Purge of Babylon (Short Story): Mason's War Read online

  “The truck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he dead, too?”

  “He is.”

  “Fuck, Mason. You really screwed the pooch on this one, didn’t you?”

  “The man’s got a way with words,” the voice said. “Not to mention a perfect summation of our week. Someone should hire Paul to write Hallmark cards.”

  “Can I put my hands down now?” Mason asked. “I’m getting tired.”

  Paul glanced at Mason’s sidearm, then at his face. “Take out your weapon and throw it on the ground.”

  Mason slowly, very slowly, lowered his hands and pulled the Sig Sauer out of its holster, then tossed it to the parking lot floor between the two of them. He was very aware of the rifles still aimed in his direction. More so than the rifles, he was acutely focused of the tall, lanky man standing behind the M60.

  Jesus Christ, that thing’s going to rip me into fifty pieces.

  “You’re lucky if it’s only fifty pieces,” the voice said.

  That’s not helping.

  “The truth hurts. Or it’s going to. Very, very much.”

  Mason sighed and turned back to Paul. “What happens now?”

  Paul walked the short distance over and picked up the gun and shoved it into his front waistband. “I take you back to town.”

  “And then?”

  “Don’t you worry, Mason; I’ll come up with something appropriate for your dumb ass—”

  He hadn’t gotten ass completely out when they both heard it—the gradually building whine of a jet engine slicing across the skyline—

  Plane!

  Paul spun around and up at the sky, as did the men behind him. It was a natural instinct to the sound because they all knew what it was, and maybe like Mason, they’d been living in constant fear of hearing it. Mason himself couldn’t resist, and he stood frozen on the steps and stared up at the incoming plane.

  Except the A10 Thunderbolt wasn’t coming at them, not if it maintained its current trajectory. But it was close enough that he could make out its gray body and the cannon protruding out its front, a gun muzzle that could devastate whole towns, reduce vehicles to metal carcasses, and erase the human body from existence. Or if that cannon somehow left survivors, the missiles very much visible under its wings wouldn’t.

  And it was going to keep going right past them—

  “Now, kid, now!” Mason shouted, reaching behind him for the Glock at the same time.

  There was a single pop! from behind Mason, loud enough that it sliced through the whine of the plane’s twin engine, and the tall man behind the M60 slumped off the back of the truck and collapsed in a heap on the gravel floor.

  Paul was turning around, reaching for his holstered pistol, when Mason shot him once in the gut. Then, as Paul staggered, shot him again in the chest.

  Then everyone was shooting, the gunfire so close and seemingly coming from everywhere that it sounded like a hundred hammers drilling nails into Mason’s skull. He stumbled, almost fell, but managed to grab the staircase railing to keep himself upright. But moving back and up proved difficult without seeing where he was going, and he ended up falling on his ass anyway when he tripped on one of the steps behind him. Wood shattered and splinters tried to gouge out his eyes, and his vision was filled with flashing muzzles and sunlight glinting off jerking rifle barrels.

  All the while, Mason kept waiting for the plane to rain death down on them, but it didn’t. Either it hadn’t reached them yet (What the hell was taking it so long?) or it hadn’t seen them. Or if it did, it didn’t care what was happening down here.

  He wanted to shout up at it (“Hey, dummy, you have a friendly down here!”), but of course he didn’t. One, the pilot wouldn’t have heard him anyway; and two, it wasn’t like he had the opportunity with everyone trying to kill him at the moment. Besides, what were the chances the Warthog was going to spare him? Even through the unrelenting gunfire, Mason shivered at the thought of hearing the sound of that god-awful Avenger cannon opening up.

  “Move, you idiot, stop thinking and move!” the voice shouted in his head.

  Mason had somehow made it halfway up the stairs when he was shot. He didn’t really feel the bullet as it tore into his side, but the second one, which hit his already gimpy leg, definitely registered. He might have even screamed, but he couldn’t be sure because all he could hear was the pop-pop-pop of rifles going off—and one especially behind and above him.

  Rose. That was Rose firing down at what remained of Paul’s men.

  There were just four of them now, and of those two were already fleeing across the field, leaving two stragglers behind the white Ford. Paul himself was still alive and crawling (or trying to) toward the vehicle. He had a yard or two left when a bullet struck him in the back and he stopped moving entirely.

  Jesus, kid, shoot a man while he’s down why don’tcha!

  Mason wanted to laugh, but he was too busy pivoting around in the narrow confines of the disintegrating stairs and crawling on his hands and knees up the remaining steps. His legs—both of them, for some reason—were on fire, and his chest threatened to explode on him with every step he managed.

  He glimpsed Rose—or, at least, the barrel of her rifle—through one of the broken windows, firing out and down at the two remaining men behind the Ford. She was still shooting when one of the collaborators climbed up the side of the vehicle and reached for the machine gun. He was straightening up when there was a single purposeful crack! and the man seized up before careening off the truck and disappearing onto the other side.

  The remaining man decided he’d had enough and ran off into the knee-high grass. Another crack!, but the round went wide. The uniformed figure ducked even though he was about a second too late, and kept going.

  A third crack!, but this one also went wide.

  Then either Rose decided to let the man escape (“Yeah, right!” the voice laughed) or she was too busy reloading to take another shot at him, because almost as suddenly as it had erupted, the gunfire stopped.

  Jesus, I’m alive.

  There would have been complete silence, if not for his breathing jackhammering in his ears.

  Oh, sweet Jesus.

  Blessed, merciful silence.

  I can’t believe I’m still alive…

  Now that no one was shooting at him, Mason moved slower until he finally reached the balcony. He pulled himself up and turned over like a turtle. He caught his breath while staring up at the sun, aware but unconcerned about the two or three hot bullet casings he’d fallen on top of that were now burning their way through his uniformed shirt.

  He was bleeding—badly—and the warmth was spreading everywhere underneath him. He was probably dying, too. After all, there were only so many times you could get shot and live to tell the tale. By his own count, this was number four.

  “Four strikes and you’re out!” the voice laughed. “Or is that three? Either way, you’re fucked, peckerhead.”

  Mason was too hurt and too breathless to dignify the voice’s insults. He was also too tired to even look for the Glock he didn’t remember dropping, either on the way up the steps or when he finally reached the relative safety of the balcony.

  Then he heard a voice calling his name.

  “Mason. Are you dead? Mason.”

  Dead? Not yet.

  “But getting there,” the voice said.

  But definitely getting there…

  FIFTEEN

  “...SOME OF YOU may know who I am. I was there at the beginning, just like all of you. I survived when so many didn’t, and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about everything and everyone I’ve lost. I did what I had to in order to survive, just like all of you. It’s not my place to judge your actions; I can’t put myself in your shoes.”

  “It’s her,” Rose said. “It’s Lara. The Lara.”

  Mason groaned. “Who cares? I’m bleeding to death over here.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic. You’re not even
bleeding anymore.”

  “I lost enough blood for three people, kid.”

  “So dramatic,” she said, and rolled her eyes.

  He almost laughed but couldn’t because doing so would have just made the pain worse. Instead, Mason stayed propped up against the counter and watched the sun filling up every inch of the house through all the holes that had been punched through its walls and door and, somehow, ceiling. At this rate, there might as well not be anything between him and the outside world at all.

  “So what happens when it gets dark?” the voice asked. “You really think your former creepy crawler friends won’t notice the house now?”

  One creek at a time, one creek at a time…

  There was some upside to this: He should have been dead, but he wasn’t.

  That was almost entirely thanks to Rose, who had found a first-aid kit inside the abandoned Ford outside. He would have asked her if she knew what she was doing if he’d had the strength to make anything more than just pained wheezing noises. Of course, he realized what a stupid question it would have been once she actually went to work on his wounds. The fact that he was still alive and no longer bleeding was testimony enough that shooting people wasn’t the only thing they’d taught her on that island. And thanks to the painkillers he’d brought with him from T10, even the pain was manageable.

  Rose sat next to him now with the ham radio on the floor between them. She’d been playing with it ever since she retrieved it from Paul’s truck before finally stumbling across the message.

  “What I can do is tell you that the past is the past,” the woman on the radio continued. “What matters is what we do from here on out. Some of you may know what’s headed your way, but you might not know why, because they won’t tell you. But I will…”

  The woman went on, talking about the ghouls (or nightcrawlers, as Rose called them) and the attack on Houston, and asking the collaborators to leave their posts. Mason was able to put all the pieces together after hearing the entire message.

  Houston, Jocelyn, even the Warthog that had given him and Rose the much-needed diversion, even though the pilot probably had no idea. Given how the warplane had just kept on going as if they didn’t exist, he guessed it had its own mission—in Houston—and had no time for them.

  “Someone’s having a party, and no one bothered to invite us,” the voice said. “Should we feel insulted?”

  Definitely not. You really want to be anywhere close to that hog when it starts shooting?

  “Good point…for once.”

  He busied himself with eating one of the MREs that Rose had salvaged from the collaborators’ supplies. There was a gym bag full of the stuff, along with a small pile of weapons and ammo. They weren’t going to run out of bullets anytime soon if the three men came back with reinforcements. What were the chances of them?

  “As much of a chance as Paul not finding you all the way out here in the first place, maybe,” the voice said.

  I was hoping for better odds.

  “Hope again.”

  Mason grunted.

  “You say something?” Rose asked.

  “Nothing; just thinking to myself,” he said.

  “You do that a lot.”

  More than you think, kid, he thought, but kept that part to himself.

  “They’re attacking Houston,” Rose said, looking back at the radio. “I should be there, too.”

  “You?”

  “Of course me. I’m probably the best shooter on the island after Peters.”

  “Is that your boyfriend?”

  She only bothered with a half eye roll this time. “He’s way too old for me.”

  Who isn’t way too old for you? Mason thought, but said, “You checked the fields again?”

  “Five minutes ago.”

  “Check again.”

  “What for? They’re not coming back. They’re too busy running home with their tails between their legs. We licked them.”

  He had to smile, remembering the sight of Paul’s three remaining men fleeing for their lives through the grass. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “I know I am.”

  “Don’t get cocky.”

  “As if,” she said.

  Static filled the radio as soon as the woman finished her message. Rose turned the dial and there it was again.

  “…I was there at the beginning, just like all of you. I survived when so many didn’t…”

  “It’s on a loop,” Mason said. “They’re just cycling the same message through all the frequencies, hoping the guys guarding Houston will pick it up.”

  “It must be Jen,” Rose said.

  “Who’s Jen?”

  “Or Jane. Julie? I don’t know, something with a J. She’s in charge of communications on the island. I don’t really know her all that well, but she knows tech stuff. I bet that’s her in charge of getting Lara’s message out.” She glanced over at him. “You think it’ll work?”

  “Houston?”

  She nodded. “You think Lara’ll be able to convince your friends to abandon the city?”

  “They’re not my friends, kid,” he said, and thought, At least, not the ones around here…

  “I should be out there,” Rose said again.

  He looked over at the girl and saw that she really meant it. “You’re nuts. You want to be in the middle of that?”

  “This is it, don’t you see? After today, everything will change. Things will get better.”

  “You’re daydreaming. Houston is just one city. Whatever happens there isn’t going to do squat. It’s a small ripple in a giant ocean.”

  “Lara says you’re wrong.”

  “You believe everything some stranger says over the radio?”

  “No,” Rose said, “but I believe her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s Lara.”

  “That’s not a good reason.”

  “That’s the only reason I need.”

  He could see that he wasn’t going to convince her. If he thought she was stubborn before, the look on her face when it came to this Lara character was something else entirely.

  Must be a hell of a woman.

  Mason closed his eyes and let out a tired sigh. “Whatever, kid. Believe what you want.”

  “Thanks, I will,” she said.

  That got a mild chuckle out of him, and as expected, his body paid for it with a fresh jolt of pain that rippled through him from head to toe.

  Can’t even laugh without pain. What a life.

  “Be glad you can still laugh at all,” the voice said as he drifted off for the second time that afternoon.

  HE DIDN’T KNOW how long he was unconscious the second time, but when he opened his eyes, he knew instinctively that things had changed. The pile of guns was missing, and the MREs and canned food that had been in the pack earlier were now set up in a pyramid. Or some of them. About half were clearly missing.

  Mason knew what was happening before he heard her voice.

  “I have to go.” She sat on the counter, legs swinging casually back and forth off the side. She was holding a pistol in her lap, like it had been there for some time.

  And maybe it had.

  “She was going to kill you,” the voice said. “Shoot you right between your dumb beady eyes while you slept. Why else would she have the gun out?”

  Mason didn’t have to check his hip holster to know that the Sig Sauer was gone. “What’s going on, Rose?”

  “I have to go.” She had that determined look on her face again that told him she wasn’t going to change her mind anytime soon.

  He struggled up from the floor into a sitting position. “Go where?”

  “Houston.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “The gun,” the voice said. “Watch the gun in her hand!”

  But he didn’t. He watched her face instead, because if she decided to shoot him, he wasn’t going to be able to do a damn thing about it. He could barely move, much less de
fend himself against a bullet.

  “It’s all happening in Houston,” Rose said. “I need to be there.”

  “It’ll be over by the time you show up,” Mason said.

  “Maybe, but I still have to go. It’s what I’ve been training for.”

  “Do you even know how to get to Houston? It’s a big state.”

  She reached behind her back and pulled out a folded map. “Found it in the truck, along with everything else.”

  “Can you read a map?”

  “It’s a map. How hard could it be?”

  “What about driving?”

  “I never got my license, if that’s what you mean. But I know how to drive, yeah. I had to learn a lot of things society wouldn’t have allowed me to do back in the day.”

  “So you’re just going to leave me here alone, all shot up?”

  “You’re a tough guy. You’ll live.”

  “Girl’s delusional; she thinks you’re tough,” the voice chuckled.

  “So this is it,” Mason said. “This is good-bye.”

  “It’s better than the alternative,” Rose said.

  “And what would that be?”

  “You really need me to spell it out?”

  He frowned. “No.”

  “The way I see it, we’re even-steven,” she said, and hopped off the counter before holstering the gun.

  “See? She really was going to shoot you while you slept, you moron,” the voice said.

  And yet, I’m still alive.

  “You got lucky.”

  I was right.

  “Pfft. Even the sun shines on a dog’s ass some days.”

  Rose picked up a pack from the counter and slipped it on. “I left your pistol and a lot more on the parking lot outside. I’m also leaving enough food to last you a long time if you decide to stay and get better. Which I think you should probably do. You’re in no shape to be running around out there.”

  “The parking lot?” He groaned. “Kid, I can’t even crawl. How am I going to climb down the stairs?”

  “You’ll manage.” Then, probably more awkwardly than she had intended, “Good luck.”

  She walked across the room to the door. He thought about diving at her, tackling her as she passed him by, but the dumb stunt would probably have hurt him a hell of a lot more than it did her. He wasn’t bleeding at the moment, and Mason wanted to keep it that way. Besides, he’d survived a lot worse, and he would overcome this, too.