Bestial (23 page)

“Give me a fucking break!” he said, almost laughing. “Just one!”

With a high-pitched screech, the entire fire escape pulled from the building. It leaned over the alley, hovering in the middle for a moment. Holding on tightly, Christian screamed as the structure buckled and tilted. Below him, two of the monsters entered the alley, called by the blood of the creature that had fallen.

The whole stairway dropped ten feet as the last bolts pulled out of the wall. Christian shouted, felt the sudden jolt as the bottom of the stairs struck pavement. Then the whole world went sideways for the boy.

The top of the fire escape struck the neighboring building and stopped its falling motion, although the metal still creaked loudly. Christian clung to the stairs. He was afraid to move, lest he disturb the delicate balance and fall where more creatures were now gathering to feast on the monster that had dropped to the ground.

The dead beast-man turned human again as the others chowed down on the corpse. They pulled intestines from the lower abdomen, ripped the arms from their sockets. Their eating noises were loud with the crunching of bones.

Somehow, watching them eat a man was far worse than watching them eat one of their own. The man’s eyes stared accusingly at Christian, his face spattered with blood. The boy had to turn his head.

As he did, the fire escape began to slide, sparks shooting from
where metal scratched against brick. He stopped moving, and the balance was restored. Christian saw he was right next to a window. He could see office furniture inside the room.

If he could get to that window, which was a good six feet away, he could get out of this mess.

When he reached for the window, the top of the fire escape slid toward the ground. Christian lost his grip on the stair step. His upper torso fell off the fire escape and hung over the dark alley.

The creatures looked up, startled by the noise.

Christian’s right foot was snagged beneath one of the stairs, which was the only reason he didn’t drop to the pavement three stories below. The top of the metal landing caught on a window box filled with orange and yellow flowers, forcing it to a sudden stop. It almost dislodged Christian’s foot, but he grabbed the railing.

This caused his feet to swing out beneath him, and he found himself hanging by his hands, halfway down the rusty fire escape. He felt like a trapeze artist. His grip began slipping, his scratched palms slick with blood.

Below him, the creatures jumped, stretched, and reached for his legs. There had to be ten of them now, and more joined their ranks every second.

Christian tried to swing his leg back onto the fire escape. The frame of it shook, shuddered, but it no longer slid downward. The top remained lodged on that window box.
Thank God for urban renewal,
he thought. He raised his leg again, wincing as the pulled muscle protested the motion.

Something creaked above him, emitting that grating, groaning, twisting-metal sound the collapsing hotel had made.

Below him, a creature found the bottom of the fire escape and tested it with one of its claws. It jumped backward when the noise grew louder. Cautiously, it approached the stairs again, looking at the steps that led up to the boy.

Christian couldn’t raise his leg enough to hike it around the railing, and his hands kept slipping.

The beast took a step up the collapsed fire escape, then a second, then a third.

The sound of metal tearing increased, echoing off the brick walls of the alley. Several of the creatures looked around, frightened of it.

The bravest of the beast-men had ascended to the fifth stair.

Beneath his hands, Christian felt the entire fire escape, stretched out between the two buildings, buckle in the middle.

The monster set its weight down on the sixth step.

And the window box that held the yellow and orange flowers snapped from the wall. The fire escape plummeted.

Christian found his balance and hopped on top of the falling structure. He rode it like a horse, like Slim Pickens had ridden that bomb in
Dr. Strangelove
.

Alarmed, the lycanthropes beneath him scattered, yelping beneath their breath.

The one that had reached the sixth step was crushed between the metal railings as they folded. They formed a rusted cage, trapping the beast inside. Part of the structure bent as it dropped, snapping the creature’s spine and its back legs. It howled, but didn’t die. It scrabbled against the iron with its front paws, its back legs paralyzed and useless.

Christian rode the fire escape the final fifteen feet to the blacktop, falling away from it at the moment of impact. He curled himself into a ball and rolled away from it, toward the base of the structure, toward the broken, trapped monster that was struggling to free itself.

It bled badly from a wound in its right haunch, and Christian knew the scent of blood would bring more of the lycanthropes.

Limping slightly, he ran, trying to ignore the distress his right leg was causing. He was still alive. At least for now. He needed to find shelter. He needed to find someplace safe until morning.

From the alley, he emerged onto the street and stopped in his tracks. The hotel had collapsed right down this road. Cars were crushed beneath it. Huge chunks of ravaged concrete and wires and plumbing stuck up from all angles. It reminded him of pictures he’d seen of the London Blitz, and he was awed by the destruction.

He remembered that there was a Brink’s truck somewhere amidst the rubble, and he began searching for it through the ever-settling, ever-present dust, the beast-men running after him.

SEPTEMBER 18, 12:06 A.M.

“H
old on!” Rick shouted over the cacophony of the hotel toppling toward them. Wrapping his arms around Chesya, he felt hers curl around his waist as she pressed her face hard into his abdomen. He braced himself, shoving his back against one wall and thrusting his legs out so they met solidly with a steel support beam. The back of the truck, which had seemed so sturdy and impervious, now appeared to be little more than a tin coffin.

As the noise grew louder outside, Rick noticed he could no longer see the moonlight through the back windows. The falling structure had blocked out the sky.

Glancing down at Chesya, he wanted to say something to reassure her. She’d closed her eyes tightly, and he could feel her heart beating beneath his arms. He knew she was afraid. Hell, he was too, but it seemed wrong to remain silent when they both might die in a moment.

Chesya was wondering how she had come to this. She was clinging wildly to a certified bank robber, a man who’d held a gun to her face thirty hours ago, a man who’d tried to protect her from the monsters that lurked in the night, a man who professed to being a “bad guy.” She almost laughed at the thought, as fleeting as it was. Her brothers had brought “bad guys” home with them, men who beat women, prostituted their wives and children; men who sold dope on street corners and in playgrounds; men who had killed, ruined lives, lashed out at the world as though their very souls depended upon it. In the hierarchy of so-called bad guys, Rick was probably on the lowest rung of the ladder. How many of her brothers’ friends would have remained at her side during the last day? Not a single one, she realized.

This man, Rick, had stayed with her, had tried to comfort her. He had even started censoring his filthy language for her. Had any other man done more? She wasn’t falling in love with him. That would be ridiculous; there was much more to be worried about than romance. There just wasn’t time for it.

Still, if there
had
been time … she wondered what might have happened.

The darkness outside the windows seemed to increase. The noise was thunderous, and she felt the vibrations of the earth beneath the tires of the truck. She closed her eyes tighter, afraid that they’d be jarred right out of her head.

When the impact came, it shook her so hard her fingers unclasped, and she was tossed to the opposite side of the truck, striking her head against the doors. The momentum of the hotel’s collapse sent the truck skidding on its side, sparks flying from the sudden friction against the blacktop. Chesya fell onto her back, her eyes rising to the windows.

Bricks bumped against the bulletproof glass, and swirls of dust blocked most of her view. A large piece of concrete, metal support rods jutting from its sides, dropped and settled on the ground in front of the doors, effectively blocking her view of the outside.

Rick shouted, “Chesya, are you all right?”

Raising a hand to her head, she felt a wetness there. The back of the truck was dark, all moonlight eclipsed by the concrete slab. She didn’t need to see the sticky substance on her hand to know it was blood. Although her head rang from the impact against the doors, she yelled back at Rick, “I bumped my head. Again. But I think I’m okay. You?”

“I’m all right,” he answered over the din.

Pieces of bricks and mortar and steel came down like a vicious rain. The truck was taking a beating, but it was still in one piece, still protecting them from the destructive forces outside. Chesya wished she could see how deep the dents were, if there were any holes appearing in the Brink’s van, but she could see nothing.

“Don’t try to move yet,” Rick warned.

“I would have to go and slam my fool head against something, wouldn’t I?”

“Is it bad?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. My ears are ringing.”

“Mine are, too. I think it was the explosion.”

“What explosion?”

“You didn’t hear that? Sounded like a gas explosion. I’m going to move toward you. Keep talking, and I’ll find you.”

“I must have blacked out for a while,” she said. “I don’t remember an explosion, just the hotel dropping on us, the bricks falling. I don’t know if we’ll be able to open the doors, because there are chunks of concrete blocking the way. I don’t know how big they are.”

He reached her, held her, and she felt the reassuring touch of his hands. They fluttered like hummingbirds around her head.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of blood. Head injuries bleed a lot, though.”

“You’re always so full of interesting facts,” she said.

He sighed, leaned away from her, and she immediately missed the close contact with him. “You’re all right if you can make jokes. …”

“I told you I was fine. Don’t believe me.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

They were silent for a few seconds, then each of them burst into laughter. “You asshole,” she said between giggles.

“Oh my God,” he said. “I can’t believe we just survived that. I mean, a fucking … Um, sorry. A really big building just fell on us. We should be dead.”

“Luck of the Irish,” she said.

“But you’re not Irish.”

“No, but you are—at least in part.”

“So you
have
been listening to what I’ve been saying.”

“Of course. What else do I have to do?”

She felt him move away from her a bit, heard him testing the doors. Cursing, he moved back to her side.

“I don’t think we’re going anywhere,” he said. “There’s a lot of rubble blocking the door. It doesn’t feel very heavy, but someone’ll have to clear it away in the morning to let us out.”

“I hate being trapped like this.”

“Yeah, well, it’s better than allowing any of those things to get in here. I doubt they’ll bother us again tonight.”

“Even the windows are intact? They aren’t broken?”

“I didn’t feel any sharp edges.”

“It’s a miracle.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, maybe it is.”

“Why don’t you try to get some sleep? I don’t think we need to worry about anything until morning. Then we’ll need to find someone to get us out of here.”

“I don’t know if I can sleep. My pulse is racing like crazy.”

“Close your eyes. You’ll be surprised how quick it’ll happen.”

Shutting her eyelids, she marveled at the lack of difference in the darkness. It was how a blind person must feel.

She snuggled back into Rick’s arm. He jerked for a second, alarmed by her movement, and then he melted down into her, forming a protective barrier around her body.

“I think some sleep will do both of us a lot of good,” he said.

They rested for a moment, and Chesya was shocked to find herself on the verge of nodding off, when she heard something muffled and definitely human.

“Did you hear that?” she asked Rick. She placed one of her ears against the doors of the truck, the better to listen.

“Hear what?”

“That, that,” she said. “It sounded like … a voice. A kid’s voice.”

He listened along with her, and he heard it too. It was muted, but it was definitely a young person shouting.

“Are you still in there?” came the voice. Then the sound of debris being moved. “Tell me you’re still in there.”

“It’s human,” Chesya said. “Do we answer?”

“Please tell me I can get in there. Anyone still there?” The voice was growing louder.

“I don’t know,” Rick answered her.

“Oh, Jesus,” the young man screamed. “They’re almost here. Let me in!”

SEPTEMBER 18, 12:20 A.M.

C
hesya and Rick dashed for the back doors of the Brink’s truck, practically knocking each other aside in their haste to reach the handles. The boy outside continued to shout.

“Jesus, I’m human like you. Let me in!”

They could see his face through the windows as he pushed away the rubble blocking the door. His eyes pleaded for help, and his clothes were dirty and torn. Several bruises and bleeding cuts ran along his arms and throat, testimonials to what he had endured.

Rick said, “You get the handles, I’ll get the bars.”

He pulled back on the sliding bars that acted as locks, and she popped the ones in the door. She gave them a shove, and the doors opened, slamming into the boy’s chest.

He stumbled back, stunned by the impact. Behind him, hordes of creatures rushed the truck. There were dozens of them.

Christian, regaining his balance, leaped inside the Brink’s van, and Chesya slammed the door behind him.

Rick shoved the bars back into place while she locked the doors. Then she turned to the boy as Rick finished with the last of the locks.