Stage 3: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (29 page)

The massive overhead span of the I-280 signaled their arrival. Mission Creek Park. The place with the funny dogs.

They were there.

CHAPTER XXXI

Mason wheeled east under the freeway, steered easily around two vehicles abandoned on the roundabout, and made his own lane across a vast spread of grass toward the waterfront. He navigated the rolling ground expertly, drove directly over two staggering creepers without slowing, and soon had the truck crawling along on a paved road running along the water's edge. They came upon the actual dog park soon enough, but it was occupied at present only by the bodies of a woman and a german shepherd and a pint-sized, bloody-faced wilder that raged and thrashed against the fence as they trundled slowly past.

But no matter. He hadn't expected much to begin with, but even his wildest imaginings didn't include the erstwhile Aunt Sarah waiting precisely there to wave them in. He continued on, took the truck as far as he could on the paved road, then hopped up onto the grass and started a slow circle around the entire park. He inspected every building and abandoned vehicle for anything that might constitute a sign of life, but all he saw around them was death. There were bodies in various states of corruption littering the grounds, and more creepers than seemed fitting for such an idyllic place, but he kept the vehicle on course, and rolled over corpses and creepers with equal disregard. There was a distinct hitch in Mackenzie's breathing with every encounter, but Mason figured it had more to do with the skidding and slewing of tires on the resultant sludge than with the exercise itself, so he patted her knee every time to assure her that all was well. At last, after a complete circumnavigation of the park, he pulled back onto Channel Street and drew them slowly to a halt.

"I guess she's not here, huh?" Mackenzie asked gloomily.

"Not yet," Mason replied in as casual a manner as he could, "but we had a big head start. Tell me, Mack, how close to the dog park were you and Sarah that day? Were you right beside it, or were you some distance away?"

Mackenzie climbed to her knees and peered through the windshield as if she might actually be able to see the landscape for herself.

"We were close, but not too close," she said through an uncertain grimace, "I remember that we sat on a bench with a tree hanging over it, and we could see the cars go by on the bridge."

The bridge? She meant the highway overpass, obviously, but the overpass was visible all around the park. And a park bench near trees? Hell, there were trees and benches
everywhere!

"Mack, can you tell me anything else? How close to the water where you? Was there a path? Maybe a building nearby?"

"Ummm…." she closed her eyes, and Mason could see her wracking her brain, then she raised a finger in the air and declared with no uncertainty, "There was a lamp post to one side, 'cause both dogs peed on it, and we were right next to the water, ‘cause I was looking at the houseboats, and I was wondering what it would be like to live in one. Ummmm…..Oh, yeah! Sarah brought a few extra pieces of bread so we could feed the geese, and when we went down to the water, the houseboat right in front of us was yellow and covered in glass. Does that help, Mace?"

Mason looked to the string of houseboats attached to a pier running parallel to the shore, and damned if there wasn't a yellow one with big picture windows. He put the truck back into gear, rolled easily over a slow-moving creeper in a blood-stained negligee, and pulled up directly in front of the yellow houseboat sitting twenty feet out in the channel. On the other side of the esplanade was a staggered series of benches, but only one was anywhere near a lamppost.

"I think I found the right place, Mack," he said, keying off the ignition.

Mackenzie smiled and lowered herself back into her seat.

"I think so, too, Mace."

Despite the girl's spurious confidence, Mason sat behind the wheel for some time, checking his mirrors and considering. He could already see eight….no,
nine
creepers coming toward them from different directions, but from their speed and distance, he figured he had a full two minutes of leeway. He snatched down the truck's log and accompanying pen from a sleeve attached to the sun visor and spent part of a minute hurriedly scribbling a note on the back of one of the pages, then he reached into the bag nestled between the seats and gathered up a handful of granola bars, a bottle of water, a can of Coke and an orange. Then he saw that it was their last orange and swapped it for an apple, and once he had everything together in his lap, he ripped the page out of the book, checked the nearness of the swarm, and cracked open his door.

"I'll just be a minute," he told Mackenzie as he jumped to the ground.

"Okay, Mace," the girl nodded obligingly enough, but there was an anxiousness in her voice that she couldn't hide completely.

Mason bundled his few meagre provisions in his arms, shut the door quietly, and hurried to the bench near the lamppost. He knew that if Sarah came, she'd expect some kind of sign. And where in all of Mission Creek Park would she look for it other than precisely the two square feet of real estate in which she and Mackenzie had encountered the funny dogs? He spread the items along the bench, stacked the granola bars in a little pyramid, and took special care to stick the note under the water bottle where the wind couldn't tear it away.

Sarah
, it read,
Mackenzie is safe, but she's sick. I really need your help, so
please
be alive! I don't know how much longer she has, but I promise I'll be with her to the end, and I'll be as gentle as I can be. If you get this, break into the yellow houseboat and open the drapes as a signal. We'll stay as long as we can, but if you don't see us within 24 hours, know that Mackenzie was accompanied by a friend, and that I'm sorry.

There. Good. With those few words, he'd effectively absolved himself from all of the guilt he'd felt the previous night. Whether or not Sarah was alive and whether or not she ever found the note, his commitment could finally be considered discharged. He'd done his best, and he'd provided dear, elusive, probably-already-demised Aunt Sarah with all the closure she could ever expect under the circumstances. He wondered what else he could add to the note to make the news less dire, but decided to leave it as it was. Considering the subject matter, a few words more or less would never make a difference.

After some deliberation, he unstrapped the pistol from his ankle and exchanged the near-empty clip for a full one from his pocket, then he laid the gun beside the water bottle. If Sarah came, she'd find it indispensable. If she didn't, maybe the thing would help someone else survive. He briefly considered the possibility that the gun could come back to bite him in the ass, but the odds weren't very high. Not now. Chances were, anyone thinking of using the gun against them would be far too late to do them any harm.

He conjured up an image of Becks' exasperated face and gave her a mental shrug, confessing grimly,
Sorry, Becks. …..I'm trying, but all the hope in the world ain't gonna change biology.…..

Just then, he heard a twig snap from behind. Apparently, one of the creepers was quicker than he'd imagined. He wheeled around to face the fleet-footed creature who'd confounded his math, intent on snapping a knee or bowling the creature to the ground, but his heart rose in his chest when he saw a wilder the approximate size of a house charging directly at him.

The creature came like a bull, roaring and snarling and spitting blood, and Mason knew that he'd made a fatal mistake. By leaving his weapon behind on what was to be a thirty second excursion, he'd doomed himself. But in that brief, eternal flurry of seconds before his imminent demise, his only thought was of Mackenzie. His nearsightedness had doomed her as well, and in a way that far exceeded his own. Oddly, though, instead of envisioning her as she must now surely become in the near future, he saw her as she was in the present; a frightened, brave, sweet little girl with no other recourse but to listen to her friend dying.

At another time, that stark image might have crushed Mason's very soul. Now, it inspired him. After all he and Mackenzie had been through together, after all the defeats and triumphs, all the near-misses and narrow escapes and all the promises and hopes, they deserved better than to let it end like this. If they were destined to die, they at least deserved the right to end things on their terms. Hell, they'd
earned
it! They'd damned well
earned
the right to go out together! 

Mason watched the creature charging at him, and as his anguish turned suddenly to anger, he growled back at the creature in defiance. The wilder responded to the guttural sound by only increased its speed, but Mason was ready. He dropped to a knee and ducked his head low to the ground just as the wildman arrived, and the massive creature blundered into him and fell head over heels over his prostrate body. It was back on its feet in a flash and spun around to come at him again, but Mason coolly reached for the gun in his waistband and aimed it directly in the center of the creature's forehead. He fired once, but the wilder slipped on the grass at that precise moment and the bullet went high and barely creased its skull. Mason had just enough time to take one more wild shot before the creature was on him, then he was thrown aside and landed so hard that the gun came loose from his hand and skittered away across the grass.

The creature turned and charged again, and once again Mason dove aside with mere inches to spare. This time, though, the behemoth dropped clumsily to its knees and clawed at the ground where its prey had been only a moment before. Mason was able to roll out of the way in time to avoid the claws, but then he came up against the lamppost and had nowhere else to go. He knocked the claws away time and time again, but the creature was like a wildcat, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before one of those claws made contact. In desperation, he lunged out and managed to grab a handful of the wilder's hair, then he used what leverage he had to shove the creature's face into the ground as hard as he could. Again and again he slammed the wilder's face into the ground, but the soil was too soft to do more than bloody the wilder's nose, and all the while, the horrible thing ignored the affront and continued to claw its way closer and closer, snarling and spitting like an animal possessed.

Seeing no other recourse now, Mason planted his feet firmly against the base of the tree and propelled himself up and out, landing squarely on the creature's back. He wrapped his arms around the beast's thick neck and squeezed, but just as he felt the thing's larynx begin to crush, the wilder climbed slowly but doggedly to its feet and shrugged the weight aside as easily a dog shaking off a dip in the lake.

Mason landed hard, and the breath was knocked out of him. As he gasped and sputtered, he saw the pistol lying a few yards away, but just as was about to make a grab for it, the creature was on him again, and it was all he could do to roll off to the side. He managed to avoid the claws once again, but dried leaves crackled under his body as he rolled, and the wilder lunged at this new sound. Mason kicked furiously at the creature's legs as the thing hovered over him, but there was just too much mass to topple. As the creature clawed and snarled and spat away the blood gushing into its mouth from a shattered nose, it was all Mason could do to roll and scramble and crab-walk just inches out of the thing's reach. At last, his back came up against the wooden bench, and he could retreat no farther, even as the creature drew close enough that droplets of red, frothy spittle spattered against Mason's face.

Mason felt claws tug at his very clothing as he tried to scramble backward under the bench, desperate to put something,
anything
between him and the creature. But then, just when he thought he might stand a chance to make it, one of the wilder's hands closed around his foot with a grip like iron. He kicked furiously against the hold and clung to the bench with all of his strength, but there was no fighting the strength of the wilder. Slowly but surely, he was being reeled in like a fish. He felt his grip on the bench loosen, and with one last violent yank, he was pulled free and thrown into the clear. Before he could make a move, the creature had him pinned him to the ground, and as he saw the wilder descending upon him like a ravening beast, all he could think was,
Not now! ….Not yet! ….Please!…..

When the creature's face was mere inches from his throat, an explosion shook the air, and the bloody jaws suddenly withdrew, and Mason looked on with bewilderment as the wilder arched back, raising its face blindly to the sky. It hovered there barely long enough for Mason to register the insane notion that a sudden peal of thunder must have distracted the creature, then the thing folded backward and collapsed abruptly to the ground.

In the creature's place stood the tiny form of Mackenzie, hands together, arms outstretched toward Mason and tangled locks of hair cascading down over one eye. She was holding something in her hands, and it was only when she released a heavy breath and dropped her arms to her sides that Mason could see what it was. It was a pistol.
His
pistol, he realized with alarm. And as awareness slowly sunk in, it was all he could do to simply lay there and gape stupidly at the girl.

She'd just saved his life. Somehow, that little slip of a girl had managed to climb down from the truck, find the weapon he'd been fool enough to lose, and put a bullet in the wilder's back just in the nick of time. Mason climbed awkwardly to his feet, then he saw something else that made him almost weak in the knees. Mackenzie wasn't focused on some undefined spot in the distance. She was looking directly at him. Not at his chest, not at his chin, and not at his nose; the girl was looking him square in the eyes.