Chronic fear

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The automatic-weapons fire should have changed Mark’s tactics.

In basic training, they’d mostly drilled in one-on-one confrontation, and the instruction was geared toward safety and restraint instead of killing.

But Mark didn’t give a damn about training, or Frady, or the little happy rule book. And he sure as shit had no use for restraint. The sickness surged through him, but it was also joy, the best high he’d ever felt. If this was what Alexis had been trying to bring into the world, he didn’t understand why he’d tried to stop her.

The world needed Seethe. Or Halcyon. Or whatever the hell it was.

Or maybe the two drugs were twins, the yin-yang of psychopathic biology, the Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole of the soul. One side makes you crazy and one side makes you stupid.

He wanted to climb one of the protruding boulders and scream his rage and pleasure across the mountains. He’d never felt so alive, and if all he had was one moment of it, he’d take that. Gladly. No matter the price.

But one face swam up from the sea of red, one beacon of purpose in the turbulent storm of sick self-indulgence.

Alexis.

She needs me. She needs Wendy and Roland. The original monkeys, together again.

A burst of gunfire rippled across the hills. Soon the cops-the real cops-would be responding to reports of multiple gunshots. The area was remote, but the roads were passable enough.

We need to get them and get out of here.

Sweat painted his skin, even though the air was cool and dry. The base of his skull tingled as if someone were striking a small flint and hoping to spark a fire.

He heard a gurgling and moved toward it, then saw a creek tumbling away across a sheet of rocks. He used the white noise to disguise his descent as he skidded in the moss and mud. His senses were heightened and time seemed suspended, and he was able to focus on each detail around him, his predator’s instinct sharpened to a keen edge.

Mark spied the second black jumpsuit about a hundred feet from the cabin, the man wriggling on his belly under a dense stand of laurels. Mark’s impulse was to empty his clip in the man’s general direction, screaming as he did so, but the deeper predator instinct overruled.

Mark waited until a shot sounded-this one emanating from the cabin-and hurried forward to level his pistol grip in the twisted crook of a limb. The man in the jumpsuit was blond, youngish, a guy who would have looked more at home on a soccer field than in paramilitary gear.

These idiots have even less training than I do. Or maybe they’re killing for a reason, while the best killers need no reason at all.

Killers like me.

Mark waited while the man flipped the bipod legs of his gun, apparently planning to set up and spray the cabin, which Mark could only barely see through the thick leaves.

Shooting a man in the back was cowardly.

But bravery was an abstract moral concept, lumped in with the honor-duty-courage triumvirate that the powerful had always used to manipulate fools.

Mark didn’t need a goddamned reason.

From eighty feet away, he fired three times in rapid succession. If the man had been moving, Mark probably would have missed all three, but at least one of them hit the target. The man’s head flopped forward without a sound.

The clap of a single shot issued from the cabin, the bullet whistling through leaves overhead.

Roland, you crazy bastard. I’m here to help you.

But Roland was likely just firing in the direction of the shots. In Roland’s position, Mark would attempt to keep the attackers away from the cabin, because if they all rushed it at once-depending upon how many there were-Roland wouldn’t be able to cover all the windows.

The SUV couldn’t have held more than six passengers, and with two down, the odds were a little better. From the location of the shots, though, Mark believed there were only three attackers.

So the job was nearly finished. If only Roland didn’t kill him before he had a chance to finish it.

Mark didn’t bother checking his latest victim’s pockets. Instead, he worked his way to his right, through a section of old pines and maples where the creek cut through the rotted stumps and ancient black dirt.

A stone bounced free behind him and he spun, Glock leveled, and if it wasn’t for the soft, feminine whimper, he would have cut loose with half a dozen rounds.

She stood there between the scabbed trunks of two white pines, the AR-15 limp in her hands, dirt streaked across her face, blonde hair stringy with sweat. A long red weal, moist with blood, ran up her forearm where she’d been scratched, and her bare knees were muddy.

“Lex. I told you to stay in the goddamned car.”

“You’re Seething, Mark. Darrell Silver was working on Halcyon but-”

“Keep your voice down. The woods are full of killers.”

“Don’t you understand? You’re not yourself.”

“When have I ever been myself?”

Her eyes were heavy and sad and her tears sickened him. “I can help you.”

“Yeah, you and Briggs and CRO. Let’s all just hold hands and follow the Yellow Brick Road.”

“I…” She shucked her backpack from her shoulder while Mark glanced around the perimeter. “I have something.”

“Where’s Forsyth?”

She waved the barrel of the rifle vaguely behind her. “Back there.”

Another burst of gunfire sounded from the ridge opposite them, and a couple of shots responded from the cabin. Mark glanced around, waving his wife into the protection of the pines.

“Mark, you’re sick,” she said. “That wasn’t Halcyon in the vial. It was Seethe.”

Her words hit him like a mag clip. “The fuck you talking about?”

“Forsyth set us up.”

She leaned her rifle against a tree trunk, knelt in the mud, and unzipped the backpack. She brought out a bottle of water.

Mark laughed and waved the gun at the rushing creek. “I’m not thirsty.”

“It’s Halcyon.”

“No one has Halcyon.”

“No one has Seethe, either. But how do you feel, Mark?”

He felt pretty damned good. He had a warm Glock and a full clip and some people to kill. Life couldn’t be better.

She moved closer. “Like in the Monkey House, right?”

She was saying “Monkey House” like it was a bad thing. She didn’t understand.

“I’ve been treating you with this,” his wife said.

“Treating me?”

“You’re losing it, Mark. You’ve been slowly falling apart since the Monkey House.”

“Shut up about the Monkey House. I’m fine.”

She thrust out the plastic bottle. “You need it.”

“You never had Halcyon.”

She looked away, but then stepped forward and gazed into his eyes, filling him up, leaving him no place to escape. “I lied. I had to do something to save you.”

“Lied?” Mark fought the wash of red that threatened to sweep over him like the water sluiced over the rocks. He didn’t want to kill her.

But he had to. Seethe demanded it.

Sometimes a guy just got in a killing mood. And now he even had a reason.

“No, Mark,” she shouted, backpedaling and tripping on vines that grew in tangles along the creek bank. She dropped the bottle and it bounced off a stone, tumbling to Mark’s feet. He picked it up.

“You did this for me?” he said.

“Yes,” she hissed. “I love you, you bastard.”

She’s a liar, but she’s the only one I can trust. Love is crazier than Seethe and Halcyon put together.

And his choice was to trust her or kill her.

He twisted the cap from the bottle and was about to put it to his lips when he heard a voice yell, “Don’t move or I’ll give you a third nostril.”