Whitley Strieber - The Omega Point

He went back to the Stryker.

“One KIA,” he called out. “Driver. The other three are gone.” He pulled himself into the vehicle and commanded them to get moving.

As they went on down the road the general found himself feeling kind of sick. There was something about the two guys who had gone up in that thing that he didn’t like. Not the fact that he’d lost men, although that was a pain, for sure, but the way they had looked as they ascended, like saints or some damn thing. That was it, a couple of beautiful young saints. He was a Christian and all that. Damn right, and screw the opposition. You weren’t with Jesus, you needed your heart cut out.

But he didn’t like saints. You weren’t gonna win a war with damn saints in your army.

He hit his driver on the shoulder. “What’s our ETA?”

“We don’t have any holdups, three hours.”

That would be well after dark, such as it was with that violet thing, if it came back.

As the vehicle sped along, he found his mind going to his most recent wife, to Sally. Pretty, not beautiful, so why had he married her? Couldn’t tell her no, was the main reason.

She went on and on, wanted this, wanted that. Expert in one thing: being disappointed.

He just got so damn mad sometimes, and leave it to a woman to bring out the worst in you.

So what happens when you’re isolated in a survival redoubt and you command the security force and you off your wife? They put her in the freezer is what happens, and good-bye.

Too bad he hadn’t brought a bottle on this little frolic. He needed a bottle. He always needed a goddamn bottle. Essential carry, soldier, forget it again, just blow your own head off.

One thing, the Acton Clinic meant maybe getting something that would get him out of this mess, and maybe the whole Blue Ridge group. Too late for the rest, probably. But the Seven Families were at Blue Ridge, plus the cream of America, so they were first in line, anyway.

“Any response from Mack?”

“No, Sir.”

Never mind, they’d be there soon enough. If those bastards had offed Mack, though, there was going to be a slight change in plans. He would still kill them, of course, but slow. Damn slow.

Mack had thought that he would kidnap Caroline Light and possibly David Ford, but he had not anticipated that Caroline would start re-creating the portal as immediately as she had, or move nearly so fast. And he had not understood, until he saw them together, that they were so tender toward one another. Now, he would definitely take Ford. Torture is a reliable form of interrogation in only one instance: when you torture the lover and question the subject.

Because of the attack, Mack was no longer locked down, and he had been able to slip out and watch her. He stood in the shadows on the stairway that led into the recreation area.

Without knowing it, she had made this a race. Either her painting got finished and they used it—however that was to be done—or the townspeople invaded and gave Mack the chance he needed.

Except for one thing. They would not use it because he was going to prevent it. He would destroy the painting again and this time he would kill her as well. Far better, though, if the deserving got the benefit of the thing.

In the darkness across the room, hidden in the red shadows, Katie was also watching, and she felt every endearing touch between the lovers like a knife skewering her heart.

As the new star had shone its baleful light through the high windows of the rec room, her jealousy had festered into hate, and then into the truth of her soul: the pathological, murderous rage that was her great hidden flaw.

Katrina had a secret. She had killed. She had killed more than once. First, when she was a child, she had killed a boy called Jerry Flournoy. It had happened during a celebration bonfire at Camp Oscalana.

They had just finished the musical, and parents and kids were sitting around in congratulatory mode. The show had been Annie, and Jerry Flournoy had directed and played Bert Healy, and he had been the one who had kept Katrina from being Annie.

She had slid a brand out of the fire, and let it fall against the leg of his costume. She had not realized that it was made of rayon, and he had burned to death. Nobody thought it was anything but an accident, and he should have rolled, he should never have tried to run down to the lake, he should have known that. But she had done it and she had never regretted it, because his agony and his death had filled a hole in her heart. His fire had cooled her jealousy. She had forgotten his cries, his racing, leaping death in a shower of sparks and flailing limbs. But the odor that had hung over the camp she would never forget, the honey stench of vengeance.

She had killed Jerry Flournoy and it had been a good thing to do, good for her soul, so when another cruel and hostile person—this one a man thief—had appeared in her life, she had killed her, too. She had backed over Patricia Dickerson while she was at the mailbox. What she remembered from that one was the crunch of the bones, and she enjoyed remembering it. Patty had taken her Tom. Her Tom. And this bitch Caroline, she had taken her David. Her David.

An accidental fire. A hit-and-run. Now, a slashing in a clinic full of psychotics—she would get away with this one, too. Both of them, the bitch and the ungrateful bastard.

For his part, Mack was quietly aware of her presence in the room, and watching her intently.

It was four thirty in the morning. The star would set before the sun rose, and there would be a period of darkness then. Things like night-vision equipment were all fried, so if the town was going to strike, that would most likely be when they came.

As he watched the drama unfolding below from the landing—the painting going on, the watcher preparing to strike—he began to hear sounds of movement from the patient area upstairs.

Worse, Katrina apparently heard it, too, because she started going closer to Caroline and David. Mack needed them alive—for a time.

Where in hell were those townies? God, if they didn’t come, this was going to be a mess.

Katrina had gotten a knife from the kitchen, and if she could, she’d put it first in Caroline’s spleen, which was full of blood. Puncture it and you had a dead body on your hands almost as fast as with the heart, and the spleen was more vulnerable. As a nurse, she knew that stabbing somebody in the heart was more difficult than it appeared, because of the breastbone in front and the spine in back. The body protected its heart. Going for the spleen was easier and just as efficient.

As she moved closer, she brushed the back of a chair. It made only the tiniest sound, but this was more than enough to make David turn around.

As he did so, she dropped to the floor. He looked out across the room for some time. The light coming in the windows from the new star was a little brighter than moonlight, but not so much that you couldn’t hide in its shadows.

David came toward her. There was something in his hand—a gun, she thought. But first he’d talk, he wasn’t going to shoot anybody except as a last resort, she didn’t think… which somehow made her hate him all the more.

She could see his legs now. He’d paused just the other side of one of the bridge tables. All right, if he came around that table, she was going for him and hopefully she’d be fast enough to neutralize the gun.

In the distance, there was a ripping sound. A machine gun on the perimeter, she thought.

David heard it, too, and hurried back to Caroline and spoke softly to her, then sat down. His gun remained in his hand.

Carefully—very carefully—Katrina worked her way out from under the table. Rising just enough to get them in view, she saw that the bastard had not been distracted by whatever was happening outside. He still stared out into the room.