F Wilson: Midnight Mass

Carole stared in horror at the thrashing arms, the foam-flecked lips. It was one thing to plan for their deaths, to imagine them dead. It was something else entirely to witness their death throes.

"Dear God, what have I done?"

JOE . . .

"Let's keep moving," Joe said.

He noticed Carole's sick look. He felt for her, but this was no time for Carole to start second-guessing herself. The old Father Joe might have been appalled, but ex-Father Joe was more fatalistic. It was an ugly scene, but what was done was done. No turning back now.

"Eight," Lacey said. "Your window is shrinking."

Joe checked his watch. He had less than fifty minutes before daysleep took hold. They entered the building and he led Lacey and Carole on a winding course through the prostrate forms in the Empire State's front lobby.

At the elevator banks he stopped when he noticed the closed doors to the local car. He pressed the call button, then stepped back and aimed his pistol at the doors.

He motioned Carole and Lacey to the side. "Be ready to fire. This may not arrive empty."

"But this car is waiting," Carole said, pointing to a set of open doors.

"That's the Observation Deck express. At this point we only want to go to three."

The car arrived empty. Joe got on after Lacey and Carole, stabbed the 3 button, and they were on their way. Mentally he was anxious, but physically he was calm—no butterflies in his gut, no pounding heart. As if his emotions were divorced from his body. Or maybe because his body had entered a new mode of existence, one without adrenaline.

Joe pointed his gun at the doors as the car slowed to a stop on three. They parted to reveal an empty hallway. He touched his fingers to his lips and stepped out. Keeping his pistol raised before him, he approached the open double doors to the security center. He was four feet away when a heavyset Vichy stepped into view.

"About fuckin—"

His eyes widened as he saw them and he was reaching for the pistol in his belt when Joe shot him once in the chest. He staggered back, eyes even wider, and then another shot rang out, catching him below the left eye and snapping his head back. He fell like a tree to lay stretched out on the hall carpet.

Joe glanced at Lacey who had her pistol extended in a two-handed grip.

She smiled. "Just making sure."

He looked at Carol. She clutched her pistol waist high, pointed at the wall. She looked like a startled deer.

Joe stepped into the security area and found the three technicians staring at him in shock. He pointed to the fallen Vichy in the hall.

"Any more like him here?"

They shook their heads.

"No," said the oldest of the three. He looked about sixty with gray hair and a receding hairline. "But there will be soon. He was waiting for his relief so he could go get breakfast."

"His relief's not coming," Joe said. "And breakfast has been canceled."

He allowed himself a moment of congratulation. They'd done it. They'd knocked out the Vichy and captured the Security Center.

Now they had to hold it.

"Who are you?" said the technician. He couldn't seem to pull his gaze from Joe's face.

Joe opened his mouth to speak but Lacey beat him to it.

"Just some nobodies who've come to liberate the building."

"No shit?" said the youngest, who appeared to be in his forties.

"No shit," Lacey agreed. "Who are you three and why are you working for the bloodsuckers?"

"I'm Marty Considine," said the gray-headed one. He pointed to the young one. "This is Mike Leland, and that's Kevin Fowler." The third technician was fat and wore a stained half-sleeve white shirt. He nodded but said nothing.

"As for being here," Considine went on, "we don't have much choice."

"Yeah," said the fat one, Fowler. "Not if we want our wives and kids to live."

Lacey shook her head. "You call this living?"

Leland looked away. "No. But when they slap your kid around and rape your wife in front of you, just to give you a taste of what will happen if you screw up, you get the message."

Joe felt for them, but not terribly. Everyone had suffered. He was scanning the monitors. When he recognized views of the Observation Deck, he said, "We've got one job for you, then you can go back to your families."

"And do what?" said Fowler. His lower lip trembled. "Where can we go?"

"That's up to you. Within half an hour, if all goes well, your services will no longer be needed here. By anyone." He stepped closer to the monitors. "Is there a camera in the stairwell to the Observation Deck?"

Leland began typing on a keyboard. "We've got three there. Which one do you want?"

"The highest—between the eighty-fifth and eighty-sixth if you've got one."

"We do."

"Audio?"

"Just video." He grabbed a mouse and clicked. "Here you go."

A monitor went blank, then cut back in with a view of a door marked 85 in an empty stairwell. A sawed-off shotgun leaned in the corner next to the door.

"Excellent," Joe said.

Leland squinted at the screen. "Hey, somebody's usually guarding the door to eight-five from dawn to dusk."

"We gave him the day off," Lacey said. "Any way of broadcasting from here?"

Considine shook his head. "The building has a huge TV antenna, but that's another department. We're security. We don't know squat about TV transmission."

"It's okay," Joe said, tapping the screen. "We'll tape as planned. Record that one, and then I'll tell you another one to record when I get to the Observation Deck."

"It's true then?" Considine said. "You're really liberating the building?"

"That's the plan," Joe said.

"About time. How many of you are there?"

"Just us," Lacey said.

He stared. "Three? Just three? You've got to be kidding! Are you people crazy?

Joe shrugged. "Probably. But we're already more than halfway to succeeding. We—"

A burst of static from the hallway startled him.

"Security! Security, do you copy?"

Joe tensed. "What's that?"

"One of their two-ways."

Joe stepped out into the hall, found the little walkie-talkie clipped to the dead guard's belt, and turned it off. He returned to the Security Center and faced Carole and Lacey.

"That means at least one of the Vichy is still alive out there. Probably more."

"Well," Lacey said, "we knew from the get-go we wouldn't get them all."

"I don't like leaving you two alone here."

Considine stepped past him. Joe tensed as he picked up the fallen guard's pistol. He worked the slide and chambered a round.

"Who said they're alone? Your ranks just swelled to four."

Joe stared at him. "You know how to use that?"

Considine nodded. "Nam, pal. Eighteen months in country."

Joe liked leaving Carole and Lacey with an armed stranger even less, but sensed he could trust Considine. He didn't have much choice.

"You folks hold the fort here. Lock the door and pull that desk in front of it. Shoot anyone who tries to get in."

"Where are you going?" Considine said.

"Upstairs. I've got a date with Franco."

He glanced at Carole. She had a dazed air about her that worried him. "Carole, are you all right?"

"I'll be fine," she said. "Hurry. You haven't much time."

"I know." He stepped close to her and took her in his arms and held her. He never wanted to leave her.