Suicide Squad (17 page)

“So. What did you say to him?” she asked.

Boomerang felt his side. “It hurts like hell and the bruise is gonna last for at least a week. Hey. Just kidding. I was just having a laugh. He’s in.”

Harley looked at Croc. The monster gave her a thumbs up and grinned, baring two rows of razor-sharp teeth.

If that don’t beat all…

Twenty-six hours earlier, everyone in Midway City got up and left. Nearly two million people drove or walked across the bridges before the missiles knocked them down, or they crowded onto city transit then transferred to trains that would take them to Gateway City, across the bay.

Thousands of others boarded ferries they prayed would not be sunk before they, too, made it to Gateway—or even better, Central City, a hundred plus miles south. Many survived the short mile-long trip.

Most didn’t. Nearly a million and a half men, women, and children died in the first wave of attacks.

A series of underground gas explosions had rippled through the area. Even would-be thieves, believing the city was theirs to loot, soon found themselves hunkered indoors, praying they were safe behind locked doors.

They weren’t.

There were no more trains. No more busses. No way to leave. Nobody was walking the sidewalks of the Fifth Street Promenade, the city’s major shopping district extending from Ostrander at the north end to Grell at the south.

Something dreadful was out there, and it was killing everyone it found.

Nobody could fight it.

Nobody was safe. Whoever remained in Midway City was going to die in Midway City.

* * *

“Unbelievable,” Deadshot said, looking at an ambulance, overturned and on fire. It had been looted for whatever drugs it had carried. “I don’t spook easy, but I never seen anything like this.” He was wearing his headpiece, with a monocle that acted as a scope.

Harley hurried up to Flag’s side and looked back toward Diablo.

“You know he’s a loose cannon. These quiet guys. You gotta watch them.”

“Ignore him. What you said. He’s good.”

She looked back again. The skull-faced man was in tears, staring at the devastation.

“Nuh-uh,” she pressed. “Look at him. He’s found God or something. That’s never good.”

“Maybe you need to find something to believe in.”

“I already have.” Harley reached into her pocket and put her hand on her cell phone screen, knowing Mister J’s face was smiling out at her. “First-time worshipper, long-time believer.”

They turned left and headed around the Tenth Street circle, then took the third outlet to Mooney Drive. Their target, mostly hidden by the smoke, was only five blocks away.

They moved carefully through the city wreckage. Out of earshot, Boomer wondered aloud why Flag wouldn’t tell them who they were supposed to fight. Did that mean he didn’t know either, or that whatever was out there was so bad he was afraid to tell them? The Aussie shuddered.

“If that’s the case,” he murmured, “heaven help us all, ’cause nothing else can.”

Croc suddenly stopped. “This isn’t good,” he said. “You see them?”

“See what, Crusty?” Harley said.

“The dead.”

Then he saw it. Mooney Drive was littered with corpses. Piles of them tossed aside like garbage. Flag gestured for them to stop as he stepped closer.

“Now that’s weird,” Harley suddenly said. She stepped up, right behind Flag.

“What’s weird?” he asked.

She kneeled down as if to touch one of the corpses, but then pulled back. It was an old man, probably in his eighties.

“No one here’s young,” she said. “Or strong. These guys are all older, or crippled.” She pointed to a walker, lying on its side, bent out of shape. “Like they were rejected and tossed away.”

“Rejected for what?” Deadshot asked.

“Yeah. What you said,” Harley responded.

Flag’s radio beeped. GQ’s voice could be heard through the static.

“
Jefe
. We got people up here.”

“Roger. Coming to you,” Flag responded.

Grey checked their ammunition supply, but even with nearly fifteen thousand rounds, he wasn’t sure they had enough.

What if, he worried, it was like Superman, and bullets bounced off them? Or they could melt the metal with heat vision, or something equally alien? Planet Earth would be royally screwed.

Flag stared through his scope and scanned the next street. A half-dozen cars were overturned and on fire. A school bus had crashed into a clothing store window, its front half inside, its back half gone as if torn off and thrown away. As far as Flag could tell, nobody was inside.

He slowly panned the gun sight, then abruptly stopped. He could just about make out three shadowy figures skittering in the dark.

Silhouettes.

Flag lowered his weapon and grabbed GQ by the arm.

“We’re diverting. Bump out second squad two blocks east,” he whispered. “Once they’re set, we’ll pass through you and continue north.”

GQ nodded, then got Kowalski on the comm frequency. In his mid-thirties, Kowalski was GQ’s go-to guy, as he had been since basic, which right now felt like many centuries ago. Anything GQ needed doing, Kowalski was the man who’d get it done. No questions asked.

“Post up your peeps two majors east,” he said into the mic. “We’ll leapfrog through you once you roger out. Initiate your peel.”

“Roger that,” the SEAL snapped back. He took his comm and forwarded the orders. “Okay, second squad. We’re leapfrogging to the next intersection. Peel. Go!”

The SEALs took off in three-man fire teams. Weapons ready, they made their way to the adjacent street.

* * *

Deadshot watched them intently. Boomer, too. Both were impressed by the SEALs’ efficiency as they moved away from Flag and company.

“I’m now liking the odds, mate,” Boomerang said. “Just say when.”

Deadshot gestured for Boomer to stay in place. “Hold your mud, big guy. We whack out Flag now, his lady boss will cut our strings.”

“So what?” Boomer was edgy, anxious. Adrenaline was pumping at full force. “I’m going out swinging. On my feet. Make the call.”

Deadshot overruled him. “You got balls, but no brains.” He glanced at Harley. When was her special friend going to figure out how to dismantle their neck bombs? She saw him staring at her and blew an air-kiss his way.

If our lives depend on that fruitcake, we are in serious, serious trouble.
Still, Harley was ready to move, too, once Deadshot said yes. She was crazy, but she could kill with the best of them.

He checked out the monster. Croc could rip off all their heads and boil them in a stew without thinking twice about it. Lucky he, or it, was firmly on their side. Croc would make his move as soon as Deadshot directed him to.

“Everyone be cool for a minute,” Lawton whispered.

“Why?” Harley asked. “We’re ready now.”

“Because, my dear Doctor Quinzel, Flag and these cats are scared—and guys like them don’t get scared. Before we make our move, I want to know why. We may still need them, even if it’s only as diversions.” He saw Flag on the radio. “Be right back. Don’t do anything stupid.” Deadshot made his way over to the colonel and waited for him to finish his call.

“What?” Flag asked.

Lawton didn’t waste any time. “Why’s everyone here tripping?”

Flag nodded toward a vehicle parked a short distance up the street. Moving shadows crouched behind it. Deadshot lowered his monocle into place, and raised his carbine for a closer look. His crosshairs swept the vehicle, then landed on a figure hiding behind it. For a moment he thought it was one of Midway’s police or firefighters—tall, powerful, and dressed in the tatters of what had once been a uniform. He’d been through the grinder.

Then the figure turned, and he saw what should have been a face looking back at him. Instead, he was staring at a large, black, misshapen mass sitting on top of a semi-human body with the proper number of arms and legs in their appropriate places, but twisted and bent in an almost inhuman way.

There was no flesh on its face, but something that looked like it had been was coated over with tar then left to dry and crack in the sun. There seemed to be no front or back view, no mouth or ears or even a nose. The entire head was a massive, encrusted barnacle.

That wasn’t what was really scary.

Pocked into its crusted façade were eyes. Thousands of glowing eyes, and the eyes were all staring at him. Not just where the face should have been, but where gaps and tears in clothing revealed bare flesh. Impossible eyes that didn’t blink.

Deadshot pulled back, stunned. He didn’t know what he was looking at, but he knew it defied reason. He knew the thing was evil.

“What the hell is that?”

“Something we don’t want to tangle with,” Flag said, his voice low. “Let’s go.” Then they felt their neck hairs bristle. Lawton turned and saw Diablo behind them, frightening in his stillness.

“They are the Eyes of the Adversary,” Diablo said softly. “EAs.” Somber, frightened, he stared past them. His eyes were unfocused. “Our deaths.”

Boomer walked up and took Deadshot’s carbine, looked through the scope. He turned back to the others, his face ashen.

“Looks like crap with eyeballs.”

Diablo turned to Flag with uncharacteristic urgency.

“Burn this place down, Flag. Cleanse it now, while we still can.”

“That ain’t right.” Deadshot stared into the dark. He didn’t have to see the thing again—it had already permanently burned into his memory. But it was there. In the dark, and it may not have been alone. “That ain’t even possible.”

He reached a finger into his collar, pulled out a small gold crucifix, and held it for reassurance. He looked to see the others staring at him. Not because he was holding the cross, but because they, too, didn’t know what to make of whatever they were seeing.

They, too, needed reassurance.

For the first time they all looked to Flag for their next move.

“Get ready,” he said, understanding the sudden shift, and ready to use it to his advantage.

Then the thing, the “EA,” suddenly charged, darting from behind the vehicle. These EAs weren’t just people—they were something very different. The Squad and SEALs raised their weapons, ready to fire on command.

Another EA suddenly darted out from an alleyway between office buildings, while still others pushed aside manhole covers and flowed up through them and onto South Paul Street. Many of them were carrying weapons, guns and rifles taken from soldiers they had murdered.

They were all moving inhumanly fast, and they were coming from every direction at once. Flag shouted to the Squad, shocking them from their catatonic rigor.

“Hit ’em,” he bellowed. “Now! Aim for their eyes. They can’t attack what they can’t see.”

No kidding
, Lawton thought angrily. It took only moments to fire several hundred rounds, but the things, the EAs, did not stop coming. Even more poured in after the initial swarm.

Squad and SEALs kept firing. Nate and Gomez had nearly three-dozen grenades each. They tossed them all, one after another, but the creatures would not be stopped. They separated and scattered in different directions, moving too fast for the Squad and SEALs to focus their gunfire.

Deadshot clipped several of them, but his weapons weren’t powerful enough to put them down. A few of the things got close enough to land blows, and each time they did there was a scream, short and quickly cut off. Other EAs darted into the doorways and hurried to hide around corners. Dozens jumped into open sewer entrances, disappearing underground. In seconds they were gone.

Flag embraced the momentary calm. They desperately needed the break to reassess what had just happened.

“Cease fire,” he said. “We need to conserve our ammo.”

It was quiet once again.

GQ spotted four of his men lying dead in the street, but he couldn’t find a single EA corpse.

“No kills. We didn’t drop even one.”

They stood quiet for a very long time.

“What were they?” Croc asked, breaking the silence. “Were they real?”

Boomer laughed. “Same could be said about you, Scales.”

“I can easily kill you, Stickman. Would that be enough to prove to you how real I am?” Boomerang’s eyes widened in momentary fear. Croc smiled. “I mutated to become what I am. I suffered, but they…” He turned back to Flag. “What have you sent us to fight?”

“Once we rescue our HVT, we’ll find that out.”

“The hell,” Deadshot interrupted. “Those dudes run fast. Lightning fast.”

“Faster,” Croc added. “Much faster.” Harley Quinn was at his side. “What do you want, girl?” he asked.

“You’ll protect me, right, dollface?” she said hopefully. She fluttered her eyes and smiled at him. He stared at her for another few seconds then, without a word, he walked away.

They didn’t have to talk to know this was just a momentary respite. The things, the EAs, had checked out the humans, and now they were most likely plotting their next move.

Deadshot took the moment to reload his weapons, but he wasn’t at all sure it mattered. Hundreds of rounds had been spent, but there were no enemy kills.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the photograph tucked inside. He had a ritual he followed.

“Mate, what is it with you staring at that photo,” Boomer said. “They say you do it before and after each kill. What’s that all about?”

“Just something I do. My job pays me a shitload of money, and that lets me make sure Zoe gets the good life she deserves, not the crap life I lived.”

“So you’re doing it all for her?”

“I am. It’s all for Zoe.”

“Yeah. You keep telling yourself that, mate,” Boomer replied. “Personally, I think it lets you keep doing exactly what you wanted to do anyway.”

“This talk’s over… mate. Let’s not do it again.”

Lawton walked off, cursing Boomerang, but fearing he might be right. Zoe never asked him to spend any money on her. She only asked him to spend time with her. Like a normal father and daughter. Without worrying that at any moment the police would track him down, or that Batman would turn him into bloody pulp while she watched helplessly.