New York Run

by David Robbins

  Hickok raced toward the parked truck, bent over, presenting as difficult a target as possible, shooting as he ran.

  Three of the Technic police hit the pavement, blood gushing from their riddled uniforms.

  Hickok reached the truck with bullets chipping at the sidewalk and striking the Central Core. He passed a wide picture window and saw a female civilian on the other side, screaming in terror at the demise of the Minister. At least, he assumed she was screaming. Her mouth was open but no sound was audible.

  How could this be?

  The gunman could scarcely afford a moment’s idle speculation. A trooper appeared around the tailgate of the truck, one of those fancy automatic rifles in his hands.

  Hickok dived for the sidewalk as the soldier fired. His knees and elbows’

  were lanced by excruciating agony, pain he ignored as he aimed the Commando and squeezed the trigger.

  A distinct click greeted his efforts.

  The Commando was empty!

  There was no time to reload! Hickok rolled to his left, nearer the truck, his right hand flashing to his holster and the right Colt clearing leather even as the trooper sent a few rounds into the sidewalk to the gunman’s right, concrete chips flying in every direction. The warrior fired as the commando sighted for another shot, fired as the commando staggered backward with a hole where his left eye had been, and fired as the commando crashed to the ground with both eyes gone.

  Hickok surged erect, his balance unsteady because of all the extra weapons he was carrying, and he lunged for the only available cover, the cab of the green truck.

  A red dot appeared on the door of the truck, inches from his left hand.

  A red dot?

  The Commando clasped between his thumb and first finger, the gunman grasped at the truck handle as the door was hit, flying metal shards zinging every which way. A sharp piece burned a furrow in his left cheek. He instinctively ducked and whirled, cocking the Python.

  A soldier was standing near the jammed gold doors, rifle to his shoulder.

  Where the blazes had he come from?

  Hickok snapped a shot as a red dot materialized on his chest, and the trooper toppled backwards.

  Move!

  Hickok wrenched the door open as a female member of the Technic police rounded the front fender with her pistol already out. He fired and she stumbled and crashed into the truck, her pistol clattering on the pavement.

  This was no place for Momma Hickok’s pride and joy!

  The gunman scrambled into the truck, letting the Commando drop to the floor, his anxious gaze roving over the dashboard and locking on a set of keys, one of which was already inserted to the right of the steering column.

  Eureka!

  Hickok grabbed the keys as the windshield was splintered by a fusillade of gunfire.

  The Technics were pouring everything they had at the cab.

  Hunched over behind the steering wheel, the gunman turned the key and pumped the accelerator. He recollected the last time he’d driven a truck, from Wyoming to Minnesota, and he tried to remember the proper procedure. He recalled the ignition and the gas pedal, but overlooked one crucial component.

  The clutch.

  Hickok was taken unawares when the truck abruptly jerked forward.

  Something thudded against the grill. A bullet obliterated the rearview mirror. The truck lurched ahead like a wobbly drunk, starting forward and abruptly stopping, again and again, tossing him against the steering wheel.

  What the dickens was wrong?

  A bullet penetrated the windshield and thudded into the seat beside him.

  Hickok glanced at the floor and spotted the third pedal. The first was the gas pedal. And the one on the left was the brake. But what was the other one?

  A slug creased his right shoulder, breaking the skin.

  The police and commandos were deploying in a circle, enclosing the vehicle.

  The clutch! That was it! Hickok tramped on the clutch, grinding the gears as he shifted from first to second and the truck roared across the parking lot. He kept his head below the dash as round after round lipped into the vehicle. The clamor was incredible: metal whining and glass breaking and people shouting and the windshield dissolving in a shower of glass.

  There was another pronounced thud from the front of the truck.

  Hickok sat up to get his bearings. He was going due south, the truck heading toward a row of parked trikes.

  Not ten feet ahead was a solitary commando, a woman, down on one knee, shooting at the truck engine in an attempt to disable it.

  Hickok floored the accelerator and the truck lumbered forward. He saw the commando’s mouth open and her petrified eyes widen an instant before there was a crushing thump and the truck bounced as if the wheels had encountered a bump.

  The passenger-side window blew apart.

  Hickok frantically turned the steering wheel, but too late. The vehicle slewed to the right, its rear end smashing into the row of trikes and bowling them over. He spun the wheel again, thundering down an aisle between the trikes.

  A jeep containing three Technic police was zooming toward him.

  Hickok wasn’t about to stop. To stop was certain death. The Technics would be on him in a second. He intended to get as far as possible from the Central Core as quickly as possible, and no one or nothing was going to stand in his way.

  Especially not one measly jeep!

  Hickok’s grip on the steering wheel tightened as the truck closed on the jeep. He could see a determined expression on the policeman driving.

  Obviously, the Technic wasn’t about to surrender the right of way.

  Thirty feet separated them.

  Hickok hunched over the steering wheel and braced for the collision.

  Twenty feet.

  Would the truck survive the crash? It was a big vehicle, the green trailer it was hauling adding to its bulk, but a wreck at high speed would undoubtedly cripple the motor.

  Ten feet.

  Hickok held his breath as the two vehicles sped at one another. He flinched in expectation of the impact, and that’s when the jeep unexpectedly altered course, swerving to the left and ramming into some trikes.

  He’d done it!

  Elated, Hickok didn’t perceive the danger he posed to the mass of trikes occupying the avenue beyond the parking lot until the truck had jumped a curb and slammed into their midst. Chaos resulted. Screams and shrieks rent the air; battered bodies were flying everywhere; trikes and travelers alike were squashed beneath the huge truck tires, trikes crunching and their drivers and occupants being mashed to a flattened pulp; and random gunshots from the Technic police and the soldiers punctuated the general din.

  Blast!

  Hickok slammed on the brakes and the truck ground to a rocky halt, the motor idling. He saw dozens of trikes and four-wheelers crash as they wildly endeavored to avoid the melee.

  Cries of torment and anguish were voiced by the injured and dying.

  Dear Spirit! What had he done? The gunman vaulted from the cab, landing next to a demolished trike with an elderly man prone over the handlebars. Hickok gaped at the man’s vacant brown eyes, appalled by the needless deaths and misery he’d inadvertently caused. To his left was a young boy, lying in a pool of blood. He was shocked to his soul, and the gunman’s senses swirled.

  He’d killed innocent children!

  Children!

  A blast from a pistol brought Hickok back to reality. He saw one of the Technic police sighting for a second shot, and whipped his right Colt clear and fired.

  The policeman pitched to the tarmac.

  Hickok turned, seeking a way out. Six feet away was a lone man seated in an idling four-wheeler, apparently stunned by the destruction, gaping at the Warrior.

  Just what he needed!

  Hickok jogged to the four-wheeler and shoved the Python barrel into the driver’s chest. “Move out!” He climbed into the four-wheeler beside the driver. “Move!”

  The driver, a
man of 40 with a bald pate and jowly jaws, his green eyes fearfully locked on the Colt, nodded. “Yes, sir!”

  “Go!” Hickok goaded him, glancing over his shoulder. The police and soldiers in the parking lot were prevented from reaching him by the gigantic traffic jam blocking the avenue.

  The driver of the four-wheeler pulled out, slowly wending his way through the maze of trikes and other vehicles. “Which way?” he asked.

  Hickok alertly scanned the avenue for threatening soldiers or Technic police, but the highway ahead was filled with civilians. Very few of them had seen him jump from the truck, but one or two glared at him as he passed.

  “Which way?” the driver nervously queried.

  “Just keep going,” Hickok told him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The four-wheeler reached an impasse, thwarted by a veritable wall of vehicles halted by the wreckage and the truck.

  “We can’t go any further,” the driver wailed.

  “Yes we can,” Hickok said, wagging the Python to the right. “Use the sidewalk. It’s not as crowded.”

  “But that’s illegal!” the driver objected.

  Hickok rapped the driver on the temple with the Colt. “Take your pick.

  A spell in the calaboose or a bullet in the brain?”

  “Calaboose?”

  “The hoosegow,” Hickok explained.

  “Hoosegow?” the driver repeated, even more confused.

  “The jail, dummy!” Hickok snapped.

  The driver gingerly wheeled the four-wheeler onto the sidewalk. Shouts and oaths greeted this unprecedented action, but the civilians moved aside at the sight of the blond man in the strange buckskins carrying an arsenal.

  Hickok glanced back at the carnage he’d caused. He remembered that little boy, dead, awash in crimson, and he shuddered. He thought of his precious Ringo, and he could vividly imagine the grief the parents of the boy would feel when—

  Wait a minute!

  That boy didn’t have any parents! Not natural ones anyhow. Would his surrogate parents feel the same way a natural parent would?

  “What’s your name?” Hickok demanded of the driver.

  Pale as the proverbial ghost, the heavyset man looked at the gunfighter.

  “Spencer.”

  “Do you love your parents?” Hickok asked.

  If complete consternation was comical, then the driver was hilarious.

  But Hickok didn’t feel much like laughing.

  “My parents?” Spencer said. “You want to know about my parents?”

  “Yeah. I know you folks in Technic City ain’t raised by your true mom and dad,” Hickok stated. “But what about the people who do rear you? Do you love them?”

  “Of course not,” Spencer responded while circumventing a squat blue box in the middle of the sidewalk marked with the word “MAIL.”

  “You must not be from Technic City if you can ask a stupid question like that…” Spencer’s voice trailed off as the enormity of his own idiocy sank home. He’d called this crazy man stupid! What would the lunatic do?

  Hickok disregarded the insult. “If you don’t love ’em, how do you feel about them?”

  “They raise us,” Spencer replied. “That’s it. Why should we feel anything? Emotion is for simpletons.”

  The lunatic, amazingly, grinned. “Thanks. I needed that.”

  Spencer, perplexed, shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  Hickok waved the Colt. “No. But you will if you don’t quit flappin’ your gums and pick up speed.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” Spencer protested.

  Hickok rammed the Python into Spencer’s ribs.

  The four-wheeler increased its speed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The three soldiers and the pair of Warriors reached the end of the corridor and came to an abrupt stop.

  The hallway was a dead end.

  “The Zombies are on our level!” Private Kimper shouted, the pulse scanner held next to his face.

  “We’re trapped!” Captain Wargo exclaimed.

  Blade surveyed the corridor. There was no sign of Gatti. Where was he?

  “Where’s Gatti?” Wargo demanded.

  Blade ran, retracing their steps. He reached an open doorway on the right and peered inside, his helmet lamp revealing the interior. It was a room, perhaps 10 feet by 12, littered with the inevitable cobwebs, dust, and an antiquated wooden chair with two legs missing lying on the left side near the wall. Blade was about to pull away, when his lamp fell on the rear wall. Or what had once been the rear wall. Because now a large hole beckoned, providing access to an adjoining chamber. “This way!” Blade yelled, and took off, Geronimo dogging his heels.

  The Warriors hastened through the opening and discovered another room exactly like the first. But instead of a dilapidated chair the chamber contained some newer additions: Private Gatti’s blood-soaked helmet and Dakon II on the floor in the middle of the room.

  Blade scooped up the weapon and checked the digital readout. A full magazine!

  “I could use one of those,” Geronimo mentioned as the trio of troopers entered the room.

  “Where the hell did you get that?” Captain Wargo remarked, pointing his Dakon II at Blade.

  Blade returned the compliment. “It was Gatti’s. There’s no sign of him.”

  “Hand it over!” Wargo commanded.

  “No way.”

  Captain Wargo’s features contorted into a furious mask. “When I give an order—”

  “The Zombies!” Private Kimper interrupted. “Ten yards and closing fast!”

  The five men spread out, facing the way they came, their rifles trained on the opening.

  Blade looked over his left shoulder. There was a doorway five feet away, lacking a door. Good. They had a way to escape if the Zombies—

  Two Zombies rushed into the room, hissing, their arms extended. A barrage of fragmentation bullets ruptured their chests and heads and they collapsed, spewing green fluid.

  “Hold them!” Captain Wargo yelled.

  Four more Zombies were framed in the opening, and a hail of bullets dropped them on the spot.

  Blade frowned. This was easy. Too easy. Almost as if it was a trap. But that would mean the Zombies were behind them—

  “Look out!” Geronimo shouted in warning.

  Blade crouched and whirled, the Dakon II at hip level, and the movement saved his life. Zombies were pouring in the doorway, and one of them had clawed at the Warrior’s neck even as he ducked. Blade let the mutation have it, blowing its face off.

  The Technics were firing with total abandon, shooting as quickly as Zombies appeared at the opening or the doorway.

  Geronimo, unarmed and feeling utterly helpless, stayed close to Blade.

  The Warriors and Technics held their own for a while, downing Zombies until bodies were stacked on both sides of the room.

  But then the tide turned.

  Blade felt something strike his left shoulder, then his back, and he glanced up at the ceiling in time to see a slavering Zombie plummet through a narrow aperture. “They’re above us!” he cried.

  Private Kimper was standing three feet from Blade, and he turned to confront this new menace.

  Too late.

  The Zombie landed between the two men, and with an agility belied by its emaciated appearance, it coiled and pounced, hurtling at Private Kimper, brushing the Technic’s Dakon II aside, and fastening its fingers in his throat.

  Blade held his fire, concerned he would hit Kimper.

  Kimper screamed as he was knocked to the floor, ineffectively flailing at the Zombie with his fists.

  Blade closed in and hammered his stock onto the Zombie’s head. Once.

  Twice. Three times, and the Zombie released Kimper and rose, its eyes gleaming savagely. Blade shot it at point-blank range, and his arms and face were pelted with more green gore.

  Kimper, gagging, stumbled to his feet and grabbed for his Dakon II.

 
; Three Zombies came through the doorway, and one of them reached Kimper in one mighty bound. The Technic was lifted from his feet and his head was brutally wrenched to the right.

  Blade heard the snap of Kimper’s vertebra even as he shot the Zombie in the forehead.

  Geronimo saw his opportunity. He darted forward and grasped Kimper’s Dakon II, then spun, firing, decimating the other two Zombies.

  The attack unexpectedly ceased. Dust floated in the air. A preternatural quiet gripped the underground tunnels.

  “Blade!” someone gasped.

  Blade turned.

  Captain Wargo was on his back, a dead Zombie straddling his legs.

  Four more of the mutations lay near his boots. The Technic was staring at the giant Warrior with a resigned expression, a fatalistic acceptance of his impending demise. “I blew it,” he said softly.

  Wargo’s left arm was gone, missing, severed from his body, no doubt taken by a Zombie intent on consuming the limb as a tasty snack.

  “Where’s the last commando?” Geronimo asked Blade.

  The two Warriors were the only ones standing.

  Blade moved to Wargo and knelt next to the officer. He cradled Wargo’s head in his left hand, watching the blood pump from the ragged stump where once the left arm had been.

  “I’ve bought it,” Wargo stated in a strained whisper.

  “We’ll get you out of here,” Blade told him. “I’ll carry you.”

  Wargo’s brow furrowed. “You’d do that for me? After what I’ve done? After the way I’ve treated you?”

  Blade glanced at the Zombie on Wargo’s legs. “We can’t let them have you.”

  Wargo moaned and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were rimmed with tears. “I want you to know I was only following orders.”

  Is that any excuse? Blade wanted to retort. Instead, he smiled and nodded. “I know.”

  Captain Wargo shuddered. “I’m so cold.” He groaned. “I wish… I wish…” His head sagged and his eyes shut again.

  Geronimo was keeping them covered. “What are we going to do?” he inquired. “Get out of here, I hope.”

  “We’re going after the Genesis Seeds,” Blade said.

  “But why?” Geronimo rejoined. “You said you doubted they even exist.”

  “But if they do,” Blade explained, “we owe it to our family, to the entire Civilized Zone, to do our best to retrieve them.”