End Of The Year Collection - 2014 Read online

  Harris stumbled in the lobby. He nocked an arrow and let it fly. Spears banged off the cracked tiles around him. From the balcony, Boone could see six of the Broken out in the wreckage on the street, keeping low. Harris kept shooting, arrows sinking into metal. She could see he only had two or three more shafts rolling around the edges of his quiver.

  “Come on!” She shouted.

  He looked up at her. “I’m coming, go!” He was flushed and sweating, breathing heavily. His arm shook as he drew and released. She heard a yelp.

  “Harris,” she said. “Please. Come.”

  “Boone, damn it! I will catch up!” He barked, nocked an arrow, and drew.

  Rebar punched through him, a twisted stick of rusty iron. He grunted, the arrow skipping off the lobby floor. Blood dribbled the spear’s length and spattered the tile. He dropped to his knees and slowly slumped over onto his side. A slow crimson pool spread beneath him.

  Boone couldn’t move. She couldn’t even scream.

  She pressed dirty hands to her face.

  Horn-head roared in, slamming his hammer down. Harris’ body flopped. He struck again and Boone heard bone snapping. Jersey-dress limped in, the arrow still in her leg. She yanked the spear out of Harris and held it aloft, screeching bloody victory at the ceiling. The others joined in. A red-polo wearing brute, naked from the waist down, saw Boone standing at the balcony’s edge above him and he threw his spear.

  She ducked and it sailed over her head, banging off the walls behind her.

  She ran. She didn’t look back.

  Spears slammed into the rotted wall panels as she ran past, thunk, thunk, thunk. They stuck in quick succession, quivering. You have to get home. You have to. She didn’t think about Harris. She couldn’t. Home. She focused on it. The heavy duffel clinked and pulled at her, hard edges poking. Home. The skyway was just ahead.

  Clang!

  A spear bounced off the floor next to her and skittered away. She stumbled.

  Whack!

  Another smacked into a pillar as she raced past, spraying her with stone chips. She ducked aside.

  Thud!

  She was punched in the back and knocked off her feet. She grunted and gasped and hit the floor in a sliding tangle. The duffel bag smacked her in the back of the head, her face smacked the tile. She felt something cold and wet soaking her, it slicked the tile. She pushed herself up on her hands and twisted around, wincing at the throb in her ribs. She looked over her shoulder.

  A rebar spear was sticking straight up out of the bag.

  It had pierced one side, but not the other. The bag had slowed it down. Her ribs ached where it had thudded into her, tight and stinging, but…

  At least I’m not dead.

  She slipped off the bag and yanked the spear free. It came loose with a squealing scrape of metal on metal and a spurt of sticky-sweet liquid. Clumps of yellow cake clung to the rusty shaft. She tossed it aside and shouldered the bag.

  Running feet.

  Shit! Get up! Get up!

  She lurched up in a hurried panic, slipping, the man in the red polo was right on top of her. He lunged in, grabbing. She caught his wrist and pulled, yanking hard, turning and then letting go. He went by in a running fall. He tumbled—bare ass and red polo—out the open window without a sound.

  Tie guy was right behind him.

  He grabbed at her and she ducked, shoving him back. He caught the bag. No! He spun her around and threw her, tearing the bag away.

  “No! Damn it!” She yelled, anger burning through. “That’s fucking mine!”

  She hit the floor, hands out and rolling. Her boots skidding. She came up with her knife and rushed back in, stabbing. The blade bit deep. Tie guy grunted. She felt the edge scrape bone and she ripped it free. Hot blood splashed down her arm, across her face. She snatched the bag from him as he stutter-stepped back from her. He stared at his bloody palms, stared at her, and then a ropey red tangle hit the tile with a splat.

  He fell.

  And she was running again, slinging the duffel bag over her shoulders again.

  She sprinted across the sagging, open frame of the skyway. It creaked and groaned. It wobbled under her boots. There were holes in the floor and the street below was piled with rubble. Fluttering rags of old carpet whipped about like tattered flags.

  Heavy footsteps were coming up fast behind her, shaking the old bridge.

  She dropped, rolled.

  Horn-head stumbled over her, tripping, and swinging wildly. His hammer struck the skyway’s metal frame, the concrete shattering. Everything shook. Boone scrambled away on her butt, awkward, shuffling, the duffel bag getting in her way. Metal screeched and snapped beneath her. Ping! Again. Ping! The bridge shuddered, the shaking getting worse. Horn-head loomed over her, naked and filthy and roaring, swinging his length of rebar. She scrambled aside as he slammed it down. The skyway groaned, long and loud, and the whole thing started to twist and tip.

  Horn-head fell back, flailing desperately for something to grab onto. Boone raced for the skyway’s end and the dark hole of Macy’s beyond, a cacophony of tearing metal all around her.

  The skyway dropped, sudden open air beneath her toes.

  She leapt.

  And hit dirty tile, she scrabbled at the edges, pulling herself in. The building’s façade tore loose, brick and metal crashed down behind her. It boomed in the street. A cloud of dust blasted up in a gritty, choking fist.

  She was sprawled out on the second floor of Macy’s, face down on the cold tiles.

  She laid there a moment, catching her breath, and then raised her head to a world of quiet, chalky white. She was inches from the broken edge. She stood, slow and aching, and coughing from the gritty haze. Her toes were right at the drop. She hefted the duffel bag and looked down into the ruined street.

  The wind swept the dust away in great swirling swaths. The wreckage of the skyway emerged from the murk like a ship from the fog. It was lying across the Eighth Avenue, spread between the two buildings, a jumble of rubble and rusted metal. There was blood splashed everywhere, a tangle of broken limbs in the rubble.

  Horn-head stood in the street. He glowered up at her.

  “Son of a…” She breathed ragged disbelief.

  Her hands were empty. She’d lost her knife. “Shit.”

  His helmet was gone and he was dusted completely white from head to toe, save for the bright red trickles blood. His right arm was broken, jagged bone punching through the skin. He clutched bent rebar in his left hand. He stared at Boone with black hatred.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…rum-rumble-rumble…

  The street—the rubble, the concrete and twisted metal—it heaved up and lurched.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

  Boone gasped. No! That’s not possible! She saw Horn-head spin, staring at the ground, animal terror contorting his scarred face. They’re all gone! Cold panic drenched her and she stepped back from the edge.

  The rubble moved again, rising and falling, scraping and sliding.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

  There’s no Tick-tock Hunters left!

  A spiked metal ball punched up through the concrete. It was big and dented and attached to a snaking metal arm. More arms burst loose. Pincers grabbed. Saws screeched and bit into the rubble. They smashed at it. They tore at it. They threw it aside. A tentacle ratcheted out and wrapped around Horn-head. It tick-tick-ticked and tightened down. He screamed and squirmed, his arms pinned to his sides.

  Boone ran.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

  Horn-head’s screams grew louder. They chased her into the gloom of the old store, past rubble and ruin and forgotten things, through shafts of weak sunlight. She ran for the bright light shining across the room—the Nicollet skyway. Come on, come on, come on.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

  She heard a wet bursting pop and then no more screams.

  An explosion boomed in the street be
hind her, metal clanking, scraping against stone. Boone hit the floor and slid around the corner. She pressed her back up against the wall. She swallowed, flushed and gasping, her heart trying to hammer its way out of her chest. She steadied the duffel bag and peeked back the way she had come. The hole where the skyway over Eighth Avenue had once been was now swallowed by a swirling storm of dust. Something huge moved within the haze, slow and ponderous. She could see small glints of clanking metal. She could feel the thunderous fall of its legs. She hid. She waited. She prayed the tick-tock tentacles wouldn’t come probing after her, hunting for her, claws grasping and saws whirring.

  She waited.

  Waited… Nothing.

  She could hear it clanking. She crawled out onto the skyway over Nicollet Avenue and peeked over the edge.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick—sqwark!—tick-tick-hhhhhhhhhsssssssss-tick…

  The Tick-tock Hunter lumbered out into the intersection, a nightmare machine of waving tentacles and click-clack metal spider legs, the Ssysekian scourer of worlds.

  But it had seen better days.

  It was a rusted ruin, grinding metal and dragging broken legs. Half of its eyestalks were broken. Its guns were bent and fire-blackened.

  It’s junk, she realized, it’s nothing but left behind junk.

  Tick-tick…tick…t…ti… ti…t-t-t-t-t…

  The Hunter staggered and swayed. It collapsed in a heap, falling over onto the dead tank she and Harris had been hiding in, clanging and winding down. It shuddered and shook. Wispy tendrils of smoke crept from its broken carapace and the wind pulled the hazy gray ribbons to tatters.

  And then the world was quiet again.

  But Boone didn’t move. She waited. She listened.

  Run.

  She was up and sprinting across the creaking skyway, into the sun-streaked cavern at the foot of the IDS tower. The massive metal framework domed overhead, rusty and dusty and filled with the hushed quiet of twilight. The decorative trees had gone wild long ago. Their branches twined the rafters, wrapping the walkways and smashing into the empty shops. The floor was carpeted with dead leaves and twinkling shards of glass.

  The IDS tower loomed high above it all, shadowed and broken.

  They’d been camping in the tower’s upper reaches all summer. Most of the stairs were still intact and only some of it was exposed to the elements. She had to scale the last few floors, clinging to the crumbling platforms, her toes wedged into cracks and her body straining as she hauled herself up. Pebbles fell, clattering the long way down the stairwell far below. She paused at the very top, fifty-one flights, and sat for a moment, her legs dangling out over the long drop as she caught her breath.

  The tower swayed, the wind keening through the open floors.

  The stairwell door was crammed with broken desks and piled chairs. She got down on her knees and crawled beneath, pushing the heavy duffel before her and out into the open floor beyond.

  She was finally home.

  “Welcome back,” Scott waited on the far side. She could see his round face and the frayed collar of his dirty fatigues as he crouched behind an overturned desk. He still shaved his head, still a soldier. He pointed his battered M4 at the ceiling. It was probably loaded with all four of the bullets he had left. “I was starting to get worried.”

  Boone stood, dusting herself off. “She awake?”

  “Is that thing full?” Scott gasped, swinging himself out and around the desk.

  His legs ended at the knees.

  “Yeah,” she kicked the bag. “Lots of cans. A few Twinkies. Is she awake?”

  He scooted over, hands and stumps, hands and stumps, the rifle slung across his back. He was focused on the big duffel. “She’s in the bassinet. How much did we get?”

  “Plenty…” Boone dunked her hands into one of their rain barrels, the water icy cold. She scrubbed, sluicing off the blood, and left Scott digging in the bag, errant silver cans rolling across the floor.

  The middle office was protected by four walls and the bassinet was a filing cabinet drawer stuffed with blankets and coats—anything soft and warm they could find.

  The baby was snuggled down within and wrapped in an old sweater. She gurgled and cooed up at Boone, her arms happily reaching. She had dishwater blonde hair like her mama and blue-blue eyes like her father. Their sweet summer child. Boone knelt down next to her, sniffing and smiling and blinking back happy tears.

  “Hey baby,” she whispered, “Mama’s home.”

  “Hey, where’s the old man?” Scott called, but trailed off.

  She lifted the baby. It kicked and babbled and Boone held her close, pressing her face into the child’s soft, sweet-smelling warmth. Little fingers curled in her hair, pulling. She sat cross-legged by the office door, cradling the baby, and looked out over the broken topple of the Twin Cities.

  A chill wind cut in.

  The hazy smear of the sun touched the horizon and the clouds lit up, slashing the sky with pinks and oranges and deep reds. A blanket of shadow settled over the ruins, the sludgy trickle of the Mississippi a dark ribbon, gray skies sliding into black.

  Scott dragged himself over, an awkward one-handed slide, and held out a fork and a scuffed and dented silver can, the lid bent back. There were sliced peaches in sauce within. “The Twinkies were pulped, man,” he reported.

  “Those Twinkies saved my life, man,” she said.

  He held up his own can, reached out and tapped it against hers. “To Twinkies, then. Turns out they are good for you after all.” They laughed as he settled in next to her. “It’s cold as shit up here today,” he said, spooning cold corn into his mouth.

  “Yep,” she said. “We’re gonna have to ditch this place soon, find someplace new, someplace warmer… safer.”

  More horns sounded in the ruins far below them, harsh and echoing, more of the Broken loose in the city, on the hunt.

  He snorted, “Good luck with that.”

  She shrugged. “We should maybe leave the city.”

  He just looked at her and then motioned first at his legs, then at the baby, and then up at Boone with a dubious cock to his head, “How’re we gonna do that?”

  She squinted in the last glare of the setting sun. “We’re gonna stick together,” she said, mashed a peach slice between her fingers and fed it to the baby. “Also… I thought of a name.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He said. “Finally,” he teased.

  “It had to be right,” Boone said. She was still smiling. She couldn’t seem to help herself anymore, not when she was home, not around her child. “She’s a new baby in a new world. It had to be right.”

  “So? Let’s hear it.”

  “Harris,” she said. “I’m going to name her Harris.”

  “For a girl?” Scott raised an eyebrow.

  “Shut up,” she smirked and mashed a bit of peach at him. “It’s a good name. She should know him…him and her father. Harris Daniel Ruin-runner.”

  He chewed and thought a bit and finally just shrugged. “Sure why not. It’s a new world, right?”

  “A new world,” Boone agreed and slipped peach mush into little Harris’s mouth.

  The Hard-Boiled Detective - Statement No. 1: Pierre-Louis Leblanc

  by Ben Solomon

  I wonder if you found a trace of anything in the basement. Nobody will tell me. No one’s saying a thing about it. I’m betting it’s clean. Real clean. Like an infant’s rap sheet. Like nothing happened. But I’m sticking to my account.

  I’ll go through it all again. Sure I will. I must look a sight, bruised face, torn up coat and all. My head and jaw ache like hell, but we’ll skip that for now. You’ll get your story, all right. For my own reasons. Sure. But you’ll get it from me just one more time, get me?

  I don’t much care for your procedures or your methods—can’t say I much care for your manners, either, as far as that goes. So get me—this is the last time. Is there someone else out in the squad room that needs to hear it? Get him in here pront
o. After this, we’re through. You can do what you like after, for all I care.

  Maybe I’m the only one who can cobble it together. Start to finish. Sure. From the trumped up beginning to the big bang finish. That’s what you’re after, right? The shooting? You boys are all hopped up on that. Up and down the line, everybody cuts straight to that—the incident. But I’ve got my own interests to look out for. Remember that I came to you, get me? Nobody had to send for me.

  Just one more thing, as long as I’m at it. You play patient with me and we’ll all get along. And I’ll tell it swell. My own way. Start turning up the heat, any one of you, and I might go dumb on you. Everyone got that? Okay? Just so long as we’re all clear. Okay.

  It started with Lucilla. It ended with Lucilla. Doesn’t every case need a dame? She introduced herself as Lucilla Leblanc. Sure, I didn’t buy it, either. Turned out to be the right name, all right. Just the wrong broad. Matter of fact, there was a whole line of Lucilla’s going back on the mother’s side. Any of you ever learn her maiden name? Landusky. Lucilla Landusky. Anything’s an improvement over that.

  Mrs. Lucilla Leblanc swung into my office on the morning of the fifth. Swung’s an accurate way to put it. A fine looker, all right. That surprises you? You’ll catch on. She knew damn well how men looked at her. If I wasn’t such a cynic I might have fallen for her routine, and right now you’d be grilling someone else. I put her at 35. Light brown, shoulder length hair. She wore it pulled back that first time. She came in on the slim side. A striking five-nine, but that’s in heels. Her clothes smart, new, topped off by a dark blue pillbox with a half-veil that masked the color of her eyes. So there she was: attractive, well fixed, with something to hide. You could say she interested me immediately. Sure.

  After the intros, we got down to particulars. She ran hot and cold as she spoke. One moment stern and jittery, the next cool and tempting. At the time I figured her for the high-strung type, or maybe testing the waters. Maybe both. What she wanted, she said, was a tail job, which was fine by me. I was supposed to tail her husband, she said.

  “You want the old man shadowed,” I nodded. “What for, Mrs. Leblanc?”