The Awakening

AQ

electric sticks?

Michael brandished the prod, ready, waiting— waiting for what he knew was inevitable.

Three cannibals now—the first one crawling off, holding his hand to his eye—three now came toward Michael. Their axes were raised high. A sound—deafening, like rolls of thunder, then a woman’s voice. “Hold it—or we will kill you all!”

The sound of a submachine gun—he remem-bered it from his childhood. A man’s voice—not his father’s. “She means it—so do I.” The cannibals turned one by one, slowly, parting slightly, in two waves, a corridor forming from the rear of the cave, where Michael stood ready to defend Madison, to the mouth of the cave.

Backlit, a shadow because of the sunlight behind him, Michael recognized the man at the center of the mouth of the cave, a gleaming Detonics .45 automatic in each fist.

The voice—a voice he had not heard for fifteen years, a voice almost identical to his own, a voice. “If you understand English, let them pass. Let them come to us.”

There was no answer from the two waves of the cannibals which flanked him, flanked Madison. Michael waited.

His father’s voice again. “Michael, come ahead —slowly. Keep the girl beside you, not behind you. Slow—don’t do anything sudden.” He answered his father. “All right, Dad.”

“They don’t speak English—I’m sure of that by now. But they remember enough to understand. When you’re close enough, I’ll toss you a gun— loaded and ready to go. They won’t let you out of here.”

Michael looked behind him, to Madison. She whispered, “He is your father—you are in his image.”

Michael felt himself smile. “Stay beside me— and if we get out of here alive, still stay beside me.”

“Always,” she whispered.

He leaned toward her, touching his lips to her forehead. Then he looked back toward the mouth of the cave. The black jumpsuited woman holding the M-16 was Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, Major, KGB—he knew her face well, like he knew the face of the man at the other side of the cave—the high forehead and thinning hair, but no glasses. He smiled—Annie had been right. Paul Rubenstein wouldn’t need them.

“Major Tiemerovna,” Michael called. “Good to see you after all these years.”

“Michael, you are your father’s mirror image.”

“I know that.” Michael nodded, holding Madi-son’s body against him, his left arm around her slender shoulders, the knife in his left fist still. He walked forward, calling, “Mr. Rubenstein— or is it Uncle Paul?”

“Paul’s fine. Chronologically you’re older than I am now.” “This is Madison—she doesn’t have any other name. But she will—I’m going to marry her. Or whatever it is you do when the people outside are cannibals and the people inside are religious fanatics who use genocide for population con-trol.”

John Rourke, from the mouth of the cave, his voice so low Michael could barely hear it, whispered, “Madison—daughter.”

“We can’t leave here. The people inside—we have to stop them,” Michael called, walking slowly, cannibals on each side of them now, closing behind them as he looked into Madison’s eyes.

“All right, son—if you feel we should,” his father answered. “Just keep coming.

Steady. Even.”

“What are you gonna toss me?”

“My CAR-15—remember, it’s not an M-16. One of these days maybe I’ll change it around.”

“All right. Thirty-round stick?”

“Thirty-round stick,” his father answered, the cannibals closing tighter around them.

“If it’s a choice, Dad—“

“I know. Madison—I promise,” his father answered. “There will be no choice,” Natalia’s voice echoed through the cave. He liked the sound of it—firm yet feminine, warm yet with something his father had told him was once termed “cool” to it. “We will all get out of here alive.” “You’re lovely. I see why my father feels like he does for you. He told me once, before he took the Sleep, so I’d care for you if something went wrong and you awakened and he didn’t. He loves you.”

“You have a big mouth,” his father laughed from the front of the cave. “I’m your son,” Michael called back, ready with the cattle prod—to thrust it into his first atiacker to free his right hand for the CAR-15. He saw his father move, slowly, stabbing one of the pistols into his beit, all but his father’s face clearly visible now in the growing light inside the cave. A silhouette—a scoped assault rifle, the stock a different shape from that of an M-16, the barrel seeming shorter.

“What happened to your guns?”

“Inside. They have an arsenal in there and they don’t do anything but clean it—don’t even know how to use guns.”

The cannibals were tightening around them.

“Michael, you and Madison stop moving. I’m coming to you.”

“John!”

His father didn’t answer Natalia. He began to walk, the CAR-15 in his right hand, almost casually it seemed, his arm hanging down at his right side. In his left hand, one of the Detonics pistols.

Michael stopped, holding Madison tighter against him, some of the cannibals starting to reach out to touch at her or at him. “She can go between us—Madison can,” his father said, his voice low, like a whisper.

He could see his father’s face in greater resolu-tion now—the dark-lensed aviator-style sun-glasses, the cigar clamped tight in his teeth, the teeth perfectly even, perfectly white. “Can she use weapons, son?” “I will try,” Madison stammered from beside him. “Good girl.” His father nodded, the right corner of his mouth raising in what looked like a half smile.

The cigar wasn’t lit.

John Rourke stopped walking, less than a yard separating them. Slowly, he reached out his right arm, extending it to nearly full length, the CAR] 5 inches from Michael’s chest. “Give Madison that stick—don’t drop it. Make your play when I do. Natalia and Paul’ll back us up.”

Michael pushed the cattle prod into Madison’s right hand. Her hand was trembling.

Michael raised his right hand to the rifle, closing his fist onto the pistol grip, inserting his trigger finger through the guard, his thumb finding the selector, verifying that it was set to fire.

He lowered the rifle to his right side.

He watched his father.

John Rourke reached slowly into a side pocket of his Levi’s, his right hand reappearing, the Zippo lighter in it.

John Rourke flicked back the cowling.

Michael Rourke could hear the sound of the striking wheel being rolled under his father’s right thumb.

Flame—blue-yellow, steady.

The cannibals shrank back, grunts, sounds, hisses. “You didn’t tell me you were a specialist in mob psychology.” Michael smiled. “You pick things up, son.” His father stabbed the tip of the cigar into the blue-yellow flame and the flame flickered now, smoke exiting his father’s nostrils as his father drew his head back.

The lighter—the cowling flicked closed.

The right hand moved to the right side pocket, the thumb hooking in the pocket for an instant, then the lighter disappearing. “Count to three.” “One,” Michael almost whispered.

“Two,” his father murmured.

Michael’s father’s right hand flashed to the Detonics pistol at his belt.

Together, father and son. “Three.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Natalia repeated the word under her breath in the instant it was said. “Three.” The muzzle of the M-16 raised as the thought passed through her, the assault rifle responding as though it were one with her will, firing, short three-round bursts, high, over the heads of John Rourke and Michael Rourke and the girl named Madison, into the cannibals behind them.

Father and son stood back to back, the girl between them, the CAR-15 making fire from Michael’s hands, in John’s clenched fists in the twin Detonics stainless pistols, the heavy thud-ding sounds they made, bodies falling. The rattle of Paul Rubenstein’s MP-40, the shrieking sounds oi ricochets, the reverberating oi the gunfire and the screams of the dying in the confines of the cave mouth.

Rourke’s .45s were empty, she realized, not seeing him shift guns, but hearing as the dull thudding sounds were replaced with the sharper, explosive cracks of the Python. Her own M-16

empty—as it fell to her side on its sling, both her hands found the butts of the Metalife Custom L-Frames, Rourke’s .357 Magnum still firing as her own ,357s began to discharge. A cannibal fell as he lunged for her, then another and another. Her revolvers were empty and there was no more gunfire except for the light cracks of Paul’s Browning High Power.

The Bali-Song—from her hip pocket into her hand, the lock working off under her thumb’s pressure, the handle half flicking out, back, out, the knife open, the Wee-Hawk blade slicing cannibal flesh, a carotid artery spraying blood as the body fell.

Michael Rourke. John Rourke.

She could see both men now, Madison still between them, each of the Rourke men wielding one of the stone axes, hacking, chopping at their common enemies, the screams, the shouted snarls that perhaps were curses in the grunted language of the cannibals, death surrounding her as she slashed and hacked with the Bali-Song.

On the far side of the cave, the cracks of Paul Rubenstein’s pistol had stopped—he would be using his blade now, too.

She could see the Rourke men—ahead. She fought toward them.

Chapter Forty-Four

He heard the girl Madison screaming behind him. John Rourke wheeled, three men with axes closing on his son. Rourke shoved the girl aside, hacking outward with a stone axe, killing the cannibal nearest her, stepping forward between Michael and the three cannibals, his own axe swinging outward against the face of the farthest cannibal, impacting the head of the second. The axe of the third was on a downswing, Rourke sidestepping, his son moving—a blur of motion, the axe of the third man gone, the face crushed.

Madison—her scream again. Rourke wheeled toward her. She was hacking outward with the cattle prod, the smell of burning flesh on the air for an instant, the cannibal falling back. The thought crossed John Rourke’s mind—they’d make a good Rourke of her.

Michael—his axe chopped downward, against the head of the man Madison had struck with the cattle prod.

Rourke brought his axe through in a wide arc, five of the cannibals falling back, the impact then against his left shoulder. He stumbled, the axe falling from his hands, his upper body numbed for an instant. ^ Michael stepped past him, the axe in Michael’s hands flailing outward. v Rourke’s left arm was numb, but his right hand found the butt of the Gerber Mkll in the belt sheath and drew the blade, thrusting into the attackers with it, withdrawing, thrusting, with-drawing, a swiping hack across an exposed artery. He wheeled quickly as the blood sprayed.

Natalia—she was beside him, fighting, her Bali-Song flashing in the sunlight that now filled the cave, red blood dripping from the blade. Paul—his fighting knife wrenched free of a body. And it had stopped—Rourke’s right hand held the Gerber, poised, ready, but the cannibals who still stood were withdrawing, backing out of the cave or running in fear.

There was a clicking sound—John Rourke knew it well, the sound of a fresh magazine going up the well of Rubenstein’s Schmeisser. “Leave ‘em, Paul—let ‘em withdraw.”

“All right, but in case they come back we’ll be ready again.”

Rourke only nodded.

He glanced at Natalia—she was wiping her blade clean on a bandanna handkerchief. “Here—

use this for your knife,” and she passed it to him. Rourke nodded. “Paul and I can take care of get-ting the bikes down here—Paul can ride them down one at a time and I can cover him.”

“Takes too much time—cover him for the third bike, then each of you ride the last two down—“ “You found my bike!”

He looked at his son. “Yeah, we found your bike,” and John Rourke laughed.

Chapter Forty-Five

That the cannibals would return was not something Rourke thought debatable—it was obvious. Michael and Madison had shown Natalia the location of one of the door panels in the rock wall of the cave and Natalia, Paul helping her, was already at work to open it. She had laughed. “All that KGB training—I was always very good at breaking into things.”

John Rourke stood at the mouth of the cave, his son beside him, Madison with Paul and Natalia.

“I guess I fucked things up.”

Rourke looked at his son. “Welcome to the club.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ahh,” and he sighed loudly, long. “Your mother—she’s angry. More angry than I’ve ever seen her. Because of what I did—using the cryogenic chambers to let you and your sister reach maturity while the rest of us slept.” “It was the only practical thing.”

“Don’t let your mother hear you say that.”

“She’ll get over it.”

“I don’t think so. Maybe it’ll be good in a way— like you said that maybe you’d gotten Madison pregnant. A grandchild—but at her age,” and John Rourke felt himself smile. There was no sign of the enemy but they had already proven they were good at using natural cover. They could be ready to attack again, Rourke realized. “No— maybe a grandchild will help her feel better about herself, but it won’t make her feel better about me.”

“You mean—“

“I don’t know what I mean,” John Rourke answered, looking at his son. It was like staring into a mirror—Michael stood well above six feet, a full shock of dark brown hair, brown eyes, the prominent jaw, but there were fewer lines in his face and unlike John Rourke, not yet a trace of gray. “I thought we might have lost you. But I’m embarrassed—I should have known you could take care of yourself.”

“It was touch and go there for a while,” his son laughed. “I’m glad you and

Paul—and Natalia— I’m glad you all showed up when you did.” And Michael seemed

to clear his throat, his voice odd-