Craig Dilouie - The Killing Floor

“That’s a topic best avoided, don’t you think?”

“Agreed,” Rod grins. “And you can call me Rod.”

“Rod it is. I’m Toby. The guys call me Sarge. This is Wendy, my gunner.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Ma’am.”

“Likewise,” she says.

Rod blinks as he shakes her hand, feeling his cheeks burn. Wendy smiles wryly in response. God, this woman is gorgeous . He introduces them to Price and Fielding.

“Anything we can do to help, Rod?” Wilson asks him. “We appear to have the same mission.”

“Let me be clear about something, Toby. Our orders are to bring the man in if we can. We are going to do everything we can to make this happen. If we can’t, well, then I’m afraid we’ll have to put him down. Those orders are not open to discussion or compromise.”

“Understood,” Wilson says with a nod.

“In that case I will take you up on your offer of help,” Rod says. “I could use your vehicle a hundred meters behind us and to the left, in front of the strip mall there, with your shooters deployed around it, out of sight, but accessible, and everyone in gas masks if you’ve got them. Provide rear security, and act as reserve.”

“Happy to do it.”

“What do you know about the man?” the scientist asks them.

“His name is Ray Young,” Wendy says. “We came across his trail yesterday, and we’ve been tracking him. Lost him somewhere after Mechanicsburg.”

“Why were you tracking him?” Fielding wants to know.

“He infected Camp Defiance,” Wilson answers. “We figured he uses spores. And if he’s using spores, it’s something we haven’t seen before, something unique. We thought we might be able to get him to where some scientists could take a look at him. Maybe come up with a cure.”

“That’s why we’re here too,” Dr. Price says.

“Smart thinking,” says Rod.

“Not me,” Wilson says with a grin. “We got a smart aleck kid named Todd on our team.”

“So what are we dealing with here, Sergeant?” Rod says. “Do you know the extent of his influence over the Infected?”

Wilson and Wendy exchange a glance.

“We had to shoot our way through two towns,” Wilson tells him. “The Infected attacked us, with weapons. Some of them had guns .”

“Fascinating,” Dr. Price says.

“I was thinking, horrible ,” Rod says. “If Mr. Young has that kind of command and control over the crazies, he could be a hell of a lot harder to deal with.”

“After Mechanicsburg, we stopped being attacked, so our guess he went to ground between there and Spring Lake, probably up in Milford, which is around a ten-minute drive off the road.”

“The man is close, then,” Rod says, nodding. “Assuming he’s still coming east.”

As if to confirm his assumption, Arnold’s voice buzzes in his ear.

Hellraisers 3, this is Hellraisers Eyes. Contact, west. Repeat. We have contact.

Dr. Price

Travis catalogs his symptoms: shaking, loss of peripheral vision, lips tingling, heart racing and eyes and mouth feeling dry, which he knows is a result of stress inhibiting the lacrimal gland. Sergeant Rodriguez was right; when it comes to fight or flight, you may end up fighting your own body.

As they wait for the vehicle to approach the roadblocks, Travis remembers what he felt his first day at the White House, and the last, when he fled the building in a helicopter. That sense of history in the air. He glances at the men next to him. Their eyes are gleaming. They can feel it too. The Berlin Wall coming down. Fireballs erupting from the World Trade Center. The Screaming, the first days of the Wildfire epidemic. Fulcra around which history bends. The sense that after today, nothing will ever be the same. After today, everything, everywhere, will be different.

And now this. Bringing Ray Young to a special facility, where they will capture a pure sample of Wildfire and save the world.

He remembers Sandra Forbes swooning in the grip of the Secret Serviceman just before the man flung her into the crowd like so much garbage. I’m sorry, Sandra. But I did it for this. I have a responsibility to the human race far greater than to any single individual.

He turns and studies Fielding’s profile. The man is grinning. He feels it too. For this one moment, these enemies are like brothers, united in common cause.

I owe you an apology as well .

I’m sorry, Fielding, but you won’t be able to come with me for what I must do.

Anne

Anne stands hunched and gasping over the hot machine gun, her dead comrades crumpled at her feet. She and Marcus say nothing for several minutes, just watching the road. They are approaching another town. Anne tenses, but it appears to have been burned off the map. A charred ruin that smells like ash, utterly dead.

The bus jolts over a pothole and Marcus moans in pain.

Anne stares at him with growing horror. The large man hugs the steering wheel, gritting his teeth, his face pale and waxy. Marcus looks like a corpse.

Blood drips from his seat into a dark puddle on the floor.

“You stupid—” She drops the machine gun and hunts for the first aid kit. “How bad is it?”

“Bad,” he manages. The simple act of speaking appears to give him pain. “Shot.”

“Stop the bus.”

“No.”

“Marcus.”

“Can’t. If I stop, don’t know if I could drive again.”

“Then don’t,” she says simply, surprising herself. “I’ll get you patched up, and then take you to Nightingale.”

“The mission. . .”

Anne shakes her head. “I don’t care. I can’t let you die.”

“Not up to you,” he says, his eyes a fiery blue in his pale face. “Saw what this guy can do. Understand now. Have to stop him.”

She chokes back a tear, conquering the urge to weep by sheer force of will. Crying is like death, a threshold. Once she starts, she knows, she may never stop.

“I don’t want you to do anything for me anymore.”

“It’s not about you, Anne. Always my choice.”

She probes him with her eyes, looking for the gunshot wound, and finds it in his hip—a small hole with charred edges, the surrounded area blackened with blood. Probably a ricochet, or one of the Infected shot him point blank from the hood. She checks for an exit wound but finds nothing. The bullet is lodged in his pelvic bone.

While Marcus focuses on the road, Anne uses her knife to widen the hole in his jeans, and studies the ragged, broken flesh around the wound. It is still bleeding, but the bullet missed the arteries. She opens a bottle of alcohol.

“This is going to hurt. Get ready.“

She pours the alcohol onto the wound, making Marcus gasp with agony. Anne marvels at his endurance. He has strength of a bull. She wipes away the fluids and pushes a bandage against it.

“I can put a dressing on it but the bullet is still in there. You need a doctor.”

“After,” he says.

“We could go to Nightingale, get you fixed, and then we could live there together, you and me,” she offers. “I could be your wife.”

Marcus does not speak for several moments. Anne studies his face hopefully. Finally, he shakes his head with a tight smile. “Now you ask. Too late for that.” He gestures to the bodies on the floor, the smile turning into a grimace. “Otherwise, they died for nothing. Besides, unless Ray dies, nowhere safe. Must give him mercy.”

“I don’t know if we can get him,” Anne says. “He’s too well protected.”

“Find a way. Always do. Ranger way.”

“We’re not real Rangers, Marcus. I’m just a—”

Anne pauses, surprised she cannot recall what she was before. Instead, she remembers the cries of children washing over her like waves from the distant burning ruin of Camp Defiance. In her mind’s eye, a military helicopter lunges into the sky, wobbling unsteadily, people tumbling out of the back and falling screaming to the ground.