Nolan's Ark Read online

  “Lars!” Axel yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth. “Charlie!”

  A loud chorus of boos filled the air.

  “We’re calling the election tonight,” Rage announced into the megaphone.

  The booing got louder.

  “No ballot boxes, no exit polls. We simply ask you to show up in Hollywood Boulevard later tonight, beside the Walk of Fame, and raise your hands in favor of your preferred candidate. You can choose Jezebeth or myself. It’s that simple ladies and gentlemen. We must deal with this crisis but we must do so with proper and legal leadership. All of that starts with your vote.”

  “I VOTE FOR IMPEACHMENT!” a voice cried out.

  The crowd howled in agreement.

  “My fellow Americans,” Rage said. “I urge you to concentrate on the task at hand. That is survival.”

  Gunther had to yell louder than ever in order to be heard.

  “On behalf of the American people Mr. Rage,” he said walking closer still. “You’re fired. And the reason for your dismissal is gross incompetence. This country’s fallen so far down the toilet it’s halfway down a fucking sewer. And that’s on you! We’re taking charge of this mess and we the people demand that you surrender these MBTs to those who need it most. The sick and wounded, the elderly and young children. Get out, get out now I say!”

  “YES!” the angry mob shouted. “YES! YES!”

  Lars and Charlie were nowhere to be seen. They were still buried within an angry sea of bodies moving closer to the frontline.

  “Lars!” Axel cried out. “Charlie!”

  He could barely hear his own voice.

  What Axel did hear was a loud whirring noise that transcended the grumblings of the angry crowd. This was followed by a series of rapid-fire clicks and then a hint of movement at the side of Jaws.

  “Oh Christ,” Kasey said. “They’ve prepped the guns. Axel! The guns are moving at the side, do you see?”

  Axel saw it. He’d nearly soiled himself in the process. The fat barrels attached to both Jaws and Kong had edged forward a few inches, adjusting position at a slow, almost dreamlike pace.

  But to Axel’s surprise, Jack was laughing at the head of the mob.

  “What you’re going to shoot us?” Jack yelled. “For standing up to you? For questioning your fitness for duty?”

  “Of course not,” Rage said, backing off a few inches. “But I’ll repeat this one time and one time only. Do NOT come forward – take another step forward ladies and gentlemen and we’ll have no choice but to interpret your actions as a threat.”

  “Oh fuck,” Axel said, his eyes bloated with terror. “Oh fuck, what do we do Kasey? We’ve lost Lars and Charlie.”

  “Lars!” she screamed. “Charlie! Where the fuck are you? We need to go. NOW!”

  She might as well have been miming the words.

  Axel choked on the stink of body odor – it was everywhere, like the smell of burning flesh that permeated across Hollywood. He could even taste it at the back of his throat.

  “Start pushing your way to the back Kasey. NOW!”

  They made a run for it, turning their backs on the President, Jezebeth Black and the two MBTs.

  “He thinks he can scare us with a prop from a TV show,” Gunther said. He roared with laughter. “You see? That’s how stupid your President thinks you are. He thinks he can frighten you with a toy!”

  There was a howl of high-pitched laughter that spread throughout the crowd.

  Axel barged forward, trying to force a gap through the stubborn wall of bodies that blocked their path out of there.

  “No,” he said. “They’re not toys.”

  “What did you say?” Kasey asked, screwing up her face.

  Gunther was the man when it came to public speaking. No doubt in Axel’s mind. Gunther, along with Jack, had balls of steel to stand up to the President, but he was dead wrong on this one.

  Axel spun around, trying to find his voice.

  “THEY’RE REAL! THE GUNS ARE REAL!”

  It was like a mouse trying to roar in the jungle. With a groan, Axel grabbed Kasey by the arm and barged his way back into the advancing crowd. He imagined himself as a 6’5 two hundred and thirty pound football player, shoulder-barging hundreds of opponents to the ground, knocking them down like bowling pins. A rain of colorful curse words came his way but Axel didn’t care. He could only hope that Lars and Charlie were working their way to the back too. And quickly.

  “C’mon,” he said, keeping a tight grip on Kasey’s forearm. “Move, move, move!”

  Rage’s voice was louder and more distorted in the background.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “I said get back – don’t take another step forward or else!”

  “Give it up Rage!” Jack shouted over the crowd. “You’re under citizen’s arrest for the murder of…”

  Axel didn’t hear the end of the sentence. Jack’s voice was swallowed up in the charge of the crowd. Holy shit, Axel thought. They’re doing it.

  He glanced over his shoulder.

  They were doing it. The rebels were storming the MBTs, sounding every bit like a thousand-man army on horseback riding down Melrose Avenue.

  “I said STOP!” Rage bellowed.

  Axel’s blood ran cold. He abandoned the escape attempt and with Kasey’s arm still locked in his grip, he pulled the rest of her down to the ground.

  Just in time.

  There was a blast of shattering gunfire. The guns intermingled with the sound of high-pitched screams to create a hellish symphony of terror on Melrose Avenue.

  Axel had heard the sound of machine guns on TV. He’d heard a cop fire a pistol in real life after a bank robbery in Downtown LA once but it was nothing to get excited about. Guns sounded better on TV in Axel’s opinion and it made for a powerful experience, especially with a good set of speakers throttling his eardrums, providing an authentic experience of life on the American wastelands, riding alongside Chuck Kowalski in the mighty Goliath and shooting the heads of the undead.

  But zombies didn’t scream.

  The people ran for their lives, their short-lived revolution over. They fled the giant guns that spat lead hailstones at them indiscriminately, cutting all escape attempts short.

  Axel pushed his weight on Kasey’s back, like he was trying to force her through the surface of the road and into the safety of underground. Footsteps crashed all around him, but thank God no one tripped up over his body.

  People dropped like dying trees. Axel winced, closing his eyes and listening to the groans of the dying. Names spilled out of their mouths, their last words and breath wrapped around thoughts of loved ones. Mostly however, their final utterance was a mess of gargled sounds.

  “Lars,” Axel said. “Charlie. Oh fuck…”

  Eventually the shooting stopped. Axel had no idea how long the whole thing had lasted – it could have been five seconds or five hours for all he knew. Time meant little in dreamland.

  But it wasn’t a dream.

  Afterwards, a chilling silence crept over Melrose Avenue. It didn’t last long as it was pushed aside by the weak, fading cries of the dying.

  Axel felt Kasey struggling underneath him. He loosened his grip but he didn’t let go of her, not entirely.

  His body was shaking. So was Kasey’s.

  “Axel,” she whispered. “Christ’s sake you asshole. I said are you okay? Tell me. Are you hit?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve got blood on your face,” she said, looking up with a shocked expression.

  Axel touched his cheek. It was warm and wet.

  “It not mine.”

  “What…”

  Axel pressed a finger to his lips. “Shhhhh…”

  They lay there both of them, too frightened to move. Axel’s insides clenched as he heard the gruesome sound of other people sliding over the road, doomed and yet still trying to get away from the danger. There was a squelching noise as the fading wrigglers waded through a river of blood and infinite body parts. There was coughing and spluttering.

  “I need to find them,” Axel said, keeping his voice as quiet as he could. “Lars and Charlie. I need to go.”

  “Okay,” Kasey said, nodding “But be careful. If anyone comes out pretend you’re dead.”

  Axel nodded. “Stay here okay? And don’t move.”

  “I won’t.”

  Axel set off, crawling in slow motion, his fingers clawing through the hot dampness. He passed an endless display of fresh corpses, a sea of white, blank eyes staring up at the sky. The dying were worse than the dead. The dying reached out for him, begging for help that he couldn’t give.

  “Oh Jesus,” Axel whimpered. His insides felt tightly clenched and freezing cold.

  He searched the bodies, looking for a glimpse of something familiar.

  It wasn’t long before he saw them.

  Lars and Charlie were lying side by side on their backs, pressed up tight against one another. Unbearable sadness hit Axel’s heart like a punch to the face. As he came closer he thought of two people wrapped up together in the cold, snuggling up in an effort to keep warm. The boys’ eyes were open. They were cloudy like the eyes of a waxwork.

  Their bodies riddled with bullet holes, specks of blood dirtying their faces.

  Numbness crept into Axel, accompanied by a whispering voice that told him now was not the time to grieve. He had to listen, even though he couldn’t quite comprehend the fact that these lumps of meat, which had meant the world to him, would never get up and do things again. Lars would never bitch about the long walk to Golden Apple to get comics. Charlie would never be…well, he’d never be Charlie. The sickly-looking kid who knew everything.

  “Oh shit…”

  “Blaze!” a familiar voice yelled. “
Where are you Blaze?”

  Axel froze.

  For some reason, Rage still thought it necessary to talk through the megaphone.

  “Oh good there you are,” he said. “I want you to go down there Blaze and make sure we have no witnesses left. Understand? Especially those two assholes that stirred up the crowd in the first place, drumming up wild conspiracy theories and getting everyone’s blood boiling. This disaster right here? That’s on them.”

  Axel lay flat on his stomach, listening to the terrifying hiss as Jaws’ folding doors were opened. Kasey was right. If he played dead it would be okay. You can’t kill someone twice after all.

  Footsteps approached.

  Axel kept his eyes open because that’s what the dead did. He saw the red giant, the one Rage had called Blaze, stop a few feet away from where Axel was flattened on the road beside Lars and Charlie. Axel could hear the red giant breathing.

  Blaze took a close look at all the bodies lying in the immediate vicinity. He stared left, then right. Then he did it over again. And again. The way his head moved reminded Axel of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator – the careful and precise movement of a natural killer.

  There was a nasty, gaping cut on Blaze’s right hand, which looked fresh and painful.

  After a minute, Blaze walked towards the center of the road. Away from Axel and the bodies of Lars and Charlie.

  Axel breathed a sigh of relief but it was short-lived. The man-mountain in the black suit, pistol in hand, was now walking over to where Kasey was hiding out.

  On his way, Blaze coolly dispatched anyone who was still wriggling or begging for help.

  “No! Please!” a woman’s voice pleaded.

  Crack.

  Blaze’s murderous footsteps fell silent. There was a long pause, followed by a deep gurgle of laughter.

  “Well hello there,” his deep growl of a voice said. It was the perfect voice for a giant monster.

  A pause.

  “You’re not very good at playing dead are you?”

  Axel felt like puking. He turned his head to the other side for a better view. To hell if anyone noticed him.

  There was a loud shriek as Blaze yanked Kasey up to her feet. Axel’s eyes bulged as the red giant dragged Kasey back towards Jaws like she was a toy doll. Kasey kicked and screamed and punched with all her strength. She spat at him but she was a fly in the hands of a gorilla.

  “Let go of me!” she hissed.

  Axel froze. His lanky sprinter’s body was as lifeless as all the other people lying around him. The slightest movement meant a bullet in the head.

  Although it was torture he could do nothing. He knew he’d be no help to Kasey if Blaze got to him first.

  I’ll find you, he thought.

  “Another red head,” Blaze said, ogling his prize before throwing her inside Jaws. “This election’s going to be more fun than I thought.”

  He laughed and Axel’s head dropped onto the road. It was only now he realized that at some point he’d grabbed the hands of both Lars and Charlie.

  Axel squeezed.

  Their hands were so cold.

  Chapter 4

  Nolan was alone in the Paramount parking lot.

  The onslaught of grief had reduced his physical wounds to nothing more than background noise.

  He cradled his dead dog, not seeing the smoke or the flames all around him.

  Nolan saw only the past.

  “We’ll be safe in these?” President Rage had asked Nolan earlier that night. “You’re sure about that Mr. Nolan?”

  “Perfectly safe,” Nolan said, leading the President, Jezebeth Black and a pack of other flustered-looking suits across the lot. He was taking them over to the three MBTs – Goliath, Jaws and Kong – which up until that point in the evening had been ornaments at the Paramount party. Something cool to stand beside while taking a selfie.

  Now they’d become three fortresses on wheels.

  It was Nolan’s producer, the larger than life Sam Taylor, who’d urged Nolan to guide Paramount’s guests of honor to safety. The main reason was that Nolan was the best person for the job – he knew the MBTs inside out, and as well as any of the tech people working on Goliath.

  Nolan had agreed to Sam’s request. Reluctantly.

  “Get them the hell out of Hollywood,” Sam’s John Wayne-esque voice echoed in Nolan’s ears. “Take it from there, put some miles between you and civilization – that’s all the plan old friend.”

  After that, Sam had jumped into his Mercedes and sped off like it was the start of Le Mans. The man was desperate to get back to the Hollywood Hills to check on his family. At least that’s what he told Nolan.

  Nolan had rounded up the panicked suits quickly while Diesel trotted at his heels.

  The President and Jezebeth Black were also tight at Nolan’s back, along with a select group of celebrities – actors, models, directors and God knows what else – all of them desperate to claim a seat inside one of the MBTs.

  Another explosion. This one sounded closer.

  Hysterical screaming filled up the parking lot once again.

  Nolan could only imagine what it was like out there on the streets tonight, running for your life amongst all the screaming and fire and confusion. And those people didn’t have MBTs to take shelter in. Jesus Christ, what was this? What was happening? Those LA bigwigs loved to throw the phrase ‘earthquake proof’ around when talking about the fancy new buildings in their city but they sure as hell weren’t immune to firebombs and whatever else was falling out of the sky tonight.

  Distant fighter jets zipped back and forth across the heavens.

  “C’mon Diesel,” Nolan said in a gruff voice, making sure his boy stayed close. He wished Sam had never asked him to do this. Nolan and Diesel could have been long gone by now if he didn’t have to babysit the suits.

  He turned around to make sure everyone was keeping up. A flock of Secret Service agents – SS, Nolan liked to call them – had formed a neat circle around Rage and Black, as well as some of the other suits.

  Nolan noticed that all the politicians ran like nerdy kids who were bad at gym.

  “C’mon!” he yelled, speeding things up. “Go, go, go!”

  They closed in on the MBTs. Before getting there, Nolan stopped and turned around once more to face the crowd. Jesus, he felt like the Pied Piper of Hollyweird. He’d built up quite the following now – politicians, movie stars, assorted celebrities and of course the SS – they were all trailing him across the huge parking lot. He was the man who knew the MBTs and the MBTs were their ticket to safety.

  Diesel sat down, pressing his solid frame against Nolan’s legs. The dog felt familiar and Nolan patted his head. Diesel licked Nolan’s hand in return.

  “Alright,” he said, holding his hands up. He glanced briefly towards the heavens. The motorized hum of the jets was fading. With any luck he had a minute or two to say a few important words.

  “Now these MBTs,” he said, “that’s Monster Bus Tanks for anyone who doesn’t know – they’re not props from a TV show. Got it? Not props. This shit’s for real ladies and gentlemen. We’re talking real guns and real bullets and that’s just for starters. These babies aren’t toys and so anyone climbing aboard tonight cannot fuck around with them. I repeat – do not fuck around with these machines. Don’t touch anything. That’s rule number one. I don’t care how much you’ve had to drink tonight, how many lines of coke you’ve snorted off somebody else’s ass or how many Oscars you’ve got – you disobey rule number one and I’ll kill you.”

  Nolan wiped the sweat from his forehead. It felt like he was delivering the speech from the inside of an oven.

  “Understood?”

  President Rage stood at the head of the group, nodding his head.

  “Of course Mr. Nolan. Perfectly understood.”

  “What you’re looking at back there is death on wheels,” Nolan said. “It’s real. People are sick to death of CGI, which meant the network forked out for something three-dimensional and apocalypse-proof. I’ll say it for the last time people. Goliath, Kong and Jaws – they’re not toys.”

  Rage stepped forward and gave Nolan a pat on the arm. Nolan’s insides clenched as the so-called leader of the free world violated Nolan’s laws of personal space. There was only one rule – don’t fucking touch. President or not, Nolan thought, this sharp-suited asshole did that again and he’d be picking his teeth up off the ground.