Last Chance--A Novel Page 3

The hands jacked the pump—shuck-shuck—and aimed to the side, firing into a lunging Drone’s chest. He shot backward, propelled by the buckshot and the bursting spouts of his own dying self.

  The black mist cleared.

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was too dry.

  She lifted the shotgun to rest against the ball of her shoulder and stretched out a hand.

  “Well,” Alex said, “what are you waiting for?”

  ENTRY 5

  I finally unlocked my legs and jumped forward. Alex and I clasped hands.

  Feeling the warmth of her palm pressed to mine, I finally allowed that, yes, this was real. They were alive. I could’ve choked on my relief.

  Alex started to haul me aboard, but I pulled back.

  “Wait,” I said. “The others.”

  She looked past me. Exhaled.

  “Okay,” she said, then swung the shotgun up past my cheek, rested it on the ledge of my shoulder, and fired behind me. It felt as though someone had banged a pair of cymbals inside my head. Over the ringing in my ears, I made out the screech of air exiting punctured armor. Alex barely paused. Unhooking the cargo straps, she stepped free. “But we’d better move it.”

  She hopped off the semi and landed beside me, firing off two more shots at charging Drones.

  Turning to the truck, I jumped on the runner and stared through the passenger window at my brother.

  “Patrick!”

  But he was way too focused to celebrate a returned-from-the-dead reunion. “Focus,” he said. “We got work to do.” His hand rooted in the backpack resting on the bench beside him. “Use this.”

  I saw my preferred weapons glinting inside. “My baling hooks!”

  “Better.”

  He came up instead with what looked like a power drill and slid it across the seat to me. I reached through the window and caught it by the handle.

  A nail gun.

  Behind me I heard Alex fire and fire again. Through the windshield I could see more Drones sprinting toward us.

  “I removed the muzzle guard so it actually fires nails like in the movies.” Patrick revved the engine. “Now, get going.”

  I hopped down. Patrick dropped the truck into gear again and shot forward, chewing through the wave of Drones just before they reached us.

  With Patrick covering our backs, Alex and I went shoulder to shoulder and faced the foundation.

  Drones left their positions among the floating slabs, streaking toward us. The Husks were distended to their breaking point. The Hatchlings squirmed more vigorously inside their humps. It seemed like they could sense the commotion.

  Alex wrinkled her nose against the stench as she fumbled to reload. “Is that…?”

  “The Hatchlings,” I said. “They reek.”

  The Drones were closing in, and Alex was still struggling with the shells. I raised the nail gun, gripping it with both hands. The strip of nails swung beneath my fists like an ammo belt.

  I pinged off a shot with a pneumatic pffft, but it fell short. It took another try for me to figure out the range, but then I sank a sixteen-penny nail into the face shield of a Drone. For a second, nothing happened.

  Then black mist piped out from around the nail, a tiny leak. The pressure grew stronger until it shoved out the nail, which clinked onto the concrete. The Drone lifted his hands, trying to cover the hole. Air blasted through his fingers. His hands flew away as the pinhole expanded, blowing out more chunks of face shield until the entire mask disintegrated in an oil-well burst. Newton’s third law kicked in and shot him back onto his butt. The suit sat there, an empty shell.

  Alex and I looked at each other. A smile tugged at her mouth, but I could see that her lips were trembling. Her fingers shook, too, as she slotted the next shells into the magazine tube beneath the barrel. Fighting off panic, we turned and mowed down the advancing Drones.

  Between them we caught glimpses of the foundation. One of the Husks started to give way. For an instant I could make out a suggestion of the child’s body it used to be, and then it was just stretched skin, a shape distorted beyond recognition. A fissure opened in its side with a moist yielding. I swear I saw a long finger poke out through the gap. The other Husks wriggled and bulged.

  If we waited any longer, we were going to find ourselves in the middle of a massive Hatch. I couldn’t imagine what the things inside would look like.

  Or what they’d do to us.

  We unleashed another volley at the Drones, clearing enough space for us to turn and run to the factory. Over on the parking lot, Patrick was wheeling the semi truck into tight doughnuts, crushing his attackers. None of the Drones could get close to the cab.

  Not yet anyway.

  Alex and I wheeled around the corner of the cannery and through the rolled-back doors.

  The Hosts were waiting.

  They stood around the assembly line, blocking the wall of crated kids. Some were strangers. But a few weren’t. Mr. Tomasi. The Durant brothers—Gene and Billy Joe. Afa Sibanda, a dreadlocked Tongan ranch hand who used to work McCafferty’s harvests. It was always worse when you knew them before. Their eyeless faces showed no humanity, no sign of who they had been. And yet you could still recognize them.

  Mr. Tomasi was nearest. He’d been one of my favorite teachers. He’d taught me Lord of the Flies. He’d once told me I was a good writer, that I should think about college. He liked to listen to baseball on the radio.

  Lifting the nail gun, I fired a shot at his head. It missed the mark, puncturing his throat. Fluid oozed around the nail, draining down his chest. It had no effect; he kept on coming toward me and Alex just like the others.

  So I put another nail through his forehead.

  He fell.

  I looked at him there, lying still on the floor. Emotion rose up in me, but I beat it down. Not here, not now. What was alarming wasn’t what I’d done to Mr. Tomasi. What was alarming was that I could force myself to get over it.

  The kids erupted, banging their locked crates.

  “Get me out!”

  “Over here! Kid—over here!”

  Alex blasted away, the scattered buckshot taking out two Hosts at a time. I shot the Hosts on either side of Mr. Tomasi, clearing a path to the kids. While the remaining Hosts descended on Alex, I hurdled the bodies, ran to the cages, and started unlatching them as fast as I could. It took everything I had not to look over my shoulder every two seconds.

  The first few kids spilled out and ran away.

  I shouted at them, doing my best to keep the fear from my voice, “Help me open these! Open the other cages!”

  First one girl stayed to help and then another. The more we freed, the more helped free other kids. They poured forth, tumbling over the conveyor belt.

  Alex cried out, and I turned and looked over the current of fleeing kids to see Afa swat her to the ground. He was the last Host standing. He drew back a powerful arm. A single punch would knock her unconscious—or worse.

  Pure dread chilled my veins, freezing me to the spot. A half second passed, an eternity of wasted time, before I shattered free.

  I ran to Alex, sliding over the conveyor belt, and slammed into Afa from the side just as he threw his punch. My weight barely budged him, but the impact was enough to make him swing wide. His fist smashed into a metal control box, knocking it off the wall. I bounced off him and landed next to Alex, the nail gun sliding away.

  We stared up as Afa turned.

  His hand was badly damaged from the blow. His pinkie was missing, the stub sending out a jet of fluid. His middle and ring fingers dangled from threads. The flesh at his remaining knuckles had been peeled back to the bone.

  With his good hand, he reached for the steel lever that operated the conveyor belt and wrenched it free. Wielding it, he came at us.

  I could hear the semi truck revving outside and the smack and hiss of the undercutter blades tearing through Drones—Patrick was too busy to save us.

  Alex didn’t have time to clear the shell
from the shotgun, so she swatted at Afa with the stock. He knocked the shotgun aside. Alex and I backed to the wall—nowhere to go. Afa raised the steel lever.

  Then something hit him from behind, shuddering his massive frame. He staggered forward. Another blow came, then another.

  The others were coming to our rescue, hammering into him like a wave.

  He wheeled around. A few of the smaller kids flew free, but more and more tackled him until he was brought down to his knees. He fell onto his hands, kids tumbling over his frame. The steel lever clanged on the floor, spinning slowly until one end kissed my feet.

  I grabbed it. Stood up.

  “Everyone get back!” I shouted.

  The kids peeled off Afa in all directions, his giant frame exposed like that of a breaching whale. I wound up with the lever, waiting until I had a clear shot.

  Afa’s head swung up to face me. I looked straight through his eyeholes.

  You wouldn’t have thought a single swing could do so much damage.

  Afa shuddered on the floor, his skull caved in, his hijacked brain done for good.

  I heard my voice as if from a distance, the words coming out soft and husky. “Sorry,” it said to what was left of Afa. “I’m sorry.”

  I hoisted Alex to her feet. She grabbed the shotgun as she rose.

  The other kids and teenagers had poured outside, dodging Drones, scattering in all directions—literally running for the hills. Since the battle raged on in the parking lot between Patrick’s Mad Max truck and the Drones, most of the kids made for the foundation, sprinting between the floating slabs.

  Alex grabbed my arm and pointed.

  With dread I looked across to where the kids streamed between the Husks. At first I was confused by what I was seeing over there. The entire foundation seemed to be alive, a pulsing, organic mess. The movement wasn’t just from the fleeing kids wending their way through the slabs. It was on the slabs, too. The Husks no longer resembled children at all. The humps stretched up so high they looked like giant eggs set on end. The walls of flesh were pulled taffy-thin. Beneath the translucent sheets of skin, bipedal creatures stirred, finding their feet. They reared up, shoving their arms wide, clawing at the Husks to get free.

  The panic I’d done my best to tamp down inside erupted, pinpricking my skin, putting a sheen of sweat across the back of my neck.

  “Oh, my God, Chance,” Alex said. “It’s happening.”

  ENTRY 6

  We ran for Patrick in the truck, waving our arms. He’d made short work of most of the Drones who’d gone after him. The parking lot was littered with pieces of armor. A Drone torso skittered across the asphalt like a dying rocket, trailing black smoke.

  Patrick spotted us and slowed the semi. A Drone hopped onto the runner, reaching through the driver’s window for the wheel. Patrick hit him with one of my baling hooks, cracking his face shield. Then he kicked the door open and flung the Drone away.

  The truck was still slowing. Patrick finished the skid, waiting for us to reach him.

  Alex and I dodged Drones in various stages of injury. One rested on his knees and elbow. He had a sleek black glove clamped over a hole in his neck. As we ran by, Alex kicked his arm. His hand flew off the hole, and his life mist blasted out of him.

  We jumped into the truck, the three of us lining the bench seat. We stared through the windshield with disbelief.

  It was like being at the most horrific drive-in movie ever.

  Covered with birth sludge, a wave of Hatchlings tore loose from their Husks. It was hard to get a good look at them. Fluids dribbled down their bodies. It was unclear what parts were them and what parts were shrapnel from the burst Husks. Bits of bone and viscera coated their bodies. Clumps of skin clung to their faces. They had nostril holes but no noses. Their eyes, shiny and beetle-black, looked like giant pupils.

  The Hatchlings were shaped mostly like humans, that much was clear. Two legs, two arms, a head atop a torso. Their flesh looked soft and mucusy—sluglike. They were tinted salamander orange.

  My eyes were drawn to one Hatchling who stood wobbling at the edge of his floating slab. He jumped like a raptor onto a kid’s shoulders. Clawed hands and feet dug into the boy’s back, a spray of crimson puffed in the air, and then they sank out of view beneath the fray.

  My gorge rose up and pressed at the back of my throat.

  The kids reversed, bucking and screaming, colliding with one another. It was like watching a herd of spooked horses driven into a labyrinth.

  The Husks continued to crack open. Most of the Hatchlings looked to have wiry, masculine builds. Their muscles were so defined that they were like living anatomy sketches. But one in about every twenty was a rotund feminine form.

  The male Hatchlings dove for the boys and girls, bounding after them in low hops, bent forward at their torsos like apes. They weren’t trying to capture the kids as the Hosts did.

  They were ripping them apart.

  Not all were successful. Some of the Hatchlings toppled off their slabs and landed with a wet splat. Others stumbled in lurching circles as if trying to learn how to use their legs.

  Over the noise of the idling engine, I heard Patrick’s teeth grind. He dropped the gearshift into drive and stomped the gas, throwing Alex and me back in our seats.

  We rocketed for the foundation, cutting down Drones left and right. Patrick screeched to a halt at the edge of the foundation, and we piled out.

  Alex tossed Patrick the Winchester Defender and drew the revolver from the rear waistband of her jeans. I raised the nail gun.

  For an instant we stood there frozen at the fringes, watching the massacre. One of the male Hatchlings hopped over to a female and held something out to her.

  She took the offering in her three-digit hands and bent her face to it.

  She was partially turned, so I couldn’t see what it was, but I did see the thick liquid streaming down her arms, dripping from her elbows.

  When she lifted her head, her chin was stained red.

  That was all it took.

  Rage overpowered our terror.

  We charged in.

  Given the stench, it was like wading into a sewer.

  Alex grouped three rounds in the chest of the female. The Hatchling staggered back, dropping her shank of meat. But then something insane happened. The wounds closed right up, the gloppy flesh filling in the holes.

  Patrick fired the shotgun at her, but the pellets seemed to move straight through her skin with no effect. She bared her teeth and hissed.

  The sound made my flesh tighten.

  It wasn’t until my finger cramped that I realized I’d been firing and firing the nail gun. Her skin absorbed the nails as readily as it had the bullets.

  Patrick put a hand on my wrists and lowered my arms. “It’s not working.”

  “What will?”

  Instead of answering, he sprinted forward at the female Hatchling. As he neared, her hiss turned to an airy shriek.

  Just before he reached her, Patrick slammed into one of the floating slabs, shooting it toward her like an air-hockey puck. The metal edge caught her just beneath the chin and took her head clean off.

  Alex made an incredulous noise. It sounded like a laugh, but darker.

  It broke us from our momentary paralysis. She and I joined Patrick, banging the slabs into Hatchlings even as others continued to claw their way free of their Husks. In between it all, kids and teenagers fought and screamed and died. It was mayhem.

  I sent one slab rocketing into the lower back of a male about to shred a little girl. Alex kicked the slab of a Hatchling that hadn’t yet freed himself from his Husk, spilling the living sac onto the ground. It was trampled into orange slop. The remaining Drones leapt into the fray, using their bodies to protect the Hatchlings. The slabs knocked into one another, starting a chain reaction, clipping Drones and cracking their suits.

  The Hatchlings and Drones held the advantage, though. There were just too many of them. As I leaned my
weight into another floating slab, a Husk split open right next to me, releasing a burst of rotten-egg funk. Acid clawed up my throat; could I puke and fight at the same time? The Hatchling pulled himself erect on the floating metal pane, facing away from me. That gave me my first up-close look at the slender humanoid form, the tight muscles wrapped in newt skin. The three wide digits of each hand tapered into pointy nails, a gradual hardening with no clear delineation where the flesh ended and the claw began. I was close enough to touch the bulge of his calf. If he turned, he could dive right into me, leading with the points of those nails.

  Instead he jumped in the other direction, onto the back of a teenage girl, and rode her down onto the ground. Her scream cut off with a gurgle. I realized I was holding my breath. I realized, too, that I was on the verge of screaming.

  The Husk he’d left behind lay on the slab before me like the sloughed skin of a snake. Staring down at the cracked-open chrysalis of the young human form, I couldn’t believe it had once been a kid like me. The flesh had turned translucent, as if all the nutrients had been sucked out of it. I suppose they had.

  The Hatchling raised his head from his feast. I grabbed the slab and slammed it into the back of his skull. He wobbled a bit, trying to stand up. I rammed the metal edge into his head again, smashing it into the neighboring slab. I kept smashing and smashing until I felt something grasp my shoulder.

  Yelling, I spun away, swinging wildly. Patrick sidestepped me, pointing.

  I lifted my head. As far as I could see, Hatchlings continued to break free of their Husks. They came spilling toward us from the full sweep of the foundation, tumbling over themselves like an army of rats.

  Patrick’s voice rose over the commotion. “Back to the truck!”

  As we sprinted toward the semi, kids were picked off on either side of us, taken out as if hit by cannonballs. I found myself running next to a heavy kid a few years older than me. He was running out of steam.

  “Keep going!” I shouted. “Just keep—”

  A moist smack and he was gone.

  Something warm dripped down the side of my neck. The noises behind me were indescribable. I kept running. Patrick was in front of me, but I didn’t see Alex.