Pandemic

MEET THE PUBLIC

Ten tons of truck smashed into the firehouse door, denting the metal outward and knocking the gutted bus a good five feet back.

Paulius was standing outside the firehouse, rifle snug against his shoulder, waiting for the inevitable reaction from the locals. The big diesel engine gurgled as Bosh reversed, then revved when he floored it. The rolling door ripped outward as the truck again smashed into the bus, knocking it back at an angle. One more shot would create enough room for Engine 98 to pull out onto the street. Bosh reversed; the dented roll-up door slid off the truck, clattered limply on the concrete drive.

Paulius spotted two people rushing in from the west, a man and a woman, and another man coming from the east. From all up and down the street, people scurried out of buildings like angry ants defending a hive.

The people from the west were fifty yards away, shooting hunting rifles as they ran.

Paulius sighted in, breathed out and squeezed the trigger. The woman’s head snapped back as her body fell forward — dead before she hit the ground. The man saw this, slowed. Paulius squeezed off another shot. The man spun right, left hand clutching at his shoulder.

The big diesel roared again. Engine 98 drove over the fallen roll-up door and smashed past the bus.

Paulius spun to the right, aimed and fired. The man coming from the east doubled over, fell face-first onto the snowy sidewalk.

Paulius sprinted for the fire truck, which was already turning left onto Chicago Avenue. He hopped up on the rear bumper, then scrambled into the hose-lined bed. He stayed low, picking targets as he went.

So many of them… coming so fast…

He didn’t need to give Bosh instructions. The man had been given one clear objective: get back to the others as fast as possible, don’t stop for anything.

Paulius dropped two more bad guys before Engine 98 turned north on Mies van der Rohe Way. He faced forward. The cab’s roof topped out at his sternum, giving him excellent protection from the front while still providing a full range of fire.

He heard Bosh’s voice in his headset: “Commander, you might want to hold tight. It’s about to get violent.”

Up ahead, Paulius saw a line of cars set up bumper-to-bumper, blocking the street. He ducked down, wedged himself between the back of the cabin and the water cannon’s metal post. On the inside wall of the passenger-side tool box that ran the length of the bed, he saw a red fire axe held firmly in a bracket. If he ran out of ammo, it might come down to using that.

Bosh floored the gas. Engine 98 responded, picking up speed. The wide, flat, front metal bumper hit first, bashing a BMW to the left and a Ford truck to the right.

“Ho-leee shit,” Bosh said. “You see that fucker fly?”

Paulius rose, looked for targets — there was no shortage, as Converted popped up on either side of the road, in building windows, just about everywhere he looked.

Aim, fire. Aim, fire.

The fire engine clipped the front of a UPS truck, spinning the delivery vehicle in a full three-sixty.

Aim, fire. Aim, fire.

The engine whined as Bosh shifted gears. He tried to weave through the obstacles as well as he could, but there were just too many cars. Engine 98 smashed into an old Buick, tearing the rear end clean off.

Aim, fire.

It was working. They were just a few blocks away from the clothing store.

Paulius thumbed his “talk” button, hoping the short-range comms would work this far out.

“Klimas to Roth. Klimas to Roth, over?”

Roth’s voice came back almost immediately: “I read you, Commander.”

“Pack ’em up, Roth. Extraction in three minutes!”

BIG AND DANGEROUS

Steve Stanton’s fingers squeezed tighter on the cell phone.

“A fire truck? McMasters, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Spotters reported it just now,” McMasters said. He was at a garage closer to downtown, preparing another group to flee the city. His voice sounded like he was about to hyperventilate. “The spotters said a guy in a Cubs hat was driving, but I think it’s a soldier who survived the attack.”

Robert McMasters was normally a smart man. He’d kept the city’s power running, kept the water pumps working, made sure that Chicago didn’t flood. He’d kept the city functioning mostly as it had before the awakening. But while he could handle problems that involved inanimate objects and mechanical systems, he clearly didn’t do so well when the situation involved men with guns.

“Emperor, did you hear me? A fire truck! They’re trying to get away!”

“Be quiet,” Steve said. “I’m thinking.”

He set the phone against his shoulder. He glanced around the municipal garage where Brownstone, God rest her soul, had gathered sixty vehicles. Doctor-General Jeremy Ellis stood there, looking afraid for his life as he always did. Jeremy was organizing thirty-one cars, eighteen trucks, three city buses, four motorcycles, and even three snowplows for the exodus. The snow-plows’ big, heavy scoops would let them rip right through the endless abandoned cars, allowing Steve’s people to spread south, east and west.

A fire truck was also big, also heavy… heavy enough to smash through the thinner roadblocks. But if it was just a couple of soldiers, and they were clever enough to have lived this long, why wouldn’t they just walk out instead of letting a city know where they were?

…because a fire engine was also big enough to carry passengers.

…and because Cooper Mitchell’s body still hadn’t been found.

Steve put the phone back to his ear. “Where is this fire engine?”

“Heading west on Walton,” McMasters said.

Steve looked at Ellis. “Get me Jeff Brockman, and three more bulls. And guns, get me some guns.”

Jeremy nodded and ran off to comply.

“McMasters,” Steve said into the phone, “I want that truck stopped. Send everyone. I want it destroyed!”

THE MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH

Tim Feely had never fired a weapon in his life. Now his life might very well depend on the M4 rifle he held in his hands.

At least it was more efficient than a chunk of concrete.

He stood at the top of the wide stairs, watching Roth carry Ramierez down to the ground floor. Ramierez cradled a sleek, black shotgun, his weak fingers barely gripping the stock and the pump handle.

“Move him easy,” Tim called. “Be as gentle as you can.”

“Just hurry up,” Roth said over his shoulder. “If you’re still there when evac arrives, Doc, no one is coming up to get you.”

Roth descended, but did so as gently as he could.

Cooper Mitchell limped over, Ramierez’s Sig Sauer pistol in his hand.

“Your boy Clarence ain’t coming,” Cooper said. “He’s moping about that infected woman of his.” Cooper jerked suddenly, as if something had flown in front of his face, but there was nothing there.

He shook his head. “I don’t want him to get eaten, but if he does, I do hope he’s die-die-dielicious.”

Cooper slowly hobbled down the stairs, leaning heavily on the rail.

Tim watched him go. That was one crazy motherfucker, right there. Hopefully he was sane enough to only shoot at the bad guys.

Tim jogged to Clarence. It was worth one more try.

The man sat on his butt, in the same spot where Margaret had been before they tied her to that ladder. His back rested against the wall, chin hung to his chest. His pistol was in its thigh holster. In his hands, he held the big knife he’d used to slice his wife’s throat.

Did he want to die here? He acted like this was all his fault, when not a shred of it was.

“Otto, get your ass up. Come on, man, rescue is on the way!”

The big man didn’t move.

He hadn’t even cleaned the dust off his face. It made his skin almost the same color as his tight gray shirt.

Clarence had to come. Tim needed him there, needed his strength. Tim’s plan had sounded great in theory, but now it was turning into reality, which meant he’d have to go outside, he’d have to face those killers. He had to find a way to get through to Clarence. Maybe a slap in the face? That always worked on TV.

Tim reached back and brought his hand forward as hard as he could.

Clarence reached up and caught Tim’s wrist, stopping the palm an inch from his cheek. Strong fingers squeezed down. Tim hissed in pain.

“Ow,” he said. “Okay, maybe that wasn’t such a great idea.”

Otto’s cold eyes bore into him.

“You made me kill her,” he said. His voice was little more than a growl, a hollow husk that befit the hollow man. “You got what you wanted, Feely. So get the fuck out of here and leave me be.”

Clarence let go.

Tim stood, rubbed at his wrist.

“She’s gone, Clarence. If you want to end it all, do that after we’re finished, because your gun might make the difference. If we don’t get Cooper out alive, then Margaret died for nothing.”

Otto just stared, his face inscrutable. He made no motion to get up.

Tim remembered Margaret and Otto talking back on the Carl Brashear, remembered that word Margaret had used as a weapon.

“She wouldn’t have quit,” Tim said. “She was a real soldier.”

Otto looked away, unable to meet Tim’s gaze. That one had cut deep.

But he still didn’t get up.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a bulky cell phone and tossed it to Tim.

Tim caught it. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“I called Murray a half hour ago,” Clarence said. “Air support is on the way. If you have to abort the pickup location, hit ‘redial,’ let him know where you’re going.”

His shoulders slumped. His chin once again drooped to his chest.

Clarence wasn’t coming. Tim had done all he could. He turned to head down the stairs, then paused and looked at the phone in his hand.

Just hit “redial”…

MAKE EVERY BULLET COUNT

A woman rushed toward Engine 98, a lit Molotov cocktail in her hand. Paulius dropped her with his M4’s final round.

He drew his P226: fifteen rounds in this magazine, fifteen more in a second mag. After that, he’d have nothing left except harsh language.

Aim, fire… aim, fire…

He wanted to use the water cannon, splash these fuckers down with a face-full of Margaret Water, but Feely had told him to save it — it was critical to wait until the Converted were packed in as tight as possible.

Engine 98 was beginning to vibrate, just a little bit, a rhythmic pattern that increased or decreased in time with the vehicle’s speed. Something wrong with a tire, maybe. The thing had smashed past dozens of vehicles so far. The fire truck had mass and that meant physics was on its side, but every hit took a toll.

Aim, fire… aim, fire…

Converted gave chase. Three men, a woman, a boy, two girls, three hatchlings and, coming in fast, one of the muscle-bound monsters. More hostiles were pouring out of buildings, either rushing toward the truck or stopping to fire. A few bullets punched into the truck’s metal sides, but most of the rounds whizzed by. A trained army would have taken the truck apart. Fortunately, these assholes were anything but trained.

More Converted fired down from above, aiming from skyscraper windows. Their aim was just as bad; bullets smacked into the tops of the equipment boxes or punched into the coiled fire hose. Paulius hadn’t been hit, but sooner or later one of them was bound to get lucky.

Aim, fire… aim, fire…

He stood and looked forward over the cab’s roof. Up ahead, a bus lay on its side, blocking most of Walton Street — too much vehicle to drive through. Bosh angled the engine to the left. He had to slow down to go around the bus, and when he did the Converted closed in.

One of the men tried to climb up the rear. Bosh ran something over; when the rear wheels hit whatever it was, the back end bounced, flipping the man back out into the street where he hit face-first and skidded.

Two of the hatchlings leaped, scrambling up the truck’s right side. Shoot them, or save the rounds?

Paulius jammed his pistol into its holster, then yanked the fire axe from its bracket. The first hatchling scurried over the stacked hoses. Paulius swung the axe like a baseball bat — the red blade sliced through the pyramid-shaped body, sending the top part flying over the truck’s side. The thing collapsed, spilling purple goo across the hose.

The other hatchling leaped. Paulius didn’t have time for a second swing. He brought the axe in front of him, rear point facing out. The hatchling couldn’t change direction in mid-air: it impaled itself on the spike.

He shook the twitching thing from the axe, heard a gunshot from inside the cabin: Bosh shooting at someone who’d closed in and tried to yank open the driver’s door.

Paulius felt something heavy land on the truck, dropping the bed down a few inches before the shocks lifted it back up. There, on the rear bumper, only his big head and gnarled hands visible, stood a yellow monster. Its hands reached into the bed, the long bone-knives jutting from the back of its arms. Muscles flexed as it started to crawl forward.

Paulius dropped the axe and once again drew his P226.

The creature looked up at him. Thick lips curled back from too-long, too-wide teeth. Yellow lids narrowed — even over the truck’s engine, Paulius heard a deep growl.

He squeezed the trigger. The 9-millimeter round hit dead-center in the creature’s forehead. A cloud of blood and brains puffed out the back of its skull. The muscle-monster fell back, crashed onto the pavement and tumbled forward.

Paulius realized the Converted had stopped firing while the monster tried to get in, because as soon as it fell away bullets started hitting all around him, punching into the equipment boxes, kicking up flakes of red paint. He dropped and crawled across the hoses toward the cabin, desperate for whatever cover he could find.

Bosh’s voice in his ear: “Hold on, Commander! Turning right on Rush, and there’s a lot more cars here!”

Paulius pressed his back against the cabin wall, and held on tight as the twenty-one-ton vehicle smashed past yet another obstacle.

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Cooper Mitchell wasn’t sure if he should hope. If he believed he might escape, would that jinx it? What if he wound up with a signpost rammed through his ass and out his mouth?

He hid behind a rack of pantsuits on the first floor of Barneys, not even fifteen feet from the front door. The SEALs had to get him out. They just had to; all this couldn’t be for nothing.

The weird thing about a city with no traffic was the sense of stillness, the quiet. If he closed his eyes, he could have been in the woods of Michigan, save for the occasional roar of a bloodthirsty monster. That lack of sound let things carry through the streets — he heard distant gunshots, powerful crashes of metal hitting metal, and the growing-closer sound of a gurgling diesel engine.

Was that Klimas? Had he really pulled it off?

Tim came down the stairs, cell phone pressed to his ear.

“No, this isn’t Otto,” he said. “It’s Tim Feely.”

The little doctor came up next to Cooper. He leaned around the pantsuits to peek out the store’s glass door. He leaned back suddenly, his face wrinkled in annoyance.

“I don’t give a shit about your problems, Murray. This plan is ridiculous. Send someone to get us!” A pause. “No, Klimas isn’t here.” Tim looked around, saw Roth crouching just to the left of the front door, Ramierez lying on the floor beside him. “Hold on, Murray.”

Tim duckwalked to Roth. The big man looked ridiculous in his letterman’s jacket. Cooper hated the Bears.

Roth took the phone. “This is Petty Officer First Class Calvin Roth.”

He listened for a second. “No sir, Director Longworth, Commander Klimas isn’t available. Yes, we still need extraction at Lincoln Park, the south end.” Roth looked out the window. Cooper followed his gaze, saw a dozen men and women rushing away down the street, toward the sound of that diesel engine.

Roth ducked back behind full cover. “Yes sir, we still need that air support. We’re going to be under enemy fire the entire way, sir.” He paused, then nodded again. “Yes sir.” He hung up, handed the phone to Tim.

“Well?” Tim said, taking the phone and pocketing it. “Is Murray sending the entire air force? I don’t want to go out there. I can’t.”

Roth shrugged. “What air force? Washington is under attack. So is everything else. An AC-130 and an Apache are both en route. Those will have to be enough.”

Feely shook his head. The man was about to freak out; Cooper didn’t know what they’d do if Feely didn’t get his shit together.

“Two lousy planes,” Tim said. “No fucking way, Roth. Call him back! Tell him we need—”

Roth’s hand shot out and grabbed Feely’s shoulder. The sudden move silenced him.

“Doc,” Roth said, “I need you to shut up now.”

Roth turned slightly, made eye contact with Cooper. When he spoke, Cooper knew it was to him and Feely both.

“It’s game-time,” Roth said. “Stop worrying about shit you can’t change. If you want to survive, focus on the job at hand. When the fire truck comes, we go out firing. We’ll have a few seconds of surprise. The truck has to stop so we can get Ramierez inside. Cooper, how many rounds you have?”

Cooper lifted the Sig Sauer pistol in his hand. “Fifteen.”

“Good man,” Roth said. “Make them count. Doc, you remember what Ram told you?”

Feely nodded. “Single shots. Keep the stock tight to my shoulder, move the barrel where I move my eyes. Aim, then fire.”

Roth nodded. “Excellent. And how many rounds do you have?”

“Ten,” Feely said. “But I can’t… I’m no good in a fight. Ramierez showed me how to shoot, but I can’t.”

Roth shook his head. “Too late for that bullshit, Doc. Commander Klimas told me what you did to save Cooper. You’re a born warrior. That’s what I need you to be for the next ten minutes, got it?”

A wide-eyed Feely nodded.

“Say it,” Roth said. “Say, I’m a warrior.”

“I’m…” Tim licked dry lips. “I’m a warrior.”

“Good. Just keep saying that, Doc.”

Cooper saw Feely mouthing the words, over and over.

The diesel’s roar kicked up in volume, bounced off building walls — the thing had just turned a corner. Cooper saw it, saw the sun glinting off moving chrome, off red and white paint.

Roth nodded. “Here we go.”

Cooper felt his heart hammering not just in his chest but in his head, his eyes, his entire body.

The diesel’s roar grew louder.

Just seconds now…

WELCOMING COMMITTEE

Through the store’s windows, Tim Feely watched the fire engine bear down on a charred, green Prius. A Converted stood behind the car, shooting a shotgun as fast as he could pump and pull the trigger. Tim didn’t know dick about guns, but that wasn’t going to do a damn thing. The man seemed to figure that out at the last second. He turned to run, but he’d waited too long — the truck smashed into the Prius, launching it three feet off the ground and spinning it like a cardboard coaster. The rear end hit the man and sent him flying, a rag doll that sailed through the air and hit the sidewalk in front of Barneys New York, splashing a spray of blood against the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The truck was so close that Tim could see Bosh’s smiling face inside the cracked, blood-flecked, bullet-ridden windshield. The truck’s grille had once been polished chrome: now it was twisted and bent, with a severed right arm dangling from the left side. The obnoxiously huge front bumper was scratched and dented, wet with blood, streaked with a dozen colors from its vehicular victims.

Bosh locked up the brakes. The wheels skidded through snow, kicking up sprays of dirty white. He swerved left as he entered the intersection, then curved sharply right. The truck slid to a stop, its left side just ten feet from store’s revolving front door.

Roth handed his rifle to Ramierez, who held it along with his shotgun. Roth scooped Ramierez up.

“Feely, Cooper, let’s move!”

Roth pushed through the rotating door. Cooper hobbled forward so fast he was in the next divider behind Roth.

Tim heard gunfire. His legs wouldn’t move. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t —

I am a warrior, I am a warrior.

The thought seemed to lift him and throw him at the still-spinning door. He hit it on the run, shoulder smacking against the glass. He stumbled out into the windblown chaos.

He faced the engine’s left side. So many bullet holes; how was the thing still running? Klimas stood in the truck’s bed, aiming his pistol and firing, making each shot count. Beyond the fire engine, maybe a block down Oak, Tim saw a wave of people and monsters closing in.

Cooper turned right, started firing.

Roth opened the rear passenger door and set Ramierez inside. He grabbed his big SCAR-FN rifle, leaving the wounded SEAL with the black shotgun.

Tim stumbled forward, looked left, right, looked across the street — they were coming from everywhere. Hatchlings, people with blades and guns and clubs.

He was going to die.

A woman sprinted toward him, the butcher knife in her hand raised high. Tim pulled the M4’s stock tight to his shoulder, just as Ramierez had told him to do.

He squeezed the trigger.

The recoil turned him a little: he hadn’t expected that much.

The woman fell to the ground, her hands clutching at her stomach.

A screaming teenage boy with a shotgun. The shotgun roared. Nothing hit Tim. The boy pumped in another round, but before he could shoot again Tim aimed and fired. The bullet slammed into the boy’s chest — he staggered back, dropped.

Klimas, screaming: “Get in! Get in!”

Cooper, running for the truck.

Roth, climbing into the back even as he fired short bursts down Oak at the onrushing horde.

A roar from Tim’s right: he turned to see a nightmare — a huge thing that had once been a woman. She wore the tattered remains of a blue-sequined evening dress. Yellow skin pockmarked with sores, too-wide neck, long, pointed shards of bone sticking out the back of her wrists like a pair of chipped white swords.

He couldn’t move. His body wouldn’t react.

The monster roared again… her bone-blades reached out for him.

Clarence Otto walked out of the store’s rotating door, his right arm level and steady, his pistol firing so fast, pop-pop-pop-pop. The woman-monster flinched, turned away. He fired three more times into her back. She dropped face-first onto the snow-covered street.

Clarence grabbed Tim’s shoulder.

“Move, dummy,” he said, and pushed him toward the truck.

Tim’s paralysis broke. He ran for the rear driver’s-side door.

A hatchling, crawling out from underneath the truck. Tim launched himself, raised both feet in the air and landed as hard as he could, smashing the pyramid body. Globs of purple guts splashed out against the trampled white snow.

Tim reached for the door.

“Feely, up here!” Klimas, yelling down at him. The SEAL pointed to the water cannon mounted behind the cab. “You’re on that! Move!”

Hands grabbed Tim from behind and threw him over the bullet-ridden equipment boxes. He landed hard on top of canvas hoses. Tim scrambled to his hands and knees in time to see Clarence Otto hop onto the truck’s rear bumper.

Klimas pounded on the cab’s hood three times. The big diesel gurgled, and they started to roll.

TIME TO FLY

The SH-60 Seahawk pilot eased his helicopter off the Coronado’s deck. He was a good mile away from the shoreline, probably safe from any Stinger the Converted might launch, if the Converted could spot the Seahawk at all from that distance.

The ’Hawk headed north, over open water, following the Apache attack helicopter that had lifted off a few moments before. The two aircraft would fly well past the LZ, cut west over the shore, then fly south so they could approach the LZ from the north.

IFF picked up another friendly aircraft in the area: an AC-130 gunship.

That baby brought serious firepower. The SH-60 pilot hoped the survivors could make it to the extraction point — if any bad guys followed, the AC-130 would make a wonderful mess of them.

HELL’S ANGELS

Steve Stanton rode on the back of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He wore an American flag helmet, which he thought was pretty damn awesome.

In front of him, driving the bike, was the wide bulk of Jeff Brockman. Steve had duct-taped a map of Chicago to his back. Jeff didn’t wear a helmet, because there probably wasn’t a helmet in the world that would fit him. His bone-knives pointed straight ahead, parallel to the snow-covered road.

Two more motorcycles — another Harley and a crotch rocket — were driving on their right, and a BMW was on their left. A bull drove each of those bikes. Behind each bull, a man with a machine gun.

The biker gang (Steve couldn’t help but think of it as a biker gang) rolled south on Lakeview Avenue. They drove fast where they could but had to slow frequently in order to maneuver around the cars that choked the road.

This time, Steve would take care of things personally. He’d find Cooper and shoot him dead. If Steve could get Cooper alone — and unarmed — he would have Jeff kill him slowly. Maybe use those bone-blades to skin Cooper alive.

Spotters reported that the fire engine — a frickin’ fire engine, of all things — was heading north on State Parkway. The humans were smart. They wanted to get away from downtown. They must have guessed correctly that Steve had concentrated his remaining Stingers there. The humans wanted to get somewhere a helicopter could safely pick them up. Steve had sent more motorcycles to gather up the remaining Stingers and bring them north, but he didn’t know where those helicopters would land.

Or did he? He looked at the map. The humans were driving north… they would want an open, flat place with no tall buildings. Steve’s fingertip traced the roads.

There… Lincoln Park.

Just south of where he was now.

Considering the abandoned cars blocking the streets, it would take the fire engine about five minutes to reach that location.

Steve’s biker gang could be there in four.

ON THE ROAD

Clarence Otto was soaking wet.

Tim Feely had yet to master the water cannon. He’d mishandled it twice, the errant, full-force blasts almost knocking Clarence off the truck to land at the feet of the pursuing horde. The big vehicle smashed its way north. The road had narrowed. Not as many tall buildings here, far more three-, four-, and five-story constructs. Snow-covered bare trees lined the sidewalks. It couldn’t be far now… maybe four more long blocks to go.

Clarence returned fire as best he could. He had only three rounds left in his Glock. Subzero temperatures and wet clothes made his body shake so bad he could barely aim.

Margaret’s blood is in that water…

He felt she was with him again. Not the husk he’d killed in the store, but the Margaret of five years ago. His wife. His love. They were fighting this nightmare together.

Roth was down: a bullet had shattered his right collarbone. He lay there on the ruined hoses, his body tossed left and right by the endless collisions — no one had time to help him.

Klimas had Roth’s SCAR-FN rifle, was firing single shots to the right side.

Cooper Mitchell knelt on the hoses, taking careful aim to the left. He was laughing; he sounded just as insane as the crazies running after the fire truck.

“You want some?” he said, pulling the trigger. He looked at a new target. “Oh, you want some, too?”

Klimas had ordered Clarence to cover the rear. With the way Engine 98 swerved and slammed and smashed, anything beyond the ten-yard range was an impossible shot.

Constant obstacles kept the truck from outrunning the wave of pursuers. Bosh avoided what he could, but for the most part he just plowed through anything that was in the way.

The muscle-monsters were faster than the people, faster than the hatchlings. Four of them had pulled ahead of their fellow Converted and were only ten or fifteen feet behind the truck — if Bosh slowed down, even for a few seconds, yellow-skinned beasts would jump right into the back.

Clarence aimed carefully, trying to gauge the engine’s continuous impacts. He fired at the lead muscle-monster. It twisted a little to the right, blood visible on its chest, but it kept coming. Clarence aimed lower, fired again: the creature clutched its belly. It slowed, unable to keep up. Clarence aimed at the next one, fired — his slide locked back. He was out of ammo.

He turned to face forward. Little Tim Feely aimed the water cannon to the right, shooting a long, spreading spray at the hatchlings, people and muscle-monsters that poured out of buildings, desperate to get at the still-accelerating fire truck.

Klimas dropped, blood pouring from his knee. He reached both hands to grab it; his SCAR-FN tumbled over the side to clatter against the snow-covered street.

Roth had yet to get up.

Cooper fired his Sig Sauer — his slide locked back. His weapon was also out.

A hatchling scrambled over the right side and shot toward Klimas. The SEAL saw it coming, managed to get his hands up in time. Tentacles wrapped around arms: Clarence saw what lay on the bottom of those pyramid bodies — thick teeth made to tear off huge chunks of flesh.

Clarence reached to his belt. He gripped the handle of the knife he’d used to kill his wife. Klimas pushed the hatchling against the inside of the equipment box. Clarence drew the blade and drove it into the plasticine body. The hatchling let out a high-pitched squeal. Clarence lifted the knife and flicked the creature over the side.

Klimas’s knee was a bloody mess. He grimaced against the pain, but held out one bloody hand.

“Can I have my knife back?”

Clarence handed it over. He never wanted to touch the thing again.

He looked forward over the truck cabin’s roof. Another wave of bad guys rushed down the middle of the tree-lined street, coming head-on.

Bosh floored it.

Engine 98’s flat face hit people so hard the cabin rattled with each impact. Bodies flew in all directions. The truck wobbled and bounced as killers of all kinds fell under the wheels, spraying blood onto the snowy street and even up onto the sidewalks.

And then, there were no more attackers in front. Bosh had driven through, broken free. Clarence looked out the back.

Hundreds of them — no, thousands — filled the street, a rushing mob straight out of a zombie flick. The closest ones weren’t even fifteen feet away.

Tim was still aiming his spray off the right side. Clarence grabbed his shoulder. Tim yanked back on the cannon’s valve-handle. The spray of water quickly faded and died, dripping down onto the bed’s hoses. His face was a sheet of blood; a round had grazed his forehead.

Clarence pointed to the rear. “You wanted them concentrated.”

Tim looked. He’d been wide-eyed the entire time, terrified of everything, but now his fear vanished.

Tim Feely snarled.

“Come get some,” he said. He pointed the chromed cannon at the chasing horde and shoved the valve-handle all the way forward.

A concentrated blast shot out, hit a muscle-monster in the chest. Tim moved the stream side to side, knocking people down, kicking up a huge spray that soaked everyone around them.

And still the mob came on.

SLOW RIDE

Engine 98 slammed into something big, catching Tim unawares and smashing into the back of the pockmarked cabin. The blow stunned him. He blinked, tried to clear his vision. When he looked up, he saw Clarence manning the water cannon.

Clarence aimed high, creating a wide, spreading spray that rained down on the army of pursuers.

How many had been exposed? Five hundred? More?

Tim hurt so bad. Every bone, every muscle, if not from jarring impacts then from the endless shivering. His hands were so cold he couldn’t move his fingers, which were curled up as if they still gripped the water cannon’s handles.

Far behind, he saw some of the pursuers — soaking wet, chests heaving with big, deep breaths — giving up the chase. They would die within twenty-four hours, but not before, hopefully, exposing dozens of others.

We did it, Margo… we did it.

Tim looked around. Roth was moving again, struggling weakly to rise. Blood matted the right shoulder of his letterman’s jacket. Just to the left, on the other side of the cannon’s base, Klimas clutched at his bloody, ruined knee.

And in the middle of the bed, Cooper Mitchell, standing tall and flipping a double bird at the pursuers.

“How’s that taste, motherfuckers?” Cooper grabbed his crotch and shook it. “Lick it up! Lick it allllll up!”

Engine 98 lurched. A grinding noise joined the diesel’s gurgle. The truck started to slow.

Tim saw the street signs: State and Banks. They weren’t far from Lincoln Park now. Two long blocks and they’d be on the green grass.

He heard a noise up above. There, two spots far off in the sky… helicopters?

Rescue. They had done it. They were going to make it.

Then he saw something else, something much closer… something hanging from a tree by its oversized, yellow-skinned arms.

Engine 98 drove directly underneath it.

The monster let go.

GOOD-BYE

Paulius didn’t see it drop, but he saw it land in the middle of the truck bed, almost on top of Roth. In that frozen, awful moment, Paulius noticed the monster had almost a full head of curly red hair. He wondered if the person had been Irish.

A pale, sore-speckled arm stabbed down: a bone-blade slid through Roth’s letterman’s jacket, deep into his belly. The creature lifted the 250-pound man like he was nothing. Lifted, and threw — a screaming Roth sailed off the back of the truck to land hard on the pavement.

Paulius gripped his knife and reactively started to get up, but the agony of his ruined knee stopped him cold.

The wide-headed monster turned, locked eyes with Paulius. Rippling muscles drove its arm forward. Paulius flinched right — the tip of the bone-blade slashed the side of his neck before it punched through the cab’s back wall.

A powerful blast of water caught the monster full in the chest and face, sent it tumbling over the equipment box. It smashed through the rear window of an Audi.

Fire Engine 98 pulled away.

Paulius reached up with his left hand, pressed it against the right side of his neck.

He felt blood pouring down.

Fifteen meters back, Roth managed to get to his knees before the horde descended upon him. A muscle-monster drove a bone-blade straight into his back. Paulius heard Roth’s final scream, then the man vanished beneath a swinging flurry of knives, axes and lead pipes.

The water cannon’s powerful stream slowed — what had been a steady, straight blast now curved down, the landing spot quickly growing closer as the pressure faded.

“Shit,” Clarence said. “We’re empty.”

The truck suddenly started to wobble left and right, wobble hard.

Paulius heard another new noise. Over the grinding engine, over the sound of metal scraping pavement, and over the ravaged vehicle’s broken rattle each time it hit a bump, he could just make out the thumpa-thumpa of rotor blades.

And also, something else…

The roar of motorcycles.

CHICAGO BULLS

Steve Stanton’s biker gang rolled to a stop at the T-intersection of North Avenue and North State Parkway. The park — flat and green, dotted with snow-covered, leafless trees — lay behind them. The wind had finally died down. It was turning into a beautiful day.

There were five motorcycles now: the four he’d started with, plus one man who’d brought a Stinger missile from downtown.

One block south on North Parkway, a shattered fire engine shivered its way toward them. How was that thing even moving? The windshield had so many splintered holes it looked white rather than clear. Torn metal lined the bottom where a bumper had once been. No grille, just a squarish, black hole with an oddly bent dead man jammed into it.

The thing wobbled, left-right, left-right. Shredded tires flapped visibly.

Steve pointed at one of his bulls.

“You, go kill the driver.”

The yellow-skinned beauty didn’t ask questions, it just sprinted down the street on impossibly thick legs.

Steve looked at the others. He made a cutting motion at his throat.

“Kill the bikes,” he said. “Get that Stinger ready. Let’s finish this thing.”

The bulls did as they were told.

When the last motorcycle’s gurgle died away, Steve heard something else.

He turned to look back.

Since his conversion, he hadn’t felt fear. Not once. That emotion swept over him now — not even fifty meters away he saw a helicopter coming in just over the park’s sparse trees. He thought back to that girl in his office, the one who said the helicopters she saw “looked mean.” Now Steve understood what she meant.

“Well, shit,” he said, then he felt strong hands wrap around his waist and roughly pull him to the right.

THE EQUALIZER

The Apache pilot made a judgment call. Those were monsters standing at the park’s edge… genuine, straight-from-a-nightmare monsters. They were the bad guys. Ergo, anyone standing side by side with monsters was a bad guy as well.

Five men, five motorcycles, four monsters.

“Light ’em up,” he told his gunner.

From inside the helicopter, the Apache’s M230 chain gun sounded like a staccato, three-second roll on a toy snare drum.

Thirty-millimeter rounds tore into flesh, metal, grass and concrete, kicking up chunks of dirt, puffs of blood and flashing clouds of smoke. All targets dropped. The pilot saw a monster running right, carrying a small man in his arms. The pilot started to call out the target, but one of the fallen men rose to his knees, struggled to bring a long tube up on his shoulder.

“SAM,” the pilot said.

Another three-second drum roll answered.

The man didn’t drop so much as he disintegrated.

“SAM neutralized,” the pilot said. “New target running right, get him.”

“Tracking,” the gunner said, but it was too late — the monster dove through the window of a gothic, white-stone apartment building.

The pilot looked down the road, to the approaching fire engine. Another monster there, rushing headlong toward the battered vehicle. The creature was too close to it: chain gun fire would also hit the truck.

The Apache pilot slowed to a stop and hovered, just thirty feet above the park.

“Wait for targets of opportunity,” he said. “Be careful, we can’t hit our people.”

“Affirmative,” the gunner said. “Should we elevate and hit that mob chasing them?”

“Negative,” the pilot said. “Those assholes are already taken care of.”

END OF THE LINE

Fire Engine 98 vibrated as if it was driving on an endless road of deep potholes. The motor finally died. The truck rumbled along on momentum alone.

Clarence heard the newly energized roar of the trailing mob — they saw their opportunity to finish the task.

He turned to look forward. Ahead, clouds of smoke floated up from shredded bodies and mangled motorcycles. A yellow-skinned behemoth rushed straight for them.

“Klimas, your knife!”

The SEAL offered it up handle-first. Clarence took it, saw that Klimas had a blood-covered hand pressed hard against the side of his neck.

“Tim! Help Klimas!”

Clarence felt the cabin shudder from impact, heard the crunch of breaking glass, the deep-throated growl of a monster and the scream of a man.

He slid up and onto the cabin’s roof, hands and legs spread wide to try to stay on the still-lurching vehicle. He slid forward across the slick, eight-foot-long, bullet-ridden surface.

Clarence looked up in time to see the engine bearing down on the motorcycles, the bodies and the sidewalk and park just beyond them. The truck ground over the obstacles, hitting so hard the cab bounced up, throwing him into the air. He came down hard, face smacking against the pockmarked metal. The knife flew from his hand.

The truck’s front end plowed into the snow and dirt and grass… the knife skittered across the roof… Clarence pushed forward. The knife slid off the cabin’s edge… Clarence reached out and down.

He caught it.

Half hanging over the roof, he looked into the cabin, saw a broad, yellowish back on top of concave spider-webbed glass, and the flailing, bloody hands of the man trapped beneath.

Fire Engine 98 finally rolled to a stop.

Clarence raised the Ka-Bar knife high. He plunged it down into the monster’s neck.

The thing barked out a noise of confusion, surprise and pain, a single syllable that could have been a question mark. It reared up hard and fast, its head crunching into the cabin roof right below Clarence’s waist, knocking Clarence up and forward and off — the frozen ground came up fast and smacked him in the face.

Cooper Mitchell had still been facing out the back of the truck and flipping off the horde when Engine 98 hit the motorcycles and the sidewalk curb. The truck had decelerated quite suddenly — Cooper had not. He’d flown across the truck’s bed, stopping only when his head smashed into the water cannon’s metal post.

Tim’s hands pressed on Klimas’s neck. To his right, Cooper rolled weakly, clutching the back of his head, face screwed up tight.

“Mitchell, get up,” Tim said. “The helicopters are here!”

Tim heard the roar of a crowd; he looked back — the horde was rushing in, weapons held high, blades glinting in the morning sun. Not even fifty meters away and closing fast.

He took his hands off Klimas’s neck, slid one arm under the man’s legs, the other behind his back. There wasn’t time to do things right. Tim pushed up as hard as he could, groaning with effort as he tried to lift the heavy man onto the equipment boxes and dump him over the edge.

THE GRIM REAPER

The horde closed in. They could see the red truck that they had chased across the city, now just fifty yards away. So close… so close. The humans had sprayed them with water. Such a strange thing to do, but the Chosen would dry out soon enough.

The Chosen knew the motorcycles had carried their emperor. As they ran, they shouted to each other, in shock, in sadness.

He’s dead!

The emperor got shot!

No way he lived through that!

Few of them had met the emperor, but they all remembered the emperor’s final order: kill Cooper Mitchell.

Forty yards…

They saw a small man push a bigger man over the edge of the truck. The bigger man fell hard to the ground below. The small man leaped over the side.

Thirty yards…

They saw another man stand up in the back of the truck, swaying, confused, his hands clutching the back of his head.

As a unit, they all recognized the man. They had all seen the pictures, and many of them had watched the video. It was him: Cooper Mitchell, public enemy number one.

The horde let out a unified roar. They had him now. They rushed down the street, so many of them that the humans didn’t stand a chance.

Twenty yards…

The AC-130 was too high up for the engines to be heard. So far away, in fact, that the horde didn’t even hear the plane’s guns go off.

The street transformed into a flashing hell as 1,800 rounds per minute of 25-millimeter high-explosive fire tore into bodies, vehicles and pavement.

The horde started to scatter even before the first 105-millimeter howitzer round landed right on the dividing line of North State Parkway, pulverizing bodies, knocking cars on their sides and rattling the snow off of bare branches.

Confusion reigned. People took cover in buildings or sprinted back down the street, moved anywhere but toward the fire truck. They didn’t know what was happening; they only knew they had to run and hide.

The emperor had ordered them to kill Cooper Mitchell, but he had given another order as well… the order to evacuate the city. The mob’s will broke. The survivors fled, heading for their assigned vehicles, for the cars and trucks and buses and motorcycles that would take them north, to Milwaukee, take them east, to Michigan City and South Bend, take them south to Springfield, Champaign and beyond.

The exodus began.

MONSTER

Clarence knew he had to move, but his ice-cold body wouldn’t react, wouldn’t obey.

He heard something big land next to him, something that was still making a squealing noise.

He also heard Margaret’s voice: Get up, baby… get up…

The fog cleared. Clarence reached out, use the shattered front of Engine 98 to help him rise.

In front of him, the muscle-monster did exactly the same thing.

Clarence stood just in front of the driver’s seat, the monster just in front of the passenger seat. The knife still stuck out of the creature’s neck. Jets of blood squirted out in red arcs that fell on the park’s white snow.

The monster reared up to its full height: eight feet tall and very pissed off. Yellow hands flexed into fists. Arms vibrated with fury, making the blood-streaked bone-blades shake and shimmer.

Clarence wanted to turn and run, but his body wouldn’t let him. It was all he could do to stay on his feet.

He was done for.

The creature brought its right fist back to its ear, aimed the bone-blade at Clarence’s chest.

I’m sorry, Margaret… I’m not going to make it…

A clink of metal on broken glass. Just inches from the monster’s left temple, the barrel of a Benelli shotgun slid across the bottom edge of the windshield housing.

The monster turned.

“FUUUUCK…” it had time to say, then the shotgun jumped and the monster’s face disappeared in a spray of blood and yellowish flesh. The creature fell to its back, twitching.

Through the windshield, Clarence saw the ashen face of Ramierez.

“Hooyah, motherfucker,” the SEAL said.

Clarence turned, letting the bullet-ridden truck carry his weight as he slid to the driver’s door. He opened it.

Bosh was slumped down in the seat, covered in his own blood. He was still blinking, but not for long. The monster had torn his throat open. Clarence could see the front of Bosh’s vertebrae.

Clarence shut the door. Out in the park, he saw a Seahawk helicopter coming in fast, nose tilted up for a landing.

“Everybody out!” he screamed as he stumbled around to the other side. “Move, move! Get to the chopper!”

He opened the passenger door to see that Ramierez had passed out again, shotgun still clutched in his hands.

Clarence lifted Ramierez out of the truck and started toward the helicopter. To his right, Tim stumbled along, supporting the limping weight of Commander Klimas.

Just one man missing, the only man who really mattered.

Clarence stopped only long enough to shout over his shoulder.

“Cooper! Come on!”

GAME OVER

Cooper Mitchell’s head hurt, really, really bad.

He saw the horde scatter. Despite the pain, he felt elated. He’d won.

“Suck a bag of dicks, you fucking douchebags.”

He looked up to the sky, saw a slow-moving plane — just a dot, really, but whatever it was, it had ended the fight. Too bad it hadn’t arrived sooner; Roth might have made it.

Cooper had blood all over his hands. His blood, pouring out of a cut on the back of his head. He was probably going to throw up soon, thanks to the eye-narrowing throb going boom-boom-boom inside his skull.

He grabbed the water cannon’s post, used it to pull himself to his knees. He put his right hand down to press up, felt something smooth and hard beneath it — the fire axe.

His pistol was empty. For that matter, he didn’t even know where the thing was. He grabbed the axe handle, lifted it as he stood. His legs felt like rubber. He sat on the bullet-ridden metal box and slid his legs over the side. He dropped, almost fell when he landed.

His right hand held the axe handle. He pushed the top of the head against the ground, used the axe as a cane. There wasn’t one spot on his body that didn’t hurt.

The helicopter. Right there. He’d made it.

Cooper heard movement behind him. He turned sharply.

Not five feet away, slowing to a stop, was the Monster Formerly Known as Jeff, and hiding behind him, head not quite reaching Jeff’s massive shoulders, was Steve Stanton.

Steve looked terrified. His eyes darted everywhere, but always flicked back to Cooper.

Only a part of Cooper noticed this, because he couldn’t stop looking at Jeff — huge body, pale yellow skin gleaming from a sheen of sweat, mouth open, chest heaving slightly from exertion. So goddamn big. And those massive arms, the bone-blades jutting from the backs of his hands.

Jeff raised a hand to his head. His fingers flipped back imaginary hair.

“COOOO​OOPEE​EERRR​RRR…”

“Hey, buddy,” Cooper said. He didn’t feel afraid this time, which made no sense at all — Jeff was a thing, a thing with fucking bone-swords for arms. And yet, Cooper had won. He couldn’t die now… it simply was not possible.

Steve pointed a shaking finger at Cooper. “Jeff, kill him! Skin him!”

The Monster Formerly Known as Jeff blinked slowly. He took a step forward.

Cooper held up his left hand, palm out: stop right there.

“It’s me, bro. It’s Coop. Don’t do this.”

Jeff lifted a gnarled, yellow foot to take another step forward, then put it back down. His face was distorted, misshapen into a mask of evil, but Cooper could still read his lifelong friend — Jeff didn’t want to attack.

Steve’s screech tore at the air. “Kill him! Kill that diseased motherfucker!”

The monster’s eyes flicked down to Cooper’s feet, focused on something there. Cooper looked down as well — the red axe blade, resting against the ground.

Jeff looked up again. His eyes filled with the anguish of a heart torn in two directions. He didn’t want to hurt Cooper, but he couldn’t hold himself back much longer.

For just a moment, the monster wasn’t a monster anymore. It was the boy Cooper had grown up with, the man he’d gone into business with. It was his lifelong friend, the person he loved more than anyone else in the world.

Jeff Brockman closed his eyes.

He let out a long, slow breath.

Cooper knew, instantly, that when Jeff opened those eyes again, he would give in to his nature; he would become the creature that Steve Stanton wanted him to be.

Cooper lifted the axe and stepped forward in the same motion. He swung it high and hard, brought it down with everything he had.

The red blade dug deep into Jeff’s head with a dull chonk.

The Monster Formerly Known as Jeff opened its eyes. He met Cooper’s gaze for two long seconds, then the eyelids sagged.

The massive body dropped straight down, like a yellow sack of boneless meat.

Jeff didn’t move. The axe handle stuck up at a shallow angle.

Steve Stanton stared. The expression on his face said it all: the dude knew he was fucked.

He turned to run, but Cooper dove at his legs. Steve hit the frozen ground face-first. He screamed for help, but there was no one left to help.

Cooper rolled him to his back and straddled his stomach. He slid his knees over Steve’s biceps, pinning the smaller man to the ground, a schoolyard bully about to inflict punishment on the class loser.

“This is all your fault,” Cooper said. “I don’t know how, or why, but I know it’s your fault.”

Steve stared up in pure terror, as if Cooper was ten times the monster Jeff had been.

And then Cooper remembered why.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said. “I make you assholes sick.”

Cooper reached to the back of his head, rubbed both hands hard against his torn scalp. It hurt, but he didn’t care. He brought his hands forward, held them palms out so Steve could see the blood.

“Your turn,” Cooper said.

Steve bucked and thrashed, but he couldn’t budge Cooper’s weight.

Cooper Mitchell pressed his bloody hands down on Steve Stanton’s screaming face. Cooper rubbed it around, rubbed it hard.

“That was for Sofia.”

He drove his thumb into Steve’s right cheek, three fingers into his left, and squeezed, forcing the man to open his mouth. Cooper shoved his bloody fingers inside, slid them across Steve’s tongue, jammed the fingertips inside Steve’s gums and slid them around real good.

“That was for Jeff.”

To finish it off, Cooper hawked the biggest loogie of his life, then spit it into Steve’s open mouth.

Steve froze. He stared up with the blank, disbelieving gaze of a man who has just received a death sentence. He moved his tongue around, trying to keep the loogie away from the back of his throat.

Cooper leaned close. “That was for me.”

Cooper reared back and punched Steve Stanton in the stomach.

Steve let out a slight wheeze. He gasped like a beached fish, trying and failing to draw a breath.

He swallowed.

Cooper stood, reached down and patted Steve’s cheek.

“And that? That one was for you, dickweed. Enjoy.”

Cooper looked around — there was no one left. All the Converted had faded away into the city.

He was alone.

He had won.

He turned toward the helicopter. Clarence was already in it, beckoning madly.

Time to go.