Stage 3 (Book 3): Bravo Page 4

  Mack was the first child he'd ever really known, but he'd recently come to suspect that every kid must be born knowing how to say things in just such a way to cut like a knife through every adult's heart.

  He saw Jesse look to her grandfather, and though she said not a word, he caught a hint of something behind her expressionless face. Fear? No. That wasn't it. Not exactly. Desperation, maybe? No, that wasn't it, either.

  And then he had it. It was such a new thing to him, it was no wonder it'd taken him so long. The girl was looking to her grandfather with hope. She hoped he would give in. She hoped that it would somehow work out. She hoped that they wouldn't have be alone anymore.

  Watch how tightly you hold that double-edged sword, sweetheart… he told her inside his head. When that sucker cuts, it cuts deep...

  “Mack...” he started to say, but Daniel put up a hand to stop him.

  “I'm sorry, my dear,” he said to Mackenzie, “but we really do have to get home.”

  “Why?” Alejandra butted in, taking a moment to remoisten the whetstone with a gob of spit. “You left the water running or something? Madre… what's at home that's so much better than anywhere else in esta locura?”

  “It is home, my dear,” Daniel informed her, clearly and precisely. “It is home.”

  Addison slurped up the last of his spaghetti, and with a quick look into the pot on the stove and a resultant sigh, he laid the empty bowl down for Clancy to lick clean.

  “So, what then?” he said, ruffling the big dog's ears. “You guys'll live on strawberries and goat milk for the rest of your lives?”

  “Actually,” Daniel had a sudden inspiration, “now that you mention it, the Montcliefs down the road have goats. I'm sure they would have fared just fine with ten acres of open field, even if Terence and Judith had been less fortunate. Have you ever tasted goat's milk, Addison? It is surprisingly sweet!”

  “Hey, Grampa, what about the Johnstones?” Jesse said, displaying more of that pesky hope. “They have chickens, don't they?”

  “Indeed, they do!” Daniel gave his knee a slap. “And the Bertronellis have pigs, the Wittickers have horses, and I believe there might even be a cow or two within walking distance. So there you are, Addison! Milk, eggs, bacon, transportation...”

  Addison turned to Alejandra as she held her machete to her eye, checking the edge. “Actually, it sounds pretty good.”

  She replied with an indifferent sideways head-bob and slid the blade back into its sheath. “Not bad,” she admitted at last.

  All of a sudden, it sounded not so bad to Mason, too. In fact, it sounded a whole lot better than not bad. Until now, he hadn't wasted a moment's thought on what they would do... after. That single word held so much promise and so much horror that he hadn't allowed himself to even consider it. But the way Daniel described that impossible future with such conviction, an after seemed almost within reach. He didn't go so far as to imagine himself in that idyllic world, but he put Sarah and Mack and the rest of them there, and that image brought him a certain amount of peace.

  If he could do that much for Sarah and Mack and the others, he could die happy. He need only imagine Mack and Clancy frolicking through the grass and Sarah standing on a porch, laughing at their antics, to know how much he suddenly wanted them to have an after. He even considered declaring right then and there that he should go on to San Bruno alone and that they should all go with Daniel and have that idyllic after. But even as he considered the idea, he knew it would never happen. Sarah would never allow it, and Mack would never allow it, and that would end the debate. Then, he considered how low the chances were of finding Becks alive, and whether or not there was any point in trying at all. But that road was a dead-end too. As long as there was a shred of hope of finding Becks, he had to try.

  Careful how tightly you hold that sword, Mace...

  “You're all welcome,” Daniel said at last, burying the blade even deeper. “Most of the property is open, but two acres around the house are fenced, and I'm sure a few strong backs could expand that acreage considerably.”

  Secretly, Mason hoped that at least some of them would snap at the bait. Inez, maybe? She was a fifty-year old woman. Surely, she'd be more comfortable milking goats than fighting for her life. And Beverly? Poor Beverly had been through enough. Would anyone blame her if she opted for cows and horses over alphas and echoes? If even one of these incredible people took Daniel up on his offer, just one, then Mason could consider his life well spent.

  But then Mackenzie spoke up and drove the blade straight through his heart.

  “We have to find Becks,” she said, and Mason could almost hear her adding the silent words, or die trying...

  CHAPTER IV

  With the highway turned into a parking lot, the options were few. Mission Street flanked the I-280, but that way was jammed, too. The only other option was John Daly Boulevard heading west, but they'd passed by it the day before and Mason hadn't had to look beyond the burned wreckage of an ancient pile-up to know that Daly wasn't going to cut it.

  “So, what then?” Sarah asked, struggling to fold a blanket-sized map into the appropriate square. “Brotherhood Way to Lake Merced? Daly to Fairview Drive?”

  “I have another idea,” he said, cranking the big truck to life and throwing it into gear. “You might want to buckle up. It might get a bit bumpy.”

  “I don't think I like the sound of that...” he heard Christopher whisper from behind.

  Mackenzie corralled Clancy into the sleeper cab, and she and Inez and Christopher braced themselves as best they could, as Mason set out with two other vehicles close on his tail.

  The first was an old pickup, like something out of an old episode of The Waltons. Chevy. Mid-forties, if he had to guess. It belched the occasional puff of blue exhaust, but by Daniel's reckoning, it had never let him down before, so it wasn't about to now. The second was a beautifully-restored 1969 Mustang Mach 1 with Alejandra behind the wheel, and Addison hanging on for dear life beside her, while Beverly huddled in the back seat. Mason remembered Alejandra getting all gooey over the Boss 9 engine and forged steel cranks when she discovered the vehicle on a hoist at one of their safe houses. But she failed to mention the 300-watt sound system filling the trunk.

  Even before they started, Alejandra pushed a button and the music started blaring, and Mason couldn't complain. They were safely wrapped in a shell of strong American steel, and he had to admit that if there was a better way of shouting out to the world, '“We're still alive, motherfuckers!'” he didn't know it. Besides, who on Earth would be stupid enough to tell the Latina spitfire to turn down the tunes?

  Mason pulled the Peterbilt out of the parking lot to the opening twangs of an electric guitar and a stand-up bass, then the unmistakable voice of the great Chuck Berry howled out of the Mustang.

  I bought a brand-new air-mobile... It was custom-made, 'twas a Flight De Ville… With a pow’rful motor and some hideaway wings... Push in on the button and you can hear her sing...

  Mason cleaved effortlessly through a pack of charging alphas and bashed a half-dozen abandoned vehicles easily aside. Thanks in no small part to one more alteration they'd made to the big truck's design. He had dismissed Christopher's suggestion at first, but after a lot of scrounging and considerably more experimentation with a welding torch than either of them cared to admit, they'd eventually managed to affix three big metal struts to the truck's chassis and cover them with two plates of heavy-gauge steel. It was crude and it was ugly and it shot their gas mileage to hell, but Christopher had been spot-on correct when he'd extolled the virtue of the thing. What they had now was a cowcatcher, as strong and as solid as any that might have graced the nose of any old-time steam locomotive.

  The abandoned cars peeled off to either side, and Mason pulled the Peterbilt onto Brotherhood Way. The incongruously named road was more of a highway, and as such, it had become as much a parking lot as every other major route out of the city, complete with its compliment of the
dead and undead. As always, some poor fools had opted to remain in the relative safety of their vehicles rather than face the desperate mobs outside, not realizing that they were locking themselves in with something far worse. All it took was for Mom or Dad or little Becky-Sue to get sick, and the rest of them were turned into chum. Some of those family-killers had managed to escape by clawing madly at the doors and getting lucky with a door handle, but not all. Even as Mason took to the shoulder to skirt the worst of it, he could see alphas raging away behind tempered glass streaked and spotted with ancient blood.

  Just then, and in a display of the worst timing imaginable, one of those imprisoned alphas was whipped into a frenzy by the sound of Gloria's big motor, and chose just that moment to break free. A door popped open, a teenaged alpha in a blood-stained hoodie burst out, and Mason drove blithely into it, pinning it against the door, then ripping the door completely off of the car. The sight elicited a moan of disgust from Inez and an excited little whoop! from Christopher. But that one alpha was hardly alone. Everywhere the big truck went, it acted as a gigantic dinner bell, stirring up alphas for miles around. They came from behind, they came from in front, and they came from every direction in between. Stumbling, falling, and running blindly into one impediment or another, but never stopping.

  Never.

  Mason kept the Peterbilt as close as he could to the shoulder, but even so, he continually had to push more vehicles out of the way. Some were unoccupied and some weren't, but he treated them all with equal disregard. If it was a small enough car, he would simply maintain speed and punt the vehicle out of the way. If the vehicle was heavier or in a tangle with one or more others, it required a more delicate touch, so he would slow to a crawl and use Gloria's considerable muscles to bulldoze the lot of them to one side or the other. At one point, he came across a van and an SUV wedged solidly against a light pole, and they steadfastly refused to budge. But by backing off and coming at them from a slightly different angle, they finally rolled clear, crushing two alphas in the process. At last, there was room to escape the parking lot.

  He bounded the truck down an incline, opened up space for the others through a cluster of cars, and made a hard left onto a side street. It looked more like an access road than a thruway, but it was clear enough that he could finally pick up speed again.

  Sarah tried to follow their progress on the map, but she was having little success.

  “Thomas More? Is that what the sign said?”

  As she folded and refolded the map, Christopher piped up from the back, “Hey, I saw that movie! Richard Burton, right?”

  “Mmm... Now there was a good-looking man,” Inez purred.

  Mason checked his mirrors and saw the swarm falling behind, and with the road treed on both sides, he couldn't blame Alejandra for rolling her window down and hanging out an arm. On the other hand, Daniel and Jesse kept the windows of the pickup closed tight, and he couldn't blame them either.

  Soon enough, the access road ended at something like a paved footpath. Someone in the back hushed, “Uh oh,” but Mason didn't stop. He slowed just enough to make the turn, then he swung the wheel to the right and made that footpath his own. Branches slapped against the windshield and threatened to tear away the mirrors, but then they broke into the open and Sarah barely had time for a quick, “Uh, Mace?” before the truck peeled off the path and onto a bright green lawn.

  “Anyone up for quick round?” Christopher laughed aloud as Mason steered them straight down the middle of one of the San Francisco Golf Club's immaculately-groomed fairways.

  He ploughed over a pair of alphas in garishly-patterned pantaloons and tore up a hundred square feet of grass as he swerved around a sand trap. As he launched an abandoned golf cart high into the trees, the music from Alejandra's red rocket switched tracks. Whether it was a sly dig at Addison or a random pick of the MP3 player, Mason hadn't a clue. But it was a song he knew well, and he couldn't help but sing along.

  Well, that'll be the day, when you say goodbye, Ye-e-es that'll be the day, when you make me cry-y, You say you're gonna leave, you know it's a lie, 'Cause that'll be the day-ay-ay when I die…

  Inez joined in, then Christopher, and finally Sarah joined in too. With all four of them doing four distinctly off-key Buddy Holly impressions, all Mackenzie could do was hang on for dear life and laugh as if it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen in her life.

  Mason swerved the truck around a copse of trees and cut across two more fairways, rolling over countless dead and undead along the way, and tearing up hundreds of yards of the finest and most expensive grass in all of San Francisco. Then, he took a hard left and skirted between two particularly deep sand traps.

  At last, he maneuvered the monster truck through a final tangle of trees as easily as if he were on a dirt bike, and emerged onto a narrow path barely wide enough to accommodate Gloria's girth.

  One quick turn later, and they were on a green-belt between two housing complexes, and alphas suddenly came screaming in at them from both sides. The big truck slewed and skidded on the grass as Mason took intentional aim at as many creatures as he could, to clear the way for the others. Then, he cranked the wheel hard, bounced over a curb, and drove onto and through an empty baseball field. He stopped on the pitcher's mound just long enough to make sure the Walton-mobile was keeping up and to allow the low-riding Mustang to creep gingerly up and over the curb at a crawl. Then, they were off again.

  The twists and turns through this suburban Hell had Sarah continuously folding and unfolding and refolding the map. But even after spreading the whole thing out on the dashboard and still unable to make heads or tails of the thing, she finally gave up, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it out the window, eliciting an amused giggle from Mackenzie and a roof-raising howl of laughter from Inez.

  They crossed under the I-280, and Mason finally pulled the truck over. He keyed it off and waved an arm through the open window. Dutifully, Alejandra cut the music just as Country Joe and the Fish were telling everyone to lay down their books and pick up their gun.

  The old Chev pulled up to Gloria's flank, and Jesse rolled down her window.

  “That's Mission Road up ahead,” he called down to her. “If I were you, I'd stay on that road as far as possible. It'll take you all the way down to Burlingame, and hopefully the highway will be more open by then.”

  Before Jesse could relay the message, Daniel leaned across to the passenger side and doffed his imaginary cap. “I know the way from here, Mace. Thank you so very much! I wish you the very best of luck, my friend. All of you! And if you happen to be anywhere near Pescadero...”

  Mason counted more than a dozen alphas closing in, so he waved his goodbyes and put the truck back into gear. But then Sarah leaned over him and stuck her head out the window.

  “You both be safe!” she shouted down to the old pickup that suddenly looked incredibly tiny. “Take care of each other! Always!”

  “We will!” Jesse called back, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.

  Sarah receded, and again Mason waved his goodbyes, but then Mackenzie appeared from out of the back and crawled bodily over him to the window.

  “Jesse!” she fairly howled, “Jesse! Will you teach me how to milk a goat?”

  A tear streaked down the girl's face, but she still had to laugh.

  “Sure! I'll have to teach myself first, but then I'll teach you!”

  They gave each other a little wave, and the Chevy pulled slowly away. It swung around the corner, and just like that, Daniel and Jesse were gone.

  Mackenzie crawled off Mason's lap and into Sarah's, and the inside of the Peterbilt was suddenly deathly quiet. Mason considered any number of things he could say that might lift the girl's spirits, but ultimately, he said nothing. Sarah didn't say a word, either. She simply tucked Mackenzie's little face into her neck and stroked her hair. Then, she reached a hand out for Mason, and that simple touch said more than either of them could ever convey with words.

  A
t last, the gathering swarm was close enough that Addison began waving frantically for them to get the show on the road. So, Mason eased the truck forward with one hand on the wheel and the other tucked into Sarah's. As he did, Country Joe and the Fish returned at full volume.

  And it's five, six, seven

  Open up the pearly gates

  Well, there ain't no time to wonder why

  Whoopee! we're all gonna die…

  CHAPTER V

  Suburban Hell, indeed.

  Never before had those words been more apropos. Like so much of the Bay Area, San Bruno had been a city planner's wet dream. Row after row of cookie-cutter bungalows, all conforming to strict community standards. A postage stamp of grass cut to within an inch of its life. Not a single shrub or flower stinking the place up unless expressly authorized by committee. And nothing as incongruous as a wind chime or a lawn chair, or God forbid, a child's swing-set anywhere in view.

  On a regular day, Mason regarded this sort of neighbourhood much like he did one of those multilevel birdhouses. Just like purple martins in their condos, these people crammed themselves in, one on top of the other, and they got along only through a mutually agreed-upon social convention. An obligatory wave to the neighbour across the way. Empty garbage cans removed from the curb forthwith. TV sets turned down after eight pm. And if little Suzy or Billy or Bobby was having a birthday party, every other kid on the street had to receive an invitation whether they were friends or not. As long as the rules were followed, the flock got along just fine. But when the shit hit the fan, the rules of a polite society didn't just break down ─ they went up in a funeral pyre.

  As Mason weaved the truck through that suburban Hell, the way in which those final days unfolded was all too evident. Here, a body crumpled across a curb. There, an entire family splayed out around a little grease spot in an empty driveway. On this side of the road, a soccer mom in a minivan, slumped over the wheel. On the other side, a child's body hung half-in and half-out of a shattered front window.