Chapter Twenty-Three

 

The interior of Freedom Mall was a scene of mass chaos. Word about the mutie attack from all quarters had spread effortlessly through the storefronts and common areas of the mall, creating a panic where panic was the only foe to fight. And as the word spread and the fear grew, a planning flaw in the reconfiguration of the mall's sec setup was becoming painfully evident.

 

The main entrance into the massive two-story construction was also the site of the primary exit, since all fire doors, loading docks and the nearly forty other former exit-entrances into Freedom had been long since barricaded shut with concrete and stone, and chain and metal.

 

As the masses tried to flee from terrors both real and imagined, the greed in men's hearts came bubbling up to the surface. Realizing that all of the available members of the Freedom Mall sec staff were busy with the stickie onslaught, looters appeared in all of the stores and shops. Some of the establishments were closed for the night, others abandoned by their owners, who had fled into the mob attempting to escape. These were loudly ransacked.

 

However, other store owners had no interest in leaving their staked territory. Any thieves entering these stores with stealing on their minds found proprietors hidden inside armed and waiting for whatever threat might come bursting through their doors. Crazed human or crazier mutie, they didn't care. Try to infringe on what was theirs, and a person would be cut down in a hail of blasterfire.

 

At the multiplex, Doc, J.B. and Mildred had learned of the crisis when the movie had been stopped in midreel. Mildred hadn't minded the interruption in the least. The humor of Dawn of the Dead was being totally lost on her, as well as on Doc, although J.B. seemed to be greatly enjoying himself.

 

The angry audience had taken offense and was ready to lynch the projectionist until Boston from the box office came out with news of what was happening outside.

 

Now the three friends were struggling to make their way through the teeming, panicked masses. The looting of the many mall business establishments had already begun, an unstoppable wave of shrieking lust for food, clothing and, best of all, material possessions.

 

"By the Three Kennedys!" Doc bellowed, raising his voice to be heard over of the cacophony of the mob. "These ignorant fools are raiding their own henhouses! Can they not see they are assisting in the destruction of their own sanctuary?"

 

"They don't give a damn, Doc," Mildred replied sadly. "They just don't care. I haven't seen the likes of this since the 1992 L.A. riots. Tomorrow there might be some remorse mixed in with twinges of guilt, but tonight is wilding time. The time of the unleashed collective id."

 

"Don't quote Freud to me, Doctor. Sometimes a cigar is a cigar, and sometimes a pack of wolves is a pack of wolves," Doc retorted, using his sheathed swordstick to beat and jab a clear path through the milling mass of people.

 

"Watch it," one unruly mass of muscle and leather spun and bellowed at Doc. "Poke me again, and I'll jam that toothpick up your skinny ass."

 

"Better men than you have tried, sir," Doc bellowed back.

 

J.B raised his M-4000 scattergun. "Keep moving, friend, or I'll clear a path the old-fashioned way," the Armorer intoned. "Right though your gut."

 

The talking mass of muscle looked at the twin barrels, snorted and continued on, allowing the trio to pass unmolested down the annex area to the entrance of the satellite mall-sec headquarters. As official members of the sec team, each knew the entry code. Doc took the honors, beeping in the series of numbers to command the door to unlock.

 

No sliding pneumatic doorways here. After the door popped open and swung inward on the hinges, it remained that way until pulled tightly closed and left sealed for the next visitor who needed access to the sec area.

 

What the friends found inside were two faces belonging to their fellow sec men, two men armed with M-16 autoblasters leveled right at them as they entered.

 

"Come on in," Ike said, a turbanlike white bandage wound around his head.

 

"Always good to see friends," Mike echoed.

 

 

 

"REPORT, AND KEEP IT short," Rollins hissed into the hand comm unit. Around him his remaining backup man and Ryan and the others cast nervous eyes into the darkness around the roof of Freedom Mall.

 

"The roofs on fire over here. Going up fast," the frightened voice replied through the unit. "And we're pinned down by high-powered blasterfire. Can't get through the access hatch. Where'd they get the blasters, sir?"

 

"Where doesn't matter. Dealing with it is. Regroup your party. You'll have to move over and above to get to where we are. We've secured this end. In fact we'll try and meet you halfway if possible. Rollins out." The big man terminated the communication and returned the radio to his belt.

 

"They need backup," Ryan said.

 

"I know."

 

"Is it possible to go from one end to the other by roof?" Krysty asked.

 

Rollins leaned down to tighten a lace on his combat boots. "That's the idea. We'll use the stickie fires to guide us."

 

Ryan took off at a measured sprint, Jak and Krysty both at his heels.

 

 

 

STILL IN A CROUCH, Rollins followed Ryan's lead. Both men stayed low until reaching the outcropping of the built-up skylight area used to provide natural lighting to Freedom during daylight hours. Ryan continued to squat, his knees protesting from being forced to support his full body weight for so long.

 

Each of them held their breath, waiting, listening for any type of noise to come.

 

Rollins had attempted another communication with Jameson's sec team, but had gotten nothing back in the way of an answer but static.

 

Ryan eased out of the crouched position and turned to look beyond the elevated skylight edge. The air was still. He looked down through the skylight and saw even more fires burning within Freedom, along with looting and destruction from a panicked populace. The unmistakable smell of smoldering embers and burned bodies hung in the dead air.

 

"No sign of anything out there. Inside is another story," Ryan whispered.

 

He turned to Rollins, who was also standing. The man had removed the radio from his belt once more. He turned down the sound of the device before thumbing the Send button.

 

"This is Rollins. Anyone else on this frequency?"

 

Silence.

 

"Dammit, Jameson, answer me!"

 

"You didn't say 'please,' Mr. Rollins," a new voice said, distorted by a poor connection linking the two units.

 

"Who the fuck is this?" Rollins demanded.

 

"Does it matter? No, wait, stop. Don't answer that. I'm sure you'll make a point of yammering on and telling me it does. I'll make it quick since I've got a mall to take over. All of your sec boys on the roof of the south side of Freedom are dead. We used their heads for some extra burning fun. My new friends have been showing me all sorts of clever ways to kill a norm. Hair burns quick if you pour on some black powder or charcoal fluid."

 

"Jameson! Where are you?" Rollins demanded, talking over the bragging voice.

 

"Can't help you there, buck. I don't know which one of those crummy excuses for a norm was the late Mr. Jameson."

 

Ryan took the radio from Rollins and asked a question of his own. "Like the man said, who is this?"

 

"I know that voice! How's it hanging, One-eye?"

 

"Why don't you meet me and find out?" Ryan replied, surprised at hearing the old nickname.

 

"Sorry. Can't do that. I'm not on the roof anymore. None of my stickies are on the roof. Like me, they're already down and inside the mall."

 

Ryan listened closely. The voice sounded oddly familiar somehow, but he couldn't place it.

 

"See you there!"

 

 

 

RYAN HEFTED his SIG-Sauer in a two-handed grip as they came upon the rooftop massacre. The sec squad on this end of Freedom hadn't been able to repel the invaders nearly as effectively as Ryan's team. Five men and one woman were effectively scattered around, their corpses ripped into gory pieces or burned beyond recognition.

 

The killing muties appeared to be long gone, except to Krysty's advanced means of perception.

 

Everyone else felt it, too, a feeling of unease.

 

"Not right," Jak observed.

 

"I know," Ryan replied, and then the stickies were on them, giggling like demented children as they leaped from their hiding places, coming out from the stairwell access or hanging down the walls of the front of the mall and using their fingertips to adhere to the edge of the roof.

 

Ryan was impressed, and slightly surprised. These were tactics he would have bet a stack of jack with a clip of ammo chaser to be beyond a stickie's mental capacities.

 

Muties. Who could predict them, really? He'd met stickies like Charlie back in Colorado who were so intelligent and crafty, they could give Trader a run for the proverbial money. Or mutants with charisma such as Lord Kaa and his hypnotic third eye, or even their most recent tussle with the formidable self-styled Pharaoh Akhnaton in the Barrens. All of them were crazy, dangerous and gifted with mental abilities and insights that made them more of a threat than the traditional human foes he was so frequently thrown up against.

 

Now here was another batch of stickies showing off, using hide-in-plain-sight tactics of combat. It was as strange as hell, not to mention disturbing, since while their tactics were something to behold, their hand-to-hand combat skills were as poor as ever. A few were holding long blasters, but instead of firing them, the stickies were using them as clubs to swing and bash. Ryan's internal musing was interrupted when a short stickie slithered out from beneath an air-duct vent's bottom slat and grabbed him bodily by the legs, the long thin fingers adhering instantly to the leather of his thigh-high combat boots.

 

The one-eyed man toppled over like a empty bottle, dropping his blaster to the roofs pebbled surface. The SIG-Sauer skipped away, landing out of reach near a burning patch of tar as he struggled to free himself from the mutie's deadly embrace.

 

Its hands slid higher, feeling his legs and crotch, oozing the secretions that allowed their sucker-covered fingers to stick to almost any known surface.

 

"Stop moving or I'll rip it off, norm," the stickie grated.

 

Ryan decided he'd take that chance. Twisting onto one side, he drew his panga from its sheath, the keen blade sliding out with practiced ease. Swinging the razor-sharp edge from the elevation of a high arc, Ryan brought it down on the unprotected back of the stickie's neck. There wasn't enough leverage of weight behind the blow to totally decapitate the mutant, but the blade still sunk down into flaky, yellowing skin with a satisfying thunk.

 

Hot blood sprayed out from the bite of the blade as the attacked mutie yowled in shock and pain, reaching back with one hand at the injured area. Feeling the sucker-enhanced grip loosen around his lower legs, Ryan pulled himself and the panga free, rolling on his back now and kicking out explosively, shutting up the mutie's cries of agony with the heel of his boot.

 

The creature's head snapped back like a sprung trap, breaking its neck. A sharp crack was the only sound heard as the shrieks from its throat were cut off sudden and quick by the killing force of Ryan's blow.

 

Behind Ryan, Jak danced lightly off to the right, hurling out a series of leaf-bladed throwing knives. The starlike blades zipped forward, one after the other in a rapid succession as quick as shots fired from an automatic weapon. The albino's keen, ruby-red eyes were designed for this sort of fightingin near darkness with the only light for illumination coming from the crackling fires.

 

Like a feral creature, he was obviously delighting in regressing to a near animal state as he threw the blades. Like an arcane form of magic, a blade would appear in his hand, only to disappear with the flick of a wrist, then instantly reappear in the face or throat of one of the marauding stickies.

 

Still, more of the muties were coming, this time by rope ladder as far as Ryan could tell. Another smart move on the part of whoever had planned this attack.

 

And some of the muties seemed to have a brain between them since they were actually starting to lay down a covering of automatic-weapons fire, chilling Rollins's last sec man quickly and effectively.

 

"Shit," Jak spit from between clenched teeth, his Colt empty. "All out."

 

"We're getting outnumbered and outgunned," Ryan bellowed. "We've got to retreat. There's not enough cover to try and save the roof."

 

A shot rang out, explosive and loud, a single burst of man-made thunder that broke into the stillness. Krysty was taking time to aim and shoot, conserving the ammunition for her hand cannon as she chose her targets.

 

Off to one side, Rollins had one of the stickies by the neck. The mutie had used its uncanny adhesive-tipped fingers to return the murderous caress as both of them screamed into each other's face.

 

"Rollins, watch it!" Krysty screamed just as the two of them fell over the raised edge of the mall's roof, struggling all the way down into the darkness.

 

 

 

"NICE BLASTERS," Mike said.

 

"Thanks," Mildred replied.

 

"They for sale?" Ike asked.

 

"Nope," J.B. retorted.

 

"I didn't ask you, four-eyes. Besides, I owe you anyway for bashing me over the head."

 

"You deserved it. Just wish I'd hit you harder."

 

"Seems to me, I'm the one with the bargaining power here." Mike said, gesturing with his blaster.

 

"Seems to me, the two of you can't come up with half a brain between you. So what?" J.B. replied, giving as good as he got.

 

"So mebbe I'll take your blasters and chill the three of you."

 

"Not too bright, even for you clowns," Mildred replied, shaking her head, the beaded plaits of her hair swaying back and forth with the movement. "Have you been out in the mall? Triple-bad scene."

 

Ike smiled in agreement. "I know. Things have gotten pretty hot up on the roof, as well. Muties popping up like fucking rats. Falling around up there like rain."

 

"Ohh" Doc moaned.

 

"Doc! What's wrong?" Mildred asked, turning to the older man.

 

"My blessed heart, my heart," Doc said, clutching at his chest with both hands and staggering forward a single step before entering an unsupported free fall with a one-way plummet down flat on his hawklike face.

 

A close listener would have heard an additional sound. As Doc fell forward in a very convincing collapse, there was the light, deadly snick of the steel blade hidden within the ebony sheath of his lion's-head swordstick hissing free. The sharp weapon came sliding out, and the old man slashed fast and hard with the revealed blade of the rapier as he allowed himself to continue his fall facedown and out of harm's way.

 

Doc wasn't worried about fair play. He used the blade and aimed for the two men's faces and eyes, carving out red rivulets as he fell like the strike of a plummeting eagle.

 

Backing his distraction, Mildred and J.B. each chose a target.

 

Mildred's face was set like a carved piece of onyx, her dark eyes narrowed and bright as she took aim along the barrel of the Czech target pistol.

 

J.B. peered impassively from behind his new specs as he flipped the scattergun into position in a fluid movement of death.

 

The resulting sounds of the twin triggers being pulled in the corridor were like the release of tightly bottled nitro.

 

Later, after all was said and done, Doc was very grateful the resulting splash of crimson blood and entrails had found its way out of the backs of the traitorous sec men and onto the floor. Not a drop landed on his long white hair or faded black frock coat.

 

"I didn't like those bastards the first go 'round," J.B. said. "Told Ryan we should've chilled them then."

 

"You okay, Doc?" Mildred asked, lifting him up carefully and bringing the spindly man first to his knees, then to his feet.

 

Doc took a step and winced. "Other than my poor bruised knees, I shall live."

 

"Crazy move." J.B. grinned. "Crazy, suicidal move."

 

"I am afraid you are the worst of influences, John Barrymore."

 

"You two can compare notes on being heroes later. We've got to find Ryan," Mildred said, swinging open the heavy sec door that allowed access to the rooftop.

 

"No need," Ryan said as he, Krysty and Jak came in.

 

"Where are the other Freedom sec men?" J.B asked in surprise.

 

"The ones worth a damn are probably dead. Rollins bought the casket upstairs. His backups did the same."

 

The friends quickly greeted one another with exhilaration that all were still alive and relatively safe, as safe as could be inside the rapidly deteriorating conditions inside the mall.

 

"What next?"

 

"First we get Dean," Ryan said.