapping his shotgun for his China Lake due to what he saw. Lisa was a split second behind him, her eyes locking on to this new incoming threat and her AK-47 accurately tracking it all the while. It was already sailing through the air on a downward arc when it cleared the barricade and landed halfway between them and the burning wrecks that had been their means of escape. It hit the pavement with a loud WHUMP, cracking it in the process, then in a split second whirled around and came upright as it faced them in a fighting crouch. Both Mercy and Raul now brought their own weapons to bear. Cy gritted his teeth and he heard Lisa growl. Mercy sucked in her breath rather loudly. Raul spoke for them all, although what he said was in Spanish. "¡Chingada madre!"

  Both Lisa and Cy immediately opened fire. Both the loud ratcheting of an AK on full auto and the th-woonk! of a China Lake opening up filled the air. Both were excellent shots and should have hit their targets, but the ubermensch was too fast. Their fire found only empty air where it had been, as it quickly dodged to one side and toward the flaming wrecks of their rescue vehicles. There was a small-scale explosion as the grenade Cy had fired exploded harmlessly, while Mercy and Raul added their fire to that of Lisa and Cy's. By that time their foe had made it to the wreckage. It picked up a large piece of flaming metal, one of the sections of the downed Hog's tail boom, and promptly flung it back at them. The group was forced to scatter in order to save themselves. Lisa and Cy dove to one side and Mercy and Raul to the other, just as the burning boom piece slammed into the section of overturned tractor-trailer where they had been standing. This was what the ubermensch wanted, for its next swift sprint brought it within arm's reach of Lisa and Cy. It effortlessly backhanded Cy with such force that he was sent rolling and tumbling off to one side while it grabbed Lisa. It lifted her up in one hand by the neck and squeezed so hard that she was forced to drop her weapon. The two of them remained that way for a few seconds, the ubermensch holding the half-choked Lisa up in the air, she grasping and straining furtively at his iron grip and kicking it as hard as she could with both of her booted feet, but to no avail.

  Mercy could do nothing but stand there, her assault rifle up and aimed at the ubermensch but unwilling to shoot for fear of hitting Lisa. Not so Raul. The stout Mexican laborer immediately slung his own assault rifle behind him and then charged the creature. It was a reckless yet brave thing to do, and it was like trying to tackle a tree. Raul hit its legs square and wrapped his own strong arms around him while his momentum carried him into and around the thing throwing him off of his own feet. It stumbled somewhat and swung about quickly, trying to see what had hit it so low. As it did, though, it lost its grip on Lisa. The speed at which the thing was turning when it let her go flung her away as if she had been thrown by a catapult. Less than a second later, the out-of-control Lisa smacked full length into the front end of the overturned tractor-trailer rig, hitting squarely where the lower windshield fared into its nose. There was the sound of shattering glass, accompanied by an anguished cry from Lisa and the sound of breaking bones. She hung there but for a moment, and then she fell unconscious to the pavement in a tumbled sprawl, her lower left leg twisted under her at an unnatural angle, a shard of broken glass sticking out of her left eye, and blood flowing freely from multiple cuts and wounds.

  It was now Raul's turn to cry out as the ubermensch kicked him away as easily as if he had been a football. The short but burly man was sent sailing through the air back first and with his limbs trailing behind him, all the way from the burning vehicles over the edge of the pavement and into the tall grass of the shoulder beyond. All of the wind was knocked out of him when he finally hit the ground, and he rolled and tumbled for some ways, losing his assault rifle as he did, until he finally came to rest. The ubermensch now turned on the only human still standing within its immediate field of vision. Mercy was terrified but held her ground, keeping her own assault rifle aimed at the creature. Suddenly she had an idea and acted on it. "Don't you dare!" she shouted. "I'm with Pandora! Mercy Caroline Parks, medical center liaison team! Check your data!" The thing hesitated, Mercy's words apparently having their desired effect ... and that was when a grenade round launched from a China Lake came through the nearby flames and slammed into the creature.

  KA-WHAAAAMMMMM!!!!

  The creature staggered and twisted back, gripping at the stump of a right arm burned and blown off at the elbow and screaming in agony from its bloodied head. Another form staggered around the wrecks of the burning helicopter and police car, China Lake before him. It was Cy. He was bleeding from the mouth and his Army issue helmet was missing, but it was Cy. He cocked the China Lake and fired again. This time the ubermensch managed to dodge just in the nick of time, resulting in a near-miss, but it was definitely wounded and its response time down from the solid hit Cy had landed on it earlier. Even as Cy swapped his empty China Lake for his shotgun, the ubermensch turned and took off in a stumbling run southward down the highway, blood trailing from its head, the stump of its right arm, and shrapnel wounds in its left calf from the grenade near-miss. Mercy began shooting at it with her assault rifle but her aim was bad, and it managed to stay well ahead of her fire. It picked up speed somewhat as it made the turn in the highway, and then it was lost from sight.

  "Cy!" Mercy called.

  Cy held up a hand. "I'm all right," he shouted back, heading to the side of the road where Raul lay. "Just some broken teeth. Go help Lisa!"

  Mercy nodded and took off towards the fallen Lisa at once. Cy ran towards Raul, wiping the blood from his mouth with one sleeve. He was already conscious again and struggling to get back to his feet. "Ai, yi, yi, but that thing's got a foot!" Cy heard him say, and then he both heard and saw the Army corporal approaching. "Senor Rappalo! How's Lisa?!"

  "Mercy's taking care of her," Cy said, as he came close and helped the Mexican back on his feet. "How are you?"

  "I feel like I come from the bad end of a bullfight, but I okay. How's Lisa?"

  "Let's go see," Cy said, as he put an arm around Raul and helped him back up to the road. The burly laborer was limping despite his best efforts to hide his discomfort. "You need to have Mercy look at that leg as soon as you can."

  "I will, once I know Lisa is all right," Raul said sadly. "Is my fault she got hurt."

  "No it isn't," Cy assured him. "You probably saved her life. You didn't know that thing was going to let loose of her when it did, but I'm still glad you went after it. You were the only one who could, you know. Like I said, you probably saved her life."

  "Si," Raul said, still looking sad, "but I still no feel better about it."

  The pair snagged Raul's assault rifle on the way back. By the time they did, Raul was walking on his own although he was still limping. In the meantime, Mercy had broken out her medical supplies and had been working feverishly to treat Lisa's wounds. The glass shard had been removed from her ruined left eye and it had been bandaged. There were also a number of bandages covering other parts of Lisa's body, in particular her left arm, left side, and left knee. Mercy looked up as the two men approached. "Got anything for some splints?" she asked.

  "No, but I'll go get something," Cy said immediately. "How long?"

  "At least a foot for her arm and side, and two for her leg," Mercy said. "Lisa's left arm and left knee are both broken, and I also need to brace up her left side. She's got broken ribs where she hit the br
ace in the middle of that windshield."

  "Holy Mother," Raul said, quickly crossing himself.

  "All right," Cy said. "Raul, you stand guard until I get back. I think Mr. Super Nazi cleared the field of zombies before we got here for his own ends, but they might start coming back any time."

  "Si," Raul said, hefting his assault rifle.

  Cy was back within five minutes, with his .45 ACP in his gun hand and with an assortment of broken branches and long metal shards under his other arm. He set them down next to Mercy and the fallen Lisa. Mercy had removed the young woman's rucksack, side pouch, and armor vest, and had her lying as prone as the young woman's many injuries would allow. To himself Cy wondered how she had managed to do all of that by herself, and then decided it was best not to ask. The medical researcher had first handed Cy something to wipe the rest of the blood from his mouth, and then rummaged in her medical bag for a bit. She pulled out a pill bottle, shook out two pills, and handed them to him. "Acetaminophen," she said. "Your broken teeth are going to start hurting like hell once the shock wears off." Cy took them and tossed them straight down, even as Mercy quickly picked through what Cy had brought and separated out the ones she needed for each of Lisa's broken ribs and limbs. Cy then helped her with Lisa in order to set the splints, while Mercy fixed them in place with surgical wrap and Raul continued to stand guard. Mercy had already straightened out Lisa's broken arm and damaged leg as best she could The arm was where they first started with the splints, and they were helped by the fact that Lisa was still unconscious.