Anthony DeCosmo - Schism

Over there in that same area, the pursuing Speed-Lion raced along with its eyes on the BMW but still hesitating to attack.

Nina felt a tug on her BDU pants. She lowered into the cockpit of the car.

Gordon told her, "Get buckled up. I want to get off this highway. I want to find somewhere quiet and isolated, like a dead end or something."

"Oh," she sarcastically remarked. "You mean like a trap?"

"Yeah," his eyes gleamed at the suggestion. "A trap. Now hold on!"

Gordon swung the car onto an exit ramp that descended east off the Interstate. The Speed-Lion saw the move and cut across both the southbound and the northbound lanes of 95 in pursuit. Instead of following on the concrete ramp, it leapt the guardrail and descended a grassy embankment a few dozen yards behind the fleeing automobile.

Gordon nearly lost control as he moved them off the ramp onto a neighborhood street, racing by one of the new "In and Out" convenience stores on the corner where the off-ramp met the avenue. That store sat directly in the path of the fast-moving beast.

Instead of slowing…instead of going around…the Speed-Lion crashed through the rear wall of the market and disappeared from view as the black sedan accelerated to escape. The front plate glass windows with neon beer signs and poster board advertisements for homemade cigarettes exploded outward as a monster-sized bullet fired through the entire store. The Speed-Lion never missed a step, erupting from the tunnel it had punched through the market and falling in

behind the BMW.

Gordon hammered the gearshift down and accelerated at full power as the car and the creature that chased it caught up with a herd of migrating automobiles across two lanes heading east and two more heading west. Instead of fast-moving Interstate travelers the chase found itself in the midst of crawling neighborhood drivers moving between sidewalks filled with pedestrians, family shops, and street vendors. A red light held the lanes at a standstill as the action raced toward an intersection.

Nina closed her eyes as Gordon side-swiped a rusting SUV waiting for the green and sped through the stoplight.

The Speed-Lion leapt in the bed of a waiting pick up then soared across the intersection through the air, landing at a fast gallop.

Far behind the chase near the blasted-through remains of the "In and Out" convenience store, the black Suburban that had observed the battle on the Interstate from afar swerved off the ramp and onto the side street with Hobbs driving and Roos impatiently tapping his knee. The remaining Witiko-the one that had fired the unlucky rocket and who controlled the slaver device on his wrist-flew above the Suburban's roof.

In the meantime, the Speed-Lion tried to close for the kill but Gordon expertly swerved through the gridlock using the mess to block the enemy's approach. Frustrated, the creature bound over a hatchback, crushing its roof, then tried running on the sidewalk to avoid traffic where it tossed pedestrians aside.

"Here," Gordon whispered more to himself than Nina, "this will do."

He slammed the brakes, released, and steered hard to the left, skidding sideways as they left behind the markets and vendors of the main drag and sped between neglected warehouses and a defunct U-Haul dealership. The enemy followed first at a distance but then closer as the lack of obstacles allowed it to reach top speed.

The black SUV and flying Witiko Skytrooper also fell in behind.

Gordon kept the gas pedal to the floor, topping eighty miles per hour on a street designed for less than half that in the old world. Rusted cars, bent street signs, and trash-filled parking lots blurred in the side windows.

"Gordon," Nina noted their path and warned. "Dead end."

Ahead they saw the silhouette of a raised highway, no doubt I-95 but no on-ramp invited a merge; no exit presented itself. Instead, a concrete barrier wall separating the quiet street from the confines beneath the Interstate offered a sudden stop as the only option while the right side of the road dropped off steeply into a drainage ditch and the left side was dominated by a featureless, cinderblock exterior belonging to a building whose purpose had died with Armageddon.

Gordon laughed under his breath. Behind them the Speed-Lion slowed as it sensed its quarry to be trapped.

"Gordon!"

His hands worked fast as he depressed the clutch, turned the steering wheel, and pulled the emergency brake. The BMW 540i's ass-end swung around while its front felt glued in place. Nina's head banged hard off the passenger's side window to the point that she saw stars. The tires erupted in torched rubber.

Everything stopped.

The car ended facing precisely the way it had come. The engine idled. The monster that followed slowed to a trot then held its position a dozen yards in front of its prey, blocking escape and pacing side to side., as if something had tugged on its leash.

"Just as I thought," Knox said as he spied the approaching Suburban.

"W-what?" Nina held a hand to the bump on her head.

Gordon reached across her lap to the glove compartment. There he found a small sack holding a shiny metal sphere about the size of a baseball and sporting a red button.

Knox told Nina, "Get out with your hands up, but leave your door open."

"Huh?"

"Just do it. You'll know when it's time to jump back in."

Gordon exited with his hands held high, although one of those hands palmed the device he had taken from Omar Nehru before abandoning Pennsylvania.

The Suburban stopped alongside the pacing Speed-Lion. A chubby policeman stepped from behind the wheel with a revolver pointed in their direction. The Witiko Skytroop with the slaver device descended and hovered a few feet above the pavement with his jet pack hissing and his legs bent as if auditioning for the part of Peter Pan in a stage play.

Gordon waited for the other door to open. When he saw who got out, he nodded his head in a manner that suggested admiration for how well they had all been deceived.

"Now looky here," Ray Roos said. "If it ain't Gordon Knox holed up in a corner."

"Ray Roos," Knox volleyed. "I always figured Evan had a friend working at the estate. Jones couldn't do it by himself. Got to admit, never guessed it was you."

"Oh, now, Mr. Knox, we all do what we have to do."

"Like what Jones was doing at I.S. Central in D.C., the day Trevor was killed?"

Roos smiled, "Now, c'mon Gordon, you don't think I'm going to stand here and read you the whole laundry list, do you? Things only work like that in James Bond movies."

"Of course not," Gordon admitted. "But you've already given me what I needed to know for now. I'm sure it will all come clear in a few days."

"Well, now, see that's the problem, Gordon. I let you sneak away up in PA 'cause I had to do things the boss' way. But now, well, I'm just going to have to get this over with. But which would you prefer: a couple of bullets or this thing over here to rip you up?"

The pacing Speed-Lion's eyes focused not only on Gordon and Nina, but also on the men standing to its side. Gordon could nearly feel the rage the beast felt for those who had entrapped it; enslaved it. Nonetheless it would follow the command from the Witiko to kill. Unless, of course, that command failed to transmit. "Hey Ray, do you know how that slaver-device thing the Witiko has works?" Roos-unimpressed-shook his head, "No." Gordon smiled. "Omar figured it out."

Gordon hit the button on the silver ball. An unheard, unseen blast of radio waves cut the control between the Witiko's wrist and the implant in the monster's skull. It reacted immediately to its freedom and grabbed the nearest meal-the chubby policeman-in its gaping jaws. Hobbs' revolver discharged harmlessly in the air.

Knox and Nina reacted nearly as fast. He got behind the wheel and she grabbed her rifle from the car.