Stranger

Thirty-two

Ben stamped hard on the kick start. Still nothing. I drew the bolt on the rifle.

Shit. There was no point in popping at the hornets. There were maybe thirty of them. I had five rounds in the rifle. If they charged we’d be mauled. Michaela, still sitting tight behind me, chambered a round into the shotgun.

“Hold your fire,” I breathed. “They’re not in a hurry yet.”

Hornets filtered through the trees at nothing more than a stroll. So, OK, their eyes locked onto us with a burning intensity that made you shudder to the roots of your bones. But they were taking it slow. They were cunning creatures. While those had let themselves be seen there might be more working their way ’round the other side of that fake house.

They grew nearer. Now I could see the features of our would-be killers. Their hair fell in straggling locks, looking more like a head full of snakes than real hair. Probably crawling with lice, too. One guy had been in a fight with a wild dog or even a bear. His face looked like a ripped backside. A gash had opened up the side of his face, exposing both rows of teeth almost as far as his ear. One eye had gone, too. The empty socket looked like a bullet hole. But it hadn’t bothered him. The wound gave his face a distorted grin. The single eye glared at me so ferociously I recalled the phrase Mom was so fond of using: If looks could kill…

I glanced back at Ben, who still worked the kick start. His face had a shiny glaze of perspiration on the skin now. “Have you flooded it, Ben?”

“No! I… I don’t know.”

“If it’s flooded you can’t start it like that.”

“Hell, Greg! What do you suggest?” Panic bit into his voice.

“Wait… give it a few seconds.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

“No. Leave it alone. Let the gas evaporate.”

“Greg.” Michaela’s voice came calm but forceful.

“Greg. We’ve got to get away from here.”

“I know; just give it a few seconds.”

“Well, I reckon we’ve got around twenty seconds before they reach us.”

She lifted the shotgun, aiming it at the one-eyed guy as he slowly emerged as Mr. Nightmare Man himself from the forest. Then in a flat voice she said, “Fifteen seconds, fourteen, thirteen…”

I looked at Ben; he’d put his foot onto the kick-start pedal. He was going for it again.

“Not yet, Ben. Wait.”

“Jesus, it’s easy for you to say.” He jerked his head ’round to stare in horror at the evil-looking bunch oozing from the forest. I aimed the rifle, too.

And, yeah, if it was you or me seeing someone point a gun at your heart, it would either stop you dead or send you running in the opposite direction. Not these damn guys. They didn’t even see the guns. At least it seemed that way. You could fire bullets so near their heads it shaved hair from their skulls but it didn’t faze them. They’d keep on coming toward you. You needed to put a shell in their head or their gut before they’d take notice.

And if they came that bit closer that’s what we’d need to do.

“Ben,” Michaela said, “if the bike doesn’t fire next time, jump up here behind me. This thing can carry three.”

White-faced, he nodded. I saw sweat drip from the end of his chin.

Michaela counted down as the hornets approached. “Ten second, nine seconds. They’re getting close, Greg.”

I saw most of them gripped iron bars or hunks of tree branch in their fists. They raised them.

“Eight seconds.”

“OK, Ben. Now!”

He lifted himself up, then bore down with his foot on the kick start.

Glory days!

The motor uttered a mushy-sounding cough. Un-burned gas sprayed from the muffler to wet the path.

But thank Christ and all His shining angels, there was goddam blue smoke, too. Ben throttled up, and the mushy cough morphed into a crackling roar. He rocked the bike off the stand to blast away across the astroturf and onto the drive. A shower of fake grass settled on my arms. Hell, even the devil couldn’t catch up with Ben now. There was nothing but blue haze on the driveway where he’d been.

Michaela’s arm encircled my waist, holding tight. In the rearview mirror I saw she was looking back, aiming the shotgun one-handed. Hell, she must have had some toned muscle in that left arm of hers.

“Greg, they’re here!”

I heard her shouting the words over the roar of the engine as I opened up. In the rearview I saw the one-eyed man begin to run toward us. His ripped face filled the mirror. At any second I thought he’d grab Michaela and tear her from the back of the bike. G-force dragged at my body as the bike accelerated. I followed the concrete path, not trusting a shortcut across what might be slippery plastic grass. Then I swung onto the driveway. The bike leapt like a wild animal under me, carrying us away from the bunker and into the forest. I glanced left and right, expecting hornets to lunge at us from the trees. I even cradled the rifle across the gas tank, expecting to have to shoot our way out.

But all I could see in the forest were those tree trunks that lost themselves in dark swirling shadow. I sensed the bad guys were there, though. They were watching us pass for sure.

“Any sign of Ben?” Michaela called.

I shook my head. “The speed he was hitting, he’s probably in Manhattan by now.”

It was a damn poor joke. Even poorer when I saw Ben next.

The forest hemmed the road in until it seemed as if I rode the bike through a deep gully. Above me burned a strip of blue sky. And all the time the cold shadow beneath trees oozed out onto the road, as if threatening to engulf us. I sensed eyes watching as we passed. I eased off the gas, allowing the bike to slow to around forty-five. Crows glided from the trees, nearly keeping pace with me.

I heard Michaela’s voice close to me. “See those damn things?” She must have been referring to the crows. “They seem to know when there’ll be fresh carrion.”

Yeah. I looked at them, calling to their brothers and sisters. They could have been singing out, Supper’s up. Go for the girl with the dark eyes. Those will be sweetest…

If I didn’t get us out of here then we really would be crow meat.

She suddenly shouted, “Greg, look out! There’s Ben… oh, dear God in heaven.”

I braked just in time. There in the center of the road was Ben. Grouped in a tight bunch perhaps fifty yards beyond him were hornets. Anything from eighty to a hundred would be my guess. They stood glaring. Cunning bastards. They’d laid an ambush for us all along. Those guys back at the phony house were only the beaters to flush out the prey.

I eased the bike alongside Ben. He stood astride the dirt bike, the motor knocking out balls of blue smoke from the muffler. He’d been staring at the hornets blocking his way with such intensity, he never even noticed me draw alongside him.

After a pause I said, “They’ve got us penned, haven’t they?”

Startled, he turned his head to me. “Hell, Greg. I was beginning to think the pair of you hadn’t made it.”

Michaela shifted on the pillion behind me to get a better look. “We could try shooting our way through.”

“You think we could drop enough of them?”

“There’s a chance.”

I shook my head. “We’ll run at them. See if we can make them scatter.”

“You think they will?” Ben asked. “

We’ve got to try. You ready, Ben?”

He nodded, his facial muscles so tight they formed a mask. A death mask at that.

Sticking side by side, we opened up the throttles, sending the two bikes screaming toward the men and women standing in the road. They fixed their eyes on us, the stare so cold, so fucking brutal it was like trying to break through a force field. But hell…

I signaled to Ben to stop. “They’re not going to move,” I shouted. “We’d need a truck to break through there.”

Shoot our way through? Bust our way through? What now, Valdiva? Damn, those options were running out fast. I glanced to my right. In the wood more hornets on the move. They were going to try to get behind us. Then we’d be trapped between two walls of human flesh. Then the walls would roll in on us.

Michaela called to Ben, “Leave the road. We’ll cut back through the forest.”

“Hell.” He looked like someone had told him to jump out of a plane without a parachute. “In there?” Uneasily, he looked into the pool of creeping shadow.

“There’s no other way. Don’t worry. You’ve got the dirt bike; you’ll make it.”

Ben could really ride a dirt bike. He’d gotten plenty of practice on Sullivan. The big Harley wasn’t in the same category. A great road bike, but off-road?

Ben didn’t wait. He swung the front wheel of the bike ’round, opened up the throttle and coasted into the woods. The rubber teeth of the tread coped easily with the woodland floor. I followed. Then it all went to shit.

The second I touched the throttle the rear wheel fishtailed on that neverending rug of moss. I slowed a little, then accelerated as gently as I could. Damn… the rear end of the heavyweight bike flicked left and right so savagely I had to lower both feet to steady her. Then bad got worse.

To prevent the bike from skidding out from beneath us I had to stop. The second I did so the heavy bike, bearing the weight of two people, sank through the moss into the mantle of mush and rotting leaves beneath. Michaela slid off the seat; together we pulled the bike clear. Without us riding the machine we could push it forward. However, the second we climbed on it would sink again.

Ben rode back, the rear tire shredding moss into a psychedelic green fountain behind.

“No good,” I called to him. “We’ll never make it on the bike.”

“You have to.” He nodded behind us.

Michaela groaned. “Oh, God, Greg. They’re here.”

Hornets moved like wolves through the woods toward us. Ben drew a pistol, steadied the shaking hand by gripping his wrist with the other, then let fly a couple of rounds. One guy clutched his face and stumbled sideways to lean against a tree. He didn’t fall, but I figured he wasn’t coming any closer either. Blood streamed through his fingers down into the rags he wore. Michaela let fly with the shotgun, dropping a woman carrying an ax.

“There are too many.” I pushed the bike forward. “We can’t shoot our way out.”

“Drop the bike, Greg.” Ben’s voice rose to something close to a screech. “It’s no good to you.”

“We can’t outrun them on foot, buddy.”

“Greg-”

“Ben, get back to the others. Tell them what happened.”

“I can’t leave you here.”

“Do it, Ben! I’m going to find another way out!”

Ben looked torn. Not wanting to leave, but not wanting to stay to confront the hornets closing in. At last he shouted, “OK. I’ll meet you back at the garage.” Then he was gone, the bike’s rear wheel spinning like a circular saw, hurling up leaf mold and shit into the faces of the people now closing in.

With Michaela guarding my back I shoved the bike back through the woods to the roadway. I’d hoped the hornets that had blocked the way would have followed us, giving me a free run out of there. But they were smart enough to leave around fifty or so blocking the road.

What now?

Come on, Valdiva, think. Think!

But there was no time for thinking through any rational or even any sane plan. All Michaela and I could do was scramble on that bike, then ride the hell away from immediate danger. But what’s that saying, out of the frying pan, into the fire? There was only one way open now. Back to the phony house, where we’d no doubt encounter the one-eyed man and his clan.

So, that’s what I did. With Michaela hanging on tight, I roared the bike along the road, leaving the bunch of hornets behind. I didn’t feel it, but I tried to sound optimistic as I called back over my shoulder, “There’s got to be a second access to the defense site… The military wouldn’t restrict themselves to one road in and out.”

Oh boy, oh boy, but they had. Maybe they’d spent so many IRS dollars on building the thing with its painted windows, make-believe swimming pool and cutto-measure astroturf that they couldn’t afford the second vehicle access.

Twice, three times, I roared along the path that skirted the house.

Michaela’s arm gripped so tight around my waist that it felt like a steel band. The girl was frightened. She’d seen for herself there was no way out. She’d also seen that one-eyed Joe and his buddies were back. They walked across the plastic lawn, their eyes burning with all the fury of hellfire at us. They wanted our blood. They wanted it now.

No way out, Valdiva. No way out.

I stopped the bike outside the painted door of the bunker, then killed the motor. Silence rolled in on us in a wave. Hornets moved silently across the lawn. They didn’t shout. They made no fuss. They didn’t have to.

We were going to be easy meat for them. Sure, we’d kill some before they got us. But there were dozens of them now. Michaela climbed off the bike. As I slid off the seat I felt her hand close over mine.

“Don’t shoot,” she said in a calm voice.

“It’s the only way, Michaela.”

“No. Look at me, Greg. Don’t shoot them. Shoot me.”

I looked her in the face. Shoot her? But I knew it would be better to die cleanly than fall into their hands.

“No,” I told her. “Not yet. We’re going to take some of them out first.”

I aimed the rifle.

“Save one of those bullets for me, Greg. Please.” Her dark eyes seemed huge in her head. “They don’t always kill. We might be intended for a hive. I don’t want that. Not after what I’ve seen… Please, Greg?”

I turned back to the hornets. One-eye had just walked by the swimming pool, his bare toes whispering through the fake grass. That single eye of his fixed on Michaela. And, boy, was there a hungry light burning there.

I aimed the rifle at the center of his forehead.

I never even touched the trigger, but the explosion felt like a punch in the ear. One-eye disappeared in a gush of smoke.

I stared dumbly, not understanding what the hell was happening. One-eye Joe now lay on the astroturf. A neat circular hole had appeared where he’d once stood. It didn’t look much larger than a soup bowl and it was still smoking. Michaela pressed herself close to me. She was stiff with fright, but she watched, too, as One-eye stood up and began to walk. Only he wasn’t as tall as before and he walked weirdly, with a kind of hop-and-limp stride. Then I saw why. His feet had been blown clean off above the ankles. He walked on two stumps that squirted blood and trailed strings of meat and tendon and dripping goo.

This didn’t stop the others. They closed in toward us. But a second later another explosion shattered the still air. A tall, thin guy tumbled upward before falling flat to the ground. This one didn’t get up. The force of the explosion had torn his legs apart like a wishbone right up to the collarbone.

What was it? Hand grenades? I looked ’round in a daze, expecting to see Zak or Tony lobbing grenades at the hornets. But all I could see were trees, the clearing and the two concrete buildings.

To my right another hornet stepped forward. This time I saw the rush of smoke and flame shoot from the ground. The man fell, with one leg torn clean off at the hip. Like a flipped crab he struggled to roll off his back. But only for a moment. A severed artery shot his lifeblood ten feet into the air. Moments later he flopped back, lifeless as a rock.

But still the relentless advance on us. Those explosions wouldn’t stop all of them. Aiming, I blasted the face off a hornet who walked along the path toward us. Michaela dropped another on the driveway.

Then came a voice. Male? Female? Young? Old? I couldn’t tell. My ears rang from the explosions. I was still dazed by images of exploding people rollercoasting through my head.

“Move to your right,” the voice ordered. “Move to your right to the small building.”

One-eye had now reached the path. Still he walked, balancing on those bloody, shredded stumps. He reached out toward me, hate burning in his eyes. I fired from the hip, the bullet popping his heart. With a grunt he fell forward. I heard his face slap the concrete path.

“Move to your right. To the small building… Follow the path. Do not step onto the lawn. I repeat, do not step on the lawn.”

Michaela got her head into gear first. “Come on.” She grabbed my arm.

I ran with her, not knowing where we were going or where the phantom voice came from. Spilling out of the woods, I saw more hornets. They moved faster now. This time we didn’t waste time shooting any more of the bastards. For one, there were too many of them. And, two, Michaela pointed at the smaller building that could have been taken for a stable block. “Look, a door!”

There in the gable end of the building lay an opening. In fact it looked more like a slit rather than a genuine door. But with hornets running at us from left and right there wasn’t a whole lot of time to chew over what we might be getting into.

Michaela ran inside first. I followed, turning sideways to slip through the gap into an interior that had all the velvet darkness of a tomb.

Turning, I looked back out onto the sunlit lawn. Hornets moved at a full-blooded run toward the entrance. A guy built like a wrestler had all but reached the opening when I heard a hiss. The sound of air brakes on a truck, and then the thick slab of a door crashed shut. The boom of its closing went echoing deep into the earth to God knows where. The sound of a tomb closing.