Fire Engine 98 finally rolled to a stop.
Clarence raised the Ka-Bar knife high. He plunged it down into the monster’s neck.
The thing barked out a noise of confusion, surprise and pain, a single syllable that could have been a question mark. It reared up hard and fast, its head crunching into the cabin roof right below Clarence’s waist, knocking Clarence up and forward and off — the frozen ground came up fast and smacked him in the face.
Cooper Mitchell had still been facing out the back of the truck and flipping off the horde when Engine 98 hit the motorcycles and the sidewalk curb. The truck had decelerated quite suddenly — Cooper had not. He’d flown across the truck’s bed, stopping only when his head smashed into the water cannon’s metal post.
Tim’s hands pressed on Klimas’s neck. To his right, Cooper rolled weakly, clutching the back of his head, face screwed up tight.
“Mitchell, get up,” Tim said. “The helicopters are here!”
Tim heard the roar of a crowd; he looked back — the horde was rushing in, weapons held high, blades glinting in the morning sun. Not even fifty meters away and closing fast.
He took his hands off Klimas’s neck, slid one arm under the man’s legs, the other behind his back. There wasn’t time to do things right. Tim pushed up as hard as he could, groaning with effort as he tried to lift the heavy man onto the equipment boxes and dump him over the edge.
THE GRIM REAPER
The horde closed in. They could see the red truck that they had chased across the city, now just fifty yards away. So close… so close. The humans had sprayed them with water. Such a strange thing to do, but the Chosen would dry out soon enough.
The Chosen knew the motorcycles had carried their emperor. As they ran, they shouted to each other, in shock, in sadness.
He’s dead!
The emperor got shot!
No way he lived through that!
Few of them had met the emperor, but they all remembered the emperor’s final order: kill Cooper Mitchell.
Forty yards…
They saw a small man push a bigger man over the edge of the truck. The bigger man fell hard to the ground below. The small man leaped over the side.
Thirty yards…
They saw another man stand up in the back of the truck, swaying, confused, his hands clutching the back of his head.
As a unit, they all recognized the man. They had all seen the pictures, and many of them had watched the video. It was him: Cooper Mitchell, public enemy number one.
The horde let out a unified roar. They had him now. They rushed down the street, so many of them that the humans didn’t stand a chance.
Twenty yards…
The AC-130 was too high up for the engines to be heard. So far away, in fact, that the horde didn’t even hear the plane’s guns go off.
The street transformed into a flashing hell as 1,800 rounds per minute of 25-millimeter high-explosive fire tore into bodies, vehicles and pavement.
The horde started to scatter even before the first 105-millimeter howitzer round landed right on the dividing line of North State Parkway, pulverizing bodies, knocking cars on their sides and rattling the snow off of bare branches.
Confusion reigned. People took cover in buildings or sprinted back down the street, moved anywhere but toward the fire truck. They didn’t know what was happening; they only knew they had to run and hide.
The emperor had ordered them to kill Cooper Mitchell, but he had given another order as well… the order to evacuate the city. The mob’s will broke. The survivors fled, heading for their assigned vehicles, for the cars and trucks and buses and motorcycles that would take them north, to Milwaukee, take them east, to Michigan City and South Bend, take them south to Springfield, Champaign and beyond.
The exodus began.
MONSTER
Clarence knew he had to move, but his ice-cold body wouldn’t react, wouldn’t obey.
He heard something big land next to him, something that was still making a squealing noise.
He also heard Margaret’s voice: Get up, baby… get up…
The fog cleared. Clarence reached out, use the shattered front of Engine 98 to help him rise.
In front of him, the muscle-monster did exactly the same thing.
Clarence stood just in front of the driver’s seat, the monster just in front of the passenger seat. The knife still stuck out of the creature’s neck. Jets of blood squirted out in red arcs that fell on the park’s white snow.
The monster reared up to its full height: eight feet tall and very pissed off. Yellow hands flexed into fists. Arms vibrated with fury, making the blood-streaked bone-blades shake and shimmer.
Clarence wanted to turn and run, but his body wouldn’t let him. It was all he could do to stay on his feet.
He was done for.
The creature brought its right fist back to its ear, aimed the bone-blade at Clarence’s chest.
I’m sorry, Margaret… I’m not going to make it…
A clink of metal on broken glass. Just inches from the monster’s left temple, the barrel of a Benelli shotgun slid across the bottom edge of the windshield housing.
The monster turned.
“FUUUUCK…” it had time to say, then the shotgun jumped and the monster’s face disappeared in a spray of blood and yellowish flesh. The creature fell to its back, twitching.
Through the windshield, Clarence saw the ashen face of Ramierez.
“Hooyah, motherfucker,” the SEAL said.
Clarence turned, letting the bullet-ridden truck carry his weight as he slid to the driver’s door. He opened it.
Bosh was slumped down in the seat, covered in his own blood. He was still blinking, but not for long. The monster had torn his throat open. Clarence could see the front of Bosh’s vertebrae.
Clarence shut the door. Out in the park, he saw a Seahawk helicopter coming in fast, nose tilted up for a landing.
“Everybody out!” he screamed as he stumbled around to the other side. “Move, move! Get to the chopper!”
He opened the passenger door to see that Ramierez had passed out again, shotgun still clutched in his hands.
Clarence lifted Ramierez out of the truck and started toward the helicopter. To his right, Tim stumbled along, supporting the limping weight of Commander Klimas.
Just one man missing, the only man who really mattered.
Clarence stopped only long enough to shout over his shoulder.
“Cooper! Come on!”
GAME OVER
Cooper Mitchell’s head hurt, really, really bad.
He saw the horde scatter. Despite the pain, he felt elated. He’d won.
“Suck a bag of dicks, you fucking douchebags.”
He looked up to the sky, saw a slow-moving plane — just a dot, really, but whatever it was, it had ended the fight. Too bad it hadn’t arrived sooner; Roth might have made it.
Cooper had blood all over his hands. His blood, pouring out of a cut on the back of his head. He was probably going to throw up soon, thanks to the eye-narrowing throb going boom-boom-boom inside his skull.