William Weber - System Failure

Dakota climbed into the back seat with the hunting rifle, leaving Shadow to retreat into a corner. She opened the rear window and fed the barrel out.

“Steady,” she yelled, struggling to put her eye to the scope. The enemy vehicle was coming up fast, its engine snarling.

Dakota rattled off a shot and it sailed about five feet over the roof. With practiced ease, she worked the bolt and fed another round into the chamber. Her eye returned to the scope.

With both hands gripping the wheel, Nate spotted a cluster of wrecks up ahead. Some were not buried, but many of the vehicles closest to the left lane―the only lane of traffic still open―bore nothing more than a light dusting. He grew further alarmed when he saw that in many of the wrecks the driver’s side door was open. It appeared they were being led into a dead end, one where many a previous chase victim had met their end. But there was more. The back end of a Honda hatchback jutted out onto the road, leaving a space not nearly wide enough for the Beast to pass through.

“We’re not gonna make it,” Nate said, quickly weighing his options. He could either go full out or slow down and fight. The second option was the riskiest, since the pickup chasing them would likely opt to crash into their rear and then finish off the wounded at their leisure.

Another crack from Dakota’s rifle was followed by a curse. Nate slammed the brakes, making the Beast fishtail violently.

“Didn’t I say keep her steady?”

The truck stopped and Nate reached back, retrieving the G36. He popped the door and stood on the step rail, taking careful aim at the vehicle roaring towards them. Without much conscious thought, Nate opted to go for the driver, rather than the engine. He and Dakota both fired simultaneously. Two tiny holes penetrated the windshield, kicking up a spray of blood inside the cab. The passenger, his left cheek now painted red, his mouth gaping with fear, grabbed for the wheel, tugging it toward him just a little too sharply. The pickup with the large wheels swerved to the right, climbing up the low end of a blue BMW convertible and into the air. It landed somewhere out of sight with a crash, rolling over repeatedly, ejecting men and weapons like an amusement ride gone haywire.

Dakota stared through her scope down the length of highway they’d just covered.

“You see anyone else following us?” Nate asked, his mouth dry, his heart hammering in his chest. Arctic wind buffeted his exposed face, but the burst of adrenaline surging through his body kept him from feeling it.

“None that I see,” she replied, pulling her eye up from the scope to look at him.

Nate put the truck in drive and pushed up to the hatchback, giving it gas as the Beast spun its tires in an effort to shift the obstruction out of their way. They weren’t getting enough traction. At least not at first. Slowly, it started to give as the Beast began to live up to its name.

A minute later, they had shoved the obstructing vehicle aside. Still processing what had just happened, Dakota ran an unsteady hand over Shadow’s head and across his furry back.

They got only the swiftest of glances at the enemy truck as they pulled away. It was upside down along the shoulder, steam or white smoke rising from the undercarriage, a single wobbly wheel still spinning.

“I must say, that was a great shot I made,” Nate said, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the center console.

Dakota squealed in protest. “What are you talking about? My shot was the one that hit. Yours was like a foot to the right. I mean, at the most you skinned him.”

“Skinned? More like center mass, baby,” he shouted, pumping his fist.

She was right. His shot had gone a touch wide. He would admit it all later, of course, when things were quiet. When her ego was less prone to inflation. That was how the guys at the police academy had done it. Never let the new kid start believing his own hype. The truth was that shot of hers had likely saved their lives, no doubt one of millions of brave and noble acts the world would never know—a single flake lost in a field of snow. Dakota might not be his daughter, but that didn’t stop him from wishing she was.

Back at the nursing home, Holly was marching down a long narrow hallway. She soon reached a metal door with a push bar and was about to hang a right, just as the cook had instructed her, when she felt a cool breeze brush against her face. The metal door was slightly ajar and rattling. A buildup of snow packed against the bottom part of the frame prevented it from closing. Was this where the cook would duck outside to fill his bucket with ice? Where he would get the drinking water―the only nourishment for the poor souls trapped inside.

Withdrawing her pistol, Holly pushed open the door. A powerful gust fought her, jostling it in her grasp, swinging it to and fro. At last she fought back, making her way outside, and stood looking about her.

A path had been shoveled through the snow and it led from the main complex to a smaller structure out back. The snow at her feet was packed down from repeated trips back and forth. She could see on either side of the path where chunks of snow had been scooped up by the cook’s large bucket. But the main focus of her attention was on the structure up ahead. It wasn’t larger than a one-car garage with a single door and beside that a window frosted with ice.

There was no light on inside. She tried the door handle and found it locked. Next, she rubbed her gloved hand against the pane of glass, slowly clearing away the obstruction. At last, she removed her phone, switched on the light and peered inside.

A haggard face stared back at her and she let out an involuntary squeal of fright. She returned to the window, took another look and saw at once it was not a face that belonged to the living. Her heart beating a racket in her chest, Holly swiveled the light around as far as she could. This wasn’t a garage. It was a charnel house, packed with dozens of dead bodies. The elderly faces, frozen in agonizing death, all looked much the same. Except for one. A single face among them looked different from all the rest and Holly rose on her tiptoes to get a better look. This younger person was a female wrapped in a dark blazer. Above the breast pocket was a name tag that read ‘Sally Johnson’ and below that ‘Administrator.’

Holly recalled Nurse Louise discussing how Sally had simply upped and left. It was horrifyingly obvious now that the only way anyone left Peaceful Grove was through here, stacked in the back shed like cordwood.

She caught the sound behind her less than a second before she spun, whirling out the pistol. Twenty feet away, the metal push door slammed shut with tremendous force. Whoever had done so was likely racing to the front entrance to lock her out there as well. Given the deep snow, there was no way she’d beat them to it. Instead, Holly started down the path and then climbed up and onto the embankment. She wouldn’t head around the building. She would head for the nearest window. When she came to one less than ten feet away, she used the butt of her pistol to break the glass and climb in. She suddenly found herself in the room of a patient, who began shouting.

“Help! Someone’s trying to kill me. Help!”

Holly ignored the old man, knowing attempting to reason with him would be futile. Moving out into the hallway, she swung left and right to ensure she wasn’t walking into an ambush. Charging through the darkness with her phone flashlight in one hand and her gun in the other, Holly felt her pulse jackhammering in her neck, a million thoughts running through her head all at the same time.

Within seconds she reached the push door leading to the shed and hooked a right.