Apocalypse Weird: Genesis (The White Dragon Book 1) (14 page)

The sound of the engines increased a hundredfold. To Kasey, it sounded like the panicked whinnying of horses. And then it was as if the distance between her and them, the barrier that had held them apart, collapsed. The screams of the horses overwhelmed her. The sheer pain of their existence — prisoners of an evil will — fueled Kasey’s determination.

“Be free,” she thought. “Be free!”

And while the thing convulsed in her arms, trying desperately to get away from the amulet but half paralyzed by it, something inside Kasey stepped forward, through the curtain beyond time and space, and into her mind. And for one single moment, Kasey could feel the being’s power, its vast consciousness was her own. It flowed through her and from her through the thing and into the riders.

“Be free!” she thought one last time.

The horses lunged forward, against the curse that held them in darkness. Their screams filled the space completely. It was joined by the unearthly and guttural scream of the demon.

“Run!” Kasey shouted. “Run!”

And she meant the horses and she meant her friends and she meant Jack. But whatever it was that she had commanded to her was not inclined to stay. Maybe it was Kasey herself who closed the doors to her mind when the vastness of this being was about to obliterate who she was.
I’m not ready,
was all she could think. And with that, it left.

Kasey let go of the thing. Staggering, dizziness washing over her, she took a few steps. She saw the riders, and for a fleeting moment she saw not who they were, but who they had been before they had fallen. But she could not have foreseen the nightmarish sight of the ones on whose backs they rode. The horses, fueled by whatever it was Kasey had brought to them, fled their prison. They came close to freedom. But it wasn’t enough, for only parts of them were freed. Their heads and necks and, with some, their front hooves, were flesh. But the rest of them was still machine. And being only half of each, they began to die in ways only the deepest nightmares can bestow upon the dreamer.

Kasey saw it. She didn’t want to look away. She wanted to be there for them, to hold them, lessen their pain, and accompany them into the deep and festering crevasses that existed between the dead and the living. She knew she had failed. She knew she was too weak. Part of her wanted to sit down and sink into the sweet, dark gulf of oblivion.

Go,
she told herself.
Go!

And without even knowing it at first, she took a few steps toward the exit. The screams of the thing were filled with rage and images of flesh ripped from bone. But it didn’t follow her. A few more steps brought her to the door. She passed through it, crossed the dark room and staggered into the sunlight.

Someone grabbed her.

“Come on!” Jennifer said. “The others are waiting at the car.”

Kasey stumbled but Jennifer caught her each time as they made their way through the sand pit and up the other side. When they passed the containers, Kasey saw the Jeep coming toward them. Blair was driving.

“Get in,” he shouted.

Kasey climbed into the back. Jennifer got in front, shut the door and Blair drove the Jeep toward the street. Kasey put her arms around Jack and began to cry.

From
Poetry of the Apocalypse
,
Vol.1

by Douglas McNamara

When I want quietness

When I long to put my heart to rest

When I’m forsaken, forlorn, and far from home

When I reach the end of the road

And the bottom of the ocean floor

I think of you

When the sun’s warmth evades me

When the flowers have lost their scent

When emptiness calls me

To live in its house

To call it friend

I think of you

When my dreams fade to darkness

When I long for a distant star

In the hour before dawn

In the dark night

When love seems nothing but an ancient scar

I think of you

Kasey didn’t want to let go of him. He was the anchor that kept her from drowning.

“You’re suffocating him,” Aarika said. “And that’s my way of saying thank you and whatever you did in there was crazy but it worked. And who was that lunatic chick-child lady?”

Kasey slowly let go of Jack.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am that you showed up,” Jack said, laboring over each word. “I thought it was over.”

“I’m so sorry it took us so long,” Kasey replied.

“What’s eighteen hours between friends at this point?” Jack said.

“We have to get you to a place where I can take a look at you,” Jennifer replied.

“Jack, this is Jennifer,” Kasey said. “She’s a doctor and a Marine. Blair is the one driving and next to you is Aarika.

“We’ve heard a lot about you,” Aarika said. “Only good things of course.”

“Of course,” Jack said. For a moment it got quiet in the car. “What happened in the last eighteen hours?” he asked.

“Well, for most of it, we were all blind,” Kasey replied.

“Blind?”

“Yes. You weren’t?”

“No. I could see more than I wanted to.”

“Blair, can you find your way to the ambulance?” Jennifer asked. “I’ve got supplies in there I could use. Jack needs antibiotics and possibly some stitches.”

“I’ll find it,” Blair said.

“You gotta take as many side roads as possible,” she cautioned. “By now they’ll have road blocks up on the major intersections.”

“Got it.”

“You weren’t blind because you had the amulet around your neck,” Kasey said.

“You think so?” Aarika replied.

“Yeah. That’s the only logical explanation. The guys who took you had this tattoo on their chests and they were able to see. So did the ones who tried to kill me. I can only assume that the amulet gave you some kind of protection against her. It. Whatever.”

“Are we listening to ourselves?” Blair said. He steered the Jeep onto a side street off of Commack Rd. “I mean, come on. This isn’t
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
.”

“That was me in there,” Kasey replied.

“What do you mean?”

“That was me, myself, when I was eight. And, yes, I did steal from my parents and… the other thing… she knew everything about me.”

“And me,” Jack said.

Blair didn’t have a response.

“Something happened,” Kasey said quietly. “Something happened yesterday and it all started with the dolphins swimming to shore. Nothing since then has made any sense.”

She noticed that her voice was still shaky. “I think they wanted
me
,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Jack asked. He was hunched over, holding his ribs and breathing shallowly. He wasn’t in good shape.

“They couldn’t foresee that I had given you the amulet. I don’t think they knew what I looked like. They just wanted the carrier. Whoever had it.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “She, it… told me that it was waiting for you to come to me and getting me was a way to get to you.”

“But why didn’t they take me to begin with?”

“I don’t know.”

“If this has some kind of a built-in supernatural GPS finder thingy, we’re screwed,” Aarika said.

“We have to keep moving,” Jennifer said.

“I think whatever that was in there needs time to recover,” Kasey continued.

“I can see why,” Jack said. “You hugged her pretty tight.”

“Ass.”
Thank God he didn’t lose his smile,
Kasey thought. She smiled briefly back at him, but the memory of the dying horses was too fresh in her mind. Jennifer and the others had left the warehouse before her and hadn’t seen what she saw, that the horses died, that each was a thing between, neither machine nor animal. It was this that had grabbed Kasey at her very core. She knew in her heart that this image would haunt her for the rest of her life.

“Where should we go?” she asked.

“I think we should try to get off the island,” Blair said.

“There’s no way off the island,” Jennifer replied. “I’m sure they shut down the bridges by now. We’re most likely cut off from Manhattan and the rest of the country.”

“I know a guy with a boat,” Blair said.

“A boat?” Aarika said.

“Yeah. It’s a twenty-four foot cruiser, can fit six people.”

“Where is it?” Kasey asked.

“Down at the Venetian.”

“That’s close to Good Samaritan Hospital,” Jennifer said.

“Yes.”

“There’s gonna be chaos down there.”

“I know. It’s that or we lose the amulet and hunker down in a house somewhere until this blows over.”

Kasey and Jack exchanged a glance.

“I think that’s a bad idea,” Kasey said.

“I don’t see any other option at this moment,” Jennifer replied.

As they drove through the streets, the normalcy of the residential neighborhood was interrupted by cars that were crashed through white picket fences, the broken windows in the houses and the doors left open. At one point they passed an abandoned stroller left on the sidewalk. Kasey could only imagine the tragic events that must have taken place here. When they reached the ambulance, the back doors were wide open, and the inside had been ransacked. Not even the gurney was left.

“So much for antibiotics,” Jennifer said.

“Now what?” Aarika asked.

“You know how to drive this thing?” Blair asked.

“I do,” Jennifer replied.

“This is probably the fastest way to get to the hospital.”

She didn’t say anything, but for Kasey, giving up the Jeep was more than abandoning a vehicle. It was as if she had to let go of her life and the sum of all that this summer would never be.

Jennifer opened a small locker and took out a jacket. “That should do it. At least until someone looks a bit closer.” She handed the blue EMT jacket to Blair.

They moved the weapons, Kasey’s backpack, her baseball bat and Aarika’s food bag to the back of the ambulance. When Jennifer climbed into the driver’s seat, they heard the first motorcycle engine. It was far away but it was coming.

“Hold onto something!” Jennifer said when she started the truck. Blair sat down on the passenger seat. Kasey could see the pain in Jack’s face as he crouched down, trying to find something to hold on to.

“Come here,” she said as she sat down, leaning against the corner and spreading her legs to either side. “You can lean on me.”

Jack didn’t have much opposition left in him and sat down between her legs, his back toward her.

“Lean back,” she said.

Jack did and she held him, as gently and as firmly as she could. Aarika was at the door watching through the tinted glass for any signs of the riders. Across from Kasey there were two side windows. She saw the houses and trees rush by as they drove through the streets. They didn’t hit much traffic at first. Jennifer had turned the siren on. Before each turn, she announced which direction they were going and even though Kasey prepared for it, every move pressed her back and sides into the wall. She swallowed the pain. Holding Jack was probably more comfort for her than it was for him. He was a shimmer of sanity in a world that had broken apart at the seams.

She closed her eyes out of sheer reflex when one of the side windows blew out. The sound of the shotgun reverberated inside the ambulance. Instinctively, she turned to her side, covering Jack’s body with her own. Another shot took out the other window. She saw Aarika on the floor. He seemed to be unharmed.

“I didn’t see it!” he shouted.

“Hold on!” Jennifer said as the ambulance leapt to the left.

Kasey couldn’t see anything, but the impact of the ambulance hitting the bike slammed her into the wall and Jack into her. For a few moments she couldn’t breathe.

“Kasey, I need you to take one of the shotguns!” Jennifer shouted through the noise of the squealing tires when she made another turn.

Jack pushed his feet into one of the side walls and his shoulders into the other. He didn’t look very comfortable but at least he wasn’t sliding around. Kasey grabbed the twelve-gauge from between the two front seats. Blair had taken the other one. Kasey thought it would have been better if Blair drove. Jennifer was a much better shot. But then, bullets didn’t do anything against the riders anyway.

“There’s another one,” Aarika shouted. Kasey saw him through the rear window as he accelerated toward them. “I think they know where we are.”

Kasey didn’t have time to think. She dropped to the floor at the same moment the back window exploded in a rain of glass.

“Right turn!” Jennifer shouted. Kasey slammed into the wall. So did Aarika.

“How can we get rid of it?” Kasey shouted. She registered that she was bleeding from several wounds where the glass had cut her.

“I have no clue!” Jennifer replied.

“We gotta get back to Deer Park Avenue. That’ll cross the Southern State Parkway. They might have a roadblock there,” Kasey said.

“Why would we want to get to a roadblock?” Blair said.

“Because they’ll let us through but not him,” Jennifer said. “How do I get there?”

“Go right at the next intersection. You’ll hit it a half mile down the road,” Blair said.

Kasey watched through the rear window as the rider turned onto the street. After a few seconds, a second one appeared right behind it. And a third.

“Right turn,” Jennifer shouted.

Kasey braced herself. Jack was covered in pieces of shattered glass.
Hang in there,
she thought.
We’ll get you to a hospital.
They made the turn. After a while, the motorcycles appeared.

“Why aren’t they any closer?” she asked.

“What?” Aarika shouted back.

“They’re holding our speed. Shouldn’t they be closer by now?”

“Left turn!”

When they turned onto Deer Park Avenue, Kasey saw two more riders coming toward them from the north and joining the others.

“What’s going on?” Blair asked.

“They’re not here to kill us,” Kasey said.

“What do you mean? One of them just tried to!”

“Are you sure? None of us was hit.”

“What’re you getting at?” Jennifer asked.

“I don’t think they want to kill us. I think they’re herding us.”

“Toward what?” Blair asked.

Kasey didn’t want to say it. She’d much rather think of it as a trick her mind had played on her yesterday morning when she saw the red ship out at sea as it sat in a bank of fog.

“Toward what, Kasey?”

Jack and Kasey exchanged a glance.

“Toward the water. They’re pushing us toward the water.”

“Why?” Aarika asked.

“There’s the roadblock,” Jennifer said. “Let’s hope they let us through.”

Two Humvees stood about twenty feet apart. The top-mounted machine gun on each vehicle was pointed toward the other. As they got closer, Kasey realized that the forms on the ground were soldiers.

“They’re not moving,” Blair said.

Jennifer slowed the ambulance down. “They’re dead!” she said. “They’re all dead!” She looked behind her and through the rear windows. “Blair, can you drive a Humvee?”

“I… I’m not sure!”

“You can now! We gotta switch vehicles!” she said while she opened the door of the ambulance. “You gotta hurry!”

Kasey helped Jack scramble to his feet. The riders came around the bend in the road. They had fifteen seconds, maybe twenty before they’d be here, Kasey thought. Aarika opened the back door and jumped out. Kasey and Jack followed. When they ran around the ambulance, they saw Jennifer pulling one of the soldiers out of the Humvee.

“Get in!” she shouted. “Jack you go in back with Aarika. Kasey, passenger seat.”

“What about you?” Kasey asked.

“I won’t need to sit!”

Blair started the Humvee. The others climbed in. Jennifer came in through the round opening in the roof.

“Drive!”

As Blair steered the Humvee around the two dead soldiers ahead and accelerated across the bridge, Jennifer moved the machine gun around so it pointed behind them. Suddenly the loud staccato of the bullets ripped through the air. Kasey let out a startled scream.

“I think you hit one!” Aarika shouted.

When Kasey looked through the rear window, she saw one of the bikers topple over and slide across the pavement. He got back up a moment later, mounted his bike and continued. The others didn’t show any signs of slowing down either.

“We’re gonna run out of bullets!” Jennifer shouted. “I’ve got about three hundred here but they won’t last that long.”

“There are more coming!” Aarika said.

Now Kasey could see them. Five, maybe six of them appeared behind the others.