Breeds 2 (27 page)

Kirk hung his head, nowhere near prepared to hear such details but forcing himself, knowing very well what Morris was describing.

“That first one? I devoured him. Bloated myself. Thought that would do the trick, y’know. Except… except it didn’t. Which I thought was really weird. So three nights later I hunted down and killed another. A hitchhiker. What the hell, right? Another missing person is all. Anyway, damn near ruptured myself that time. Thought that would take care of things.”

“Jesus Christ, Morris.”

The Pictou warden held up a hand, invoking silence. “Except it
didn’t
. Not in the fucking least.”

“I don’t wanna hear anymore.”

“You have to hear.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Kirk, I got no one else to talk to.”

“Talk to Carma––she’s pack leader.”

“Yeah, but she wasn’t in Newfoundland.”

Kirk slumped in his seat.

“We were on the
island
,” Morris said, fixing him with a glare as flat as unpolished marble. Rain speckled the windshield. “We both ate
weres
. What I need to know is if you’re getting these cravings, too.”

Kirk couldn’t find his voice.

“Well?” Morris asked.

“No,” Kirk finally whispered.

“You’re lying.”

“The fuck I’m lying, look at my face.”

Morris did. “Then what is it? I mean, I had to get out of your place because Ezekiel was just lying there and I was damn near drooling to chew his face off. Just finish him off like leftover chicken on a dinner platter. I still get those cravings. That’s the scary thing. Ever since the island I’ve felt great… but I’ve had times like this. They just came and went or I went out and took down a deer. But that’s…it’s like living off candy. Or just noodles. I mean, you can
do
it, and it’ll keep you alive, but it’s not really filling you. Not really nourishment.”

Kirk stared at the warden, transfixed by the revelation. He squirmed in defeat. “Yeah. Me too.”

It was Morris’s turn to stare. “So you do get the cravings? The same cravings?”

“Yes.”

“You lying sack of shit.”

“I just said I do.”

“You had me thinking it was just fucking me this whole time!” Morris blurted. “I was going crazy. You heard me say I was going crazy. That’s fucking low, man. Fucking low.”

“I was going to confide in you?” Kirk fired back. “We don’t exactly get along, Morris. We’ve been through shit but…”

“Kirk, we’re in the middle of shit. We’re at the fucking
epicenter
of shit.”

The rain had grown into huge clumps of wet snow that blew apart upon hitting the windshield.

“So what do we do?” Kirk asked.

“I don’t know,” Morris said, utterly defeated. “I have to think about this. It’s all too much.”

The truck’s interior felt like a deep freeze, but Kirk kept his hands off the heating controls. The cold was the only grip on reality he had at the moment.

“You think the elders know?” Kirk asked.

“Since we already told them we ate
weres
? Like the day after? And now with Bailey? Yeah. I’m pretty sure they know something.”

“You can control yourself?” Kirk asked him.

“Yeah. I mean, I think I can. As long as I’m away from the others. It’s the blood that does it, I think. Funny thing, though.”

“Yeah? What?”

Morris considered him. “I don’t get anything off you. Back at the apartment, even Nick and Janice and all those guys were smelling like spicy roasts to me. That, or burritos. Somewhere in between the two. And I mean that. I had to get out or I was going to snap. But here, now, with you? Nothing. It’s either because you’re a piece of shit and I know it, or because the urge has passed, or because you and I both ate
weres
and a part of me knows it and doesn’t want anything to do with you. Or it recognizes you’re like me. Like our own little secret club.”

“I don’t get anything like that.”

“Strange,” Morris said.

“Not yet, anyway.”

They sat in silence, time passing in measured flicks on the dashboard clock.

“All right,” Kirk finally said. “This is what we do. You stay away from the others so you don’t go crazy. Keep a safe distance. See if this passes.”

“I don’t think it will.”

“See if it passes,” Kirk stressed. “Might be like an addiction, right? Maybe over time, it’ll all go away. Maybe all we both need is a weekend parked over a toilet bowl, sweating and yakking our guts out. We got other things to worry about, anyway.”

Morris nodded but he seemed distracted. “Yeah. Okay. We take care of Bailey first.”

“One thing at a time.”

Morris reluctantly agreed, his hands knotting into fists between his knees.

“I don’t think he’s anywhere near here.”

“I don’t know,” Kirk sighed. “I just hope we find him soon. We got a few more days until the next full moon. We just stay positive. Stay focused.”

Morris smirked and threw his head back. He clawed at the lock, opened the door and got out.

“Where you going?” Kirk asked.

“Fresh air. Nothing better to get the thoughts moving along. Thanks for listening. Partner.”

Morris slammed the door and walked down the street, glancing at the gathered police officers.

Partner
.

Kirk didn’t like being called that.

The first police officers responding to the Martin and MacDonald Mall belonged to the Central Halifax Police Force. Four CHP cruisers responded within minutes of the security supervisor’s call. The officers pulled up around the main entrance, forming a barrier of sorts, just in time to witness the final trickles of a massive human flood. People were wailing, some carrying or struggling with those rendered unconscious from the sheer press of bodies being channeled through the bottleneck exits. Some individuals were unlucky enough to be trampled. Constable Nancy Keiller took one look at the bewildered stragglers emerging from the mall’s shattered doors and radioed for Emergency while her driver, Constable Phil Beach, slammed the car into park and jumped outside. Other officers clambered out of their vehicles and held up their hands in a fleeting attempt to instill some semblance of order. Citizens stopped within an arm’s reach of the assembled authorities and machine-gunned them with eyewitness accounts of a terrorist attack from deep inside the mall. Some claimed that several terrorists had opened fire in the food court. That story was soon refuted by shoppers who were actually present in the eating area, explaining that a single distressed man had appeared in Halloween makeup and with blood on his hands. All witnesses verified that a handful of the mall’s security staff had moved in to surround the infuriated and violent individual.

Nancy Keiller, outfitted in light body armor and a tactical vest, stood tall behind her cruiser’s hood, looking into the fully lit interior of the shopping mall. She scanned for stragglers and threats, and couldn’t see anything beyond the clear glass of the entrance. The hallway was clear although littered with debris.

“See anything?” Phil asked beside her.

“No. Get everyone back behind the cars. Get on the horn and report the situation. Bring in support. There’s no way we can cover all the doors to this place.”

Phil ducked into the car and made the call. The other officers stood behind their cruisers. Their weapons had been freed but not drawn, though hands rested upon the grips of their standard-issue Smith and Wesson pistols. One of the officers realized a wall of frightened people had formed behind the police presence, so she pulled out a bullhorn and ordered the masses to back away to a safe distance.

A single individual ran toward the mall’s glass doors, a young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty, tall and skinny and dressed in clothing that he might’ve picked up at an army surplus store. He belted his way through the entrance and stopped before the cruisers, eyes blazing.

“Hey!
Hey
! There’s a guy in there killing people!”

Nancy urged him to get clear. She waved the guy over, his hair a salute to mullets, and he ran to her.

“There’s a crazy bastard in there,” he cried, “and he’s killing people! He killed two mall security guys and was squaring off against the others. He—he squashed one with a fucking table!”

Nancy collected him around her cruiser and Phil crowded in, his attention divided between the mall entrance and the survivor.

“Slow down now,” Nancy instructed him. “Take a breath. Did you see anyone else?”

“No ma’am,” he blurted. “Nuh-uh. I was in the food court and hung on while everyone else ran, just to see what was going on. Then shit got downright dirty. I mean dirty. There’s one guy in there causing all this. Mall security went in there and last I saw, about five more folks were running for the food court. They all had their clubs out. Some had that spray can shit. They were shouting. There was a lot of screaming.”

“Did the attacker have any weapons?” Nancy asked.

“Weapons? Nah, nothing, just his hands. And the guy was strong! I mean he ripped a fucking food court
table
out of the floor with his bare hands! I heard the crackle of the floor tiles and saw him lift the table over his head. When he killed that security guy with the table I took off. Last thing I saw were uniforms being thrown around, and I mean fucking
thrown
.”

“Are there any more people in there?”

“Huh? Ah, yeah,” the young man said, speaking as if suddenly very tired, and folded his hands above his head. “At least the guards. I saw other people running for other exits. Not only through this one. I mean, people were just bolting in every which direction to get clear. Just everywhere.”

Nancy met Phil’s eyes before focusing on the survivor. “Sir, I want you to stay near Officer Beach here, okay? Stay here and listen to whatever he says. There are going to be other police units arriving soon and they’ll want to hear your report too, okay?”

The guy nodded.

“Phil, I’m going in.”

“Who you taking?”

Nancy looked around her squad. “Everyone, except you and Vicky. You two keep watch. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble keeping the crowd back.”

“No,” Phil agreed, examining the banks of shoppers gathered amongst the parked cars on the mall’s expansive lot. To no one’s surprise, hardly any vehicles were leaving the lot. No one wanted to miss the show.

Nancy called the officers to her cruiser for a huddle. “I’m going in. There are enough eyewitness accounts confirming that there’s only one unarmed attacker, if you don’t count a table as a lethal projectile. There’s a number of mall security staff unaccounted for. They don’t carry anything heavier than batons and mace. I’m not asking for anyone to come with me, but I’d appreciate company.”

“I’ll go,” Nolan Matthews said, a big intimidating cop from the south shore.

“I’ll go, too,” said Jesse Ferris, a Bridgewater native.

“I’m there,” announced Vicky Lyons from Yarmouth County.

“You won’t,” Nancy informed her. “You stay back with Phil and keep an eye on the entrance. Make sure no one follows us inside. Support’s no more than five minutes out anyway. In ten they’re gonna see this place from the space station.”

“Only one guy in there,” Phil added. “One strong guy.”

“Probably all souped up on some loaded shit,” Jesse muttered.

“No doubt,” Nancy agreed. “Ashlie, you got that Taser?”

“I do,” answered the young woman from Wolfville, a fourth-degree black belt in Aikido.

“Get it ready. Will, you coming?”

The tall officer from Dartmouth nodded grimly.

“All right, then, weapons free,” Nancy said. “Ashlie, call in the paramedics. Meet me here and we’ll all go.”

Jesse popped open his cruiser’s trunk and retrieved a shotgun. With the weapon pointed at the pavement, he jogged back to the assembled team. When all were ready, five of them drew their handguns and marched to the main entrance. They moved inside in a crouched line, all aiming in various directions.

Vicky called for a team of first responders on her radio while Phil Beach watched his fellow officers disappear down the mall’s well-lit corridor.

The main walkway, with its festive decorations and signs brightly displaying CHRISTMAS SALE, hummed with the vast emptiness. If Nancy hadn’t known it was actually just after six o’clock in the evening, she would’ve thought it was closing time. Except for the shops and their opened gates. And the debris spread over the mall’s beige tile floor. Everything that had been placed on display outside of each shop was now kicked down and strewn haphazardly across the mall corridor. Soap baskets, boxed chocolates, paperbacks and hardbacks lay in a frenzy, caught in a violent storm surge of thousands charging at full panicked speed. Christmas trees had been overturned and stomped on, bulbs kicked and crushed, garlands hung in tatters. Some of the lights remained on, casting a dim twinkle across the floor tiles.

The fleeing shoppers had torn the living shit out of the place, and Nancy believed that anyone who didn’t get out of the way of the rush would have been trampled by the unchecked herd. Her fellow officers reviewed the carnage with neutral expressions, the scene resembling a street party that had gotten way out of hand. The five officers held their tight formation as they crept past wrecked entrances of popular brand shops and gummed-up clothes racks. The overhead lighting remained unaffected, soft, yet bright, offering the best shopping experience to the mall’s customers.

“Food court’s on the second level,” Nolan said quietly, pointing his gun to the floor with both hands. A broken bottle of an expensive perfume wafted by, issuing from a stomped pack and a dribble sprinkled with sparkling shards. The officers soon reached a juncture where the corridor split north and west. A tower of wide stairs decorated with bright holiday lights rose and offered a quick route to the next floor. Squashed bags and boxes littered the gap between the steps.

The sound of sobbing emanating from the west stopped the team. An accompanying undercurrent of moaning drifted from the north, weak and eerie, like a ghost that lay gut-shot and bleeding.

Nancy stopped and held up a hand, indicating she was headed for the cries of distress. They found survivors, shell-shocked and confused, rising from the deep wells of smartphone kiosks and fallen walls of handmade Christmas wreaths. The slow-moving few who had either been slapped out of the stampede’s way or had decided to wait until the shocking, heavy gust of flesh had passed. Some had their backs pressed against the walls just inside the storefront thresholds. When they saw the peacekeepers, their cries stopped for only a second before increasing in volume, calling for help.