"Hungry?" Brent asked.
Luis looked over just as Joe"s eyes shot open, no longer white, but pitch black. Joe"s mouth opened impossibly wide, the flesh at the corners of his mouth ripped and bled black down his chin. Joe, suddenly alive and energized, thrust forward, grabbing Brent"s head and trying to bring it closer to bite.
Luis slammed on the brakes, causing Joe and Brent, neither of them wearing seat belts, to lurch forward. Brent hit the back of Luis"s seat and snapped back into the back seat. Joe sailed forward, head smacking the front window hard and leaving a red splotch on the bullet-resistant gla.s.s.
Joe screamed, an unearthly banshee cry, somewhere between man and monster, then turned to Luis, leaping onto him. Luis"s guns were out of reach, in the back seat. The shotgun on the center console had slid forward and fallen on the floor in front of Joe when Luis. .h.i.t the brakes. Luis tried to push Joe back against the pa.s.senger door. With one hand on Joe"s thin chest, he pressed his right hand tightened around Joe"s forehead, struggling to keep Joe"s open mouth from biting him.
"Gimme a gun!" Luis shouted back at Brent, who he could not see in the backseat.
Suddenly, something cracked in Joe"s neck and he swiveled his head sideways and bit down hard on Luis"s arm.
"f.u.c.k!" Luis screamed, reaching back frantically with his left hand and finding the door handle, pulling it open, then unclicking his seatbelt, and falling backward to give himself enough room to kick at Joe, awkwardly at first, then finally with enough force to push the f.u.c.ker off him. Hanging half-out of the car, Luis kicked hard, pressing both feet into Joe"s chest, trapping him against the pa.s.senger door as Brent scrambled in the back seat.
"Gun!" Luis screamed.
Joe"s head shook violently back and forth so fast it was nearly a blur, screaming and clicking the entire time, black spittle flying from it and landing all over Luis and his car. Joe reached down and grabbed hold tight of Luis"s leg, clenching down impossibly hard for an old man.
Luis screamed, sure the thing that was once Joe would rip right through his flesh. With renewed fear and anger, he kicked both his legs up with all the force he could muster, found Joe"s jaw, and kicked it straight back. He kicked again, repeatedly, as hard and fast as he could, bashing Joe"s skull into the window until it was a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp and his body stopped twitching.
Luis hopped from the car, screaming, adrenaline coursing through him, air stinging his lungs as he gulped deep mouthfuls. Brent climbed from the back seat, gun in hand. Luis grabbed it from him, ran around to the pa.s.senger side, opened the door, and yanked Joe"s body out, then threw it to the road and fired four shots into the corpse.
"Fuuuuuuck!" Luis screamed, wiping at his stinging, b.l.o.o.d.y arm. The injury was worse than he"d thought, a mouth-sized chunk of flesh torn from his right forearm.
Brent ran to him, "What the h.e.l.l happened?"
"He was infected," Luis said. "He was turning into one of those things."
"Holy s.h.i.t," Brent said, staring at Joe"s body, eyes wide in disbelief. It took a moment, but Brent"s eyes soon found Luis"s injury. "What...?"
"It bit me," Luis said, feeling fear for his own life for the first time in decades.
BORICIO WOLFE.
October 18 Somewhere in Alabama The door whined open and Boricio smiled.
Testosterone must not have been expecting trouble because he sauntered in like he owned half the South. Two guards were behind him, neither one holding the guns in their holsters.
Stupid s.h.i.ts.
"Now!" Boricio growled.
The door was open just three seconds when the flat of Boricio"s bat was beating the air straight from Testosterone"s lungs. He hit the floor with a throttled wail and both hands curled around his gut. Boricio left him writhing, then turned his gnashing teeth to the other two guards.
Killing the delicate was like popping a zit, and the two flowers in the doorway were just a few seconds from wilting.
The two guards reached for their guns. Boricio swung the bat and broke the knuckles of the first guard before he"d even unfastened his holster. Boricio dropped the bat, grabbed the man by his neck, spun him around, and reached into his holster. Boricio pulled out the guard"s Colt, and shot him once in the chest, followed by a second shot to his head on the way down.
A geyser of blood rained onto Testosterone, who was still thrashing around on the ground, though quickly catching his breath. He opened his mouth as if about to scream for help, and Boricio pressed the Colt hard against his cheekbone.
"Gimme one reason," Boricio said, shoving the gun so hard into the man"s face it would leave a bruise.
It was one-on-four on the other side of the room. The remaining guard had his gun drawn. "Stand down!" he screamed, waving the gun back and forth at Team Boricio who surrounded him. Adam and Charlie stood behind the guard while Manny and Jack stood in front of him.
He obviously wasn"t the one who signed the checks, but he might also have been given orders to keep the prisoners alive, since despite his boss licking the concrete and his comrade already growing cold, the guard just stood there with a shaking gun and hollow eyes.
Stupid f.u.c.king a.s.shole. That right there is the last dumb a.s.s decision of your wasted life. Pull the trigger five times and BAM! Ashes to ashes, we all fall down. Maybe you"d manage to get us all, maybe you wouldn"t. But if you don"t pull that trigger in the next two seconds, you"re dead no matter what you get around to doing.
"Stand down!" the guard barked again.
"Shoot him..." Testosterone finally found his voice long enough to issue a command. Boricio smacked Testosterone in the head with the b.u.t.t of the pistol, then stood up.
Boricio flashed the gunman his most winning smile and raised his hands in the air. "Not so fast," he said. "I can do the math, I surrender." He kept inching forward. "My hands are up. You got me."
"Stand down or I will shoot you in the face!"
Boricio stopped, ten feet from the guard. Would"ve been plenty close if the flunky wasn"t waving a .45, but it was a few feet farther up s.h.i.t creek than Boricio would"ve liked considering Team Boricio was unarmed and GI Joe was just seconds from gathering another round of breath to order them all dead.
"Chill out, man. I said I surrender. Need me to start speaking French so"s I can prove it?" Boricio kneeled, lay the gun on the floor, barrel first, then stood with his hands in the air.
He kicked the gun across the room just past the guard and between Adam and Charlie. "See," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I"m surrendered, just like I told ya"."
The prisoners were all too scared to move.
Boricio heard Testosterone"s heavy breath rising from the floor behind him.
Team Boricio is made up of flash frozen idiots. If I was standing over there, that f.u.c.ker"s gun would already be in his mouth. They may as well be playing pocket pool. If you"re on Team Boricio, you best be useful.
Boricio charged toward a surprised Manny, tackling and then spinning him around until Boricio"s eyes were bolted on the flunkie with Manny between them.
Boricio hurled Manny into the guard then dove to the ground.
Testosterone was back on his feet, but Boricio had already hit the floor, sweeping the guard"s feet from under him. The guard"s head landed with a loud crack on the concrete. Boricio lifted him by the hair, then sent his head back to the floor with a fatal aftershock, coating the floor in the man"s blood.
"The f.u.c.k man!" Manny screamed.
"Tell me I"ve been naughty later," Boricio growled and blew a kiss, then turned to face Testosterone.
"Not so fast," Testosterone said, aiming his gun behind Boricio. Predator"s guess said it was at one of the prisoners trying to retrieve a weapon.
"Why don"t you kick that over here instead?" Testosterone said.
The gun slid across the concrete and through Testosterone"s splayed legs, landing just behind him, a few feet from the wall. He smiled and turned his gun to Boricio. "You know," he said, "We were just on our way in here to deal with you. We were gonna take our sweet, sweet time, have ourselves a little fun."
Pile of s.h.i.t wants to mother f.u.c.king monologue. Tell me how big and bad he is, and how he"s gonna make me pay. But no shots have been fired, so if they were really planning on taking their sweet, sweet time, and I expect they were, no one else is coming in for a while. I get that gun, it"s game over.
Boricio said, "Easy to be the Grim Reaper"s right hand when you"re waving a loaded gun. And the way you probably toss off all the lonely boys around here, your trigger finger"s probably even faster than that tiny p.e.c.k.e.r of yours."
Testosterone laughed, then crossed the floor to the baseball bat, keeping his aim on Boricio. He kneeled, picked up the bat, then slipped his gun back in its holster.
"Bullets wouldn"t be much fun," he said. "I"d rather beat the loud right out of your mouth. Maybe I"ll celebrate with a shot or two to the kneecap once I"m through. Or maybe..."
He didn"t wait to finish his sentence - tried to catch Boricio by surprise instead with a wide swing somewhere around the word "or" But Boricio saw the bat coming. He dodged the blow and the bat whistled by him.
Boricio charged Testosterone, throwing both hands around the bat. Testosterone saw him coming and tightened his grip as Boricio latched on. They stumbled across the room, each trying to gain control of the bat as Team Boricio stood on the sidelines like f.u.c.king spectators or cheerleaders, n.o.body going for the other gun in the room.
In a battle of brute strength, Testosterone had the edge. He pulled the bat free, sent Boricio sailing to the floor with a swift kick to his chest, then landed the first blow to Boricio"s ribs before he was halfway up.
Boricio fell back to the floor, just as the tip of Testosterone"s boot clipped him beneath his chin. Another half-inch or so and the f.u.c.ker would"ve broken his jaw.
"You"re gonna wanna stop right there." Charlie said.
Well how about that? Janie got a gun. Looks like someone just made the highlight reel on Sportscenter.
"Shoot him!" Boricio yelled.
"No, no, no," Testosterone shook his head and wagged his finger back and forth. "I"m the only thing that can keep you alive right now, believe you me. You all are dead the minute you step out this door. But you shoot this f.u.c.ker here," he gestured toward Boricio, "then you and everyone in this room gets to see the only future there is left."
"Why"d you bring us here to start with?" Charlie asked.
"No, I"m not answering your questions until you put a bullet in this greaseball," Testosterone said, "This is your one chance to join us. Or join the dead. Your choice, kid."
Boricio turned to Charlie. "Now I know you"re too smart to believe a single word this f.u.c.ktard is saying. He brought us here to kill us, all of us, and that"s what he"s gonna do. He"s the c.u.n.t hair who ordered you tied up; I"m the one who set you free."
Charlie closed his left eye and steadied his aim toward Testosterone.
"Stop," Manny said, "Think about what you"re doing, man. This guy is a monster." He looked at Boricio. "Think about what you"ve seen and heard since you"ve been in here. I mean, the guy just used me as a human shield. It"s only a matter of time before he turns on any or all of us. We"re only here to help him get from point A to B. He won"t care what happens to us at all once we"re out of this place."
Boricio laughed. "Awesome job, Captain Obvious." He turned to the rest of the Team Boricio. "Every word he says is true. I am one gen-u-ine f.u.c.ker of a Frankenstein. And yeah, I do need all of you to help me escape, and I really don"t see us all playing house once we get outta here. But true as that all is, it"s even truer that none of you is leaving here without a fair hand of help. And yours truly is a whole Hands Across America right now. I won"t kill you, because you"re all on my team. I killed that f.u.c.ker earlier because he was a turncoat. Anyone else want to be a free agent; I"ll kill them, too. Because that"s what it takes to protect the team."
He turned to Manny. "And no disrespect intended. I a.s.sessed as best I could. You were the only thing gonna keep the five of us alive in the seconds I had. Just good math is all."
Manny glared at Boricio.
I"ll have to end him anyway. He don"t wanna be on Team Boricio, and I don"t need no cancer creeping through the group.
Two shots rang through the room and Testosterone dropped to the floor. Charlie stood there, shaking.
"I had to shoot him," Charlie said. "He was reaching for his gun."
"Good boy!" Boricio hollered. He walked over to the Colt on the ground, picked it up, handed it to Adam, then turned to the group. "We ready to roll?"
Manny grabbed the gun from Testosterone"s holster. Boricio went to the door, looked into the narrow hallway outside, then said, "We"re clear," motioning the gang through the threshold. Manny was last to pa.s.s. Soon as he did, he felt the barrel of Boricio"s bat pressed against his skull.
"Gonna need your gun," Boricio said.
Boricio held his hand out and Manny filled it without argument. Boricio handed the gun to Jack, then turned to Manny.
"Despite that little bulls.h.i.t back there, I"ve every intention of letting you live. However, I sure as h.e.l.l don"t want my biggest critic holding a gun and walking behind me. We get more weapons, maybe you get to earn yours back. Besides," Boricio patted his bat. "If I can go without one, you can, too. Now, chop chop." Boricio waved his hand toward the hallway.
They stepped into a short hallway without any doors or windows. On the far side was a set of six steps leading to an angled wooden door.
They"d been held in a bas.e.m.e.nt.
Whatever ugly the end of the world hadn"t managed to kill was waiting right on the other side of the cellar door.
TEAGAN MCLACHLAN.
Oct 17 morning Winding, Georgia "What do you mean your father murdered someone?" Teagan asked. Jade was sitting on the bed next to her, cross-legged. "You mean he"s not a cop or government agent or something?"
Jade shook her head. "He was a mid-level manager at an investment firm. He was a workaholic, burned out, barely present at home most of the time. Then one day out of nowhere, he started talking about people following him. He said he was worried about us, and that we needed to be careful. Said there were "agents" watching him and if anyone came around asking questions or asking us to go with them, to say nothing, and escape the second we got the chance. One day he was at the office, and went totally ape s.h.i.t. Didn"t just shoot one person, but four."
Teagan"s tongue wouldn"t work while her brain tried to make sense of what Jade was revealing.
"It was all over the evening news. On a Friday afternoon, right there in the parking garage, he killed four people. He told my mom they were secret agents, but that part wasn"t reported. His lawyer claimed it was a psychological collapse caused by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from when he was in Iraq. It never went to trial. He copped an insanity plea and was placed in an inst.i.tution."
Teagan found herself suddenly staring at her recent life through a new filter - had the men in the store been a genuine threat? What about the helicopter and the people aboard it? She"d had a hard enough time accepting that Ed had killed so many people to protect them from possible threats. But what if none of the people were really a threat to begin with? What if all the people he"d killed were innocent? All the people he"d killed for her? Her headache went from dull throb to roaring thunder as she sifted through what Jade was saying.
"Oh my G.o.d. I don"t even know what to say... Did you and your mom visit him?"
"We did at first, but then he ..."
The bedroom door opened, it was Ed and Ken, severing Jade"s words mid-sentence.
"We"re back," Ken said. "We found a few guns, but not a whole lot of ammo."
Ed said nothing, eyes on Teagan, as if he sensed they"d been discussing him, that maybe his daughter gave him up.
"So, what"s the plan?" Jade asked.