torg 01 - Storm Knights (12 page)

Thratchen leaped after her, covering the distance to the cylinder in two bounds. He inserted the claws of both hands — one natural, one cybernetic — into the seam surrounding the door. Planting his feet against the side of the cylinder, he strained; the muscles in his back, shoulders, and legs bunched and pushed at the fabric of his clothing. He peeled back the door as if he were peeling the flexible skin off some piece of overripe fruit. But he was too late — the cylinder was empty. Dr. Hachi was gone. Roaring in anger, Thratchen leaped with outstretched claws at the nearest plugged-in volunteer, then at the next, and at the next ...

36

Coyote sat in the passenger seat of the van. Beside him, in the driver's seat, the cop snored. It really did sound like a saw cutting through wood, just like in the cartoons. Once, a childhood ago, Coyote would have smiled at the image. Now he only sighed. In the back of the van, he could hear Rat breathing heavily in sleep. He glanced back and saw the lizard's yellow eyes looking back at him. Frightened, he turned to again watch the burning Newark skyline, consciously looking up so as not to see the mutilated dead.

Of all the bodies surrounding the van, only one was moving. Father Bryce, dead on his feet, shuffled from corpse to corpse, pausing at each to say a short prayer and bestow whatever blessing he still had within him.

The teen opened the van door slowly, trying his best not to disturb his sleeping companions. He stepped gingerly around the prone forms strewn everywhere, forcing himself to look anywhere but at their torn chests, at their glazed eyes. A few cautious steps. Then a few more. Coyote stepped again, and his foot sank into a wet pile that squished under and around his sneaker. He had no desire to know what he stepped in.

Finally, he reached Father Bryce. He stopped some feet away, unsure if he should interrupt the solemn ceremony. The priest was leaning over a young man, whispering because he strained his voice long before.

". amen," Coyote heard Bryce finish as he closed the young man's eyes. The priest stretched, yawned, then started toward the next body.

Coyote spoke softly. "Enough, Father. You've done enough."

He gently touched the priest's arm and led him to a car that had stalled nearby. When Bryce stumbled, Coyote found that he was not strong enough to keep himself and the priest from falling. But Tal Tu was. The edeinos must have followed him from the van, Coyote thought, as the lizard man steadied them.

"Thank you, Tal Tu," Bryce said in a cracking voice. The priest leaned against the car, and Coyote jumped onto the hood beside him.

"You know," he said as he peered into his mass kit, "I ran out of hosts hours ago." He held up a single wafer so that his two companions could see it by the light of the fire. "I saved this one, though. For an emergency, I guess."

The priest looked to the side, and Coyote followed his gaze. There, beside the car, was the mortal remains of a woman. Bryce took his last host, broke it, and placed it in her mouth. Then he made the sign of the cross, and closed her sightless eyes.

"She needed it more than I did," he said.

Enough of this, Coyote thought. He leaped down from the car and grabbed the priest's arm again.

"Let's go, Father. It's time to get some rest."

The priest looked around once more, but he nodded at Coyote's words.

"Yes, I do need to rest. I am so very tired."

Father Bryce allowed Coyote to lead him back to the van, and Tal Tu followed behind them.

37

Old Man Baker watched the man in the work boots, who, in turn, watched the priest and his companions. Baker was once considered mean and cantankerous, a man you avoided if you could. But when the dinosaurs appeared and the fire started, Old Man Baker became just that — an old man. He ran when the rest of the masses ran, and he hid when the dinosaur men started killing. He lay on the floor of a stalled Honda, his eyes shut tight to block out the awful sights.

But he couldn't block out the sounds.

First there were the frightened sounds of the confused masses, typified by muffled sobs and uncontrolled bawling.

Then there were the dinosaur men's shouts of reptili-ous joy, accompanied by a ceaseless, hissing chant.

Finally, there were the screams. Hundreds of human voices filled with pain and raised in terror reached the

old man's ears at the same time, and those were followed by wave upon wave of screams. Most frightening of all, remembered Baker, was how each wave of screams abruptly ended, cut off the way a power failure cuts off a TV.

He lay on the floor of the Honda through all of those sounds, praying that the chanters, who were so very close, would not find him. And when the sounds stopped, he stayed on that floor, eyes still shut tight, refusing to move in case even one dinosaur man was at the window watching him, waiting for a sign of life.

Old Man Baker would probably still be there, had not the man in the work boots showed up. He must have been calling for quite some time, Baker thought, before the old man responded. Baker finally opened his eyes and looked up from his spot on the floor of the back seat. The door nearest his head was ajar, and the first thing Baker saw was a work boot resting on the frame just inches from his face. The boot had a metal tip guard, and it was stained with a dark, wet substance. His gaze carried further, and he saw the rest of a large man with blonde hair. On the man's right forearm, which rested across his bent knee, was the tatoo of a cobra. Its jaws were spread wide, revealing dripping fangs that were poised to strike.

The large man helped Baker out of the car, then forced him to walk with him among the bodies. And so Old Man Baker's worst fear came to pass. He was forced to put an image to the sounds he had heard, and the reality of the torn bodies was worse than anything his mind had conjured earlier. Once during the long walk Old Man Baker turned to look at the tatooed man. He saw the man's smile, his longing gaze, his studied examination of the wounds that killed the masses. Then he turned away, knowing full well that the tatooed man was enjoying this terrible stroll through the garden of the dead.

When the van approached, the tatooed man made Baker squat down behind a station wagon. They stayed there for a long time; the tatooed man watching the priest make his rounds, the old man watching the watcher. Finally, the priest returned to his van, and the tatooed man turned to Baker.

"The priest is very much like me," the tatooed man whispered. "He works with the dead, I work with the dead. It's my calling."

The tatooed man produced a large hunting knife from a sheath that was hidden under his pants leg. He held it loosely, letting its serrated edge gleam in the fire light.

"These lizard men are artists," the tatooed man continued, "every death along this road is a masterpiece. I admire their style."

With that, the tatooed man plunged his serrated knife into Old Man Baker's chest. Stunned by the quickness, Baker did not scream. Once the pain registered he

tried to call out, but only blood gurgled from his lips. The tatooed man twisted the blade, carving a hole very much like those in the bodies littered across the area. He smiled at his own technique, then wiped the blade clean on Baker's coat sleeve.

The last sight the old man witnessed was the metal-tipped work boots walking away.

38

Running. Very quickly. Fast. As fast as he could. Trying to find Vicky. Trying to stay ahead of them.

Trying to survive.

Running. And others ran with him. Others he could not quite see yet. Others he could not name.

They ran from the sound of beating wings. From the smell of sulfer and fire. From the claws.

Running. And something called from up ahead. Something — wonderful.

It was the color of polished turquoise, and it shone with a light all its own. It was the color of bright crimson, swirling through the turquoise like blood-filled veins.

He needed to reach the wonderful thing. He wanted to hear its song from up close.

But the wings were louder now. Terribly loud. Drowning out the song. Pounding against him with rapid beats.

Then he felt the claws.

Decker sat up bolt straight in his bed, sweat pouring down his face, his chest, his arms. He took a deep breath, calmed himself. Already the nightmare was fading, but he knew that sleep would be a long time returning.

He reached for the remote control on the nightstand, and switched on the bedroom television. He flipped through the channels until he found the cable news network. He adjusted the volume and leaned back to watch.

"It is being called the Day of Disaster, that moment almost 96 hours ago when all communication with New York City ceased, and the President and Vice President of the United States were declared missing," said the practiced newscaster as video of the Opening Day ceremonies at Shea Stadium filled the small screen. Decker recognized the rock singer Eddie Paragon, who sang the National Anthem that day. He watched as the video switched to the beginning of the game. Then, as Walter "The Truth" Jones released the first pitch, the screen dissolved to static.

"The disaster was categorized by a massive disruption of telephone lines and television signals," the newscaster continued. "All major media has since rerouted as much of their communications networks as possible, but some services have been irrevocably lost. The effected area, which is roughly 600 miles across,

continues to impede most efforts to gather information."

Decker watched the pictures that continued to flash across the screen, but he did not hear the words. Instead, he re-examined the information he had, which was more complete than what the TV news showed.

He knew that spy plane and satellite fly bys were able to map a 600 mile, diamond-shaped area on the eastern seaboard which showed no patterns of electrical activity. He was on hand when the Speaker of the House, acting in the President's stead, declared a national emergency and ordered all armed forces to go to DefCon Two. Even now, reserve units, National Guard and state-side regular army were on their way to Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. to defend those cities in case the "dead zone" spread. U.S. troops in foreign lands had been alerted to the possibility that they could be called home at a moment's notice.

Efforts to scan Shea Stadium and the immediate area from above were blocked by an intense and quite localized storm. Decker had studied what pictures they had, but he could rationalize little of what he saw.

He had listened to the final communications with the two National Guard units that had been on armed maneuvers that first day. Since they were available, they were ordered to make their way east in order to determine what was happening in New York. Their last report situated them just west of Elmira. But what they reported was strange. The radio operator claimed that a line of "big lizards" was in stationary position some two clicks distant. Then communication was interrupted, and the units, along with 300 more miles of United States area, fell silent.

Towns and cities along the edge of the dead zone were being inundated by more and more refugees every day. These people all told stories of friends and relatives who behaved savagely, of giant dinosaurs that smashed cars and buildings as they walked, and of lizard men who killed for the sheer joy of it.

But efforts to confirm these reports by low-level fly bys, helicopter reconnaissance, and special forces deployment met with disaster. Planes and helicopters that flew too low lost power and crashed, and contact with soldiers air-dropped into the dead zone was cut off almost immediately.

The Canadian government, too, was being kept abreast of the situation, and there was even talk that some kind of joint committee would be formed in case the dead zone spread across the border.

Of all the theories, Decker wasn't sure which one he believed just yet, but one thing was certain: something terrible was happening within the 600 mile zone of silence. Decker finally drifted off to sleep with a thousand questions on his mind.

But not a single answer.

On the morning of the fifth day after Baruk Kaah set clawed foot upon the Earth, Sergeant Richard Macklin, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, stood on the south bank of the Mackenzie River, holding the reins of his horse as he waited for the ferry that was stolidly making its way across from Fort Providence. Macklin watched the creamy curl of water turned by the bow of the ferry as it plowed against the current flowing northwestward out of Great Slave Lake, a current that would eventually flow into Mackenzie Bay on Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean. Torn fragments of dark clouds scudded high in the clear, blue sky of northern Canada. Macklin shivered involuntarily, and noted that even darker clouds were gathering on the horizon.

Macklin's horse whickered and dug with its right forehoof at the loose gravel of the ferry landing. Macklin turned to the horse and stroked its neck, soothing it with the companionship that had grown between them on their patrols into the fringes of the RCMP post jurisdiction at Fort Providence. He glanced skyward again and saw that the clouds had rolled overhead, turning the day into night.

"We're in for a helluva storm," the officer said aloud.

A thunderous sound of an avalanche rolled quickly and briefly across the river, stopped and faded into silence. Macklin, caught by the sound, by his subconscious identification of it as an avalanche, and by his forebrain's conflicting knowledge that there should not be an avalanche here, jerked his head to look across the river.