Vacation Read online

For all the good that would do.

  “What do you want?” he asked Rodriguez.

  “The usual. Maybe a few incendiaries, in case there is a hole. We start by sealing that.”

  Jack noticed that his partner had already discarded their new lower head/neck covering, an item that had given him the look of a medieval Asian warrior.

  “You forgetting something?” Jack said.

  “No. I prefer mobility, amigo.”

  * * *

  Out of the car.

  Jack knelt down and scanned the opening in the fence while Rodriguez kept up a steady 360-degree scan of the surrounding area.

  Jack pulled back on the opening.

  “I dunno,” he said. “Barely enough room for someone to wiggle through. Motion sensors should have turned on the big floods. If they even work.”

  He looked up at his partner, who kept looking all around, the M-16 held in ready position.

  “What you thinking, Jacko? Anything come through here?”

  “Someone cut a goddamn hole. I dunno, and—”

  “Right. Shit. I hear you. All right, we go talk to the tenant. The eagle eyes who saw something.”

  Jack stood back up, shifting his own gun into a ready position.

  “Yeah. Maybe we got lucky. False alarm. Some dog.”

  Rodriguez looked right at Jack and laughed.

  “Yeah. You think there are still dogs in this neighborhood?”

  “Well, that hole—”

  “Dream on, brother,” Rodriguez said. “Dogs. Shit. Just walking around.” Another big laugh. “Like the good old days? Dream the fuck on.”

  They headed to the front door of the building.

  3. Inside the Apartments

  They took the stairs.

  Way too many stories about elevators that just stopped. And then you were truly trapped. All boxed up and waiting for whatever would work its way down the steel cables to you.

  Because whatever the Can Heads were, they weren’t completely mindless. They could still think a bit, even when they looked and acted like crazed rabid animals desperate for food.

  Only in this case, food meant other people. The ones who hadn’t turned cannibal.

  Did they turn on themselves?

  Undoubtedly. Hungry enough, they certainly would.

  But like any other predator, it was much more efficient for them to hunt weaker prey. Humans.

  Jack and Rodriguez took the steps slowly, ears cocked for any sounds from the hallways.

  “Seems all quiet,” Rodriguez said.

  “Hmm?” Jack said.

  Rodriguez turned to him. “See, Jacko? That new stuff around your head. Cuts down on your hearing. Not the best idea.”

  Jack pushed the armored flap away from his right ear. “I hear fine. You were just whispering.”

  “Riiiight.”

  Past the third-floor entrance door, and up one more flight. The steps littered with trash. Kids probably still came here to screw or ingest whatever they could find in hopes that it might get them high. Maybe doing drugs was all the more exciting with the thought that there were dangerous things out there.

  These teenagers had grown up with the idea of Can Heads for more than half their lives.

  Just part of the wonderful landscape.

  Yeah, different world from the one your parents grew up in.

  That’s for fucking sure.

  “Here we are,” Rodriguez said.

  As the senior partner, he’d set up their recon plan.

  “Okay, after we’re in, you lay back here. Just watch the hallway, the other apartments, ’kay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll go talk to our Mr. Tomkins and see what the hell it is he thought he saw. Did the big lights go on outside, then go off? Where did he see them go? Maybe we can be out of here in ten minutes. Shit, maybe even stop for a beer on the way back.”

  A local dive, The Hook, stayed open 24/7. Right near the 63rd Precinct, its customers were cops and those who didn’t really have any good place to hide for the night.

  Sucking down beers and shots on a stool rather than facing the streets.

  “Maybe.”

  Rodriguez hesitated at the door to the hallway.

  “What? You are so whipped. Don’t want the smell of a brewski on your breath for wifey?” He shook his head. “Better you than me.”

  Jack grinned. He doubted there were too many women on the planet who could live with Rodriguez.

  Rodriguez grabbed the doorknob.

  “Okay. Here we go.”

  They walked into the hallway.

  * * *

  Jack stayed twenty feet back from Rodriguez as he went to the apartment door.

  The door moved as he knocked. Just an inch. It was open.

  Jack kept looking to the rear, down to the other end of the dingy hallway for any signs of movement. Everyone was probably safely locked down and asleep for the night.

  After the knock, no reaction.

  Rodriguez looked back at Jack and gave a shrug.

  Now a small push while at the same time pressing the doorbell.

  The bell gave out a raspy shriek, way too loud, as if they had put the ringer on the wrong side of the door.

  “Shit. I’m going in,” Rodriguez said.

  Rodriguez kicked at the open door, the noise loud, the door banging open. Jack didn’t like making noise. He kept looking around.

  Always fucking bad, he thought. Not knowing if something was about to happen.

  Rodriguez took a few steps inside. Then: “Hello?”

  Back to Jack.

  Gesturing. Two fingers to his eyes. A freaking army move. I go, you stay back.

  Like they were in a goddamn war zone. Police as army.

  The ear bud in Jack’s left ear was silent. The two-way radios were so damn unreliable. No one from the station house asking how things were going. Everyone dozing. Though Miller undoubtedly had their audio on a speaker somewhere.

  Very low.

  Wouldn’t want to wake anyone up.

  If he could pick them up at all.

  Jack took another look behind him and then started moving closer to the open door. If it all looked cool, he’d follow his partner in.

  He got to the doorway.

  Rodriguez, louder now to an apparently empty apartment. “Hello? Anyone the hell here?”

  Nervous.

  Not just me, Jack knew. Rodriguez, too. Jack quickly turned around to check the hallway. Then he took a step inside, looking left and right.

  His partner was right—the neck protector made head movement hard. And hearing? That sucked, too.

  But—

  It didn’t cover the front of Jack’s face.

  So he could smell.

  Then, Rodriguez: “Oh, shit. God. We got—”

  Jack took a deep sniff, hoping that whatever scent he just inhaled had been more in his mind than anything else.

  The smell was metallic. A smell of decay and blood, so powerful here.

  “Rodriguez, hold on there,” Jack said. “We better—”

  He shifted on his feet. Rodriguez shouted back, “Motherfucking guy has been shredded, Jack. Christ, come in here.”

  Then the sound of movement, steps, feet hurrying. Jack tried to imagine the likely layout. A small kitchen, a dining area to the side, a bathroom down a hallway, bedroom to the left.

  The front door behind him slammed.

  Stupidly, he turned to see what even his muffled ears already knew had just fucking happened.

  Gunfire. The sound of Rodriguez’s gun blasting away. But only a few bursts and then the blasts abruptly ended. Jack’s hand went to his chest and the control for his two-way radio, his lifeline with the station house.

  “Officer down!”

  He raised his gun just as two of them appeared in the hallway.

  Sometimes you saw Can Heads and they didn’t look any worse than homeless guys from decades ago, wearing their tattered clothes, eyes bulging out of drunke
n sockets, mouths open, teeth brownish, rotten.

  These were not like that.

  Thin, wiry, the two of them human animals, barely wearing shredded clothes, which made them look even more crazed.

  Their eyes opened wide as they looked at Jack, close to being on all fours as they raced toward him.

  “Command!” Jack yelled. Then: “Shit!”

  There was a response in his ear bud, mostly static and then drowned out by his own gun, now shooting an erratic spray of bullets at the two creatures.

  Enough bullets that the Can Heads flew past him, their bodies ripped open.

  Nothing from Rodriguez, and as much as Jack didn’t want to… as much as he wanted to get the hell out of there, he ran deeper into the apartment.

  A few steps. His handgun out now, too.

  Jack passed a short hallway on his left, then the entrance to the kitchen, and arrived at the small living room.

  He started firing crazily even before he knew what he was seeing, blinking as he took in the scene. Four Can Heads down on the carpeted floor, the rug turned a wet, bronze red, like the floor of a charnel house. They squatted around Rodriguez, his body armor roughly peeled away in jagged chunks.

  Way too fucking late, Jack thought.

  In the moments between the last blast of Rodriguez’s gun and now, the Can Heads had made quick work of Jack’s partner. Gaping holes sprouted in his midsection, his upper legs, and a massive one by his neck.

  And yet—

  And yet…

  Fuck. The poor bastard was still alive.

  Jack watched Rodriguez’s near-dead eyes land on him. Begging. Hoping.

  Not a thought. No question what to do. Jack moved his S&W handgun over toward Rodriguez, aimed, and fired twice.

  And then the Can Heads could do no more harm to Rodriguez.

  Which is when the Can Heads leapt up from their feast and made a mad rush for Jack.

  Jack was on automatic now. Job straightforward. The reward clear.

  Kill them before they kill you.

  Can Heads coming right at him, inches away, he began firing, holding the M-16’s trigger down so it just kept spitting out bullets. His handgun—only a few shells left.

  And they fell.

  One down, then another Can Head climbing over it, still trying to get at Jack, and Jack made that one’s head explode. Would they turn on themselves, take the easy pickings, or keep coming at him?

  He thought of Christie. Then Simon, Kate.

  And he knew that, unlike his partner, there’d be no one to spare him.

  No one to help end his horror.

  In that moment, the other two had gone to either side of Jack; he looked both ways, trying to decide which posed the biggest danger.

  All in seconds.

  Choosing the one on the left, he tried to aim his handgun but suddenly felt that Can Head’s arm shoot out and its claw hand grab his throat. But the hand slid off the protective covering, and Jack both fired and awkwardly jabbed the thing with his pistol.

  Then he wheeled to face the last Can Head.

  His handgun clicked. Empty. And not a chance of being reloaded. He backed up against a wall of the living room. Now only one gun to keep the Can Head at bay.

  Still a chance to get out of this.

  Unless there were more of them, already drawn by the noise, the gunfire…

  The machine gun jammed. Or maybe it was out of ammo too. How long had he been madly firing, his finger locked on the trigger?

  The thoughts again.

  Christie, Kate, Simon.

  The neck protector reduced the sound around him. The grunts, the near-human sounds they made. The Can Head nearly hopping toward him seemed to flash on the fact that the gun had stopped firing.

  The thing opened its animal-like mouth, screamed, and leapt forward boldly.

  Jack stood his ground.

  Not from bravery on his part.

  He stood his ground. There was nothing else he could do.

  The Can Head grabbed at Jack’s face but Jack turned away, the clawing fingers only inches away, now pawing at his armored body.

  Those protective layers needed to be peeled away.

  If he was to be eaten.

  Another squeeze of the trigger. Still jammed.

  The tugs threatening to rip Jack’s arms and his legs right out of their sockets.

  The Can Head held Jack’s right leg fast. Armor roughly peeled off. Then it bit down hard.

  Jack screamed, kicking at it with his other leg, pounding the useless gun against the thing’s head.

  The pain—a white heat that made the apartment vanish.

  Instinctively, he pulled the useless trigger again.

  And now the gun responded with the oh-so-beautiful rat-a-tat-tat burp of fire.

  “Fuck you,” Jack said, pressing the automatic rifle’s muzzle right against the head of the thing eating him. He watched the head explode into a fireworks display of bone and blood and smoke.

  A look over his shoulder.

  More could come.

  He hacked out the words: “Command!”

  He locked his eyes on the door and hallway outside.

  Telling himself amidst the pain and blindness of his seeping wound, Can’t pass out… have to stay awake… there may be more of them…

  But the white electric light of the apartment, of blood and bullets and bodies, gave way to a blackness that Jack, for once, could do nothing about.

  4. Kings County Hospital

  Jack woke up to the sound of someone’s voice, speaking low, but still it made him open his eyes.

  He saw Captain Brandt talking to a nurse, hushed tones, unaware that they had already awakened the patient.

  “Thank you,” Brandt said to the nurse. Then he looked over at Jack. A big smile, and he came to the bedside.

  “Jack. Sorry. Did I wake you?”

  Jack forced a small smile. “All I do is sleep, so it doesn’t take much, Captain.”

  Brandt’s hand went out as if to pat Jack, then hesitated, as if any spot on Jack’s battered body might hold a painful wound hidden under dressing and bedclothes.

  “Looking good, Jack. They say your recovery is going great. They even have your rehab scheduled.”

  “Terrific. Can’t wait.”

  Jack regretted the sarcasm as soon as the words passed his lips.

  Least I’m alive, he thought. No room for any bullshit sarcasm when you’re alive and your partner was turned into roadkill.

  Too easy to beat himself up these sleepy days in the hospital. Replaying the way things went down, what he could have done different.

  Maybe I should have been the point man, Jack thought.

  Maybe I would have seen the trap faster.

  We’d both be alive.

  “Did they say when rehab would start?” Jack said.

  Brandt pulled up a chair and sat close to the head of the bed. Jack gave the bed controls a push and elevated his head a bit.

  “Work begins tomorrow. In bed. Then depending on how the leg does, you’ll start the real work with physical therapy.”

  “Guess I won’t be running any time soon.”

  Captain Brandt hesitated. He probably knew the prognosis better than Jack. “Running? Might be a while for that.” Brandt took a breath, then dared some honesty. “Think your running days may be down the road a bit.”

  Down the road a bit.

  As in never.

  Jack nodded as best he could.

  Then: “I’ll run. Might be a bit lopsided. Might have a bit of limp. But I’ll run.”

  Captain smiled back.

  “I bet you will.”

  Running.

  It was about more than just exercise. Things happened fast out on the streets. Fast. And running, as if some primal ability resurrected from our cave and jungle days, could be the difference between life and death.

  “You’re eating well?”

  Another nod. Both of them avoiding talk of that day.
The first time Brandt visited, Jack had been so doped up, the captain had been a blur, drifting in and out of focus, the sound of his voice echoing from miles away.

  Today was better.

  That was good.

  Today, Jack wanted to ask a few questions.

  “Captain, I wanted to thank the guys who got me. I mean, I was gone. How long before—”

  Brandt patted Jack’s shoulder.

  “Jack, we can review everything later. I don’t think now’s the time.”

  Jack couldn’t stop thinking about it, remembering. The smells, the Can Heads all over the place. Rodriguez. And somehow he had been able to stop them.

  That part—stopping them—no, that still didn’t seem real.

  But he had done it.

  “Any more trouble there? That building?”

  Brandt smiled. “Trouble everywhere these days, Jack.”

  Even though Jack got a regular and powerful cocktail of painkillers, he could still see things… notice things.

  Now, he locked on his captain’s eyes. He saw Brandt look left, as if the question might be dodged. He blinked.

  More of Red Hook abandoned? The circle of Safe Zones tightening?

  “Can’t we leave this for later?”

  Jack nodded. He couldn’t demand that his captain talk about it.

  The doctors must have told Brandt: no shop talk.

  A nurse walked in, smiled at the two of them, looked at Jack’s drip, and then walked out again.

  Jack locked his eyes right on Brandt’s.

  “You heard my radio?”

  “Yeah. No response when we pinged you back.” Brandt took a breath. “The guys didn’t know what they’d find. Pretty surprised. You alive, and a whole lot of dead Can Heads.”

  “And Rodriguez.”

  A nod. “Yes. Rodriguez dead, too.”

  “I… I…”

  “Jack. Easy. Let it rest. For now, hm?”

  Now Jack looked away.

  Suppose I should be grateful.

  To be fucking alive.

  He didn’t feel that way.

  Are we losing this fucking war?

  “I guess… I should just say thanks.”

  Brandt nodded, shrugging.

  Finally: “Captain, I know I can’t be out in the streets for a while. But I’d like to get back as soon as possible. Maybe some desk work. You’ll need all the officers you can—”