Biofire, p.43
Biofire, page 43
P.W. did not think so.
That was why he ignored Mr. Kanagi’s questions as he stalked through the mission toward Willy’s office, where he planned to give Ty and Buddy a few instructions, then prepare himself to go down under.
Emma screamed again as she tried to stand, but she felt a hand on her shoulder pushing her down.
“Shh!”
Emma’s head jerked around to see Dagmar leaning close as Boy awoke and huddled down at his mother’s side.
“Just be quiet and don’t act scared,” Dagmar whispered as she reached for one of the bags of food. She removed some pieces of fried chicken individually wrapped in aluminum foil and stood, turning toward the enormous cackling lunatic. She took a couple of steps toward him as she held out one of the clumps of foil. “Here,” she said, “it’s chicken. Take it. You can have all of it, just leave us alone. Please.” Her words were stiff, as if she were reading cue cards, but she succeeded in covering her fear.
The Laughing Man stared down at her for a moment, then looked at Emma. A crooked, wet grin opened up on his face and he laughed, pointing at Emma’s shoe-polished face; his laughter tumbled out of him, a thick, gurgling sound. He looked at Dagmar’s offering again.
“Go ahead,” she said, “it’s chicken.” She cautiously moved forward a little more, leaning toward him. Her movements were those of a child feeding a fawn at a petting zoo. She caught only a glimpse of McNolte shooting out of the darkness, hunched forward, and she cried, “No, please don’t!”
McNolte plowed with a grunt into the Laughing Man’s left side, and the giant careened a few steps but did not go down. McNolte did, however, and slid over the ground face-down and with a shout of pain as the Laughing Man caught his balance, turned around, and delivered a hard kick to McNolte’s side. The boots he wore were old and weathered, but they were still heavy enough to send violent waves of pain through McNolte’s chest and abdomen.
“No, please!” Dagmar shouted at the Laughing Man with a tremor in her voice. “Please don’t hurt him. Just take this and go, okay?”
The Laughing Man kicked McNolte one more time, then turned to Dagmar again and moved toward her quickly, menacingly. Emma watched him, assuming he was simply in a hurry to get the chicken and return to whatever dark corner he inhabited. He swung the bat so suddenly, so fast, that it did not register in Emma’s mind until the nails had already torn into the flesh of Dagmar’s forearm. Dagmar fell backward as the foil-wrapped pieces of chicken scattered over the ground.
Emma stood and lifted her long, heavy Mag-Lite, ready to use it as a weapon, but knowing all the while that she would have to flame him, and in the process flame the others. But before she could consider doing that, a figure came out of nowhere and jumped onto the Laughing Man’s back.
It was a short figure, and at first, Emma thought it was Boy, but he was standing in front of her, right beside Dagmar.
The Laughing Man let out a long, pathetic wail as the figure began to lift its arm up and down repeatedly, pounding the Laughing Man’s chest.
Emma glimpsed the knife. The person on the Laughing Man’s back was stabbing him in the chest repeatedly with a knife. Three times, four times, the blade made an ugly, thick sound each time it entered him, and he dropped to his knees with a heaving sound, then flopped face-down on the ground, groaning as his arms flopped uselessly.
When McNolte saw the Laughing Man topple, he wondered who had managed it—Emma or Dagmar.
Sharp, breathtaking pain clutched his chest as McNolte propped himself up on one elbow, pain so excruciating that it made tears spring to his eyes and sent chills across his back. He was certain the Laughing Man had cracked one of his ribs, maybe more, but he was determined to get to his feet, because someone had appeared from nowhere to dispatch the lumbering beast, and he wanted to know who it was.
He was on his knees, breathing shallow, wheezing breaths, when the figure got to its feet and, still clutching the knife in a fist, started toward the cardboard shelter, moving with purpose.
Emma gasped and said, “Miranda!”
The second the short, squat woman stepped into the firelight, her face became visible. It was a dead face, utterly lifeless.
Miranda stuffed her left hand into her coat pocket and removed something small and dark and heavy-looking, and without missing a step she lifted her hand almost casually and swept it toward Dagmar’s head. There was a thick pop sound and Dagmar dropped to the ground. Then she swept her hand in a backhand motion toward Emma.
Emma felt the blackjack knock against her skull and was conscious only long enough to see the black ground coming toward her with the speed of a train.
McNolte was on his feet by the time Miranda had knocked Emma to the ground. He groped through the layers of clothing for the gun P.W. had given him. He remembered that P.W. had stuffed it beneath his belt in the small of his back, but he could not feel it because his whole body had become numb. Reaching back for the gun sent through him a blade of pain so strangling that he could not cry out; he could do no more than whimper as he removed the gun and staggered forward with no idea what awaited him.
While McNolte fought his pain, Miranda reached down and grabbed Emma’s flashlight, then turned Emma onto her back, reached beneath her head, grabbed a fistful of her clothes and dragged her out of the partially collapsed cardboard shelter. Emma was dead weight and Miranda struggled with her at first, but once she found her stride, she started moving steadily in the darkness back the way she had come, the flashlight’s beam bobbing ahead of her to guide the way.
Until someone jumped on her back and wrapped small arms around her neck, squeezing her throat.
She knew right away that it was the little boy. She had considered hitting him with the blackjack as well, but saw no point because he was just a little kid and she had not expected him to be a problem.
Miranda let go of Emma and was swinging the flashlight back to knock the boy into next week when she saw his small fist slice out of the darkness holding a shard of broken glass, which he drove into her right cheek. She felt no pain at first, just the sharp edge of glass cutting all the way through her flesh and crunching grittily against her teeth, then pulling out again. A wet exhalation gushed through the hole in her cheek and she staggered to one side, dropping the flashlight and nearly losing her balance as she reached back over her shoulder and found the boy’s neck.
Before she could get him off of her, he brought the piece of glass down again and it tore into the right side of her nose, slicing down through her nostril. Then again, into the flesh above her upper lip, where the glass was chipped against her front teeth. And again, into her chin, digging into the bone. He did not make a sound as he tore up her face.
All the while, her arms flailed, first behind her in an attempt to grab him, then in front of her to stop the movement of his right arm. She could taste blood in her mouth and felt it running down her face, but she still felt little more than a harsh stinging where she had been cut.
Before he could stab the shard of glass into her face again, Miranda clutched his arm with both hands, bent forward and flung him off her back, slamming him to the ground hard. He was already starting to get up when she kicked him in the stomach hard enough to drop him again. He lay before her retching as she removed the blackjack from her coat pocket and swept it down hard against his head twice.
When she was certain the boy was unconscious, Miranda picked up the flashlight, grabbed a handful of Emma’s clothes again, and continued to drag her into the darkness as McNolte closed in on her. He had watched her dragging Emma away, had seen Boy try to stop her, and he had tried to cry out, but could not because of his pain. Whoever she was, he knew her name was Miranda because he had heard Emma call the name moments ago. And he had heard the fear in her voice, too.
McNolte wanted to take advantage of his close proximity to the woman because he knew he would lose it soon, and he raised the gun. It slipped from his trembling, sweaty-palmed hand, skittered over the ground, and he got on his knees, groped over the gravel and dirt and debris until he found it, then stood again, and took a few stumbling steps forward to close the distance between himself and Miranda. He was still taking shallow, rapid breaths to avoid pain, and he knew he would hyperventilate soon; his head already had a dizzy, shrinking sensation that was only growing worse. He staggered forward some more, then clutched the gun between both hands. His vision was blurred by tears of pain and the glow of the flashlight Miranda carried was little more than a pale smear in the darkness, but he aimed the gun in that direction.
From behind him, McNolte heard a low, wet grunt an instant before a large hand closed on his hair, lifted him from the ground, and threw him on his back like a sack of potatoes. He squeezed the gun, firing it wildly into the darkness as a knee slammed down on his stomach and two hands closed around his throat, squeezing so hard that McNolte could hear his own cartilage grinding. Warm blood spattered down from the Laughing Man onto McNolte’s face.
He could not breathe and tears flooded his eyes, but he could still move his arms and he flailed them blindly in spite of the daggers of pain that cut into his ribs. He hit the Laughing Man again and again. The sharp smell of Laughing Man’s body odor was overwhelming and his hulking body was hunched too low and close for McNolte to get the gun beneath him. As his eyes threatened to pop from their sockets and his face swelled to the point of bursting, McNolte lifted the gun and tried to place the barrel beside the Laughing Man’s head, but the tremble in his hand became a convulsion and his grip on the gun weakened as consciousness left him in a gush, as his lungs burned for breath and his throat exploded with pain.
The gun slipped from McNolte’s hand as the Laughing Man laughed.
Miranda dragged Emma through the darkness, the flashlight beam leading the way. But the bar of light did not reach far. From behind her, she heard the gunshot and the sound of McNolte’s struggle, but she ignored it and moved forward, swallowing the blood that gushed into her mouth from her wounds.
It was Miranda’s intention to get out of the city’s dark, ugly cellar with Emma and confront Dr. Jorgan. He was up there somewhere, she knew, and she wanted to drop Emma’s limp form before him and let him know that she was not the superwoman he had thought her to be, that she was a failure to the project and a failure to him, just another pretty face and nothing more. And then she would kill Emma Shaw right there in front of Dr. Jorgan and make him see the error of his ways. So determined was Miranda to accomplish this that the possibility that she might not make did not occur to her. She ignored her weakening state and growing pain to focus instead on the fact that she was lost.
Miranda realized she was lost when she came upon someone she had not seen on her way in: a bulbous, bald, sexless creature that hunkered in the darkness with just a few rags dangling from its white rolls of fat, which were covered with open sores. When the flashlight’s beam landed on the huge figure, it leaned forward, opened its mouth, and released a sound that fell somewhere between a guttural hiss and a growl, revealing wet gums that held three teeth on top and two on the bottom.
Not wanting to make trouble, Miranda took several quick steps away from the creature, then turned around and swept the flashlight’s beam back and forth, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong. After a moment of frantic thought, Miranda decided to go back the way she had come and find the little fortress of cardboard boxes in which Emma had been hiding.
But she could not find the boxes. It was as if the small, damaged shelter had never existed.
Blood ran into Miranda’s mouth from the holes that had been torn in her face. She bent forward to spit blood to the ground, then wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
Miranda had no idea what direction would lead her to the streets above, to the mission where Dr. Jorgan was still stupidly trying to save the life that Miranda now held in her hands.
Tightening her grip on Emma’s clothes, Miranda decided to wing it. She forged ahead as blood ran down her face and into her mouth. Emma’s limp and unconscious body crunched over the ground as Miranda dragged her through the darkness, moving the flashlight back and forth slowly, searchingly.
Miranda was certain there was a way out somewhere nearby, even if it was not the one through which she had come, but she could not find it.
Somewhere in the darkness ahead, she saw another flashlight beam sweeping back and forth. Miranda steered herself and Emma toward that light, hoping it was someone friendly. When she was close enough, Miranda turned her flashlight on the figure. It was a man wearing a white surgical mask over his nose and mouth. He held the light in his right hand and something else in his left, which was swallowed by the darkness. His eyes were familiar…extremely familiar.
He shone his flashlight in her face and made her recoil from the brightness.
“Miranda,” the man said in a friendly tone.
His voice pierced her with an icy chill.
“Mr. Shaw?” she said.
“Yes, that’s right. Jesus, Miranda, you’ve been hurt. You’re bleeding. What, uh…what are you dragging behind you, there?”
Miranda could not speak for a moment. She was so startled to see Mr. Shaw there under the city in that hellhole that her voice had momentarily left her.
Shaw’s flashlight beam moved down Miranda’s body and to the side, shining on Emma’s legs.
“That’s a person, isn’t it?” he said, coming closer. Then he smiled warmly at her and the incongruity of it made her feel woozy. “That’s…that’s my wife, isn’t it, Miranda?”
She coughed, then said, “Uh, Mr. Shaw, uh…I just want you to know—”
Before she finished, he raised his left hand and she saw the gun.
It fired.
The cloying humidity and rank odors down under brought a rush of memories back to P.W., memories of the time he had spent beneath the city during the winter before he was taken in at South Street. The memories were vivid enough to evoke the unmistakable taste of alcohol in his mouth and throat, the taste that had been with him day and night back then. Specifically Jack Daniel’s, his whiskey of choice, which he could scarcely afford by then. He smacked his lips, the taste so strong that he thought for a moment he could smell liquor on his own breath. But he let his memories disperse like smoke as he focused on finding McNolte and Emma, and avoiding trouble in the process.
Nothing had changed down under—not for the better, anyway. The rats were bigger than ever and the darkness seemed more crowded with people seeking shelter from the hostile streets above. P.W. had not been down there in over three years, and then only briefly with Dagmar to take some medicine to Boy, who had been too sick with the flu to come up top.
He held his gun in his right hand, and under his right arm he held one of the Mag-Lites from the mission. He was familiar enough with the layout that he knew he probably could find Dagmar’s cardboard shelter without the light once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but he was not about to try.
The moment his light fell on what was left of Dagmar’s shelter, P.W. knew things had gone terribly wrong. One wall had been toppled, the damp cardboard boxes scattered over the ground, most of them crushed. It was not like Dagmar to ignore such disorder; she lived in filth, but she took as much pride in her meager home as she could under the circumstances.
“Dagmar?” he said softly as he neared the shelter. When he saw her lying on the ground, he dropped to one knee beside her. She did not move when he placed a hand on her shoulder, and for a moment, he was sure she was dead.
“Thomebody hit ’em both over the head,” Wanda said, her voice a fearful whimper.
P.W. looked over at the old woman lying in the corner and was about to ask her who had hit them, when Dagmar moved.
“Dagmar, honey,” he said, “what happened? Are you hurt bad?”
She frowned as her head turned slowly back and forth. “No, no, not bad, but…” She gingerly touched the top of her head and winced. “…I got a bad headache.”
“Who did this?”
“Some woman. Her name…your friend, Emma…she called her Miranda.”
P.W. remembered the name from Emma’s account of everything that had happened to her. “Where’s Emma now?” he said.
“I…don’t know. She…she’s not here?”
“How about McNolte?”
“He…fought with…the Laughing Man.” Her voice was thick and she kept rubbing her head, eyes narrowing to slits.
“Are you hurt, Dagmar? You gonna be okay if I leave you here for a bit?”
Her eyes widened suddenly and she lifted her head with a gasp. “Where’s Boy? Oh, God, where’d Boy go?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”
She struggled to her hands and knees, then got to her feet. Once standing, she swayed a bit but seemed to ignore her dizziness, moving around P.W. and out of the small shelter.
P.W. got up and followed her, saying, “Hold up a sec, there, Dagmar, I’ve got light here.”
As they walked away from the shelter, P.W. swept the light over the filthy ground ahead of them, over the rubble and litter and black clumps of human feces.
“Why would he go off like that?” she said, panic quavering in her voice. “Unless he was taken, oh, Jesus, if he was taken—”
“Hey, don’t worry just yet, okay?” he said.
They found him curled up in a ball, his shoulders hitching with silent sobs. Dagmar knelt beside him and wrapped her arms around him, murmuring words of reassurance as she held him tightly.
P.W. leaned down and spoke quietly to Dagmar. “I’m gonna go look for McNolte, okay? Don’t wander far from here, and I’ll be back.”
She glanced up at him and nodded once, holding her injured son close and whispering into his ear.
