Nolan's Ark Read online

  Mickey was still on his feet when the glass exploded. As he was shot to pieces by the machine guns he did a silly, jerky dance that might have been called ‘The Electrocution.’ He collapsed onto the floor in a bloody, mangled heap. Arms and legs stretching in all directions.

  The shooting stopped.

  There was pandemonium inside Jaws after that. As Nolan, Kasey and Shirley lay still on the aisle they heard the SS thundering downstairs, dozens of different voices barking different instructions and information all at once. Everyone spoke in clipped, panicky tones.

  “Left gun destroyed!”

  “Right one out of range. We’ve got no firepower.”

  “Grenades!”

  “Can’t. Mickey’s dead.”

  “We can’t win a standoff either.”

  “Charge them. Take cover behind the bodies and bikes and work your way towards that damn bus. Seize it! Seize it for the good of everyone!”

  “For the President!”

  “For the President!”

  The SS made their last stand, throwing themselves outside in a bid to claim Goliath. The shooting started immediately, both from Rage’s troops and the silver MBT, which had reversed about ten meters after obliterating the bulletproof glass.

  Nolan crawled over the glass fragments and grabbed Sam’s pistol off the floor. His hands were peppered with fresh cuts.

  “Stay down,” he said, glancing back at Shirley and Kasey. “Whatever you do keep your heads down and wait.”

  They nodded.

  Nolan crept down the aisle. He saw the winding staircase up ahead, covered in shards of broken glass. His eyes followed the steps, all the way to the upper deck and beyond that to the roof. Rage hadn’t come down for the last stand and neither had Blaze. They were still up there.

  Nolan smiled.

  This was what he’d been waiting for.

  Chapter 15

  Nolan stopped by the door before going upstairs.

  He looked outside.

  The SS were making a valiant last stand on Hollywood Boulevard, trying to bring down Goliath. They worked tirelessly with what remained of the Grim Lords, unloading their combined firepower at the silver MBT. They were trying to get close, shooting in spurts and then inching towards the next available cover.

  Goliath maintained the same pattern of resistance throughout the battle. Eagle Boy would reverse the MBT a few feet along the road before spraying another round of machine gun fire. The SS and Grim Lords frantically tried to shield themselves behind a mess of toppled motorcycles and dead comrades piled on top of one another, several bodies high. But the cover was mostly ineffective. Goliath’s twin barrels were too strong and they were annihilating Rage’s new army in its infancy.

  The screams of the SS and the Grim Lords were squashed under the sheer volume of Goliath’s guns.

  Nolan stood there, devouring every last bloody detail. It was like watching a giant water hose spraying ants off the garden path.

  He smiled. Maybe the Retaliators weren’t so useless after all.

  Nolan picked up the dead driver’s pistol at his feet. Now he had two guns – a Glock and an H&K.

  He walked towards the stairs.

  Unable to control himself, Nolan charged up the winding staircase. Each step sounded like a clap of thunder inside Jaws. About halfway up Nolan heard a galloping noise coming from the upper deck. He looked up and one of the SS men appeared at the top of the stairs. The man’s cold, chiseled features glared down at Nolan, his eyes spilling over with hate. No doubt he’d seen what was going on outside too.

  “Got you,” the man said.

  He was carrying an AR-57 and its spit-polished barrel turned on Nolan. But Nolan’s reflexes were faster than the SS man’s trigger finger. Nolan flipped the Glock and there was a loud, whip-like crack as he put a bullet in the SS man’s heart. He put one in the belly too for good measure. The SS man grunted, then toppled backwards, dead before he hit the floor.

  Nolan hurried upstairs. He heard a whistling noise as a bullet whizzed inches past his head.

  “Fuck,” he hissed, retreating halfway down the stairs. Twice now his reckless charge had almost cost him everything.

  Get it into your skull idiot. The SS aren’t quite done yet.

  He crept back upstairs slowly this time and peered over the edge of the staircase. A woman, dressed in a black suit with spiky platinum blonde hair, was marching across the upper deck with a loose, carefree swagger. Her feet were silent as they touched the ground, as if the woman was made of air.

  This strange act of bravado, walking towards Nolan like this, suggested that the woman thought she’d nailed him good. But when she saw him peeking out, a look of shock registered on her face.

  “Bastard!” she yelled.

  Nolan put two in her chest before she could even think about taking cover. She dropped to her knees and fell flat on her face with a bouncing thud.

  “Sleep tight,” Nolan growled.

  He began to walk towards the ladder in the center of the room.

  Before he could get far the woman on the floor suddenly came back from the dead. Her body jerked as if in the grip of a violent seizure. She lifted her head up, exposing a purple-red face that looked ripe to burst. Then she began crawling across the floor, leaving a trail of sludge blood in her wake.

  “Motherfucking…I’ll kill you…”

  Her fingers reached for a weapon that wasn’t there.

  Nolan grimaced. With a sigh he went over and shot the woman in the head. He gave her a soft kick on the side – this time is was over for real.

  After that Nolan swung both pistols left and right, waiting for any more SS to crawl out of the woodwork.

  None came.

  Outside, Goliath’s guns had stopped firing. Maybe, Nolan thought, just maybe the SS were finished. And the Grim Lords too with any luck. Neither events would be any great loss to the world – on the contrary, Nolan would chalk that down as a win.

  Nolan stopped beside the open sunroof. He tilted his head back and looked up at the night sky. Already it was losing that strange alien brightness that it had sported all evening, which had been enhanced by a thousand raging fires across LA. Soon however, the night sky over Hollywood would be just another endless sheet of black. It would be calm and quiet. Nolan would welcome its return. He no longer felt like drinking beer and watching the world burn.

  The real horrors would confront the survivors in the morning. When – if – the sun came up.

  Nolan’s hands were shaking. The Kowalski costume felt like an oven inside.

  “C’mon,” he said. “This is what you’ve been working for all night.”

  He climbed the ladder, gripping each rung like it was a sacred relic.

  Nolan emerged onto the roof. He took in a lungful of warm air, which tasted foul. Would that chemical reek ever go away or was that the flavor of Rage’s so-called new America?

  “We’ve been expecting you Mr. Nolan,” a familiar voice said.

  President Rage and Blaze were two silhouettes standing near the back of the roof. Their features were obscured in the dim light.

  Nolan walked towards them, the two pistols lowered at his side.

  Blaze immediately stepped forward and positioned himself in front of Rage. There was a pistol in his hand, the barrel pointing at Nolan.

  Nolan stopped about halfway across the roof. He glanced briefly to his right and saw Goliath, silent and still in the middle of the road. There was a faint trail of smoke leaking out of both gun barrels. In between the two MBTs, dead bikers, dead SS and a plethora of abandoned Harleys decorated Hollywood Boulevard – it was like a grotesque art exhibition down there with Jackson Pollock drip-style blood on the road.

  “The election’s off,” Nolan said. “You’re not the President of anything anymore. Consider what’s about to happen here as your official impeachment.”

  Rage’s face remained half-cloaked in the darkness. “Do you know what you’ve done tonight? I mean, do you really know what you’ve done?”

  His voice shook with anger.

  Blaze lowered his pistol to the side. Then he marched forward, his eyes burning white hot. Nolan guessed Blaze’s cartoonishly thick shoulders were on the brink of bursting through his expensive suit.

  “Nolan,” he said. His voice was surprisingly calm. “What do you say we finish what we started at Paramount? Me and you. No weapons, nothing but skin.”

  Nolan smiled. “I say yes.”

  Blaze tossed his pistol over the side. There was a distant ping as it landed on the street. “I assume you’re not cowardly enough to shoot an unarmed man who offered you a fair challenge?”

  “Just a second,” Nolan said.

  He narrowed his eyes.

  As fast as lightning, Nolan raised the Glock and squeezed the trigger. The bullet whizzed past Blaze, hitting Rage on the right shoulder. Despite the poor visibility on the roof it was a remarkably precise shot on Nolan’s part.

  “AAAAGH.

  Rage fell onto his backside, a hand immediately pressed tight against the wound. His wide-eyed expression, directed at Nolan, was one of both outrage and shock.

  Blaze staggered backwards in horror. The man’s eyes bulged and for a second it looked like he would spontaneously combust. Shooting Rage was apparently worse for Blaze than getting shot himself.

  “NOLAN You…”

  “What the hell did you shoot me for?” Rage howled. His face was a mask of pure suffering. “Are you crazy? You shot meeeee?”

  Nolan spoke in a cold toneless voice.

  “That was nothing,” he said. “It was just the start of the longest night of your life. This time your kind won’t get away with it. I swear to God Rage, you’ll be begging me to kill you before the sun comes
up.”

  The color drained from Rage’s cheeks. His hand was a dam working to halt the blood leaking out of him.

  “Blaze,” Rage said, staring at his wound in horror. “Kill that motherfucker. KILL HIM!”

  Nolan tossed both guns over the edge of the roof. Then slowly, he started peeling off the Kowalski costume one layer at a time. He removed the helmet, jacket, armor and last of all, the bandana. He tossed everything over the side and it all landed on the street beside the guns.

  Blaze watched, his giant body trembling with anger.

  Nolan saw Diesel’s blood on his t-shirt. It was fitting that they should see it too. Soon it would be their blood on his clothes.

  He held his arms out in invitation.

  “Here I am.”

  But it was Nolan who charged. He closed the gap in a second, leaping at the Chief-of-Security with his trademark flying knee.

  Blaze was big but he was fast too. He deftly sidestepped the attack and as he did so he grabbed a hold of Nolan’s torso, locking his hands together like a wrestler. Blaze stuck his foot out, tripping Nolan up. Both men toppled over and there was a vicious scramble for position on the roof. Nolan found himself on the bottom, trapped under Blaze. It was like lying under a tank and Nolan felt the man’s brute strength pressing down on him, smothering him, squeezing all the air out.

  But Blaze wasn’t just raw power. He knew what he was doing in the grappling department. He saw through Nolan’s frequent attempts to lock up an armbar. Every time Nolan shot his legs out in order to trap a limb, Blaze would straighten up, moving arms out of reach. Then he’d come crashing back down with a series of hard punches that Nolan absorbed on his arms, which he used to cover his face.

  When Blaze eventually gave him too much room, Nolan scrambled back to his feet.

  Both men were breathing hard. Moving a little slower after the grappling exchange.

  They faced off, boxing guards held high.

  Blaze unleashed a sledgehammer right that grazed Nolan’s chin. He followed it up with a left hook and Nolan felt his skull crack. His legs wobbled.

  “Kill him!” Rage yelled over and over again. “Kill him!”

  Nolan backed up, allowing his head to clear.

  Blaze rushed in, not wanting to give Nolan time to recover. Nolan planted his feet on the ground, stabbing at Blaze’s eyes with a four-fingered spear, which caused the bodyguard to back off.

  They stared at each other across the roof.

  Nolan’s concentration was temporarily broken by the sound of motorcycles revving down on the street. Then a voice calling up to the roof:

  “Mr. President! Down here.”

  It was the full-throated growl of Eddie the biker chief. Apparently the Grim Lords weren’t extinct, at least not yet.

  “Eddie!” Rage howled. “Where are you? Help me, I’m shot.”

  “Climb down the ladder,” Eddie said. “C’mon we need to split before that big silver bitch starts shooting again.”

  “No,” Nolan hissed. “No you fucking don’t.”

  He watched as Rage began crawling frantically towards the rear of Jaws. Rage left a blackish-red smear in his wake.

  Nolan charged forward to intercept Rage’s attempt to run off. He sent a chopping kick to Blaze’s lead leg, a blow that was dodged but knocked Blaze off-balance.

  Still, Nolan couldn’t get past the bodyguard. The guy was a fucking wall in between Nolan and Rage. And Rage was getting away.

  The two fighters exchanged hard right hands. Both wobbled under the blows but they kept firing regardless, ripping punches to head and body. There was a real sense of urgency in the battle now, at least as far as Nolan was concerned.

  Blood spilled from a fresh gash over Blaze’s left eye. The wound impaired his vision, running directly into the eye itself.

  Nolan tried to run past Blaze but Blaze rugby-tackled Nolan, dragging him to the ground. Although he fell badly, Blaze managed to secure top position, clamping Nolan to the ground with sheer brute force. But this time when Nolan’s legs shot up in the air Blaze didn’t see it coming. Nolan wrapped his left leg around the back of the man’s meaty neck. Then his right leg hooked over the left, securing the triangle choke.

  “Yes,” Nolan growled.

  He reached up and grabbed the back of Blaze’s head. With a defiant, exhausted roar Nolan pulled it down into the choke. He squeezed his legs hard and Blaze’s skin turned purple as his body was deprived of oxygen. Rage’s bodyguard made a violent retching noise as if some godforsaken creature trapped inside him was trying to get out.

  Nolan glanced towards the other end of the bus. His blood ran cold.

  Rage was back on his feet now, standing at the rear of Jaws. One hand still glued to the shoulder.

  “Look what you’ve done Nolan,” Rage howled in a pitiful voice. “Look what you’ve done. This was supposed to be so goddamn easy but you…what do you think’s going to happen now? This country will devour itself – it’ll go under and all because of you and your fucking dog!”

  The bleeding man wobbled towards the ladder.

  “No!”

  Nolan squeezed down on the triangle choke, marveling at Blaze’s supernatural ability to cling to consciousness. The Chief-of-Security’s head was an overblown balloon, ready to go pop. But still he wouldn’t go out.

  “Go to sleep you fat-headed bastard,” Nolan said, willing the man into oblivion. He threw endless slashing elbows at Blaze’s eyes to make things worse, carving up a face that already looked like it had gone through a tree shredder.

  By now Rage was climbing down the rear ladder, wincing with each step. His tanned skin was a ghoulish yellow as his body emptied itself of blood.

  Nolan had no choice but to release the triangle choke. He kicked Blaze off him. Blaze gasped and fell flat on the roof, his arms flapping around like an octopus having a seizure.

  “RAGE!”

  But Rage wasn’t on the roof anymore.

  Nolan jumped to his feet and ran over to the ladder. He peered over the edge of the roof and felt his insides turn to ice. Rage was clambering onto the back of Eddie Knox’s Harley, one hand resting on the biker chief’s shoulder. He was talking to Eddie, ranting through clenched teeth and every second word was either bastard or motherfucker.

  There was another biker beside Eddie Knox – a longhaired blond with eerily gaunt features. The guy looked like something out of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Were these the last two Grim Lords standing? Eddie Knox and the ghoul?

  Rage saw Nolan standing on the edge of Jaws and pointed a finger at him.

  “Kill that bastard.”

  The blond biker pulled a shotgun from his hard case and aimed it at the roof. Nolan yanked his head back as the man pulled the trigger.

  There was a loud crack as the gunshot echoed in his ear. Nolan felt a wave of pressure that momentarily deafened him to everything else.

  He backed off, inhaling the acrid odor of gunpowder.

  Nolan walked into a thudding sensation at his back. The lights went off and on again. He dropped to his knees and watched the horizon of smoke and fire doing a silly dance in front of him, tilting one way and then the other and then back again, always out of time with the groggy music in Nolan’s head.

  He reached for the distant flames.

  “Vicki.”

  Nolan fell onto his back. The massive, shadowy figure of Blaze stood over him. The giant’s battered face was a mask of blood. Despite extensive wounds, Blaze was grinning and his teeth were stained bright red making him look like something that had walked straight out of Hell. A beast that feasted on the blood of children.

  “I’m going to enjoy this,” he said, cracking his knuckles one at a time. “I want you to know that.”

  Blaze dropped onto one knee, his hands moving in slow motion towards Nolan’s neck. But for all his will, Blaze’s efforts were labored, his breathing raspy. He’d taken too much damage and his body was shutting down.

  Nolan fought Blaze off with clumsy, swatting blows from his back.

  “BLAZE!” a voice yelled from below. “C’mon, we need to go. NOW!”

  Nolan saw the conflict in the bodyguard’s eyes. Blaze didn’t have the juice to kill Nolan quickly. And he didn’t have a gun either.