The Twelve Stones (12 page)

Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to savor the
e
ureka!
moment for long. Bullets fired from outside began smashing into the side of the police station, assaulting them both brutally. A jagged piece of shrapnel flew over Alex’s head, reminding him of the men outside itching to kill him.

Alex grabbed the stone with his right hand as he covered the deputy’s half-healed wound with his left. The blue glow began again,
flowing
quickly to the deputy’s chest. The hole closed swiftly, and seconds later, the deputy began to cough violently as he regained consciousness.

As amazing as his new trinket was, Alex didn’t have time for any reflection on whatever supernatural voodoo that made it possible. Instead, Alex turned to the back of the station and began to look for anything he could use as a weapon.
It’s a friggin’ police station!
Alex thought to himself as he ducked a round that pinged closely to their position.
Where are all the guns?

The gunfire abated momentarily.
Alex took the moment to pop his head up and examine the station more closely. Spotting the gun lockers in the back, he shouted at the deputy
, who was still confusedly
examining himself for any injuries.

“
Guns! We need weapons!” Alex shouted bringing the deputy back to reality.

Deputy Rogers was still running his hands up and down his chest
,
looking for the wound that had been there only moments before, when suddenly he became aware of the man shouting at him. Shaking his head, he concentrated on the man who had somehow saved his life.

“
What the hell is that?” Deputy Rogers shouted over the gunfire.

“
My imagination! It’s shooting at us!” Alex shouted back ducking as a bullet
pinged
close to his ear.

“
I owe you an apology,” Deputy Rogers shouted.

“
Save it!” Alex yelled over the ricocheting bullets and breaking glass. He pointed to the back of the room. “
I’d rather get a gun
.”

“
Follow me!” t
he deputy shouted, and he began to crawl towards the back
,
keeping his head low. Alex followed behind.

The gunfire ripped through the cheaply made government building
.
S
everal
pieces of the poorly constructed office
started
falling on their heads. Deputy Rogers turned, covering his head as they moved slowly towards the rear of the station.

Alex kept his head below the line of fire. The men
outside paused again.
Alex wasn’t counting on having much longer before they figured out the two of them weren’t shooting back. When they did, they would likely go for a full frontal assault.

The deputy motioned to Alex that they needed to jump over the counter. Alex nodded, put up one, two, and finally three fingers, and the pair dived over the bar separating the front and back office of the Joshua Tree Sheriff Station.
The gunfire erupted again in earnest, tearing through their shadows on the wall
.

Quickly, to avoid being seen in one place for too long, they half-crouched, half-ran to the back room
.
T
here
,
behind a complicated series of locks, metal and chain, were several dangerous
-
looking guns. Deputy Rogers took the keys off his belt and quickly began unlocking the storage lockers. The glass in the front crashed
in.
Alex turned and shouted at the deputy across the room, “Get down!” Alex dove behind the cement wall as several men poured into the station, each laying down a deadly stream of suppressive fire.

“
What now? We can’t get across without being shot. They’ve got us outflanked.” Deputy Rogers whispered
,
the fear palpable in his voice. He had died once tonight, and wasn’t looking to make a repeat performance.

Alex closed his eyes
,
and was transported away momentarily. The sound of popping automatic gunfire retreated
.
Alex called his considerable skills to bear on his current problem. Magic stone or no, it was clear that they didn’t have much of a chance unless they got some firepower on their side. The deputy, crouched next to him, pleaded with Alex to help. Alex snapped back and made a decision; it was time to put some faith in this new toy of his.

“Throw me the keys!”

The deputy nodded and tossed them to Alex. Rubbing the stone furiously with his thumb, Alex closed his eyes and pushed himself across the firing line. He leaped across and over to the gun locker
,
then
went to work on
the heavy locks.

It didn’t take long for the men in the outer room to zero onto Alex’s back. Alex took three rounds the first few seconds he was standing against the locker, struggling with the keys.
Pellets of lead,
weighing only
a few grams each, slammed into his body at supersonic speed, throwing him forward with their compact energy
.

The strange blue glow began to heal Alex’s wounds the instant he felt the bullet
s
enter his body. After the fifth bullet had entered and exited Alex’s body
, without
leaving a scratch on him, Alex
beg
a
n
to fully realize the potential of what his father had given him earlier that day.

Alex heard the gunfire abate for a moment. He glanced back
, saw
a small dark shape fly into the room
,
and screamed in reflex, “Grenade!”

Suddenly, the room was awash in a brilliant bright light, overwhelming the visual processing systems in Alex’s brain. He cried out in pain, rubbing his eyes, and stumbled blindly across the room. Two blurry shapes
mov
ed
quickly towards Alex and the deputy, their guns raised and poised to fire. The stone
glow
ed
brightly,
help
ing
Alex recover from the effects of the shock grenade
—
at least enough
to spot the two
men
moving in on them. Alex turned and took the two mercenaries by surprise, charging and flipping the nearest
one
neatly over his shoulder.

Using the full-tilt momentum of his sprint,
Alex grabbed the second man’s neck and threw his body to the ground. Alex landed on his back, still holding the neck of the man. With a sickening crunch, it was all over.

The mercenary’s
friend, still lying on his back, recovered, reaching for his
automatic rifle.
Alex turned
to look
the gunman
in the eyes
.
He’s just a
kid
. He wasn’t more than nineteen, just some local desert rat, out of luck, and lured in by the promise of an easy job. Any other day of the week, Alex would have kicked his ass, told him to pull up his pants and get a haircut. But now, staring down the barrel of the automatic rifle, h
e felt nothing, not even terror.
J
ust curiosity.

The deputy
, now
with
his sidearm in hand burst into the room, startling the young
gun
man. The desert rat
fired
, the energy from the
rattling
gun holding his finger down on the trigger. Alex
took several bullets
,
falling
flat
back
on the
floor
.

The deputy
,
standing in the standard Weaver
s
tance
—
one hand over the other,
legs braced to the side
, as trained
—
pulled the trigger three times, bringing the young desert rat down. The boy fell, and more automatic gunfire erupted outside again, forcing the deputy to duck back behind the front counter.

Alex sat up suddenly, coughing and struggled for a deep breath.

“
I’m really starting to hate that part,” Alex groused. He turned towards the deputy
,
who was keeping his head low from
the
gunfire that was once again flying over their heads.

“
Did we at least get the gun safe open?” Alex shouted over the din.

Rogers gave the thumbs up
,
and they both crawled into the back room
again. There,
they could take some cover from the front door for
the moment
.

Alex looked up at the wide
-
open gun safe door. Whoever had stocked it had apparently planned for the zombie apocalypse.
The safe held s
everal impressive-
looking racks of M-16
’s
, MP-10’s
,
AK-47’s, pistols of various makes and models, and even some rifles that looked as though they had been crudely cobbled together in someone’s garage.

The deputy nodded
.
“People think the desert is a great place to come out and fire off their illegal guns. I'm supposed to destroy what I confiscate
,
”
t
he deputy
smiled
, “but you know...”

Alex looked at the deputy out of the corner of his eye, raising his eyebrow, questioning why he needed this many.

The deputy shrugged, “I like to be prepared.”

Alex grabbed a few pistols, a large rifle
,
and several magazines. He passed an AR-15 rifle with several clips over to Deputy Rogers.

The gunfire subsided momentarily
.
T
o Alex
, that
meant
that
this time, the assailants were getting ready to storm their castle. It would be a good time for them to fight back,
he thought;
the men outside would not be expecting it.

Alex turned to the deputy, concern in his voice
.
“
I'm going to take care of the problems outside. You good?”

It was then that Alex realized he hadn’t really needed to ask the question. The dulled
,
alcohol-soaked eyes Alex had spied when he first met the deputy had been replaced by the bright young eyes of someone from long ago.
C
lear
-
headed back
up made for some good news, and Alex co
uld use some good news about then
. The
d
eputy nodded and slid a magazine into his assault rifle.

“
Is there a way for me to get onto the roof?” Alex asked, his eyes watching the outside lobby door.

“Yeah, see over there in the corner?” Deputy Rogers pointed to an indentation in the ceiling. “Pull down the ladder, and that takes you directly to the roof.”

“
Good,” Alex turned
and headed for
the corner
,
jumping as he grabbed the cord that dangled from the ceiling. He pulled it, opening the exit
,
and let the ladder fall to the ground. The night sky above was clear and full of stars
—
one of those little details you never think of while you’re under attack
,
Alex thought to himself.

“
You keep ‘em pinned down at the front door while I get up on the roof. I’ll use my position up there to snipe out whatever men they have.”

The deputy nodded and began to fire back at the men outside.
As
Alex turned and leaped up the ladder, only one thought pulse
d
to the front of his mind:

This is supposed to be my vacation?

Chapter Ten

Only twenty-four hours ago
,
Alex’s biggest problem had been whether or not his father had brought enough ice. Each and every trip, as they packed, his father Ted would insist
that
they had enough of everything
.
I
nevitably
, somewhere along the way, they would need to pick something up. With the lessons learned from over a lifetime of camping with his father, Alex had only smiled and agreed that one bag of ice would be plenty for their weekend trip.

And Alex had smiled again when they needed to stop outside Joshua Tree to stock up on more ice.