Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

Uma swung again with the ruined shotgun, but Connor ducked low, then came up with all the strength in both of his arms and plunged the knife to the hilt in Uma’s abdomen.

Connor yanked the knife away, and blood came with it. Uma didn’t even seem to notice. The big bald man dropped the shotgun and came in again with his bare hands. He locked his grip around Connor’s throat, and Connor slashed his forearm—but Uma didn’t care. He was a vengeful machine, his only thought to kill Connor.

Connor’s larynx crumpled like an aluminum beer can. He stabbed Uma again, feeling the blade slip between his ribs and into his side. Foamy red blood came out of Uma’s mouth, but the Butthead continued to squeeze.

Connor’s eyes bulged; he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out. He stabbed again and again. Uma was drenched with his own blood.

Connor began to pass out, when slowly Uma’s eyes froze ahead. He toppled like a great redwood trunk, falling to the dirt at the side of the wagon.

Connor tore himself free, retching and gasping for air. He stepped back, staring down at the wide-eyed corpse of the tanker captain. “You fuck!” He coughed and slammed his hiking boot viciously into Butthead’s kidneys. He kicked Uma again and again, feeling ribs crack and his side cave in. Connor couldn’t release his grip on the big hunting knife, even though the blood made his hands slick.

Suddenly, he remembered Henrietta Soo. She stood by the campfire still holding her flimsy wooden spoon and staring at him in horror.

A slow grin twisted Connor’s mangled face and he set off after her with the knife.

Todd reached the clearing before Heather. He scrambled down the rocks as he spotted Connor sitting on the buckboard of the wagon, cracking the reins. Todd nearly tripped, but kept his balance and yelled, “Hey— Connor ! Stop!”

Connor twisted in his seat as if stunned to hear his name. He looked hideous—blood ran down the side of his face, a dark splotch where his eye had been. He was covered in dirt, soot and blood. Connor yelled at the horses. The wagon lurched forward in a cloud of dust and stones.

Todd heard the horses whinny as he smelled an overpowering smell of burning meat. Reaching the bottom of the rocky slope, Todd clunked forward in his cowboy boots. He tried to get up as much speed as he had when he and Casey Jones had leapt across the space between the buildings.

The wagon moved faster as Todd put on a final burst of speed. Reaching out, he grabbed onto the side of the wagon.

Splinters from the rough siding scraped his hands. He stumbled and tried to grab on with his other hand, but the wagon hit a bump and jerked away from him. Todd crashed into the ground, rolling, trying to keep away from the rear wagon wheel.

The wagon clattered past, and Todd heard a mish-mash of horse’s hoofs, snorting, and then the sound of Connor shouting something unintelligible as he charged away. Todd waited for a moment before pushing himself up.

He heard Heather run up beside him as he inspected his splintered hands. “Oh, Todd—” He ignored her, ticked off that he had let Connor get away.

A cloud of fading dust marked the horses’ progress. Todd turned to view the campsite.

Heather brushed back the hair from her eyes. “What now?”

Todd headed for the campsite. “Let’s check it out.”

The campfire still burned, and Henrietta Soo lay sprawled face-first on the ground beside it. Her arm had fallen into the embers of the fire. Her shirt smoldered, and the skin of her forearm blistered a sickly black.

Todd bent down on watery knees and rolled her over. Connor had slit her throat in a long ragged gash. It looked as if she had bled gallons into the dry dirt.

The deepening dusk blurred all the sharp details and the bright colors, but it took Heather only a moment to find the body of Casey Jones. He was much worse. Connor had butchered him.

Before Todd squeezed his eyes shut, he saw at least half a dozen stab wounds in Casey’s chest and abdomen.

Todd staggered away and vomited into the scrub brush, then fell back. He sat on the rough dirt and stared at nothing. He had never experienced anything like this before. Connor Brooks couldn’t be a human being and do this!

Heather squatted next to him and put her hand lightly on his shoulder. She squeezed it, but Todd barely felt the pressure of her fingers.

“I know I warned you,” she said, “but even I didn’t think he was capable of this. I thought he might take our supplies and steal the wagon but… all the blood!” She shuddered violently, then gasped to herself in disbelief. “I slept with him! I was alone with him for a month. What if I had said the wrong thing? What if he had done that to me?”

Todd’s voice was bitter. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Now he’s gone and we’re alone together.”

Heather stiffened and drew away from him. “This is not what I wanted!” Then she staggered to be by herself. Any thought of a relationship between them would now be forever stained with murder and violence.

After a few moments apart, Todd made his way to Heather. “We’ll never catch him. He’s got three horses. Where do you think he’ll go?”

Heather took a while to respond. “Anywhere he thinks he can use the satellites to his advantage. But that won’t help us.”

“We’ll bury these two,” Todd said, “and then you and I will make our way to White Sands. I’ve come this far, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to turn back, even if I don’t have the satellites.”

Riding high in his tethered hot-air balloon, Lieutenant Bobby Carron stared across the desert, dozing. The first day he had exhilarated in being up in the air, but this was vastly different from flying a fighter jet: standing in an aluminum basket while a blazing fire scorched his back, bobbing at the end of a thousand-foot-long rope coupled with a telegraph wire.

For the past week Bobby had surveyed the surrounding area, staring at every rock and shrub. He checked the horizon with the metal spyglass Dr. Lockwood’s optics workshop had rigged up. He knew the area well enough now to spot anything unusual.

Movement triggered his subconscious. Without thinking, he floated up one level of awareness, letting his mind integrate the area around him. He detected another movement, another… and then scores of them like an army of ants making its way across the valley—right where Rita had predicted it would come.

He felt his pulse race as he made out a column of soldiers appearing in the shimmering heat mirage. By rough count, he guessed General Bayclock had brought a hundred troops, plus support personnel. A few rode horses, but the rest marched in ranks.

Then, far in the west, he saw two other figures, two people alone walking across the flat dizzying desert, headed toward the White Sands facility. Bobby turned his spy glass to them and could barely make out a man and a woman striding along.

Bobby grabbed the portable telegraph unit. He tapped the international signal to drop everything! , attempting to get Juan Romero’s attention: “XVW, XVW, XVW…”

In the west wing of the White House, the Situation Room had once been the showpiece of America’s military-industrial investment in high technology. At one time, media pundits forecasted with uncanny accuracy the level of U.S. response to an international incident by counting the number of pizzas delivered to the Situation Room on any particular night. In the most important city in the nation, at the most important residence, this was without a doubt the most important room.

But now there were no pizzas, no media watchdogs, no technological wizardry. High-definition computer workstations gave way to blackboards, messages scrawled on scraps of paper, and flickering electric light powered by steam-engine generators on the Mall.