Pestilence

53

Ian came to and lifted himself off the grass. Samantha was gone. Disoriented, he stood. His vision was fuzzy, and all the general shapes before him appeared to have an aura. Beginning at his toes, he stretched or flexed every part of his body.

His leg was fractured at the fibula. Several ribs were cracked, and he likely had a compound fracture at T6 and T7 in his spinal column. His acromion was splintered, probably broken into several pieces, and numerous metacarpals were broken, as well. Acute pain shocked him with every movement of his body, and his left arm and leg were numb, but his left foot was tingling with hot needles.

He walked over the grass, ignoring the intense pain that was commanding him to lie down and be still.

He had forgotten where he had told Katherine to wait for him in the vast parking lot. As he stood thinking about where to go, long strands of drool dropped from his mouth, and he wiped them with the back of his sleeve.

He had let anger take control of him, and this was the result. He could have calmly taken Samantha Bower into his arms and crushed her throat like melon. Instead, his rage emptied out of him, and he had dashed at her in a full sprint, oblivious to the window behind her. He would do better next time.

Remembering that he had asked Katherine to stay at the front entrance, he shuffled his way there. She was gone.

“Stupid girl.”

He scanned the area around him and saw a Humvee drive by. The driver wasn’t military, and Ian hoped he would stop, but he didn’t. Someone ducked in the backseat.

The Humvee turned a corner and was gone.

Ian felt lightheaded, and before he could control himself, he blacked out again.

He rose sometime later; he wasn’t sure how much later. His head pounded from what he guessed was a severe concussion, and he had to lean against a tree in the parking lot until the world stopped spinning. He remembered a Humvee driving by before he blacked out.

As he was about to go into the road to find another car, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning toward it, he spotted Katherine standing at the back of the car, staring at something in the trunk. He limped toward her. She had moved his briefcase back there and opened it.

“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” she said.

He was quiet, unable to muster the strength to speak. “It is,” he said softly.

“Even you can’t be this much of a monster.”

Holding her gaze, he pressed something on the device and then reached up and closed the trunk. “I am.”

He noticed himself in the reflection of the back window. He was covered in blood, and his arm was bent at an awkward angle. He was leaning to the side as if his back couldn’t support his weight, and he’d gone from a handsome young man to someone who appeared to have risen from an awful grave.

“What happened to you?”

“You need to drive me to the airport.”

“I’ll pull out.”

She got into the car, turned it on, and backed out of the parking spot. She turned the wheel at an angle so that Ian could climb in and then stopped. He hobbled over.

She twisted the wheel hard to the right, slanting the car toward Ian, and slammed the pedal down. The tires squealed, making smoke, as the car rocketed forward. Making impact with Ian sounded more like something falling on top of her car rather than hitting it at the front.

Ian flew and slammed to the ground, then rolled at least ten feet. She swallowed, her mouth dry and her mind blank. She hit the accelerator again, and the car jumped up, then fell as if she’d driven over a speed bump.

She sat in the car, staring at the unmoving body before slowly getting out. Ian was on his back, spitting up blood. Tire marks burned his chest, and his hands were black and lay useless by his side.

Steadily, she walked up to him. His face should have been filled with terror, but he looked… serene.

He grinned at her. “It’s too late,” he gasped.

She watched him, confused, when she heard something-a ticking, but not quite. It was more of an electronic beep every few seconds. She started to run in the opposite direction.

The explosion was so massive and blinding that she didn’t even have time to realize she was dying.