A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

Sure enough, two young males came tearing around the corner seconds
later and charged straight at them, snarling and howling in a frenzy, so Mason
did an about-face and sprinted off in the opposite direction. But then a female
in a torn and bloodied housecoat appeared from the mouth of an alley at a
run, and with more pouring into that nameless street from everywhere at
once, they were suddenly trapped. There was only one option left, and it
wasn’t a good one. With Mackenzie hanging on for dear life, Mason made for
the nearest building and threw himself into the first door he came to. The lock
exploded, the door swung wide, and he dove through the breach, kicking the
door closed just as a double thud of bodies collided against it. He lowered
Mackenzie to the floor and grabbed a nearby chair, propping it up under the
doorknob, but there followed such a flurry of scratching and pounding on the
other side of the door that he knew it would give way in seconds. Thinking
fast, he retrieved a coat hanger from a hook on the wall, untwisted it in a
flash, and wrapped the heavy-gauge wire around both ends of the broken
deadbolt, over and over and over again. It did the trick for now, but more
were coming, and all the coat hangers and chairs in the world would never be
enough to hold them back.

As if they weren’t in enough trouble, a window directly beside the door
suddenly exploded inward, and the head and shoulders of the Walker-creature
burst through. Its mouth hung uselessly open, its nose was a pulpy mess,
blood cascaded from the ghastly wound on the back of its head, and broken
shards of glass stuck out from its cheeks and forehead like the quills of a
porcupine, yet the creature clawed away, howling like a madman.

Mackenzie couldn’t help but utter a startled little yelp, and that was
enough to stir the other creatures into a veritable frenzy. Two male faces
pushed up on one side of Walker, the haggard face of the woman in the
housecoat appeared on his other side amid a wild flurry of hair, and however
many seconds Mason thought they’d had was suddenly halved. Mackenzie
clamped a hand over her mouth and froze in place, but the creatures already
had her scent. They jockeyed against one another, howling with rage and
bloodlust as they clawed at the air, then the sheer weight of those behind
began to actually lift Walker bodily through the window, so Mason grabbed
Mackenzie by the hand and led her back into the shadows as quickly as he
dared and as quietly as he could.

The place they were in was some kind of office. Open floor plan. Big

front counter. Swinging gate. Two rows of desks behind. A stack of calendars
on the counter identified the place as ‘McHorton Insurance’ but the nature of
the business didn’t matter. With no way to barricade the window, the door
ready to fly open at any second, and no chance to fight off the swarm once
they were in, it was a death trap. He led Mackenzie all the way to the back of
the office and into the staff area, hoping against hope that there would be
another way out, and sure enough, he found it tucked away in the tiniest of
staff lunchrooms. A big, beautiful emergency exit. A sticker on the door
warned that an alarm would sound when the door was opened, but that was
the least of their worries. With no hesitation whatsoever, he depressed the
paddle, cracked the door open a few inches, and peeked through the gap.

With the power out city-wide, no siren sounded when the door opened,
but the situation was no less alarming. He was looking out at an alley that ran
behind the string of businesses, and connected to a dozen small parking areas
between the buildings. At the far end of the alley was Market Street, the
corner of the big Farragut’s department store just barely visible on the far
side, but getting to that supposed sanctuary now seemed impossible. The
alley was crawling with creatures, both figuratively and literally. He counted
a dozen in varying states of mobility before giving up. He let the door close
with the barest whisper of a click, and reconsidered. It might be better, after
all, to stand and fight. Taking on four was a damn sight better than a dozen-
plus. But what could he fight them with? Not his bare hands, that was for
sure. He was barely able to hold his own against one weak little man and
escape with his life. But what kind of weapon could he find here? This was
an insurance office, not an armory. If he’d acted right away, he might have
been able to pile up a few of the desks to slow the creatures down or funnel
them through one at a time, but that option was long gone. Even now, Walker
and one of the males were nearly halfway through. Once there was more of
their mass on this side of the opening than the other, gravity would take over
and they’d be in.

He bent to Mackenzie’s side and whispered in her ear.

“Total silence, Mack.”

She nodded once and gave Mason’s hand a squeeze. Mason turned back
to the door, cracked it open soundlessly, and stepped through. When he eased
the door shut behind them, he knew they were committed. Any chance at

retreat was gone. He stood there for a long moment, assessing the swarm and
plotting the least treacherous path, but there were as many creatures one way
as the other, so it was a toss-up which way to proceed. Several stage 3’s were
stumbling around like drunks making their way home after last call, wild-
eyed stage 2’s would occasionally appear in fleeting glimpses as they chased
after either real or imagined prey in one direction or another, and more than a
few others were standing vigil, with heads cocked and ears pricked up for the
slightest of sounds. Out of all the creatures in their various forms, it was these
last that filled Mason with the most dread. Those macabre statues were the
new ambush predators in this world. One single scuff of a shoe, and it would
all be over.

With no clear advantage to one direction over another, Mason decided
that the big Farragut’s store on Market was still their best bet. Now more than
ever, they needed to rest. His mind made up, he gave Mackenzie’s hand a
gentle squeeze, and they started off.

Almost immediately, they came upon their first obstacle. The alley had
clearly been well-used, but with considerably less traffic than a main street,
dust and grit had accumulated all across the paved surface. As such, even
with both of them treading as softly as they could, they might as well have
been walking on sandpaper. Every single step was met with the crunching of
sand or pebbles underfoot, so they had barely begun the journey before one
particularly massive creature that had been standing vigil a short distance
away roused itself and tilted its head in their direction. Mason brought
Mackenzie to an immediate stop, and there they stood, frozen in place, unable
to move an inch.

Mason ran the math a dozen different ways, but the answer always came
out the same. He and Mackenzie were fucked six ways to Sunday. Even if the
big bastard went back to his vigil, they would still have to get past it, and that
would mean passing within claw’s reach of it without making a breath of
sound. How could they do that when every step sounded the dinner bell? He
once again considered continuing on in stockinged feet, but the argument
against it remained every bit as valid as before.

Suddenly, the full weight of his failure fell upon Mason’s shoulders like
a ton of bricks. Sure, he’d done his best, but his best hadn’t been good
enough. They had ended up here because of him, and now they would die in

this ugly, forgotten little corner of a dead city without even a stone to mark
their grave.

Mason reworked the math and focussed on the one invariable. If they
were to have even the slightest ghost of a chance at surviving the day, they
simply had to get out of the damned alley.

Okay then, how do they do that?

One of the narrow parking strips between the buildings would be the best
bet. If they could get to one of those, they could cut back to the main road. At
least there they’d have room to maneuver. And as it happened, the giant in
front of them was lurking right at the mouth of the closest of those parking
strips. If they could just get past this one behemoth, they could have their
chance.

Okay then, how the fuck do they do that?

It came to him in a flash. Remembering his trick with the keys, he took a
single slow-motion step to the side and squatted at the edge of a flower bed
gone to seed. There, he slowly and cautiously gathered up small pebbles one
at a time until he had a good handful. Rising again and returning to
Mackenzie’s side, he selected one of the pebbles and tossed it in a high arc
over the creature’s head. It plinked against hard pavement on the far side of
the giant, causing the creature’s head to snap in the direction of the sound. A
low growl gurgled up from the back of its throat, but the thing didn’t move.
Mason selected another pebble and aimed for the same spot. Again, the
creature growled, but it remained exactly where it was. At last, he selected
the largest of the pebbles and tossed it hard enough that it clattered against
the building behind the creature before dropping to the ground, and this time
the giant reacted. It spun around with a growl and took three quick steps
toward the source of the sound, then it slowed to a halt and cocked its head.

The ruse was working, but only just. The way was nearly clear, but the
creature was on high alert. It was also so amped up now that any sound at all
would trigger an attack. Figuring the odds, Mason threw the rest of the
pebbles as hard as he could, all at once, and that did the trick. They fell like
hail against the building before rattling to the ground, and the giant launched
itself after the sound with a growl, careening off of the building and tearing
off down the alley, howling like a banshee.

Mason gave a click with his cheek, and he and Mackenzie started off
again. They rounded the corner and quickened their pace, but then two
creatures emerged at the far end of the parking strip, bringing them to an
abrupt halt. Thankfully, they were both stage 3’s. Even without a weapon,
Mason might have been able to take them both out quickly, but there were
other considerations to worry about now.

Walker. Poor weak cowardly Walker. Yes, in hindsight, he should have
been left behind, but his presence had proven useful after all. It had taught
Mason an invaluable lesson. Whatever it was that was turning people into
killing machines didn’t have to be inhaled.

He said some woman scratched him. Said it felt like it was burning...

A scratch was enough. A simple scratch. Walker had been as seemingly
immune as Mason to the original virus, but he’d been infected anyway. By a
scratch. A simple little scratch. So now, with half of the world trying to kill
them and the other half stumbling around as undead mannequins, it turned
out that a simple scratch from any one of those creatures was a death
sentence.

One side of the parking area was a solid wall of stucco. No doors or
windows. The building on the opposite side was wooden siding giving way to
glass, but there was a door there. It was some kind of restaurant, but it could
have opened directly into Hell and Mason wouldn’t have cared. It was a way
out. He’d deal with whatever was on the other side once they got through. If
they got through.

He led Mackenzie slowly forward and watched as the two creatures
stumbled drunkenly toward them. Mason cursed his big clumsy feet, but then
he realized that there wasn’t nearly as much grit here as there was in the
alley, so if he could barely hear his own footsteps, how could those mindless
dead things possibly detect him from a dozen yards away? Then he had a new
and frightening thought. Perhaps those creatures in stage 3 might be
following a different stimulus than those wild things tearing about in the
frenzy of stage 2. After all, human hearing depended on a vibrating eardrum
and active neurons in a living brain to transform those vibrations into sound.
A dead body, even a reanimated dead body, could never do that. So what in
the name of all things holy manned the helm of these blind, deaf, dead
things?

In his heart, he knew that the answer could mean the difference between
life and death, but for now, it was purely academic. Whatever it was that was
steering those two creatures, it was drawing them to him and Mackenzie like
twin arrows. He thought again about skirting around them in some kind of
end run, but there was too little room to take the chance. With a quick, light
step, he reached the glass door while the creatures were still six yards away
and gave it a tug. Of course, it was locked, but a metal post bearing a
handicapped parking sign was standing at an angle directly beside the door.
Apparently, someone had backed into the post at some point in the past.
Several someones, judging by the way it had nearly been pulled from the
asphalt. Mason grabbed the post in both hands and set to wrenching it
violently back and forth, and soon enough, he had loosened enough soil and
asphalt around its base to tear it loose. A tight little ball of concrete on the
bottom made him briefly consider using it to shatter of couple of nearby
skulls, but then a stage 2 in a short black cocktail dress raced around the
corner and came straight at them, so he turned his attention back to the door.

With no time to make a neat little hole and fiddle with locks, he aimed
the concrete ball at the precise center of the door, and glass exploded in every
direction. A push/pull bar split the opening in two, so he ducked Mackenzie’s
head low and shoved her carefully between the remaining shards of glass,
then he clambered in after her, inches ahead of groping claws. He rammed
the metal signpost down through the bar and wedged the concrete ball tight
against the outer edge of the lower jamb just as the creature in the cocktail
dress lunged. He saw a pretty face split open by broken glass, then a hand
reached through the gap with blood-red claws as long as daggers. The talons
came within inches of his face, but he backed away just in time and grabbed
the nearest large object, a narrow sideboard table, and tipped it on its side. He
brought his fist down on the groping arm, snapping it at the elbow, and when
the arm withdrew, he shoved the table against the door to complete the
barricade. At last, he took hold of a stiff-backed chair and fit it so that the
back legs were through the push bar and the front legs were wedged firmly
against the table. That done, he stepped back and judged it reasonably secure.
It might not be perfect, but it would hold. For now.

He fell back from the door, dropped to his knees, and corralled
Mackenzie into his arms, gasping for air.

“Mace?” the girl hushed nervously. “Mace?”

“We’re okay, Mack,” he managed between pants. “We’re safe.”

She tapped him gently on the shoulder, and her voice fell to a whisper.

“Mace, someone’s here.”

A familiar click! sounded from behind, and Mason turned just as the
barrel of a gun was pressed to his forehead.

CHAPTER

XIII

The face behind the gun was unremarkable. It was young and clean-shaven
below a crest of heavily gelled, dirty-blond hair. High cheek bones. Aquiline
nose. Unexceptional brown eyes. It was ordinary. Plain, even. In every way,
the face was entirely average and commonplace save for one feature; a pair of
permanently arched eyebrows that lent the face a bemused aspect, as if the
young punk behind them saw the whole world as something of a joke.

The gun, though. The gun was as serious as it got.

Mason’s immediate reaction was to swat the thing away and make the
punk eat it, but he could hardly afford to be so cavalier. Mackenzie was in his
arms, and he was on his knees. Hardly a position of strength. He could toss
the girl aside and make the attempt anyway, but doing so would take a
precious second he would never have. The gun in the kid’s hand was a nine-
millimetre automatic. Even an amateur would be able to get off half a dozen
wildly aimed shots before he could ever get Mackenzie clear, and it didn’t
take more than a quick look around to see that this kid was no amateur.

As he’d thought, the place was a restaurant. One of those fashionable
little eateries with a front facade entirely of bevelled glass, and a narrow slice
of the sidewalk beyond sectioned off as a patio. Inside was all hardwood
floors, quaint little tables covered in linen, and artwork that looked like
they’d come from a spray can. Nearby, the body of a man in a shirt and tie
lay slumped over one of those quaint little tables as if he’d fallen asleep.
Beyond him, the corpse of a young man in a leather jacket lay crumpled
beneath an oversized painting of a darkened cityscape recently tarnished with
a garish splash of red. And against the glass facade, the naked remains of a
woman lay sprawled atop a tangle of soiled linen and torn clothing.

That those bodies were the kid’s handiwork was obvious, but had it been
self-defense, or had a more sinister scenario played itself out in this out-of-

the-way little bistro? The otherwise unremarkable condition of the man in the
leather jacket was suggestive. The odd placement of the man asleep in a pool
of his own blood may only have been indicative. The woman, though. The
naked body of the woman prostrate on a makeshift bed of soiled linen and
torn clothing. That was pretty fucking conclusive.

This fashionable little eatery wasn’t a sanctuary at all. It was a killing
field.

Christ! Out of the fire and into another goddam fire...

Mason displayed no emotion as he viewed the carnage, nor did he betray
his anxiety when he turned back to the young man holding the gun between
his eyes. He remained outwardly unperturbed, and even offered a humble flag
of truce.

“We’re not infected,” he said calmly, hoping either his tone or his words
might ameliorate the situation.

The kid grinned stupidly and shook his head ponderously.

“I don’t care.”

Shit. Not good.

Mason kept his voice calm and cool and tried again.

“Son, we’re no threat to you... “

The kid snorted his derision.

“I know, Dad. I’m holding a gun to your head. If anyone’s a threat, it’s
probably me, don’tcha think?”

Oh, I know it, kid. I know it... Mason said inside his head, but outwardly
he offered a casual, “Well, it’s hard to rate all the different threats these days.
On a scale of 1 to 10, every damn thing in this world is a solid fifty.”

That made the kid laugh out loud, but it was forced, and there was no
humor in it. Even so, the sound brought a renewed growling and banging at
the barricaded door, and out front, a teenaged girl who had stumbled her way
into the patio area now pressed her face against the glass facade. Another
lingered beyond the sidewalk, unable to comprehend the parked cars holding
it in place, but a wildman in a torn and bloody Armani suit chose just that

moment to charge in at full tilt, slamming against the glass so hard that
Mason thought he might come straight through it. The glass held though, and
as the creature clawed and howled away, the barrel of the gun was pressed
hard against Mason’s forehead, and his attention was back on the more
immediate monster.

“You scared, Dad?” the kid asked with an exaggerated tilt of his head.

“Kid,” Mason sighed ponderously, “this morning, I woke up in a world
gone to shit. Since then, I’ve had to run and hide and fight for my life more
times than I can count. I’ve seen people torn to pieces, I’ve seen dead people
come back to life, and I watched one guy turn into a raging animal before my
very eyes. You ask me if I’m scared? Hell yes, I’m scared!”

“I’m scared, too,” Mackenzie finally spoke up, her voice thin and frail.

The kid looked from one to other and back again, considering. Mason
knew better than to let him deliberate his absolute power over others for too
long, so he offered the kid another out.

“Look, we were just hoping to find somewhere to rest. You’ve staked a
claim on this place, and that’s fine. It’s your turf, and you’re welcome to it.
Now that we know, we’ll just be on our way, no harm, no foul.”

“No harm?” the kid scoffed, “You broke my fucking door!”

Christ, kid, take the deal. Make me fight for our lives and you’ll regret
it...

“I’ll help you seal it. We’ll make it stronger than it was before, then
we’ll sneak out the back way and leave you in peace.”

“It sounds almost like you’re trying to be the one giving orders, Dad,”
came the menacing reply.

Swear to God, kid, you don’t want this... No one’s more dangerous than
a man with nothing to lose...

“Poor choice of words,” Mason gritted his teeth and feigned remorse. “I
apologize.”

“A man with a gun to his head should choose his words more carefully,”
the kid narrowed his eyes menacingly. “In fact, he should choose his words
veeerrry carefully.”

Mason had never seen this kid before in his life, but he knew him all the
same. In life, this kid was ever the oddball. The weirdo of the group. The
outsider. At best, he was ignored. At worst, he was bullied. He had spent his
days resenting and hating and plotting a revenge that he would never have the
balls to carry out. On any given day, this punk would always fade into the
wallpaper. But put a gun in the hands of someone so pissed off at the world,
and he was suddenly Lord of the Flies.

The gun. It all came down to the gun. Take that weapon away, and the
self-appointed King Shit of Turd Mountain would revert to the pathetic little
weakling he always was.

“Quite right,” Mason agreed, feigning humility and biding his time.

The kid was eyeing him suspiciously, so he fought to keep his expression
benign. He knew that the only way to deal with this type of cretin was by
staying calm and even-tempered. Show arrogance, and the kid might take out
a lifetime of frustrations. Show submission, and he would be giving the idiot
total control. He had to either convince the kid to let them be on their way, or
he had to get that damned gun away from him. He would have preferred the
former, but as every second ticked by, the more convinced he became that it
would eventually come down to the latter.

The kid continued to scour Mason’s face for any signs of deception, but
Mackenzie spoke up again and drew his attention to her.

“Would you like a muffin?” she asked sweetly. “They’re oatmeal and
raisin.”

“I hate raisins!” the kid snapped angrily.

She ignored his tone utterly and even offered, “I can pick them out for
you, if you like.”

The kid scoffed, but then he saw something strange in the girl’s face and
narrowed his eyes to regard her more closely. He looked her straight in the
eyes and slowly bobbed his head from one side to the other. When she failed
to follow his movements, he waved a hand in front of her face. At last, he
gasped and shifted the pistol from between Mason’s eyes to the tip of
Mackenzie’s nose.

“She’s blind!” he fairly spat at Mason. “You said you weren’t infected!”

As the kid drew back the gun’s hammer, Mason readied himself. In his
mind, he saw Mackenzie being tossed to one side, then a strong hand coming
up to grab for the pistol. But as quickly as he might be able to cover the
handful of feet, he would never be fast enough. A human body can’t move as
fast as a finger. The gun would go off, and Mackenzie would die, and he
would follow a second later. But at least he would go out fighting. And if
things happened as quickly as he assumed they would, maybe he’d be lucky
enough that his mind wouldn’t have time to register the girl’s brains spraying
out of the back of her head before he followed her into the abyss.

Every muscle in his body tensed, but just as he was about to make what
was sure to be his last move on Earth, Mackenzie lowered her face, stuck out
her bottom lip, and let it quiver ever so subtly.

“I was born blind,” she said plainly, with just the appropriate hint of
wistfulness.

By now, nothing about this amazing young lady should have surprised
Mason, but this still did. The kid appeared unconvinced by the lie, but at least
he stayed his hand long enough to offer a dimwitted, “Huh?”

“It’s called Congenital Retinopathy,” Mason took the ball and ran with
it. “Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

The words were made up, but they sounded good to Mason. He just
hoped they sounded as good to the man with the gun. The kid looked from
him to the girl and back again, muttered a suspicious, “Hmm...” and came to
a conclusion. He didn’t remove the pistol from Mackenzie’s nose, but he did
finally ease the hammer back down.

“Never heard of it,” he shrugged, but then the sly grin was back. “I
guess Jerry never had a telethon for that one, huh?”

Mackenzie made a convincing show of steadying her quivering lip and
raising her chin stoically.

“It’s very rare,” she said with the barest of sniffles.

Her performance was damn near Oscar-worthy. If Mason didn’t know
better, he would have believed the tale himself. He watched the kid’s face,
and detected just the subtlest of changes. Certainly nothing like sympathy or
compassion, but gone was the malicious glint in the eyes, replaced instead by

a general air of cold indifference.

“Well,” he said crassly, directing a derisive snort at the girl, “Sucks to be
you, huh?”

At last, he pointed the gun back in Mason’s general direction and
guardedly backed away to grab a nearby chair. He pulled it to within a few
yards of the pair and perched himself on its very edge, then he lowered the
gun at last and dangled it casually between his knees as he studied them both
closely. His eyes lingered on Mackenzie’s body a moment longer than was
appropriate, so Mason recklessly grunted and shifted his weight from one
knee to the other. As expected, the gun came back up, but at least the
monster’s eyes were back on him and away from the girl.

“Easy there, Dad,” the kid cautioned with a sneer.

“Sorry,” Mason offered, faking a wince and making a grandly awkward
display of shifting Mackenzie’s weight so he could free up a hand to massage
his knee. As he did so, he moaned and groaned and screwed up his face into
an expression of sheer agony, grumbling, “I’m just not used to so much
physical activity. I’ve spent most of my life behind a desk.”

The kid’s chin jutted out, and he glared at Mason angrily.

“Oh yeah? A desk, huh? So, what, you’re some kind of executive or
something?”

Even if Mason hadn’t already sized up the kid by now, the way he spat
out the word would have spoken volumes.

“Hell, no!” he lied through a sneer, “I worked for a living, man. Not like
those prissy douchebags with their expense accounts and their monkey suits
and their company cars.”

It was worth a shot trying to find common ground with the kid, but in
reality, the sentiment was only half-faked. He’d had enough idiot supervisors
over the years to know how it felt to be a cog in the machine. Still, it didn’t
look like the kid was buying it. Maybe he was laying it on too thick.

“Oh yeah?” the kid narrowed his eyes. “So, what did you do. Exactly.”

Not surprisingly, Mason went with the first thing that popped into his
mind.

“Insurance.”

The kid rolled his eyes, “Gee, Dad, that sounds pretty fucking exciting.”

Now that Mason had created the outline of a character, he decided to go
whole hog and fill it in with purpose, even if he poured it on too heavily. If
portraying himself as nothing more than an office drudge with a bad knee
didn’t win him any favor, at least the kid was likely to underestimate him.
Either way, it was an edge, and he was sure to need one when the time came.

“It was hell,” Mason replied, playing the odds to include one more burr
undoubtedly under the kid’s saddle. “I worked nine to five every day under
the thumb of a dried-up old bitch who treated every man like shit because no
one was desperate enough to slip her the sausage. Then, on any given day,
while I was busy dealing with whatever shit the wicked old witch piled on
me, some idiot would come in all pissed off that he had to take time out of his
oh-so-precious schedule to get his frickin’ Mercedes insured, and I’d have to
smile and say yes sir and no sir when all I really wanted to do was reach
across the counter and strangle the prissy fuck with his own tie.”

When the choleric diatribe was done, Mason was sure he’d gone too far.
Surely, the kid would see through the deception. He grimaced, and massaged
his knee, and moaned and groaned, all the while studying the kid’s face for
tells. For several moments, the boyish face merely scowled, then the kid
flipped a glance over his shoulder to the corpse of the woman on the floor
near the window and smirked indignantly.

“Preachin’ to the choir,” he said, flatly.

Mason suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Still, he had to take solace in
the fact that the kid’s hostility was directed elsewhere for a change. Back to
the baggage of a bitter life he carried draped around his neck like an anchor
chain. Back to the naked corpse of the woman who had either been his boss
or resembled her enough to fill in once King Shit assumed his throne.

“I thought about quitting a thousand times,” Mason kept at it, acting his
heart out, “but bills have to get paid, right? Twenty years I’ve worked at that
hell hole, and the bitch still calls me ‘Billy’ like some punk-ass copy boy.”

“Called,” the kid corrected him. “Past tense. None of those stuffed shirts
would know how to survive in the real world. They’re all dead by now. Your
wicked old witch included.”

He flipped a sideways peek at the man in the tie, asleep in a puddle of his
own mire. Mason almost made his move then, but the kid’s eyes only left him
for a split second. Not enough time. He needed more. Just a bit more of an
edge. A glance held elsewhere for a second too long would be enough.

“Friggin’ bossholes,” Mason spat his contempt on the floor. “Good
riddance to them all.”

The kid burst into laughter again. It was cold and sour and just as
humorless as before, but the sound animated the swarm outside, making them
crash and bang against the barricade with renewed vigor. Despite the din, the
kid laughed on and on, and not once did he let his eyes waver from Mason.

“Omigod!” he howled, “Bossholes! I love it!”

He made a display of slapping his knee and holding his belly as he
laughed, but behind it all were dead, soulless eyes. He was mimicking what
he’d seen others do, with no understanding at all of what true laughter really
was. Mason began laughing right along with him like they were old pals, but
it was a step too far. The kid stopped laughing as if a switch had been thrown,
and all Mason could do was force a few more chuckles to allow the laughter
to die a more realistic death.

“It sounds like you and I have something in common,” he said, knowing
how much he was pushing it.

Sure enough, the scowl returned. In spades.

“I doubt it,” the kid scoffed.

Just like that, whatever connection Mason thought he might have forged
with the kid was gone. Back was the sneer, and the prepossessed arrogance,
and the smug arch of those cocky goddamn eyebrows.

Mackenzie suddenly squirmed in Mason’s lap and tugged on his shirt.

“Mace,” she said in a hush and with an adorable blush of her cheeks, “I
need to pee.”

The pistol stirred at the end of a skinny arm, and the kid looked askance
at Mason.

“I thought you said your name was ‘Billy.’”

Mason thought fast.

“It is. But my last name’s Mason, so most people call me ‘Mace.’”

The kid pointed the gun to the center of his chest and cocked his head
warily.

“She calls her father by his last name?”

Now that they were back to square one, Mason knew that every word
that came out of his mouth meant the difference between life and death, so he
trod carefully.

“I’m not her father,” he admitted, hoping the kid would see the truth in
his eyes.

“Oh, yeah? So, like, what then? What is she, the spoils of war? You like
‘em young, do ya?” The kid let a sly grin curl one corner of his upper lip and
added, “Well, maybe we got something in common after all.”

Mason’s blood ran cold, but for one second, one ugly and unforgivable
second, he considered using that egregious angle to form a new bond with the
kid. But it was simply too monstrous a notion to contemplate, and he knew he
could never pull it off convincingly. Only a monster could talk monster.

“I’m her uncle,” he said finally, and with enough weight behind it to
derail the kid’s abhorrent train of thought.

“Oh yeah?” the kid leered from one to the other.

“My parents died when I was little,” Mackenzie explained with genuine
sadness, then she stuck out her chin staunchly and lied like a pro. “Uncle
Mace raised me.”

God damn it, kiddo, whatever else you might be, you sure as hell are
quick...

The kid snorted again.

“Wow, blind from birth and an orphan, too. Don’t bother buying lottery
tickets, sweetheart. Not with the whole universe against you.” He sneered a
grin that only grew as the girl fake-pouted. “You know what, little princess?
I’m an orphan, too. No, really, I am! I know that for a fact because I killed
my parents myself.” He turned to Mason and shrugged nonchalantly, “In my

defence they were trying to eat me, so...”

Before Mason could come up with any kind of response, Mackenzie
nudged him with her elbow.

“Uncle Mace, I really need to pee.”

Another switch flipped, and the kid was suddenly angry.

“So, go already!” he barked at her. “Who’s stopping you?”

Mackenzie turned to the kid and gave a little tilt of her head.

“Aren’t you?” she asked, sweetly.

“Hey, you gotta go, you gotta go,” the kid spread his arms wide. “Pick a
corner, any corner.”

Mackenzie hesitated for a long moment, then she turned to Mason with a
grimace.

“She likes her privacy,” Mason explained with a ‘what’re-ya-gonna-do’
kind of shrug.

“No one’s watching,” the kid assured her with a poorly concealed leer.
“Just drop your little pants and pee.”

Mason couldn’t miss the ugly, sly smirk tugging at one corner of the
creep’s mouth, so he cut the whole idea short in no uncertain terms.

“She’s shy,” he told the kid, clearly. “She needs a bathroom and a door.
She needs to be alone.”

The kid scowled peevishly, as if he’d just been denied the chance to pull
the wings off of a fly. At last, he waved the pistol in the general direction of
the rear of the restaurant and gruffed, “Fine. Whatever. Just stop whining.
The can’s back there... Princess. Knock yourself out.”

“It would be easier if I showed her,” Mason tried, but the suggestion was
met with a snort.

“I don’t think so, Billy. You and I are staying right here. She’ll find it on
her own. Or not.”

As Mackenzie disentangled herself from Mason’s arms, she fake-
stumbled to draw his shirt down to cover the butt of the gun in his waistband

just barely beginning to peek out, then she stood, and Mason aimed her in the
right direction.

“I can see the sign for the bathroom, Mack. There’s tables and chairs,
then a counter. Once you feel the counter, follow it to the right, then go left.”

The girl oriented herself, offered a sweet, “Thank you, Uncle Mace,” and
headed off.

As she bumped along from one table to another, the kid called after her,
“Hey! You have three minutes, Princess! Any longer, and you know what
will happen, right?”

Mackenzie stopped and turned blindly back to the kid.

“Oh, I know what will happen, alright,” she said, then she turned back
and resumed groping her way to the back of the restaurant.

The kid watched her struggling to find a path through the jumble, and
smirked to himself. Then his eyes dropped to the little girl’s slender backside,
and a thin tongue darted out from between his tight little lips like that of a
snake. Mason felt his face grow red and his muscles tense, but then the gun
came up in a flash and centered itself on the middle of his chest.

The kid’s smirk only widened.

“Princess got a name?” he asked idly.

Mason considered lying, but he dared not. As loathe as he was for this
monster to know Mackenzie’s name, it wasn’t worth the gamble.

“Mackenzie,” he answered, reluctantly.

“Mackenzie.” The kid tried it on for size. “Mackenzie. Pretty name for a
pretty girl. How old is she?”

Mason cringed at hearing that precious name uttered by such a vile
creature, but he forced his expression to remain neutral as he considered his
answer. The subject had never come up, so he could only guess. He had
assumed that she was nine or ten, but what if the kid asked Mackenzie the
same question and got a different answer? An ordinary uncle might be
expected to be a year off one way or the other, but not the kind of uncle he
and Mack had already purported him to be. If the kid asked Mackenzie her
age when she got back and Mason’s answer was off in any way, that would

be it.

“She’s ten,” he declared without a hint of indecision and as loudly as he
dared, then he massaged his knee, groaned in pain, and shifted his weight so
that it looked like he was now fully supported on his bad side.

“Hmm,” the kid purred, then he smirked and mused as if to himself,
“They’re so adorable at that age. So.... gullible. I bet she’d do just about
anything to keep her uncle safe.”

Mason made up his mind right then and there. This kid had to die. If he
had come across this creep a week ago, he would have delivered a beat-down
in a back alley and topped it off by pissing on his broken body. Now, things
were different. In this new world, even such half-measures were relics of the
past. The only law that existed now was the law of the jungle. Eat or be eaten.
Literally. Even if he somehow got himself and Mack out of this mess, this kid
had to die. They may have to share the world with monsters, but not this kind
of monster. Like someone said somewhere back in his distant memory, some
people just need killing.

He shifted his weight again and sunk further onto what he had already
advertised as his bad knee, moaning loudly. The kid followed his every
movement with the barrel of the pistol, but at least his focus was on
something other than the retreating Mackenzie. Mason winced and groaned
and made a grand display of a most excruciating pain, and by the way a self-
satisfied grin curled the corners of the kid’s mouth, he knew he was buying it.

Good. Be amused at my pain... All I need is an opening... Give me that,
and everyone’s worries will be over...

The kid might or might not be falling for the ruse, but either way, the gun
didn’t waver an inch.

“And what brings you two out on a day like this, Billy?”

Mason accepted the goading as if he’d heard it for a lifetime.

“We were looking for her aunt,” he answered truthfully, just in case the
kid asked Mackenzie the same thing.

“Ah,” the kid nodded. “The missus.”

This wasn’t idle chit-chat. It was an interrogation. It was an old cop trick,

getting the subject to commit to so many details that any lie would eventually
trip them up.

Alright then, Mason thought. I can play this game... Just enough truth to
keep the lies straight...

Sarah’s last name was Cullen. It might come up.

“No, she’s from the other side of the family,” he said, keeping the details
as vague as he could. “Her name is Sarah. She worked at a clinic up near
Russian Hill, so we made our way there to see if we could find her.”

“And?”

Mason shook his head with calculated solemnity, and said nothing.

The kid pursed his lips and clucked.

“Oh, that’s a shame. Dear little Mackenzie’s pitiful life just keeps
sucking more and more, doesn’t it?”

Mason held his tongue and busied himself with calculating precisely how
he was going to take the gun away from the kid. The idiot was sitting, which
was good. A stationary target didn’t require much math. Eight feet away. No,
make it nine. Nine feet. It could be worse. He could cover that distance in a
second. The gun was in the kid’s right hand, so left hand to grab the gun, and
right hand straight for the neck. A good punch to the nerve bundle behind the
ear to stun him like a fish, then a hand closed around his throat. Then the kid
would die. Mason would strangle the life out of him without a second
thought, and consider it a job well done.

But that one second was an eternity. He could never move as fast as a
finger could twitch. And at nine feet, the kid couldn’t miss. The bullet might
not hit anything vital, but even a graze would slow him down enough for the
kid to empty the clip. He needed an edge.

He had already laid the groundwork by complaining about his bad knee
and the tale of a sedentary life. That might buy him half a second. It was
something, but not enough. He needed more. The only option was a feint.
Some kind of diversion. If he could distract the kid enough to steal another
half a second, he’d stand a decent chance. And sure as hell, once he had the
kid in his hands, it would take an act of God to keep him from choking the
life out of this cretin.

Something crashed at the rear of the restaurant, and Mason nearly
launched his attack then and there. Sadly, the noise startled the kid enough
that his finger tightened on the trigger, and just like that, the opportunity
vanished.

It was Mackenzie. She reappeared sheepishly from around the counter,
wiping her hands on a dish rag and calling out, “Sorry, I knocked something
off the counter. I think it was a bottle.”

The kid huffed angrily, “Damn it! The scotch! I was saving that! Can’t
you watch where you’re going?”

Mackenzie merely shrugged and offered an unapologetic, “Nope.”

The kid swore under his breath, but as he watched the girl approach, his
little snake tongue darted back out and skittered over lips. As she came
closer, groping her way through the jumble of tables and chairs, the kid called
out to her.

“Come sit with me, Princess. I think we should get to know each other
better.”

Mason made a move to protest, but the kid aimed the pistol at a point
between his eyes and thumbed back the hammer.

“Uh, uh, Billy-boy,” he smirked. “The poor thing’s already lost her
parents, her eyes, and her aunt. You want her to lose you, too?”

Mason settled back on his knee, outwardly wincing in pain, but with
every muscle in his body tensed like a snake preparing to strike.

“This way, Princess,” the kid called to the girl. “Come sit with me. Over
here. That’s it.”

Mackenzie hesitated at first, but she dutifully complied and stepped
grudgingly into the kid’s arms. Without ceremony, he pulled her rudely onto
his lap, and with that one motion, most of Mason’s hastily crafted plan went
out the window. With Mackenzie in the line of fire, he had to find another
way. As he ran the math again, the kid took to stroking Mackenzie’s hair as if
he’d heard of such things being done but had no concept that gentleness
played even a part.

“What’s your name, Princess?” he asked as sweetly as a monster could.

“Mackenzie,” came the timid reply.

“Ah, Princess Mackenzie,” the kid cooed, his voice all but dripping with
syrup. “You’re a big girl, Mackenzie. How old are you?”

Mason knew the sickly-sweet questions were part of the interrogation, so
if Mack answered anything differently than he did, he would have to act, with
or without a plan. He cocked his feet under his center of mass and made
himself ready. One good leap. One second. Barrel into the kid and send all of
them backwards, ass over tea kettle. Then grab for the gun, and hope for the
best.

One second... That’s all I need... Just one goddam second...

His muscled tensed and his pulse quickened as Mackenzie gave her
answer.

“Ten,” she said, her tiny hands fiddling nervously with the dish rag.

Mason remained as taut as a bow string.

“Have you heard of Romeo and Juliet,” the kid cooed softly. “Juliet was
ten, too, you know?”

Mason tasted something vile rise to the back of his throat, but he choked
it back down. Now, it wasn’t all just about the interrogation. The kid was
toying with him. Goading him. Seeing how far he could push ‘Uncle Billy’
because that’s how he got his jollies. And if he pushed far enough to get a
reaction, he’d put a bullet in the poor Uncle Billy’s head, and he’d have all
the time in the world to indulge his loathsome prurience.

“I think Juliet was twelve,” Mackenzie said, fidgeting the dish rag
around and around in her hands.

“Oh?” the kid glared at Mason and gave him a conspiratorial little wink.
“Well, that’s pretty close. So tell me, Mackenzie, why were you and your
uncle outside?”

Again, the briefest of hesitations, then the girl answered sweetly.

“We were looking for Aunt Sarah.”

The kid sniffed the girl’s hair.

“I see. Aunt Sarah. Uncle Billy’s wife, I suppose?”

Mackenzie shook her head and giggled, “No!”

The kid fake-laughed along with her, and one of his hands crept down
her body, coming to rest on her thigh. Mason seethed beneath an
expressionless face, and fake-massaged his knee.

Half a second, asshole. That’s all I need. Keep pointing that gun at me. It
won’t matter. Just give me that half a second...

“And where were you looking for Aunt Sarah, little Princess
Mackenzie?”

Mackenzie answered honestly, “At the Trident Urgent Care Center.
Sarah’s a nurse. We went to see if we could find her.”

“Oh, dear,” the kid’s voice feigned concern, “That sounds dangerous.”

“Mace took us through the sewers,” the girl said, then she giggled. “It
echoed!”

The kid kept one wary eye on Mason as he teased, “I’ll bet it did! I guess
that’s why you both stink enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon, huh?”

The girl sniffed her own clothing and cast her eyes sullenly downward.
“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” the kid brushed a lock of hair back from her face
and ran a finger down her cheek. “All you need is a bath, and you’ll be right
as rain.”

Mason’s blood boiled, but he remained motionless. If he telegraphed his
move, the game was over.

Half a second, you sick freak... Just give me half a goddam second!

Mackenzie twisted the dish rag over and over in her tiny hands. The kid
was clearly becoming annoyed that the girl’s attention was not solely on him
and almost ripped the cloth from her hands, but then he appeared to notice
something concealed with it.

“Whatcha hiding there, Princess?” he asked, casually moving his hand to
her inner thigh, “Did you find something back there? A toy, maybe?”

He gave her thigh a squeeze, and Mason made himself ready.

Mackenzie giggled sweetly and whispered, “It’s a secret.”

“Oh, Princess, you and I have no secrets from one another.” The kid
threw a leer and a wink at Mason, adding, “Or at least, we won’t for long.”

The girl hid her face demurely, then she giggled again and turned her
blind eyes up in the direction of the kid’s face.

“Promise not to tell?” she asked, blushing adorably.

“I promise,” the kid replied with a lurid grin and a licking of his lips.
“We’re best friends now, right?”

Almost reluctantly, Mackenzie brought the dish rag up close to her face,
and the kid leaned in curiously as she began to unfurl the coils.

“You promise not to tell?” she giggled and put a gentle hand on the kid’s
chest.

The kid’s eyes flickered once, and a lecherous sneer spread across his
face.

“Cross my heart and hope to die, Princess.”

She unraveled most of the rag until she held only a loose ball of cloth in
her closed fist. She began to unfurl her fingers, but then she stopped and
leaned up to whisper in the kid’s ear.

“I found it on the way to the bathroom. You don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind,” the kid assured her as his hand crept up her thigh, “I
promise. And after you show me what you found, I’ll warm up some water
for a bath, okay?”

He sniffed her hair, then he pressed his cheek against hers. Mackenzie
took gentle hold of the kid’s shirt front and pulled him forward.

“You have to look close or it’ll get away,” she giggled. “Are you
ready?”

“Ready,” the kid leaned into her, his eyes widening in a licentious,
vulgar leer.

“Okay, but look closely,” the girl cautioned, then she drew back the
cloth, opened her fist, and threw a handful of white dust directly in his face.

The kid threw his head back, howling in pain, and Mason acted. He
launched himself across the nine-foot gap like a lion, ready to tear the kid

apart with his bare hands.

“My eyes!” the kid shrieked like a schoolgirl, “My eyes!”

Mackenzie rolled deftly to the side and slid to the floor just in time. The
force of Mason’s impact sent the chair toppling backward, then one strong
hand found the gun, and another found the kid’s throat. The former wrenched
the gun free and sent it skittering across the floor, and the latter began to
squeeze.

“No, no, no!” the kid managed, then his breath was choked off, and it
was all he could do to thrash wildly under Mason’s weight.

The end was a foregone inevitability. Only an act of God would keep
Mason from choking the life out of this monster. The kid made some attempt
to claw away the hand at his throat, but Mason swatted away his attempts as
if they were flies. Soon enough, he felt the kid go limp as his life ebbed away,
and still he squeezed.

But then he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and Mackenzie pressed up
beside him.

“What are you doing, Mace?” she asked, following his arms down to the
hands wrapped around the kid’s throat.

“I’m killing him,” Mason informed her, dispassionately.

“You can’t,” Mackenzie told him, just as dispassionately.

“Watch me,” he barked.

His words were like a cold slap across his own face. He would never
have imagined it, but apparently, an act of God could come in the form of a
tiny angel with a big mop of fiery red hair. He slowly and reluctantly released
his grip on the kid’s throat, and let Mackenzie pull them completely away.

“I’m sorry, Mack,” he said wistfully.

“Don’t be,” she returned. “Sarah says you never have to be sorry if you
don’t do anything to be sorry about.”

As his heart melted, Mason reeled Mackenzie in close enough to place a
tender kiss on her forehead.

“Sarah sounds like a smart lady. I can’t wait to meet her.”

By now, the kid was gasping for breath, but all of the fight was gone
from him. He simply lay on the ground, rubbing his eyes and crymewling like
a baby.

“I’m sorry!” he bawled, “I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me! I didn’t mean
it! I didn’t mea—”

One good wrap on the chin was enough. The kid blacked out and lay
lifeless on the floor, and Mason noted with some satisfaction a widening
circle of wetness on the kid’s crotch.

At last, Mason picked himself up off the floor and scooped Mackenzie
into his arms.

“It’s okay, Mack,” he cooed to her. “We’re okay. I’m okay.”

She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. He could
feel her body trembling and knew that she was fighting back tears, so he
kissed her on the top of the head and cooed gently, “We’re okay, kiddo.
We’re okay.”

She returned the kiss to his cheek.

“All good, Mace?” she asked, sniffling once and only once.

“All good, Mack,” he answered tenderly. “But only because of you.
What was that you threw in his face?”

She drew a hand across her eye to wipe away a single tear.

“Salt. I saw it in a movie once. Alec threw salt in Arne Saknussemm’s
face.”

The reference meant nothing to Mason, but it didn’t matter. Nothing
mattered anymore. He and Mackenzie were alive, so the rest of the world be
damned. He held the girl tight and felt her face in the crook of his neck, and
suddenly nothing else mattered in the whole damned world.

CHAPTER

XIV

Mason gathered up a clean linen cloth from one of the tables and carried it to
the corpse of the naked woman at the far side of the room. She looked to be
in her thirties, with manicured nails, a hundred-dollar coif, and a pretty face.
Now, the nails were splintered, the hair was pasted to the floor in a pool of
dried blood, and the pearl-white skin had begun to marble, but a neat hole
between her eyes showed that at least she was well and truly dead.

It was perhaps superfluous, but as one of the few actual victims of this
day’s events upon whom Mason could heap his condolences, he spread the
tablecloth neatly over her lifeless body, making certain that it lie straight and
that it covered every inch of bare skin. He wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to
offer the woman any kind of prayer, but he did bow his head for a handful of
seconds and closed his eyes for almost as long.

He took another tablecloth to the man in the leather jacket, saw the same
neat hole ringed by powder burns in his forehead, and fitted the cloth so that
it draped over his head and shoulders. Then he went to the man lying face-
down on the table, saw a gaping wound in the back of the poor fellow’s head,
and covered him as best he could with yet another tablecloth.

At last, he returned to a point near the middle of the glass facade where a
chair had been strategically placed against a pillar, facing outward. The kid
was slowly regaining consciousness, but he hung as limp as a rag doll when
Mason lifted him roughly into the chair and produced a roll of duct tape he’d
found in the supply cupboard. Only after his hands and elbows were secured
behind his back, and his ankles taped to the legs of the chair did he become
aware of his situation. He tried to lash out a boot to catch Mason as he knelt,
but then he saw the murderous glare in the other man’s eyes and ceased
struggling. He returned to begging and pleading as more tape was wrapped
around his chest and around the pillar, then he cried and soiled himself when

Mason shoved the pistol in his mouth and cocked the hammer.

“You can’t be like him, Mace,” Mackenzie reminded him gently from
where she sat cross-legged on the floor, nibbling on a muffin.

Oh, I could be, kiddo... Mason thought to himself, But I won’t be...

“I just want him to know how it feels,” he grumbled.

Once the gun was back in Mason’s waistband, the kid realized his
execution had been stayed, and he turned his attention to hurling curses. A
strip of tape across his mouth put an end to the drivel, then Mason drew
another over the kid’s eyes to hide those damnable arched eyebrows. The kid
struggled against the bonds for a few seconds, but an infuriated punch to the
sternum knocked the wind out of him. Once the convulsions abated, he
slumped forward and remained perfectly still and quiet.

In truth, Mason had much more to worry about than the kid. Out front, at
least a dozen creatures now stood against the glass facade as if pinned to a
board in some alien entomologist’s collection. A few flailed and howled and
clawed at the invisible barrier, but most merely pressed their broken, ravaged
bodies hard against the glass and peered in with sightless eyes and gnashing
jaws.

All the while, Mackenzie sat on the floor, nibbling on a muffin and
sipping from a warm can of Coke. She looked up as Mason approached, and
he tousled her mop of hair as he passed.

“All good, Mack?” he asked.

“All good, Mace,” came the reply.

He proceeded to the broken and barricaded door and studied it closely.
Four distinctly different arms thrashed about through the gaps, and one face
pressed close enough for him to recognize the effeminate features of Doctor
Walker, but the barricade was sturdy enough to hold the creatures at bay. Just
to be sure, he slid two more chairs into the breach, weaving their legs in and
around certain strategic points to strengthen the whole, then he nodded his
approval and retired to the kitchen.

There would be no leaving the restaurant by the way they entered, so he
was relieved to find a door at the rear of the place. He had no desire to return
to the alley, but at least they had a way out when the time came. He checked

that the door was securely bolted, then he turned his attention to a large
refrigerator nearby. It turned out to be nearly as big on the inside as his whole
apartment, and within it he found a wealth of foodstuffs. There were fruits
and vegetables by the bushel, bricks and wheels of cheese, and trays filled
with all manner of meats. There was a big gas grill in the kitchen that made
him briefly consider treating them both to a hot meal, but the notion was
imprudent at best. The place would fill with smoke, and the smell was sure to
draw creatures from far and wide.

With a sigh, he confined himself to the collecting of more practical
foodstuffs. This being a fashionable eatery, there was little in the way of
canned goods, but he managed to collect a tub of reasonably fresh fruit
cocktail, a loaf of bread not yet gone stale, a brick of aged cheddar cheese, a
block of baking chocolate, and more carrots and apples and oranges than they
would ever be able to carry. As he passed back around the counter, he piled a
dozen or more bottles of imported beer onto a tray, grabbed a number of soft
drinks and juices for Mackenzie, and considered the bounty well-earned.

Next, he turned his attention to finding a suitable weapon. He now had
two guns and four full magazines thanks to the kid, but they had to be
considered a last resort. What he needed was a weapon of stealth. He found
an array of knives stuck to a magnetic strip over a cutting board and selected
the largest of the lot to stick through his belt loop, but that was just a case of
the might-as-wells. A simple knife would never do. He needed something
bigger. Something to strike from a distance, like his trusty old rebar.
Something strong, and heavy, and able to cave in a skull or snap a knee joint.

To that end, he began to properly scour the place and let his imagination
run wild. A knife secured to a broom handle, maybe? It had its merits, but
then he recalled the image of the guy in the muffin shop still coming at him
with holes punched straight through his chest and discounted the idea. A floor
lamp, perhaps? There were several around, but they were made of relatively
lightweight aluminum. A table leg, then? They were sturdy metal, for sure,
but the ornate bend in the middle would make for one unwieldy weapon. No,
what he needed was something long, straight and heavy. He returned to the
gas grill and lifted off one of the cooking grates. The grill itself was solid cast
iron and the side supports were a good three feet long, but with no way to
take the thing apart, it was pointless. But then he looked more closely at the
grill itself and spotted a separation between the rear support bar and the back

of the grill. He pulled off the second grate, laid it aside, and grabbed hold of
that rear support. To his delight, it came free with a twist of his wrist and a
single squeal of metal on metal.

The thing was L-shaped to support the grates, so it sat awkwardly in his
hand. It was also heavier than his rebar, so it would wear him out faster. But
it was made of a single piece of cast iron, so it was as strong as a broadsword.
He wished he could sharpen the leading edge of the thing, but ultimately, he
concluded that it would suffice just as it was. He stuffed a rolled-up dish
towel into the bend at one end, wrapped another around the bar, and used
most of the roll of duct tape in completing what was now the weapon’s hilt.
Once done, he gave the thing a few practice swings, declared it as damn-near
perfect, and took his entire haul back to the front room.

By the time he returned, the kid was beginning to stir under his restraints.
Muscles flexed and his jaw moved, but after a few muffled sobs, the monster
slumped back in his chair. Mason completely disregarded the creature and sat
cross-legged on the floor beside Mackenzie. He laid everything out before
him, helped himself to one of the muffins from his knapsack, and held up an
orange. Mackenzie sniffed, then she grabbed the orange excitedly and tore
into the thick skin.

“Ooooo...” she purred, making a hole in the side and sucking a mouthful
of juice straight out of the orange. “I love you, Mace. Thank you...”

It was said so casually and obliquely that it caught Mason completely
off-guard. Nevertheless, he patted the girl’s knee gently, said, “I love you
too, Mack,” and dug into his muffin.

The more he ate, the hungrier he realized he was. Nibbles turned to a
voracious flurry of bites, and the muffin quickly disappeared. He ripped off a
handful of cheese and devoured it in a few bites, then he peeled an orange
and swallowed wedge after wedge with a satisfied sigh. At last, he popped
open a bottle of Corona beer and took a long swallow. He didn’t expect much
from a tepid beer, but it went down like ambrosia. He swapped swallows of
beer with bites from a carrot, then he broke out the brick of baker’s chocolate,
and he and Mackenzie traded bites and moans of delight. At last, he opened a
second Corona, handed control of the chocolate entirely to Mackenzie, and
leaned back on one hand, sipping his beer with a satisfied smile on his face.

Mackenzie took a bite of chocolate with every wedge of orange, and
once done, she licked her fingers clean and wiped them on her pants. Mason
offered her more from their stores, but she shook her head, cooed a sweet,
“No thank you, Mace,” and began rummaging through the different drinks
Mason had found. As she haphazardly grabbed cans and bottles and juice
boxes, she would hold them up, and Mason would identify each one’s
contents, and it wasn’t long before it turned into a game. Mackenzie hid the
tray behind her back, then she’d take hold of one container or another, and
they would both take a guess, then she would produce whatever it was, and
no matter who was right and who was wrong, they would both laugh.
Eventually, the guesses became sillier and sillier. Mason would declare
confidently, “Rhinoceros snot!” Mackenzie would reply, “Worm poo!” Then
she’d produce the can or bottle or box, and Mason would grumble, “Darn,
it’s only apple juice.” And they would both laugh as if it was the funniest
thing they’d ever heard. Once the tray was empty and the game over, she
popped open a can of Ginger-Ale that she vehemently maintained was the
alligator sweat she’d already declared it to be, and with every sip, she tilted
her head back, smacked her lips and sighed, “Now, that is some good
alligator sweat!”

“I’m not sure alligators sweat, Mack,” Mason cautioned her.

“Swamps are hot,” Mackenzie quipped through a sheepish grin.

“Well, I’ve heard of crocodile tears,” he fake-grumbled, “but never
alligator sweat.”

Mackenzie scoffed.

“What do crocodiles have to cry about? They get to swim around and lay
in the sun all day. They even get their pictures on all those t-shirts.”

“I think we’re back to alligators now, Mack.”

“Well,” the girl shrugged, “that’s probably why people sweat when they
wear them.”

At that, Mason laughed, and Mackenzie giggled along adorably. Then
Mason caught movement in his peripheral vision, and his laughter dissolved
away as he regarded the swarm gathering out front.

The wild things were snarling and snorting and clawing furiously at the

glass, and the dead things were pressed against the glass as still and silent as
ghosts, staring in with their cold, unblinking eyes. Such images were the stuff
of nightmares, but they were the new norm in this world and barely rated a
second look. What wasn’t so easily dismissed, though, was the image of
Doctor Walker stumbling awkwardly into view from around the corner of the
building.

Apparently, Mason had done his job well. The man’s face looked as if it
had been through a meat grinder, but it had been the blow to the back of his
head that had done the real damage. Now, the good doctor stutter-stepped his
way along the front of the restaurant until he was directly opposite Mason,
then he pressed his body flat against the glass and gaped in with dead, empty
eyes.

The sight was no more or less ghastly than the countless others Mason
had seen this day, but it still took him aback, and it wasn’t difficult to
understand why. For the first time, he was looking upon someone he had
actually known in life. He certainly had no love for Walker, but he had
known him, and he had talked to him. A few short hours ago, he had even
held him in his arms. It was easy enough to see the other denizens of this new
world as little more than outlandish caricatures of humanity, but in this late
lamented Doctor Walker was suddenly the very embodiment of this
catastrophe’s true cost.

For one fleeting, unforgivable moment, he was silently glad that
Mackenzie couldn’t see, but then the girl spoke up, and he could only marvel
at her preternatural awareness of everything around her.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” she said coolly between sips of her drink.

“Huh?” Mason finally tore his eyes away from the bloodied and battered
remains of Walker. “That’s who, Mack?”

“Him,” she flicked her head toward the window. “Doctor Walker.”

Mason could scarcely believe what he was hearing. At last, he managed
to form the words, “You can actually hear them? Through a solid wall?”

“Sure,” she shrugged casually. “The angry ones are easy. They sound
like wolves. The creepy ones are way quieter, but they shuffle their feet, and
they bump into things. And some of them have things that make noise, like
keys in their pocket, or a bracelet that jingles.”

“But Mack,” Mason’s eyes narrowed. “Surely, you can’t tell one from
another.”

“Not always, but sometimes. Doctor Walker had squeaky shoes. I didn’t
really notice until we were in the sewer, but then the squeak echoed, and I
could hear it plain as day.”

Mason looked back to the good doctor, noted the muck-covered loafers
on his feet, and shook his head in astonishment.

“Yes, it’s him,” he admitted with a heavy sigh, “but I don’t know how
you do it. I can barely hear them at all.”

After all, how does a ghost sound?... he wanted to say, but kept his
nightmares to himself.

“If I could see, I might not hear them, either,” the girl said
emotionlessly. “But I can’t, so I do.”

Christ... He had been so hell-bent on keeping his own head above the
waves of shit that he’d forgotten that not everyone can swim. He rested a
gentle hand on the girl’s knee and asked her sincerely, “Are you scared,
Mack?”

“Well, duh!” she howled a scoff, then one corner of her mouth turned up
in a sly grin and she put her hand on his. “But I was scarder before.”

“Me too, Mack. I’m glad we’re together.”

“No one wants to be alone, Mace,” Mackenzie said as if it was the most
obvious thing in the world.

“Well, sometimes they do,” Mason had to tell her honestly, “But not me,
Mack. Not me, not now.”

One of the creatures threw itself against the window, and a gold watch on
its wrist hit the glass with a sharp tang! Mackenzie turned toward the sound
and cocked her head curiously.

“Okay, so I get why the angry ones... uh, the wild things? The wilders?
Anyway, I get why they chase us. We make noise and they hear it. But the
other ones. The, uh... the creepers...how can they hear us? I mean, they’re
dead, right? How can they hear anything?”

Ah, the resilience of youth. Where a grown man might be overwhelmed
by this whole fucked up situation, here was this little girl, fully accepting that
a corpse could be reanimated to hunt humans, and bothered only by the
mechanics of it all. Maybe, Mason figured, it was because children have
known all along that monsters were real.

As to her question, ever since the poor bastard in the coffee shop, all full
of holes and still coming, Mason had pondered that very issue. Now, he
offered the girl the only answer he’d been able to hobble together.

“I think it must be the virus itself steering the dead ones. The creepers.
They can’t hear, and they can’t see, so that’s the only thing I can think of. It
makes no sense, but I’ve given up trying to make sense of any of this.”

Again, Mackenzie utterly disregarded the ludicrous and drew from the
hypothesis the one thing that mattered.

“So we can’t hide from them?”

Mason looked back to the swarm still growing on the far side of the
glass.

“It seems not.”

“Well, that sucks,” Mackenzie grouched.

“Yes, it does, Mack. It truly does.”

He watched the gathering swarm and suddenly found himself given a
front row seat to a scenario that must be playing out in every corner of the
world by the thousands and millions. One of the wild things... one of the
wilders... was clearly growing weaker and weaker as he flailed about against
the glass. It was a middle-aged man clad only in pajama bottoms, and with
his guts hanging like cordage from a gaping tear across his belly. With
dwindling strength, the creature clawed and pounded at the glass, then, as the
last of its life’s blood drained out onto the sidewalk, it collapsed. It fell to his
knees, pawed at the glass one last time, and at last dropped face-first to the
ground. Such was to be expected. All of this insanity was, by now, the new
normal. But then, scarcely more than a minute passed before the man stirred
again and picked himself up off of the sidewalk. He stood awkwardly, then
turned toward the window and pressed his entire body against it. He no
longer pounded and scratched at the glass, but his mouth gaped open and

closed like a landed fish, and he edged himself awkwardly sideways until he
was directly opposite the glass from where Mason and Mackenzie sat.

“The wilders are still human,” he said aloud, as much to make it all clear
in his own mind as to explain to Mackenzie the nature of the threat they were
facing. “The virus makes them crazy, but their bodies are still human. They
have the same senses we do, so we can hide from them and distract them, and
we can hurt them.”

“Or kill them,” the girl threw in.

“Or kill them,” Mason readily agreed. “But they don’t stay dead for
long. And once they come back as creepers, the virus is in full control and
steers them to the closest human.”

“So, the virus can hear us?”

Mason shook his head, then he caught himself.

“No, Mack. A virus can’t hear. It’s not really even alive. But somehow,
it knows where we are, and it sends them after us.”

“To kill us,” Mackenzie added pointedly.

“Well,” Mason considered the problem logically, “a virus never wants to
kill a host. Their whole reason for being is to reproduce and spread from one
body to another, and it’s hard to do that if the host dies.”

“You mean it used to be.”

“Yeah,” he acknowledged with a sigh, “It used to be.”

“So, that’s what happened to Doctor Walker?”

“Exactly right. He was okay until he got scratched, then he became a
wilder. When he attacked me, I fought back, and I guess I hurt him enough
that he bled to death, and he became a creeper. Dead, but still able to spread
the bad news. It must be that the virus taps into some ancient, primal part of
the brain that drives the person to hunt. Like any other wild animal, they bite
and they scratch, and if they break the skin, the virus has a way in to infect
that other person. With creepers, I can only assume that some part of that
primitive brain remains active, and that’s why they can be brought down for
good with a hard enough shot to the head. But they still carry the virus, so the
same rules apply. We just have to be very, very careful not to let any one of

those things bite us or scratch us, or we’ll get infected just like them.”

Mackenzie was silent for some time, lost in thought. At last, she spoke
again, but her tone was morose, and she never lifted her eyes from her lap.

“I’m already infected,” she said grimly.

“So am I,” Mason reminded her. “So is everyone. But Walker himself
said that a healthy body can fight it, so we both have to take care of
ourselves, and stay strong and healthy enough to let our immune systems beat
the crap out of it.”

“Doctor Walker was pretty healthy.”

“It must be a different kind of infection,” Mason hazarded a guess.
“Clearly, the kind of infected you are and the kind of infected I am, is
different from the kind of infected he was. He was scratched by someone
who was already changed, so it must work differently. Does that make sense,
Mack?”

She shrugged, offered a quiet, “None of it makes sense,” then an
awkward silence fell over the pair. One of the creatures outside slammed a
knuckle against one of the windows, and a ring clanged against glass. Mason
watched the girl abandon her drink and simply sit there, idly wringing her
hands together.

Oh, how his heart ached for this child. True, Walker said that she might
very well overcome the virus, but he’d said it for the same reason that Mason
had repeated it. It was all for her benefit. Despite any suggestion to the
contrary, Mason had no doubt that in time he would have to... attend to this
incredible girl. He’d known it all along, but now it wouldn’t simply be a
quick demise meted out by a gentle hand. Now, as he fingered the kid’s pistol
stuck in his waistband, he knew that her death would only come when it was
met by his own. There was no way that he could imagine ending her life
without ending his own. The two were entwined now, for better or for worse.
He wasn’t just fond of her anymore. He loved her, genuinely and completely.
If her life came to a close, so would his. He simply couldn’t imagine
continuing on in a world that would demand such a cruel and awesome
sacrifice.

As they sat in contemplative silence, he popped the empty magazine out
of the dead cop’s pistol and thumbed out two rounds from one of the kid’s

extra magazines. These, he slid into the empty clip and returned it to the
cop’s gun. Making sure the safety was on, he lifted one leg of his jeans and
used the last of the duct tape to secure the weapon to his calf. That would be
his failsafe. No matter what happened, those two rounds would be held in
reserve. If everything went to hell, it would be a quick way out for Mack and
himself. But until that last horrible moment, he would fight. Be they crazy-
eyed wilders, dead and shambling creepers, or something still vaguely
human, he would fight. In whatever guise the monsters came, he would fight.
He would fight to the bitter end, no matter what.

He made certain the kid’s pistol was fully loaded and tucked securely in
his waistband, then he drained the last of his beer.

“So what do we do now, Mack?” he asked the girl with barely a hitch in
his voice.

“We keep going. What else?” Mackenzie said almost casually. “Keep
calm and carry on.”

Mason smiled in spite of himself. “I love the fact that you know that
quote, young lady, but it’s not really an answer.”

“We stick to the plan, Mace,” she rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Right?”

“Alright, Mack.” Mason saw the girl’s eyes closing, so he faked a yawn
of his own. “But I suggest we hang out here for the night. It’s been a long,
tough day, and the sun will be going down soon. I could really use some
sleep.”

At the mere mention of sleep, the girl yawned again, this time stretching
her arms as high as she could reach.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you could.”

Mason smiled.

“Okay then, it’s decided. We stay here for the night, and get a fresh start
in the morning.”

“To find Sarah?”

“Of course,” Mason promised, thankful that Mackenzie couldn’t see his
drawn lips and furrowed brow. “To find Sarah.”

The kid wrapped up in the chair stirred again and mewled something
indecipherable under the tape covering his mouth.

“What do we do with him?” Mackenzie asked idly.

“We’ll leave him where he is for the night. He can’t get loose.”

“And tomorrow?”

Mason harrumphed and kept his answer purposely vague.

“We’ll figure that out tomorrow.”

The girl shrugged noncommittally and allowed Mason to help her to her
feet. She kept hold of his hand and followed him to the back of the room near
the kitchen, then she deposited herself in a chair while Mason gathered up as
many tablecloths and towels he could find in the linen closet. Once they were
all piled together, Mason settled her gently into the middle of the makeshift
bed, where she promptly rolled onto her side and curled into a ball. Seconds
later, her breathing grew slow and regular as sleep carried her away.

He left her there and padded quietly back to the kid. The monster had
begun struggling against his bonds as soon as he’d heard the others leave, but
some little sound gave Mason’s presence away, and he stopped all
movement, even lolling his head backward as if he had somehow fallen
asleep.

Mason didn’t buy it for a second. He took the kid’s throat in his hand and
leaned in close to his ear.

“You’re only alive because a little girl thinks I’m good,” he hushed.
“Think on that and wonder what I can do to change her mind by tomorrow.”

The tape was more than enough to hold the kid, but Mason didn’t want to
take the slightest chance. He cut several electrical cords free from a number
of floor lamps, and tied a cord around the pillar so that it was tight against the
kid’s throat. Another cord went around his waist, then another around his
base of the chair, and yet another connected both of these to the one around
his neck. Once the trussing was completed, Mason stepped back and admired
his handiwork.

“If you struggle...” he hissed into the kid’s ear, “... you’ll die.”

He watched as the kid shifted an inch, and the cord about his neck

tightened like a noose. Startled, the kid forced his body to go limp, and
Mason saw the cord relax just enough. The kid could breathe again, but he
would only continue to do so if he remained absolutely still.

“Sweet dreams,” he hushed, then he threw one last glance at the
creatures lined up along the glass front quickly being lost in the thickening
twilight, flipped them all a raised finger, and retired back to the makeshift
bed.

Mackenzie was unconscious, but her sleep was clearly less than peaceful.
She was tossing and turning and mewling quietly even as Mason lowered
himself down to her side. He gently swept back a mop of hair from her face
and hushed, “You’re okay, kiddo. It’s all good, Mack.”

The mewling stopped, and she mumbled sleepily, “All good, Mace,”
then she descended into a serene, peaceful sleep.

Mason lay there for some time, watching Mackenzie’s little chest rising
and falling and listening to the sounds of the night. The creatures at the door
were still active, but not nearly so much now. There was the occasional growl
or thud against the barricade, but they seemed to diminish by the minute.
Mason had counted on the swarm losing interest once all activity within the
building ceased, but it brought him little peace. Once they arose in the
morning, the struggle to survive would resume. But for now, for right this
minute, they were safe, and he was content. He closed his eyes and
concentrated on the slow, rhythmic breathing of the girl beside him. He
folded an arm across her body, tucked her big mop of curly hair under his
chin, and fell quickly asleep listening to her purr like a kitten.

CHAPTER

XV

Sometime during the night, Mason snapped awake.

Instantly aware, he sat bolt upright and felt for the pistol tucked into his
waistband. Mackenzie gave a somniferous little grumble of protest, but a
gentle stroke of her hair stilled her.

There was enough of a moon coming through the glass front of the place
to throw an ambient glow across the kid still in his chair against the pillar.
Whether he was still alive or not, Mason couldn’t tell, but it was of little
importance as long as the monster was secure. Outside, dark, unmoving
silhouettes lined the windows from one end to the other, as if someone had
cut vaguely human shapes from the blackest of paper and fixed them to the
glass. Nothing stirred anywhere in or around the restaurant. Even the
barricade was quiet. He sat there for some time, watching and listening, then
he finally let himself relax and lay back down beside Mackenzie. He drew the
end of a tablecloth across her body as she lay curled into a tight little ball, and
pulled another into a bunch under his head.

Just then, a new sound drifted in from the outside world that made him
sit up again, every nerve in a tingle. It was the sound of a car. Somewhere
close by. Market Street, maybe. Its throaty growl filled the night air, getting
louder and louder until it sounded like it was right on top of them, then it
reached a crescendo, changed subtly in pitch, and began to grow more and
more distant. He listened to the retreating sound until it finally vanished
altogether before lowering himself back down.

Previously so ordinary and commonplace, the sound of that lone vehicle
tearing up the street suddenly held new import. It meant that he and
Mackenzie weren’t utterly alone in the world. There were still others. Really
though, the notion should never have come as such a revelation. After all,
logic dictated that there must be plenty of people still alive out there in the

world. There could be hundreds in San Francisco alone. Thousands, even.
They would be holed-up in their homes, or in the countryside, or in places
like this. They would be alone, or with a loved one, or with their entire
family, each one a tiny island of humanity in a raging sea of devastation. But
the car signified something else. It meant that others could see. Others were
uninfected. In his heart, he’d known all of this, but here was proof. Actual
undeniable proof that they weren’t two people left in a world gone to hell.

How many?... he wondered. How many of you are out there? Are you
one of them, Aunt Sarah?...

Idly, and for the first time since this all began, he wondered about Becks.
Was she still alive? Was she hunkered down somewhere, riding out the
storm? He tried to tell himself that he didn’t care one way or the other, but
that was pure bullshit. He still cared. He still more than cared. Becks may
have broken his heart, but now, looking back, he couldn’t really blame her.
He had always known that he was burdened with more issues than one man
ought to have, so the breakup shouldn’t have come as such a surprise.
Actually, now that he thought about it through the crystal-clear lens of
hindsight, the only real surprise was that the two of them had ever gotten
together in the first place. Becks was the life of every party, and always
wanted to be out, dancing and laughing. Mason would rather spend a quiet
evening at home with a movie and a bowl of popcorn. Becks liked nothing
more than meeting people and making new friends. Mason could work an
entire shift with guys he’d known for years and not utter a word. Becks
wanted a house full of kids. Mason cringed at the mere thought.

He looked down at Mackenzie’s pretty face framed in that profusion of
fiery red hair, and smiled to himself.

What would you say now, Becks? The most important person in my life is
a ten-year-old girl, and I want nothing more than to meet a woman I didn’t
know existed before today...

He laid himself back down with a sigh and let the image of Becks drift
from his mind. Gently, he put his arm around the sleeping girl and tucked her
head under his chin. She didn’t stir, but she gave a contented little purr and
resumed her slow, steady breathing. Mason felt himself drifting back to sleep,
and welcomed it gladly. Maybe he would wake up back home in his own bed
with Becks wrapped around him and realize that this was all just a nightmare

after all. He breathed in the faint scent of flowers from whatever children’s
shampoo still lingered in Mackenzie’s hair, and all he could think was, Well,
it wasn’t all a nightmare...

He felt himself drifting slowly away, but no sooner had the familiar,
comforting numbness of sleep descended over his mind than he snapped fully
awake again. Something wasn’t right. Something was different. Something
was... off. He remained still, and listened.

It was Mackenzie. Something was wrong with Mackenzie.

He could still feel her chest rising and falling, but the sound of her
breathing had subtly changed. Before, it had been as soft and delicate as that
of a slumbering kitten. Now there was a harshness to it, a sort of gentle rasp
from the back of her throat. His mind went immediately back to Walker, and
he felt a shudder run down his spine.

Was this it? The beginning of the end?

Too soon... Too soon... I’m not ready...

He wasn’t frightened, even when he thought of what the girl would
become. His heart was so filled with sorrow and regret that there was no
room left for fear. He drew himself against her thin body and held her as
tightly as he dared. He kissed her gently on the top of her head as a tear
trickled down his cheek to pool in his ear.

Oh, Mack, not yet... I’m not ready... Please not yet...

He tightened his arms around her body, and tucked her head back under
his chin. If this was it, he would hold her as long as he could. He would hold
her, and coo sweet things to her, and guide her through the change as gently
and lovingly as he could. Then, when she became what she must, he would
hold her still. He would hold her, and comfort her, and love her until he was
absolutely certain. Only when she was finally and undeniably no longer
Mackenzie would he surrender. When everything of the girl he knew was
gone, he would end her torment. And then he would end his own.

Again, he wondered about Aunt Sarah. Was she still alive? If so, she
would never know what happened to her darling little girl. She would show
up at the dog park, and there would be no Mackenzie. She would wait, but for
how long? Days? Weeks? How long would it take before she concluded the

worst? And then what? Would she give up? No. Not a chance. She would
spend the rest of her days wandering the wasteland in search of a loved one
who no longer existed. She would peer into the face of every creature who
bore even the slightest resemblance to her little girl, and she would dig
through rubble and turn over bodies, and she would never ever know for sure.

Briefly, he considered keeping the meeting to give dear Aunt Sarah the
closure she would so desperately need, but the notion didn’t last long. In
truth, she was probably already dead anyway, and as much as his heart ached
for the woman he would never have the chance to meet, he simply couldn’t
imagine drawing another breath after what he would soon be forced to do.

Dammit, Sarah, why couldn’t you have been at the hospital? I wish you
were here... and I’m sorry...

He made no move toward his pistol. There would be time enough for
that. For now, he simply held Mackenzie against him, and imagined that the
lingering scent drifting up from her hair was a rolling field of wildflowers
under a clear, blue sky. He heard the rasp deepen, then he heard the girl stop
breathing altogether, and his heart rose to his throat. He slid his other arm
beneath her little body to get as firm a hold on her as possible, and waited.

Not yet... Just give me a few more minutes... A few more seconds...

Suddenly, the girl gasped and drew in a great lungful of air. She expelled
it in a wracking cough that made her whole body shudder, then she uttered a
single somniferous grumble and resumed breathing as softly and quietly as
ever.

A whirlwind of relief and elation lifted Mason from the deep well of
sorrow and flew him to the very heavens. Tears of joy streamed down his
cheek, and he allowed them to come freely.

Oh, Mack, that’s all it was! Thank you, God... Thank you for this
smallest of mercies in a world you fucked up so completely...

A dark cloud cast a fleeting shadow of despair over his elation as he
realized the reprieve was temporary at best, but he willed it all away. For
now, for this moment in time, Mackenzie was okay. They both were. They
were safe, they were fed, and they were together. Whatever the future
brought, he would deal with it then. For now, all he could think was, Not
tonight... Not tonight...

Mackenzie stirred and he felt a tiny hand on his arm. The girl lifted her
head sleepily and purred, “Mace?”

He kissed her on the cheek and assured her, “Everything’s okay, kiddo.
Go back to sleep, now. It’s all good, Mack.”

She dropped her head to her arm, mumbled a barely audible, “...m’kay,”
and scooted herself back until she was nestled contentedly into the folds of
Mason’s body.

“It’s all good, Mack,” he repeated softly, and felt her body melt back
into the land of Morphius. But in his head, he couldn’t help but tack on two
more words.

For now...

CHAPTER

XVI

He felt a touch on his shoulder and snapped awake. Mackenzie was hovering
over him, her hair a chaotic tumble of curls framing an anxious face.

“Mace,” she hushed quietly. “Something’s wrong.”
Instantly, he was on his feet, pistol in hand. He didn’t know quite what to
expect, but it wasn’t what he now saw. Everything was quiet. The room was
exactly as he remembered it. No intruders. No movement. Nothing amiss at
all.
“What did you hear, Mack? What did it sound like?”
“Dunno,” came the hesitant reply, “Something... different.”
The barricade was still in place, and the kid was still in his chair. Mason
knew better than to disregard the girl’s incredible senses, but it was clear that
whatever danger they might be in wasn’t imminent. He tucked the pistol back
into his waistband and retrieved his brand new weapon from where he’d left
it leaning against the counter.
“I don’t see anything, Mack,” he assured her. “Could you have heard
something outside? A car, maybe?”
“I know what a car sounds like,” she scoffed. “It wasn’t a car. It sounded
like ice.”
Ice? How the hell does ice sound?
“Like ice freezing?” he chanced.
“No,” she said, screwing up her lips, “More like ice cracking.”
Huh? Ice cracking?
Uh oh...

He looked to the glass facade and saw that the paper dolls had been
transformed back into human form by the rising sun. But there were more of
them than before. Lots more. And worse, sometime during the night, they had
rearranged themselves. What had once been a loose assembly of wilders and
creepers from one end of the building to the other was now a cluster of thirty
or more creepers, all huddled to one side. As more were drawn in through the
night, the virus that steered them had caused them all to gather as close as
they could to the nearest living human. In this case, the vile monster tied to
the pillar. Now, that tight knot of dead flesh was pressed against the glass
twenty feet away from the kid with such collective mass that a long, spidery
crack had formed along one edge of that particular pane.

Mason grabbed his knapsack from the floor and hurriedly scooped
whatever drinks and foodstuffs he could into it.

“We gotta go, Mack,” he told with no uncertainty.

She heeded the seriousness of his tone and replied simply, “Okay,
Mace.”

He swung the bag onto his back and started to guide the girl back toward
the kitchen, but then Mackenzie brought them to stop.

“We’re just going to leave him?”

There was no doubt as to whom she was referring. The kid. That
sunovabitch Mason should have attended to while Mackenzie slept.

“Yes, we are,” Mason replied, coldly.

“They’ll kill him, Mace.”

Mason shrugged his indifference.

“Okay.”

“Mace, he won’t stand a chance.”

“He wasn’t going to give us one,” Mason said stiffly.

“We are not him!”

Mason was unmoved.

“He’s a monster.”

“Yes, but you’re not.”

We don’t have time for this, kiddo....

“Okay, Mack,” he said, perhaps more brusquely than he’d intended,
“What do you suggest? Bring him with us?”

The girl shuddered.

“No! No, he can’t come with us! But you can’t just leave him tied to a
chair. You can’t, Mace, you just can’t.”

She was looking blindly up at him with her lips drawn taut and her dainty
little eyebrows knotted together in a scowl. He saw absolute resolution in the
set of that face, and quickly did the math. The way he saw it, he had three
options. He could ignore Mackenzie’s protests, bundle her in his arms and
make for the back door, he could enter into what was sure to be a lengthy and
heated debate that would use up precious minutes they didn’t have, or he
could give in. Knowing instantly which way this would go, he gave a growl
of protest, took firm hold of the girl’s hand, and ran her back to the front of
the room.

He deposited the girl at the far end of the windows, dropped his weapon
and bag to the ground, and simply stood there with her for several long,
eternal moments. Soon enough, those few creatures on the nearest edge of the
swarm began slowly gravitating toward them, but the main body seemed
ambivalent. Mason waved his arms and gestured stupidly, and when that
failed to elicit the appropriate response, he finally stepped up to the window
and tapped gently on the glass.

The tapping was ridiculous, but getting nearer to the swarm did the trick.
Like a sandcastle melting into a rising surf, the nearer edge of the swarm
began to dissolve away from the central mass and shift toward this other,
closer human.

For better or worse, he had gotten their attention.

“I can hear them moving,” Mackenzie hushed.

“They were all huddled together,” Mason tried to keep his voice calm as
the dead things gathered mere feet away. “If we spread them out, it’ll buy us
some time.”

The girl thought it over, then beamed a smile, “Hey, that’s smart!”

Mason returned to her side and told her honestly, “Actually, it was your
idea. Ice, remember? A two-ton elephant would never make it across a frozen
lake, but how about two tons of mice?”

“That’s really smart,” Mackenzie repeated, genuinely impressed.

Mason pulled a tangle of hair away from her face.

“Okay, Mack, you stay right here. I’ll be right back, I promise. Don’t be
afraid.”

“I’m not,” she said, sticking out her chin. “Not when I’m with you.”

He gave the girl a quick pat on the cheek, then he was gone. And as soon
as he moved, the swarm shifted with him. Two men were a bigger target than
a little slip of a girl, so he knew he had mere minutes. Once the entire swarm
flowed back to a single point, all those mice would be an elephant again and
the ice would surely break. He withdrew the knife from his belt loop even as
he ran, and wasted not a second in cutting the cords that secured the kid to the
pillar. He roughly tore the tape from the kid’s eyes and the one from his
mouth, then he put his lips inches from the kid’s ear and whispered so that
even Mackenzie’s bionic ears couldn’t overhear.

“You don’t deserve to live, ass-hole. I should shove this blade between
your ribs and let you bleed out like a stuck pig. But you have an angel
looking out for you, and she’s better than a hundred times you or me.”

The kid gasped for air as if he’d been denied it all night long.

“Thank you, thank you!” he panted, “I swear, I was just messing with
you before. I thought you were going to hurt me, so I was trying to act tough.
I swear to God, I want to make it right. Just cut me loose and I’ll lead the
freaks away, and you two can make a break for it.”

The kid’s mouth was saying the right things, but his eyes invalidated
every syllable. Mason knew the kid could hear everything he and Mackenzie
had said to each other, so he was parroting what he thought Mason wanted to
hear. But he’d overplayed it. A normal person would have begged to stay
with a group instead of volunteering to play bait to the swarm. The bastard
was lying his guts out to save his own skin. But time was quickly running
out, so whatever Mason was going to do, he had to do it now. The swarm was

already back in a huddle, and he could hear the window creaking ominously
under the relentless pressure.

“You’re a monster,” he hushed into the kid’s ear. “Your parents should
have culled you at birth. They should have left you outside on a cold winter
night, and let you wither and die. Better a stray dog gets a meal than you
draw another breath.”

He slit the tape binding one of the kid’s wrists and elbows, then he drew
back, scowling angrily.

“Please,” the kid mewled like a bleating lamb, “Please! I swear, I’ll lead
them away so you guys can run. Please, let me go. You’ll never see me
again, I swear!”

Mason flipped the knife around in his hand and hovered it over the kid
like an Aztec priest about to plunge it into his chest and pull out his still-
beating heart. Then he wavered.

It would be so easy to kill the punk. Kill him now, and there would be
one less human to attract the swarm. Kill him now, and the creepers might
even lose interest in this place. But then Mackenzie’s words came back to
haunt him.

We’re not him...

Mason snarled his frustration and brought the knife down in an arc
toward the kid’s chest. At the very last moment, he angled it away and
plunged it into the narrow gap between the kid’s legs, burying the tip of the
blade in the chair. The kid shrieked like a schoolgirl, and Mason took some
solace in seeing the kid’s crotch once again darken with wetness. At last, he
glared bloody murder at the kid and stepped back.

“If I ever see you again,” he cursed in a hush, “I will kill you without a
second thought. Do you understand me?”

With that, the kid was on his own. He could cut the rest of his bindings
loose, or not. Either way, he had a fighting chance, so Mason’s promise was
fulfilled.

The kid collected himself and managed a shaky, “Thank you, sir! Thank
you for sparing my worthless life!” then he grabbed hold of the knife, pulled
it free from the chair with some effort, and turned to the tape holding his

other wrist. “I swear, I’ll be good! You can take that to the bank! Yessir, I
won’t let you down!” He slit the tape around his elbow, and once he had both
arms free, he dropped his head between his knees and put the blade to the
bindings around his legs. “I promise you, sir, you will never see me again!”

After that last lie, everything happened in a blur. Mason was just
returning to gather Mackenzie back under his wing and retrieve his
belongings from the floor when he saw the girl’s eyes widen and her body
stiffen. At that exact moment, she drew in a sharp breath and gasped,
“Mace...”

Mason heard it a half-second later. Ice cracking. The elephant was
breaking through. In seconds, there would be an almighty crash, and then a
rush.

He took Mackenzie by the hand and hurried her away from the window,
but the kid in the chair was too preoccupied with his own dark thoughts to
realize the danger. He had just cut one of his legs loose when the two passed
by, and so focused was he on revenge that before he had even bothered to cut
his other leg free, he saw his opportunity disappearing, and he acted. He
turned the knife on Mason and took one clumsy lunge at the man, but his
intent far surpassed his reach, and all he succeeded in doing was toppling the
chair on its side. He hit the floor hard, but like a man possessed, he took to
scrabbling along the floor after the current target of his hatred, dragging the
chair behind him and ranting like a madman.

“I’ll kill you, mother fucker!” he howled, slavering like a rabid beast and
hacking at Mason’s legs with the knife. “I’ll fucking kill you and eat your
fucking heart!”

Mason leapt out of the way of the blade and kicked at the kid’s hand, but
the blow was glancing, and the kid had the knife in an iron grip. He tucked
Mackenzie behind him and backed slowly away, watching the kid’s face turn
as red as blood.

“I’ll fucking kill you, mother fucker!” the monster roared. “Then I’ll do
things to your sweet little girl that will have you spinning in your grave!”

Mason kicked again, but missed. The kid continued to come at him,
slithering along the floor like a snake and dragging the chair along with him,
and it was all Mason could do to back away step by step, mere inches away