Date: 2018-03-10 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Dystopia; Apocalyptic
Description: To protect his child, he’s going to have to outrun the apocalypse. These are the last days. The Black Storm – a permanent state of darkness has engulfed the Earth, plunging the world into eternal night and robbing humanity of both sunlight and hope. Out of the Black Storm comes the Black Widow. A ghostly figure, she walks the Earth triggering an epidemic of despair – suicides, mass murders and arson attacks. Nobody knows why it’s happening. But it is happening. Ex Hollywood actor, Cody MacLeod, is a burned out recluse living in Texas. He’s got one chance to protect his young daughter Rachel fr

Black Storm

(Black Storm Book 1)

Mark Gillespie

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Note from the Author

Black Fever (Out May 2018)

Also by Mark Gillespie

Also by Mark Gillespie

This is a work of speculative fiction. All of the events and dialogue depicted within are a product of the author’s overactive imagination. None of this stuff happened. Except maybe in a parallel universe.

Copyright © 2018 by Mark Gillespie
www.markgillespieauthor.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

First Printing: March 2018

Cover by Vincent Sammy

Created with Vellum

For Íde, who has saved me from a thousand Black Storms.

Chapter One

“We gotta run okay? We need to get out of here.”

Cody MacLeod kneeled in front of his daughter and squeezed her gently on the upper arms. She felt fragile, like a china doll. “Whatever happens, we can’t let the bad woman catch up with us,” he said. “She makes people do bad things. You know that don’t you?”

Silence.

“Do you understand Rachel?” Cody said.

Rachel nodded her head.

“We’ve got to stay one step ahead of her,” Cody said, pushing a few loose strands of blonde hair off Rachel’s face. “Two steps, three steps.” His voice was shaking and he took a deep breath before saying anything else. This wasn’t a good time to lose it and even if he was on the brink, he couldn’t let Rachel see.

They were in the hallway of their house in Spring Branch, Texas. Cody turned towards the front door where two bulging backpacks were sitting. One of them was plain black and the other featured a rainbow colored sky with two silver ponies grazing in a field of green grass.

“All we gotta do is walk out the door,” Cody said.

“Are we leaving for good?” Rachel said. Cody saw the confusion in his daughter’s indigo blue eyes – the same indigo blue eyes that he’d possessed as a child before the years had dulled them.

He nodded. “Yeah I think so.”

Cody heard the Black Storm blowing outside. The wind was howling and moaning – a crude B-movie sound effect that had escaped from the big screen into the real world. Still it was relatively calm, at least compared to the gale force winds that had been blowing the night before when Cody had made the decision to leave home. It was a decision that would either save their lives or seal their fate.

There was doubt in the little girl’s eyes. Cody could tell that she wasn’t sure he was making the right call and Jesus, who could blame her? He wasn’t sure about it either.

“Geez kid,” Cody said. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re looking at me the way other people used to look at me back in the eighties and nineties. That’s Grandma’s eyes I see in you right now. You don’t trust me? You don’t think we should go?”

Rachel managed a lazy shrug of the shoulders.

“I’m not on drugs honey,” Cody said. “I swear on your Mom’s soul.”

“I know Dad,” she said. I’m just scared.”

He pulled her closer. She was so beautiful and innocent – the only perfect thing in his life. And she’d remained perfect – thank God for that. Had Cody stayed in Hollywood to try and claw back his career, the industry would have noticed her. It would have sunk its teeth into Rachel and ruined her like it did for her mother, Kate. No chance – that was one of several reasons that Cody and Kate moved to Texas ten years ago. Cody would die before he gave those bigwig assholes in LA the chance to get their hands on his daughter.

He smiled at Rachel.

“I’m scared too,” Cody said. “But we have to go. You’ve watched the reports on TV. You’ve heard it on the radio. You know what people are doing to themselves, to each other out there. You know how dangerous it is and you know how dangerous she is.”

Rachel didn’t blink. Despite her saying she was scared, she looked calm –older than her ten years. Sometimes Cody thought, kids did adulthood better than most adults.

“Is it the woman in the long black dress?” she said.

“Yes honey. It’s the woman in the long black dress.”

Rachel nodded.

“I saw her in my room last night,” she said.

Cody’s hands fell off his daughter’s arms. His mouth hung open and the cold air that haunted the MacLeod residence slid down the back of his throat. He looked at Rachel, his eyes racing over her blue denim dungarees and the white long sleeved t-shirt that she was wearing underneath. He ran a finger down her blue and white basketball shoes, not sure what he was looking for. Damage – but what sort of damage?

With cupped hands, he touched her face.

“She was in your room?” Cody said. “Last night? Did she say anything? I mean, did she try and talk to you – to make you do anything? Did she tell you to hurt yourself?”

Rachel shook her head.

“She was just standing at the edge of the bed looking at me,” she said. “Her face is like a mannequin. That’s what they said on TV. She looks like a giant doll with silver lights instead of eyes.”

“Weren’t you scared?” Cody said. His heart was pounding.

“No,” Rachel said. “Well, not really.”

Cody buried his face in the palm of his hand.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, almost losing his balance and toppling over onto the hardwood floor. “Tell me something kid,” he said. “This is really important. Is that the first time you’ve seen her?”

“Yes.”

“Well then it’s definitely time to go,” Cody said. “She’s starting to pay too much attention to this family for my liking.”

Rachel’s eyes were wide open. “You’ve seen her too?”

Cody nodded. “Yeah.” Several times.

“They’ve been talking about her on the radio Dad,” Rachel said. “People are seeing her everywhere. China, Europe, Australia, Brazil and lots of other places that I’ve never heard of.”

“Yeah I know,” Cody said. He was itching to leave. He wanted to grab Rachel and get her out of the house immediately.

“All the people who see her end up dead,” Rachel said. “That’s what they say, isn’t it?”

Cody squeezed tight on her hand.

“Not everyone,” he said. “Like I said, I’ve seen her too.”

“In the house?”

“Yeah, in the house. That’s why we need to go.”

Rachel looked thoughtful. Her eyes darted around the living room before returning to him.

“Is she chasing the world? The whole world?”

Cody straightened the collar of his black cotton shirt.

“Yeah honey,” he said. “I think she’s chasing the world. And that includes us – you and me. We’ve got to get away from this house because I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Okay?”

Cody was glad to see that Rachel could still smile.

“Okay,” she said.

Outside the Black Storm grumbled. It sounded like it was an angry giant sitting on the roof of their house, waiting impatiently for them to come out.

Cody tugged gently on Rachel’s arms. She didn’t move.

“Where are we going?” she said.

It was a good question.

Cody nodded. “You remember my friend?” he said. “A big guy called Nick Norton?”

Rachel shook her head.

“Sure you do,” Cody said. “You met him once. He works on Alaska Airlines, flies out of San Antonio all the time. He’s an old school buddy of mine from LA. He was in the movies too when he was a kid, just like your old man.”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said.

“Big black guy, all mouth and muscle. He was over here about four years ago. You must remember – it’s not like we have a ton of guests or anything like that.”

“What about him?”

Cody leaned in closer. He felt the need to whisper.

“He’s got a plane,” he said. “It’s a big plane – Boeing 737-800, fully fuelled and ready to go. He’s invited us along – some of the other pilots and their friends and family will be there too. I got a text from Nick about fifteen hours ago – the plane is at the airport right now, waiting for everyone to arrive. You understand? We’re going to drive down to the airport and get on Nick’s plane.”

Cody’s face darkened.

“Only problem is I can’t get in touch with Nick anymore,” he said. “My phone keeps jamming up.”

Rachel’s eyes lit up – a mixture of fear and curiosity.

“Because of the Black Storm?”

“Maybe,” Cody said. “But it doesn’t matter, not as long as we get to the airport in good time. He’ll wait for us, I know he will.”

Rachel’s expression was grim.

“We’re going up into the black sky?” she said, pointing to the ceiling. “What’s up there?”

Cody followed her finger towards the ceiling. Kids and their questions, damn it. Who knew what was up there in that black shroud that had wrapped itself over the Earth? Something, maybe nothing. Everything was black these days – even the inside of the MacLeod residence. The curtains were pulled over all the windows, shielding them from the sight of the Black Storm, the mysterious force that had come out of nowhere and robbed the world of sunlight.

“It can’t all be bad up there,” Cody said. “We gotta try. Anything’s better than staying down here on the ground while people go mad and do bad things. I’ll bet you it’s safer up there. Yeah?”

Rachel looked down the hall towards her bedroom.

“I want to take Bootsy with me,” she said. “If we’re not coming back.”

Cody sighed. He couldn’t hide his growing frustration any longer. They should have been gone already. He didn’t want to hang around the house one second longer than he had to. He tugged gently on her arm, with more urgency this time.

“You’re too big for that teddy bear,” he said. “You’re ten.”

The look on her face stopped him dead.

“Mom gave him to me,” she said. “Remember?”

Of course he did.

“I’ve packed a ton of photos of Mom in the bag,” he said. “Lots of photos. We’re not going to forget her.”

“I want Bootsy,” Rachel said. Cody almost smiled – it was like Kate all over again. If she wanted something, she was going to have it.

“Alright kid,” he said, letting go of her arm. “Get Bootsy but don’t stay in that bedroom one second longer than you have to. I’ll grab the bags.”

Cody watched her run down the hallway. He felt uneasy watching her go through the bedroom door knowing that the Black Widow had been in there last night. Cody had already seen the ghostly figure several times in the house but there had been no words spoken. That was something to be grateful for at least. And now the Black Widow was coming after Rachel? Any doubts Cody might have been having about leaving had shattered with that revelation.

A few seconds later, Rachel came running back down the hallway with the beat-up teddy bear swinging at her side. She looked content.

“All set?” Cody asked. “Can we go now?” He picked up the two backpacks and flung one over each shoulder.

She nodded. “Just one thing?”

“Oh c’mon Rachel. Let’s get out of here.”

“Who is she Dad?”

The two backpacks slid down Cody’s arm in slow motion. He squatted so that he was almost eye level with Rachel.

“She came out of the Black Storm,” he said. “At least that’s what people say but we don’t know for sure. Everything – the black sky, black rain and the Black Widow – they’re all connected. All these things are part of the Black Storm.”

“And it makes people do bad things?” Rachel said.

Cody nodded. “Very bad things.”

Rachel smiled. It was a great smile – sudden and unexpected.

“We’d better go,” she said.

“Right honey,” Cody said. “Now you’re talking.”

He opened the front door and they stepped outside.

It was dark. A permanent state of dusk hung over the world – a rotten, simmering blackness and it was everywhere. It was unending too. Blue skies and sunlight were a distant memory. The air was thick and muggy and scentless. A stiff wind was blowing and the trees that surrounded the remote two-storey house were swaying.

They walked towards the car in the driveway. Cody’s white 1970 Dodge Challenger was one of only a few references left to his Hollywood past. He was probably the only part-time freelance writer in the world who owned such a vintage car. It was a little much but Cody loved the Challenger with all his heart. It was a perfect replica of the car used in Vanishing Point, one of his top five all time movies. It wasn’t just an ornament either – he kept the Dodge in outstanding driving condition and a good thing too – he was going to need it firing on all cylinders if it was going to get them to the airport.

The surface of the car was covered in a thin layer of dirt. Cody didn’t have time to worry about it – he opened up the trunk and threw the bags in, pushing them all the way to the back. As he did so, Rachel jumped into the back seat taking Bootsy with her.

“Take me somewhere nice!” she called out. She always said the same thing when she got in the car.

“Sure thing Miss Daisy,” he said.

Cody opened up the driver’s door. Before he sat down, he reached a hand underneath the seat, checking that the Glock 19 he’d stashed earlier was still there.

It was. He gave the pistol a quick pat and hoped that he wouldn’t need it.

Cody climbed into the Dodge and turned the key in the ignition. He heard the 426 Hemi engine growling and hell yes it was a satisfying sound, even under the most trying of circumstances. Taking a deep breath, he gripped the wood grain steering wheel and allowed himself one last look at the house where his wife had died, knowing that he’d never see it again.

Move it mister. That’s what Kate would have said.

Cody backed the car down the driveway and onto Rittiman Road. It was a quiet area with houses spaced far apart, but it had never been so desolate as it was now. Was there anyone left around here?

Rachel was quiet in the back – perhaps thinking about her Mom, a woman that she’d barely known and yet someone who had cast a long shadow over her young life. Or maybe Rachel was thinking about the house – it was the only home she’d ever known after all. She was leaving her friends and school behind – but none of those things mattered now. Keeping her alive, that’s what mattered.

The Dodge set off, picking up speed.

Cody looked back at the house in the rear-view mirror. One last look.

That’s when he saw her.

The Black Widow was standing on the narrow road that stretched north behind them. Her porcelain doll-like skin glowed against the surrounding darkness; it was a nightmarish beacon that offered anything but hope to those who had the misfortune to see it. She was tall – at least seven feet and rake thin like a skeleton with a thin layer of flesh wrapped around her bones. Her bright red hair was styled in an old-fashioned Edwardian coiffure. It was a look that went well with the long black Victorian-style mourning dress that trailed behind her.

The Black Widow’s eyes – dazzling silver orbs, devoid of pupils watched them go. She didn’t try to stop them but Cody felt little in the way of relief, even as the phantom faded into the distance behind them.

She was letting them go. At least for now.

Chapter Two

The Challenger’s headlights pierced through the fog of dark morning. Apart from the lights on the car, the only other light available came from a fierce, reddish-orange glow that loomed on the horizon.

San Antonio was burning.

Cody shuddered. He could only imagine what was going on in the city.

He looked on both sides of the highway. There were few other cars on the road. Cody figured that the traffic would be busier – that people wouldn’t just be sitting at home waiting for the shit to hit the fan. Of course there was plenty of shit already dripping off the fan but things were getting worse, not better.

There was some measure of comfort to be found in driving. Movement. It was better than sitting at home, waiting for the end.

Of course most people didn’t have anywhere to go. Cody and Rachel at least had the dream of the airport, the plane and God willing they’d find something better. No matter what the radio reports were saying about the Black Storm being everywhere, there had to be somewhere out there still under a blue sky. Even if it was in the remote, inhospitable corners of the country where there were no other people.

“You alright kid?” Cody said.

“Yeah,” Rachel said.

They were driving south on U.S Route 281, almost two thousand miles of continuous road that stretched down from the Canadian Border to the humid confines of Brownsville, Texas. To see the highway so dark and empty – it was unnerving. It was enough for Cody to debate several times in his mind whether he’d made the right decision to leave Spring Branch or not. But when he thought about the Black Widow’s visit with Rachel – that did it. He knew that leaving was the right call.

Let everyone else sit at home, he thought.

Cody glanced up towards the sky. A few chinks of sunlight were still visible – they’d fought their way through the stranglehold of the Black Storm and it was a meek reminder that it was still daylight, at least according to the clocks.

A few specks of rain landed on the windshield. Black rain – thick, oil-like drops falling from the sky. Cody turned on the wipers and cleared the windshield quickly before he lost sight of the road. He hoped that there wouldn’t be a heavy downpour of the stuff that would force them to stop and wait it out on the side of the highway.

“How long till we get there?” Rachel asked, calling out from the back seat.

Cody kept his eyes out front. He racked his brain, trying to recall the precise location of the airport. If he remembered correctly, the airport was about nine or ten miles north of the downtown business district. With any luck, he’d avoid the worst of the carnage and most importantly, the airport would still be intact. Nick had texted him from the terminal building only yesterday so it had to be okay. The worst-case scenario didn’t bear thinking about.

“Shouldn’t take too long,” Cody said. “It’s about a thirty-five minutes drive on a good day. Maybe a little longer now. I don’t want to drive too fast when the visibility is this bad.”

She sighed, like it wasn’t good enough.

“Hey,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror. He caught a glimpse of Rachel sitting upright with Bootsy on her lap. It looked like she was a ventriloquist and the teddy bear was her dummy. Under normal circumstances, Rachel wouldn’t be seen dead with Bootsy, not at ten years old. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

“We’re going to make it,” Cody said.

“I know,” Rachel said.

“Let’s see if we can get something on the radio,” Cody said. Anything to take their minds off this damn road trip.

Cody’s fingers turned the dial clockwise. An explosion of static blurted out. He screwed up his face as he tried to find something in the electronic mess – there had to be someone still broadcasting out there, even if it was just a guy sitting alone in his basement.

As he wrestled with the dial, Cody caught a glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror. Jesus, it looked like he hadn’t slept for days, which wasn’t far from the truth. He was forty-two years old but he looked older – at least today he did. His dirty blond hair, which had once been the same bright shade as Rachel’s, was long and wavy. His skin looked grey and there was a fine layer of brownish-blond stubble on his face.

“You look like shit,” Cody said. There was nothing of the cute, fresh-faced star who’d lit up movie screens around the world back in the 1980s. That kid was long gone.

“Who are you talking to?” Rachel said.

Cody backed away from the mirror. “Talking to myself,” he said. “Just acting crazy, it’s all good honey.”

At last, a woman’s voice came through the radio.

“You found something,” Rachel said.

“Yes I did,” Cody said, with a tired smile. He leaned closer to the radio and turned the volume up.

It sounded like a news report:

Who is the Black Widow?

Sightings of the mysterious Black Widow continue at an alarming rate all over the world. Suicides are through the roof. The murder rate is up. The world is self-harming on a scale never seen before in recorded history. A terrible net of depression and despair has been cast over us.

The Black Fever, some people have called it.

It started earlier this year. Multiple sightings of a tall woman dressed in Victorian mourning clothes were reported but these were treated as a hoax. This started in the United State and later spread to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and so on. These Black Widow sightings coincided with reports of severe weather anomalies – unusually dark skies that lingered long into the daylight hours, black clouds, black oily rain, and violent winds.

This was the coming of the Black Storm. But we took it lightly and did nothing until it was too late. Even then, what could we have done? Time passed and Black Widow sightings escalated dramatically and spread across all continents – even to sparsely populated research stations in Antarctica.

Our crops began to fail. Had Mother Nature turned against us, like so many were saying? Was the human race being punished for its sins?

Or was it something else?

If it’s something else, then what is it? What is the Black Storm? Did it come from another world? Did it originate from deep within the bowels of our own planet? Scientists, the leading experts, and government analysts – you name it, all over the world these people have tried to figure out what’s going on. Maybe some of them are still trying even now. Truthfully however, nobody knows what’s happening. We haven’t got a clue and that’s an agonizing thing for an advanced, intellectual alpha-species like ourselves to admit.

We are helpless.

Now all we can do is watch. A permanent darkness has settled over the world – both outside and inside our hearts. Soon nothing will grow. Our water will run out if nothing but black rain continues to fall. There’s been a high level of natural disasters, floods, earthquakes, avalanches and more. Most disturbing of all is that the amount of people committing suicide continues to grow at an alarming rate. There can be no doubt that the Black Storm is directly responsible for the obscene spike in suicides, murders, and acts of mass destruction.

Lord knows I’m trying to add something optimistic. To do so however, would be patronizing.

Cody switched off the radio. It was depressing. Amateur or professional, almost everything on the airwaves now was about the Black Storm and the terrible things people were doing. There was no point in switching the radio on anymore and yet Cody always went back to it sooner or later. Maybe he craved the sound of someone else speaking more than he’d like to admit.

“Dad?” Rachel said.

“Yeah honey?”

“Do you miss being famous?”

“What?” he said, looking at Rachel in the mirror. “Where’d that come from? No, I don’t miss being famous.”

“I think you do,” Rachel said. She was looking at Bootsy, still sitting on her lap. “I think Mom missed being famous too.”

Cody understood now. Rachel was trying start a conversation about her mother. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked Cody a question out of the blue and then flipped the subject – whatever it was – back onto her mother. Did you do this Dad? Did Mom do that? Cody always felt that the end goal of these conversations for Rachel was to find out more about her mother’s death. She knew plenty about Kate’s life but Cody had always spared his daughter the grim details of her mom’s last days when drugs and depression had taken hold. It was an ugly ending to a sad story. Rachel didn’t need to know any more than that and Cody always took care to steer the conversation away from Kate’s death.

“Yeah,” Cody said. “Mom did miss being famous. And if I’m honest, I miss being famous sometimes too. We were younger than you when we made our first movies, both of us. Your Mom was such a beautiful kid – she was really something. Knocked me off my feet kid.”

“You were beautiful too Dad.”

Cody glanced over his shoulder. “Thanks,” he said.

Rachel was leaning forward. Cody sensed that she wanted to talk.

“You think Eddie Faldo’s dead?” Rachel said.

“Eddie Faldo?”

Cody squeezed down hard on the steering wheel. Eddie Fucking Faldo. Barely a day went past when that name didn’t go through his mind at least once. Usually it was more than once. Having said that, Cody would never bring the name up in conversation with anyone. In fact, if anyone started discussing the latest Eddie Faldo movie in a restaurant or in the grocery store and began gushing about how goddamn wonderful it was, Cody would make a point of getting up and leaving the room.

“Why are you asking me that?” Cody said. “A lot of people are dead. Why ask me about Eddie?”

“Because you hate him, don’t you?” Rachel said. “It annoys you anytime anyone talks about him. Wouldn’t you be happy if he was dead?”

“Whoa now!” he said.

Cody didn’t like to hear Rachel using the word ‘hate’ out loud. Must be his parents’ hippy influence alive and well in his mind. Love and peace – that was the foundation of his unusually liberal upbringing. That and the constant round of Hollywood auditions he’d endured as a young child. Then the money came along. Turned out that material things like a shitload of cash weren’t off his parents’ radar either. What a journey – from beloved child of nature to family cash cow in less than a year. It still made him dizzy thinking about it.

“I don’t hate Eddie Faldo,” Cody said. “Maybe I was a little jealous of the guy. You know we starred in that big film together?”

“The Forever Boys,” Rachel said. “Of course I know that.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. “Well that was our big break into the movies. We were both lined up for big things after it became a huge hit. It didn’t quite work out for me. I met your Mom and we fell in with a bad crowd, as you know. Eddie, God bless him, was straight – black coffee was about as dangerous as it got for him. Smart kid, he played the game and look at what happened to him. They groomed him and he turned into an asshole and now he’s never off the big screen. Eddie any-shitty-movie Faldo. But I don’t hate him.”

“You hate him,” Rachel said.

“I don’t like him,” Cody said. “I sure hope he isn’t dead though.”

Cody was about to say something else when a loud rumble in the distance stopped him in his tracks. At first he thought it was thunder but then he saw a fresh spurt of orange fire appear on the horizon, rising above all the others like it was a cannonball shooting straight for the black sky.

It was coming from San Antonio.

“My God,” Cody said. “What’s happening over there?”

How many people were still alive in the city? Had they all succumbed to the Black Fever? Cody had always envisioned the end of the world as being instantaneous. A nuclear blast – a fireball, hot blinding light and then nothing. With any luck he’d be vaporized and not feel a thing. It was wishful thinking by the looks of it. If this was the end, if the Black Storm was bringing with it the mass extinction of humankind, then it was taking its goddamn time.

“I don’t want to go there Dad,” Rachel said.

“I don’t either kid,” Cody said. “But I’m sure the airport is okay.”

But was it? The Black Widow was everywhere, spreading the Fever, putting it into the hearts of the masses, inciting acts of violence and destruction that would bring down human civilization. But why? Nobody had the faintest idea what the Black Storm was or where it came from. As the radio report said, experts from all walks of life had failed to explain what was happening. The military had failed. Anything that had been sent up to the black sky to investigate had either vanished or crashed back to Earth almost immediately.

Cody looked towards the flaming ruins of San Antonio.

That’s where I’m taking Rachel?

The back seat squeaked as Rachel sat forward.

“It’s so dark,” she said. “It’s cold too. Can you see the road okay Dad?”

“I can see honey,” Cody said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get us to the airport if it’s the last thing I do.” Under his breath he muttered: “Which it just might be.”

“But we can’t outrun her can we?” Rachel said.

Cody’s ears pricked up. There was something strange about Rachel’s voice. It sounded flat and hopeless, like she’d given up.

He resisted the urge to look back.

It was cold in the car though. She was right about that.

“You don’t think we’re going to make it?” Cody said. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“The Black Storm is everywhere,” Rachel said, her voice sluggish.

“Hey that’s enough of that,” Cody said. “We’re the MacLeods from the Clan MacLeod, remember? Just like in Highlander baby – we’re immortals and we’re going to live forever. Ain’t nothing going to stop us getting on Nick’s plane. Right? You tell me kid, tell me why we can’t outrun the Black Widow?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Because she’s sitting next to me,” Rachel said.

Chapter Three

Cody’s heart was hammering as he pulled the car into the side of the road.

He slammed his foot on the brake, pushing the pedal onto the floor and keeping it pressed there. The Dodge Challenger skidded to a halt, missing the cable barrier on the central reservation by inches.

Cody unbuckled his seatbelt and looked in the backseat. Rachel was sitting alone, clutching Bootsy tightly to her chest. She was looking back at Cody, wide-eyed and petrified.

There was no one else in the car.

“Where is she?” Cody yelled. He didn’t wait around for an answer. He pushed the driver’s door open, jumped out of the car and then pulled at the back door like he was trying to pull the damn thing off at the hinges.

Rachel hurried out of the Dodge quickly, taking the teddy bear with her. Cody could hear short gasps coming out of her mouth as she fought for breath.

“You okay?” he said. “Talk to me.”

She nodded. “I’m okay.”

Cody stared into the empty backseat area. There was nobody in there. He kept looking for a minute, fixating on the spot where Rachel had been sitting just seconds earlier. He was waiting for the Black Widow to materialize. He thought about getting his gun from underneath the driver’s seat but he didn’t. No point in frightening Rachel. And would a gun even work against that thing? It seemed unlikely.

“She’s gone,” Rachel said. “But she was there – I saw her.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. He took a backwards step away from the car. The adrenaline was still coursing through his body.

“She’s gone,” he said.

Cody looked at Rachel and tried to smile. He took several deep breaths while the warm air pinched on his skin.

“You believe me don’t you?” Rachel said. Her tone was apologetic.

Cody nodded. “Of course I believe you,” he said. “But what happened? She didn’t try and talk to you did she?”

Rachel was squeezing Bootsy so tight that her fingers were on the brink of stabbing through the bear’s fur. Her knuckles were chalk white.

“She didn’t say anything,” Rachel said, looking at the ground. “I felt cold. Really cold. Sleepy too. I fell asleep for like a second and when I opened my eyes, she was there sitting beside me. And she was staring at me again – I don’t like the way she stares at me Dad.”

Cody checked both sides of the highway and was satisfied that no other traffic was coming their way. He should have flipped his hazards on when they stopped but that was the last thing he’d been thinking about. It didn’t matter – they weren’t staying long.

He kneeled beside Rachel.

“I don’t like the way she stares at me either,” he said. “But she’s gone now. It’s just you and me little lady. And we’ve got a plane to catch.” He looked up at the black sky and felt darkness wrap itself around them. “It all looks the same now doesn’t it?” he said, pointing a finger at the sky. “You’d never believe it was morning right now, huh?”

“I miss the sunshine,” Rachel said, not looking up. “The feel of the sun.”

“That’s your Californian blood talking,” Cody said with a smile. “We’d better go kid. Now if you see anything else in the car or if it starts to get cold like that again, you tell me. Got it?”

She nodded. In the gloomy haze cast by the Dodge’s taillights, Cody saw Kate in her eyes and felt like he couldn’t love his daughter any more. Of all the people in Cody’s rollercoaster life that had come and gone – and there had been a lot of people – Rachel was the one good thing that had lasted.

The Black Widow wasn’t going to take her away from him.

Rachel smiled. “We could pretend all this is just a movie,” she said. “That it’s make-believe.”

Cody raised an eyebrow. “You think that’d help?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, that’s the spirit,” Cody said. “Clan MacLeod. The immortals.”

“And we’re the good guys?”

“Of course,” Cody said. “What else? And the good guys always make it. Hey, you know what else kid?”

She shrugged. “What?”

Cody leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “All movies end,” he said, standing up and checking the highway for traffic again.

Rachel looked up. Her blue eyes roamed the sky, as if searching for the lost stars. “Where will this movie end?” she asked. “Up there?”

Cody shook his head. “No,” he said. “When we find a new home.”

“You really think there’s somewhere?” she said.

“There’s always somewhere.”

Cody pointed to a small dot of yellowish-white light in the black sky. It was nothing and yet it was everything. It was a freckle of hope. It was a chink in the armor of the Black Storm and a hint that the sun, stars and the moon were still up there. The old things hadn’t been eradicated. The Black Storm had locked them out.

Rachel looked up at the faint speck of light, her eyes wide with hope.

They stood there for a few seconds, both of them hypnotized and looking towards the sky.

“Thirsty?” he said, scratching at the stubble on his face.

Rachel nodded. “Yep.”

Cody went over to the car and opened up the trunk. There were eight multipacks of bottled water in the back, sitting next to a huddle of reusable shopping bags full of food. Canned food mostly, along with the water and several large bottles of multivitamins.

Bullets were another priority taking up space in the trunk. Cody had stocked up at the local arms supplier when things had gotten worse and he wasn’t the only one. What a day that was. It was like Black Friday for gun fanatics. People were grabbing guns and bullets off the shelves like they were reaching for life preservers on a sinking ship. The events of that day only fell short of anarchy because almost everyone appeared to be paying for their goods before leaving the store. Cody had grabbed as many boxes of 9mm ammo as he could carry and he’d gotten the hell out of there before stocks ran out.

He pulled out a small bottle of water, unscrewed the cap and handed it to Rachel. She took a long drink, wiped her mouth dry and handed it back to him. Cody finished the bottle and felt a little better. He tossed the trash back into the trunk and looked at the food bags stacked up in the corner. His stomach grumbled, despite all the excitement. It had been at least ten hours since he’d last eaten anything. There was a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter sticking out the top of the nearest bag. He could always rustle them up a quick roadside breakfast. The bread wouldn’t last long – it had been in the freezer until the electricity went off. Maybe this was a good time to use it up. Cody didn’t know how long it would be until their next meal.

“Hungry?” he said, turning to Rachel. “Want to me fix you something quick?”

She shook her head. “No.”

He nodded and looked down both sides of the highway. Best to keep moving. It wasn’t safe stopping on the side of the road, not for too long. When he was on the plane he would sit back and eat as much as he wanted – a mountain of bread and peanut butter and whatever else he could get his hands on. Shit, it was something to look forward to. That and sleep.

“How far to the airport?” Rachel said.

“Didn’t you ask me that already?” Cody said.

“I asked how long it would take to get there.”

Cody laughed. “Alright smart ass,” he said. “From home, it’s about twenty-five miles to San Antonio airport. We’ve chopped off a couple of miles already. Won’t be long now. We’re doing okay.”

Rachel looked up at him. “But we can’t drive too fast?”

“No. It’s too dark. It’s dangerous.”

“Let’s go then.”

Cody looked at her, his eyebrows standing up.

“Who made you captain of this expedition?”

She smiled and walked over to the car. Cody slammed the trunk shut and slid back into the driver’s seat. He looked at the road that stretched towards the San Antonio. It looked like the Northern Lights had settled over the city, except this colorful display was violent and man-made.

He turned the key in the ignition. At the same time, he could feel the heat travelling up the highway towards him, scalding his face from afar.

* * *

The next few miles were quiet. There were no other cars on the road and no further disturbances over San Antonio.

Cody kept both hands on the wheel. Drowsiness was creeping in fast. He tried to shake it off, to stay sharp. Sleep later, he told himself. But for now, get to the airport and get on that plane. In a normal world it was the simplest of tasks and this time he didn’t even have to remember their passports or paperwork or worry about putting their liquids into a little quart-sized bag and taking it through security.

He looked in the rearview mirror. Rachel’s head was resting on the back of the seat. Her eyes were closed and her mouth hung open a little. Cody smiled – she always fell asleep in the car without fail and nothing, not even the end of the world was going to stop that.

A cool breeze crept up Cody’s arms.

“That’s nice,” he said.

The constant muggy temperatures had been wearing him down all morning and it wasn’t helping him to stay awake. The breeze was welcome but it got colder quickly. Cody rolled up the window and pulled the crumpled sleeves of his black shirt over his forearms.

He saw something out of the corner of his eye. A shape, emerging in the passenger seat.

“Cody it’s me.”

Cody’s fingers clamped down on the steering wheel. He was paralyzed by a sudden onslaught of fear.

She was sitting in the passenger seat.

Cody shook his head.

“No,” he said. Don’t speak to her. Don’t look at her.

“Cody it’s me.”

Something about the voice. It was familiar.

“Cody it’s me.”

He looked in the rearview mirror and saw that Rachel was still asleep in the back. Thank God.

“Cody.”

He felt his foot sliding off the gas pedal. The car was slowing down. A moment later, they were crawling down the highway at about 15-miles-per-hour.

“You’re dead,” he said. “You’re not real.”

“It’s me,” she said.

Cody plucked up the courage to look at what had appeared in the car.

Kate MacLeod, his deceased wife and the love of his life was sitting in the passenger seat. She looked like she’d done in the last year of her life – beautiful, but damaged like a flower in the early stages of wilting. Her long blonde hair had lost its youthful shine but her magnificent face – the broad forehead, almond-shaped eyes and full lips – they were still exceptional. As it had been in those last years, her cheekbones were so prominent that the word ‘addict’ might as well have been tattooed onto her forehead.

She’d sat in the same passenger seat many times before. So many warm evenings spent racing along Mulholland Drive in the Dodge Challenger, speeding past the Santa Monica Mountains and glorious orange-red sunsets to die for. Those were some of Cody’s happiest memories of his life with Kate.

“What’s happening?” Cody said. He spoke quietly, desperate not to wake Rachel up. “It can’t be you. You’re dead.”

“Of course it’s me,” Kate said, staring at him. She blinked slowly, like a reptile. “It’s so good to see you again Cody.”

God how he’d missed her. It felt so much longer than ten years.

“It’s you?” he said.

He looked at her and she nodded.

“I’m here for you. Only you.”

“Only me?”

“That’s right.”

Cody gave a little snort of disgust and snapped out of whatever daze he’d been in.

“You’re forgetting something,” he said. “Aren’t you? You haven’t even looked at Rachel once. You haven’t asked about our daughter, not once. That’s her sitting in the back seat by the way. She’s ten years old now and she’s spent her entire life trying to understand why her Mom wasn’t there for her when she was growing up. Thanks for leaving me with that problem.”

“I’m so lonely,” Kate said. “Over here, on the other side – it gets so lonely. Won’t you come back with me?”

“Bullshit,” Cody said.

He glanced at her. Her marble-like eyes were empty.

“I know who you are,” Cody said. “I know what you do. Sometimes you come to people disguised as friends and family members – even dead ones because people want to see their loved ones so much that they’ll believe it. Then you whisper in their ear, do your sweet-talking and they off themselves. Sometimes you convince them to take others with them. Burn the house, burn the street, burn everything. Right? You sick, twisted bitch. Get the fuck out of my car.”

“You don’t know what it’s like over here Cody,” Kate said. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Well I know one thing,” Cody said. “I know that I’ve sunk about as far as any human being could sink in life without dying or going insane. I know that I fought off a hundred Black Storms in my head when you died. But I learned to live with it. I had to for Rachel. So why don’t you just fuck off? Please.”

A massive explosion lit up the sky behind them. Cody gasped and looked over his shoulder.

A towering fireball was shooting towards the stratosphere.

He looked at Kate, his eyes wide open in horror.

“Was that…?” he said.

“Spring Branch,” she said. “Is that what you were going to say?”

Cody’s voice was shaking. “Did you just do that?”

Kate’s face was expressionless. Doll-like.

“You did it,” she said.

She vanished like a ghost. The bitter cold disappeared with her and everything inside the car felt normal again – at least as normal as could be expected.

Cody sat in stunned silence, looking at the smoke plumes billowing in the north. The black sky had lit up under the wreckage of Spring Branch; it looked like a fireworks display that had gotten out of hand.

“What did you do?” he whispered.

Cody thought about the everyday faces he’d encountered in Spring Branch – good people, big hearts and friendly Texan greetings. He envisioned them all, caught up in the Black Fever, driving around town in their cars, pouring a trail of gasoline in their wake and destroying everything that they’d helped build.

He thought about their home.

In a daze, Cody reached for the radio. With any luck, it would at least distract him from the carnage that was unfolding in the rearview mirror.

His trembling hand found the dial.

Chapter Four

I saw her at the start – a tall woman dressed in mourning clothes.

The Black Storm was in its early days back then. There was no Black Fever, no black rain, and the sky was still kinda blue. We were living a normal day to day routine. Work, jobs, life – you know?

I was on my way to work in Bismarck, North Dakota. I’m in marketing. I was standing at the train station, not far from the platform edge when I heard a woman’s voice whisper in my ear – I heard it as clear as I can hear my own voice now. Jump, she said. You have nothing to live for. That voice pushed me forward, taking me closer to the edge of the platform. A train was coming – my train. And the closer the train got to the station, the louder the voice in my ear was.

Jump.

And I nearly did because you know what? She was right, I didn’t have anything to live for. Have you ever heard of something the French call L’appel du vide – the call of the void? That’s what they call it. It’s a strange phenomenon where we feel the urge to do terrible things to ourselves. You might be holding onto a kitchen knife and think what would it be like to stab myself with this? What if I crashed the car? What if I leaned over the cliff just a little further? That sort of thing. The call of the void.

She kept whispering in my ear. I don’t know how I fought her off that day. Others haven’t been so fortunate. She’s already taken my wife and children and grandchildren so I know she’s coming back someday.

I won’t resist next time. When she comes…

Cody turned off the radio. It sounded like another private broadcast from somebody holed up in a house somewhere. It was like listening to the last ramblings of the doomed.

Wasn’t there any hope left?

The horizon to the south was on fire. Cody leaned forward in his seat, taking in the view with both fascination and horror. San Antonio looked like it was under attack. Looking at the city reminded Cody of an old Second World War newsreel that he’d seen about the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945. The German city had been turned into a firestorm by the Allied bombs over the course of several nights and it looked like something similar was happening in San Antonio. Cody looked up to the sky, half-expecting to see a fleet of fighter jets flying overhead and making towards the city.

A voice in his head told him to turn around. Take Rachel back north, the voice said. Take her into the less populous areas where the destruction wasn’t so intense. Where there were less people. Spring Branch might be gone but there were other places they could try.

No, he couldn’t do that. Nick was waiting for them at the airport. The plane was waiting. They had to get off this sinking ship somehow, even if there were no guarantees that it would work out once they took off.

They had to at least try.

Cody’s eyes followed a distant plume of smoke as it drifted towards the black sky. “Just let me get her to the airport.”

He was distracted by a tapping noise at the windshield. Seconds later, the black rain came down in buckets and Cody, cursing quietly, knew what he had to do. He pulled the car to a halt at the side of the road as the sudden downpour of black rain laid siege to the Dodge Challenger.

The heavy oil-like drops crashed to Earth in a furious, machine-gun rhythm. The windows were covered in running black liquid and in a matter of seconds it was impossible to see anything outside the car.

Cody wasn’t too concerned about being off the road for long. He knew that as ferocious as these downpours were, they didn’t tend to last more than a few minutes. This was sprinter rain, not marathon rain. It was a pain in the ass though, forcing him to take precious minutes out of their journey while they sat on the side of the highway. On top of that he’d have to wipe the car down when it was over and that would eat into their time even more.

“Shit,” he said.

He looked behind him. Rachel was still asleep in the backseat. Not even the Spring Branch explosion had woken her up so a little black rain wasn’t going to disturb her. She was getting used to the chaos.

“Good for you kid,” Cody said quietly.

The rain lasted for about three or four minutes. When it was over, Cody opened the door, stepped into a thick black puddle and ran towards the trunk. Opening it up, he took out one of the large bottles of water and walked around the car, pouring it over the windows. He emptied the bottle onto the roof and doors of the Dodge too, trying to soak through as much of the black rain as possible.

When he was finished, he put the empty bottle back into the trunk. Back inside the car, he turned on the windshield wipers at full speed, clearing the murky glass screen as quickly as he could. When he was satisfied he could see okay, he put his foot to the floor, turned the steering wheel to the right and rolled the Dodge onto the highway.

After the fury of the black rain it was quiet. It was so quiet that Cody flipped on the radio. It was a habit he couldn’t seem to break. Not the worst habit he’d ever acquired by a long shot. As he turned the dial, Cody was greeted with blaring static and he brought the volume down to a whisper. He glanced over his shoulder. Rachel was still fast asleep.

Turning the dial a little more carefully, a familiar voice came floating out of the speakers.

“It’s so lonely over here Cody,” Kate said. “We can be a family again – you, me and Rachel. It doesn’t matter, none of this matters anymore. Look at San Antonio and tell me that you’re not scared. Well you don’t have to be scared. You don’t have to go there. There’s only pain and death waiting for you if you go there. There’s no pain here Cody – only love.”

“Get the fuck outta here!” Cody said. His eyes went back and forth between the radio and the road.

“I miss you,” Kate said. “I miss Rachel too.”

“Now you remember she exists, huh?” Cody said.

“Let go Cody,” she said. “Let go of the steering wheel and drive off the highway. End the pain. Take off your seatbelt. Take off Rachel’s seatbelt and come to me. Drive fast and hard. I promise I’ll be waiting on the other side. Do the right thing for all of us.”

Cody felt a bead of sweat running down his forehead. He shot a hand out and turned the radio off. But it was no use – the voice kept coming, like a siren beckoning to him from distant rocks.

“Stop fighting,” Kate said. “Stop running. End the pain.”

“No,” Cody said. “Go away.”

“I’m so lonely,” Kate said. “Oh how I long for Rachel, my dear baby girl. I need to hold her in my arms again. You know how much she needs her mother. Don’t you? Would you deny her a mother’s love?”

Cody looked onto the road. Was it really Kate talking to him after all? How could anyone else know how much Rachel yearned for her dead mother? Maybe Kate, wherever she was, maybe she knew and…

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Kate. It can’t be you.”

There was a lot of sense in what she was saying. Things were bad. Look at the world burning on all sides. Maybe there was something better and it wasn’t with Nick and his magic plane. That’s if the plane was still there. A long shot. A pipe dream. Nick had probably gotten bored waiting for them to arrive. For all Cody knew, Nick Norton and his pals had taken off and now they were up there, sitting on that giant metal island in the sky, drinking champagne and toasting their future in an unknown paradise. Meanwhile Cody was risking everything, driving to an empty airport on the outskirts of a city that was spilling over with people infected with the Black Fever.

Was that fair on Rachel?

“Yes,” Kate said. “You know what you have to do.”

Cody felt like crying. Poor Rachel. It would crush her. Would she ever forgive him for letting her down if they turned up at the airport and the plane was gone? He looked at her in the mirror. She was asleep – a perfect and innocent child in this god-awful world. She could stay that way – asleep. What sort of father would allow his child to wake up in Hell?

It was so cold in the car.

“Drive fast and hard,” Kate said.

Cody looked through the windshield, up at the sky. It was rotten and purplish-black, like a bruise.

“No,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re asking.” But his voice was weak. And he found himself wanting her to speak again. He craved the texture of her voice – telling him, reassuring him that it was the right thing to do.

“Kate,” he said. “Where are you?”

“I’m here,” Kate said. The voice was soft and soothing. “And I’ll be there on the other side, waiting for you both. It’s so beautiful here Cody – it’ll be the three of us, driving around the Santa Monica Mountains, surrounded by the California sun. Forever. You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Cody said. He sounded sluggish. “I’d like that.”

“Drive fast and hard,” Kate said.

Cody nodded. “Yes. Fast and hard.”

He knew she was right. And yet there it was – this voice, somewhere at the back of his mind trying to fight her off. It was screaming from a distance, like the voice of someone falling into a deep hole.

“No,” he said. “No I can’t do it.”

He pointed a stabbing finger at the radio.

“I don’t quit,” he said. “You’re the one who quit. You’re the one that let us down. And why? Did being a big star in Tinseltown really mean more to you than being a mom to your little girl? More than being a wife? You just couldn’t accept it could you? We blew it baby! We drank and snorted our way to the bottom of the Hollywood dung pile. Rachel was our last chance at happiness. Real happiness. A family – we were supposed to be an ordinary family. But you couldn’t do it. You brought Hollywood with you.”

The words gushed like hot lava out of a volcano.

“I don’t quit,” he said, looking at the radio. “That Hollywood golden couple label was on both our heads. I was drowning in the same ocean Kate but I swam out of it. You think it wasn’t hard for me too? And when everyone tried to get me to stay in LA, telling me that perfect comeback role was right around the corner, don’t you think I was tempted? We had a baby on the way – a real baby. The only way we were going to give her a chance was to get the hell out of Los Angeles.”

He’d said the same things to her so many times in his mind.

“This is our chance to start all over again,” Kate said. “I can’t come to you. But you can come to me.”

The voice sounded closer. Like she had her lips pressed up against his ear.

Cody looked in the rearview mirror and saw Kate sitting in the backseat. She was looking at Cody while stroking Rachel’s hair with a long pale finger.

It wasn’t her sudden appearance that shocked him the most. More than anything else, he was taken aback at the sight of them together – mother and daughter, like it was supposed to be. Rachel hadn’t even been a year old when Kate died. He’d imagined so many times what it would be like to see them together had Kate lived.

“My family,” she said, not taking her eyes off Cody.

Cody’s eyes returned to the road. “Family,” he said.

He looked in the mirror again.

Eddie Faldo was sitting in the backseat next to Kate and Rachel. It was the young Eddie Faldo, eleven years old, looking exactly like he’d done in 1985 when he’d starred in The Forever Boys alongside Cody. His jet-black hair was slicked back in a greasy fifties style. His olive skin was smooth and flawless, and he wore the same stripy red and white t-shirt and skin-tight jeans that his character, Ziggy, had worn in the film.

“Just do it man,” Eddie said, talking in Ziggy’s wise-ass Brooklyn accent. In The Forever Boys, Cody had played a character called Jared – a shy kid with a stutter and the exact opposite of Ziggy’s confident street kid persona. Actors loved stutters – they were Oscar bait and indeed the role had netted the young Cody his first and only Academy Awards nomination. He’d lost out to some old fart actor who’d played a dementia patient in a care home.

Eddie was holding an Oscar statuette in his left hand. The 24-karat gold-plated award was looking at Cody or at least it seemed to be. Look at what you could have won. Eddie Faldo had won an Oscar in his early twenties playing an on-screen junkie, a role that Cody had been perfecting in real life around the same time.

“A-a-asshole,” Cody said. “Get the f-fuck out of my car.”

“Do it Jared,” Eddie said. “Drive fast and hard.”

Cody felt like he was falling into a deep hole. It felt like his mind was slipping beyond his control. He saw no future. No point in going on, not when it was this hard.

“You’re right,” he said. “I can end this.”

His eyes roamed the side of the highway. There were plenty of trees lined up along the 281 but most of them were tucked in behind a short metal fence. If he drove the car into that little fence, even at high speed he’d be lucky to get whiplash. The utility poles however, those caught his eye. They stretched out along the highway very nicely. Slamming the Dodge into one of those babies, now that would cause some damage.

Cody had already unbuckled his seatbelt by the time he’d decided to go after one of the utility poles. He slowed the car down and stopped in the middle of the highway. Turning around, he reached a hand into the back seat area. Quickly, he found the buckle at Rachel’s waist and unclicked it.

Cody checked to see if she was awake. She was still out of it, bless her. Kate and Eddie Faldo, still sitting beside her, urged him onwards with eager, gleaming eyes.

“Do it,” Kate said.

“Do it,” Eddie said.

Cody turned on the engine and put his foot down on the pedal. The 1970 Dodge Challenger roared as it built up speed and charged forward down the lonely 281.

No more pain. It was for the best.

If the utility pole didn’t finish them off there was always the gun. As long as he was still conscious, Cody would reach for the Glock and put both of them out of their misery.

They would be a family again. Driving around the Santa Monica Mountains forever.

The car raced down the highway, picking up speed. The road was like an empty runway, allowing Cody to bring the Dodge up to top speed, almost one hundred and forty miles-per-hour. It was going to be the ultimate takeoff when he hit that pole.

“Dad?”

Rachel sounded far away.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” Cody said. “It’ll all be over soon. I’m taking care of it.”

“Dad!” Rachel’s voice was louder this time. She was getting closer. “Why are you driving so fast? Slow down. I’m scared.”

The voice pulled him back. Cody looked in the mirror and saw Rachel sitting alone in the back seat. There was only Bootsy keeping her company now. He saw the fear and confusion in her eyes and his foot immediately released the accelerator. The Dodge, which had been speeding along at over a hundred miles-per-hour, slowed down quickly.

“Oh my God,” Cody said. It felt like he was opening his eyes after a deep sleep only to find that he was lying on the edge of a tall cliff, inches from toppling over the side. “I was going to…”

He wiped the sweat off his face. His skin was burning.

“Rachel,” Cody said, trying to pull himself back together. “Put your seatbelt on okay? I think it came off by accident when you were asleep.”

“Okay.”

As he spoke, he fastened his own belt. Quietly.

“Did you see that?” Rachel said, fixing her seatbelt.

“What? See what?”

“There was someone standing at the side of the road,” Rachel said. “I think it was a hitchhiker. We just passed her by a second ago.”

Cody looked in the side mirror and saw someone standing at the edge of the highway. A woman was holding a thumb out, looking towards the Dodge with hopeful eyes.

It was not the Black Widow.

Cody pressed the brake and the Dodge slowed to a stop in the middle of the road. Now that the engine was quiet he could hear his heart thumping. He wanted to shout, to punch a hole in the roof of the car – to do something. His head shook back and forth as he tried to understand what had taken place just moments earlier. What happened? It had felt so real – Kate, Eddie, and the certainty he’d felt about killing his daughter, not to mention himself.

Rachel leaned forward in the back.

“Are we giving that woman a ride?” she asked.

Cody looked in the side mirror again. The woman was walking down the road towards the car. The Dodge’s bright taillights allowed him a good look at her. She was between fifty and sixty years old with long red, wavy hair that fell down past her shoulders. Her face was pale with strong, handsome features. With her plaid shirt, blue jeans and knee-high boots, she looked the part of a stranded country and western singer. All that was missing was the guitar case in hand.

She had no bags.

“Yeah,” Cody said. “Let’s help her out. As long as she’s going our way.” What he didn’t tell Rachel was that he would welcome the distraction. That was his main reason for stopping. With any luck, there’d be less interference from malevolent forces if someone else was in the car.

Cody glared up at the black sky. Fuck you.

“But you said nobody else was going to be riding with us,” Rachel said.

“We can’t leave a woman on the side of the road like that,” Cody said. “She’s likely to get run over or worse. Look she won’t interfere with our plans honey. We’re going straight to the airport and if she wants, we can drop her off somewhere along the way. That’s the best we can do. Okay?”

“Okay,” Rachel said.

Cody smiled at Rachel. Then he listened as footsteps approached the driver’s side of the vehicle. As he waited for the hitchhiker, Cody closed his eyes and saw Kate’s gaunt and waiflike face in the back seat, begging him to die. Begging him to kill their daughter.

Chapter Five

Cody rolled down the window and the hitchhiker leaned in.

“Going my way?” she said. She was smiling, showing off a set of large front teeth – massive ivory monoliths that glowed in the dark. Her eyes lit up when she noticed Rachel sitting in the back of the car. It was as if the sight of the child reassured her that Cody wasn’t an axe murderer and that it was safe to approach.

“Depends,” Cody said. “What’s your way?”

“Oh Lord,” she said, leaning in closer. “Whatever way you’re going is my way. I just want to get off this damn highway for starters.”

“We’re going to the airport,” Cody said. “No further. Sorry.”

The woman’s eyebrows stood up, turning her face into a question mark.

“Well I ain’t going that far,” she said. “I live in one of them cute little suburbs further down the highway. Came up to Spring Branch to see if there was any food or water left in the stores. Figured it was quieter up there – thought they might have some supplies lying around, you know? Came out empty-handed as you can see. Ah sure as hell wasn’t walking into San Antonio though. That city’s gone up in hellfire and I hear they’re all batshit crazy or fleeing in droves. Don’t know about the airport though.”

Cody looked towards the horizon where a blip of violent color lingered over San Antonio.

“The airport is okay,” he said.

The woman pointed a finger at the sky.

“So you’re getting on a plane?” she said. “That might be the craziest thing I’ve heard yet.”

“Staying on the ground is crazier,” Cody said. “You got a better idea?”

“Nope,” the woman said. “I do not. Crazy ideas in crazy times are probably the sanest choice. God speed my friends. All I’m looking for is a little haul further down the highway, that’s if you don’t mind. I’ve seen some selfish assholes driving up and down this road and you’re the first kind-hearted people who’ve stopped to help a lady out. What do you say? Can you help old Mary Jane get home?”

Cody smiled. “Mary Jane?”

The woman offered a hand to Cody through the gap in the window.

“That’s me darling,” she said. “Mary Jane Labelle. Housewife and part-time adventurer. Just trying to get through the Black Storm so I can get back to my man and kids who’re probably worried sick.” She winked at Rachel. “And my dogs of course. I probably miss them most of all.”

Rachel giggled in the back.

Cody took the woman’s hand and shook it. Her skin was like sandpaper and the grip was strong.

“I’m Cody,” he said. “That’s my daughter Rachel.”

“Well hello there Rachel,” Mary Jane said. She reached through the window and greeted the young girl with a warm handshake. “How are we doing this evening? Is it evening?”

“It’s morning,” Rachel said.

“Right you are.”

Mary Jane, still smiling, turned back to Cody. He saw the hopeful look in her eye.

“Mind if I search you for weapons?” Cody said.

Mary Jane nodded. “Absolutely not,” she said. “You’d be crazy if you didn’t.”

She stepped back from the car and Cody got out. Mary Jane stood on the side of the road. She held her arms out, waiting for him to begin.

Cody hesitated.

“Don’t be shy Cody,” Mary Jane said. “I ain’t going to accuse you of trying to cop a feel or nothing like that. You got a beautiful little girl there and it’s only right you want to protect her. Go on and search me. I ain’t armed but I understand you gotta find that out for yourself.”

“Alright,” he said. “Can you put your hands on your head? Fingers interlocked if you don’t mind.”

“You a cop?”

Cody shook his head as he patted her down. He wasn’t a cop but he’d played one in several straight to DVD movies back in the nineties. Thanks to a short spell of research undertaken with the LAPD he knew exactly what he was doing when it came to conducting a standing search.

He started the search from Mary Jane’s back because doing it that way reduced the risk of an attack. He asked her to widen her stance, which she did. Afterwards he thoroughly searched the areas on both sides of Mary Jane’s body – those parts where it would be easy for her to reach for a weapon if she had one stashed away.

Now it was time to search the more delicate areas. Once again, she seemed to sense that he was uncomfortable.

“C’mon,” she said. “This is the most fun I’ve had in years.”

Cody ignored her and got on with it. He felt around the perimeter of her breast using the side of his hand. When it came to the breast’s underside he used the outside of the thumb like he’d been taught to – he recalled this was done to avoid accusations of cupping. He didn’t get the feeling that Mary Jane was going to accuse him of anything.

He could feel Rachel’s eyes watching him from the car.

“You’re pretty good at that,” Mary Jane said in a deep, almost masculine voice.

Cody’s hands dropped to his sides.

“All done,” he said. “You ain’t packing.”

“I can get in?”

“Sure.”

She looked at him, long and hard. Cody got the feeling that she was trying to flirt with him. Maybe he was better at conducting a standing search than he realized.

He backed off towards the driver’s door.

“Alright let’s go,” Cody said.

He climbed back into the car and waited. Mary Jane walked at a leisurely pace and eased her way into the passenger seat.

“I like your style,” she said to Cody, looking around the inside of the car. “Is this an old-school Dodge Challenger? Or is it a Charger?”

“Challenger.”

“Man, these cars rock.”

Mary Jane turned around and smiled at Rachel.

“Going on a plane sweetheart?” she said, buckling up her seatbelt.

Rachel nodded, then looked away shyly. “Yeah.”

“How exciting,” Mary Jane said. When she turned back to the front, Cody saw her glance nervously at the black sky.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Cody drove the Challenger back onto the highway. He barely bothered to check for oncoming traffic anymore because the roads were so quiet and empty. Maybe that would change as they got closer to the city.

An uncomfortable silence lingered. It felt weird having somebody else in the car and Cody didn’t like it. But the risk of another encounter with the Black Widow was greatly reduced in company. And with no cup of coffee likely to appear in the near future it would help him stay alert too.

Fortunately the silence didn’t last long.

“Say you look familiar,” Mary Jane said. She was looking at Cody, her eyes gleaming like he was something sweet and sugary sitting on a supermarket shelf. It was a little unnerving but it was a look that Cody had encountered many times during his film career from giddy fans.

Cody shook his head. “Don’t know about that,” he said. Ever since moving to Texas a decade ago, he’d heard those four words all lined up in that exact same order, more than anything else.

Say you look familiar.

“What did you say your surname was?” Mary Jane asked.

“I didn’t,” Cody said.

But Mary Jane didn’t seem like the type of woman to take a hint. Her eyes were bulging with curiosity.

“I do know you though,” she said. “I’m sure of it.”

“Maybe I’ve just got one of those faces,” Cody said. “I probably look like someone you knew once.”

Silence followed but he could hear Mary Jane’s brain at work. She was sizing him up from the passenger seat. It was something he’d gotten used to a long time ago – strangers gawking at him. At first, back in the 1980s, it had been glorious but as things had gotten worse in his private life, those starstruck eyes had been replaced by looks of pity and the occasional look of disgust. Nowadays he was happy with being Mr. Invisible.

“You’re famous,” Mary Jane asked. “Am I right?”

“He used to be,” Rachel said.

Cody threw Rachel a dirty look from the front.

“Thanks a lot,” he said.

Rachel screwed up her face. “What? What did I say?”

He sighed and turned back to the road. “Never mind.”

Mary Jane watched this exchange between father and daughter from the passenger seat. Slowly, her eyes lit up and with a deep sigh, she fell back into her seat.

“I know who you are,” she said. “Holy sh…sugar!”

Cody looked at her. “Congratulations.”

“Who do you think he is?” Rachel said. She was laughing now. If nothing else, at least all this was entertaining her.

Mary Jane glanced over her shoulder. Rachel, putting shyness to the side, leaned closer to her.

“I think,” Mary Jane whispered to Rachel, “that your daddy is the blond kid from The Forever Boys,” she said. “The stutter kid. Which means that your daddy is Cody MacLeod. Am I right?”

Rachel’s giggling was all the answer Mary Jane needed.

“I love that movie,” Mary Jane said, turning back to Cody. She smiled, showing off her dazzling white teeth. “Always has me in tears at the end. Good Lord, you and that other kid nailed it man. What’s his name? Eddie Faldo, yeah. We all watch that movie in my house. Even my kids love it. You know how it comes on TV all the time during the holidays? Well if The Forever Boys is on TV, no matter what else is going on in the Labelle house, we’ll drop everything and watch it. It’s that damn good. Wow – I can’t believe the stutter kid just picked me up on the side of the road.”

Cody was only half-listening. As Mary Jane talked, he was staring at the raging red sky over San Antonio. He was still wrestling with the possibility that he’d made a mistake in accepting Nick’s offer. It wasn’t too late to turn around and start driving north. What chance did they have up there in a plane?

“You don’t like talking about the past,” Mary Jane said. “Do you?”

Cody gave her a lukewarm smile. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Where am I taking you Mary Jane?”

“Stone Oak,” she said, pointing a finger at the windshield. “You know it?”

“Sort of.”

Cody wouldn’t have picked Mary Jane as the Stone Oak type. Not in a hundred years. All those big houses, picturesque views of downtown San Antonio, swimming pools and country clubs – it sure as hell wasn’t cheap to live down in that neck of the woods. He’d envisioned Mary Jane as being more of a trailer park type. Or maybe somewhere with a little wooden shack in the backwoods with the confederate flag poking out the top.

He scolded himself for being an asshole.

“That’s where you live?” Cody said. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.

“That’s where my brother lives,” she said. Her voice was harder this time around. Colder. Cody wondered if she’d taken offence. “We’ve been staying with him since all this started.”

Cody nodded. That made sense. A lot of families had been sticking close together since the Black Storm.

“You ain’t that far from the airport,” he said. “If Stone Oak is still standing then maybe the airport is too, right?”

“Sure. I guess.”

Cody looked in the rearview mirror. “You okay kid?”

“Uh-huh,” Rachel said.

Mary Jane pointed towards the dark road.

“Listen Cody,” she said. “You’d better come off the highway before we get to Stone Oak. I ain’t seen it for myself but I heard the 281 is a little wild on the outskirts of the city. That’s me putting it mildly. There’s a lot of human traffic moving this way and that means carjacking, robberies...”

She looked at Rachel briefly, turned back and lowered her voice. “And a whole lot worse,” she said.

Cody had heard the same rumors. “Yeah.”

“Stick to the suburbs as far as you can going south,” she said. “That’s the best plan. Might take you a little longer but it’ll get you there alive. Get off at Bulverde, travel down the back roads – down Bulverde Road, keeping south till we get to Stone Oak. After you drop me off there, take the 1604 back onto the 281. You’ll pass the worst of it. After that, you put the foot down mister and don’t slow down or stop for anyone until you reach the airport, you hear me?”

“Yeah I got it,” Cody said. “I don’t really want to come off the highway though.”

Mary Jane nodded.

“I get it,” she said. “But there’s a lot of distressed city folks spilling out of San Antonio. Some good people for sure, most of them just trying to get away. But there’s some bad ones too. You know, the type of people who see opportunity in disaster. Some of them will be coming north. You’re driving straight into the eye of the storm Cody. You gotta take care of yourself – you got a little lady here to protect.”

As Mary Jane was talking, Cody saw the exit sign for Bulverde at the side of the road.

“Yeah,” she said, pointing at the sign. “That’s the one. We’re going to jump off here and I’ll give you directions that’ll take us straight to Stone Oak. After that, you’re almost home.”

Cody didn’t want to come off the highway. But he didn’t want to run into a gang of violent opportunists spilling out of the city either. They’d be all over the Dodge in seconds. All over Rachel. Mary Jane was right. The quiet roads were his best chance of finding smooth passage to the city. He saw the sense in it but he still didn’t like it.

“Alright,” he said. “But before we turn off I’m going to pull over so I can take a leak. Might as well get it over with.”

“Sure thing,” Mary Jane said. “I might even go myself.”

“Rachel,” Cody said, glancing over his shoulder. Rachel was sitting upright with Bootsy at her side. “We’re going to take a little detour in a minute. Narrow roads, less people. I don’t really want to stop once we get on them. You need to go?”

“Okay,” she said.

“Good girl.”

Cody pulled the Dodge into the side of the highway, a little short of the ramp that led down to Bulverde. He got out the car and Mary Jane and Rachel did likewise.

“Is there a ladies room?” Mary Jane said, her lips curving into a half-smile.

“Over there,” Cody said, pointing to the stretch of central reservation at the back of the car. “Little boy’s room is up here at the front.”

“Sure thing. Let’s go Rachel.”

Cody walked in the other direction, unzipped his pants and peed. Further down, Mary Jane and Rachel were huddled somewhere out of sight.

He stared into the distance.

To the south, orange fire-clouds and black smoke plumes spewed out of the city. It was neverending. There was however, at least from afar, a strange serenity to be found in that moment. While he was by himself, Cody felt like he was the last human being in the world.

“Say what you will,” he said, shaking out the last drops. “But if that’s the end of the world, it’s kind of beautiful.”

Chapter Six

Cody was the first one back in the car. While he waited for Rachel and Mary Jane to finish up, he turned on the radio.

Static. Of course.

He persevered and turned the dial back and forth. After about ten seconds of electronic hissing and spitting, he found something. A brief spurt of electric guitar, a stabbing rhythm, and a familiar Irish bluesy voice sang out to him. Cody knew the song. It was ‘Moonchild’ by Rory Gallagher. The first time he’d heard that song was ten years ago when he and a pregnant Kate had undertaken the long drive from California to Texas to start their new life away from Tinseltown. They’d insisted on driving to Spring Branch because somehow it would feel more real than hopping on a plane and just landing in Texas a few hours later. They wanted to feel the wheels turning underneath them. They wanted to look over their shoulders and watch as Los Angeles faded into the background.

The music didn’t last long. The static returned and the memories slipped away inside the white noise.

About a minute later, the front door opened and Mary Jane squeezed back into the passenger side. Rachel climbed into the back seat.

“Oh man,” Mary Jane said. “I needed that.”

“All aboard?” Cody said.

Rachel picked up Bootsy and put the scruffy-looking bear back on her lap.

“Yeah,” she said.

Cody looked at her and shook his head.

“You haven’t given that bear a single glance since you were five years old,” he said. “Now you’re best pals again?”

Rachel’s eyes scowled at him.

“We all need our vices Cody,” Mary Jane said, tossing a wink in Rachel’s direction. “Lord knows when my cigarettes run out there’s going to be hell to pay. My poor Harry and the kids. This Black Storm ain’t gonna look much worse than a stiff breeze compared to what I’m going to put them through when the tobacco dries up.”

She made a mock angry face at Rachel.

Rachel laughed.

Cody saw the way they were looking at each other. It wasn’t a bear that Rachel needed – it was a mom. He’d tried his best to be both a father and mother to her over the years but there were some things a young girl needed that only a woman could provide.

With a sigh, Cody turned the dial on the two watt Music Master radio. He was chasing after that lost piece of music. He wanted the others to hear it too. He wanted them to know that were still people out there putting music on the radio and that it was something to be hopeful about. At the very least, let them hear it again. When was the next time they’d be able to listen to music?

But he couldn’t find it.

Cody was about to give up fidgeting with the radio when he caught onto a woman’s voice amidst the static.

Anybody out there getting this? I’m in Arkansas and things are real bad here, especially with planes going missing or falling out the sky. Seems to be happening all the time nowadays. I heard this morning that another flight has been reported missing out of Little Rock. It’s the third one this week, another small private passenger aircraft and that makes it the ninth this month that has seemingly vanished into thin air. That’s not counting all the planes that have crashed into buildings, highways and into the Arkansas River.

All commercial passenger flights have been suspended, we know that much. Still, private jets and light aircraft are venturing up into the sky at great risk not only to themselves but also to those on the ground. Yeah I get why they’re doing it. I know a lot of people are stranded far from home. It must be horrible to be so far from your loved ones. Especially with all this going on. These latest incidents aren’t expected to stop people from trying to make private arrangements with local pilots to get home but my advice to you all is to stay on the ground. Look at what’s happening for Christ’s sake. You think it’s bad on the ground? Trust me, it ain’t much better up there. The Black Storm will spit you out of the sky. The Black Widow will show up in the cockpit, whisper into the pilot’s ear and then…

Cody turned the radio off. He was about ready to take a hammer to that damn thing.

The silence that followed was excruciating.

Cody?” Mary Jane said, after about a minute. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing? That ain’t the first time I’ve heard about that kind of thing – planes crashing into buildings, roads and whatever. Up in the sky – that sounds like a bad place to be if the pilot gets a dose of the Black Fever.”

“We’re not going on a Lego plane,” Cody said. He kept his eyes on the road but could feel her looking at him. “There’s a fully-fuelled Boeing 737 waiting for us at the airport. It ain’t exactly a ten-seater job.”

Mary Jane lowered her voice.

“Used to be the big planes that went down first,” she said. “Before they grounded them.”

Cody hoped Rachel wasn’t listening in. He had a feeling she was.

“Nick’s taking seven or eight pilots with him,” he said. Damn it, he didn’t want to talk about this right now. “Anything weird goes down, it’s covered.”

“Yeah maybe so,” Mary Jane said. “But where exactly are you going to go? You got fuel, you got pilots – you got a destination?”

Cody looked through the windshield and pointed to a break in between the dark sky. A speck of white-golden light shone back at them, piercing through the black sky like a laser cutting through metal.

“Up there,” Cody said. “Somewhere…”

“Over the rainbow?” Mary Jane said. “That’s nice but...”

“Have you looked at San Antonio lately?” Cody asked. “You really want to hang around and be a part of that?”

“No I don’t,” Mary Jane said. “But where are you going to go where it ain’t the same thing happening?”

Cody bit his lip. “Nick’s a great pilot – he’ll find a way.”

Mary Jane sighed. “I’m all for hanging onto hope,” she said. “And I don’t mean to bring you down. But honestly, it sounds a bit like out of the frying pan and into the fire to me.”

Cody put his foot down as they approached the ramp to Bulverde.

“You know I saw her tonight,” Mary Jane said. “I saw the Black Widow. On the road, not long before you guys showed up. Jesus, I thought my time was up. I thought she was bringing me some of that Black Fever. Thought I was going to end up stepping out in front of the next car that came speeding along the highway at a hundred miles per hour. She wasn’t far away, about fifteen or twenty meters. Those eyes man, or whatever you call them – they were looking right at me. Through me – like she was drilling down into my soul.”

She smiled but her eyes were fearful at the recollection.

“Tell me something Cody.”

“What?”

“You think all this is real?” she said. “You think the Black Storm is real? Or do you think we’ve all gone crazy? What is it they said? That some military-constructed virus has gone airborne and we’re all having the same mass hallucination. What’s going on?”

“Don’t know,” Cody said. “I’ve stopped trying to make sense of it.”

He drove the Dodge towards the ramp and down into Bulverde. Cody knew little about the area he was going through. He knew that Bulverde was a tiny city with a population of less than five thousand and that it was located on the outskirts of San Antonio. He wondered if they’d see any people once they got into the suburbs to drop Mary Jane off. What he’d give to see something humdrum and ordinary right now. Kids playing in a park, people jogging on the sidewalk – boring suburban activities like that. Where was everyone? Were they all hiding indoors, listening to the radio and waiting for the all clear? Or were they dead already?

Off the highway, the roads were darker and quieter.

“Stay on this track for a little bit,” Mary Jane said. Her voice sounded louder in the stillness of the back roads. “There’s a right turn coming up that’ll take us onto Bulverde Road,” she said. “After that we’re on our way down to Stone Oak. It’s easy when you know how.”

“Alright,” Cody said. “Just tell me when.”

“This one here,” Mary Jane said, pointing straight ahead. Cody could barely see the turn until he’d almost driven past it.

“Bulverde Road,” Mary Jane said. “Right there.”

“I see it now.”

Cody turned the steering wheel to the right. He felt uneasy as the car drove onto the narrow and claustrophobic Bulverde Road. Only the Dodge’s headlights prevented a total blackout from swallowing them up. Large trees stood on both sides of the road, swaying menacingly in the wind.

“Wow,” Cody said. “It’s creepy down here. Right?”

Mary Jane didn’t answer. She was a dark, faceless shape, sitting like a statue and staring out at the road. He looked over at her. Conversation wasn’t exactly Cody’s favorite thing, but it would at least take the edge off things.

“Right?” he said.

Nothing.

Where was that soft, jovial Southern humor when you needed it? Of course she had good reason to be quiet. It was scary as hell around these parts and who wanted to talk about it? Just shut up and get through it. Maybe she was worried about her family.

Cody wished he’d never left the highway. The airport felt further away than ever since they’d left the house.

Several minutes passed. Only the humming sound of the Dodge’s Hemi engine could be heard.

Rachel sat forward in the back seat. Quickly, like she’d sat on something sharp.

“Dad, what’s that?”

Her slim figure squeezed in between the two front seats. She was pointing at something on the side of the road.

Cody looked over that way.

Movement.

Dark shadows were emerging from behind the trees. They were stepping onto the middle of the road, spilling out from both sides. On the left hand side, two white tunnels of light appeared. Headlights, beaming across the road. A monstrous engine growled and seconds later, a red Chevrolet pickup truck lurched its way forward and then stopped in the middle of the road, blocking the path ahead for the oncoming Dodge.

Cody felt sick.

“Dad!” Rachel screamed. “What is it?”

There were about ten or eleven people out there. They came forwards, creeping like skulking demons. Their faces were hidden behind homemade balaclavas – large knitted ski masks with crude eyeholes, a pointed nose and an oversized hole torn at the mouth, which made it look like the mask was smiling. Cody figured they were mostly men. Most of the waistlines were crudely spilling over the rim of their pants. He did notice at least one large-breasted, overweight woman standing amongst them. She was one of five people pointing a shotgun at the Dodge.

Cody turned to his right and looked at Mary Jane. He wanted to grab a hold of her bird-like neck and throttle the bitch until her face turned purple. She’d led them down here to the slaughter and Cody had let her do it.

There was no expression on her face.

“What’s happening Dad?” Rachel said. Her chest was heaving up and down as her little lungs grasped for air.

The masked strangers were standing at the hood of the car. Five pump action shotguns were locked onto the driver’s seat.

“I’m sorry Rachel,” Cody said.

Poor Rachel – she deserved so much better than this.

Chapter Seven

“What is this?” Cody said.

He looked through the windshield and his blood ran cold.

The masks plodded forwards like a lumbering ghost army. Their feet made no sound on the surface of the road and only a chilling silence accompanied their approach. Cody watched them, feeling very much like a man being buried alive. The car was a coffin. His arms and wrists were taped and he was listening to the sound of the earth being shoveled on top of him.

Mary Jane rolled down the passenger side window. She leaned her head through the gap and held out a hand like she was stopping traffic. The masks halted their approach. The little fat woman in the mask nodded and gave the thumbs up signal. At the same time, the red Chevrolet rolled forwards on the road. It crawled into the left hand lane and the masks shuffled to the side, making space as the truck drove past the Dodge Challenger. Seconds later it stopped again at the rear, spreading itself out on the road and turning into a four-wheeled roadblock.

They were shutting off all escape routes.

“I said what’s going?” Cody said.

Mary Jane pointed at the steering wheel. “Turn off the engine Cody.”

He did as he was told.

“Boy oh boy,” Mary Jane said, shifting towards the driver’s seat so that she was facing Cody. “First and foremost, it ain’t nothing personal. Truth be told, I like you both, I really do. You seem like a good guy Cody – not the sort of spoiled brat junkie asshole the papers made you out to be. And you’re just the sweetest thing Rachel. The sweetest thing.”

“Please don’t do this,” Cody said. “Mary Jane. What is it you want?”

“We want the car,” she said, screwing her face up like it was a dumb question. “Take a look. World’s gone to shit and we gotta take care of our own. These folks out here, they might look all Halloween-like with those masks on but these are some of my dearest friends and family. They mean the world to me and I don’t want anything bad to happen to them.”

“And Rachel means the world to me,” Cody said. “You know that.”

“I do.”

“Then don’t do this.”

“I need two or three cars to get my people somewhere safe,” Mary Jane said. “Good cars. See I want to find a place where there ain’t no Black Storm too. We’re the same Cody. I might have been acting skeptical about your escape plans but truth is I believe the same thing you do. Gotta be somewhere. So we’ve been working on the transportation side of things – we got the pickup earlier today and now we’ve got ourselves a 1970 Dodge Challenger. Almost a full tank of gas in it too.”

“I don’t believe this is happening,” Cody said, his hands dropping off the steering wheel.

“Didn’t your momma ever tell you that it was dangerous to pick up hitchhikers?”

“My momma told me to be kind to strangers,” Cody said.

Mary Jane laughed softly. She looked at her companions outside.

“C’mon,” she said. “You think a good-looking lady like me would be out there hitchhiking on a night like this? On a morning like this? We all got our little plans and schemes. You got yours, we got ours. We’re just trying to stay alive.”

Cody shook his head. “Please don’t do this,” he said. “I’ve got to get Rachel to the airport. There really is a plane waiting for us down there. Let us go please. For Rachel.”

Keep saying her name.

Cody watched the razor sharp outline of Mary Jane’s face melt into the darkness. For a second, he thought he might have reached her.

She smiled and his hope was crushed.

“You’re breaking my heart Cody,” she said. “Truly. But there ain’t no place in this world for that sort of goodness anymore. Certainly not for strangers. Your mom’s advice is out of date. Look here, that plane you keep thinking about – try and put it out of your mind. Seriously, there ain’t no need to torture yourself about it. You ain’t getting on it.”

“Please,” Cody said. “She’s all I’ve got in the world.”

Mary Jane looked at Rachel and paused for a second.

“I know that,” she said. “This is not personal. Hurting you is not our goal here. It’s just a consequence of that goal. This is how things get done in the world right now and maybe in the world to come. It don’t matter who you are. Don’t matter how much money you’ve got or how many movies you starred in. All that matters is what you can take.”

“Take it then,” Cody said. His left hand slid down the side of the driver’s seat. “Take the car but leave us alone.”

Mary Jane turned towards Rachel. There was a hungry look in her eyes.

“I’m taking the car,” she said. “But that’s not all I’m taking.”

Cody almost grabbed her by the throat. He could and would have killed her with his bare hands but fortunately he still possessed enough self-control to hold back. He looked outside at the masks, standing like a flock of ghoulish scarecrows at the front of the car. Their shotguns were all over him.

“No,” he said. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, please don’t.”

“She’s a great looking kid,” Mary Jane said, turning back to Cody. “Just perfect for what we have in mind.”

“Please,” Cody said.

“Don’t worry we’re not going to hurt her,” Mary Jane said. “We need her alive and well and healthy. We’re just planning for the future Cody. When all this passes we’ll need breeders like her – young mothers to bring more babies into the world. We’re just doing our part, trying to get this wheel called humankind spinning all over again. And if we have a big family, we’ll be so much stronger.”

Mary Jane smiled at Rachel, who shrank into the back seat. Rachel’s fingers clung to the teddy bear’s tattered fur like it was keeping her afloat in deep, dark water.

“God she’s adorable,” Mary Jane said.

She leaned closer to Rachel, her eyes probing the little girl like she was examining a doll on a shelf.

“Dad,” Rachel said.

Cody turned around. He saw the fear in his daughter’s eyes.

“I want to stay with you,” she said.

“Oh my Lord!” Mary Jane said. A short bark of laughter transformed into a coughing seizure and she turned her head away, putting a hand over her mouth to block the air shooting out of her lungs.

“Sorry little girl,” Mary Jane said. She coughed once more into the back of her hand. “But there ain’t no need for no has-been actors in the new world. Space is tight in our little convoy, you get it? Especially if we can’t get another car to stop. You understand little darling?”

She turned to Cody. “You understand don’t you, deep down?”

Cody’s left hand was underneath the seat. His back was pushed up tight against the car door while his right hand remained on his lap.

His fingers were inching towards the Glock.

But what about all the other masks? There were fifteen rounds of ammunition, plus one in the chamber in the Glock 19. Was that enough? There was more ammo in the trunk but he had zero chance of getting there and reloading without at least one of those shotguns plugging him on the way. The odds were stacked against him but taking a shot in the back was better than letting them take his daughter away. They wanted to turn her into a breeding animal for God’s sake. What did that mean? Being locked in a filthy, cockroach infested room day and night? Being raped and impregnated by fat rednecks until her body finally gave out? And then what?

He could do this.

Cody knew how to fire a gun. One good thing he’d taken away from his two forgettable cop movies was a set of impressive shooting skills. On both filming locations, he’d earned special praise from his firearms instructors and regular trips to the shooting range were something that he’d kept up over the years.

What about these redneck assholes? Could they shoot? Could they even see under those grotesque masks?

“You won’t get away with this,” Cody said.

Mary Jane pointed a thumb back to the large pickup truck that was blocking the road behind them. Its bright headlights, pointing slightly to the side, looked like the eyes of a nocturnal monster.

“The guy who owned that truck said the same thing,” she said. “He was still saying that when we led him over to those trees at the side of the road. You want to know something Cody? The police don’t care about your problems. They’ve got more pressing concerns right now wouldn’t you agree? Like saving their own families.”

Cody’s fingers crept towards the gun.

“Welcome to New America,” Mary Jane said. “Where people don’t give a shit. Not altogether different from the old version – we’re just admitting it this time around.”

“Where will you go?” Cody said. “You’re taking my daughter and my car? What’s your plan?”

His fingers found the plastic grip of the Glock. It was a snug fit. He was well aware too that there was no safety to switch off either, not on this type of pistol.

Cody glanced at the masks standing outside. He couldn’t see their faces but he could tell they were getting restless. They were shifting on their feet, mumbling to one another quietly, and looking over their shoulder for any other traffic on the road.

“There wasn’t much of a plan,” Mary Jane said. “Not really. But then you told me about this plane of yours waiting at the airport.”

Cody shook his head. “C’mon,” he said. “I saw your face when you heard that report about planes falling out the sky.”

Mary Jane leaned closer to Cody. “Yeah but it’s a big plane,” she said. “A Boeing 737 with seven or eight pilots on board. That’s what you said, right? Shit, that’s a good bet. Probably a ton of food and water and medical supplies on board too. Sounds a lot better than anything else I’ve heard so far.”

“Nick won’t let you anywhere near the plane,” Cody said.

“Sure he will,” Mary Jane said. “We’re Rachel MacLeod’s guardians. We’ll tell him the whole story. We’ll tell this Nick all about the tragic accident that claimed the life of her father – how poor Cody got caught up in a human stampede on the 281 as people were fleeing San Antonio. You got crushed to death. Bummer. And we’ll tell him that we were with you at the end. How you instructed us to bring her to the airport, your dying wish and all that crap. Rachel will stay quiet, we’ll make sure of that.”

“There’s not enough room on the plane,” Cody said.

His fingers were locked around the handle of the gun. He squeezed tight.

“Rachel will get us close,” Mary Jane said. “Our guns will take care of the rest. Some of those other folks, they’re just going to have to catch a train to New America.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“What about me?” Cody said.

“Daddy,” Rachel said. Her voice trembled.

“It’s okay honey.” Despite everything, he sounded calm. “I’m just talking to Mary Jane.”

Cody saw a flicker of something in the older woman’s eyes. It might have been empathy but it didn’t last long.

Mary Jane looked at the masks standing outside. Her face was somber.

“It’s time,” she said. “I’ve been sitting with you long enough. I did that to try and explain – to tell you why we’re doing this. Because I like you both.”

Cody swallowed hard.

“Rachel,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. “I want you to do me a favor okay? I want you to close your eyes and keep them closed. It’s just for a little while.”

Rachel was crying softly in the backseat.

“Do it honey,” he said, turning around to look at her. “Please close your eyes. Can you do that for me?”

She closed her eyes.

Mary Jane’s eyes were glistening and she smiled. “You’re a good Dad,” she said. “Ain’t no doubt about that. Now I promise you this much – she won’t see anything that happens out there. And don’t worry – you won’t feel a thing Cody.”

“Mary-Jane!” a raspy male voice yelled. “What the hell is going on in there? What’s taking so long?”

Mary Jane leaned her head out of the window.

“We had some talking to do,” she said. “Don’t you recognize this man Hank? This here is a bona fide movie star. Ah seen some of his films back in the day, back when he was young and beautiful. Think maybe I’m a little starstruck. He’s got a real pretty little girl sitting in the back seat too. Think she’ll be coming with us.”

“C’mon woman,” Hank said. He was holding a shotgun and he took an impatient step towards the car. “We don’t have all night for Christ’s sake.”

“It’s morning Hank,” Mary Jane said. “Alright we’re coming out.” She turned to the driver’s seat. “Let’s go Cody. Outside.”

“Dad!” Rachel screamed.

“Keep your eyes closed honey,” Cody said. “Do what I said.”

“C’mon man,” Mary Jane said. She sounded like she was all business now. “Don’t make it any harder than it already is. Get out the goddamn car and let’s get this over with.”

Cody lifted the gun off the floor. Mary Jane didn’t seem to notice his arm stretching underneath the seat.

The darkness was at least good for some things.

“We’ll take good care of her,” Mary Jane said. “Outside, now.”

“Keep your eyes closed Rachel,” Cody said.

“Let’s go Cody,” Mary Jane snapped. “Get out the goddamn…”

He whipped out the Glock and squeezed the trigger. There was a deafening crack that sounded like fireworks going off outside the car. Mary Jane gasped as the bullet pierced her chest at close range and tore through her heart. Rachel screamed in the back seat. When Cody glanced at his daughter, her eyes were still closed.

Good girl.

“Keep ’em shut Rachel. I’m okay. We’re going to be fine.”

Mary Jane fell back against the window, both hands grasping at the blood gushing out of the wound. It looked like she was trying to catch the blood and scoop it back into her body. Her eyes were getting cloudy. She looked at Cody and opened and closed her mouth like a drowning fish. She tried to say something but there wasn’t enough time. When she died, her eyes were staring straight at him.

“Oh fuck!” one of the masks yelled. “He shot her! He shot her!”

There was a moment of panic and confusion amidst the spectators.

Cody dropped the Glock onto his lap and turned the key. The Dodge Challenger snarled at the masks like a waking dragon. The sound of the 426 Hemi engine snapped the would-be kidnappers and murderers out of their daze.

“Kill that son of a bitch!” the female mask cried out. “Kill his baby too.”

Welcome to New America.

“Dad!” Rachel screamed.

“Keep ’em closed baby,” Cody said. “And get down in between the seats.”

He heard her drop down, squeezing into the space between the front and back seats. Cody slammed his foot on the pedal and the Dodge hurled itself forward like it was on the starting line of a drag race. He plowed straight through the masks, hitting one of them square on like the car was a bowling ball and the mask was a fat pin. There was a sickening thud as the car pushed the big man backwards, his hands outstretched like he was dying on the cross.

“Motherfucker!” somebody else yelled. “Kill them.”

Cody didn’t slow down. He kept his foot down as the Dodge built up speed.

The masks shot at him – loud shotgun blasts that sounded like cannonball fire. Cody kept his head low as he sped the car along Bulverde Road.

He drove like it was the devil on his tail.

Glancing in the rear-view mirror, he saw the faint glow of headlights.

“Shit,” he said.

The Chevrolet was coming after him.

Cody turned his eyes back to the front and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The road was narrow and there was no light anywhere apart from the Dodge’s headlights. Traveling at speed, he couldn’t see the turns coming until he was practically on top of them and this forced to slow down. It was either that or risk coming off the road.

There was a gurgling sensation in his guts and Cody knew he was going to puke sooner or later. Hopefully it would be later. Once or twice he glanced at the fresh corpse sitting in the passenger seat.

Mary Jane was a goner but she was still looking at him.

He heard Rachel sitting up again. She’d stopped crying and when he glanced in the mirror he saw her eyes looking ahead at the dark road.

“Daddy. What’s happening?”

Rachel only called him Daddy when she was scared. Really scared.

“We’re going too fast,” she said. “I thought we weren’t supposed to be driving so fast in the dark.”

“I know,” Cody said, catching a glimpse of two dazzling headlights appearing in the side mirror. The Chevrolet was catching up. If he was going too fast, they were going crazy fast. Revenge was obviously a bigger priority for the masks than road safety at that moment.

“Seat belt on?” Cody said.

He heard a clicking noise in the back.

“Yeah.”

“Good girl,” he said.

He checked the side mirror again.

When he looked back out front, the Black Widow was standing on the road. She was almost invisible; her tall frame, wrapped up in the long black, flowing dress, was cloaked by the surrounding darkness. Only her bright red hair and glowing silver eyes stood out.

“Holy shit!” Cody yelled.

He slammed the brakes but it was too late. The Dodge went through the Black Widow like she was a cloud of mist. Cody looked in the mirror and then over his shoulder, not sure what he expected to see back there. There was nothing – nothing except the angry headlights of the Chevrolet coming after them.

“What the…?” Cody said.

Hitting the brakes had cost him time. The Chevrolet wasn’t slowing down, which told Cody that the Black Widow hadn’t appeared to anyone else. Rachel couldn’t have seen her either – she hadn’t even asked why Cody had hit the brakes so suddenly.

Cody checked the mirror. The Chevrolet was gaining fast. He could see four people sitting in the cargo bed of the truck. One, maybe two more were in the cab.

He put his foot down but the road was too dangerous. The Dodge picked up speed but not enough to put any significant distance between the two cars.

Only one option remained.

“We’re going to have to fight them off,” Cody said. “Rachel, do you hear me? We’re going to have to stop.”

“I want to go home,” Rachel said.

“No,” Cody said. He didn’t tell her that home wasn’t there anymore. That everything she’d ever known back in Spring Branch was a smoking pile of rubble. That was a conversation for another time. “The only way to get rid of these people is to stand up to them. Alright?”

No answer.

“Just sit tight kid. We’re getting on that plane.”

Cody slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The plan was to open up enough of a gap between the Dodge and the Chevrolet to allow him time to stop and get ready. He raced the car down a stretch of welcome straight road, building up a handy lead on the pursuing Chevrolet. But it was a temporary escape – there would be no outrunning the masks tonight.

“Alright you bastards,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

He hit the brakes and turned the wheel to the right. Rachel screamed as the Dodge skidded to a halt on the far side of the road. Cody spun the car around so that the driver’s side was facing the oncoming pickup truck.

He turned off the engine and grabbed the gun. The he opened the door and at the same time, he could hear the pickup truck charging down Bulverde Road behind them. The bright headlights were coming into view as the Chevrolet swerved around a slight corner in the road.

“Rachel,” Cody said, pulling the back door open. “Get out. Now!”

She unbuckled her belt and hurried out the car.

Cody kneeled down and embraced his daughter. He squeezed her tight.

“I want you to do something for me,” Cody said, letting go of her. He wiped a single tear off her cheek and pointed to a wall of trees at the side of the road. A short wire fence ran along the road in front of the trees. If Rachel crossed the fence in good time and ran into the open fields behind the trees, she had a good chance of getting away.

“I want you to jump that fence,” Cody said. “Take off into the trees. Run and don’t stop running until you find somewhere safe, you hear me?”

Rachel shook her head. “I want to stay with you.”

The Chevrolet’s headlights raced towards them. The engine eased off as the pickup slowed down to a stop.

Cody pushed his daughter towards the fence. “I love you,” he said. “Everything will be okay.”

“Dad.”

“Go now,” he said, raising his voice. He pushed her again. “Go!”

She looked at him one last time. Then she ran.

Chapter Eight

Cody ran over to the trunk of the car. He’d planned to grab some extra ammo before the shootout but it was too late. The pickup truck had already stopped in the middle of the road. Four masks jumped out of the cargo bed and quickly took cover on the other side of the truck. The driver’s door fell open and a dumpy little figure in a mask spilled out onto Bulverde Road.

“You motherfucker!” the fat woman yelled. She hurried around to the back of the pickup, joining the others.

The loud crack of shotgun fire forced Cody to dive behind the Dodge. He pressed his back tight behind the tire while the masks fired in angry unison from across the road.

In between shots, Cody heard a chorus of click clacking as the masks reloaded their guns and ditched the empty shells.

They fired again.

It didn’t take long for Cody to realize that the masks were lousy shots. Either that or they couldn’t see under those creepy masks and in such dark conditions. Bullets sprayed everywhere but they weren’t hitting anything. The majority of gunfire strayed off into the wilderness and even the Dodge wasn’t taking much damage. At least Rachel had gotten a decent head start before the gunfight began. One of those stray bullets could easily have caught her in the back.

She would be far away now.

“You bastard!” someone yelled during a pause in the gunfire. “You’re going to die now. And then we’re going to take your little darling too.”

Cody peered out from behind the car. He could hear them reloading – shoving bullets into the magazines as fast as their fingers could work. They were mumbling to each other. Sounded like they were arguing.

Cody leapt out and fired three shots. Four of the masks were in plain sight and three of them ducked behind the pickup at the sound of gunshots. The fourth one wasn’t so quick. Cody’s third shot landed flush in the big man’s forehead and down he went.

“Frank!” the woman’s voice screamed. “Frank, oh my baby boy. No, Jesus God no!”

Cody ducked behind the Dodge. Uh-oh – who had he shot this time? If the fat woman hated him for killing Mary Jane, what was she going to do now that he’d taken out Frank, her baby boy?

The masks retaliated with anger. The shotgun fire came hard and fast. In between the masks’ reloading and another attack, Cody jumped to his feet and fired two shots, hitting nothing but air. As he took cover again, a massive explosion rang out from far away. Cody felt the ground beneath him shake, just for a second.

It sounded like a volcano had erupted in San Antonio.

The noise of the distant explosion faded and Cody heard footsteps running towards him. He peered out and saw that all four of the shotgun-wielding masks were making a charge at the Dodge.

“Oh shit,” he said.

They came out all guns blazing. The fat woman led the charge, shooting and cursing at the top of her voice.

“You fucker!” she screamed. “I’m going to watch you die. Slowly, you son of a bitch.”

The other masks were running beside her. All four of them sped towards the Dodge in a clumsy zigzag pattern, trying to present as difficult a target as they could.

Cody dropped onto all fours, rolled out from behind the car and lay on his chest. It was a maneuver he’d learned on the set of Midnight Trooper – a straight to DVD cop movie he’d made in 1995. This was prone position – shooting from the ground. The cops he’d researched with told him this was the most stable field position and although he’d practiced with a rifle on the movie set, he was confident enough with the Glock.

He pointed the pistol and fired. One shot – the fat woman dropped like a stone. Second shot – he missed. The third one pierced the chest of the tallest man who dropped his gun and screamed like a dying pig.

He fell onto his knees beside the body of the fat woman.

“Fuck you!” the dying man said, spitting out blood. He fell onto his back and a moment later, he stopped moving.

The remaining two masks had seen enough. They turned around and fled back to the safety of the truck, but not before stooping down to grab the two vacant shotguns that were lying on the road.

Cody watched them disappear around the back of the truck. Jesus, he’d killed four people now. Maybe five if the guy he ran through with the Dodge hadn’t made it. Five people. How long before that sunk in?

“Hey!” a screechy male voice called out from behind the Chevrolet. “Alright now mister. Let’s work out some kind of deal, huh? Nobody else has to die here tonight.”

“It’s nine o’clock in the morning asshole!” Cody yelled back.

“That ain’t the point!”

“What’s the deal?” Cody said. “I’m listening.”

There was a pause.

“How about this?” the screechy voice said. “We let you keep that car of yours but you hand the girl over to us. How’d that be?”

Cody laughed out loud.

“Holy shit!” he yelled. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He heard two male voices arguing behind the truck.

“Shit, I didn’t mean that,” the screechy voice said. “I’m all fucked up man – you just shot my sister for Christ’s sake. I meant, how about we let you keep the girl and you let us take the car and we’ll be on our way? Huh? How about that?”

“You don’t need the car anymore,” Cody said. He peered out from behind the Dodge but couldn’t see anyone in the dim light cast by the Chevrolet’s headlights. The two stiffs lying in the middle of the road looked like toppled statues.

“This might have escaped your notice,” Cody said. “But you’re down at least four people. That truck is all you need.”

Another pause.

“Nah, we’re still going to need that car of yours.”

Cody sat up straight, his back pressed against the rear tire. He looked at the black pistol in his hand. How many shots had he fired so far? There’d been fifteen rounds in the magazine to start with, plus one in the chamber. Had to be at least six bullets left at most. Right? That was enough to take the last two masks out. But he couldn’t afford to miss anymore.

“How about this for a deal?” he called out. “I let you get in that truck of yours and you drive the hell out of here. Take your guns. Take your dead with you if you want to. I’ll even give you Mary Jane back.”

Bang! Click-clack. Bang!

Cody ducked out of sight as they answered with gunfire. He waited for the firing to cease before he came back with three shots of his own. The drivers’ window on the pickup exploded and glass shattered everywhere. Two more shots landed in the cargo bed.

Three bullets left, if he was lucky.

What was he going to do when the gun was empty? Was there any chance he could reach the trunk and reload in time without getting shot?

Cody heard hushed voices behind the red Chevrolet.

About a minute passed and nothing happened. An eerie silence lingered over Bulverde Road.

Then he heard the sound of footsteps. They came quickly, trotting over a carpet of broken glass.

Cody sat up straight, bracing himself for the final shootout. Three bullets – he’d use them well. At the very least he’d given Rachel the head start she deserved.

But instead of gunfire he heard the truck doors open and slam shut. Peering out, Cody saw the two masks sitting in the cab up front. The Chevrolet engine growled and the truck did a swift U-turn on the road, only barely avoiding the dead bodies lying scattered nearby.

“Thank God,” Cody said.

He leapt back to his feet and watched the taillights disappear into the darkness. When the truck was gone, Cody surveyed the damage. The road was littered with three dead masks and a large number of spent shotgun shells. He patted himself down, checking for any wounds that he might have missed. He didn’t have a scratch on him.

Cody turned to the trees at the side of the road.

“Rachel,” he said.

He ran over to the fence and stared long and hard into the dense foliage. It looked so bleak and lonely out there.

“Rachel!” he yelled. “Can you hear me?” How far had she gone? He’d only sent her into the trees because the odds had been stacked against his survival. He’d tried to give her a fighting chance. Cody hadn’t even thought about the possibility that he’d see off the masks.

Where was she?

“Rachel!”

He was about to jump the fence and chase after her when something stepped out from behind a large tree. Light footsteps tiptoed on the grass and Cody knew right away. Seconds later, he saw the shape of blue dungarees and a white long sleeved t-shirt. He saw the bright blonde hair, in contrast to the dark world that held them in its vice-like grip. She looked perfect. Even Bootsy the teddy bear, hanging at her side, looked brand new.

“Dad? Is that you?”

“Rachel. Thank God.”

Cody vaulted the wire fence and ran over to his daughter. When he reached her, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her soft, warm neck. He could smell the scent of wild flowers and grass on her skin. Her heart was pounding, just like his.

She squeezed him tight.

“What happened?” he said, checking her from top to bottom for wounds. “You were supposed to run away as fast as you could.”

“I wanted to stay with you,” she said. “You need me, don’t you?”

Rachel spoke with all the assuredness of an adult.

“Yeah,” Cody said, dropping his hands, satisfied that she hadn’t taken any damage. “I do need you.”

“Are we still going to the airport?” she said.

Cody stood tall and offered her his hand. “You bet kid.”

They walked back to the car, hand in hand. Cody pointed Rachel towards the back seat and then opened up the passenger side and dragged Mary Jane’s blood-soaked body out onto the road. Her eyes were wide open, staring up at the black sky. The bullet had gone straight through her body and was now embedded in the car door.

With a grimace, Cody gripped the corpse by the forearms and dragged it away from the car. As he brought Mary Jane towards the other dead masks, her legs scraped along the road and it sounded like a sharp knife tearing through cloth. Cody laid her body down next to the others. For a moment he was tempted to remove the masks’ balaclavas so that he could see their faces. But he didn’t. Deep down, he knew what was underneath those masks – normal faces, unspectacular, everyday people.

It would have been easier if they’d been monsters.

“Are they all dead?” Rachel asked. She was standing beside the car. Her face was expressionless as she surveyed the lifeless bodies sprawled out in the center of the road.

“Yeah they are,” Cody said. “I had to do it. They were going to hurt us.”

“Maybe they deserved it.”

Rachel turned away from the bodies, concentrating instead on the Dodge Challenger. “Did they hit the car?”

Cody walked over and inspected the damage. “She took a few to the body but they were hitting air mostly. We’ll be alright, it’ll get us there.”

He kneeled down and his fingers probed one of the bullet holes on the side of the car. There was nothing to worry about. Thank God, they’d…

His stomach gurgled.

Cody stood up straight, knowing that he was going to be sick.

“Rachel,” he said, sounding groggy. “I’m just going to take a leak down by the trees. Will you wait for me in the car?”

“Okay.”

Cody hurried back over to the side of the road. Then he jumped the wire fence and ran towards the trees like his life depended on it.

Five people. Dead.

He ran into the dark fields, doubled over and threw up. Afterwards, he felt faint and had to sit down on the grass. His head was spinning, like he’d just stepped off a fast-moving roundabout.

“Nothing personal,” he said.

He was sick again.

When there was nothing left to throw up, he spat twice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he took a deep breath, savoring the fresh air. They still had some miles to cover before they reached the airport.

“C’mon,” he said. “Keep moving.”

He jumped the fence and walked back to the road. Standing at the car door, he took one last look at the red-haired body lying on the road.

Her eyes were still pointing up at the starless sky.

“So long Mary Jane,” he said.

Chapter Nine

Cody turned the Dodge Challenger back towards the 281.

He knew he was taking a risk going back the way they came. The masks might still be there but the alternative was to find some other route back onto the highway and Cody didn’t know the roads well enough for that. It was dark too, which only added to the likelihood of them getting lost.

It was a tense journey back. Bulverde Road was a long, winding desert in the middle of nowhere. At any moment, Cody expected the masks to leap out from the side of the road and attack the car. He didn’t dare to blink. One hand was on the steering wheel, the other wrapped around the handle of the gun.

But they made it. They reached the highway without further incident.

Now they were back en route to the airport. Things felt as normal as they could possibly feel. The horizon was a reddish-orange glow once again, thick plumes of smoke billowing skywards.

Cody could literally feel the heat pouring out of San Antonio. As they got closer to the city, they passed several other cars on the road, all racing in the opposite direction like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

There were people walking on the other side of the highway too, migrating north with the flow of traffic. But there wasn’t enough human traffic on the 281 for Cody’s liking. Where was everyone? Not everyone was migrating north, of course. He guessed that others coming out of the city were heading south, east and west too. But there should have been more people traveling north. San Antonio had a population of one and a half million souls. It was the second most populated city in all of Texas. If people weren’t getting out, they were still trapped in the city.

Maybe they couldn’t leave. Maybe it was too late.

There should have been thousands of people on the road.

Cody glanced at some of the faces. He saw one middle-aged couple walking down the grassy strip along the middle of the highway. They were walking with a sense of urgency. They had no bags in their hands, nothing but the clothes on their backs. They looked at Cody as he drove past with a look of bewilderment in their eyes. Maybe they were in shock, or maybe they were wondering what the hell anyone was doing driving south.

He took the Dodge into the center of the highway, not wanting to get too close to those traveling on foot.

“How we doing kid?” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

“I’m okay.”

“You sure about that?”

There was a long pause.

“Rachel?”

“Did you have to shoot Mary Jane?” she said.

Cody eased off the gas pedal.

“Yeah I did,” he said. “I had to shoot her. Look I’m sorry you had to see all that bad stuff Rachel. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

“It wasn’t easy for you either. Was it?”

“No,” Cody said. “It wasn’t. But it was self-defense. It was them or us.”

“Is there any blood in the car?” Rachel asked.

Cody looked to his right. There were a few dark stains visible on the black vinyl passenger seat – not as much leftovers as he’d expected to see. Most of the blood had stuck to Mary Jane by the looks of it. Didn’t matter – Cody was past caring anyway. He knew that he’d have to leave the car behind at the airport. Keeping the seats clean was the least of his concerns.

“Not much,” he said. “Just a little.’

Rachel leaned forward in the back. “She seemed nice. Didn’t she? Before she took us down that dark road.”

“She was just pretending to be nice to us,” Cody said. “She did that so we’d trust her and take her where she wanted to go. Where those people were waiting to steal our car and…”

“And steal me?”

Cody tugged at his sweat-soaked shirt.

“Yeah,” he said. “Guess we learned a valuable lesson today, huh? Even if people seem nice assume they’re not. Don’t trust strangers. They might not have the Fever but they’re still desperate in other ways.”

Rachel put a hand on his shoulder. It was an unusually adult-like, reassuring gesture that surprised Cody.

“What about Nick?” she said.

“What?” he said. “What about Nick?”

“Can we trust him?”

Cody smiled.

“We can trust Nick,” he said. “Nick Norton and I go way back. I’d trust him with my life – with your life. We met at the auditions for The Forever Boys in the eighties and hit it off right away. I saw Nick at a lot of auditions back in those days. We became friends, good friends. I trust him. Don’t worry about Nick.”

“He’s a pilot now?”

“Yeah,” Cody said. “Acting wasn’t for Nick Norton, not long term. He left Hollywood when he was still a teenager and took to the skies. He became a pilot. Air force at first, then he got married – several times I might add – and eventually went into commercial flights. Only Nick Norton would have come up with a plan that involved stealing a commercial plane, filling it up with friends and family and taking a chance up there in the black sky. He’s a hell of a pilot too. If anyone can find something out there, it’s Nick.”

Rachel took her hand off Cody’s shoulder and sat back in her seat. There was a sharp clicking noise as she buckled up again.

Cody switched on the radio. Part of him was still chasing after another snippet of that lost music. Rory Gallagher, where are you? Anything was better than endless reports and commentary on the Black Storm.

After a brief search, a man’s voice fought its way through the static.

…and I’ll tell you another thing. Strange things have been happening everywhere – it’s not just suicides and mass murders and crashing cars and falling planes we’ve got to worry about. It’s all gone to hell, even in the already strange realm of the Internet and social media. People think I’m crazy but listen to this. What would you say if I told you that dead people were setting up Facebook accounts? This was when it all kicked off back in the early days. When nobody knew much about the Black Storm. What do you think about that? Don’t believe me? Well listen to this – about five months back I logged onto Facebook and saw a friend request waiting from my dad. My dad’s been dead for ten years. Ten years! Well I didn’t know what to think. I accepted of course. Right after I did that he sent me a private message. ‘My dear boy, You’re so lonely, aren’t you? I know you keep a gun in your drawer. I can’t come to you but you can come to me. Save yourself. Your mom and I will be there to greet you.’

Well I’ll tell you this folks – to anyone who’s listening out there. I’ve never been so scared in all…

Cody switched the radio off.

“Shit,” he said under his breath. That was it – no more radio. He’d said it many times before and he always came back. Not this time. These people – whoever they were – weren’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. The world and everything in it was screwed.

He heard Rachel shifting in the back seat.

“The Black Widow did it,” she said.

“What’s that honey?” he asked, forcing a smile in the rearview mirror.

“The Black Widow pretended to be that man’s dad on Facebook. Didn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess so.”

“How come nobody knows what she is?” Rachel said. “Or what the Black Storm is?”

“We’ve talked about this Rachel,” Cody said. “Many times. Nobody knows for sure. The Black Widow came out of the Black Storm, like all the other things – the rain, the winds, the Fever, you know? All of it – we call it the Black Storm. You know that already.”

“Yeah but what is it?”

Great. All the easy questions.

“Some people think the Black Storm is a part of nature,” Cody said. “They believe that nature has turned against us as a species. We’ve overpopulated the planet and so Mother Nature is cleaning house. Like a mass extinction event.”

“Yeah but what do you think?” Rachel said.

“Nature can be cruel,” Cody said. “But if Mother Nature wanted to, she could wipe us out with floods, earthquakes, whatever she wanted. But not this – this feels like something else. This doesn’t feel natural to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It feels like something infiltrated nature as we know it,” Cody said. “Something from the outside.”

“What does infiltrated mean?”

“It just means something got inside nature.”

Rachel paused. “Something bad?”

“I guess.”

“Like what though?”

“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question kid,” he said. “The greatest minds on the planet have been trying to figure that one out since this mess started months ago. And you’re asking me? Hey, you keep thinking it over honey and if you find out the answer you’ll be the next President of the United States. I guarantee it.”

Cody dabbed at the fine layer of sweat gathering on his neck. It was muggy inside the car and he pulled at his shirt again – it felt like he’d smothered himself in glue before getting dressed. He thought about opening a window but he didn’t – not with all the smoke drifting out of the city.

He heard Rachel sitting forward again. When she spoke this time, he felt her warm breath on the back of his neck.

“Mary Jane’s eyes were still open,” she said. “After you shot her.”

“I know,” Cody said. “But she was dead.”

“Were Mom’s eyes open?”

Cody hesitated. “I don’t remember.”

A pause.

“You think Eddie Faldo’s eyes are open? Right now?”

Cody’s foot leapt off the accelerator and he brought the car down to a steady speed.

“Eddie Faldo?” he said, looking at her in the mirror.

“Eddie Faldo’s dead,” Rachel said.

“Since when?”

“I heard it on the radio yesterday,” Rachel said. “I was going to tell you when we were talking about him earlier. But then you said you didn’t hate him. Still, maybe you want to know. Somebody in Los Angeles was talking about Hollywood Hills and how all the houses over there were on fire. All the houses – that’s what they said. Somebody’s been going around and starting fires, burning everything to the ground. That’s where he lives right?”

“Yeah,” Cody said. “That’s where he lives.”

Eddie Faldo did indeed live on Hollywood Hills. Cody had seen pictures of his house on the Internet – a lavish three and a half million dollars of Mediterranean themed property, tucked neatly inside the heart of Celebrity La-La Land.

Damn nice.

“That doesn’t mean he’s dead Rachel,” Cody said. “It just means the houses are on fire. You never know, people might have gotten out in time. It happens.”

“But would you be sad if he was dead?” Rachel said. “Seeing as how he won the Oscar and all? He took that away from you, didn’t he? He hurt you. I don’t like it when other people hurt you Dad. It makes me want to hurt them.”

Cody glanced back at her. Rachel’s facial expression was oddly serene.

“Eddie didn’t hurt me,” he said. “Look I get it Rachel – you’re curious about death and all that but don’t forget that we’re alive right now. And we’re trying to keep it that way. That’s all that matters. We’ll talk about those things another time.”

Rachel sat back in her seat with Bootsy resting on her lap. She pulled gently at its tattered ears.

“Were you and Mom bad people?” she asked.

Cody bit his lip. It always came back to Rachel’s mom.

“No,” he said quietly. “We weren’t bad people. We were just lost and because we were hurting, we did stupid things. Like making some really bad movies.”

He was surprised to hear Rachel giggling in the back seat.

“Like Attack of the Skeleton People?” she said.

Cody looked in the mirror and laughed. “Right,” he said. “Exactly like Attack of the Skeleton People. Didn’t like that one huh?”

“It’s probably the worst film ever made.”

“Zero percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes,” Cody said. “I don’t know, I’m kinda proud of that. At least I got good money for doing that movie. We wouldn’t be sitting in this 1970 Dodge Challenger right now if it wasn’t for crappy movies like that.”

“Did Mom make bad movies?”

Cody had only ever shown Rachel the good ones.

“One or two,” he said. “Not as much as me though. I’m the undisputed champion in this family when it comes to making crappy movies.”

Cody winked in the rearview.

“Hey you wanna know why there was never an Attack of the Skeleton People 2?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I made a decision in the hospital,” he said. “Ten years ago. Right after you were born, when you were still in the incubator. Looking at you for the first time, man you were so tiny. I knew I’d never go back to my bad old ways. No
more drugs, no drinking, and definitely no more crappy movies. I was done with all that. This new life we’d made in Texas – I knew I was going to stick with it. Being a dad, that was my job now. You were our baby.”

“And Mom?”

Cody shook his head.

“She tried kid,” he said. “She really tried. But I guess it was harder for her to let go. And well, it turned out if you look hard enough you can still find drugs in the middle of nowhere.”

“Were her eyes open?” Rachel said.

Cody pursed his lips tight together. “Yes.”

Rachel didn’t ask any more questions after that.

Cody leaned his head back on the seat. With a sigh, he looked through the windshield towards San Antonio – what was left of it.

Hard to believe he was taking their baby closer to that.

Chapter Ten

There were a lot of people spilling out of San Antonio.

They were traveling north, seeking refuge in the outer edges of the city and beyond. They came in groups, large and small. Solitary figures were spotted on occasion too. Some hurried up the grassy median strip that separated opposing traffic lanes, looking over their shoulder every few seconds as if they were being chased by something unseen. Others plodded up the highway, their stride slow and labored, as if the bags they carried in their arms or strapped to their backs were weighed down with heavy rocks.

A few cars drove north alongside them. The drivers in these vehicles ignored the countless pleas of those standing on the roadside, their arms waving frantically as they begged for a ride. The Dodge Challenger was still the only car driving south. Some people on the median strip stuck out their thumb as the Challenger raced by. Cody had a feeling that once they were in the car, these people would try to get him to turn around and take them north, by force if necessary.

They probably thought he was crazy for driving into the eye of the storm. Maybe he was crazy, but he wasn’t crazy enough to pick up any more hitchhikers.

“Some of them look so sad,” Rachel said, staring out at the procession of travelers.

“They are sad,” Cody said. “And tired and frightened. They’ve lost everything.”

“But we can’t give them a ride, can we?”

Cody looked in the rearview. He saw a pair of bright headlights in the distance and couldn’t tell what side of the highway they were on. It would have been a relief to see at least one other car traveling in the same direction as they were.

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “We can’t give anyone else a ride. Look what happened last time, right? We’ve got to be strict about that now. Anyway, these people are all heading in the opposite direction. We’re the only ones going south.”

“Not the only ones,” Rachel said.

“What?”

“There’s a car behind us.” Rachel said, looking through the rear window. “I can see the lights.”

Cody leaned closer to the side mirror. Sure enough, those high beam headlights he’d seen in the distance were on the same side of the highway after all. The Dodge wasn’t the only crazy car left on the road. It was a miracle.

The car was little more than fifty meters back and it was catching up with the Challenger at a rapid rate. The headlights were so strong that Cody screwed up his face and recoiled from the mirror.

“Thanks a lot buddy,” he said, blinking furiously. “Better let them have the passing lane before they blind me.”

Cody pulled the Dodge into the right hand lane. He eased off the accelerator, slowing down just enough to let the other vehicle pass safely. When it didn’t overtake right away, Cody slowed down to fifty miles-per-hour.

The other car pulled into the right hand land.

“What the hell?” Cody said.

His eyes went back and forth between the side and rearview mirrors. Once again, he winced at the high beam headlights, unable to shake them off his eyes. It was because of the headlights that he couldn’t see anything of the vehicle behind him. He couldn’t tell what make it was or anything like that. All he could see was those damn bright lights.

“C’mon man,” he said, gripping the steering wheel tight. “I’m giving you the road for God’s sake. You trying to blind me or something?”

The other car came closer. Still it didn’t overtake the slow-moving Dodge Challenger. After a while, it pulled back into the passing lane. Cody said a silent hallelujah and waited for the car to pass.

It came back into the slow lane.

Cody’s face screwed up in confusion. “What the...?”

The vehicle accelerated until it was right up against the Challenger’s tail. There was only a few inches of space between them now. The headlights dipped to low beam and at last, Cody was able to see what was behind them.

A red Chevrolet pickup truck.

Crack. A loud shotgun blast made Cody and Rachel jump in their seats.

“Rachel get down!” Cody yelled. “Get down. Back into position. Go, go, go!”

She knew exactly what to do. Before the second shotgun fired, Rachel unbuckled her belt and dove into the space behind the driver’s seat.

“Dad!” she yelled.

“Stay down.”

Cody kept his head low. Every muscle in his body was taut and alert. The bastards! So the rest of the masks had come to finish what Mary Jane and those other goons couldn’t finish back in Bulverde. Now that the high beams were off, Cody saw some of them standing on the cargo bed at the back, trying to retain their balance while pointing shotguns at the Dodge.

Crack!

“Take that you murdering son of a whore!” somebody yelled.

Cody ducked his head down further. He could barely see the road through the windshield and so he pushed himself up again until his eyes were able to keep track of what was in front of them.

Crack!

With as much force as he could muster, he swung the Dodge to the left and then back to the right. Then repeat. He was trying to present his assailants with a moving target in the middle of the highway. To put that lousy shooting of theirs to the ultimate test.

Another glance in the mirror. The masks weren’t even wearing masks anymore. Cody could see their faces this time around and just like he’d thought, there was nothing unique about any of them – they were just a gang of men, ordinary men, beer-bellied rednecks, ranging in ages from about thirty to fifty years old. He wasn’t sure how many were in the truck, both standing on the cargo bed and sitting inside the cab.

The refugees walking along the highway screamed at the sound of the first shotgun blast. They fled for their lives. Most ran north in the direction they were traveling. Others however, in a state of fear and confusion, turned around and ran back towards San Antonio.

Cody slammed his foot on the gas and the Dodge raced down the highway. He opened up a small gap between his car and the pursuing Chevrolet.

“You okay Rachel?” he said. “Talk to me.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m okay. Is it the mask people again?”

“Yeah. It’s the mask people.”

“Why have they come back?” she said.

Cody was reaching for the pistol that he’d dropped under the driver’s seat. He scooped it up and put it on his lap.

“Because I killed their friends,” he said. “And now they’re mad at us.”

The Dodge kept up a steady lead on the pickup. Cody knew he had a chance of outrunning them this time. They weren’t driving down the narrow back roads of Bulverde where taking sharp corners at high speed was a life or death maneuver. The center of the 281 was empty and Cody could keep the pedal pressed down for as long as he wanted, which meant the Dodge would easily outrun the heavier Chevrolet.

So why was it such a bad idea?

Cody knew that the masks would stay on his tail all the way to the airport. They weren’t going to stop chasing him even if the Dodge raced far ahead and built up a strong lead. The last thing Cody wanted was these bastards turning up at the terminal building and screwing things up at the last minute. There were a lot of people putting their faith in that plane. It wasn’t just about Cody and Rachel. Given the seriousness of the situation, Nick might even be forced to take off without Cody and Rachel, rather than run the risk of the rampaging masks getting anywhere near the aircraft.

Crack!

The Dodge Challenger weaved back and forth between lanes at breakneck speed. The masks might not have been the best shots but there were still four guns letting loose on Cody’s car. They only needed to get lucky once. If they hit him, it was over for Rachel. She’d either be dead in a car crash or she’d survive and the masks would take her.

Dying was the better option.

“Shit,” Cody said.

One other thing he had to consider. Cody wasn’t familiar with the route to San Antonio International Airport. He hadn’t flown anywhere in years and he’d have little chance of finding the airport at this speed, especially with the masks and their shotguns riding up his ass all the way down the highway.

He knew what he had to do. He had to get rid of them.

There was a brief lull in the volley of gunfire behind them. The driver beeped the horn of the pickup several times and it blared angrily in Cody’s ears. It sounded like a madman playing the trumpet. He even heard laughter – a real redneck guffawing sound – coming from the cargo bed. The masks were enjoying themselves. They were excited. They probably had a plan of sorts too – a hideous, agonizing death waiting for Cody, that’s if they didn’t kill him with the shotguns first.

“Damn it,” he said. He punched the steering wheel like he was trying to hammer something into it.

“Rachel,” he said. “You listening?”

“Yeah.”

“Look we’re going to have to face off with these guys again,” Cody said. “You hear me kid? Just like last time. It’s the only way to get rid of them for sure.”

“No!” Rachel yelled from her hiding place. “What if they kill you?”

“They won’t,” Cody said. He didn’t sound convincing. “But we can’t go to the airport like this – with these people on our backs. You understand? We have to shake them off and we can’t lose them on the highway.”

“What about me?”

“You’re going in the trunk. No arguments.”

“No way,” Rachel said.

“Yes way,” Cody said. “I said no arguments. Now listen to me. Here’s the plan - we open up a little gap between the two cars like last time. Remember? Now when I stop you’re going to get out and jump in the trunk as fast as you can. You gotta run Rachel because we won’t have much time to get ready. I’m going to reload the gun and then I’m going send these assholes back to Hicksville. Got it?”

She didn’t answer.

“Alright,” Cody said. “Here we go, ready or not.”

He put his foot down on the gas, slamming the pedal to the floor. The Dodge accelerated down the dark highway, moving quickly up to ninety, then a hundred miles per hour and even faster. The world went past in a shadowy blur, as did the scores of northbound refugees walking along the grassy center.

Some of the travelers stopped to look, their jaws hanging open at the sight of the vintage car racing down the highway. Some of them pointed at the Dodge, like they were standing wide-eyed on the sidelines of the Indy 500, trying to keep up with the leading car.

The Chevrolet slipped further behind. Cody kept his eyes on the road ahead, trying to judge the right time to stop.

The headlights in the rearview mirror got smaller. It was tempting to keep going however, because another shootout was the last thing Cody wanted. But standing up to the masks was the only way to shake them off his tail. He had to show them that he wasn’t the prey animal here. And after the Bulverde Road encounter, he’d grown in confidence with the realization that these people weren’t exactly the greatest shots in the world.

He could do it. With any luck he’d discourage them permanently this time.

“You ready?” Cody said. “We’re about to do this.”

“Ready.”

He swung the car to the right. The tires screeched until the Dodge went full circle and skidded to a halt with its headlights facing the oncoming Chevrolet.

“Now,” Cody yelled. “Into the trunk.”

He turned off the engine and grabbed the Glock off his lap. Then he reached for the door handle.

Rachel leapt out of the back seat as quickly as she could. Cody led his daughter to the trunk and opened it up. As he did so, he glanced further down the gloomy highway. The Chevrolet was coming at them fast. He could hear ecstatic pig-like squeals coming from the cargo bed.

Cody grabbed his backpack and pulled the front zip open. Keeping his hands steady, he pulled out a box of spare ammo and the speed loader too, which attached to the magazine and made reloading the Glock easier and faster.

He released the magazine. Then he attached the speed loader to the top of it, clicked down and slid the rounds in as fast he could.

“Hurry up Dad,” Rachel said. She was pointing to the monster truck hurling itself down the highway. “They’re coming.”

“I know,” Cody said, not looking up.

He inserted the magazine back into the gun. Then he looked at Rachel, whose chest was heaving up and down at an incredible speed. She was trying to be brave but he could see that she was petrified. He knew exactly how she felt.

“Okay,” he said, gesturing inside the trunk. “Ready?”

She nodded.

“Go,” he said.

He helped her climb into the trunk and watched as she curled up into a tight ball next to the food supplies. She clung onto Bootsy, burying her face in the teddy bear’s tattered fur.

“I’ll leave the door ajar,” he said. ‘If anything happens to me you can get out by yourself. Just push the lid up and run. I’ll try and signal if things go bad. Listen honey, there are lots of other people traveling north on the highway. Find the good ones and stay with them. Okay?”

Rachel’s eyes were glistening but the tears didn’t come. There were no tantrums or protests. She’d accepted this terrible new way of life. It was both admirable and heartbreaking to see such hardness forming in the eyes of one so young.

“Okay,” she said, laying her head down.

Cody tried to smile as he closed the trunk over. All he could manage was a grimace.

“I love you,” he said. “See you soon.”

“I love you too.”

He pulled the lid down and made sure that it wasn’t locked. Then Cody dropped into a crouch and crept around to the side of the car.

The Chevrolet came to a sudden halt nearby.

Cody peered round the side of the Dodge, watching as five men jumped out of the cargo bed of the pickup. Four of them had shotguns pointed at the white Challenger. Cody saw three other people sitting in the cab up front. Two of them jumped out of the passenger side door. The driver stayed where he was. The two men coming out of the passenger side were wielding iron bars in their hands.

Eight people.

The masks didn’t take cover behind the pickup, not this time. They weren’t here to settle in for a long gunfight, not with such superior numbers. Cody didn’t know whether that was impatience, drunkenness or strategy on their part. What he did know was that they were walking straight over to the Dodge, their shotguns primed and ready to turn Cody into a piece of human roadkill.

Cody’s heart was racing – what were they thinking? Were they really just going to walk him down and annihilate him? It sure looked that way.

All four shotguns exploded at once. It was as if the masks were responding to some unseen cue on the sidelines telling them to shoot.

Crack-crack-crack!

This was followed by a high-pitched, rapid click clacking as the masks readied their weapons for another assault.

There was a loud shattering noise. It came from the front of the Dodge. The masks had taken out one of the headlights, not far from where Cody’s head was positioned. He winced as if he’d taken a shot to the gut.

They were coming fast and hard, leaving little window of opportunity for Cody to get a round of return fire in.

But he had to – he’d have to take risk it.

“Fuck it.”

Cody leapt to his feet, pointed the Glock at the huddle of masks and fired. He tried to stay as calm and make his shots count. There were plenty of bodies coming his way. As long as he held his nerve, he was going to hit something.

He aimed at those with the shotguns first.

Bang! The man at the front – a middle-aged, leathery faced son of a bitch dropped like a lead balloon. So did his gun, which spilled out of his dying grasp and landed on the road.

Bang! Cody missed with the second shot.

Bang! Another one went down. This time it was a younger man – a rake-thin twenty-something who’d been barreling forward with hatred in his eyes. The shotgun was locked in his grip as he fell onto the road. As he lay there, a bloody hand reached towards Cody, clawing for a revenge that would never come.

The other masks weren’t deterred by these setbacks. They hurried forwards in a shambling run. The two men wielding the iron bars stopped to pick up the shotguns of the deceased.

They fired at Cody, who ducked behind the car.

Cody wondered if the shotguns were being used as a distraction. Maybe they didn’t want to shoot him – maybe they wanted to get close enough to get their hands on him. After that, they’d do something much worse than just put a hole in him.

What sort of torture were these rednecks capable of conjuring up?

And what about Rachel?

Cody leapt out from behind the car and fired again. He hit nothing. He tried and missed many times over. The red mist had taken over and he was shooting angry now.

“Damn it,” he said.

He extended his arm, took aim and was about to fire again.

Something stopped him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blinking light in the sky. Red and green lights. But whatever it was, he couldn’t afford to investigate. Not now.

Cody stood there, pointing the pistol at the masks, his trigger finger paralyzed with fear. They were too close. There were too many of them.

“We’ve got you now you son of a whore,” one of them said. “Hey where’s your pretty little girl at Mr Hollywood? Oh boy! I can’t wait to get my hands on that little piece of celebrity meat.”

“Fuck you,” Cody hissed.

He squeezed the trigger. When he heard the clicking noise that told him the gun was empty, his heart sank.

“Oh shit,” he said, looking at the pistol.

“Looks like you shot your load boy,” one of the masks said, laughing.

They all laughed.

Cody was beaten. He’d come into this second gunfight too confident after his victory over the masks in Bulverde. He was so sure that he’d dispatch them again that he hadn’t even pulled any extra ammo from the trunk. Now the Glock was empty and he’d only dropped two of the eight masks.

Why hadn’t he tried to outrun them in the Dodge? What the hell was he thinking playing at cowboys in the middle of the goddamn road?

The masks lowered their weapons as they walked towards him. They didn’t seem in the slightest bit bothered about their dead companions lying on the road. It was party time.

Cody held his hands up in surrender.

“C’mon guys,” he said. “ Let’s work something…”

A roaring sound in the distance cut him off. It sounded like a giant, angry wasp in the sky. Cody listened closely – it was the sound of an engine in trouble or something like that. Instinctively, he looked up and saw a small plane making a rapid descent towards the highway. The blinking red and green lights that had caught Cody’s eye were on its wings. With each second, the lights were getting bigger. The buzzing noise got louder.

There was no doubt that it was coming down. The plane didn’t appear to be in any obvious trouble – there was no smoke or visible signs of damage trailing off the aircraft.

If it wasn’t in trouble, it was coming down deliberately.

But the masks weren’t looking at the plane. They were circling the Dodge Challenger, cutting off all of Cody’s escape routes.

“Rachel,” Cody said, backing off. He wanted to yell at her – to tell her to get out of the trunk and run as fast as she could. But he was hypnotized, both by the presence of the encircling masks and the strange commotion unfolding in the sky. There was also a chorus of high-pitched screams in the distance. Further down the highway, scattered groups of refugees were standing on both sides of the road, as well as on the median strip in between. They could see what Cody saw up there. The plane was coming towards them and they didn’t know which way to run.

Cody’s heart nearly stopped.

“Oh shit,” he said. He pointed towards the blinking lights in the sky.

“That’s a plane coming down fellas,” he said. “Will you look behind you for Christ’s sake?”

“Bullshit,” a stocky-shouldered, bald-headed man said. There was a murderous glint in his eyes. He was leading the slow charge coming after Cody.

“He’s aiming for the road I think,” Cody said. “That plane’s going to go through those people like a bowling ball. And we’re not exactly standing in a safe zone here.”

The sound of the roaring engine in the sky got louder. Finally one of the masks turned around to check it out.

“Holy shit!” the man squealed. “It is coming down Hank. Coming straight out of the sky like this highway was a runway.”

The bald man turned around and his jaw dropped.

“Oh Lord Jesus!” he said. “Not another one.”

The five masks turned around and watched as the small plane descended towards the 281. For a moment, they were hypnotized just like the refugees were further up the road. It was as if no one could believe what they were seeing. They’d all heard about planes coming down elsewhere, but to see one – it was both mesmerizing and horrific.

Sensing his chance, Cody crept backwards towards the trunk. The plane’s engine drowned out the sound of his footsteps.

The bald man called over to the driver sitting in the pickup. “Randall! Look at that! You see it?”

The fat, white-haired man in the cab was leaning out of the Chevrolet, watching the plane speeding towards the highway.

“See it? You think I’m blind?”

“What do we do?”

“Get back here!” Randall yelled, ducking his head back into the pickup. His voice was shrill with fear. “We’ve got to get off the road. Now! That’s another kamikaze and it’s coming straight towards us.”

Cody reached the trunk and pulled it open quietly. When Rachel, still lying curled up in a ball, saw him standing there her eyes lit up. She was about to say something but Cody quickly pressed a finger to his lips and she did the same, letting him know that she understood.

Reaching inside the trunk, Cody grabbed a handful of ammo and the speed loader. He went to work fast and in a matter of seconds, the Glock was fully loaded.

“What about this cocksucker?” Cody heard the bald mask say to the driver. “What do we do with him? And what about the girl?”

“Grab them and put them in the truck,” the driver yelled back. His voice was by now hoarse with panic. “But we’ve got to go – hey! What the…? Where is he? Where is the bastard?”

“Son of a bitch is trying to sneak off.”

“Never mind him, let’s get back to the truck!” a frightened voice yelled. “There’s a plane coming down on the highway for Christ’s sake. Who cares about that asshole?”

“We ain’t leaving without him. He killed my sister.”

“He’s over there at the trunk trying to run,” Randall said. “Grab him. Grab the girl. But quick.”

Cody was biding his time. He was standing behind the open lid of the trunk. He winked at Rachel.

He heard footsteps rushing towards him.

Cody took a deep breath. Then he closed the trunk and started firing.

He shot the bald mask first. The nine-millimeter bullet ripped a dime-sized hole through the man’s skull and a gargled gasp was all he could manage before he fell. The four other men panicked when they saw that Cody was back to shooting at his best. Survival instincts kicked in. The plan to seize Cody and Rachel was abandoned and they all fled back towards the Chevrolet in a disorganized mess.

The light coming off the plane was getting closer. The noise of the engine was louder. It felt dangerous just to be there. People on the highway were jumping off the road on either side, taking their chances in the trees and in the open spaces that lay beyond the 281. Others were racing down the highway back towards San Antonio, convinced that the plane wasn’t going to land on the road.

They were too close to it. From where he stood, Cody was certain the plane was targeting the road.

The masks hurried back to the pickup. Cody knew that he couldn’t let them go, not this time. There was every chance that the bastards would find him again further down the highway and try their luck. Maybe they’d find him at the airport. It would just go on and on until they killed him and took Rachel. Or until he killed them.

He had to protect her. That was his job, no matter how grim.

He chased after the fleeing men, dropping them one at a time like skittles. He felt nothing as he watched them go down. Meanwhile, Randall the driver saw what was happening and in a state of panic, he slammed his foot down and the red Chevrolet began to roll down the highway.

Cody pointed the pistol at the cab. He had a solid lock on the old man’s head and all it would take was one more shot. Squeeze the trigger and wipe them out. One big happy family, all dead and spared the horrors of Mary Jane’s ‘New America’.

But Cody didn’t shoot. His arm fell to the side.

It wasn’t that kind of world yet.

The Chevrolet sped down the 281, charging towards San Antonio at high speed. Cody looked over his shoulder at the plane descending towards the highway. It might have been a Cessna. He saw the small wingspan, the twin turbofan engines – it probably held no more than five or six people inside.

“Holy shit,” he said.

Those poor people on the road were trying to get away. But they were caught like a flock of rabbits in the plane’s headlights. Their high-pitched screams filled the air and Cody saw the inevitability of the situation. It was a horrifying sight that was about to get worse.

He couldn’t help them. Nobody could. He only had enough hero left inside him to save his little girl – he hoped.

Another glance at the plane. The Black Widow – she was up there, whispering in the pilot’s ear and telling him to do it. But who else was in that plane with her and the pilot? Was it another case of someone paying an extortionate amount of money to charter a private aircraft in order to get home? Maybe they’d taken their family members aboard. Was there a child on the plane?

“Dad?”

Rachel’s voice pulled Cody back, reminding him of the urgency of the situation. Turning around, he hurried over to the car and stood by the trunk. The lid was slightly ajar but he couldn’t see inside.

“It’s me,” he said, knocking on the lid. “I’m okay. The masks are all gone.”

“I want to come out.”

Cody looked at the plane coming towards them.

“I want you to stay in here for a little longer,” he said.

“Let me out!”

“Trust me,” Cody said. And with that he slammed the trunk shut, ignoring her cries as he climbed back into the Dodge.

When he turned on the headlights he realized that one of them had indeed been shot out by the masks. A one-eyed car – it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be on the road for much longer.

He turned on the engine, spun the car around and raced back down the highway towards San Antonio. His foot pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. As the car picked up speed, Cody’s eyes darted back and forth between the road and what was happening in the rearview mirror.

Down it came. Lower. Losing altitude at a dramatic rate. Now it really did look like an authentic kamikaze plane speeding towards its target. But unlike the World War Two planes, the target this time wasn’t an enemy warship; it was a group of human beings who’d been trying to escape the tragedy in San Antonio. It was almost there – God, it was coming in so fast.

Cody couldn’t take his eyes off it.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” he said.

The small aircraft crashed into the center of the 281. There was a massive explosion and a fireball engulfed the plane and burned through everything and everyone in its path. Thick plumes of black smoke gushed out of the wreckage and raced towards the sky.

It was a massacre.

The ground trembled underneath the Dodge Challenger.

Cody wanted to scream at the top of his lungs. He wanted to cry but his eyes were dry. He wanted to do something to acknowledge those people who’d been vaporized on the road. All they’d wanted was something better, for themselves and for their families – it was the same something he was searching for now.

He drove on in stunned silence. As he did so, he kept the gas pedal pinned to the floor, convinced that the fireball was chasing down the highway after them.

It was a while before he heard the noise. When he snapped out of his daze, he realized that Rachel was pounding on the roof of the trunk.

“Let me out!” she screamed.

“Just a little longer,” Cody said. He scratched at his arm through the sleeve of his shirt. His skin was prickly hot, as if the heat of the explosion was all over him.

He looked at the massive fireball in the mirror.

How would anyone ever know what happened to those people? What if they had loved ones waiting for them somewhere?

More thumping from the back.

“Dad!” Rachel yelled from the trunk. “I want to get out of here.”

Cody knew that he couldn’t keep her in the trunk for any longer. She’d heard the blast and there was no way he could hide the aftermath from her. It was too big. He slowed the Dodge to a stop and wiped the sweat off his face. Then he stepped outside into the warm air.

He tried to take a deep lungful of air. Breathing had never been so hard. It felt like someone was trying to smother him with a pillow on a hot summer’s night.

Cody opened the trunk and helped Rachel climb out onto the road. She stood up straight and gasped as she looked at the fireball blazing in the north.

“What happened?” she said. “I heard the noise but…”

“A plane crash,” Cody said.

Rachel stared at the smoking horizon.

“What about all those people?” she said.

“Some got away,” Cody said.

They stood with their backs propped up against the Dodge Challenger for a minute or two. They were two spectators with front row seats to the end of the world.

Cody put his arm around Rachel.

“Want some water?” he said.

She didn’t take her eyes off the wreckage. “Uh-huh.”

Cody handed her one of the large bottles out of the trunk. Rachel held it with both hands and took a long drink. Then she passed it back. Cody drank the lukewarm water, letting it spill down the sides of his mouth.

“Are you ready?” he asked, wiping his mouth dry with the back of his hand. He screwed the lid on the bottle and put it back into the trunk.

“Ready,” she said.

When they got back in the car, Rachel climbed into the passenger seat.

Chapter Eleven

They drove south.

Cody tried his best to ignore the wreckage that lingered in the mirror. He shut his mind off to what had happened – the masks, the plane crash, and most of all the fate of those people who’d got caught on the highway. He couldn’t allow himself to get caught up in a tidal wave of emotion or it would overwhelm him. That would come later.

It was hard to forget however, when San Antonio was going up in flames to the south. There was nowhere to turn to escape the calamitous events triggered by the Black Storm.

“Bad things are happening everywhere,” he said.

The road – that was all that mattered. That and the airport.

“Are we still getting on a plane?” Rachel said. “After…that?”

Cody looked at her sitting to his right in the passenger seat. It was a novelty seeing her there; it was as if a little woman now possessed the body of his ten-year-old girl. A little woman with a teddy bear.

“Are you scared?” he said.

“Aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But I asked you first.”

“I’m not that scared,” Rachel said, eyeing the dried bloodstains on the passenger seat. She was doing her best to avoid sitting on them, so much so that she was only using about half the seat. “Not as scared as you.”

Cody nodded. “It’s not a bad thing to be scared,” he said. “It happens to everyone. You wanna know what the scariest time in my life was?”

Rachel looked at him. “What?”

“When you were born,” Cody said. “You were so weak. It was because of all the bad things that your mom put in her body. I was so scared – I kept thinking the worst was going to happen and we didn’t really know anyone down here in Texas – we had no close friends and family. You and Mom were in hospital and I was alone, just thinking all the time.”

“You told me I had trouble breathing when I was born,” Rachel said.

“Yeah,” Cody said. “Well it was a bit more serious than that.”

“Thanks for telling me.”

“Well you didn’t need to know before,” Cody said, glancing over at her. “Maybe you do now though.”

Rachel had her arms folded and she was scowling at him. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “To remind you…to remind us that bad times don’t last forever.”

Cody shook his head. It sounded like he was reading from a bad script. And he’d read his fair share of those over the years.

Her eyes were restless. She looked back and forth between Cody and the road. “What happened?”

“Thought we’d lost you a couple of times,” Cody said. “You almost died Rachel and I had to prepare myself for the worst. It would have killed me, maybe really killed me. But you didn’t quit kid. You knew how to keep fighting and look at us now. Still fighting to stay alive. Look I don’t really want to get on a plane either but we’re running out of options. Take a look around you honey, it’s not safe on the ground around here.”

“But it’s so dark,” Rachel said, looking up at the sky. “What if we crash too?”

Cody pointed a finger at several cracks of light – white specks like a glint of gold sliding around a prospector’s pan. They were pushing back against a tide of darkness.

“There’s gotta be something…”

His voice trailed off. It was a meager hope and they both knew it. The alternative however, was to give in.

Cody kept his eyes on a smoke-filled collage of red, orange and yellow on the southern horizon.

“We’re going to be okay,” he said.

They drove past Stone Oak, then the westbound and eastbound flyover bridges that connected the 1604 and the 281. Cody knew he had to stick to the 281 all the way, at least until he saw the first signs for the airport.

That should be anytime now. They were getting close.

Rachel held Bootsy by a single arm. The teddy bear was hanging over the edge of the seat, its legs dangling in midair and on the brink of falling into the abyss. Cody knew she was still worried – who could blame her? But he didn’t know what else to say to reassure her. Everything that came out of his mouth sounded forced – like he was giving the big chest-swelling inspirational speech prior to the third act of the movie. He was playing that guy – the hero who picks up his fallen comrades and who instills hope and enough juice to carry them home to victory.

It was a demanding role.

“You want to listen to the radio?” Cody said, reaching for the antique Music Master on his right. Despite insisting that he was done with the radio, Cody was still curious about who was out there. “Now that we’re closer to the city maybe we’ll pick up something interesting. What do you say?”

Rachel shook her head.

“I don’t want to listen to any more of those stories,” she said.

Cody yanked his hand away from the radio like it was rigged with explosives.

“Gotcha,” he said.

“How long till we get there Dad?”

“Ten minutes honey,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

“Where is everyone?” Rachel said. “What happened to all the people leaving the city?”

Cody shrugged. “My guess is that anyone who was traveling north saw the plane crash and took off in another direction. Or at least they saw the smoke rising from a distance. Being the cautious types, they had a change of heart and went east or west instead. That’s what I would have done.”

Rachel was looking at him. She opened her mouth to say something but then stopped herself.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Spit it out.”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Something’s on your mind kid. Tell me, please.”

She looked at Bootsy.

“What were those people going to do to me?” she said. “The mask people.”

Cody gave the steering wheel a little squeeze. “They were going to take you away with them,” he said.

“What for?”

“When you were older they were going to…”

“What?”

“Use you.”

She was quiet for a second.

“Use me how?”

“You know, to make babies for them. To be a mom.”

Rachel screwed up her face in disgust. “Why?” she said.

Cody shrugged. “Because of the way things might go in the future,” he said. “We don’t know what’s happening with the government, the police and army – those things might not even be there anymore. People are going to have to figure out how to look out for themselves. The way Mary Jane was telling it, people are going to do better with a big family behind them. I guess. They wanted you because you’re young and healthy and you would have given them lots of sons and daughters.”

“That’s disgusting,” Rachel said.

“It is disgusting,” Cody said. “Listen to me kid – from now on ask yourself this question every time you meet someone new – what does this person want from me? Everyone’s getting desperate out there. Food supplies are low. There are water shortages. People are scared and they’re doing bad things, not necessarily because they’re bad people but because they’re desperate.”

Cody reached a hand out and ruffled Rachel’s blonde hair.

“You’ll be alright,” he said. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“And I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Rachel said.

Cody smiled. “Sounds like we’re going to make it then.”

The steady hum of the Dodge’s Hemi engine was constant and soothing as the car traveled south. Cody’s eyelids were getting heavier. Once he got on the plane, he wanted nothing more than to sit back and drift off into a deep sleep. And to dream – to dream of anything except the Black Storm.

“I’m going to miss Spring Branch,” Rachel said. “All my friends are back there.”

Cody thought about the explosion from earlier – the one that happened during his encounter with Kate, aka the Black Widow. Had they turned the car around and drove north back up the 281 to Spring Branch, what would they find instead of their home? Fire and smoke? Or maybe nothing at all.

And what of Rachel’s friends?

“You were happy there,” Cody said. “Weren’t you?”

“It was alright.”

“I know it wasn’t the most exciting life,” Cody said. “But the most exciting lives aren’t always the happiest. Take it from somebody who knows.”

“You were happy there too,” Rachel said. “You liked writing your articles for the magazines and the websites. You liked being boring.”

Cody smiled.

“It was the best home I ever had,” he said. “Hands down kid. When I was a boy – younger than you are now – your grandparents moved us around a lot. Hippy communes, trailer parks – that kind of thing. Real colorful existence. Sometimes it was fun. We’d meet new people all the time but sometimes it was tough too. My brothers and sisters and me – we had to work hard, busking, doing lame tricks and telling crappy jokes on the street, just so we’d have enough money to eat that night. It was a lot of work being free. And we never hung around the same place for long. I’d start making friends and then my dad would make an announcement, telling us that we’d be moving on soon. We didn’t really stop moving, not until I got the part in The Forever Boys. And look at me now, huh? On the move again.”

Rachel lifted Bootsy onto her lap. She pushed a piece of loose stuffing back into one of several holes on the teddy bear’s body.

“Why didn’t we bury Mom in Spring Branch?” she asked. “With us.”

Cody looked over at her.

“Your mom wanted to be cremated,” he said. “I took her back to California.”

“I know,” Rachel said. “But where is she? Exactly?”

“I scattered her ashes near the Hollywood Reservoir,” Cody said. “Went up there disguised in a hat and dark sunglasses. It was just me and your mom. It’s real pretty up there and your mom loved it. On a sunny day, the lake and the trees are just beautiful. You can see the Hollywood sign too – I think your mom would have gotten a kick out of that. I’d always hoped to show you that spot someday. Maybe I still can. Someday.”

Rachel didn’t say anything else. She sat in silence, doing repairs on Bootsy, her fingers frantically trying to keep him intact. As the car traveled south, she worked furiously, trying to seal up all the holes in order to prevent the teddy bear’s polyester guts from spilling out all over the car.

Chapter Twelve

The Dodge raced along a desolate, lonely stretch of road.

The highway began to open up as they got closer to the city. Cody now had a choice of five empty lanes to choose from instead of the two he’d been traveling down so far. If nothing else, it was a little less claustrophobic. They spotted several other cars on the road but none of the bright headlights that came into view were pointing towards San Antonio.

Occasionally a few people appeared, walking along the center of the highway. Refugee sightings were few and far between. After the plane crash, north apparently wasn’t the most fashionable of directions.

Cody followed the signs on the highway:

‘Downtown’.

‘San Antonio’.

‘The Alamo’.

This last one seemed to pique Rachel’s interest. She leaned forward in her seat, studying the words on the sign carefully.

“The Alamo?” she said. “I’ve heard of that. Haven’t I?”

Cody nodded. “Of course you have. Remember the Alamo?”

“What?” she said.

“Wow,” he said. “And you’ve lived in Texas all your life? Remember the Alamo!”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about history,” Cody said, looking over at her. “The Alamo is Texan history with a capital ‘H’. Hey did you know there was a time when Texas wasn’t even part of America?”

“No.”

“It’s true,” he said. “Texas used to belong to Mexico. Then it became an independent state in 18…I don’t know, the late nineteenth century or something like that.”

“You don’t know?” she said. “Some history lesson Dad.”

“You want to hear this or not?” Cody said.

“Not,” Rachel said.

Cody kept talking anyway while his eyes roamed the highway looking for any more signs to the airport.

“The Mexicans weren’t too happy about Texas going off and doing its own thing,” he said. “You can imagine. So they laid siege to a little mission located not too far from where we are right now. Bet you can’t guess what that mission was called.”

Rachel lifted a bored eyebrow. “The Alamo?”

“Right,” he said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Thousands of Mexicans fought against two hundred men who were defending the Alamo. Two hundred – that’s crazy right? So the two hundred fought their hearts out and they held out for about a fortnight before the Mexicans finally overpowered them. Two weeks man, that’s pretty impressive. Ever since then, for Texans and a lot of other people, the Alamo has become a symbol of heroic resistance. Fighting against the odds. And that’s exactly what we’re doing – you and me. We’re like the two hundred.”

Rachel turned away, unimpressed. “They all died,” she said. “Didn’t they? What’s so great about that?”

Cody’s shoulders slumped in defeat. The Alamo was a great historical example of courage and bravery, no doubt about that. But Rachel was right – they’d all died in the end.

“Yeah,” he said.

He concentrated on the road instead of trying to give any more pep talks. And at last, he saw the sign he was looking for:

‘San Antonio

Int’l Airport

EXIT 1 MILE’

“Here we go,” Cody said.

He merged onto the McAllister Freeway. Soon after that, he followed a sign taking him left towards the airport. Cody’s heart was galloping as they got closer to the destination. All the worst-case scenarios that could still happen were playing around in his head on a constant loop. What if he’d taken too long to get here? What if Nick and the others had already gone? What if that mask he’d let go on the 281 appeared on his tail again, all guns blazing and with more of his shotgun-wielding redneck pals standing on the cargo bed?

And what about the refugees? What if they’d been flocking on foot towards the airport? They were searching for a way out the city. Why wouldn’t they try the airport? It was possible wasn’t it? What if Nick saw them coming – hordes and hordes of people who may or may not have been infected with Black Fever? He would have been left with little choice.

Was the plane still there?

The sweat was running down Cody’s forehead.

When at last he reached the airport, he followed the signs towards Terminal A, just as Nick had instructed him to do. The area was dimly lit and there were no other cars and no people in sight.

Cody pulled up outside the terminal building. He let go of the wheel and his head fell back onto the seat with a quiet thud. With a sad smile, he turned the Dodge’s engine off for the last time. He gave the steering wheel an affectionate pat.

“We did it,” he said.

“You talking to me?” Rachel said.

“I was talking to the car honey.”

“You’re weird.”

Cody closed his eyes. He felt like he’d been on the road for days, as if he’d just completed a cross-country trip from one side of America to the other, non-stop. In reality, he’d driven about twenty-six miles from Spring Branch to San Antonio International Airport. Twenty-six miles that felt like twenty-six hundred.

Now all they had to do was find the plane.

Cody had memorized the next part. Once they got inside the terminal, they had to follow the signs for departures and make their way down to Gate A5. Walk through the door of the gate and onto the apron. That’s where the white and blue Alaska Airlines plane would be waiting for them.

Cody pulled the key out of the ignition.

“Dad,” Rachel said. “Look. Do you see that car over there?”

She was pointing at a police car parked further down outside the terminal building. Cody had noticed it as he’d pulled up, assuming it was just one of thousands of abandoned vehicles lying scattered around the San Antonio area.

He leaned forward in the driver’s seat.

It was a Ford Explorer Police Interceptor. The passenger door was lying wide open, pointing towards the terminal entrance. Upon first glance it looked like someone had exited the car and ran into the airport in a hurry. Poking his head through the Dodge’s open window, Cody saw the words ‘San Antonio Police – Protecting the Alamo City’ written on the side of the car.

“That’s the real deal,” he said. “SAPD. I wonder what it’s doing there.”

“Do you think the police are in the airport?” Rachel asked.

“I doubt it,” Cody said. He sure hoped not. He didn’t want to have to walk in and explain to anybody what he was doing there with his daughter and a couple of heavily packed backpacks. But what if some do-gooder asshole had snitched on Nick and told the authorities that a black man had laid siege to San Antonio airport and was at present trying to steal an expensive Alaska Airlines plane?

The police were too busy downtown to care. Weren’t they?

Cody took another look at the black and white Explorer. It looked empty. He glanced at the terminal, searching for any sign of activity taking place inside the building.

“Don’t see anything,” he said. “You?”

“No,” Rachel said.

“Maybe somebody just left it here,” Cody said.

“Maybe it broke down,” Rachel said.

Cody nodded. “Come to think of it,” he said. “Whoever left it there is probably one of Nick’s friends. Yeah that’s gotta be it. Nick knows a few cops downtown. Looks like whoever it is, they’re getting on the plane too. Everyone else must have parked in the car park, apart from us latecomers.”

Rachel looked satisfied with that explanation.

“Anyway,” Cody said, pushing the driver’s door open. “We’ve got to go kid. Let’s grab the bags out the back and get moving.”

Cody got out of the car, opened up the trunk and threw the two backpacks onto the ground. They took out some of the plastic water bottles and crammed as many as they could into what little room was left in their bags. Cody had already put some food items into the bags back at the house – fruit, sandwiches, potato chips, nuts and chocolate. Anything he could think of that would fight off the hunger pangs while they were up in the air. There were some books in there for Rachel to read too. Thin ones.

Cody packed the ammo and speed loader into his bag. He zipped up the bulging backpack and checked that Rachel’s bag, also crammed to bursting point, was closed too.

He stood up straight.

“Ready?” he said.

“What about the car?” Rachel said, taking a step back from the Dodge.

Cody looked at his beloved 1970 Dodge Challenger with a heavy heart. His stomach felt like it was tied up in a tight knot. It wasn’t just the car – it was the many memories associated with it. Some of them bittersweet. A decade ago, he’d undertaken the journey of his life in the Dodge when he’d travelled from California to Texas with Kate. And with Rachel too, who would have been about the size of an apple in Kate’s womb at the time.

“This is where we say goodbye,” Cody said.

“I wish we could take it with us,” Rachel said.

Cody smiled. “Me too.”

He looked at the car key, which was fastened to a small Swiss Army Knife keyring. It was sitting next to the house key, which opened the door to a house that he’d never see again either. He tucked the keys into his pocket. At least he’d be able to take a little piece of the house and the car with him on the next stage of the journey.

Cody gave the car a final pat on the hood. “Thanks old buddy.”

He took a step back.

“Let’s go Rachel,” he said, throwing another wary glance towards the abandoned-looking police car in the distance. He walked to the front of the Dodge, grabbed the gun out of the driver’s side and checked there were still plenty of bullets in the magazine. When he was satisfied there was enough, he tucked the Glock into the waist of his jeans.

“Got your passport?” Cody asked.

Rachel held the teddy bear up. “I’ve got Bootsy.”

“Guess that’ll have to do,” he said.

Cody walked over to the two backpacks lying on the ground. Rachel held a hand up.

“I want to carry my bag,” she said.

“It’s heavy,” Cody said. “It’ll slow you down.”

“I want to carry it. It’s my bag.”

He sighed. “Alright.”

Cody handed the backpack to Rachel and she swung it over her shoulder. She grunted slightly under the weight.

They turned around and walked into Terminal A.

“So what now?” Rachel said. She was looking at the display boards next to the check-in area. All the boards were switched off. Although the lights inside the terminal building had been left on, it looked like the airport hadn’t been in service for weeks, maybe even months.

Cody looked up at the ceiling. “I sure hope that was Nick who put the lights on.”

“What did you say?” Rachel said.

“Nothing kid.”

“So where are we going?”

“Gate A5,” Cody said. “Alaska Airlines.”

“Alaska?” Rachel said. “It’s freezing up there.”

Cody shrugged. “Yeah but maybe it’s too cold for the Black Storm,” he said. “You ever think about that? If so, I’ll take it.”

As he spoke, his eyes darted back and forth around the terminal. It was so quiet inside the building.

They walked further inside and found a sign for departures. Cody led Rachel across the building, suppressing the urge to take out his gun. Even though he’d have been more comfortable with it in his hand, he kept it tucked in at the waist. He wanted Rachel to feel safe – to think that they’d made it. She’d already gone through a lifetime of worry that day.

They both had.

The terminal’s interior was sleek and modern. The color scheme was mostly white and cream, the style tasteful and minimalistic, at least just enough to avoid an aura of blandness. As Cody and Rachel walked towards the departure gates, large digital display screens were scattered throughout but like the other boards they’d encountered, none of them worked.

It wasn’t long before they found a sign for Gate A5. They hurried off in that direction, looking out for subsequent signs to the gate.

Cody was beginning to believe that this last part of the journey would go smoothly after all. It was about time something went their way. Both sets of footsteps were light, echoing around the deserted airport. There was even a spring in their step now.

“Do you think the car’s okay?” Rachel said, looking up at him.

He nodded. “Yeah I think…”

Cody stopped dead in his tracks. He grabbed a hold of his daughter’s arm and pulled her back.

There was a man standing further down the terminal.

It was a cop.

The cop was walking towards them. His face was curious but he remained silent as he closed the gap. There was no friendly greeting and no rapid-fire, robotic cop jargon to try and intimidate them either.

The man’s shoes made a loud clicking noise on the hard floor.

“Good evening sir,” said the cop. “Ma’am. How are you both?” He spoke with a stereotypically overdone West Texan accent – it was a lousy John Wayne impression that didn’t fit neatly with the boyish face. He couldn’t have been more than thirty years old. The cop possessed a pair of striking, emerald green eyes. He had long sideburns and he was handsome in a delicate, almost feminine way. The most striking thing of all was his skin – it was a sickly, pallid gray, which hinted of a lurking illness beneath the surface.

Cody looked at the man’s uniform – the dark blues, the silver badge and the equipment belt wrapped around his waist. He wondered what the cop was doing at the airport. There was a lot of valuable equipment in the building. Had he been sent to patrol the area, to guard it against looters?

Cody was glad that he hadn’t taken out his gun after all. The cop’s pistol was drawn and hanging by his side as he walked. The man looked ready to go. Things might have gotten ugly if Cody had been carrying his gun.

“Good evening officer,” Cody said, despite it still being mid-morning. “My name’s Cody MacLeod and this is my daughter Rachel.”

The cop smiled, showing off a row of white, slightly crooked teeth.

“What are you doing here at the airport Cody and Rachel MacLeod?” He spoke playfully, like he was talking to two young children instead of one.

The man took a step closer. Cody recognized the gun in the cop’s hand as a police standard, a Smith & Wesson M&P40. He found himself thinking back to the black and white Explorer sitting outside the terminal building. That was a real cop’s uniform the guy was wearing. That was a real cop car parked outside. And that was a real cop’s gun in his hand.

But something didn’t fit.

“We’re here to meet a friend,” Cody said. “That’s all.”

“You shouldn’t be here mister,” the cop said. He pointed the gun at Cody and Rachel. In a split second his tone had shifted from playful to pissed off. “The city’s in big trouble and we need all hands on board downtown putting out fires and helping people. You know what I mean?”

Cody nodded. Yeah? So what the hell are you doing here?

“I hear what you’re saying,” Cody said. “Really I do. But I gotta meet my friend first. I said we’d be here.”

The man laughed – a sneering adolescent cackle that made Cody’s blood run cold.

“You’re fleeing the sinking ship aren’t you mister?” he said, putting a hand to his mouth, trying to suppress the giggles. “I know what’s going on here.”

“What do you mean?” Cody said.

“You think I don’t know about that plane out there?” he said. “Gate A5, right? It’s a big plane, Alaska Airlines. It’s like a modern day Ark, ain’t it? All set to fly up into the sky and escape the drowning world. That’s what you’re here for right? You’ve got a ticket to ride with black Noah. The animals went in two by two. Hurrah! Hurrah! Tell me mister, what animal are you? The elephant? The kangaroo?”

The plane was still there. Despite the tense situation, Cody’s heart leapt with joy when he heard that.

“Look man,” he said. “I’m just trying to keep my daughter safe, you know?”

“And yourself,” the man said, pointing the gun at Cody in a stabbing motion. “Don’t forget that. Don’t you go pretending to be some sort of saint now.”

Cody nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right.”

The cop grinned and looked at Rachel. His dazzling green eyes lingered on her in a way that made Cody squirm.

“She’s a pretty girl,” the man said. “Damn pretty.”

Cody clenched his jaw.

“Are you really a cop?” he asked.

The man grinned. “What do you think?”

“I think I’d like to see some ID please.”

“You see the badge don’t you?” the cop said.

“How do I know it’s yours?” Cody said. “Show me something else man. You got a wallet on you? All those doughnuts you cops eat don’t come cheap. You gotta be carrying a wallet on you.”

The man looked at Cody with dead eyes.

“It’s in the car,” he said. “Parked outside. Are you going to be difficult sir?”

“No I’m not sir,” Cody fired back. “I’m a law-abiding citizen. But as you can see, these are hard times and I gotta wonder what an officer of the law is doing holed up in an abandoned airport when the city he’s supposed to serve is going up in flames. I’m talking about the Black Fever. There are people out there losing their minds. They need your help.”

There was a slight twitch at the corner of the man’s mouth. He was still looking at Rachel with ravenous eyes.

“Pretty girl,” he said again.

Cody did his best to stay calm. Time was running out and they had to get past this guy.

“Lot of people out there talking about starting anew,” the man said. His green eyes were staring into empty space now. “They’re looking for pretty girls. You hear it on the street all the time these days. People are thinking about the future – they’re talking about hauling ass out the city. Everybody thinks there’s gotta be somewhere the Black Storm don’t reach. Not so sure about that myself. Anyway these people, they want breeders, you know? Girls, good looking ones, to start over their families with. A big family – it might be the difference between life and death in the New Eden. Between being strong and being weak. That’s what they say.”

He pointed at Rachel.

“A little golden-haired beauty like that? They’d pay a lot of money to get their hands on you princess.”

Cody took a deep breath.

“You’re not a cop,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Are you? You stole that Ford Explorer out front. Didn’t you, mister? You stole the uniform and the gun. What I want to know is what happened to the cop you stole them from – did you kill him? Is he still in that police car out there? In the trunk?”

The man’s smile faded.

“Do you really want to know?” he said.

“I do,” Cody said. As long as you stop looking at Rachel.

“Wait till you hear about the day I’ve had,” the man said. “First thing, I went over to my parents’ house to see if they were still alive. Hadn’t heard from them in a long time. Guess I should’ve checked up on them sooner. Some son I am, huh? Turns out they weren’t alive. My best guess is that my dad had the Fever. He’d bludgeoned Mom to death with a golf club before hanging himself in the living room. Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t the Fever that got him. He was always teetering on the edge of crazy, the old bastard.”

“I’m sorry man,” Cody said. “Really I…”

The man held a hand up, indicating that he wasn’t finished.

“Anyway,” he said. “I was sitting in the back garden after that, trying to process what I’d seen and that’s when I heard them talking.”

“Who?” Cody asked.

“The couple next door,” the man said. “Tom and Linda Wagner. Well they had a plan, didn’t they? The city was toast but that’s okay because Tom and Linda had a plan. Whoopee-doo! And they were talking it over, unaware that I was listening on the other side of the garden fence. Somebody they knew, I guess it was Black Noah, had invited them to the airport. Apparently there was a plane – a big one, not one of those paperweight deathtraps falling out of the sky. It was going to get them out of San Antonio. Yes sir, Tom and Linda were being offered a free ticket for the Ark. The select few, middle-class and beautiful, had been chosen.”

The man wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“I thought about asking them,” he said. “Straight up. Can I come with you please? My family are dead and I ain’t got nothing anymore. But I knew what they’d say – limited space and all that crap. They always thought I was bit weird. But it didn’t matter because I heard everything I needed to hear – Gate A5, Alaska Airlines – come as quickly as you can.”

He tapped the barrel of the gun off the silver San Antonio police badge. It made a loud clinking noise.

“Now here’s the good part,” the man said. “I knew that whoever was organizing this escape pod wouldn’t take me. So I thought to myself, what if I turned up at the party dressed as someone else? Let’s say an authority figure, someone they wouldn’t dare refuse.”

He laughed like it was supposed to be funny.

“So I took my old man’s car and I drove downtown,” he said. “Holy shit, it’s bad there. Like there’s some real fire and brimstone biblical shit going on. Place was swarming with cops, still acting like they were king of the hill. But hold on I say, because the hill is on fire! Well those cops were so scattered and disorganized that it was easy pickings. Nobody cares about their authority anymore. Found me a crowbar, sneaked up on this old boy about my size and build, and WHACK! Took the uniform, put him in the trunk and drove as fast as I could straight here.”

“The cop’s dead?” Cody asked.

“Oh yeah,” the man said. “If you’d seen the state of his head you wouldn’t be asking.”

Cody hesitated. “But they didn’t let you on the plane, right?”

The man lowered his gun.

“You’re a smart guy,” he said. “Black Noah took one look at me, pointed his shotgun at my head and told me to get-the-fuck-outta-here. Cop or no cop, he said – you ain’t getting on my plane. His plane? There were several guns on me. Not what you’d call a warm welcome.”

“Look,” Cody said. “I’m real sorry about your folks. It’s tough to lose your family like that, I know. But I’m trying to protect my daughter from the Black Storm. You wouldn’t begrudge her a way out of this mess, would you?”

The man looked thoughtful for a second.

“You know something pal,” he said. “Yes I would. Why should I be the only one getting screwed today?”

Cody ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.

“You’re not well mister,” he said. “You’re not thinking right. Please just…”

Cody gasped. He saw something over the man’s shoulder.

The Black Widow was in the terminal.

She was approaching the young man from behind. She came slowly, floating down the terminal building like a specter traipsing through the corridors of a haunted house. There was no life in her features – only those silver orbs, gleaming on her deathly pale face.

Her long black mourning dress trailed behind her like a vast, sprawling cloak.

Rachel must have seen it too because she dug her fingers deep into the back of Cody’s hand, her nails slicing through his skin.

Cody wanted to say something – to warn the man. But it all happened so fast. The Black Widow glided towards the young man and entered his body.

She vanished.

“Dad,” Rachel said. “Do you…”

Cody gave her hand a squeeze. “Yes.”

The man whimpered like a frightened child. His emerald eyes lit up, his body stiffened, and for a second it looked like he was about to keel over in shock. Then his shoulders drooped as he appeared to relax. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked over at Cody and Rachel.

His green eyes had dulled to charcoal black.

The man’s expression had also darkened. His pallid grey skin was dry and wrinkled, making him look much older than his thirty or so years.

The gun was pointing at Cody and Rachel again.

“Why won’t they let me on the plane?” he said. His voice was shaking, like a little child on the brink of tears. “They sent me away. What am I supposed to do? I’m alone. My parents are dead. Why doesn’t anyone want to help me? And now you want to leave me alone too. What is it with you people? You think you’re so much better than everyone else. Aren’t we supposed to stick together at times like this?”

Cody let go of Rachel’s hand. His fingers moved towards the gun tucked into his waist.

“Hey man,” he said. “It’s the Black Fever talking, you understand? You gotta fight it.”

The young man laughed. He was pointing the Smith & Wesson back and forth between Cody and Rachel like he was playing eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

“No I’m just tired,” the man said. “Tired of being treated like shit by everyone. Tired of living. Aren’t you sick of it all? You look exhausted mister. Well I can help you with that. I’m going to do you a favor. Ain’t nobody going to take your little girl from you. No breeder mob will touch her, I’ll make sure of that. Yeah, how about this? How about we stay together forever in this airport – all three of us? One shot each, that’s all it takes.”

He smiled at Rachel, bearing his teeth like a wild animal.

“I’ll do you first little girl,” he said. “Close your eyes.”

The gun stopped moving. It was pointing at Rachel.

“No!” Cody yelled. He threw his hands up in the air, pleading with the man to stop.

Bang!

Cody pushed Rachel as hard as he could. He possessed the superhuman strength of a parent witnessing their child in extreme danger. In that moment, he was sucked into another world where time slowed down, where colors were brighter and more intense, where sound was clearer, and the entire universe was inside him.

Rachel dodged the bullet. She fell out of range of the gunfire, rolling onto her side and curling up into a tight ball on the ground.

When Cody saw that Rachel was safe, he returned to the lesser plane of existence. This was where pain still existed. Almost immediately, he felt a searing heat coming from his side and when he looked down he saw blood pouring from a wound at his side.

“Shit,” he said, dropping onto one knee.

He heard the fake cop walking towards him. Cody looked up at the man and saw that his eyes were like two black moons stuck to his head. He was a walking, talking mannequin. He wasn’t human anymore.

“It’ll be alright,” the man said. “I’m here. I’m here.”

Cody kept his hand pressed against his left side, applying pressure to the wound. He was leaking.

His fingers fumbled at his waist, trying to reach the Glock tucked underneath his shirt. But he was grasping at nothing – his hands couldn’t keep up with his brain.

“It’s going to be alright,” a voice said.

The man was standing over him. Cody looked up and saw the black pistol pointing at his head.

“I’ll see you on the other side brother,” the man said. “I won’t be far behind. And neither will your little girl. It’s better this way.”

Cody closed his eyes. His head dropped, like he was baring his neck to the blade of a sharp axe. He didn’t even have the strength to beg for his daughter’s life anymore.

Rachel. I’m sorry.

There was an explosion of noise. It sounded like something else blowing up in San Antonio. Had the end of things come at last? Maybe the old city would go into the history books at exactly the same time as ex-Hollywood superstar, Cody MacLeod.

He waited for the darkness to envelop his mind. But nothing happened.

Cody dared to look up and just as he did, the man in the police uniform toppled over like a falling statue. There was a trickle of dark blood pouring out of his mouth and running down his chin. One hand was reaching towards a massive, bloody hole that had been ripped open in his chest.

“Die motherfucker!” a booming voice yelled.

Cody heard somebody running. Footsteps came closer. It sounded like a Greek God striding over the clouds on Mount Olympus.

“Cody!” a man’s voice yelled. “Are you okay man? Talk to me.”

Cody felt himself being dragged up to his feet. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand but once he was back on two legs, he leaned on the other man’s shoulder for support while he regained his composure.

He looked at the man’s face and grinned.

“Nick?” he said. “Is that you?”

“Hell yes,” the man said, laughing. It was a deep glorious rumbling sound that shook the floor.

It was Nick Norton. He was standing there in all his splendor – six foot five, two hundred and eighty pounds, and built like a linebacker with boulders for shoulders. His black skull was shaved almost to the bone and he was sporting a pencil thin goatee that Cody immediately loathed. Cody had expected to see Nick strutting around in his beloved pilot’s uniform but to his surprise, the big man was wearing a navy blue t-shirt and dark pants. He looked like he was about to head off for a round of golf somewhere.

A black and tan rifle was hanging at Nick’s side.

“What took you so long asshole?” Cody said. “You had to wait till I got shot before riding to the rescue?”

Nick wrapped his arms around Cody and squeezed him tight. Cody yelped. It felt like he was hugging a grizzly bear.

“Good to see you!” Nick said.

Cody winced under the weight of the man’s tree-trunk arms. “You too,” he said. “Although that beard is ugly as hell man.”

“Fuck you too,” Nick said with a grin.

Like Cody, Nick Norton had been a beloved child star in the 1980s. But in the man’s own words he’d ‘grown pissed off with playing the token black kid in all those coming of age movies about white kids and their stupid white problems’. Acting wasn’t a man’s game anyway, not according to Nick. As a result of his dissatisfaction with the industry, he’d bailed on Hollywood at fifteen and went off to join the air force.

“Dad!”

Rachel ran over and wrapped her arms around Cody’s neck, nearly strangling him in the process. He’d just survived a near death encounter and now the two people he loved most in the world were trying to kill him with hugs.

“Oww!” he yelped, pressing a hand against his wound.

“My God!” Nick said, taking a step back and looking at Rachel. “Little Rachel MacLeod, is that you? The last time I saw you, you were about the size of my thumb!”

Rachel laughed.

Cody kneeled down to inspect the damage on his side. Nick stepped forward and beat him to it. He lifted Cody’s shirt and took a good look.

Nick looked unimpressed, like he was staring at a shaving cut.

“The bullet grazed you, that’s all,” he said. “Just a flesh wound.”

“It hurts man,” Cody said.

“Don’t be a pussy,” Nick said. He looked at Rachel and his face was instantly apologetic. “Sorry Rachel.”

“She’s heard a lot worse than that,” Cody said. “Trust me.”

“Can we go now?” Rachel said, looking at them both. “Is the plane ready?”

“It’s ready now you’re here,” Nick said, holding the rifle across his chest. “Fashionably late I might add – so much so that I decided to come looking for you guys. Good job I did, right? I see this dead asshole wasn’t in any hurry to leave.”

Chapter Thirteen

Cody, Rachel and Nick set off towards Gate A5. They’d been walking in that direction no more than ten seconds when a strange, shuffling noise stopped them in their tracks.

They turned around.

The corpse on the floor was twitching.

The three of them stood there, watching in horror as a spasmodic jerking of the dead man’s muscles proceeded to throw the lifeless body back and forth across the blood-splattered surface. It looked like his soul was a prisoner, trapped inside the mortal flesh.

Cody knew better. The man’s soul – if he’d had one – was long gone.

Nick pointed his rifle at the convulsing corpse. “What the…?” he said. “He can’t be alive. I just put a hole in that guy the size of West Virginia.”

“He’s not alive,” Cody said.

The body stopped moving. A spray of black mist shot out of it, like steam rising from a kettle. It hovered in mid-air, lingering above the dead man.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nick said.

The dark mist swayed gently, like it was dancing to soft music. A statuesque woman was reborn out of the cloud – the black vapor at the edge forming the arms, while legs sprouted out of its underside. Two silver orbs materialized at the top, along with last but not least, a deathly pale head. It was a graceful, artistic formation of life. In any other context, it might have been beautiful.

“It’s her,” Rachel said.

The Black Widow’s face was a blank canvas. There was no emotion, no sign of anything resembling life. She was a seven-foot doll. Yet she didn’t need facial features to express her intent towards Cody, Rachel and Nick.

She glided slowly towards them.

“This is bad,” Cody said.

“I’m going to shoot the bitch,” Nick said. He rolled the rifle to the side, the muzzle still pointing at the Black Widow. He checked the magazine, then ran the action and rolled the weapon back onto his shoulder. All in a matter of seconds.

“Don’t,” Cody said, putting a hand on the muzzle of the rifle. “It’s a waste of time. You can’t hurt her with a gun.”

“You got a better idea?” Nick said.

Cody shook his head. “No.”

“Dad,” Rachel said, taking a forward step. Her eyes were locked onto the Black Widow. “She’s coming for you. I can…feel it.”

“Rachel,” Cody said, putting a firm hand on her shoulder. “Come on, we’re going to have to make a run for it.”

“No,” she said.

Rachel looked at Cody. He saw the defiance in her eyes – bravery, foolishness, hard-headedness, call it what you will. It was a familial trait, passed down from mother to daughter. Kate had been a stubborn mess of a woman in life – the drugs, the glamour, the neverending hope of making a comeback and reclaiming the spotlight once again. She wouldn’t let go of the dream. She chose her path and it was to walk the road of excess that supposedly led to William Blake’s palace of wisdom.

The Black Widow glided forward. Rachel stood her ground.

“Rachel,” Cody said. “Do you hear me? We have to go now.”

He grabbed a hold of her arm and dragged her away.

“No Dad,” she said. “She’s coming for you.”

“C’mon Rachel! She’s coming for all of us.”

Cody tried to pull Rachel back but a sharp pain flared up in his side. He winced and was forced into loosening his grip on Rachel’s arm. He doubled over in pain and Rachel took advantage, managing to wriggle free of Cody’s weakened grip.

She ran towards the Black Widow.

“Rachel!” Cody yelled. He pressed a hand to the wound on his side. It was bleeding profusely.

Rachel didn’t listen or turn around. She kept running towards the Black Widow, the teddy bear swinging at her side.

“Stop!” Cody yelled. He was about to chase after her again but Nick threw a heavily muscled arm out, blocking Cody’s path. Nick pointed to the rifle in his hand.

“You’re no use right now partner,” he said. “Let me take care of this.”

Nick gently shoved Cody out of the way. With the rifle in hand, he watched Rachel running towards the Black Widow. Slowly, he took aim.

“Don’t shoot my kid,” Cody said.

“I’ll try not to,” Nick said. His index finger teased the trigger. Then he fired.

Crack!

The first shot went through the Black Widow like an arrow flying through the mist. The Black Widow kept coming forward and Nick fired again but with the same outcome. He was shooting at a ghost.

“Damn it,” Nick said, lowering the rifle. “How are we supposed to fight?”

Rachel stopped running. She looked over her shoulder at Cody and Nick, as if to make sure nobody was trying to catch up with her. Then she stood her ground, waiting while the Black Widow came to meet her.

The red-haired phantom’s long ghoulish arms were outstretched.

“Rachel!” Cody yelled out. “Run!”

“She’s not going to take you away,” Rachel said.

The little girl took a step forward. She thrust her head forward, like someone leaning out of the window of a tall building to look down below onto the street. Then she screamed. It wasn’t the scream of a frightened ten-year-old child. It was an angry scream and it echoed around the airport, forcing the end of the world, which was taking place outside, to take a back seat.

The Black Widow was pushed backwards by the weight of the scream. She was like a butterfly caught in a hurricane. Rachel walked forward, still screaming, pushing the Black Widow away from her father.

Cody and Nick watched from afar, their mouths hanging open.

Rachel stopped screaming and the Black Widow bobbed around in mid-air, like a piece of flotsam caught in treacherous waters. The little girl swung her arm back and with all her strength, threw Bootsy at the Black Widow. The teddy bear flew through the air like a guided missile, striking a direct hit on the Black Widow’s lifeless face.

Two silver orbs flickered on and off like a faulty television screen.

The Black Widow put her hands to her face like she’d been doused in acid.

“Look!” Cody said, tapping Nick on the arm. “Outside.”

Both men looked through the window. The black sky that had smothered their lives for so long blinked on and off like a broken light bulb. It did this several times and in between Cody saw a miracle – he saw the blue sky and a scattering of cotton ball clouds. He saw the sun. It was glorious as it reached for its zenith in the sky.

Nick saw it too. “Holy shit!” he said. “Cody…”

“I see it,” Cody said.

But the miracle was short-lived. Seconds later, the world reverted back to darkness.

There was no sign of the Black Widow in the airport. Rachel was standing alone where the confrontation had taken place moments earlier. The only hint that the ghostly woman had been there at all was the dead man in the police uniform lying on the floor, his body soaking in a pool of fresh blood.

Rachel turned around. In that moment, her eyes were as blue as Cody had ever seen them. They were practically glowing, every bit as blue as the sky that had appeared outside during the short-lived miracle.

She walked over and picked Bootsy off the floor. With a half-smile on her face, she dusted him down with the back of her hand.

Cody ran over to her and dropped onto his knees. He grabbed Rachel by the shoulders. There was blood all over his hands and he was getting it on her clothes.

He tried to ignore the gnawing pain eating into his side.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he said. His voice was cracking as he spoke. “I could have lost you.”

Rachel shook her head.

“She was coming for you Dad,” Rachel said. “I wasn’t going to let her take you away from me. Not you.”

“What do you mean?” Cody said. “How could you know she was coming for me?”

Rachel shrugged. “I just did.”

Nick walked up behind them, laughing like a man who’d just found the winning lottery ticket sitting on his doorstep. “Well, well, well,” he said. “Ain’t nobody as badass as daddy’s little girl.”

“What did you do?” Cody said, looking at Rachel.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Something just happened…”

“What do you mean? Something happened…inside you?”

Rachel nodded.

“Whatever she did the girl just embarrassed us both,” Nick said. “She did with a teddy bear what I couldn’t do with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. No matter what happens, I’ll never doubt that kid again. Now what do you say folks – are we going to catch this plane or not? I for one, would like to get the hell out of here.”

Rachel looked up at Nick and nodded.

Cody tried to wipe some of the blood off Rachel’s dungarees. He was only making it worse.

“Sorry,” Cody said, taking his hands off her. “Look what I did.”

“Are you hurt?” Rachel said, pointing to his wound.

“It’s not as bad as it looks kid,” Cody said. “You ready to keep going?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

They hurried towards Gate A5. Nick led the way, guiding them through the gate door and out onto the apron.

The plane was waiting for them. Cody almost wept with relief at the sight of it. Despite everything that had happened on the road and in the airport, they’d made it. It was like looking at a giant mechanized angel. It wasn’t the biggest plane Cody had ever seen – it was about a hundred and thirty feet long but it was a damn sight bigger and sturdier than all those private planes that were dropping out of the sky. This plane wouldn’t let them down – he was sure of it. Not with Nick Norton sitting at the helm.

There was a large face printed on the tail of the blue and white aircraft – an Eskimo’s face. It had a welcoming smile.

They walked forward. The plane’s engine was humming in anticipation as bright white light flooded onto the apron from the floodlights.

“We made it,” Cody said, squeezing Rachel on the arm.

Nick laughed. “You sure did,” he said. “And we’re getting out of here, you better believe it folks. This plane is my baby. She’s going to take good care of us up there, trust me. The Black Storm can kiss my black ass.”

Rachel giggled.

Cody saw several other planes parked further along the apron. They were all Alaska Airlines, about the same size as their plane. They sat there in the dark, like giant, expensive toys that somebody had gotten bored with.

“Hey Nick,” Cody said, pointing to their plane. “Is that thing ready to fly? Straight up man?”

Nick slung the rifle over his shoulder. His eyes stared out into the blackish-gray gloom of morning. “Don’t worry about the plane,” he said. “What do you think we’ve been doing all day while you were cruising down the highway in that 1970 Dodge Challenger of yours? We’re on it. We’ve got oxygen, electricity, food and water – everything we need to get up there. And stay up there for as long as we need.”

“So it really is the Ark then,” Cody said.

Nick screwed up his face. “The Ark?”

“That’s what that loon in the cop uniform called it,” Cody said. “He also called you Black Noah by the way.”

Nick threw his head back and laughed. It was deep and bellowing – the laugh of someone who hadn’t quite given up on the world yet.

“Black Noah,” Nick said. “I like that.” He looked at Cody and slapped him gently on the arm. “Glad you made it bro,” he said. “Boy you sure cut it close though. San Antonio is a goner – they’re ripping it to pieces. Blowing cars and buildings up like they were toys – you have to see it to believe it.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. He pointed at the plane. “Did everyone make it here?”

“They’re all here,” Nick said. “Some of them have been here for a long time. They’ve been sitting on the plane and they won’t get up for anything. Some of them have been getting restless, bitching and moaning about still being on the ground. Told them we were doing safety checks, all that bullshit. Sounded better than telling them the truth – that we were waiting for your slowcoach ass to get here. Anyway, this is Nick Norton’s party and it ain’t starting till all the guests have arrived.”

“Thanks for waiting,” Cody said.

Nick smiled. He led them towards a set of airstairs at the back of the plane. With no ground services to assist takeoff preparations, they were using the stairs that folded and stowed under the floor of the back door.

Rachel climbed up first. Cody was right behind her with one hand pinned to his side, applying pressure to the wound. He glanced up at the smiling Eskimo and felt reassured by the serene expression on the man’s face. The Eskimo was saying ‘everything’s going to be okay’. At least that’s what Cody hoped he was saying.

Nick walked up the airstairs behind them. “You guys are sitting at the back,” he said. “First two seats on your right. Row 31.”

“Not first class?” Cody said, looking over his shoulder.

“Spare me the prima donna movie star bullshit,” Nick said with a wicked glint in his eye. “This ain’t Hollywood and judging by the last few movies you made you should be sitting in the crapper.”

“Fair enough,” Cody said.

They walked into the cabin. It was a full house. While Nick stayed behind to pull the airstairs in, Cody and Rachel found their seats, located at the rear of the fuselage. There was a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, sitting at the window seat in their row of three. He looked at Cody and Rachel and smiled. Then he noticed Cody’s wound and bloodstained hands.

The man’s face turned a ghastly shade of white.

“Don’t worry,” Cody said. “It’s not contagious.”

The man turned away – he looked less than enthralled at the prospect of sitting next to the MacLeods for the rest of the journey. That was alright with Cody – he wasn’t in the mood to talk anyway. Especially not to strangers.

Rachel squeezed into the row and took the middle seat. As she sat down, she propped Bootsy up on her lap.

Cody sat down on the aisle seat. Almost immediately he felt lightheaded, like his body was teetering on the edge of exhaustion.

He caught sight of other people looking at him. Maybe it was the blood on his hands and shirt that drew their attention. Or maybe they recognized him – after all, he was the stutter kid from The Forever Boys.

Cody heard the hatch door closing behind him.

Nick walked down the aisle seconds later, his footsteps like cannon fire.

“Alright boys and girls,” he said, stopping in the center of the aisle. “Now I know a lot of you have questions so now’s a good time to spit ’em out. Right now, before we take off. Don’t be shy.”

An old lady sitting in an aisle seat raised her hand. She had a plastic crate on her lap and Cody saw two black and white cats moving around inside. Now it really did feel like he was on the Ark.

“She’s got cats,” Rachel said, pointing that way.

“I see them,” Cody said.

“Shoot,” Nick said to the old woman. “What’s your question?”

“Will there be other planes up there?” she asked. “How can we fly anywhere without air traffic control watching over us?”

“Don’t worry about it ma’am,” Nick said, flashing her a toothy grin. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “We’ve got all that good avionic shit going on in the cockpit back there – everything’s working just fine. TCAS – that’s traffic alert and collision avoidance system, that’s working too. Other planes won’t be a factor because well, there ain’t going to be any. We’re pretty much alone up there. Let me reassure you – all of you – that this plane is fully fuelled and that the equipment is in good working order.”

A young man – mid thirties, shot his hand in the air. He was dressed like a grunge rocker from the early nineties, with Kurt Cobain hair and a plaid shirt with ripped jeans. He was sitting beside a woman and a restless young boy who was about four or five years old.

“Go,” Nick said, pointing at the man.

“What about the Black Widow?” the man said.

There was a murmur of discontent amongst the other passengers.

“Look I’m sorry,” the man said, turning towards the grumbling. “I know nobody wants to think about it or talk about it but what if she gets in here? How do we stop the pilots from getting the Black Fever and taking us down? I’m still not sure I’ve done the right thing coming here. I just…”

Nick held up a hand, cutting the man off.

“That’s an excellent question sir,” he said. “Let me tell you something. We’ve got seven pilots on this plane. Seven damn good pilots. Anyone starts acting weird, getting all morbid and singing Radiohead songs at the top of their voice, it ain’t going to go unnoticed by the rest of us. Another thing – the cockpit will not be locked. Never. We have multiple keys on board, just in case anyone tries any funny shit. All guns are locked out of reach in the hold. There are no sharp objects. Precautions have been taken so let me assure you, this plane is as Black Widow-proof as we can possibly make it.”

Nick looked around the cabin. “Any other questions?”

“Where are we going?” somebody yelled.

Nick pointed towards the ceiling.

“Up there,” he said. “Let me tell you something ladies and gentleman. Today I saw a miracle – I saw the blue sky for the first time in a long time. Now that’s another story and we can talk about it later. But trust me – this baby’s gonna take us through that black shroud, I know it is. We’ll find something better than this. Somewhere that ain’t burning up like San Antonio.”

“So you don’t know where we’re going?” the same voice yelled.

“Sir,” Nick said, fixing a hard stare on the man. “You know as well as I do that this is not a normal flight. Nobody here is going on vacation to Hawaii for two weeks. Do you see anyone wearing a grass skirt? Or wearing one of those flowery shirts? The other pilots and myself, we’re going to figure it out. Nothing is guaranteed BUT you got a shot here. Now if anyone wants to leave and take their chances in what’s left of San Antonio you’re more than welcome. I’ll open the doors for you right now. Let me know because this is your last chance to walk away. We’re taking off in a few minutes.”

Several muted discussions broke out amongst the passengers. Heads leaned in close to one another and opinions were shared.

But nobody raised their hand.

“Alright,” Nick said. “The human race ain’t beat yet. Am I right?”

There was a lackluster response.

“AM I RIGHT?” Nick yelled.

The passengers were livelier second time around.

Nick signaled over to Cody, pointing at his wound. “We’ll get someone to take a look at that.”

Cody gave a sluggish thumbs up gesture in return.

Nick disappeared down the fuselage towards the cockpit.

“I’m tired,” Rachel said.

“Me too,” Cody said, squeezing her hand. “Been a long day kid.”

“You got blood on me again,” Rachel said, looking at her hand.

“Sorry kid.”

A few minutes later, a young dark-haired woman came walking down the aisle. She stopped at the rear of the cabin and knelt down beside Cody. She had a black satchel in hand, out of which she started taking some bandages and other medical equipment, laying them on the floor next to Cody’s feet.

“Nick says you’ve got a scratch that needs my attention,” she said.

“Nick’s a funny guy,” Cody said.

The woman smiled. She was tan-skinned with chocolate brown eyes – kind eyes, and a beautiful smile to go with them.

“My name is Jessica. I’m going to clean the wound and give you something for the pain.”

“Great,” Cody said.

As Jessica cleaned the wound, Cody drifted in and out of consciousness. He could feel Rachel holding his hand.

“Don’t worry Dad,” she said.

“That’s right. Don’t worry Dad,” Jessica said.

The woman’s voice floated into his ear. “You’re going to be fine,” she said. “We’re going to need to keep an eye on you – make sure you’re hydrated, keep you moving about a little bit too to keep the blood flowing. You’re in good hands. And I see you brought your own little nurse with you too. Is that your daughter? Isn’t she just the cutest?”

“Yeah she is,” Cody said. “The cutesssht.” His voice sounded far away. Inside his head, everything felt warm and fuzzy. Whatever Jessica had given him was working fast.

He closed his eyes.

“I think I’m a little high,” he said.

The desire to sleep was overwhelming. And why not? After all, he deserved a nap.

Just a quick one.

* * *

Cody sat bolt upright in his seat, his fingers clamped around the armrests on either side. Something wasn’t right. He felt drunk – rip-roaring, high as a fart drunk and that was something he hadn’t been in a long time. The plane’s engine was roaring and it took him a moment to adjust to the drastic noise levels all around him.

He leaned over Rachel, trying to get a look at the window. Both Rachel and the young man to his right paid him little attention as he clambered closer. They were apparently transfixed by what they were seeing outside.

“Jesus,” Cody said.

The city was on fire. Hot colors spewed out San Antonio, reaching up to the sky like thousands of flaming sharp claws. It looked like the plane was trying to escape out of the jaws of a hungry volcano.

The plane tilted as it climbed towards the black sky. Inside the cabin, a lot of people were whooping with delight, making celebratory noises, and giving high-fives to the person sitting next to them. They were even getting the champagne, the Scotch, and the beers out. It was a strange time to have a party but the relief inside the fuselage was palpable. Whatever else happened, they were at least getting away from that. San Antonio wasn’t a place that anyone wanted to stick around in for much longer.

Cody turned back to the window.

The plane was climbing at a steep angle – but was it too steep? He could hear the whirring and bumping noises coming from the hydraulics. There was a clunking noise. Something that sounded like the landing gear retracting.

Cody felt sick. It was the drugs – it had to be. His stomach was swirling around like a washing machine drum. Maybe everything that had happened that morning was catching up to him at last – Mary Jane, the masks, the plane crash, the fake cop, and the confrontation with the Black Widow in the airport – it was sinking in and now it felt real. Those people, those encounters, were going to stay with him for a long time.

So much had happened. It didn’t feel right, watching those people celebrate further down the cabin. Clinking glasses, laughing and joking, patting each other on the back like they’d done good.

Cody looked towards the window. Not everyone had gotten out after all.

“Assholes,” he said, glaring at the revelers.

Several faces turned around and looked at him. Their expressions were strangely blank. Cody looked across the aisle to his left. A young family was sitting over there – a man, woman and two little girls. The man looked confused and scared. The woman had a distant look in her eyes, like she was thinking about something she’d left behind. Or someone.

Several rows down, a baby started crying.

Cody leaned back in his seat.

“Jesus kid,” he said to Rachel. “I think she gave me a real humdinger dose of something. I don’t feel too good.”

Rachel squeezed his hand.

The plane climbed further into the sky. Outside it was blacker than black. Inside it was cold – the cabin felt like it had been slotted into the compartment of a giant freezer.

Cody’s eyelids were heavy. It was time to go back to sleep.

Before closing his eyes, he turned to his right.

Rachel was looking at him, smiling.

To Cody’s surprise, Kate was there, sitting in the window seat. She was looking at him too. The young man who’d been there earlier was now gone.

Kate MacLeod was young and alive. She was at the height of her beauty and it was 1986 all over again. The MacLeods were on top of the world. They were the perfect couple going on a family vacation with their perfect daughter. With any luck, they’d see the Santa Monica Mountains again.

Kate’s silver eyes were dazzling and bright. She leaned forward. Slowly, she opened her mouth to speak.

Everything went black.

Note from the Author

Hi there,

Thanks very much for reading Black Storm. I hope you enjoyed the book and that I haven’t just wasted your time. If so, forgive me! If you enjoyed the book however, this is the part where I ask if you’d mind leaving a short review where you bought the book online.

Reviews are really helpful to indie authors and help us to sell more books, which in turn allows us to write more. Your review can be super short - like ‘Good book!’ short.

Even if you don’t review, thanks again for reading. It’s truly appreciated.

Best wishes,

Mark

Black Fever (Out May 2018)

The sequel to Black Storm will be out in May 2018. If you’d like to be notified of its release, please sign up to Mark Gillespie’s Reader List.

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Also by Mark Gillespie

The Future of London Series

L-2011 (Book 1)

Mr Apocalypse (Book 2)

Ghosts of London (Book 3)

Sleeping Giants (Book 4)

Kojiro vs. The Vampire People (Book 5)

The Future of London Box Set (Books 1-3)

Also by Mark Gillespie

The FAB Trilogy

FAB (Book 1)

FAB: The Fifth Angel (Book 2)

FAB: Revolver (Book 3)

The Complete FAB Trilogy