The List (32 page)

Tom was being crushed by the pile of bodies, and very close to blacking out. He tried to fight it, tried to hold on, but he couldn’t draw a breath and the pain and claustrophobia were so intense he felt he might go insane. Tom tried one last time to scream out Joan’s name, to try to warn her.

All that came out was a weak moan.

Springfield

“So you’re a clone of your father?”

Phil Jr. nodded under the towel. Bert had finally tired of the complaining and was wiping his face.

“I’m going to be President and—”

They were interrupted by a sharp report, muffled but obvious. A gunshot.

Roy went to the door, taser in hand. “Stay here.”

Bert shook his head. “If Tom’s in trouble, we both go.”

Roy nodded. He hadn’t even taken one step out of the door when Bert saw the blade flash.

Roy fell into the hall, his taser clattering to the floor where he stood. And then the man came into the room. Bert mouthed his name.

“Attila.”

His samurai sword was held in both hands. Bert noticed the blood dripping from the tip.

Roy’s blood.

“Attila!” Phil’s voice was cracking with emotion. “What took you so damn long?”

The small man grinned, exposing a single gold tooth in a field of rotten ones. “Needed eye gear.”

On Attila’s head were a set of swimming goggles, held on by an elastic band. He pointed his sword at Bert and slashed an X in the air.

Goggles or not, Bert let him have it with the pepper spray. He squirted Attila in the chest and face, a powerful eight second blast.

When the fog lifted, the man was still standing there. His face was bright red, puffy, and the goggles appeared tighter on his eyes. His breath came in rasps, and his lips were swollen to double their size.

But he could still apparently see, because he lunged straight at Bert with the sword.

Bert tripped backwards over Jerome and fell onto his ass, narrowly dodging the blow. But the pain from his gluteus maximus was like getting impaled all over again.

“Kill him!” Phil yelled.

Still gripping the can, Bert sent another stream of pepper at Attila, wondering what could possibly be keeping this man on his feet. It was bear repellent, for God’s sake.

Attila continued to advance, slashing at the spray with his sword.

He’d begun to howl, his face so swollen he looked like a Cabbage Patch doll. The sword came, closer, closer, and Bert felt that he was going to drop dead from fright before Attila even touched him.

Another lunge. Bert rolled away. The pepper fog in the room was now so bad that Bert was having trouble keeping his eyes open. It hurt like crazy. He blinked away the tears and tried not to breathe too deeply.

Attila planted both his feet and slashed, swinging at Bert’s head like a baseball player. Bert ducked, and the sword neatly cut off a lock of his hair. He dove onto Stang’s bed and tried to crawl across the mattress. A quick look over his shoulder found that Attila was standing directly behind him, puffy face grinning, ready to bring down the blade.

Someone yelled, “Hey!”

Attila paused, turning at the doorway, his swollen eyes squinting through the goggles.

Roy shot Attila with the taser. The probes hit him squarely in the chest, and Bert watched in awe as the first arc of blue electricity ignited the alcohol-based pepper spray soaking Attila’s clothing.

It was like throwing a match on a gas grill.

Attila dropped the sword and screamed, trying to beat out the flames that had exploded all over his body. He just made it worse.

Soon the bed canopy was also on fire, and the drapes, and some of the carpet.

Phil Jr. backed away from him, his face pure panic. “Help me!”

Bert watched in horrific fascination as Attila took two, three, four steps towards the Speaker of the House. Phil Jr. had run out of room and was cowering next to the railing, hands raised in supplication.

“Stay away!”

Attila collapsed on top of him, tangling his limbs in Phil’s, setting his benefactor on fire.

Their screams mingled into a high pitched cry that seemed to go on and on. Bert turned away from the horror, focusing on Roy. The cop shuffled into the room, holding his left shoulder. Blood dripped down from his fingertips. Across his chest was a twelve inch slash in the Kelvar vest.

“Time to go.”

Bert hurried to him, took a quick look at the wound on his arm. It was deep and ugly, possibly an artery.

“We have to get out of here.”

They made it into the hallway, just in time to see two people running at them. Tom and Joan?

When the figures came into view Bert almost yelped.

They looked like cave men, dirty and hairy and loping in a strange gait. Bert didn’t stop to think about who they were or what they wanted. He still held the bear repellent and he fired straight at them.

They rolled onto the floor, wailing and pawing at their faces.

Roy mumbled. “Jesus. They look like Stang.”

Bert pulled Roy’s arm over his shoulder and tried to bear his friend’s weight. They half-walked, half-stumbled to the staircase.

Another one of the crazy people was lumbering up the stairs, covered in blood. Bert brought up the spray and pressed the trigger. Empty.

He threw the can, bouncing it off the lunatic’s head. The man kept coming, flailing his arms, eyes crazy. Bert tried to brace himself for the impact, but it was all he could do to hold up the sagging Roy. The man jumped on them, pulling and kicking. Bert reached for the railing, trying to keep his balance, and then all three of them were tumbling feet over head down the long grand staircase.

Springfield

Joan heard the gunshot at the same moment she saw the man running up the stairs. He was followed by two more. Joan took two steps back and widened her stance. She kept the baton in front of her in a defensive position.

The first man emerged, hairy, bewildered. Joan did a double-take.

It looked like a bearded, dirty Phil Jr. Another clone? She tightened her grip, ready to attack.

But instead of running at her, the man launched himself at Stang.

The old man whimpered, bringing up both frail arms to protect himself. He was quickly yanked out of his wheelchair and thrown to the floor. The other two men came up the stairs and joined in the fray, scratching and slobbering and pulling him to pieces.

Joan didn’t stick around to watch. She took the stairs two at a time, moving as fast as she could. Barely one step into the lower hallway a man reached for her, pulling at her hair. Joan brought the baton down onto his collarbone and he crumbled to the ground.

Ahead of her was a human pile of unwashed, hysterical Stang clones. Joan spotted a hand protruding from the giant mound of bodies.

Tom’s. She sprinted to his aid.

Her first impulse was to grab the gun, start shooting, but that would leave him buried in dead weight. Instead she pulled, and pushed, and smacked arms and legs and noses to get the clones to move. Gradually she uncovered Tom’s head, bright red from pressure and oxygen deprivation. She grabbed him by the vest and yanked, her feet pushing against the body beneath him. Once his upper body came free he made a sound like a vacuum cleaner. Joan put an ear to his mouth, listening for breath. It was fast and steady.

The clones had given her a wide berth, nursing sore arms and heads. There were at least six of them in the hall, and God knew how many more in that dark room.

“Thanks.”

Tom had opened his eyes, and was staring at her.

“What the hell is going on, Tom?”

Tom coughed. “Stang’s personal organ bank. You can guess the Catch-22. If kidney disease is genetic, he keeps replacing his bad kidneys with other bad kidneys.”

“What’s wrong with them? Are they crazy?”

“Those scars on their heads are from lobotomies. To keep them from knowing what’s going on.”

Joan helped him to his feet. But instead of going back down the hall, Tom limped into the dark room where the clones had been kept.

“What are you doing?”

Tom coughed. “I think Stang was telling the truth. I think the papers are in here. Could you come up with a safer place to keep them?”

“Maybe there are no papers. Maybe they were destroyed.”

“Stang’s ego is too big. He’d never destroy evidence of his scientific triumph.”

Tom picked up his penlight, groaning at the exertion of bending down. He flashed it into the room. Joan assumed a defensive posture, unsure of what horrors may await, and followed him in. The smell was overwhelming—stale body odor and rotten food. Tom played the small beam of light over three rows of stained cots, maybe twenty in all. In the corner was a toilet and sink, cracked and filthy. Along the near wall was a pile of tin dishes, seemingly out of place because they were neatly stacked.

Tom flashed the light on the far wall. There was another metal door, complete with keypad.

“What was that number?”

Joan approached the panel and tapped in 61694. The door clicked open and they peered inside. Two file cabinets, dusty and old. Tom opened the top drawer. Manila folders.

“We found them.” He tried to tilt the file cabinet up onto its side.

“Heavy. Maybe we can find some suitcases or—oh shit...”

Tom directed his flashlight beam behind them. Joan gasped.

Twelve of the clones had returned, and they were coming closer.

“I only have five bullets left.”

“Maybe they won’t attack.”

The clones attacked.

Joan lashed out with the baton, cracking the nearest clone in the head. He fell backwards, howling. Tom’s gun boomed in her eardrums, and another clone went down.

“Get to the door!”

Tom tried to grab her wrist but she held him back. It was a bad move, defensively. Better to keep their backs to the wall, so they couldn’t be surrounded.

She spun and hit another clone with a reverse kick. Someone grabbed her leg and she bounced a baton off his face. Another shot, and a moan. Joan rabbit punched the clone in front of her, driving the aluminum club into his stomach. A second clone tugged at her arm and brought it up to his mouth to bite. She tried to pull away, but another slipped behind her, getting her in a choke hold. Joan watched, horrified, as the biter grinned. His mouth was a sewer of black and rot, and saliva dripped down his chin as he prepared to take a hunk out of Joan’s wrist.

Joan pivoted, flipping the choker over her hip, dislodging the biter before he had a chance to break the skin. She glanced to her right and watched Tom fire two more shots, then get tackled. Swinging her baton like a sword, she slashed her way past several clones and reached Tom, cracking the man on top of him across the temple. He crumpled, and Tom pushed him off. She helped him to his feet, and they faced the horde.

Tom fired his last shot. Another Stang dropped. There were still seven left.

Joan drew in a breath and tried to center herself. Fear would kill her if she didn’t keep cool. She held up her weapon and let them come to her.

The first came at her, howling madly, arms outstretched. She jammed the baton into his solar plexus, and when he doubled over she smacked him in the back of the neck. Before he hit the floor she had spun around, connecting with the forehead of another clone, her weapon breaking the skin and blinding him with blood. Someone grabbed her waist. She crunched her heel down on his instep, then jerked her head backward, cracking it against his jaw. The impact made her dizzy, but he released her.

Next to her, she watched Tom swing a clone into the wall, then use the gun like a hammer and smash him across the face. Two more leapt at him, but before she could come to his aid she was lifted up in a horrible bear hug.

Joan’s arms were pinned at her sides, and she couldn’t throw a punch or swing a baton. Her legs dangled uselessly almost a foot above the ground. The smell—body odor and piss—choked her. She tried to twist, tried to pull away, but the clone’s grip was too strong. Then she felt his mouth press against her neck.

Joan screamed, shaking her head from side to side, dropping her weapon and making her fingers into claws. She scratched at his side, her right hand finding a bandage, and stitches. This was Stang’s recent kidney donor. She tore at the sutures, opening the wound, sticking her fingers in deep.

The clone howled, releasing her and dropping to his knees. Joan used the heel of her hand to break his nose, then looked for Tom. He was buried under three clones, while another advanced on him, wielding her baton. He raised it up to strike Tom’s head, but Joan was on him in two steps, launching herself into the air and snapping his knee like a two-by-four.

Taking the baton away from him was child’s play, and she made easy work of the three clones atop Tom, each getting a vicious crack in the head. She spun to face the final attacker, flipping the weapon in her hand like a six-shooter.

The clone blinked, then turned and ran out the door.

“Are you okay?” Joan helped Tom up. His nose was bleeding and he had a large scratch across his chin, but otherwise seemed intact.

“Yeah. Thanks. Let’s grab the files and get the hell out of here.”

They went back to the file cabinets and took what they could carry. It would take a few more trips to get them all, but Roy and Bert could help. Joan led the way through the hall, up the stairs. She tried not to look at Stang’s body, but curiosity made her look anyway. He’d been torn to pieces—an arm missing, a leg missing—and in some places the flesh was ripped down to the bone. Joan also noted that several of his organs seemed to be missing. The clones had taken them back.

“Do you smell smoke?”

They hurried through the mansion, the hallway getting brighter with every step. When they reached the foyer, the blaze already descended half of the staircase. It was a huge wall of flame, roaring and out of control. Joan had never witnessed anything that provoked such a primal fear in her. She looked up and saw the fire was actually crawling across the ceiling, sparks and flaming bits of wood and plaster falling down like rain and igniting the carpeting.