Dawn of the Mad (28 page)

“Empty the drawers, sweetheart,” Randy told her, the ski mask covering his face concealing his grin.
This is too damn easy
.

The teller got up and began to empty the cash drawers from the teller lines into a large canvas sack. Across the counter, Cyrus had quickly identified the manager, who had been sitting behind his desk.

“Give me the vault key,” he told the man.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the manager replied. “The vault is on a time lock. I cannot open it.”

Cyrus punched the manager square in his beaky nose, knocking his wire- framed glasses onto the floor. The manager’s nose began to bleed profusely down his face and onto his shirt. Cyrus leveled his AK at the man.

“I won’t ask again. I don’t give a rat fuck if you live or die. The key, if you please.”

The manager promptly removed a chain from around his neck, with a cylindrical key dangling from it.

“Thank you,” Cyrus said sarcastically, hitting the manager with the butt of his rifle, knocking him to the floor, unconscious.

Holding the key in the air, Cyrus yelled, “Got it! Randy with me, Reaper watch these fuckers.”

Reaper made no move to disguise himself with a ski mask. He was also shirtless, his upper body displaying two fresh tattoos in addition to his original Viking Club insignia. Two large syringes filled with a bright pink substance were duct taped to his right arm. He surveyed the panic-stricken people in the lobby. He held his M-249 machine gun at eye level, scanning for targets. He maintained his position by the front door. In a matter of minutes, Randy and Cyrus were at the vault. Cyrus inserted the key into the lock, and the vault slowly swung open on its own power. Both men quickly entered the vault and saw four large five foot tall metal racks, loaded with several trays of banded cash.

“Fuck me!” Cyrus exclaimed.

Skinny frantically began to sound the horn outside.

“Cops, we gotta hurry,” said Cyrus.

Randy opened a duffle bag he was carrying and pulled out two more. Cyrus took one and opened it. He dumped money laden trays in it and closed the bag. Randy did the same with the other two bags.

“What about the rest?”

“No time! Let’s go!” Cyrus yelled.

Both robbers ran to the front door and looked outside. A Metro police car was pulling into the lot lights flashing and siren blaring.

“Cops!” Cyrus yelled.

Skinny and Randy jumped into the back of the van. Reaper exited the bank last and fixated on the police car. He had a wide grin on his face as he opened up with his machine gun. The front of the squad car was peppered with bullet holes as the officer tried to jump out through the passenger door. Reaper got into the van, closing the side door behind him. Skinny gunned the engine, but slammed on the brakes when another police car arrived from the opposite direction and attempted to block the van’s progress.

“Reaper, clear us a path!” Cyrus shouted.

The back doors to the van opened and Reaper hit the ground. He fired at the police car as the first obvious enemy and prepared to shoot anything that moved.

Destroy
, he thought.
Kill and destroy
. He had no idea where those thoughts came from.

“What do you think?” Matthias asked his partner, in the passenger seat of the Mustang.

“There is definitely a lot of firing going on, let’s get a closer look.” Cruwell looked at his map, which had multiple heat sources indicated on it. Matthias pulled into a parking lot across the street from the bank. Several police cars were arriving on the scene and had blocked off the street. A helicopter also flew overhead. A white cargo van drove slowly around the bank’s parking lot, its rear doors open. A heavily armed figure walked next to it, firing indiscriminately. Two police cars already had been disabled. A few officers tried to return fire with their handguns, but it was no use. The other occupants of the van were also firing automatic rifles, out of the front windows and open side door. As the van slowly circled the parking lot, the figure on foot began to walk toward the hastily set up police perimeter, holding his large machine gun in one hand. The figure paused and aimed up at the helicopter, causing it to fly out of the area. The words “Channel 5 News” could be seen on the side of the helicopter.

“I would definitely say that is our guy,” Cruwell stated as he looked through his monocular out of the passenger window. Cruwell watched the figure walk straight up to two of the disabled police cars. Two officers rose up from behind the rear of the car and opened fire with semi-automatic pistols. The figure jerked left and right under the bullet impacts, his upper chest peppered with dark spots. Both officers ran out of ammunition at the same time and were in shock the figure was still moving towards him. Cruwell looked away with disgust as the figure opened up with the machine gun dropping both officers to the ground into a mess of blood and body parts. He picked up his voice communicator and relayed the unfolding scenario to Corporal Scotts via his wrist communicator.

“The colonel is on board the shuttle,” Scotts replied. “I can send him a message, but it takes a few minutes to get up there.”

“We might not have a few minutes,” Cruwell replied. “The police are outgunned, and their numbers are dwindling. They only have small arms. You and Johnny try to meet us and bring all the weapons you can. This might be our only chance to get him.”

“What do you want me to tell the colonel?”

“Tell him to load the equipment and prep the shuttle for departure.”

“Understood. Watch your back; you don’t want to die on this planet.”

The transmission ended. Sergeant Matthias drew his pistol and checked the magazine. “I hope they don’t go far. This is drawing entirely too much attention from the police.”

The white van finally drove out of the bank parking lot, albeit very slowly. A lone, shirtless figure continued to let loose automatic fire peppering the already disabled police cars with more holes. The pinned down officers has no choice but to seek cover. The police were hopelessly outgunned. As the van quickly accelerated and left the bank, several bullet- riddled police cars and civilian cars now littered the roadway. Sirens could be heard in the distance, but it was simply too little, too late. Several bodies lay in the street and in the parking lot. Panic-stricken motorists had abandoned their cars, leaving a surreal sight for the evening news.

“Damn! That was intense!” Cyrus said. The bikers took off their ski masks and began to remove their body armor. Reaper sat in the back seat, reloading his M-249 with another belt of ammunition. Randy opened up a large black duffle bag and smiled.

“How much we get, Cyrus? This is insane.”

Cyrus turned around from the front passenger seat as he inserted a fresh magazine into his AK-47. “At least half a mil. The rest of the money would have made it a million easy. Dean was right on, this time.”

Cyrus looked at Reaper, who was staring out of the back window. “You kicked major ass, Reaper. Major ass!” Reaper said nothing. He looked down and saw where several bullets had penetrated his body. He noticed that he wasn’t healing like he had from previous injuries. He started to feel very hot, and the machine gun started to feel very heavy. He fumbled with one of the syringes duct taped to himself, and after freeing it, he plunged it into his thigh. He didn’t get the immediate sense of vitality he usually felt.

“I—I need to cool down,” Reaper stuttered. He was having an increasingly difficult time focusing, and his head felt like it was on fire.

“Holy shit,” Randy said, “he’s been hit like twenty times!” Randy inspected the Reaper more closely. Black ooze began to seep from his nostrils. “We got to ditch this guy, man. He ain’t gonna make it!”

The van accelerated onto the expressway, heading north out of the city. “We’ll ditch the van,” Cyrus said. “That’s our next step in the plan—don’t forget the plan.” He faced forward and looked up through the windshield. “Dude, they have air support on us again. Hurry up!”

Traffic was slow on the expressway, so Skinny stayed in the shoulder. He accelerated, passing cars in the regular traffic lanes. He exited at the next turnoff and entered a heavily congested warehouse district. Matthias and Cruwell followed as close as they could without arousing any suspicion.

“I have them on the holomap,” Cruwell said. “I’m also reading a very abnormally high heat source. Our alien might finally be fried.” He looked ahead for a moment. “They pulled into that building over there.” He pointed at a large warehouse with several tractor trailers parked in the lot. “I have them on the map; let’s wait until Johnny and Scotts get here with some weapons.”

Police cars began to enter the area, and police and news helicopters hovered overhead. A large blue van and an armored personnel carrier, complete with a fixed battering ram, entered the newly established police perimeter. Both vehicles had the words “County Sheriff SWAT” painted on their sides.

Cruwell said, “It looks like they aren’t playing around with this one.”

“Hurry up,” Scotts said. “We’ll never make it.”

“Relax,” Roman said calmly as he activated his dashboard emergency lights. He accelerated, weaving even more as he negotiated through traffic. He had never bothered to turn in his cruiser or any of his equipment, as he had been instructed to do, and no one had tracked him down to ask for its return. He figured it would take the police bureaucracy a while to catch up with him, but he still did have a sense of duty. He still wore the badge and he was determined to catch this maniac. They had hastily filled the back seat with whatever weapons were easily at hand. Scotts sat in the passenger seat, loading up his EMR. Underneath the barrel was a grenade launcher, which Corporal Scotts loaded with short, stubby rounds.

Roman, a lit cigarette in his mouth, drove as fast as he could, swerving from the shoulder back into traffic. “You better put your seatbelt on.”

Scotts complied and buckled his seatbelt. He held up the holographic map and shouted directions to Roman. The black Crown Vic approached

100 miles per hour as it sped along the expressway. “There. Take the next exit!”

Roman swerved and barely made the exit ramp. Up ahead, the flashing lights of numerous police cars were everywhere caused him to slam on the brakes.

“Great. This won’t be easy getting in,” he commented.

Roman slowly drove the Crown Vic closer as he saw officers clearing traffic. Scotts pointed to a nearby Shell gas station. Roman hit the accelerator and pulled in. The familiar lime green Mustang was parked in the back; Matthias and Cruwell were outside the vehicle looking at the scene through binoculars.

“It took you guys long enough,” Cruwell greeted them. “You bring weapons?”

“We’re set. What are we going to do?” Scotts asked as he exited the Crown Vic.

Roman opened the trunk of his vehicle and retrieved his ballistic vest. He put it on over his white T-shirt and proceeded to unload buckshot and insert slugs into his recently re-acquired shotgun. He also took out a Houston Astros baseball hat and placed it on his head backwards. He closed the trunk.

“We need to find a way in,” Cruwell said, lowering his binoculars and looking at Corporal Scotts. “There is a massive heat buildup. Our guy might finally be dying. If they get him, we’ll have lost our chance.”