Authors: Alan Spencer
“I have no following.” Ted failed to restrain his bitterness. “I never did. Everybody was out to shut me down.”
Panic echoed from unseen corridors of the city. Screams. Faint words, perhaps warnings. Cars crashing. Guns blasting. Glass shattering. Buildings crackling with fire. Explosions.
“We better head to police headquarters,” Vickers suggested. “It’ll be safe there.”
“No, the law can’t help us now. We’re destroying the projectors and the reels. I brought them back. I didn’t think it would work. But you saw them with your own eyes.”
Vickers seized both his shoulders and shook him hard. “Why did you bring them back?”
“I stole my movie at Iowa University,” Ted admitted. “I wanted my movie back. That’s the only reason I came to the viewing. But one of the vampires told me they could give me the rest of my movies back too. They said they were hidden only blocks from where I lived. So I plugged in a projector and played the film. The truth is, the reel is possessed by ghosts, and all I know is they used magic of some sort to take the images from the movies and turn them into real life.
“Andy Ryerson survived the first attack. Have you heard of the Anderson Mills Massacre? A whole town is dead and nobody can say why. And not just dead, but mutilated, drained of blood, the works—something straight out of a horror movie, literally.”
Vickers was confused. The line between real and unreal and outright ludicrous had been blurred. The evidence surrounded him. The dome over the city and the vampires and the hideous deaths. His investigative skills were useless in this crazy world.
“Then what do you suggest we do?”
Ted pondered the question. He kept rubbing his wrists, a solid raw line embedded in the flesh from his captivity. “We burn the building down. The reels will go up with the place. There’s an auto body garage down the street. Maybe they have something we can set a fire with.”
“What about the people in the building?”
“Set the fire alarms before we start the fire.”
“How about starting it in your apartment,” Vickers said. “I’m not allowing anybody else to be hurt. Enough is enough. I won’t be responsible for any more bloodshed.”
“No, you’re right. Enough people have died already because of this.”
Vickers shook hands with Ted. “I’m sorry I thought you were a murderer.”
“Buy me a drink when this is over, and we’re square.”
The two retreated to Steven’s Auto Body and Salvage two blocks south of the apartment building in search of flammable materials.
Chapter Sixteen
Roger Patrick clutched the steering wheel of his yellow cab. He’d sped back and forth between Maywood and Englewood Park, traveled to Melrose Park, and taken outlets throughout the city all the way to East End to pick up random travelers and stranded victims and transport them to Navy Pier to safety. There, many took shelter in the shops at the strip malls along the harbor. Medical units had been set up as well alongside armed barriers by the police who tried to form a front against what lurked throughout Chicago.
No traffic, he cruised at fifty on the streets where he rarely reached fifteen in the past. A Remington shotgun sat propped across his lap, and it reminded him every second he was in danger. He’d already blasted five rounds from his window. His right passenger door was missing. A preacher cackling and spouting gibberish he couldn’t understand had removed the door with a huge magnet. After shooting at the crazed preacher, Roger watched him aim the magnet in a new direction, toward a throng of fleeing people. The preacher removed dozens of their skeletons via the magnet’s pull. Roger couldn’t understand how it was possible, but he’d seen skeletons rattle across his windshield and nearly send him crashing into the sidewalk.
Roger hooked a left onto 89
th
Street, keeping an eye out for anything. He kept his brights on despite the fear of giving himself away. The shotgun offered as much courage as the bottle of half-spent bourbon at his feet.
Corpses were strewn on the sidewalks as well. Many of them were faceless, their heads emptied of contents. Rough gouges marked where teeth carved up the features and worked through the sinuses to suck out the brains. He’d seen devilish eyes glower at him as something chewed a pregnant woman’s face and worked through the belly for another brain to eat.
Keep your eyes open for victims. You have to keep saving people. The police can’t do it. The majority of the survivors are too scared to leave Navy Pier, and the blockade won’t protect them from jack shit if any of these monsters find out where they are.
A series of hotels unfolded to his left and right: The Hilton, Holiday Inn, Trevor Turlington Suites and a slew of lower-end places. This sector was fairly untouched. No enemies attacked from the sky or the ground. His beams crossed on a woman sitting on the sidewalk with her head in her hands. Her shoulder blades shook; she was weeping. Roger immediately pulled over.
“Hop in, sweetie,” Roger said in the most soothing voice he could dredge up. “I’ll take you to safety. Navy Pier sound okay? They have food, shelter, cops and a place to rest.”
She was attractive and was dressed like a schoolgirl. Plaid miniskirt. Button-up white dress shirt. Black tie. Black tote bag. Silky auburn hair styled in a pony tail. Though her face was unflinching, her eyes were blackened by streaming mascara from a long cry.
Was she on her way to class when this happened? The nearest school is miles from here.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Roger insisted, “but I have to keep moving. Anything could come at us at any moment. I promise I’ll take you to Navy Pier.”
She agreed, standing up, and entered the backseat. He got a better look at her in the rearview mirror. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-two. Ninety-five pounds. Her buttons had come undone revealing the topmost half of her breasts, which glowed with a sheen of sweat. She reminded him of a cross between a Valley girl and a frat boy’s girlfriend.
Roger politely turned his eyes back to the road. “Are you hurt? I don’t know your name.”
“I didn’t throw it,” she said in a surprisingly cutting voice. “You’re looking at me, aren’t you?”
“I was checking for injuries,” Roger said, half-lying. “I apologize if I offended you. It’s been a heck of a day.”
She spread her legs. “You want to see my snatch, is that it? Are you some kind of pervert?”
“What? No, please understand me. I’m not trying to—”
“The last guy who gave me half the glances you did ended up buried in my backyard." Her teeth were bared in a wicked sneer. Her beauty was marred by the hatred twisting her face. “And you were looking at my tits. Sizing them up. Imaging how they feel. You’d rape me, wouldn’t you? Violate me. Use this panic situation to get your dick wet, you piece of shit, wouldn’t you? I’ve met your kind, and I’ve taught them a lesson. They’ll never look at a girl’s chest again—not without eyes, or a head, or a dick!”
He slammed on the brakes. “Get out of my car, you crazy bitch. Don’t threaten me. I’m risking my life to save your ass. I wasn’t going to do a damn thing to you. I’m only trying to take you to Navy P—”
“Die, you scumbag!”
She reached into her tote bag and removed a short samurai sword. She jammed the blade through the seat, an inch of it cutting into his kidney. He stopped the car. Before he could twist around and aim the shotgun at her, she rolled out the door screaming, “What do you want cut off next, your big head or your little head? And being a man, your answer will have to be more specific!”
From the left, he counted twenty—no thirty—no, now fifty schoolgirls in checkered plaid miniskirts, pig tails, high-heeled, black polished dress shoes, and tight-fitting button-up tops without bras charging the taxi. Each raised a mix of swords, maces, double-edged axes, clubs with nails jammed through them—way too large for anybody to be carrying, yet the women brandished them without difficulty—scythes, sickles, hammers and railroad spikes.
“I want to wear his balls around my neck.”
“Pulverize him.”
“I’ll feed his dick to my Doberman.”
“I’ll shove my mace up his ass—or maybe he’d like that. Creeps like him are always closet perverts!”
“Make him shit blood, and then we’ll see how much he enjoys a mace up his ass.”
“Try a dynamite dildo!”
Holy fucking shit, these chicks are insane!
Roger clutched the wheel with bloody hands. He pounded the gas. “Move, you piece-of-shit! MOVE!”
The car jolted forward, leaving behind the small fleet of armed slasher schoolgirls in the cloud of his exhaust.
Chapter Seventeen
Jessica was holed up in the fifth floor of Corporate Tower, a skyscraper filled with offices and businesses. The window in her corner office gave a perfect view of the strange shell over the city. It was thick and the color of white enamel. The city was blocked out, isolated from the rest of the world, and left in darkness. Below, strange things were happening. The way it sounded, Jessica would’ve believed monsters paraded below.
The radio station had been replaced by a repeating message:
Do not attempt to leave shelter for any reason. The Chicago Police Department will attend to anybody in the streets or separated from their families and loved ones. We repeat, stay indoors. Anyone found roaming the streets will be detained.
The majority of the office workers had left for home.
Billy said he’s coming. I can’t leave. What if he shows up and I’m gone? What if he’s arrested?
Jessica pressed her hands against the window. The image in her mind kept repeating the strange helmet shape floating in the air, suspended by nothing, and then touching down on the city. The foundation of the city had been jostled upon its landing.
She stared at Billy’s picture in the frame on her desk. They were hugging each other at Shedd Aquarium in front of a bottle-nosed dolphin. Her favorites were the tiger and hammerhead sharks. The aquarium was almost like being underwater: the dark muted walls and the gurgle and bubbling from the tanks. The fun-loving good time had been replaced by martial law and encroaching death. She prioritized her life in seconds. She wanted to get married, buy a house, and after passing the bar exam, she’d have children. Maybe Billy would go back to school first, and then they’d live the dream.
Right now, the dream was being sucked dry of air. She could feel it happen in her lungs already. The air was thinning. Sweat constantly dripped down her body. What would the quality of air be like in hours?—days? Would they make it for days?
She was distracted by a shuffle outside her office door.
Oh shit, someone’s here.
I thought I was alone.
She lifted the closed shade of her window and peered into the hallway. It was Steve Allan. He was a paralegal like her. He wore his iPod, oblivious to everything that was happening. He carried a stack of files. Jessica stopped him as he passed by her office. She made him remove his headphones.
“Don’t you know what’s going on?”
Steve shook his head. “What, did everybody go to lunch?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“No,” Steve said. “I have three tests to study for. Mr. Bruner’s environmental law test, for one, and then Mr. Burke’s—”
“Forget the exams!” She guided him to the window in her office. “You see that?”
Steve looked outside, turning his head slightly to one side. He stumbled on words, beginning a sentence and then giving up over and over again.
Finally, he gasped, “
No way.
When did this happen? Everybody left me making copies. The fuckers. They
would
leave me here.” Steve was confused. “Why are you still here?”
“My boyfriend is on the way.”
“Oh.”
A random scream interrupted them. “You gotta help me!”
Jessica’s back tensed. Every inch of her skin heated up. The sound was so out of place in the quiet office atmosphere, it shook them both. Steve raced into the hall toward the bathrooms. “It came from the men’s bathroom, I think.”
She followed behind Steve, who propped the bathroom door open. An arc of artificial light painted the tiles. The arc touched the edge of a black boot.
“Don’t open the door any more,” a deep, gruff voice warned. Pain edged each syllable. The man was holding back agony. “Please, I don’t want you to see me. My body has a mind of its own. Shoot me now. Kill me. Any way you see fit. I’d prefer if you shot me between the eyes. Make it final. Make me dead.”
Steve turned to Jessica, both of them perplexed. Jessica softened her voice. “Why would you want us to do that to you? If you’re hurt, we’ll get you to the hospital. It doesn’t matter what’s going on or how much you hurt. Don’t give up. We’re only blocks from the hospital.”
“Yeah,” Steve piped up. “There’s no need for talk like that, man. What happened to you, man?”