The 1000 Souls (Book 2): Generation Apocalypse (35 page)

Their deaths saved Tevy’s life, for they swam west, downstream, and that turned Tevy’s attention just on time to see two more tanks rolling toward them around the curve of Wacker, buttoned up and ready for battle.

“Cover!” shouted Tevy. He ran behind the dead tank just as a deafening explosion slammed the bridge tower. Shards of metal and stone flew in all directions, and several men who weren’t fast enough in seeking cover died.

Elliot joined Tevy where he crouched beside the tread of the tank.

“Damn it all to hell.” Tevy risked a peek around at the approaching tanks. “I told Bobs we should have at least one LAW with us.”

“Time to book?” asked Elliot.

Tevy nodded. “Absolutely. This is a total disaster.”

Jemal waved from where he crouched by the little tower. Tevy made a cut signal by pretending to slash his throat with a straight hand. He point to the office building and back at the Wells Street Bridge. It was almost full night, and their only hope was that they could get back across the river in the dark.

The report of a distant artillery gun came from far south, and Tevy crouched expecting a ferocious impact, but instead a pop sounded high above. Suddenly, a stark white light bathed the ground, throwing strong shadows.

Elliot’s upturned face was abnormally pale. “Vlad’s Blood, a flare! Fuck! A flare, Tev! It’s on a parachute. We’re butt naked for at least a dime.”

“Get back to that building! We use it like a fort! Get up to like the tenth floor and block the stairways until morning. Go tell Jemal! Forget about crossing the river. I’m going to get word to those guys.” He ran for the two squads that had moved south on the street to cover the rear against counter attack. They hadn’t figured out that the source of the explosion was another tank, let alone that two were coming.

Tevy ran straight down the middle of the road, trusting his white headband to spare him being shot by his own squads. He turned the corner of the truck that blocked three lanes. An army ran toward him, some in uniforms but most dressed in the rags of rippers. Only creatures that no longer cared about weather or their appearance would dress in such ruined clothing when better could be had at any store for the taking. He skidded to a halt and turned to dive back behind the truck

The squads were well hidden in the office buildings on either side of the street, and they opened fire now. But the rippers came on, and they attacked any human traitors in their own army if they tried to stop for cover. They used the humans as shields or drained them for blood. If they were wounded, the rippers sliced their throats and drank.

Tevy rushed to the west side of the street and found the squad leader, identifiable by the red armband. “Get your people back across the street while the other squad can still cover,” Tevy shouted over the gunfire. “We’re going up the stairs in that building there.”

He led the way back across street, using the skewed truck for cover, and had just reached the columns of the patio when one of the tanks arrived in the intersection. Fortunately, the operator suffered from battle confusion, for he swung his turret south, pointing his barrel at all the action down the street and his fellow troops.

It became a rout—everyone for themselves, all running through the concourse past the security desk and the elevators and into a dark stairwell. Tevy stopped behind the security desk, his shotgun out as he watched his platoon flee. A man entered the concourse not wearing a white headband. Tevy shot and killed.

“Go, go, go!” he shouted at the stragglers of his platoon.

Now rippers poured in through the broken windows, hideously silhouetted by the harsh light of the flare. Tevy turned for the stairwell, but just after he slammed through the doorway, he tripped over a body. He tried to stand and sprint up, but a hand closed around his ankle and tripped him to the stairs. He had to fling out his hands to prevent a face plant, and he lost his shotgun in the process. He struggled to reach for it as a ripper rushed up his body to pin him down. Breath that stank of blood washed into Tevy’s face, and a guttural voice spoke in his ear. “Fresh meat.”

The ripper grabbed a fistful of Tevy’s hair to pull back his head, but Tevy’s hand had found the Glock, turning it in the holster and firing backwards and up. The ripper screamed and fell back holding a bloody stomach. Tevy tried to rise but now it was a pile on, a half dozen rippers charging in to pin him down.

Others sprinted past him, pursuing his troops up the stairs.

Tevy prayed and struggled. Now he would die. He wouldn’t get to see Kayla again, and that was the greatest loss. The only comfort was that he wouldn’t die a virgin and maybe, just maybe, he had left offspring.

A loud voice shouted even as a ripper placed a knife to Tevy’s throat.

“Wait, wait, wait! We’re supposed to get a prisoner.”

The knife withdrew and Tevy was flipped onto his back.

“Hey, I know this guy. This is the fucking sneak who ran across the ‘L’ way back.”

It was the officer who ordered Tevy to stop at the Wells Street Bridge the day he discovered that Vlad Who Bleeds was now in charge of Chicago. Except the man was human then. Now he had clearly converted, his skin pale and stretched, his eyes slightly bulging.

“Captain.”
What else to say?
“How’s it hanging?”

The captain had no sense of humor. “Take him to Vlad. No drinking his blood, on pain of impaling. He gets there in one piece.”

Tevy struggled to reach the knife at his belt.

Someone shoved his head from behind, slamming it into the concrete stairs. Pain. Massive pain and disorientation. His arms and legs wouldn’t respond to commands. Then he was on his feet, dragged vertical by the rippers because he had lost the ability to stand without help. His hands were yanked behind his back and a plastic cable tie encircled his wrists. They marched him south, dazed and bloody, through a city completely controlled by rippers.

Kayla heard the tanks first, and she knew they could mean the death of her lover. When she heard that Tevy was to lead an assault on the Franklin/Orleans Bridge, she begged Joyce to let her join him, but it was too late. They were already across the river. She had run up the stairs of the Merchandise Mart several floors until she found an open window facing south. The running figures were difficult to see as dusk descended, but she approved when Tevy led them into the office building and back out again, keeping in the best cover possible. When his assault began, it was too dark, only muzzle flashes and explosions told the story.

He had taken out the tanks first, that was good, and Joyce’s fifty cal was now raking the traitor positions on the north side of the bridge, but the rumble of tank treads told Kayla this was all about to fall apart. The first shot from the barrel of a Bradley proved her correct. Tevy would have no choice but the fall back in panic.

When the flare exploded high above the city, the whole battle suddenly became tiny live soldiers on a board game. She could use her binoculars. The troops made for the office building. Good. Tevy must know that the bridge would be a slaughter in this bright light. Kayla’s heart leapt when she saw Tevy crossing Franklin, leading a squad to the office building, their only hope, their refuge. The rippers, and it was rippers now, charged into the building close on their heels. Muzzle flashes pulsed out of the building, illuminating the lobby for seconds and telling Kayla that someone provided cover fire for that last squad.

All went silent, and Kayla prayed that Tevy had succeeded in blocking the routes to the upper floors. She imagined a frantic rush to throw desks, chairs and filing cabinets down the stairwells. Perhaps barricading doors. Tevy could last until morning, when a thin screen of less than enthusiastic humans traitors would be left as a holding force. Kayla would launch her attack at dawn. She would free Tevy and bring him back across the river.

The rippers brought a prisoner out of the building, his hands secured behind his back, his face bloody. Even in the last of the light of the flare, Kayla recognized Tevy’s skinny figure. They marched him south toward the Willis Tower.

Kayla watched, hardly breathing, as another figured slipped out a third floor window of the office tower and slid down a rope in the fading light of the flare. He crouched in the shadow of a column until some rippers passed. He ran into the street in pursuit of Tevy’s captors. Kayla couldn’t really tell that the hair was red, but the teenage body and the insane pursuit told her it was Elliot. She watched until the flare fizzled out and the city again went dark.

Bobs gave them a chance to pitch Kayla’s case. That was the good news. It was hard enough to convince Joyce, but Jeff came on board immediately.

“It’ll be like the Battle of the Mountain,” he said. “We’ll cut the head off the snake.”

Bobs wasn’t impressed. She sat at the head of the table in her war room and had the younger kids from the Brat Pack serve them sandwiches. Emile and Helen were part of this meeting, and Kayla remembered Tevy talking about them on the bus, how they were like parents to him. In fact, all of the Companions of Bertrand except Barry St. John and Bishop Alvarez sat around the table in the war room, including Julia Chen and Simon Gonsalves, people Kayla hardly knew, even though they led the two armies of Chicago troops from the St. Mike’s Cantonment.

Kayla talked at length, but Bobs shook her head even before she finished.

“It’s all about the bridges,” Bobs said, standing and pointing to her maps. “Even if you could fight across the Franklin Bridge, or Adams, or any of the others, you’d be caught in a crossfire from every office building all the way downtown. Useless massacre to save one guy who’s probably already dead. No way.”

“It’s not about saving one guy.” Joyce stood and walked around the table to stand beside Bobs and point to the map in her turn. “If Vlad is here, at the Willis Tower, we should go and get him and get this over with. He’s the one bringing troops from California. He’s the one doing all the organizing. Kill him and this ripper army will fall apart.”

“Love to. But you don’t think you’ll get massacred?” Bobs met Joyce’s eye and Kayla sensed the bad blood and a struggle of wills.

“Wait a minute.” Kayla had the seat by the map, and Joyce’s finger on the location of the Willis Tower gave her an idea. “It is all about the bridges, isn’t it? But what about the lake or circling around and coming up from the south?”

Bobs looked up sharply. “You’d spend a day getting far enough west before you could swing down to the south, let alone start sweeping north again. If your boyfriend’s alive, he sure as fuck will be dead by then. Don’t you think about the south.” Bobs put a finger on the map at the shore of Lake Michigan near the outline of a large building that bore the name
CHICAGO ART INSTITUTE
.

“The lake thing, though.” Bobs frowned. “Never a water person myself, and I don’t think Vlad is either. Brat Pack used to get deep into the Loop along the shore and through the park before it became fucking impossible to get across the river. But boats.” Her finger traced a line around the mouth of the Chicago River and down the map to the shore near Jackson Drive. “Land here and you’ve only got about a mile to the tower and the first half is all open park. You won’t have any cover but neither will the rippers. After that, it’s the concrete and steel canyon.”

Joyce nodded as she studied the map. “But surely the rippers don’t have so many human troops that they can mount guns in every building and sweep every street. Like you said, we’ve got them all concentrated on these bridges. They’re all up here.”

Jeff sat with his boots on the table, a beer donated by Emile in one hand. “Vlad probably doesn’t trust his Daylight Brigades. Look how fast those guys in the Mart surrendered to us, even though they’d been told we eat babies or some shit. I hear you’ve even convinced them to fight for us. My guess is Vlad likes to keep the Daylight Brigades pinned between us and him so they don’t get any ideas about heading for the hills and leaving us to fight it out.”

“That sounds about right.” Bobs studied the map and shook her head. “The tower is going to be fantastically defended though. Vlad’s probably deep below his frigging phallic symbol, and you bet he’ll have his most trusted humans and rippers at every entrance.”

Running feet in the corridor prompted several to draw guns, but it was thirteen-year-old Colin, a runner from the Brat Pack, who threw open the door without knocking, his face flushed and his eyes wide with excitement.

“They broke through...into the river, I mean. I mean they broke through the river into the tunnel. The drill thing! It broke through. There’s a foot of water in the basement and it’s rising fast.”

“The basement of what?” asked Kayla, picturing the dorm of the Brat Pack in the basement of St. Mike’s for a moment before she remembered where the drill was located.

“The Mart.” Collin couldn’t contain his elation. “This is going to flood them out right? The rippers’ll all drown.”

All eyes turned to Bobs, who stood with an ever-so-slight smile that chilled Kayla.

“Get Webb on the radio and get the bishop the hell in here,” Bobs said to Colin. “It’s tonight. It’s fucking now!” Her fist pounded the table, making all the little flags and toys jump.

She looked at everyone in the stunned room. “Okay, cards on the table. I never gave a shit about those bridges. Who the fuck attacks bridges when they don’t have to? It’s not like they’re on an island.” She pointed to Kayla. “You’re the only one who figured it out. When you talked about going around and attacking from the south.”

Joyce had stepped back from Bobs and crossed her arms. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Bobs walked to a different map farther down the table, one of the whole country. She had to lean in between Emile and Jeff, and she picked up several little flags off of Malmstrom Airbase in Montana and carried them over to the Chicago map. She placed them just south of the Loop, not far from the Willis Tower.

She looked up at them all, daring an argument.