HAYWIRE: A Pandemic Thriller (The F.A.S.T. Series Book 2) (15 page)

The atrium ceiling came into view.

Wow. Look at that.

Several stories high, the huge stained glass ceiling depicted a tall ship sailing through crystal blue water. It was massive.

Vertigo gripped Craigson a moment. He snapped his attention back down to the floor.

He wished he hadn’t.

Bodies lay scattered all around the atrium floor.

Where are the rest?

Given the number of fatalities they’d passed in the corridors, Craigson expected the carnage in the atrium to be knee deep.

He peered over the marble service counters.

Oh, God no.

He’d found the bodies.

At least thirty people had made a final stand behind the counters. They’d been overrun. Craigson turned away from the terrible sight.

‘Look,’ pointed Myers.

Craigson glanced at a large fish tank set in the wall.

A turtle the size of a large coffee table stared back at him.

That’s no fish tank
, Craigson realized.
It’s an aquarium.

Myers stared at the turtle as though a unicorn had just appeared. He watched the curious turtle a moment longer before waving the passengers forward.

Craigson put his finger to his lips. ‘You’ll attract less attention in smaller groups. Half of you head to the port lifeboats and half to the starboard.’

‘But the killers are already there!’ hissed one woman.

Myers pointed. ‘We have teams there now. They’ll help you. Those boats are your only chance.’

‘Can’t you take us?’ pleaded an older man.

Myers shook his head. ‘We have to stop any sick passengers following you. Now go. Quickly. Our people are waiting for you.’

The group still hesitated.

‘Go,’ hissed Myers. ‘If you miss the lifeboats you’ll never get off this ship!’

The passengers understood that. Their hesitation disappeared. They divided, chose corridors and dashed away.

Craigson hated sending terrified people away on their own, but he trusted the Captain.

After the passengers disappeared, Craigson heard a sound.

‘What is it?’ asked Myers.

Craigson pointed. ‘That way.’

The two Marines edged around the service counters toward the noise.

Snip...snip...snip.

‘That one,’ whispered Myers.

Craigson read the sign over the marble archway.

Aphrodite’s

A waterfall entrance feature blocked their view further inside.

Snip...snip...snip.

Craigson held up three fingers, then two fingers, then one finger....

Now.

Both Marines moved at exactly the same time to either end of the waterfall.

It’s a hairdressing salon,
realized Craigson.

A very fancy hairdressing salon, with seashell-shaped lights illuminating renaissance style murals. In the floor, thousands of shells and coral fragments lay embedded under a smooth, transparent surface. A block of smooth sandstone functioned as the service counter.

Beyond were eight styling booths, each screened by shimmering blue satin curtains.

One booth looked open.

Snip...snip...snip.

Quietly, the Marines rounded the sandstone counter and looked in the booth.

In the styling chair slumped a man.

A dead man.

Twelve pairs of scissors were embedded in his chest up to their handles.

A woman wearing a shimmering blue dress was cutting his hair with a pair of scissors in each hand.

She was a heavily-set girl, and very pretty.

Snip...snip...snip.

Piles of brown hair lay around the chair. She’d trimmed the man’s head practically bald. She seemed absolutely absorbed in the process.

‘Hello?’ tested Myers.

The woman glanced up at Myers.

Apparently the dead man’s haircut was finished.

Myers was next.

The woman screamed and launched herself at Myers.

Neither Marine reacted in time.

The woman moved too fast.

As her body slammed into Myers, her scissors descended like daggers.

The impact knocked Myers backward. As they fell, the woman thrust her scissors at Myers’ eyes. With his XREP pinned between them, Myers had just one option.

Desperately he grabbed for the woman’s wrists.

He caught them.

He gripped her wrists as their bodies fell backward.

Crash!

Myers fell through a cosmetics table, but kept his grip on the insane hairdresser’s wrists.

He had little choice.

The scissors halted just inches from his eyeballs.

At this range, Craigson couldn’t miss the woman.

His ‘Liquidized Rubber Slug’ (LRS) rifle operated like any semi-automatic rifle. Only the ammunition differed. The projectile semi-liquidized during flight. The epoxy-elastin compound retained enough structural integrity to fly like a normal bullet, but on impact it flattened and hardened into a solid disk an inch wide and 5mm thick.

The projectile minimized penetration and maximized concussive impact.

Craigson knew the weapon had four times the knock-down power of a rubber bullet. He also knew, at this range, he would likely break the hairdresser’s neck or crack her skull. That’s why their new weapons were classed ‘less-lethal’ rather than ‘non-lethal’.

Craigson aimed by instinct, noting the red laser dot on the woman’s head.

The XREP and LRS both used laser sights.

‘Look out!’ Myers hollered.

Myers was looking past Craigson.

There’s someone behind me
, realized Craigson.

Mirrors filled the salon.

One glance to his left and Craigson glimpsed his attacker from three different angles. While he was aiming at the hairdresser’s head, someone was aiming at his head.

And they weren’t going to miss.

Smash!

Craigson’s world jolted. Shards of glass tumbled around his shoulders and helmet. The force of the attack pushed him forward, but not off his feet. Whatever struck him hadn’t been heavy enough.

Spinning, he saw the weapon.

Another mirror. The type with handles on both sides to display a haircut from behind.

Craigson’s helmet had saved him.

His attacker was another hairdresser.

She wore the same kind of shimmering blue dress as the woman trying to impale Myers.

She lunged at Craigson.

Craigson fired.

The liquid slug struck the woman squarely in the sternum. At point blank range, the impact knocked her clean off her feet. As she fell, her head smacked against the sandstone service counter.

‘Craigson!’ yelled Myers, still struggling to keep the scissors from his eyes. ‘Shoot her!’

Craigson spun. For a moment the mirrors played tricks on him. It looked like
another
hairdresser was in the store.

Shit! There
is
another hairdresser. How many are in here?

From a rear doorway a third employee appeared. This one held a long shaft of wood with a wicked-looking point.

She sprinted across the salon toward Myers.

Myers didn’t have any more hands to defend himself.

While one hairdresser pinned him down, the other intended to impale him.

Craigson had one round left in his magazine.

One shot and two targets.

Crack!

The polymer slug flew from his barrel and struck the woman pinning Myers to the floor. The slug struck between her temple and her jaw, fracturing that crucial junction of bones and ligaments.

The impact sent the woman tumbling off Myers.

Myers’ hands became free just as the woman with the spear reached him.

He grabbed his rifle to deflect her attack.

But the attack never came.

The woman didn’t slow down. She leaped over Myers.

She ignored Myers and charged at Craigson. At that moment, Craigson realized the sick passengers were completely unpredictable.

Surprised, he stepped backward and tripped. He fell backward, totally off-balance.

Oh, God – she’ll be right on top of me!

Something caught him.

A chair!
He’d fallen into a styling chair.

He had no intention of ending up like the dead man in the next chair down.

He focused on the wooden spear racing at his face. The point was glossy with blood. She had already killed someone with her improvised weapon.

He knocked the spear point off target with his rifle.

Slunk.

The spear thudded into the chair’s headrest bare inches from his face.