BEST SERVED COLD
CHAPTER 6: INTRUDERS
" - Gunny? Gunny, what are you barking at? HEY GUNNY! You stop that right now!" Kathy yelled at the top of her lungs to make sure the old retriever heard her. Gunny's barking subsided into a growling whine. Kathy huffed and shook her head.
"I'm really sorry about my dog, Bobby," Kathy said into the phone, "He's old, and sometimes he likes to—"
Kathy stopped short. The phone was dead in her hand. No Bobby, no dial tone, nothing. Silence.
"Well, shit." Outside, Gunny resumed barking with renewed fury. Kathy snarled, slamming the phone back onto the cradle.
Great. Just great. First, my dog won't shut up, then my phone konks out on me! What a bummer. Kathy sighed and put a hand to her forehead. Gunny suddenly yelped in pain. The barking stopped abruptly. What-?
"Gunny?" Kathy called. Silence. Kathy's heart raced. Three steps brought her to the kitchen door. Opening it slowly, Kathy stuck her head out and scanned the back yard for the retriever. "Gunny, are you all-?" Kathy's breath caught in her throat.
On the ground near the chain-link fence, Gunny's body lay twitching. His mouth gaped, still showing white fangs, pouring black smoke. His loving brown eyes were now blackened, smoking pits. His floppy ears were charred, tattered rags. Kathy sucked in a gasp to scream.
Kathy's scream of denial was overpowered as a blinding bolt of white lightning struck the screen door. The thunderclap rocked the house. The door splintered into a million smoking fragments. Kathy was hurled backwards against the kitchen wall. Above the ringing in her ears, Kathy heard a screeching laugh, like dozens of hyperactive nails on a blackboard.
This is it. They're here for us, for the disk. They won't get it. I'll kill them. They killed my Gunny! I'LL KILL THEM ALL!
Smoke drifted lazily in the empty doorframe. Through tears of rage, Kathy spotted a lone, hunched figure leaning against a tree near the fence, just steps away from where Gunny's body lay. Kathy's body thrummed with power, fueled by fury. With a deep breath, Kathy Wister blasted forth her grief in a deafening sonic shockwave that dwarfed the thunderclap just seconds ago.
KRAACKOOOOOM!
Every window in the house shattered. The very ground itself rolled up in a shallow wave as Kathy's most powerful sonic blast rocketed across the yard. Billowing clouds of dust leapt into the air, parting before it. The figure beside the tree lifted one hand to its mouth and yawned lazily. The tree and fence beyond exploded on impact, showering the area with bits of wood and chain links. When the dust cleared, all that was left was the pitifully torn stump. There was no sign of the intruder.
"Gunny-!" Kathy started out the back door. If it hadn't been for the clouds of smoke and dust, Kathy would never have seen the pencil-thin beam of red light. A soft click sounded like thunder from just a short distance away. Kathy dove back into the door and rolled across the kitchen floor as a hail of large-caliber bullets tore in through the door, window, and wall. They shredded the doorframe and cabinets, and punched quarter sized holes in her refrigerator door. Shattered glass and ceramic rained down, seemingly without end.
"Aunt Kathy?" Tracy's voice, thin and filled with terror, filtered down the stairs.
"TRACY! GET DOWN!" To her instant shame, Kathy had nearly forgotten Sarah's daughter, asleep upstairs. A thump from the ceiling told Kathy that Tracy had taken her warning to heart.
"Aunt Kathy, what's going ON?!" came the answering yell.
"JUST STAY THERE!" Kathy yelled back. She crouched on the kitchen floor, then launched herself through the open doorframe into the living room. Her movement invited another volley of flying lead.
A quick roll to the left brought Kathy around the corner and gave her some cover. She crouched there for a second, her thoughts a frantic jumble. From her position, Kathy could see up the stairs to Tracy's room. The door was ajar, but Kathy did not see Tracy. Good girl.
I've got to get us out of here! Kathy thought furiously, vengeance momentarily forgotten. I need to get Tracy out of here!
Back to the wall, Kathy slid toward the garage door. Through the jagged remains of the living room window, she spotted a black van parked at the end of the driveway. Standing about halfway between the van and the house was a short, round man wearing shabby clothes, a pair of safety goggles, and some sort of backpack. His hands cradled a weapon with a sort of cone-shaped nozzle, connected to the 'backpack' by a short length of hose. A tiny flare of blue popped into being at the tip.
Oh shit -!
Streams of fire blossomed from the black nozzle. Liquid flame sizzled against the front door, licked through the shattered window, roared against the outside wall. Kathy could hear the short man's cackling laughter. The heat forced her back into the living room. Tracy lay on the floor at the top of the stairs.
"Aunt Kathy!" There was terror in her blue eyes.
"Tracy! We gotta get to the garage-!"
Every electrical outlet in the living exploded to life, sending out sheets of hot sparks. Kathy dropped to the floor; Tracy screamed. One of the outlets belched forth a globe of sparkling blue electricity. It zapped and spun crazily around the room, sizzling and snapping like a thing gone mad. When it stopped, Kathy felt every hair on her body stand on end. It was looking at her. Everything went white as another lightning bolt thundered through the room.
Another door collapsed into bits as Kathy's body was blasted through the air. She crashed backwards down the stairs into the basement, blinded, with searing pain coursing through every part of her body. She came to a stop in the middle of the basement floor, surrounded by fragments of the broken door, the ice cutting painfully into her back. Her body, toned from countless hours of swimming in the ocean, refused to answer her command to move.
Broken ribs. Burns. Shock. I'm gonna die. They're gonna kill Tracy. Gotta move, gotta get up. Kathy opened her eyes. Brilliant dazzle-spots danced before them.
Overhead, the ceiling had been cleared of icicles, fallen loose after the first explosion. The pipes running this way and that thawed somewhat during the night, clearing away the frost that had rimed them. A single drop of water fell from one and struck Kathy between the eyes. Immediately her vision cleared.
The water pipes!
Summoning strength born from sheer stubbornness, Kathy sucked in a breath and again let forth her sonic blast. The pipes, weakened from ice and repeated explosions, burst open into a rain of rushing water. The blessed, blessed stuff ran over her, around her, bringing strength and life. Kathy pulled herself to her feet just as a hunched, misshapen monster came down the stairs. With renewed vigor, water swirling around her feet, Kathy nailed him full-on with a blast like a cannonball. The shockwave launched the green scaly thing back up the stairs, screaming. Kathy gave a feral smile.
"That's for my dog, you bastard!" Angry voices floated down the stairs.
"Smoky! Getcher lardy-lardy butt in here! Burn-burn-BURN THAT NOISY B-BITCH!" The stench of gasoline filled the basement, followed by more cackling laughter. Kathy dropped into the water, which had risen to her calves, just as fresh sheets of fire roared down the stairs. From beneath the water, Kathy watched as the fire crawled over the basement, seeking her flesh. The surface of the water boiled. More words came, muffled by the water. They went from murderous mumblings to shouts of startled dismay as a huge cloud of scalding steam backwashed out of the basement in the wake of the flames.
They're not gonna fall for that twice. Gotta get outta here. The next one'll be another lightning bolt; water and electricity don't get along. Kathy's eyes raked across the basement for something, anything that might help her. The furnace, the water heater…the grate! Kathy rushed the iron grill, heedless of the water and floating steam around her. All water was strength. Metal screeched and groaned in protest as Kathy tore the round grill from the wall with her bare hands. Beyond gaping hole before her lay the tunnel to the waterfront, held back only by a double layer of cemented brick. Footsteps pounded down the stairs.
The short man with the flamethrower had advanced through the steam into the basement. Kathy spun on her heel, aided by the ice underfoot, and hurled the iron grill in a flat spin like a discus. The short guy, more agile than he seemed, jumped back up the stairs as the huge metal projectile crashed into them. Wood groaned and gave way. The bottom half of the stairway collapsed into the rising water. The scant seconds of distraction gave Kathy her chance. A final, booming blast echoed down the tunnel towards the waterfront, followed by the sound of crumbling concrete. Glancing over her shoulder, Kathy glimpsed the scaly face of the lightning-thing at the bottom of the ruined stairs. Electricity danced over its splayed claws, and the rictus of its smile displayed rows of jagged orange teeth and infected piercings.
"Gonna fry you like bacon!" it sneered.
"Eat this, Sparky." Kathy retorted.
The creature's smug look evaporated with the rushing roar of water. The cold Hudson River burst forth into Kathy's basement. But the lightning mutant would not be denied. With a parting screech, it pummeled the oncoming water with all its electrical fury. The water bucked and seethed, boiling and churning. Outside Kathy's house, yards away down the beach, a huge fountain of white water soared upward into the air. The fountain fell and melted back into the river. Not a ripple marred the water for several minutes. The silence was deafening.
"AUNT KATHY!" Tracy's terrified scream from the top of the stairs shattered that stillness and reminded the killers of unfinished business. The green scaly mutant snapped its yellow eyes onto Tracy's blue ones. Before Tracy could do more than stand and turn to run, the creature's crackling electricity caught her square in the back. It slammed into her like a molten sledgehammer and sent her spinning down the hall.
Tracy groaned in pain. Blurry, indistinct shapes came up the stairs. Now there were three of them. Tracy saw the twinkling blue flame of the short man's flamethrower, the glowing, sickly yellow eyes of the electrical mutant, and a taller, squarer outline of another man. The last man carried a gun, the biggest gun Tracy had ever seen. It was probably as long as Tracy was tall, and looked like it weighed as much as her at least.
"Well, well, lookit what we have here." That wheedling, oily voice could not have come from the tall man or the mutant. The blue flame went out with a loud POP. "He told us that Gibbens woman had a kid, but I didn't expect her to be so—pretty." The short man knelt down beside Tracy and ran a greasy hand through her hair.
"Remember the mission, Smoky." That voice, flat and cold as stone, could only belong to the tall one with the gun. "We were paid to do a job. Finish it."
"Ah, lay off a sec, Mike. Such a pretty girl. Such a waste."
"Whatever." The tall man turned away, and the greenish gargoyle-looking thing giggled like a bag of nails rattling. "Fun-fun-fun!" was his rejoinder.
Smoky dropped his extinguished flamethrower to the floor and started running his hands over Tracy's body. He squeezed and pinched, his weight pinning Tracy to the floor. Panic rose in Tracy's throat. The heat from Smoky's body was smothering her. She found the strength to struggle, and began to scream again. Smoky slapped her, but the screaming did not abate. Finally he clapped a hand over Tracy's mouth.
"Shut up you little—"
Smoky's next words were cut off in a scream of his own as Tracy bit down hard. The sound of Tracy's own heartbeat drowned out Smoky's scream from her ears. For a split instant, all there was in Tracy's universe was that heartbeat, and the liquid warmth that poured into her mouth. The warmth! The HEAT!
Pull. Warm to cold.
Smoky's screams redoubled and shattered the next two octaves as Tracy's power sucked the living warmth from his body through his hand. The fingers went red, then blue, and finally purple. He surged up and began to thrash around, flailing the girl like a vicious dog that refused to let go. When Smoky's knees buckled, they both went down. Smoky's shrieks of agony dwindled to a wheezing gurgle. Tracy opened her eyes just in time to see the butt of the big man's gun descending. Then all was darkness. Tracy struggled inside to keep a grip on consciousness.
Smoky knelt in the hallway, clutching his bleeding, frostbitten hand. Ice frosted his glasses, and ran from the corner of his mouth.
"Idiot. That's what happens when you try to fuck a mutant." Contempt, disgust and ridicule dripped from Mike's stony voice.
"Watch it, squishy." The Gremlin growled.
Mike shot the mutant a look of frozen steel. He checked the side of the magazine thrusting out from the bottom of his gun. Plenty left. Mike yanked the slide back and let it slam home again with a loud cha-CHACK! An empty case ejected. He stooped to pick it up, slid the casing into a pocket, and calmly extended his middle finger to the Gremlin. The Gremlin's eyes narrowed but he said nothing.
"Hey, Smoky, when you're done whining, set this place up to burn and finish the job." With that, Mike turned and walked back down the stairs. The Gremlin looked like he wanted to put a lightning bolt into Mike's back, but simply shrugged and followed, leaving Smoky to his work. Tracy gave a final sigh and released her last hold on the world.
After several minutes of gasping for air and warmth, Smoky stood, shakily. With a savage yank, Smoky tore a long strip of cloth from Tracy's nightgown and wound it around his injured hand. He glared at Tracy's body and delivered a few brutal kicks. Satisfied that she wouldn't wake up, Smoky carefully, carefully dragged her back to the bed she'd obviously been sleeping in and dumped her into it. Taking up his beloved flamethrower, Smoky considered the unconscious girl. Duty warred with smoldering hatred. In the end, Smoky just let her lie. After all, when the whole house came down, she'd be just as dead, and there'd be no damning evidence.
Mike waited in the van while Smoky set up the house. The Gremlin leaned casually against a light post nearby. A few trips to the Wister woman's boathouse provided a lovely store of plastic gasoline cans, their pressure release tabs open. Smoky set these in the garage, after sloshing a trail from the nearest electrical outlet. Wiping his hands, Smoky walked back through the house out the front door. He gave the Gremlin a jaunty thumbs-up.
The Gremlin chuckled cruelly and laid a single claw against the metal pole. Raw electricity raced through the line, shattering the light bulb overhead. Once again glittering white sparks burst from every outlet in the house. The gas cans in the garage sizzled, hissed, then—ignited. The booming explosion was music, the skyward-rolling fireball most satisfying.
Smoky returned to the van. Mike quit the front seat and slid into the back.
"Hey! What'r'you doin'?"
"I'm getting changed. We've got thirty minutes to be in front of Carnegie Hall. Start driving." Mike's tone brooked no argument. Smoky hopped into the front seat, grumbling.
"Damned, fucking arrogant, mercenary, assassin bastard," Smoky mumbled. His quiet stream of obscenities wasn't meant to carry, but Mike was no ordinary hired hit man. The muzzle of a huge pistol snuggled against Smoky's skull, behind his right ear. A tiny click thundered into that ear. Smoky whimpered and nearly wet his pants.
"Don't you forget it either, you pedo, pyro piss-ant bitch. Now, drive."