Empire's End

Sixteen / Seeds of Fear

Casey brought everyone into the squad room early the next morning. There were a few P.Os Voorhees had never seen before; but then he was barely acquainted with his own partner.

“Senator Manning is going to be giving a public address at the amphitheater in about two hours,” Casey told them. “Something about plans for a new hospital. We’ll be doing security. This shouldn’t pull you away from your regular beat for too long.”

Emily Halstead rolled her eyes at Voorhees. Casey caught it. “This might not seem like much of a priority to some of you, but it’s the job. Orders are from Gillies himself. Your streets can wait.”

Under Finn Meyer’s watchful eye, Voorhees thought.

He hadn’t told anyone about his lakefront exchange with Meyer and Pat Morgan. Probably wouldn’t have done him a damn bit of good.

He glanced Halstead’s way. Maybe he’d tell her about it. She seemed to have her head on straight.

He and Blake were assigned to stand out on the stage where Manning would speak. They’d be surrounded on three sides by Gaylen’s citizens. Their primary responsibility would be to keep people back from the stage. Voorhees hefted his baton in his hand and sighed. It’d be worthless against a shooter, but of course no one in Gaylen owned a firearm.

The other cops would be positioned in the backstage area and throughout the audience. “Guess I won’t be seeing you out there, partner,” Voorhees said to Halstead.

“Let’s grab lunch after this is over. Then we’ll head into the Red.”

“The what?”

“Lake district. It’s red on the city map. Keep up, Voorhees.”

He smiled at that.

Backstage at the amphitheater, Georgia Manning looked over her notes, memorizing the lies, affirming them in her mind so that they’d come out of her mouth as gospel truth. She told herself it was necessary; the airfield had to be completed.

And why should you feel bad for lying to these people? You’ll be leaving them behind, won’t you?

She had tried not to think about that. She had hoped not to acknowledge the great betrayal until it was over and done with. Gillies had forced her into this damn speech. Why couldn’t he have taken care of this? He was the sociopath who loved playing man of the people. This was his grand plan—

And you’ve gone along with it like an obedient dog.

She closed her eyes, swallowed the doubt and the shame, and composed herself for her public appearance.

Something sharp stuck her in the back. She turned with a loud cry. “What was that?”

“Sorry,” came the reply. Manning rubbed her back with a scowl, then returned to her notes. Jesus, that really hurt. She’d have to find out which of the civvies shuffling around behind her had done it. Might have been on purpose. A thankless lot.

Out on the stage, Voorhees looked over the thin crowd. Maybe a hundred fifty people. He’d anticipated a real security issue when Casey pulled every officer off the street for this.

Manning came out from the backstage area to sparse applause. She moved slowly, hands on her lower back, looking more than a little out of sorts. Voorhees tried to catch her eyes, but she looked right through him.

It hurts. It hurts a lot more than I first thought. Oh God, it hurts…

Senator Manning stepped to the edge of the stage. The crowd quieted down. Voorhees and Blake exchanged concerned glances.

I don’t feel right… everything seems so far away… it’s like I’m not really here.

Manning’s eyes were glazed over and half shut. She let go of her back and slumped forward. She was going to fall. Voorhees moved quickly toward her.

I don’t… I’m not…

It doesn’t hurt anymore…

I don’t hurt anymore.

She fell forward.

Voorhees caught her arm and pulled her back, lying her down on the stage. Blake rushed over, speaking into his radio. “We’ve got a situation out here. The Senator’s down. I repeat—”

The Senator’s eyes were closed, her body limp. She felt like a corpse. Voorhees checked her pulse: none.

“Oh my God.”

Then she woke up.

She lunged at Voorhees’ arm, snapping her teeth, and he stumbled back and fell on his ass and scrambled for either his radio or his baton, he wasn’t sure, while the Senator got to her feet and stared out at the crowd with dead eyes.

Murmurs turned to screams.

Manning ran at Blake, who dropped his radio and swung out with his baton, cracking her over the head. She stumbled, but continued headlong into him, and they both collapsed in a tangle of thrashing limbs.

“VOORHEES!” Blake screamed. The other cop looked up, just as he drew his baton… and he saw Manning tear a thick strip of meat from Blake’s left forearm.

The amphitheater was in chaos. People threw one another down toward the stage as they fled. Killian and Halstead ran out from backstage and saw Blake running from Manning, blood spurting from his arm.

Tackling Manning, Voorhees drove her face first into the stage. He slammed the baton into the nape of her neck. Why in the fuck didn’t he have his widowmaker? She struggled beneath him with shocking strength, trying to claw his legs and bite his wrists. He brought the baton down on her over and over. He heard her skull give and felt his weapon sink into gray matter. Still she fought, and hissed, and then she threw him off of her back and off of the stage.

Manning rose with wild, feral eyes — Killian smashed her mouth with her baton. Manning caught it in her claws and wrenched it away from the cop. Halstead shoved Killian aside and met the Senator’s broken, gnashing jaws with her own baton. Black blood gushed forth.

Killian recovered her baton from the stage as Voorhees climbed back up. Most of the audience was gone, save for those frozen with terror.

Manning had been a lovely woman, poised and painted and always ready to be presented to her constituents. Now she was a gruesome parody of her former self, racing across the stage like an animal and flying back as she was hit again, and again, and again.

Blake was howling. Manning saw him lying prone at the end of the stage and charged. Voorhees clipped her knee with his baton and she went sprawling. Halstead and Killian fell upon her, smashing her head into a lumpy pulp, sending bits of bone flying and blood spewing from what remained of her face.

Her arms and fingers kept twitching. She was still undead. But she’d been immobilized.

Other P.Os swarmed onto the stage, and Casey came rolling down the center aisle, barking into his radio.

All was madness. Voorhees peeled off his overcoat and shook the gore from it. Blake screamed in agony, seeing Manning’s quivering corpse and knowing what he was to become. Emergency services arrived, and the techs recoiled from Blake when they saw his gaping wound.

“Oh God,” he wept, grabbing at Voorhees’ leg, “I’m dead… Voorhees, I’m dead.”

The techs finally got up the nerve to approach the man and set down their equipment, wrapping gauze around his arm while they took his vitals. Blake just rocked back and forth, shaking his head. “Dead. Dead. Deadeadead.”

The he saw the scalpel, wrapped in plastic, in the tech’s treatment kit.

You can never know until it happens to you. How you would react, what thoughts would race through your mind… and what dark, primal instincts might take hold. Blake saw the scalpel. There was no further thought. He snatched it and pushed the blade through the plastic into his carotid and he dragged the blade through his windpipe with a gurgling scream.

Voorhees watched numbly, his baton slipping from his hand.

Killian shrieked and tried to grab the scalpel, but she was far too late.

Halstead turned away with a shivering grimace, a look that said she had seen it a dozen times before and knew she would see it again.

Casey simply set down his radio and sighed.

Blake hit the stage, and one of the techs stifled the arterial spray with a rag and everyone sat in silence as a man became a memory.