Out of the Black (29 page)

...but not dark. He forced himself to stay slumped toward the passenger seat, where the impact had driven him. With all his fluttery, barely conscious will, he forced his hands to remain limp, to not fly to the side of his head to cover or probe his damaged noggin. In his imagination, his brain was leaking from the side of his head, demanding a hand to apply firm pressure to keep things together. Nope... request denied... possum cloak engaged.

The back door opened and the car rocked down slightly as one of the killers leaned in. He prodded Alex's immobile form with the barrel of his weapon, prodded again harder. Alex didn't make a sound. The car rocked up again as the intruder retreated out the door. The handle on Ping's door was jerked, jerked again, but the car's frame had bent enough to jam the door.

There was cursing, then yanking, then more cursing with simultaneous yanking. Ping didn't smile, though it took great effort. So, this poor misguided killer had an extra-homicidal character flaw- foul language. Ping took an odd satisfaction from listening to him fail his verbal IQ test. About four words were used in various permutations to express frustration and derision- Ping translated as best as he could: "Sexually active illegitimate son, Deity may punish! Deity punished door, crap! Sexually active... crap..." The guy pounded on the door with the butt of his weapon twice in frustration, then gave the door a kick.

"Crap!" More pulling. The door sprung open at last, but the killer had left a shin in the way, which led to yet another passionate permutation of the four-word, sixteen-letter vocabulary. Ping hoped that last part meant 'mom's having sex', but he didn't think so. Eww.

Ping was always amused when he ran across what his great-grandma had called a potty mouth, though he had no idea what a 'potty' was. This really wasn't too often in the modern world. Even in the filthy circles of his old hell as a vice cop, he'd only run across a handful of people who regularly swore. There just weren't that many people left in the well-educated world who were willing to sound this dissociatively stupid, no matter how black their hearts or how dirty their hands.

It was going to be a shame to kill this guy. It would be like killing e of the last buffaloes, the last wild turkey, the loneliest dodo...

The barrel of the killer's weapon slammed into Ping's left shoulder, twisting him to the right until he was stopped by his seatbelt, face toward the passenger seat with his back to the endangered species.

"I know you're
sexually
awake!" The killer shouted. If only he knew how wrong he was- Ping was going to have to kill this guy before he blew his cover by laughing. "Wake up and sexually die, cop!"

The double explosion vibrated Ping's barrel-bruised left shoulder and put a compound hole through the back of Roy's nice jacket. When he'd been driven sideways, his right hand had crossed his chest, coming to rest on the grip of the pistol holstered, pointing backwards, under his left arm. His finger slid into the trigger guard, lock tone muffled by the surrounding holster, clothes and flesh, and further covered by the poorly assembled profanity. The two shots were followed by the thud of a job well done on the ground outside the door.

He turned back toward the door. He unholstered the weapon and covered the empty doorway where the swearing, rifle-clubbing, barrel-prodder had once stood. Ping clumsily piled out of the car, coming to a rest crouching with his back against the doorjamb.

Before him was a corpse with matching holes in throat and chest and an assault gun still clutched in one out-flung hand. Ping grabbed the weapon, briefly inspected it: 3mm full auto compact assault gun with 72 rounds remaining, according to the display above the trigger guard... locked.

Rigor mortis hadn't set in, but Ping's efforts to wrest the lock ring off the dead killer's finger were vain. With his left hand, he pulled the tip of the ringed finger. With his right, he pressed the barrel of his pistol against the base of the finger, winced...

"NO!" Rae yelled as a delayed third shot came from the car. Hope drained out through the exclamation, leaving her burnt hollow. That shot sounded like an execution.

The woman covering the car behind the microvan's door whirled about, rifle tracking toward Rae- just in time to meet two volleys of dispersing fletchettes from Rae's weapon. The woman with the rifle bounced off the door behind her before landing in a heap amid the shards of glass from the shattered window.

Rae didn't stop. She raced to the microvan with the speed of Amped desperation. She leaped onto its protruding rear fender, then onto the roof. As she appeared over the top of the microvan, the driver of the SUV opened fire.

The snapping hiss of a burst of maybe five rounds filled the air around her. She altered her trajectory to the right with a hard push of her left foot on the roof of the van. As she left the airspace above the microvan, she returned fire, hitting her target in the legs. Correcting as she sailed through the air, her second shot hit him in the head and torso as he doubled over.

Then she was on the ground. She touched down effortlessly, feet melding with the ground, continuing her sprint around the back of the SUV. As she ran, she pumped a string of shots into the SUV's tinted windows. She couldn't see inside until the shattering glass fell away, revealing shredded upholstery, but no more attackers. If there had been anyone inside, they were now on the floor, dead or otherwise. She didn't stop to check. Her goal was the crumpled unmarked police car before her now.

Explosions erupted behind Ping, on the other side of the car. A long string of heavy-sounding gunshots followed by the tinkle of glass, but he was showered with no glass, punctured by no bullets. Still, he was sure this was the end.

Ping slid the sticky lock ring onto his right middle finger, still gritting his teeth, applying mental restraining pressure on his dinner. Hazy purple straw seemed to crinkle about his head, filling his ears and peripheral vision, scratching across his scalp. He reached out to retrieve the assault gun from the ground at his side, but had to stop with his bloody hand leaning on top of it as the straw washed over his face- going out!

No I'm not, he thought through the numbing straw's crinkling oblivion. He had to kill several more people, find Rae, and get her and Alex out of here before he could spare time for sleep or death.

Will power was exerted and his tingling hand dragged the gun back across the ground. After a moment of intense concentration the world stopped breaking against his head like monsoon waves, and the electric straw receded to a faint crackle in his ears. He put his hand around the assault gun's pistol grip. The lock-accept tone made him shudder.

At the edge of consciousness with his stolen weapon held in slippery hands, he wondered what life would have been like if he'd stayed in family counseling. Though there was humor in thinking of sitting in a circle of chairs with some dysfunctional family or other- expressing feelings, listening actively- he didn't find it funny. He'd killed more people as a cop, but not more good people. Now he tried to save people from killers, not try to save killers from losing their families.

He was about to die, behind him Alex would die, way behind him somewhere on the road, Rae either had or would die. At least now he was trying to save them, at least now he'd get to die with them.

Before him stood the familiar form of a seven-year-old girl, her hand raised as if holding an invisible mother's hand. The specter's black hair, once meticulously straightened, was in frizzy disarray. Her furtive smile had been lost long ago. The lack of light in her brown eyes was an accusation. Her clothes were twisted about her body as if frozen in sleep. Dirt covered her like a rumpled blanket, thrown off only partially upon waking. Her throat was cut from ear to ear.

He was going to die, and that was probably for the best- long overdue. Yet he will not fail and die. He could have done that long ago. Tonight, he will die trying to help. He struggled with his unresponsive right arm, and managed to get the assault gun up across his lap. He grabbed the forward grip in his left hand. The flames that erupted from the side of his battered head would ascend toward heaven, his muscles would rebel, his vision would cloud- yet his teeth will clench, his muscles
will
move. He's not done yet.

The car against his back shifted in tandem with the bang of leaping footfalls on the hood, then roof. He tried to jerk his newly unlocked gun up to cover this new threat coming from above and behind him, but couldn't pull off anything more than token resistance to gravity. His hands and the gun in them stayed on his lap.

A spinning blur above him made him reach for his holstered pistol with his left hand, but the draw and pass out neurons in his head had been cross connected. His left hand came to rest on his chest and the fog rolled in as booted feet landed in front of him.

A weapon was thrust toward him. He looked up at the cave-large muzzle directed at his face, mind divided between frustration and relief. He wondered if his mom was right about heaven and hell, wondered which would be his reward- then he saw the angel with her finger on the trigger.

"Hi, Rae." He slurred, instantly uncomfortable with the amount of misery escaping through his short utterance. "Was that a... flip I just saw?" He sobbed uncontrollably once, twice, and then the world resolved to a black halo around her shining face.

Then the blackness was absolute. He could only assume she hadn't shot him.

***

Below, the principal surgeon stepped away from the table. Hawthorne breathed a sigh of relief and checked her watch.

"So, what's the plan chief?" Anne asked. Below, the OR doors opened, admitting a man of about thirty with shoulder length hair and a deep, smooth tan. "If Jeremy's here, things are pretty much wrapped up."

"Jeremy?"

"Yeah," Anne said, "The guy down there with the great hair and the crass tan of science. He's another phlebotomist... he's here to unhook your partner from the operating bed. Look, he's actually checking himself out!" Below, the newcomer posed surreptitiously before a polished cabinet, making what Anne had come to regard as one of his 'handsome faces'- this one was emoting "catch you later, babe".

"The operation is over. Though you might expect to hear it in here with me, the fat lady is in fact singing."

Hawthorne turned her head and arched an eyebrow, regarding Anne critically. "You don't have to do that."

"What?" Anne asked.

"Fat jokes." Hawthorne replied.

"Oh yes I do."

Hawthorne shrugged, "Ok, then at least try to make them funny. Now 'crass tan of science'- that was hilarious." She turned back to the window and to the subject. "We wait for now."

Below, the secondary surgeon stepped back, stretching her arms. Though they couldn't hear, she was flirting with Jeremy.

"Wait for what?" Anne asked.

"For who." Hawthorne corrected.

After a few seconds, it became clear that Hawthorne wasn't going to elaborate.

The lights flickered- flickered again. Down in the OR, conversations paused and people looked up- a nod to previous eras when a flying predator might have flown in front of the sun.

"I've got a really bad feeling about this." Anne said, looking about, feeling something both new and familiar hovering at the edges of her consciousness. With an almost audible click, she placed the feeling... it was the feeling she'd had, holding the Harm's blood sample between her fingers- the same feeling of chaotic bugs jittering restlessly- looking for food.

After three more minutes, the creepy bug feeling persisted, but they were almost ready to leave: Mendez, looking like a mummy in isolation film, was transferred to an open monitor bed and connected to its systems. The principal surgeon and the tech worked on the post-op report, Jeremy and the secondary arranged a date for drinks tomorrow.

"Catch you later" Jeremy's handsome face emoted. He winked and cometed his turn to go.

The doors of the OR opened inward.

A group of ten people lurch and stumble in, filling the OR's only exit.

At first their giggling daze and dishevel mark the new arrivals as the survivors of a flower-painted microbus accident. There is blood spattered among them to support this impression, but not all of their clothes follow the theme you'd expect for the passengers of such a groovy conveyance. True, most are dressed for a hip night out, but the circles of cool in which they move are obviously varied. Some wear the electric-traced black of the dated Psycho-Goth fad, while others wear the scanty leather and plastic fare of clubs with more explicit themes, a few even wear the sleek business casual of more mature pick-up joints. One wears only rumpled pajama bottoms, his bare and bleeding feet leaving red-brown footprints behind him.

Most still wear the remains of broken or cut plastic restraints on wrists and ankles, the kind used to secure patients in the high security ward of the hospital. Most are still wearing the hospital patient ID wristbands. But the most obvious similarities between the new arrivals are the dark mottled skin, the black vacant eyes, the humorless grins that seem to stretch from ear to ear- the teeth reconfigured for the work of the carnivore.

Looking down on the new arrivals, Anne's mind returns to the Harm she'd killed in the ER... she saw his face as he leaned casually in to take a bite from Dr. Wyler's ear.

There is a breathless moment- the inhale before the scream- when all eyes lock on the doorway and its surreal visitors.

"I assume we're not waiting for these guys." Anne says with a smirk.

The doctors and technicians take a collective step back from the door. On the gurney, Mendez slumbers through the terror congealing around him, wrapped in protective plastic film and insulating layers of sleep. To Anne's eye, he looks uncomfortably like a burrito on the counter of any Latin-themed restaurant. And the customers have arrived.

But they aren't looking for burrito... the entire demonic group is staring up at the mirrored glass behind which Anne and Hawthorne stand.