Iron Mike Read online

  After that day, Hershey and his human went to work almost every day. That was what they called the place with the cages – “work.” Hershey never had to go into a cage anymore – he just followed his human around, watching her clean and feed and water the dogs, and click her fingers on the desk. Then, when dark came, and he was tired from all the hard work they had done that day, they went home. His territory was so clearly scented now no other dog dared to mark it, unless it was to leave a friendly ‘hello.’ Hershey finally found a place. He loved his human very much. If there were anything he would wish for, it was that she would find a boy and bring it home to him as a playmate. Other than that, his life was perfect.

  January 2.

  Mike

  Mike pressed the control key so the microphone would pick up his voice and spoke into the headset. “Yeah, I looted it from a pick-up group, man. I was the only heals in the group, and when this idiot mage tried to need on it, the raid leader took it right out from under her. I have to get it enchanted now, though, and I don’t have any cosmic sparkledust.”

  Mike listened, nodding into the headset, and then frowned as he heard Jenn banging on his door. “Mom says come downstairs, right now!” she shouted, her footsteps already thumping down the steps. Mike’s frown deepened in annoyance, and he depressed the control button again, while at the same time typing “AFK” into guild chat.

  “Yeah, that’ll be awesome. Just COD me the dust, okay? Hey, I’ll be right back, my mom’s yelling for me.”

  He took off the headset and pushed his chair back, taking the stairs three at a time. When he got downstairs, Jennifer was already pulling out his red U of L jacket and digging in the closet for her puffy blue UK coat. Mike looked at his mother, an eyebrow raised suspiciously.

  “Mike, I need you to take Jennifer to Sammy’s to get her hair done,” Mom instructed. “Tia called. She’s had a cancellation, so she can work Jenn in today.”

  Mike frowned. “That’s not gonna work,” he said urgently. “We have a raid in twenty minutes, and I’m the only healer the guild has. Mom, I promised!”

  Karen Sanderlin turned away, unconcerned. “Then you’re going to have to un-promise, Mike. Getting her hair done was one of your sister’s Christmas presents, and Tia has the opening now. Get moving.”

  “Mom!” Mike flared, knowing it was probably a futile effort but not willing to give up without a fight. “That isn’t fair! I told you I’d take her, but you said the appointment was on the fourth.”

  “Well, Tia moved it up, creepazoid,” Jennifer said smugly. “So, come on, let’s go. Chop, chop!” She left the coats on the edge of the sofa and moved over to sit on the bottom stair behind Mike and Mom, wanting a better view of the fight she knew was coming.

  “Shut up, Jenn,” Mike snapped heatedly. “Mom, can’t you just ask Tia to keep the appointment for Thursday? Please? The guys have been planning this raid for days.”

  His mother shook her head, her mouth set in that firm line he knew too well. “Mike, do as I ask, please,” she said, her voice unyielding. “I have things I need to take care of today.”

  Mike glared, glancing into the living room at the television. “What, a Judge Judy marathon?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Ryan Michael, don’t you dare!” his mother exclaimed, genuine anger reaching her eyes. “And for that disrespect, young man, your computer privileges are suspended until you go back to school!”

  “Jesus Christ!” Mike snapped, his voice rising in his own anger, as he ran his hand through his shoulder-length black hair. “That is so bogus, Mom, and you know it!”

  His mother studied him for a moment, saying nothing. Mike quickly wiped the anger off his face, going for the mature, reasonable expression that generally got better results from both parents. His mother seemed to be considering, and he waited hopefully.

  Karen Sanderlin dropped to the floor. Her body crumpled, falling into a graceless heap at the bottom of the staircase. Mike stared at her for a moment, wondering what kind of new parenting technique this was … and several seconds later, he heard the sonic booms, and the sound of Jennifer screaming.

  It took another second for reality to hit, and he raced to his mother’s side, turning her gently onto her back. “Call 911!” he shouted at Jennifer. “Now! And call Dad at work – go, go!” Mike bent over his mother, already sensing an awful stillness in her. Carefully, he tipped her head back, tears running freely down his face as he pressed his mouth to hers and breathed twice, feeling a flare of hope as her chest rose and fell with each breath. He placed his hands as he had learned in CPR class and began the chest compressions, knowing he had to move fast and not be as gentle as his instincts urged.

  Jennifer hadn’t moved. She already knew, even as Mike desperately continued the chest compressions, stopping periodically to breathe for his mother. When he wasn’t puffing breath into her lungs, he was sobbing quietly, telling her over and over he would be happy to take Jenn to the hairstylist, if mom would please just wake up. The minutes stretched into eternity. Judge Judy was replaced by a message from the emergency broadcast system, and it was not a drill.

  Kari

  Kari didn’t wake up so much as rise from the dead. Her head was pounding again, and her tongue was thick. The memory of the peaceful, easy feeling from the night before ran through her head like an old Eagles tune. Malik was as good as his word – the ecstasy had been exquisitely pure.

  Kari shifted slightly, her arm feeling the warmth of Malik’s stomach as she curled against him. Her hand stroked gently, and she felt another arm – not his, but one smooth and slender like her own. Puzzled, Kari picked her head up, looking across Malik’s fine body and seeing … oh, yeah. What was her name? She frowned, trying to remember the girl’s name as she took in her lovely café au lait skin and pretty face. Deonda? Delronda? Something like that. Kari remembered slow dancing with her the night before, remembered the appreciative murmurs and catcalls of the guys as they’d moved their bodies together sinuously, but she didn't remember Malik bringing her into their bed.

  She dropped her head back, too tired and wasted to think about it right now. Her eyes moved over Malik’s body to the nightstand, and the alarm clock. She was instantly wide awake.

  “Fuck!” she screamed, pushing Malik’s arm away and jumping out of the bed. “Fuck! Goddamn it, Malik, I told you my dad’s retirement thing is today!”

  Their bedroom door was wide open, and there were disgruntled voices coming from the hallway and living room as she began frantically digging through the mess in the bedroom looking for her clothes. She had a dress here somewhere – she’d made sure to bring it, knowing she would be heading to Fort Knox straight from Malik’s.

  “Get UP!” she shouted, slapping Malik hard on the thigh. His eyes opened blearily.

  “Mal, you don’t shut that cracker ‘ho up, I’mma kill you,” someone grumbled from the hallway.

  “Fuck off!” Kari snapped back at the voice, finally finding her overnight bag. Someone had dug through it, and her little black dress was nowhere to be seen.

  Deonda/Delronda got up groggily, heading into the bathroom, not bothering to close the door. Kari found her bra and quickly shrugged into it, looking about feverishly for panties and her dress. Where was her goddamned dress?

  “Hey, sweet thing, whassa matter?” Malik asked, finally sitting up in the bed.

  “Get up, now!” Kari snapped, finding the dress at last and pulling it over her head. “You have to drive me to the post – my dad’s ceremony starts in forty minutes.”

  Delronda came back out of the bathroom and settled onto the bed behind Malik, draping both arms possessively around him. “He ain’t goin’ nowhere, gash,” she drawled, sensuously nuzzling Malik’s neck. “We still got us some partyin’ left to do.”

  Kari stopped dead, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.

  In two steps, she was around the side of the bed and had the other woman’s throat in one hand, using her hip and arm to leve
rage the girl’s hand up high behind her back and holding the thumb tightly with her other hand. Delronda’s eyes widened in shock, then in fear as Kari did not loosen the pressure around her throat.

  “You like breathing, bitch?” Kari asked, her voice quietly lethal.

  Malik didn’t move, watching in stunned fascination. After a moment, Delronda nodded, and Kari loosened her hold slightly.

  “Then you better never call me a gash again, sistah, and you better haul your skank ass out of my man’s bed! NOW!”

  Delronda backed away quickly when Kari released her. “She a crazy bitch!” she gasped indignantly to Malik. Malik laughed at her and shrugged, unable to hide his approving grin. And then he crumpled back onto the bed.

  Kari looked at him, beyond pissed. She couldn’t believe he had the fucking nerve! Just as she started to reach for him, she heard several sonic booms go off, shaking the walls of the house and rattling the bones inside her chest. There was a strange, cut-off scream from out in the living room and some odd thumping sounds. Kari looked over in puzzlement at the pretty girl with café au lait skin, lying dead on the floor. Malik blinked up at her a few times and tried to speak, but his eyes lost focus and locked open.

  “What --?” Kari whispered. She looked from the man to the woman, and back again. This was no joke. There was no faking ‘dead,’ and they were both very, very dead. As if to punctuate that reality, Delronda lost her bowel function. Kari gasped, backing up out of the bedroom as fast as she could, almost tripping over Jerome’s body in the hallway. She looked around, her breaths coming in fast, hysterical pants. There were almost thirty people in Malik’s house, stayovers from the party last night.

  She was the only one standing.

  Mike

  Mike performed CPR until the sweat poured from his face, and his arms trembled from exhaustion. He heard and felt his mother’s ribs crack at one point, but he kept on, begging her and God to please, please let her be alive. He had known it wouldn’t work, but he couldn’t give up until he was too exhausted to move. Kneeling numbly over his mother’s body, he stared at her, feeling Jennifer’s horrified eyes on him.

  “Emergency broadcast system … major terrorist attacks … not a drill … Louisville and Lexington … dead … confirmed nationwide … emergency broadcast system … shelters opening … Washington, D.C. … major cities nationwide … hundreds of thousands confirmed … emergency broadcast system.”

  The words from the television barely penetrated. Mike stood stiffly, feeling the pins and needles run through his right foot and ignoring them. He picked his cell phone up from the floor where it had dropped out of his pocket and hit the speed dial to his dad’s office. There was nothing but silence. Moving automatically, he stepped over to the landline and picked it up. He wasn’t surprised when he heard no dial tone.

  Mike looked at the phone for a long moment, and then looked at the television. The images were chaotic, the photographer obviously running as he filmed. He saw several of the distinctive buildings in downtown Louisville collapse, huge clouds of dust billowing up as the skyscrapers slowly disintegrated. He saw people – so many people! – just drop to the street, many falling before the buildings did. He heard the screams of the reporter – no, the photographer, because the reporter was dead – as whining noise filled the airwaves. A tornado-shaped formation of airships like nothing he’d seen in his life whirled through the city, wreaking even more destruction in its wake. And then it started from the beginning. It was three minutes of news footage on an infinite loop, with the voice of the emergency broadcast system in the background repeating that this was not a drill.

  Mike stared at the television for a moment longer, and a part of his brain simply shut off. He slid the blue and white afghan off the couch and draped it over his mother’s body, covering her face. Jennifer sat, unmoving, on the stairs. She wasn’t crying – she was simply staring at her mother’s body, her face white with shock.

  Mike began moving quickly, his brain ticking off items in his head like an inventory. Gran’s. He needed to get Jennifer to Gran’s, and they needed survival gear Gran didn’t have. He moved through the house on automatic pilot, pulling out camping supplies and hunting gear, stacking items on the kitchen table. His bow. The shotgun with the boxes of ammo Dad kept on hand and the razor sharp buck knife, complete with gut hook, he’d gotten for Christmas this year. The first-aid kit, of course. All the canned food one backpack could hold and the two cases of water. He knew Gran’s pantry was always full, and he would get them to Gran’s but … just in case.

  He looked over at his little sister as he took the stairs two at a time, moving into her bedroom and grabbing first her Barbie doll case and next her Justin Bieber backpack, which he stuffed with her socks and underwear. He slung it over his shoulder, moving to her closet where he grabbed several pair of jeans, some lightweight tops for inside Gran’s house and some heavy sweaters and mittens.

  He carried the stack into the hall and dumped the clothes unceremoniously into the Samsonite softsider he’d pulled from the linen closet. He repeated the process in his own bedroom until the suitcase was tightly packed. Mike hesitated as he started to zip the bag, his eyes moving over his bedroom. The internet was apparently still up – his necromancer waited patiently for him to check his in-game mail for the cosmic sparkledust his guild mate promised to send. Mike reached over and turned off the computer, not bothering to shut it down properly. Apparently, his guild wouldn’t be raiding this afternoon after all.

  It occurred to Mike he might never see the hazardous waste zone he called his bedroom again, and that pulled him up, cutting through his shock with a cold splash of fear. Was all this shit really happening? Was Mom really … dead? A wave of guilt hit him, but he pushed it down, fast and hard. The television was on. It happened all through Louisville. It seemed like it had happened … everywhere.

  Mike shook off the thought and stepped back into his bedroom, staring at the two framed photographs on his bookshelf. One depicted him, his parents, and a four-year-old Jennifer, looking cute as hell as she mugged for the camera. The second was a shot from Junior Prom. It was a group shot, showing him with his arm around Kristie, Jonas with Debbie, and Devon with that freshman skank he’d hooked up with for a few weeks. They were all laughing, happily buzzing from the contents of the illegal hip flasks Devon smuggled in. It had been one of the best nights of Mike’s life. Mike turned away, and then hesitated. Jennifer was pulled inside herself, seeming to just disappear when Mom fell. She might want this one day. He took the family picture out of its frame, re-opened the suitcase and stuffed it among the clothing. He left the bedroom without a backward glance.

  He dropped the bags onto the floor in the kitchen, surprised to see how quickly the table became covered with supplies. All this shit was going to make a tight fit in the Honda, especially with the camping gear. Maybe he was overreacting? Mike glanced over at the television, the frantic reports still coming in from a Lexington news service. What was wrong with WHAS11 out of Louisville? He glanced at his mother’s body and made the decision. It wasn’t like she would need the Suburban.

  He grabbed her key ring, the bright yellow Tweety Bird hitting him like a punch in the gut, and carried out an armful of the camping gear, loading it in the storage area of the SUV. He considered warming the vehicle for Jennifer, looking warily up and down his street. His parents weren’t rich, but they lived in a comfortable neighborhood and never had any trouble. A baser form of survival instinct superseded social niceties and Mike shook his head, deciding against it. The car could be cold for the ten minutes it would take to warm up. At least he'd shoveled the driveway like dad told him.

  He loaded the SUV quickly, and made a final check of the house, partly to see if they would need anything else and partly from habit. It was his father’s habit, something Mike watched him do before every vacation and before leaving every hotel room. Jennifer was sitting on the bottom stair, exactly as she had been for the past forty minutes, h
er dull, shocked eyes not moving off the afghan-covered remains of her mother. Finally, thinking he had done all he could, Mike scrawled the message onto the refrigerator whiteboard:

  Dad – Mom’s gone. She didn’t suffer – it was instant, like the others. Taking Jenn to Gran’s, using Mom’s car. Took bow and shotgun, left yours. PLEASE COME!

  Jennifer didn’t respond to his verbal instructions to get her coat on and get into the SUV, so he forced her arms into her thick parachute coat, picked her up and carried her out to the vehicle, buckling her in tight and telling her repeatedly that everything was going to be all right. Even he could hear the mantra was more rote than reassuring. Without a backward glance, he hauled ass out of Louisville, heading straight to Gran’s farm. He moved fast, so they were only forty-five minutes post-attack. They were among the first wave of people responding to the panic. The roads were scraped and salted, and Mom’s tires already had chains, so there was passable travel straight down I-65 into Shepherdsville. From there, it was mostly back roads to get to the farm and, Mike hoped, to safety.

  Kasoniak

  Dick Kasoniak looked out over the tables of the Officers’ Club, doing a quick count. There were close to fifty people in attendance, most of whom he’d worked with in one capacity or another.

  “Helluva crowd,” Major Markus commented, offering his hand after a crisp salute.

  Kasoniak returned the salute and the handshake. “Half these people are here for the free lunch, Mark, and you know it as well as I do.”

  Markus grinned. “It’s what you get for having prawns on the menu. Prawns, sir, think about it.”