My eyes hurt, the tiny blood vessels inside them burst open by the fury of Jack’s assault. I blinked them madly to get some tears going and then turned to sit down and tenderly touch my throat, trying to soothe the burning flesh there. I looked up.
I did a double take when I saw what had saved me. Jack hung from his chain, the links wrapped tight around his throat. Tight enough to be buried in his deliquescent flesh. Somehow while waiting to ambush me he’d gotten mixed up in the chain. It probably hadn’t bothered him-he had no need to breathe-until the constricting pressure had shattered the bones in his neck. His body dangled limply in the coils of the chain like so much cast-off clothing.
His head remained animate. His eyes stared hard at me. His lips moved in anticipation of one more bite of my flesh. I looked away…
…and realized I was bleeding to death. I looked down at my chest and the fresh blood that covered me. I reached up two trembling fingers and felt out the contours of my wound. Jack had bitten me very close to a major artery. He’d taken a chunk out of my body where my shoulder met my neck. I tore a strip off of my shirt and jammed it into the gaping hole-anything to stop the flow of blood.
“Oh man that was too good,” Gary laughed as I clutched the bandage to my neck. “Do you get it now, Dekalb? The human race is over and you living guys came in last place! You can’t compete, man. You don’t even qualify.”
I lurched to my feet, one hand on the rough brick wall to steady myself. I got a pretty bad head rush just standing up. A definite bad sign. I walked over to the tub and stepped down onto the cracked floor.
“You can’t destroy me, asshole. You can shoot me in the head and you can burn me to the ground but it doesn’t matter. I can repair myself-rebuild myself!” Gary’s mutilated head rocked against the bricks as he spoke. “I’m invincible!” I kicked at his neck until his head came away from his body and rolled away on the floor.
I wasn’t quite done. It took me a while to find the pumphouse again but it was necessary. I needed a bag and I needed to make sure the VX cylinders weren’t going to go off on their own. In the fading light of the glowsticks I peeled the plastic explosives off of the canisters. I disassembled the detonator and broke the parts, scattering them around the room. I buried the cylinders under some loose bricks. There wasn’t much else I could do-you can’t just dump nerve agents into the sewer system or throw them in a landfill but at least this way no wandering dead guy would unleash the chemical weapons by accident.
There was another weapon of mass destruction to consider. I didn’t like it but I would have to take it with me. I emptied out one of the heavy packs that Jack and I had brought to the fortress and stuffed Gary’s head inside. I believed him when he said he could eventually regenerate himself, that he could survive anything. I could crush the head to a fine paste but even that might not be enough-he had after all survived being shot in the brain. By keeping the head with me I knew I would be able to kill him again if he came back. As many times as it took.
Jack’s Glock 9 mm went into my pocket. It wasn’t much but it was a weapon and obscenely enough its presence made me feel safe. That was something I needed. My injuries made me feel like any second I might just collapse.
By the time I was ready to leave the fortress my breathing had become labored and my vision was shot. When I staggered out into the daylight I was momentarily blinded. What I finally saw cheered me up a lot. An orange and white blur hovering in the air. Coast Guard colors-that would be Kreutzer. Oh, thank God. He had come. I had half expected him to take the Chinook to Canada Something yellow hung beneath the helicopter but I couldn’t quite focus enough to make it out.