Monsters of the Apocalypse (13 page)

"Hello,
Nestor, we’ve been waiting. We wait for our prey. We are
patient. Patient in how we wait, patient in how we kill," the
mutant's voice came out warped and guttural.

“Okay,”
Nestor shrugged his rifle into his hands and glanced around to see if they were
alone.

“We know all
that you do, Nestor. You can’t escape in this world. We waited all
night. We don't tarnish the grounds of this place. It was
human. We respect our past. You are that past. Weak and
small. Feeble and dying."

"I
respect that," Nestor smiled and set down his guns. He drew out his
knife and flipped it quickly into a reverse grip.

"Please,
Nestor! There are five of us and you are small and a human. Bullets
can't even pierce our skin, what good is your knife?"

"Yeah,
I know. I dissected one of you. Bullets can't pierce your bone and
you're muscles are big and make you fast and strong. But, they also make
you awkward and you got soft spots still."

Nestor
walked forward at the five huge mutants. When he reached ten feet and saw
them rock forward in preparation, but with the hesitation of disbelief, he
forced all of his strength down his thigh, bent his right knee and launched
himself hard forward. His left foot hit the ground lightly and was used
only to turn him in mid-flight and re-launch him a foot higher. At the
apex of his heightened lunge he was a head taller than the biggest of the
mutants and had spun to the side of his huge closing arms. Nestor kicked his
feet out to the right and caught another of the mutants in the face and neck
with his feet. He used the face and neck to push off, and get extra
strength as he swept his arm sideways and buried his knife into the side of the
first mutant's throat. The mutant tried to scream, but only managed to
gargle his own blood.

Nestor
twisted while still in the air, withdrawing the knife as he fell into a full
crouch. The stabbed mutant fell forward - dead. The mutant that
Nestor had kicked in the throat and face fell backwards. Nestor found his
balance the next second and launched himself into a sidespin, shins leading,
and swept the charging mutant to his left, tripping him forward. He let
his momentum spin him, his left hand momentarily touching the ground for
support, until he was planting the knife with his right hand deep into the neck
of the kicked mutant who was still on the ground. He gambled and pulled
the knife out and flipped it in his hand and spun back and to the right with a
blind arching slash that found the stomach of a charging mutant behind
him. He rolled with his momentum, which placed him beside the fourth
one's leg, which he sliced open at the Achilles.

Nestor
stood and eyed the last of the mutants who hadn't been stabbed. The
mutant waited cautiously in front of Nestor, fear and hunger burning in his
eyes while the screams of his companions rang deafeningly in the morning air.

"You
fight well, Nestor Bravo. Very fast and skilled."

Nestor spat
on the ground.

"Yes.
A fine example of your race."

"You
should run, mutant."

"I'm
not one of your race, we don't run."

"You
sure?" Nestor asked while shifting his knife in his hand.

"Yes,
human. Now is when you die."

Nestor threw
his knife and placed it into the right eye socket of the mutant. He had
run over and pulled the knife out of the socket and plunged it into the temple
of the one he had hobbled with the Achilles cut, before the thing's brain
turned off. Nestor was throwing his rifle back on before the last breath
escaped the last mutant's body.

Nestor left
the parking lot and moved west. That night he stared at the fire he made
and thought about the way the mutants had been waiting. The way the crazy
man had known his name. Everywhere he went, people were expecting
him. He crossed his legs and stared into the fire, focused on his
breathing. He tried to clear his mind, but with each breath it became
more clear what was happening. After a few minutes he found himself bent
over in a coughing fit. Rather than bothering to fight with sleep he strapped
on his gear and moved into the night wheezing with each step.

The sun had
risen when Nestor’s wheeze became another coughing fit that left him lying
unconscious on the ground, his face in the puddle of blood he’d just coughed
up.

He opened
his eyes. It was either still the same day or the night had passed and a
new day had come. There was a man sitting in the dirt beside him.
Nestor struggled to turn over and face the man, but his coughing began again
and left him on his hands and knees watching the blood soak into the dirt below
him. His vision blurred as his breath struggled to surface.

“You
alright?” the man asked.

“Yeah, good
thanks,” Nestor croaked. “Nice place here.”

“Oh sure,
when it comes to coughing up blood, this is a real nice spot. I mean, a
lot of folks don’t take advantage of it.”

“People
these days.”

“You got
that right.”

Nestor
managed to sit up on his knees and face the man. The man was covered, a
handkerchief over his mouth, hood over his head. Only his bright,
friendly, dark eyes were visible.

“I got my
car over there, don’t suppose you’d wanna hitch a ride?” the man asked,
eyebrows raised in curiosity.

“Where you
headed?”

“I was
thinking about heading away from all those flesh eating mutants that are over
on the horizon,” the man pointed behind Nestor, who turned to see, just barely
visible, the approaching forms of ten mutants.

“That’s
where I’m headed too. I was actually planning on passing out from the
pain in a few here first.”

“That’s
fine, I’ll carry you, Mr. Bravo.”

“Okay then,”
Nestor groaned and collapsed into the dirt.

The underground city had been designed to hold three hundred people.
There were probably five hundred stuffed into it at this point. There was
only one door in and out, and it was impenetrable. Behind the door was a
flight of stairs that led down to another door, this one lead lined to keep out
radiation. Through that door was the main hall. The center space
was left empty for the first few months they had been here, but had recently
been converted into a sort of bazaar by the survivors. Possessions laid
about on towels and blankets and were bartered. The ceiling threw down a
dim glow from large lights that drew their electricity from solar panels that
were starting to fail after all this time with nothing but the muted sunlight
that the nuclear haze allowed. People had begun lighting torches.
Despite the air filtration system that pumped in clean air, this made for a
slight burnt smell all the time.

The underground city stayed civil and clean. Roles had been assigned by
the big Indian who was the unchallenged leader. There were scavenger
crews that got most of what was needed, cleaning crews, and engineers to make
improvements. And then there was Caleb, the reason that the scavengers
were able to do their job without being hunted, and therefore, the reason that
everyone could eat. He'd taken Mary's idea to the Indian and the Indian
had done the rest, selling it to man and mutant alike in exchange for peace and
favors.

If you didn't know anything about
humanity if would have seemed perfect. A harmony that could last forever.

Caleb leaned against a wall
sipping a cup of coffee and watched Nicolette tuning a guitar across the main
hall. They hadn't spoken once since she'd left him that day. They
would see each other, never out of shouting distance, but neither of them ever
said a word. He supposed she had forgotten him and he pretended he'd
forgotten about her, but the truth was he still wanted her. He watched
her fingers gracefully move over the neck of her guitar and he hoped.
Every night he left his door unlocked - and he hoped.

He was so focused on her lips
that he didn't even realize when the large men appeared beside him.

"You eyeballing my woman, Caleb?"

"Do I know you?"

"Oh that's right, you're the
famous hacker, so you don't have to socialize or do anything, do you?
You're too precious."

"Yeah. That's what it
is," Caleb said sipping his coffee. "Do I know you?"

"I'm Tyler, Nicolette's
long-term boyfriend."

"Long-term?"

"Yeah. We were
together for about a year. We broke up three days before the missiles
flew. We got back together not long after we got here. And you
know, Nicolette's a funny girl, she fights. She likes to fight. Well,
during these fights, she says things sometimes, silly things just to hurt
me. You ever been with a woman who does that?"

"Sure, I guess," Caleb
said, trying to casually look for an escape route, but finding none.

"Yeah, so I hear. You see,
last night, we got to fighting about something, and she said she was going to
leave me. I asked where she was going to go and she said she could go
back
to you. Back. As if, you two had been together. Which you
were, weren't you?"

Caleb felt the sting of hot coffee
spilling onto his shaking hand. He clenched his jaw and turned.
Tyler was a head taller than him and the guys around him were even bigger.

"She never mentioned you,
Tyler."

"No? Hey, your hands
are shaking. You don't want to hit me do you? I mean, you could
hurt your precious hands that way, chief. What would our precious hacker
do without his precious hands? What use would he be to
anyone?"

That was when Tyler punched Caleb
in the face. The other men crowded around as Tyler began kicking Caleb in
the stomach. Caleb tried to curl up to protect himself, but before he was
able to Tyler collapsed and the men surrounding them quickly fell next.
The Indian stood there, breathing calmly as if he hadn't just laid out four big
men. He reached down and picked Caleb up.

"You okay, hacker?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"Come with me."

Once the ice pack was pressed
against Caleb's face the Indian sat across from him.

"You've made poor enemies,
Caleb."

"Are there good enemies to
make?"

"Ones that aren't twice your
size. Ones that don't fight better than you. Ones that aren't
well-liked."

"Oh, well, sure, you tell me
now."

"It's serious, Caleb.
We live in an age where toughness, size, and bravery matter. So, when I
leave, Tyler is most likely to take over. Fortunately, he needs you to
maintain the satellite feed's hack, so he won't kill you. But, he will do
everything else."

"Why do people like that
guy?"

"He's not a bad man.
He is kind and helpful, unless, of course, you sleep with his girlfriend."

"I didn't know…"

"He doesn't seem to care
whether or not you knew. Anyway, it's something to think about.
Another thing to think about, the little one, Marianne Garcia, she's
pretty."

"She's a kid," Caleb
hissed.

"A pretty one. Relax,
I'm no threat to your charge. My own charge is this city, but as I
mentioned before, my time here, if the feed is to be believed, is
limited," the Indian held up his arm to show his inoculation scar.
"When I leave there will be less order, I fear. And, it has
been my experience that being young and pretty is dangerous in a place like
this, in a time where people have nothing to lose. She remains untouched
because of your status and my efforts. If these things were to be taken
away, it would be bad."

"Well, I didn't get The
Shot, so, my protection isn't going anywhere."

"No, I suppose not.
But accidents happen, Caleb and… well…"

"Say it."

"You love her, like a
daughter, it's clear to see. If someone was to want something from you
they would only have to threaten her, wouldn't they? Love, it makes a
slave of a man if he isn't careful."

"This conversation hasn't
been as uplifting as I hoped."

"You have time, Caleb.
I am strong yet. You have time, use it."

"Thanks," Caleb got up
and moved towards the door. "What's your name? Everyone just
calls you the Indian, or the Shadow Warrior. That one shrill old lady
says we should call you the Native American, but I don't know what the hell
that even means. What's your name?"

"Indian is fine. We
have no names, Caleb. No names, no homes, no family, no lovers… we are
the Shadow Army, and we are free, because we don't have any weakness."

Caleb nodded his head, smiling
slightly before cringing as a sharp pain shot through him.

"Yeah, I don't believe that
shit for a second, Indian."

"I like you, Caleb,"
the Indian laughed. "You're funny. Perhaps there is a place
for that in this dangerous new world of ours, but I fear not. You have time,
Caleb. Use it well. Protect Ms. Garcia if you can."

Caleb left the Indian's room and
moved through the underground city with a new kind of focus. An hour
before his eyes would have been attached to Nicolette who was crooning before
the rest of the survivors, but now he only saw dangers and threats. Men
larger than him, crueler. People with abilities that made them uniquely
necessary, from physical strength to the life experience of fixing sinks or
washing clothes - all things that little Mary had none of.

He opened the door to his room
with his mind made up. Mary lay sleeping in her roll out cot, beautiful,
peaceful and helpless.

"Wake up, Mary."

"What's going on?"

"We need to think up a cool
hacker name for you."

"Where
am I?"

"You're
in your bed, Mr. President. After you passed out, we brought you
here."

"I
passed out?"

"Your blood
sugar in combination with the trauma of Mr. Rockefeller's death I
suspect. There's a piece of cake on your bedside table there."

President
Carnegie began eating the cake, choosing to use his hands rather than the fork
that lay beside the plate. As he swallowed the sticky sweetness of the
cake his mind raced with the memory of Rockefeller's murder and through him
pulsed a new strength. He smiled, feeling complete and powerful as Miho
continued talking.

"It was
a bold move, sir, and perhaps not unwise. You have a small window of time
here where the rest of the Founders will wait to see your next action.
Based on that, they will most likely respond with some sort of assassination
attempt. There are perhaps alliances to be made with a few of Rockefeller's
lesser fans. Would you like me to have feelers sent out?"

"Feelers?
Yes, I like that, yes. It seems like a good idea. Nothing weak,
though. We don’t offer any power. Coattails are all we offer.
Clear?"

"Yes,
sir."

October
stared at his hands after sucking the last of the chocolate cake off of his
fingers and then drew to a halt. He only now realized that his hands were
bloody and bruised. He looked at them with curiosity. He'd ordered
millions killed, but this was different. The power was intoxicating, but the
loss of control was disconcerting. He needed to be in control. The
games of politics and money here on The Island were no different than they had
been on the mainland. If he was to hold onto power he would have to stay
in control from here on out.

"Do we
have word of Jacob or Nestor?" the words came out less casual than October
had intended.

"Nestor
still walks, reason suggests he'll be dead soon. Nothing of Jacob.
Reason suggests he's dead or dying."

October
tested his legs momentarily before standing up, his bed creaking as his weight
shifted.

"Yes,
but they aren't reasonable men. Send out drones. Check satellite
images. I want to know where all my enemies are."

"Sir,
they're everywhere. Act accordingly," Miho smiled.

October laughed
and patted Miho on the shoulder as he drew himself to his full height.

"Okay,
we must deal with the Founders, but we also need to deal with this mutant
situation. Mutants! Unbelievable! And the other survivors… I
don't suppose that the military would be able to just wipe them out?"

"Perhaps,
but I doubt they will be willing. It's one thing to sit by while missiles
wipeout mankind. It's another to pull the trigger," Miho shrugged.

"True,
true. Okay, well, we need a plan. I need Nestor, Jacob, and every
survivor dead. What sort of message does it send for the people I order
killed to be up and walking around?"

"A
not
Presidential one, sir?"

"Exactly,
Miho. Exactly."