Final dawn season 2, p.27
Final Dawn: Season 2, page 27
part #2 of Final Dawn Series
Jonathan met Samuel's gaze for a moment, then nodded slowly. "It shouldn't be hard to fix. Just a few seconds or so.
"Henry? Do me a favor and go grab my toolbox from the house, please?"
Henry nodded, handed his flashlight to Samuel and then ran dutifully back to the collection of houses to retrieve the requested tools. As soon as he was out of earshot, Jonathan stood up, his back to Samuel. "She should be all fixed up for you."
Samuel took a step forward to examine the engine when Jonathan whipped around, a small flash of silver shining in his right hand. He held up a small revolver and pointed it directly at Samuel's head. When he spoke, his tone was low and gravely.
"Who the hell are you and what do you want with us?"
Samuel slowly raised his hands, putting them at chest level instead of over his head, well within reach of his pistols. "Whoa! What's going on? I thought you were going to help me!" He let the flashlight fall to the ground with a tumble and it rolled a few feet, stopping against a rock and partially lighting the area where he and Jonathan were standing.
Jonathan took a half step forward and cocked the hammer on the revolver, cycling the chamber with a deathly "click." "You can take us for fools all you'd like, but with your electric wires pulled, how do you expect the horn to work?"
Samuel stood still for a few seconds with a scared expression before finally relenting. He dropped his hands and shook his head slowly as he stared at the ground. "Looks like I forgot about that."
Jonathan shook the revolver slightly as he demanded answers from Samuel yet again. "I won't ask you a third time; who are you and what do you want with us?"
The bravery projected by Jonathan was no match for the raw skill possessed by Samuel. Jonathan may have had the drop on Samuel, but he didn't have the years of experience that Samuel did, honed by thousands of hours of practice and dealing with escalations and conflicts of all types. This practice not only resulted in incredibly fast reflexes, but a methodical way of dealing with opponents that was purely mechanical and logical, with no trace of emotion.
Whipping his head to the side, he brought his hands up from his waist and twisted the revolver, blinking as it went off, the shot missing his skull by several inches. Caught off guard by the sudden movement, Jonathan didn't have a firm grip on the revolver, which was launched out of his hand and into the darkness beyond the view of the flashlight. Bones snapped in Jonathan's hand as three of his fingers broke under the pressure of Samuel's twisting grip and he doubled over as Samuel delivered a kick to his abdomen.
Without wasting a second, Samuel pulled out a pistol with his right hand and aimed carefully at Jonathan's back, firing two shots. The shots passed through both of Jonathan's shoulders, missing the vital organs, but thoroughly disabling him. A shout went up from the houses seconds after the shots were fired, but Samuel ignored them. Picking up the flashlight, he leaned down to the engine and checked the wires. Despite Jonathan's suspicions, he had fixed the vehicle as he had said, and Samuel wasted no time in jumping in the driver's seat.
Before he started up the engine, a figure burst through the bushes behind the vehicle and shouted at Samuel. "Hey! What happened here? What the--Dad? Dad!"
Henry had been the closest to the vehicle when his father was shot and he had dropped the toolbox, running headlong through the grass and bushes until he reached the glow of the flashlight. Samuel threw the flashlight out on the ground and started the engine, revving it a few quick times before pulling away in a plume of dirt and dust. Henry covered his eyes and coughed from the dust cloud as he leaned down over his father, checking the wounds that were bleeding copiously over the ground.
Designed to disable, not kill, Samuel chose the option that he hoped would mean getting the least amount of blowback from the individuals living in the houses with Jonathan. While he had briefly contemplated killing the man, doing so could have easily caused those around him to devote all of their resources to tracking Samuel down. Maiming Jonathan in such an obvious manner sent a message, instead: don't mess with me.
Samuel continued driving, passing over the nearby bridge and heading west, pursuing Leonard and Nancy. His only regret over trying to recruit others in his quest to chase down the demon-bringers was that he had lost valuable time that would have been better spent chasing the intruders on his own.
The Lord helps those who help themselves. I suppose there's some truth to that after all.
Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry
9:40 PM, April 13, 2038
The mutated woman standing in front of David, Marcus and Rachel twitched suddenly and violently. As her body spasmed she tore at her scalp, her sharp nails digging through the skin and shrieking against the strips of metal underneath. Rachel leveled her rifle at the woman's head, preparing to pull the trigger when David shouted again, his eyes glued to his handheld computer.
"Wait a second, the signal's dropping out!" David looked at the woman who was still tearing at her scalp, scraping away the remaining pieces of skin to reveal a nearly solid layer of the silver metal covering her skull. "She must be fighting against it!"
"David, we don't have time for this; if she gets anything more to Doe, we're screwed!" Rachel's finger hovered over the trigger of her rifle and she began to slowly squeeze, feeling the cool metal slowly retreating under the force.
"It's gone! The signal's totally gone now!"
David's last shout came just as Rachel squeezed the trigger far enough to engage the firing pin, which occurred half a second after the woman turned around and stepped to the side. A bullet flew past her, inches from her face and Rachel gasped in surprise, taking her finger off the trigger as the woman spoke.
"They are coming."
Seemingly in full control of her faculties, the woman turned back around and sprinted down the corridor, heading down in the corridor in the direction of the snarls. Minutes ticked past slowly, stretching out into what felt like hours until the woman reappeared, running silently back to the group.
"They are coming. Prepare quickly."
The woman's voice was no more urgent than it had been a few minutes prior, despite the imminent threat that was on the group's doorstep. Marcus and Rachel looked back at David, and Marcus yelled, forgoing any semblance of stealth.
"Find a way to get through that damned door! We'll hold them off!"
Marcus knelt down a few feet away from Rachel and looked at her. The two of them exchanged a quick nod before they turned their eyes forward, keeping a careful watch on the darkness of the corridor. Their previous disagreement had fallen by the wayside in the face of the new danger that threatened to consume them right as they were on the verge of escaping from the tunnels. Behind them, the mutated woman stood still, her empty eyes directed out into the corridor. The snarls and growls echoed louder as the creatures drew nearer.
Back at the steel door, David connected his handheld computer to the door control, trying to give it enough power to function. Though the connection was confirmed by the computer as active, the door panel flickered only once before fading out. Its electronics had either been fried or there wasn't enough power being supplied by the computer, the battery of which was beginning to run low. David held his head in his hands, pulling at his hair in frustration. The mutated woman showed zero interest in opening the door, a pack of mutated creatures courtesy of Mr. Doe was nearly upon them, and David had no idea how to open the only way out of the tunnels.
Before leaving his lab and meeting up with Rachel and Marcus at the room where Bertha was stored, David had brought as much equipment as he could carry in a duffel bag from his laboratory. Emptying out the storage cupboard where he had kept a laptop, handheld computers, and memory cards safe from Bertha's discharge, David had plenty of working electronic resources. Unfortunately, none of it would power up the door's panel for long enough to unlock the bolts that held the door in place. Picking through his bag in desperation, David's hand brushed against a small steel box, cold to the touch, and foreign to him. Initially wondering what it was, he took it out of his bag and held it up, a look of shock on his face when he saw it in the glow of the transport cart's lights.
A black box, roughly six inches square on each side and three inches deep, it had two small connectors at the back with inch-long wires hanging from each. The box had been the last security device that David and Rachel had labored over for hours to get off Bertha so that they could move the EMP generator out of its storage room. Without thinking much of it, David had slipped the black box into his bag, wondering if it might come in handy later, though he'd promptly forgotten about it until now.
Though the box was virtually featureless, it was not without function. The two small connectors on the back of the device had plugged directly into Bertha, and disconnecting them without triggering the box was not an easy task. This was due in no small part to the fact that, if the device had been removed improperly, it would have been activated. The activation of the black box would have triggered the tightly packed plastic explosives in its interior. Highly lethal, the explosives inside the box were enough to completely destroy Bertha, acting as a last line of defense against theft or potential misuse.
David glanced at the steel door and the transport cart just a few feet from it. The tunnel near the door was narrow, with no safe place to hide the transport cart should David carry out the plan he was still formulating. The sound of the creatures still echoed up from the tunnel, though there was no sight of them yet. Making his decision, David threw his duffel bag back into the transport cart and opened the cart's motor compartment, searching for a pair of wires leading to the rear brake lights.
Pulling them out, he bit into the ends, stripping away the insulation on both wires and revealing the bare metal underneath. Rachel and Marcus were still kneeling several feet away along with the mutated woman, and David shouted at them, holding the box aloft.
"Rachel! I've got it!"
Rachel turned to look at David and her eyes widened upon seeing the box. David pointed at the double doors on the side of the tunnel and shouted again.
"We need to get Bertha in there now!"
"David, the cart won't fit!"
"I'd rather take my chances without it than get pinned down here, wouldn't you?"
Rachel hesitated for a second and then nodded. "Marcus, keep watch; I'm with David."
Rachel handed her rifle to Marcus who dropped his pistol at his feet and raised the more powerful weapon to his shoulder. Behind him Rachel ran to David's side, who had set the black box near the steel door and was already beginning to unhook Bertha's dolly from the back of the transport cart. Rachel helped him finish the task and they both pushed on the dolly, moving the heavy load toward the nearby storage room.
A relatively small area, the storage room was just wide enough to accommodate Bertha, along with the group's various bags and backpacks. Rachel whistled for Sam, who hurried into the room and obediently lay down at the very back. David rushed back to the cart and pulled it around so that the rear end was just inches from the steel door, then hopped out and began searching for the best location to place the black box.
A burst of gunfire sent Rachel hurrying back to Marcus, who pointed at a blue glow ascending the slope toward them. "Two of them, down there; I think I winged one, though." From behind Rachel and Marcus, the strange woman stepped forward and stood between them. The blue illumination down in the tunnel was stationary, though Rachel and Marcus could hear the creatures so clearly that it seemed like they were just feet away.
"I'm ready back here!" With the black box hanging precariously in the center of the steel door's two massive hinges, one wire was already connected to it and the other was in David's hand. He looked expectantly at Rachel and Marcus who turned and moved toward him.
"Come on! We need to take cover!" Marcus called for the woman to follow them back to the storage room, but she stood her ground, ignoring his pleas.
The snarl of the nearby creatures became suddenly louder as two of them appeared from out of the darkness, dodging back and forth as they ran up through the tunnel, trying to avoid any further shots. One of the creatures had large impact wounds in its shoulder from Marcus's earlier shots, though it didn't act like it was injured in any way. Still facing in the direction of the tunnel, Marcus fired from the hip, sending several bullets streaking wide past the creatures but still managing to hit one. The shots did absolutely nothing to slow the creatures, though, which continued forward at a breakneck pace.
Though the creatures seemed not to notice the woman standing before them, it was clear that she noticed them, especially when she crouched down and spread her arms. As the creatures tried to run past her she snagged both of them on a leg, causing them to fall toward each other with a sickening sound as their heads collided. The impact stunned the creatures for only a few seconds, and they were quickly back on their feet. This time, though, their attention was directed solely at the strange woman who faced them calmly. Next to the creatures' snarls and rage, her expression was peaceful and serene. Lunging at the woman, the creatures threw her to the ground, tearing at her viciously as Marcus and Rachel fired upon them, trying to stop them before they ripped the woman apart.
Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims
10:08 PM, April 13, 2038
Standing inside a small gas station on the edge of the highway, Nancy held a light over Leonard's shoulder as he ransacked a drink refrigerator, removing every bottle of water he could find. Rushing along, he dumped the bottles into the now empty shopping cart he'd taken from the back of the APC. After escaping over the bridge, Nancy and Leonard had driven hard and fast until they'd come across the gas station. Wanting to get more fuel and water, Leonard had started siphoning diesel from a nearby truck while Nancy had emptied out the shopping cart and arranged the supplies in the back of the APC.
Taking the cart inside the gas station while the APC's fuel tank filled, Leonard and Nancy scoured the place for all the supplies they could find. In addition to a few canned goods, some snacks, and plenty of water, Leonard found both a shotgun and a revolver hidden under the checkout counter. Their lack of weapons made the discovery one for celebration, and Leonard quickly hurried both guns back to the APC for safekeeping before continuing to gather supplies.
After the cart was full, Nancy and Leonard both pushed it back to the APC and loaded in the supplies, using plastic crates from the gas station to organize their supplies and keep them from shifting around while the vehicle was in motion. Out of breath from exertion, the pair sat on the back bumper of the armored car, watching the dark clouds drift past overhead. Pinpoints of light broke through the last wisps of cloud cover as the stars came out, shining bright in all their glory. Enough of the upper atmosphere's dust cover from the nuclear explosions had been cleansed by the nanobots to offer a spectacular view.
"I wonder what's causing those storms." Nancy spoke quietly as a gentle breeze followed after the clouds, making her shiver in the sudden cold air. Leonard reached into the APC and pulled out a heavy jacket, tearing the store tags off before helping Nancy put it on.
"Nothing good, that's for sure. That's the second one that's followed an army of muties, though. It's pretty clear that they're more than coincidentally linked."
"So... where do we go from here?" As much as Nancy liked stopping and taking a break, doing so made her nervous with Samuel in the general vicinity. Keeping their light usage to a minimum, Leonard and Nancy hadn't seen any sign of him, but they knew he was still somewhere in the area.
Leonard pulled a map from his jacket pocket and motioned for Nancy to follow him back inside the gas station where they could use a flashlight without being spotted as easily as if they were sitting in the APC. Inside, spread out on the checkout clerk's counter, Leonard held the flashlight in one hand and pointed at the map with the other.
"We're about here, from what I can tell." Leonard pointed to a spot on the highway halfway between the river and a large swath of green. "Next up is the national forest and if we keep going, we'll dip south for a ways in the middle of Montana."
Nancy furrowed her brow. "South doesn't sound good."
Leonard squinted at the map and traced two paths that ran roughly parallel to each other, one to the north and one to the south. "Here's what I'm thinking: we take this route up before we hit the forest, then take this path to the west. That'll lead us straight to this next major highway, number sixteen, and from there we can head straight up through the border.
"From there we'll hit Lethbridge, then Calgary, and then we'll cut west through the mountains and head northwest until we hit Alaska."
Looking at the scale of the map, Nancy whistled softly. "That's going to be one hell of a drive."
Leonard nodded and sighed deeply. "Yes it is. But that's the only way we've got to get up there."
"I don't suppose you've traveled up there before, have you?"
Leonard shook his head. "Nope. Have you?"
