Stage 3 (Book 3): Bravo Read online

  The hands came off of Mason's shoulder, but they didn't part, and neither Mason nor Sarah made a move to correct the old man's assumption. In another life, Mason could easily have seen himself falling in love with Sarah, and he could imagine this other self living a peaceful, happy life with this incredible woman and her amazing daughter. But in this world, he wasn't in love with her. He simply loved her. Not as a wife, not as a girlfriend, not as a sister... but he loved her deeply and sincerely. And so, he was quite content to hold the hand of the woman he loved and let the old man think whatever he wanted to think.

  “She sounds lovely,” Sarah said at last.

  “Oh, she was that,” Daniel replied with a little catch in his throat. “She was that, and more…”

  The barest crunch of gravel signalled the return of Christopher, this time with two others in tow; Addison in his sweater vest and dress pants, hitching his Buddy Holly glasses high up on his nose, and Alejandra in her leather jacket and skin-tight jeans, torn at one knee. Christopher set a pair of ten-gallon metal buckets on the ground near the Peterbilt, and they all gathered around Mason as he explained the mission. They listened to his every word as he laid out the plan, and when no one voiced any concerns or offered any suggestions, the entire team went back to work.

  First, Sarah swapped her Howitzer for the .22 rifle and took a position over the roof of the Peterbilt, with one foot inside the cab and the other braced against the open door ─ giving her a clear, 180-degree view of the lot. Then, the others unslung their long-barreled weapons and left them leaning against the truck, in favour of what they'd come to call their 'SBDs.' For Alejandra, it was a machete as long as her arm. Christopher had come across a long-handled hatchet somewhere along the way, and he'd since added some counterweight to give it the perfect balance. And Addison carried a unique weapon that he'd crafted himself and had lovingly dubbed 'The Nut-Buster.' It was a wooden baseball bat with a slot cut in the end, into which he'd fitted a ten-inch, shark-toothed blade from a circular-saw. A bolt through the middle of the blade and enough epoxy to choke a horse later, and the Nut-Buster was born. Silent but deadly indeed, and sharp enough to cleave through solid bone.

  With one final pat on Clancy's head and a cautionary, “Not this time, Clance. You stay here and watch our backs,” Mason grabbed the three empty jerry cans, Christopher took the metal buckets, and Alejandra led the way through the open door of the truck, across the cab, and out the other side. She flung the door open hard enough to bowl over a female echo, then she leapt down and finished the creature off with a slash through the skull. Addison followed and immediately joined in on finishing off the last two echoes, then they took up positions on either side to act as sentinels as Christopher and Mason emerged and sprinted across the parking lot.

  Mason picked one of the two trucks at random and tapped lightly on the fuel tank. He grimaced, swore inside his head, and scurried around to the tank on other side. He tapped again, shot Christopher a grin, and positioned one of the buckets under the tank. The gas cap was locked, but even if it weren't, there were better ways of getting at what was inside than sucking up a mouthful of diesel fuel through a hose. With a single thrust of his blade on the underside of the tank, the fuel started to trickle, and when he opened up an air hole on the top of the tank, it literally gushed.

  The bucket was filled in seconds, and in a carefully choreographed move, Mason swapped the full bucket for one of the jerry cans. Christopher lit off back to the Peterbilt as quickly as he could, spilling as little of the fuel as possible. Ten seconds later, he ran back with the empty bucket and sent Mason away with a full jerry can. Over and over, they took turns making the mad dash to Gloria. When the gush of fuel slowed back to a trickle, they moved to the next truck and repeated the process.

  The sentinels only had to act twice in those first minutes, and both times, the duty fell upon Addison. The first was a slow-moving echo, and a single blow from the Nut-Buster was enough to cleave its skull open all the way down to the bridge of its pert little nose. Then, an alpha came charging in, screeching and clawing wildly at the air. So, he wrenched the Nut-Buster free, took two light steps aside to let the thing hurtle past, and swung around backwards to catch the alpha in the lower back, just above the waistline of its little black cocktail dress. The creature continued to slash its perfectly-manicured claws even as it fell. But with a severed spine, it could only crawl along on its elbows, gnashing its jaws and snarling like a jungle cat. One final blow ended the noise, but then another sound took its place as three, then four, then five alphas appeared out of nowhere and came charging in from both sides.

  It just so happened that Mason had been running back with an empty jerry can, when one of the alphas came straight at him from around a corner. He used the nearest weapon at hand to defend himself. He swung the jerry can as hard as he could and caught the alpha on the side of its head with a resounding clang! But it barely even fazed the creature. He hit it again, and then again and again, but he knew that he was only buying himself fractions of a second. But at last, those fractions of a second added up, and he finally had the time and space to deliver a crushing kick to the alpha's knee. There was harsh snap! as the knee folded backwards. As the creature teetered on the very brink of collapse, Mason pulled a knife from his belt and drove it up under the alpha's ribs, straight into its heart.

  He looked to Alejandra and saw her slashing away like a lumberjack, hacking one leg deeply enough to spray a fountain of blood, then chopping another creature's hand off at the wrist before delivering a second blow that split the alpha's belly wide open. As the thing's guts unspooled onto the ground, she gave it one last whack to the neck, then she returned to the other, spewing blood from its femoral artery, and calmly and deftly removed its head from its body.

  On the other side, Addison had just taken down a spry teenaged alpha with the Nut-Buster through its throat, but when he lined up a similar shot on a little old female hobbling in on a shattered ankle, the alpha stumbled at the very last second and the saw blade drove straight through its gaping mouth, opening up its cheeks like a zipper. The creature's upper plate went flying, and its lower plate lodged at the back of its throat. Yet, it still came at him, snapping its gums and doing its best to snarl through a Joker grin that quite literally went from ear to ear.

  Mason hurried the last few yards to find Christopher safely tucked between the big rigs, hurriedly screwing caps onto the other two jerry cans as the last of the diesel fuel trickled into a bucket. Mason grabbed both of the cans and motioned for Christopher to take the half-filled bucket, then he flicked his head back toward the Peterbilt and mouthed a single word, “Go!”

  And that, Christopher did. He was young and he was fit, but the sloshing bucket slowed him down enough that Mason passed him by at a gallop, and had the jerry cans shoved all the way across the floor of the cab before Christopher arrived. He took the bucket while Christopher hauled himself in. Then, he gingerly handed it back, careful not to spill a single drop.

  That done, he went to the rear of the cab and unsaddled his own SBD. At seven feet long and two inches thick, the rebar had to weigh fifty pounds or more, but in Mason's hands, it might as well have been weightless. He gave it one quick spin as easily as twirling a feather, then he went to help his friends.

  Addison and Alejandra were holding their own, but it wouldn't last. More alphas were coming, as Mason knew they would. The sounds of battle always brought more. Take down one and three took its place. Take down three and a dozen came. Take down a dozen and you'd better be prepared for all of Hell to come crashing down around your ears.

  A quick count showed seven more coming at a run, but it was too late for Addison and Alejandra to break off from the fight and run. If they ran, they'd die. So, this had to end, and it had to end fast.

  Mason waded fearlessly into the path of the oncoming swarm and caved in two skulls in the time it took him to take a single breath. The three of them met in the middle then, and fought for all the
y were worth, while Sarah took aim over the hood of the Peterbilt and picked off any late-comers with a handclap. Barely a minute passed before the parking lot was littered with a dozen or more bodies, and the embattled trio could finally take a moment to catch their breath.

  But they didn't have long. Five more alphas appeared from out of nowhere in a rage, and judging by the chorus of howls rising up from all around, Mason knew that the shit-storm had arrived.

  He gave the signal, and all three of them ran for their lives.

  Alejandra got to the truck first, but she stood guard until Addison arrived, huffing and puffing, and only once he had heaved himself in, did she follow. Still, she waited in the doorway in a crouch, while Mason clubbed one last alpha to dust. Then, she scampered across the cab as Mason leaped in and slammed the door shut against the swarm.

  As the creatures raged and howled and pounded against a solid wall of grade-A Detroit steel, he squeezed his big frame awkwardly through the cab and out the other side. Sarah met him with a smile and a hug as he alit. Alejandra offered him a fist-bump and a high-five, and Daniel came up to him with eyes wide, jaw slack, and hand shakily extended.

  “My word, Mace. If that was simply a group of friends taking care of each other, I pity the poor bastard who tries to do you harm.”

  Mason produced one last piece of licorice from his shirt pocket, popped the end of it into his mouth like a cigar, and shook the old man's hand.

  “I don't,” he said, slipping the rebar back into its cradle.

  CHAPTER III

  “So, you're risking your life to find a friend? That's very noble of you, Mace. And it speaks highly of you all!”

  Alejandra scoffed as she slid a sharpening stone down the length of her machete as gently and lovingly as if she were petting a dog.

  “Every minute in this living Hell is a risk. What difference does it make if we risk our lives here or there?”

  No one raised a word of objection, Mason included. It might have been because most were busy eating. Mason himself was trying like hell to wind spaghetti around a plastic fork and failing miserably. But in reality, the question was perfectly valid. The entire world was a war zone. They were fighting for their lives every second of every day. What possible difference did it make where they fought?

  “I wish I could offer everyone some fresh bread to sop up the sauce, but I'm afraid all I could find were crackers.”

  This was Inez. Christopher's mother, head chef, and ersatz mother of the entire group. Tall, stately, proud, the woman was as quick with a smile or a kind word as she was with the revolver on her hip.

  “It's delicious, ma'am.” Jesse beamed a smile. “I can't believe this came from a jar. It tastes better than homemade!”

  “Well, aren't you sweet! Thank you, Jesse. The magic in any meal is always in the spices.”

  Mackenzie was knee-to-knee with Jesse, but she leaned even closer and whispered, “She has like a thousand little jars. She calls it her Chemistry Set.”

  Jesse's giggle was infectious enough to spread to the others, but it didn't last long.

  “It's important to know for sure that our loved ones are dead,” Beverly offered her own opinion to Daniel. “It doesn't make them any less dead, but at least we know.”

  And with that, the mood dropped like a stone.

  Beverly. Poor, damaged Beverly. As far as Mason was concerned, the woman had been through more than any mother should ever have to bear. She hadn't just lost her child, she'd seen it torn to pieces by the swarm. She tried to hide her pain and fear behind a tough-as-nails facade, but Mason knew better. The horror of that experience had left a scar on that poor woman all the way down to the core.

  With everyone suddenly and suspiciously focused entirely on their dinner, Mason spoke up to break the awkward silence.

  “Becks means a lot to me, Daniel. Well, I suppose I should say that she meant a lot to me. Either way, she was a big part of my life, so yes, I have to know.”

  “And you're okay with this are you, Sarah?” Daniel asked, rather hesitantly.

  Sarah popped an expertly wound ball of pasta into her mouth and laid a gentle hand on Mason's knee. “Of course! Whole-heartedly!”

  “Becks had a place in the Mission District,” Mason offered, scowling at Sarah's success with the spaghetti while he was having none of his own. “But the whole block was gone, burned to the ground. Might've been a gas leak, or maybe just a candle that got knocked over. Whatever. But the last call my phone registered was from her parents' landline in San Bruno. So, I assume it was her. She must've gone there when we, uh... after we... Well, anyway, if she's anywhere, she'll be there.”

  Again, he'd left a word out. A single word. Alive. If she's anywhere alive, she'll be there.

  For the first few days after this whole thing started, in those few moments when he'd thought about Becks at all, it had always been in the past tense. He'd already had time to relegate her to the past after she left him, then the world ended to seal the deal. And from then on, the past really was the past. Dead. Buried. Forgotten. It was enough just to try staying alive for one more day or one more hour or one more minute, without dwelling on what used to be. But then the strangest thing happened. A tiny little girl managed to teach him the power of hope. He began to think of a possible future, and with it, little bits of the past began to bleed through. And it was only then that he realized what a double-edged sword this thing called 'hope' really was.

  Did he believe Becks was alive? No. Of course not. The odds were infinitesimal at best. If she was at home when the world ended, she was either torn to shreds or turned to ash. Even if that last call had been from her, all the way down in San Bruno, the odds were exactly the same. Becks was dead, sure as shit. She couldn't possibly be alive. No way. Not a chance. There was no way on Earth she could still be alive. And yet, through it all, one abiding, insane thought kept nagging away at the back of his mind.

  Could she be?

  “Normally, it would be a twenty minute drive,” Addison mumbled between mouthfuls. “But with the highway blocked and the surface roads not much better, it's taken us two days just to get this far.”

  “We know about the roads, don't we, Grampa?” Jesse sighed.

  “Oh, indeed we do. You were quite right to use the term 'bottleneck,' Mace.”

  Mason tried one last time to get more than two strands of spaghetti onto the plastic fork at a time. Then he gave up completely, threw the fork over his shoulder, and reached into his back pocket. Like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, he whipped out a good-old stainless steel fork. As the others looked on in varying degrees of surprise and amusement, he set about emptying his bowl.

  “Where do you keep the parmesan cheese?” Addison asked, deadpan. “In your snood?”

  Mason ignored him.

  “It won't be easy, Daniel, that's for sure. With the I-280 out, we'll have to slug our way through one of a half-dozen surface roads between Lake Merced and the hills. It won't be so much a bottleneck as a gauntlet.”

  “I can attest to that,” the old man harrumphed. “We got this far and could go no farther. My idea was to stock up on what supplies we could, then try going up around the lake. I don't much like the idea of backtracking so far, but...”

  “Bad idea, Daniel,” Sarah said, cutting him off.

  “One way in, one way out.” This from Christopher.

  “Never go anywhere unless you have a back door,” Beverly concluded. Suddenly disinterested in her dinner, she laid her bowl aside in favour of a pull from a half-pint bottle of scotch.

  Mason levelled a scowl at Beverly, but not because she was drinking. Hell, he was no stranger to the bottle himself. In fact, there were times when he’d thought it'd be best for all concerned if every one of them maintained a perpetual semi-buzz as they wandered through this hellscape. No, he scowled at her because the bottle was one of his.

  But the scowl was fleeting, ultimately. Beverly was part of the team, so what was his was hers. T
he pistol on her hip and the shotgun slung across her back were from his own personal armory, so she was welcome to his booze every bit as she was to the guns. Perhaps, even more so. If it helped to numb the pain.

  “I reckon that leaves the canyon road out, too,” Daniel sighed as he set his bowl on the floor. Then, he remembered his manners and turned a warm smile to Inez. “That was absolutely delicious, my dear. A hot meal was a godsend. Thank you so very much!”

  Inez waved the compliment away. “All I did was boil water and open a few jars. Point me in the direction of a proper kitchen and turn me loose, and I'll show you some real cooking!”

  “Spaghetti sure beats the snot out of cold soup and dry cereal any day,” Jesse said, eliciting a cute little giggle from Mackenzie.

  Clancy had already had his dinner, but with so many discarded bowls lying around, he began snorfling his way from one to the other, gobbling up what was left and licking the bowls clean. Far from being scolded, he was greeted with head pats and neck scratches from everyone in turn.

  “Well, there's enough food in here to keep you going for a while,” Mason said, finishing off his meal with a flourish, then licking the fork clean and slipping it back into his pocket. “You're welcome to it all, and you can take the camp stove, too. And if there's anything you need that we have, we'll see what we can spare.”

  A distinct sadness washed over the old man's face as he gave Mason a single nod. “That's very generous. Thank you, Mace. Thank you all for being so very kind.”

  Another awkward silence then, until Mackenzie turned to Mason and asked what the rest of them were undoubtedly thinking.

  “Can't they come with us, Mace?” she asked sweetly.