He grabbed the water cannon’s post, used it to pull himself to his knees. He put his right hand down to press up, felt something smooth and hard beneath it — the fire axe.
His pistol was empty. For that matter, he didn’t even know where the thing was. He grabbed the axe handle, lifted it as he stood. His legs felt like rubber. He sat on the bullet-ridden metal box and slid his legs over the side. He dropped, almost fell when he landed.
His right hand held the axe handle. He pushed the top of the head against the ground, used the axe as a cane. There wasn’t one spot on his body that didn’t hurt.
The helicopter. Right there. He’d made it.
Cooper heard movement behind him. He turned sharply.
Not five feet away, slowing to a stop, was the Monster Formerly Known as Jeff, and hiding behind him, head not quite reaching Jeff’s massive shoulders, was Steve Stanton.
Steve looked terrified. His eyes darted everywhere, but always flicked back to Cooper.
Only a part of Cooper noticed this, because he couldn’t stop looking at Jeff — huge body, pale yellow skin gleaming from a sheen of sweat, mouth open, chest heaving slightly from exertion. So goddamn big. And those massive arms, the bone-blades jutting from the backs of his hands.
Jeff raised a hand to his head. His fingers flipped back imaginary hair.
“COOOOOOPEEEERRRRRR…”
“Hey, buddy,” Cooper said. He didn’t feel afraid this time, which made no sense at all — Jeff was a thing, a thing with fucking bone-swords for arms. And yet, Cooper had won. He couldn’t die now… it simply was not possible.
Steve pointed a shaking finger at Cooper. “Jeff, kill him! Skin him!”
The Monster Formerly Known as Jeff blinked slowly. He took a step forward.
Cooper held up his left hand, palm out: stop right there.
“It’s me, bro. It’s Coop. Don’t do this.”
Jeff lifted a gnarled, yellow foot to take another step forward, then put it back down. His face was distorted, misshapen into a mask of evil, but Cooper could still read his lifelong friend — Jeff didn’t want to attack.
Steve’s screech tore at the air. “Kill him! Kill that diseased motherfucker!”
The monster’s eyes flicked down to Cooper’s feet, focused on something there. Cooper looked down as well — the red axe blade, resting against the ground.
Jeff looked up again. His eyes filled with the anguish of a heart torn in two directions. He didn’t want to hurt Cooper, but he couldn’t hold himself back much longer.
For just a moment, the monster wasn’t a monster anymore. It was the boy Cooper had grown up with, the man he’d gone into business with. It was his lifelong friend, the person he loved more than anyone else in the world.
Jeff Brockman closed his eyes.
He let out a long, slow breath.
Cooper knew, instantly, that when Jeff opened those eyes again, he would give in to his nature; he would become the creature that Steve Stanton wanted him to be.
Cooper lifted the axe and stepped forward in the same motion. He swung it high and hard, brought it down with everything he had.
The red blade dug deep into Jeff’s head with a dull chonk.
The Monster Formerly Known as Jeff opened its eyes. He met Cooper’s gaze for two long seconds, then the eyelids sagged.
The massive body dropped straight down, like a yellow sack of boneless meat.
Jeff didn’t move. The axe handle stuck up at a shallow angle.
Steve Stanton stared. The expression on his face said it alclass="underline" the dude knew he was fucked.
He turned to run, but Cooper dove at his legs. Steve hit the frozen ground face-first. He screamed for help, but there was no one left to help.
Cooper rolled him to his back and straddled his stomach. He slid his knees over Steve’s biceps, pinning the smaller man to the ground, a schoolyard bully about to inflict punishment on the class loser.
“This is all your fault,” Cooper said. “I don’t know how, or why, but I know it’s your fault.”
Steve stared up in pure terror, as if Cooper was ten times the monster Jeff had been.
And then Cooper remembered why.
“Oh, that’s right,” he said. “I make you assholes sick.”
Cooper reached to the back of his head, rubbed both hands hard against his torn scalp. It hurt, but he didn’t care. He brought his hands forward, held them palms out so Steve could see the blood.
“Your turn,” Cooper said.
Steve bucked and thrashed, but he couldn’t budge Cooper’s weight.
Cooper Mitchell pressed his bloody hands down on Steve Stanton’s screaming face. Cooper rubbed it around, rubbed it hard.
“That was for Sofia.”
He drove his thumb into Steve’s right cheek, three fingers into his left, and squeezed, forcing the man to open his mouth. Cooper shoved his bloody fingers inside, slid them across Steve’s tongue, jammed the fingertips inside Steve’s gums and slid them around real good.
“That was for Jeff.”
To finish it off, Cooper hawked the biggest loogie of his life, then spit it into Steve’s open mouth.
Steve froze. He stared up with the blank, disbelieving gaze of a man who has just received a death sentence. He moved his tongue around, trying to keep the loogie away from the back of his throat.
Cooper leaned close. “That was for me.”
Cooper reared back and punched Steve Stanton in the stomach.
Steve let out a slight wheeze. He gasped like a beached fish, trying and failing to draw a breath.
He swallowed.
Cooper stood, reached down and patted Steve’s cheek.
“And that? That one was for you, dickweed. Enjoy.”
Cooper looked around — there was no one left. All the Converted had faded away into the city.
He was alone.
He had won.
He turned toward the helicopter. Clarence was already in it, beckoning madly.
Time to go.
Epilogue
HEROES
It was finally over. All of it. Over forever.
Clarence, Tim Feely and Commander Paulius Klimas stood in the Oval Office, waiting for the president to arrive. Klimas was on crutches. He wore a neat, fresh bandage around his neck.
Tim was using a cane. The cane’s handle was a twisted coil of DNA — the same as Murray Longworth’s. Clarence wondered if that meant something.
Clarence had asked both Tim and Paulius to be there for this. Ramierez was still in the hospital, but at least he was out of the ICU. He was going to live.
Clarence hadn’t asked Cooper Mitchell to come, because Cooper hadn’t known Margaret. Cooper had apparently moved to the Upper Peninsula, as far away from everyone and everything as he could get. That didn’t stop him from fielding offers to turn his story into a movie, however. LA had been hit hard, but the film industry didn’t miss a beat.
The Mitchell-Montoya plague, as the hydras were now known, had spread through the Midwest faster than anyone expected. Only two days after the Seahawk had carried the five survivors out of Lincoln Park, new batches made from Cooper’s blood had been crop-dusted across Manhattan, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Boston. Four days after, every major city had received multiple coatings.
Just one week after Margaret’s death, most of the Converted lay dead, their bodies waiting to be collected, carted away and burned.
The hydras didn’t seem to affect the yellow monsters, but that wasn’t as big of a problem as Clarence had feared. The monsters couldn’t blend in. When they were spotted it became an instant witch hunt. Special Forces handled the task if they were available, then cops, and if neither could get on the job, bands of armed citizens chased the creatures down.