Charlie and Adam nodded, then split, each one taking an opposite side of the hangar. Bullets smashed against the hanger"s corrugated metal walls, some bouncing off, some ripping through, as Boricio searched through four trucks and found exactly d.i.c.k. He circled back to the first truck, and tore the large plastic panels from the top and bottom of the steering column and pulled the wiring from inside. He looked up just in time to see a survivalist f.u.c.k appear from nowhere, grabbing Charlie in a headlock and putting a gun to his head.
"Outta the truck!" the f.u.c.ker yelled at Boricio.
Boricio didn"t even need his thinking cap. Adam slipped behind the toady and bashed the f.u.c.ker"s skull in with the bat.
Team Boricio is getting better and better.
"Great job, boys!" Boricio hollered through the open window of the truck, slapping his hand on the roof. "One more minute and we"ll be outta this b.i.t.c.h!"
Boricio dug his nail across the top of the wire"s coating until the metal was exposed, then twisted the ends together. The dashboard lights came on and Boricio howled again.
Charlie opened the hangar doors, as Adam fired shots outside. Boricio revved the engine and drove up to the doors. "Get in!" he yelled and Charlie and Adam each jumped in on opposite sides. Boricio floored the gas and the truck roared from the hanger.
Several dozen survivalist f.u.c.ks were lined up near the front gate, waiting with rifles aimed and empty sh.e.l.ls flying from the side as bullets tore through the night. At least another two dozen soldiers were spread throughout the compound and the entire place was lit like gay Christmas.
Boricio mowed through any survivalists stupid enough to stand in the way, keeping his head low as bullets kissed the metal in a symphony of deafening dings. Bullets that found the windshields hardly left a scratch.
"Woo-hoo!" Boricio hollered. "Nice of them f.u.c.kers to armor the truck for us, eh boys?" He turned to the back seat. Adam was quiet but smiling. Charlie"s grin took up half the back seat.
Boricio spun the truck and aimed for the gate, which didn"t stand a chance when Boricio barreled through it going 40 MPH six seconds later.
The truck flew up and over the small lip at the edge of the gate, caught air, then landed on the street, fishtailing a bit before Boricio got control of the wheel. d.a.m.n, it felt good to hit concrete.
Boricio glanced in the rearview and saw another truck, surprisingly close behind.
"Ha!" Boricio laughed. "That all them redneck f.u.c.kers got? You boys ain"t worried, are you?" He turned to the back seat.
Adam looked behind him at the truck, then back up at Boricio and shook his head.
Charlie leaned forward. "Anyone know how to use this thing?" He had a grenade in the palm of his hand. "I lifted it from the soldier in the garage after Adam shot him."
Boricio laughed then pounded the dashboard.
"Holy s.h.i.t you little f.u.c.ker! Look who just stepped up to claim MVP!" Boricio grinned at Charlie through the rearview. "Now I ain"t no expert, but I say you just lean out the window, pull the pin, release the spoon, then chuck that f.u.c.ker behind you. Just make sure you throw it outside the window or we"re gonna be on the worst episode ever of Funniest Home Videos."
Charlie nodded, then rolled down the window, grinning ear to ear. "Die f.u.c.kERS!" he yelled, pulling the pin and dropping the grenade onto the highway.
For a moment, it seemed as if nothing would happen. The truck was too close and it looked like Charlie dropped too early. But just as Boricio was starting to think he"d have to outdrive the f.u.c.kers, the grenade did its job, taking out the back of the gunmen"s truck, causing the truck"s headlights to swerve out of sight in the rearview.
"Woo-hoo!" Boricio yelled. "If Moses saw the look on your two faces, he would"ve had to add an extra commandment!"
They roared into the night, kings of the f.u.c.king road.
BRENT FOSTER.
Brent had eaten both Pop-Tarts in the foil wrapper and was still hungry. He returned to the kitchen, grabbed a Twinkie, then sank back into his chair.
He laughed at the cliche of eating a Twinkie at the end of the world. Truth was, he could think of far worse foods to be stuck with into an eternity. Like those cans of weird meat that looked like flesh from another planet. That would suck if that"s all there was left. He hoped more Twinkies than cans of meat were sitting on store shelves.
As he swallowed the last of the cake, Brent found himself wondering if Ben had ever tried one of the famous Hostess treats. He and Gina were strict about only giving him healthy food, except the occasional cookie. But even those were homemade oatmeal raisin, not some hydrogenated sugary wad of fat. The more Brent thought about it, the more certain he was that his three year old had never tasted a Twinkie, which made him sad. Every child should have a Twinkie at least once.
Brent started thinking of all the other firsts his son would never have - first day of school, first love, first heartbreak, first job, the first time he realized what he wanted to do with his life, followed by a dozen or so changes of mind. Brent had tried not to dwell on his family. Tried not to imagine their dead eyes staring back at him from nowhere. Tried to imagine they were somewhere, anywhere, other than that rotting highrise of death in Times Square.
Trying wasn"t succeeding, though.
He was no longer certain they were alive. A h.e.l.l of an admission, even if only to himself. It was surrender, and a father wasn"t supposed to quit on his family.
He closed his eyes, tried to think of anything else, and saw Joe"s dead eyes looking at him just before he attacked. Luis was right. Joe had been infected by those creatures. How or why, he had no idea. It seemed like a parasitic infection, like an alien in a movie infecting someone before taking control of their body.
He wondered if Luis had taken the bandage off yet. The shower was still running upstairs. As if in response to his question, something thumped and rolled above him. Luis had dropped something in the shower - the flashlight, Brent figured, unless Luis showered with the shotgun. He waited for another sound, but only heard the hum and patter of the shower. He thought about checking on Luis, going to the door and asking if everything was okay, but something outside caught his attention.
A light on in the car.
Between the fog, and the frosted windows of the car, the light was mostly a blur, but it captured and held Brent"s attention. Shadows moved against the window, slow at first, then fast.
Something was happening in the car. And then he heard the unmistakable shrieks and clicking of the monsters.
The hairs on the back of Brent"s neck stood on end. He gripped the pistol and searched the darkness.
Suddenly, the car"s taillights came on, and the car reversed, quickly, straight toward the house. The parking lot was nearly 70 yards away, but the car was in full speed. As the car drew closer, Brent saw two of creatures on top, riding the car from the roof as it barreled straight at the front windows.
"Luis!" Brent screamed, clearing the stairs two at a time, and pounding on the door. Before he could say a word, a loud crash shook the house as the car crashed, in reverse, straight into the living room.
Luis burst out of the door, naked, shotgun in hand, eyes wild and confused, like he"d been snapped from a daze.
"What the h.e.l.l?" Luis said, pushing his way past Brent. One of the creatures was at the bottom of the stairs, stunned, getting to its feet.
Luis blew its head off in one shot, then kicked it out of the way as he ran naked into the living room, aiming at the second creature on the hood, which was still screeching at whoever was in the car.
"f.u.c.k you!" Luis screamed, unleashing another shot, hitting it in the chest. The creature flew back, and out the hole in front of the house. Luis gave chase, firing into the darkness.
Brent scanned the living room with his gun, making sure no other creatures were in the house, then turned to see a dark-haired woman pa.s.sed out, face against the deployed air bag, and a young Asian girl, about six, in the front seat. Her mouth was wide and face red, crying, "Mommy," over and over while struggling to push the airbag from herself and her mother.
Luis came back inside, and looked inside the car. "She okay?" he said, running to the driver"s side, and opening the door. Brent opened the pa.s.senger side, and the girl screamed, backing up toward her mother as if Brent were going to harm her.
"It"s okay," he said, "The monsters are gone."
Luis, on the other side, felt for a pulse on the girl"s mother.
"She"s alive," he said, glancing up at Brent, before racing upstairs. He returned with the first aid kit, wearing a pair of black jeans, his body still wet.
The woman raised her head, then murmured something unintelligible through her groggy haze.
"You"re okay," Luis said, rushing to the woman"s side. "You crashed into the house."
"I"m s ... sorry," she said, as her daughter clung to her. The woman embraced her daughter, though she was too weak to do anything other than lightly place her arm on the girl"s back.
Luis helped the mother from the car, the little girl clinging to her the entire time, then ushered her to the love seat which had just missed getting hit by the car, instead of the couch, which was thoroughly destroyed.
Luis approached Brent. "She"s got a small head wound, nothing too bad. I need you to clean it and put a bandage on, okay?"
Brent wondered why Luis would ask him, when Luis was closer. "I"m infected," Luis said, sensing Brent"s confusion.
Brent stared, trying to process the news, as Luis hopped in the woman"s car, drove it from the house, and parked it diagonally to block as much of the house"s gaping wound as he could.
Brent grabbed the first-aid kit, and went to help the woman, but couldn"t stop thinking about what Luis had said.
"What are those things?" the woman asked, sipping from a water bottle, hands shaking.
The girl sat next to her mom, wiping tears from her eyes, traumatized.
"We don"t know," Brent said, "I"m guessing aliens, but definitely can"t say for sure. We ran into a bunch of them in the city this morning. Where are you all coming from?"
"Jersey, near Clifton," the woman said.
They exchanged vanishing stories, though Brent and Luis left out the Times Square bodies and Joe getting infected parts, and definitely left out the part about maybe Luis now being infected, too. They wanted to comfort the mom and her child, not scare the h.e.l.l out of them.
The woman, Jane, a 30-year-old stay-at-home mom, was woken at three in the morning by her six year old, Emily, saying she"d had a bad dream that monsters came to take them away. The girl then asked, "Where"s daddy?" Jane found that her husband, Michael, was missing. So was their cat, Cinnamon. Jane tried to call her husband"s cell, but the power went out. She went door to door in the middle of the night, before realizing the entire block had also vanished.
They went back home, Emily crying the entire time, and turned on the battery-operated radio to see if an emergency broadcast message or something was broadcasting. But all they got was static until they picked up the message regarding Black Island. They waited for a while to see if Michael would come back. When he didn"t, they decided to take a chance and drive to the docks.
"I know they said not to drive at night, but I couldn"t wait any longer," Jane said. "I had no idea there were these... aliens out there. What do you think happened?"
Luis told her about the dreams he"d been having, not that it offered much explanation for reality.
Outside, the morning sun had risen on the horizon, though it was only a blur lost in the low-hanging fog.
"So what do we do now?" Jane asked, hugging Emily.
"We wait for the ferry and hope no more of those aliens show up," Luis said, staring out where the window had been, lost in thought.
"I want my daddy," Emily cried, leaning against her mother.
Brent felt his heart break while staring at the small girl, so delicate and shaken. He wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay, that she"d see her dad again, and maybe even her cat, Cinnamon. But he"d never been a very convincing liar.
"I know, baby," Jane said, kissing her daughter"s head, "I miss Daddy too."
Though the girl was six, she wasn"t much taller than Ben. Brent thought about giving her the Stanley Train in the pocket of his sweat pants, but truth was, he didn"t want to let it go, even if it might bring joy to another child. Letting it go meant he might never be able to give it to Ben. Instead, he went to the kitchen, and brought them some Pop-Tarts. Jane thanked him and opened the package, handing one of the pastries to Emily.
"Thank you, Mr. Brent," Emily said, reaching out for the Pop-Tart with her tiny hands and taking a tiny bite.
As Jane and Emily sat on the couch, Brent and Luis were in the kitchen, packing the duffle bags with food and supplies. Brent noticed Luis wasn"t wearing a bandage. In fact, his arm looked as if it had never been bitten.
"Where"s the bite?" Brent asked, keeping his voice low enough that it didn"t travel to the living room.
"Gone," Luis said, continuing to pack, clearly not wanting to discuss the subject.
"Lemme see," Brent said.
"Nothing to see," Brent said, "The bite healed itself."
"But you just said you were infected. It looks okay to me."
"It"s not okay," Luis said. He stopped packing and met Brent"s eyes. "There"s something in me."
"What?"
"Look," he said, holding up his right forearm.
And then Brent saw the shapes swimming beneath his skin.
"What the?"
"I don"t know, but I"ve gotta get outta here. I can"t be around you all when I turn."
"No," Brent said, "I"m not leaving your side, especially when we"re so close to being rescued."
"Listen dude, I appreciate it. Really, I do. But those two out there, they didn"t sign up for this s.h.i.t. I can"t put you all at risk."
"We"ll get you help from Black Island," Brent said. "Maybe they know what those things are. Maybe they can cure you?"
"Yeah, and maybe they"ll lock me up to run experiments on me too. I"m not gonna be some lab rat with doctors poking me and s.h.i.t. I"m fine with dying. h.e.l.l, I didn"t expect to wake up on October 16. So, I"m already living bonus time, extra lives, and all that s.h.i.t. I"m just gonna go off and see how things happen, far away from where I can do anyone harm."
"Wait a second," Brent said. "What if what you said is true? What if they do run experiments on you and stuff? Maybe they can find a cure. Maybe you can help others who are infected? I don"t wanna sound all new-agey, especially when I don"t believe that s.h.i.t, but what if you were infected for a reason. Maybe that"s why you"re still here, to be cured, to help others get cured?"
Luis stared at him, silent for a full minute.
"I hate when you make sense," Luis said. "Okay, I"ll stay, and get on that ferry, but you"ve gotta promise that if I show the slightest sign of changing, you will shoot me in the head."
"Jesus, that"s some promise."
"Just promise."
"Okay," Brent said, "I promise."