Michelle Gagnon - The Gatekeeper

“Fine, make the call.” Syd stood and grabbed her backpack. “Let’s get on the road, I told Maltz we’d be there in an hour. And don’t forget the food.”

Randall heaved again. The convulsions were so violent it felt as if his insides were being ripped apart.

Afterward he sat back, wiping his mouth and gasping. The rational part of his brain knew this was largely psychosomatic. The gamma radiation dose he’d received would induce nausea three to six hours after exposure, but it wouldn’t make him this ill. But the stress of the situation combined with the knowledge that he had, at most, weeks left to live was affecting him.

A knock at the bathroom door. “Stop stalling, Grant,” Dante growled.

Randall climbed shakily to his feet. He hauled himself over to the sink, splashed some water on his face, and rinsed out his mouth. The mirror above it was badly cracked, rending his face into a thousand fragments. Which pretty much matched how he felt.

Randall wiped his face with a rough paper towel and trudged back outside. Dante had been unable to find another volunteer for sentry duty so he was working alone. He’d been warned that if he tried to escape or dragged his heels, he’d be shot and his family would be raped and killed. Not that he needed the warning after the show of strength earlier.

As Randall worked, his thoughts focused on what he could expect in the coming days and weeks, the gradual deterioration of his body in the face of acute radiation poisoning. Vomiting was the first sign, followed by radiation burns to exposed skin. After that, a latent phase of five to ten days before he started shedding hair. The massive loss of white blood cells would weaken his immune system, inducing fatigue and leaving him susceptible to infection. If he survived that, the real fun began: uncontrollable bleeding in the mouth, under his skin and in his kidneys; sterility; internal hemorrhaging; complete destruction of bone marrow; gastric and intestinal tissue damage. Near one hundred percent fatality rate within fourteen days. Although chances were he’d take a bullet through the temple before much of that came to pass.

Randall pulled his suit back on, knowing full well that he was kidding himself. He might as well strip down and wrap himself in cellophane for the good it would do. It was warm inside the warehouse even without the heat coming off the source, and sweat poured down his back, adding to the flu-ish symptoms. Randall pictured Audrey and Bree at her mother’s house, sitting on the couch watching television, completely unaware of the threat outside their door. His darling Madison was probably already dead. He’d fucked everything up, and for what? A little money. He’d traded the lives of himself, his family and countless others for a grand total of $160,000. Pathetic.

His limbs felt heavy as he worked the robotic arms, trying to see through the tears behind his mask.

Jake clenched his jaw as Syd wove through traffic. They’d turned off the main highway onto a smaller two-lane road. Apparently Syd regarded the double-line separating them from oncoming cars as more of a friendly guideline than a mandate. Jake instinctively braced himself against the dashboard as she swerved blindly around a truck, skidding into the breakdown lane as a sedan bore down on them. Seemingly unperturbed, she jetted back across both lanes, ignoring the protesting bleats of multiple horns.

“Be nice to get there in one piece,” Jake said tightly.

“CIA driver training. Best in the world,” Syd replied, shooting him a look.

“I’m willing to bet your insurance company doesn’t agree,” Jake said.

“Relax. We’re almost there.” Syd glanced at the GPS then hit the gas, taking a curve at seventy miles per hour.

Ten minutes later they were a mile from the farmhouse. Syd slowed. An acrid smell seeped through the car vents.

“Maybe someone’s burning trash,” Jake said. Syd didn’t respond, steering onto an unpaved access road. The car bounced over sinkholes, tires kicking up gravel behind them. The smell of smoke was unmistakable now. Light glinted off a large object up ahead. When they got closer, Jake recognized it: the team’s white van. The front was crushed, bumper wrapped around a fence post, windshield shattered. A thin trail of smoke wound out the window, curling and rotating as it ascended.

Syd stopped the car fifty feet away. Jake drew his gun and got out, staying low as he jogged forward. Syd darted ahead of him. They slowed as they approached. The stench here was terrible, sharp and tangy, burnt upholstery mixed with something else.

Jake checked the interior, popping his head up quickly: empty. He sidled around to the driver’s side and yanked the door handle, letting it swing wide while he stayed out of range. He counted to three, then ducked his head inside. Someone had torched the interior. Broken glass on the passenger side, and the seat was smoldering. Jake winced at the smell.

“They used a Molotov cocktail to force them out of the van,” Syd said. She walked further down the road, panning her eyes across the ground. “Skid marks and bullet casings. Looks like we missed the party.”

“So you think they got them?”

“One of them at least,” Syd replied. She was about fifteen feet away, standing beside a pile of brush. Jake trotted over to join her. One of the team members lay on top of a patch of rotting leaves. Half of his face was scorched, the rest of him unrecognizable. An assault rifle was still clenched in his hands.

“Burned alive,” Jake said. “Jesus.”

“He took a couple with him,” Syd said softly. “Good man.”

Jake followed her gaze. Ten yards down the road two bodies lay facedown, sprawled where they had fallen. He approached carefully, keeping an eye on their hands. When he got closer he saw the sticky pools of muddy blood surrounding them, their leather jackets riddled with bullet wounds. Just past them, two motorcycles lay on their sides at angles to each other.

“So where’s the rest of the team?” he asked, glancing around. The surrounding countryside was eerily still. The sting of something burning still irritated his nostrils.

“Let’s get to the house,” Syd said briskly, turning to walk back toward the car. Halfway there she froze. “Hear that?”

Jake listened hard. “Thunder?”

Syd had already bolted for the car, barely waiting for Jake to dive into the passenger seat before gunning the engine.

“We can’t rush in there without a plan,” Jake said as she tore down the road.

“We don’t have time for one. We’re probably already too late.”

Jake opened his mouth to argue, then froze as they rounded a bend. At a break in the barbed wire fence lining the access road, a narrow driveway led through a grove of trees. The driveway dead-ended at a building awash in a flame, consumed by a pulsing heat that produced the roaring noise they’d heard.

“Oh my God,” Jake said. “Please don’t let them be in there.”

Around noon the tension in the house ticked up. The commando-boys were antsy, they kept rechecking things they’d examined a minute before. One of them paced until his buddy glared at him, raising an eyebrow in their direction. Then he sat down, knees jiggling. Madison wanted to scream. They were sitting here waiting to get attacked.

“Why don’t we just leave?” Madison asked again. Her mother shot her a look. She ignored it. “This is nuts. If you only saw two of them, we could get in the van and drive away.”

“They’ll follow us. We’re in a defensible position here,” Maltz said. “On the road we’re vulnerable.”

“So we drive to the police station, tell them what’s going on. They’re probably looking for us now anyway, right?” Madison looked at each of them in turn. “They’ll keep us safe.”