Nolan's Ark Page 6

  “What’s the code?” Blaze screamed.

  Rage came over and grabbed a hold of Blaze’s arm. He began pulling his Chief-of-Security back towards the MBTs.

  “Time to go,” Rage said. “We’ve stayed here far too long as it is.”

  “What about Goliath?” Blaze asked. His eyes were wild and watery. “We need that code sir and I can get it. I swear I can…”

  “Forget it,” Rage said.

  “Forget it?”

  “We’ll make do with two of them,” Rage said. “One for her, one for me. Now c’mon Blaze, let it go for Christ’s sake. We’ve got a lot of work to do tonight.”

  “But the code,” Blaze hissed.

  “Leave it damn it! That’s an order.”

  Nolan lay still on the ground, listening to their fading footsteps in the distance. A few minutes later, the MBTs – two of them – pulled out of the Paramount parking lot. Twin headlights blinded Nolan and for a second everything was swallowed up in a dream of dazzling white light.

  The light dissolved as the MBTs moved towards the road.

  By then, Nolan was unconscious.

  After Nolan woke up and found Diesel’s body he wished that they’d killed him too. This, whatever this was, was worse than death.

  Maybe that’s why they’d left him alive.

  For a long time he paced back and forth across the lot with Diesel in his arms. Talking to his boy, apologizing over and over again. Eventually however, Nolan’s head began to clear and he glanced over his shoulder towards the back wall.

  The inside of his skull felt like a mangled car wreck.

  Goliath was still there – a silent silver monster, half-cloaked in the darkness. Its presence was an invitation to mayhem.

  Nolan staggered towards the machine, a sense of purpose sprouting in his mind like a flower reaching for the sun. It was this purpose that propelled his battered body forward. Nolan’s mind was a flood of conflicting thoughts. It was the age-old battle – God in one ear and the devil in the other. God had a lot of words. He told Nolan to take Goliath, to get out there on the street and help the thousands of people in need. To serve, to do his bit for the greater good. It was chaos out there in Hollywood and beyond and the world needed him. It needed Goliath.

  The devil didn’t have much to say. He only told Nolan exactly what he wanted to hear. The devil was good at that.

  Go kill the President, he said.

  Chapter 5

  Goliath tore through the streets at seventy miles per hour.

  Nolan was behind the wheel, steering through a fog of tears. Before leaving the Paramount lot he’d put on the ‘Chuck Kowalski’ outfit. The Kowalski costume consisted of a tight fitting ‘wasteland wanderer’ jacket, which boasted a rugged vest-like sheet of armor over the chest and back. Long metal bracelets, covered in scratches, covered Nolan’s forearms. A dirty bandana was wrapped around the lower half of his face. The crown jewel of the outfit however, and the thing the fans went crazy for most of all, was an old samurai style battle helmet, painted dark red with a number of horn-like spikes sticking out at the top.

  It felt right to dress up in these clothes. It was practical too. After he’d wrapped Diesel in a blanket and put him in one of Goliath’s upper deck bedrooms, Nolan realized his clothes were drenched in blood, both Diesel’s and his own. The prop wardrobe was on the upper deck and so Nolan had opened it. Without thinking, he’d reached for the Kowalski outfit, putting each item on until his bloody clothes were lost underneath the layers.

  When it was done, Nolan felt like a different man.

  He barely noticed the tall flames or the billowing smoke or the endless screams. He did notice the endless supply of people running into the middle of the road as he passed, desperately trying to flag down a ride in one of the most recognizable and freaky vehicles in the world. A gallery of faces went past in a blur – men and women, all ages, all colors. Maybe a few kids too. Nolan wasn’t paying enough attention to be sure.

  When they ran out, Nolan slammed a giant fist down on the wheel and Goliath’s dinosaur-scream horn blared over and over again. The people on the road would cry out as if it really was a Tyrannosaurus rex on their heels. Their bodies jerked in a silly dance when they realized that the MBT wasn’t slowing down for them. The road always cleared quickly after that, the young and strong dragging the slow movers to safety on the sidewalk.

  The damn windshield was cloudy. Nolan’s thumb flicked a toggle switch on the dashboard, bringing jets of water that sprayed the massive sheet of glass from all sides. Afterwards the wipers washed the screen dry until it squeaked.

  “Where are you?” Nolan said, glaring at the road ahead.

  He cut off Santa Monica Boulevard, turning south onto Vine Street.

  As soon as Nolan made the turn, three people in shorts and t-shirts, dressed like tennis players, sprang off the curb. They charged at Goliath as if they planned on stopping the giant MBT with their bare hands. Nolan saw two women and a lanky, pencil-thin black man with a slight limp. Their charred, bloody faces stared hungrily at Goliath as it hurtled past them at speed. They looked like people from another planet.

  Jesus, Nolan thought. It was like driving around on Halloween Night.

  The screams faded into the night. They always did but others would come soon to replace them.

  Vine Street was mostly quiet. All the stores, the local landmarks, including the huge Department of Power and Water building, hadn’t taken any significant damage.

  Nolan slowed Goliath down to fifty miles per hour. Forty-five. He knew he couldn’t drive fast and angry all night or he ran the risk of missing important details. The little things.

  “Easy,” he said, reaching for a bottle of water beside the driver’s seat. Nolan lowered his bandana and drained half the bottle in one slug. He still couldn’t feel any of the physical damage he’d taken back in the parking lot. Maybe the adrenaline rush was acting like armor, shielding him from anything that might slow him down. He’d hurt in the morning, he knew that much. And that was fine.

  Goliath approached an isolated store on the left of Vine Street. In reality it was little more than a large shed. But something caught Nolan’s eye and he slowed the MBT down, reading the sign above the paneled door.

  It said ‘Locksmith’.

  There it was again. Something was moving behind one of the front windows. Left hand side, next to the door.

  What the hell was it?

  Nolan hit the brakes, his attention locked on the strange movement at the storefront. He sat in the stationary MBT, staring out at the little locksmith shed.

  Two furry shapes swerved left and right on the inside ledge. After a while they stopped, pressed their bodies up tight against the window and stood on two legs. They pawed frantically at the glass.

  Nolan saw something else. There was a small fire burning inside the shed.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  The cats – two tabby and whites – continued to paw the glass. From the outside it looked like they were cleaning the windows with their pads and doing a damn good job of it.

  Nolan checked the side mirror to see if anyone else was lurking on the street. Nothing. Vine Street was dead.

  He pushed the door release. Goliath’s folding doors hissed open and Nolan leapt through the gap.

  He could smell the carnage outside. The reek of smoke was devastating but the stench wasn’t coming from the little fire inside the store – it was part of the neighborhood furniture now, a souvenir of the attack.

  “Alright guys,” Nolan said, hurrying over to the window. “The cavalry’s arrived.”

  The cats went berserk when they saw him. They clawed manically on the other side of the window and Nolan could see their mouths opening and closing like they were trying to say something.

  Nolan gave the glass a quick tap. It wasn’t double pane so he could probably break through it easy enough. He took a step back, his eyes scouring the immediate surroundings to see if there was anything he could use to break the glass. A rock. Anything.

  He stopped.

  “Try the door idiot,” Nolan growled.

  He went over and tugged on the metal handle. A click.

  The door was unlocked.

  Nolan rushed inside the store, which smelled of burning oak. There wasn’t much to the locksmith’s interior – it looked like more of a hobby shop than anything else, not surprising considering the miniscule, ramshackle exterior. A few shelves. A handful of display stands offering discounts on alarm systems. Nolan saw a line of metal safes against the wall.

  The fire had started next to a small bench by the main counter. Miscellaneous items lay on the floor next to the bench, one of which was an overturned candleholder. Nolan wasn’t hanging around to investigate the potential cause any further. The fire was small but it was picking up fast.

  It was also getting hot inside the shed.

  The cats squealed in terror. The door had swung shut behind Nolan and they were going at it like someone buried alive scratching the inside of a coffin lid.

  Nolan walked over, wondering if the cats were freaked out by the Kowalski outfit. Most likely they didn’t give a shit, not right now anyway. Kneeling down, Nolan scooped up the frightened creatures under one arm, letting them wriggle but maintaining a firm enough grip so he wouldn’t drop them. After a few seconds the animals froze, almost simultaneously, as if paralyzed with fear.

  Nolan used his spare hand to catch the door and pull it open. He hurried outside and tapped in the entry code on Goliath’s external keypad. He released the cats on the lower deck and they bolted towards the apartment at the back, taking shelter behind the nearest couch.

  “Settle in,” Nolan said, straightening the helmet on his head.

  Nolan wa
s on his way back to the driver’s cabin when he heard a strange noise outside. He froze. It was a shrill, wailing sound and Nolan immediately thought it sounded like somebody crying. Or worse, maybe it was another trapped animal.

  “Oh shit.”

  He couldn’t afford too many delays like this one.

  Nolan jumped down onto the street and walked back towards the store. He could hear the flames crackling through the open doorway. Heat from outside and inside the locksmith store intermingled, warming an already clammy night up even further.

  “Is somebody there?” Nolan called out.

  The wailing noise stopped suddenly. It was as if whoever was out there had heard his call.

  “Hello?” Nolan said.

  Wild laughter exploded from behind the store. Sounded like more than one of them, whatever it was.

  Nolan braced himself for action. “Show yourselves,” he said.

  “Whatever you say man.”

  Six men crept out from behind the little store. Three appeared from the left side, three from the right. They were all white and somewhere between twenty and twenty-five years of age at most. Nolan recognized their attire immediately – the shaved heads, the swastika tattoos, the ripped jeans and of course the sturdy Doc Martens on their feet.

  The Nazi gang wielded a small arsenal of knives, chains, and steel baseball bats. Nolan could tell they weren’t bluffers who carried weapons just for show. He could see it in their eyes – they were famished for violence.

  The man at the front pointed to Nolan’s Kowalski outfit.

  “Didn’t know it was Halloween pal.”

  Nolan pointed back, his finger moving over one Nazi at a time like he was counting heads. “Me neither. Pal.”

  The leader paused, sizing up the man behind the costume. Then he laughed again, stabbing a thumb at the burning store.

  “You help the little kitty cats mister?” he said. “Help the little-bitty kitty cats did ya?”

  The others quickly joined in with the taunting, making shrill cat noises and clawing at thin air with their hands. This impromptu Nazi street theater came combined with further explosions of laughter.

  “Meow, meow, meow!”

  Nolan sized up the speaker, who he sensed was the leader. He was a squat kid with fat arms and thick shoulders. The blood red goatee that drooped from his chin looked like a tail hanging off his face. He was carrying a switchblade with a silver serrated blade and metal handle.

  “Like animals do you?” one of the other neo-Nazis said. This guy was tall, gangly and albino pale. A giant black and red swastika tattoo was imprinted on his scrawny giraffe neck. Not the sort of guy you wanted to bump into in a dark alleyway.

  The youngest in the pack was a boy, no more than seventeen at most. He jumped up and down like an overexcited monkey as he and his buddies teased Nolan. When he was done making cat noises the kid cackled and pointed at Goliath like it was the second coming of Hitler.

  “Holy shit!” he squealed. “Look at the size of that fucking thing. It’s got machine guns coming out the side and everything. Holeeeeeeee Sheeeeit! I fucking love this town man. It’s so weird.”

  Nolan rubbed his hands together. “You wasting my time boys?”

  Switchblade Nazi grinned, displaying his crooked teeth. “You still don’t know pal?”

  “Enlighten me baldy.”

  “Our motivation is very simple,” Switchblade Nazi said. “As you can see, the neighborhood’s gone to shit. My friends and I need a car to get out of here and...”

  “Plenty of cars lying around,” Nolan said, butting in. “Take one. Break the glass, hotwire the damn thing. Who’s going to notice a stolen car tonight of all nights?”

  Albino Nazi glanced briefly at his friends as if to say – is this guy for real? Then he turned his attention back to Nolan.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Hotwiring was a lot easier back in the old days. Too many complicated computer systems. The locking mechanisms are a bitch to crack.”

  Nolan nodded. “So let me guess. You saw me driving down Vine and that’s when you put the cats in the window and set fire to the store? Right? Just happened to have a couple of cats lying around?”

  Switchblade Nazi grinned. “You’d be surprised at what’s running around the streets tonight.”

  “You ain’t kidding,” Nolan said.

  Monkey Nazi was still bouncing up and down on his toes. The kid surely had rocket fuel in his blood.

  “YEAH! We just wanted to see if there were any good citizens left you know? And if not – hey it’s just a couple of roasted cats. No big loss. We’ll find us a dog or something and try all over again. Sooner or later there’s always a sucker who’ll stop. Turned out to be sooner.”

  Nolan kicked his boot heels off the edge of the curb. He was already loosening his joints, getting the blood flowing. While the Nazis weren’t Rage and Blaze they could still serve a useful purpose in the meantime. It was a hell of a lot better than hitting the steering wheel.

  “Stupid kids,” he said.

  Switchblade frowned. Then he stabbed the blade in Nolan’s direction.

  “You’re a big guy mister but you’re outnumbered,” Switchblade said, slicing thin air with each syllable. “Don’t do anything silly. Now here’s what you’re going to do. Leave the keys to that tank thing in the ignition and we’ll let you run. Simple as that. We’ll even let you take the kitty-cats out.”

  “I want his helmet!” Monkey Nazi screamed.

  Nolan warmed up his calf muscles using the curb. He stood with his heels hanging off the edge, rising up onto his toes for ten seconds. Then he dropped his heels below curb level for ten. He repeated this several times as the Nazis grew increasingly bewildered.

  “You kids want Goliath?”

  Switchblade gasped. It was a raspy, choking noise that seemed to stick halfway down his throat.

  “Kids? Do you know who we are? Do you know who you’re insulting right now mister and what we do to people who insult us?”

  Nolan shook his head. “No,” he said. “And I don’t care either. But I tell you what big guy. You want Goliath? How about you fight me for it? The six of you against me. Doesn’t even have to be skin on skin – you can use your toys right there, I mean your weapons.”

  Switchblade Nazi’s face resembled someone who was trying to read instructions in a foreign language.

  “You’re stupid man. Have it your own way.”

  He signaled to his teammates and the gang spread themselves out across the sidewalk. They edged their way towards Nolan.

  “It’s on motherfucker,” Switchblade said, stepping back so his buddies could be first. “Just remember asshole when you’re all fucked up and bleeding on the sidewalk. I offered you a way out.”

  “I’ll remember,” Nolan said.

  Monkey Nazi cackled wildly, which reminded Nolan of Evil Ed from the original Fright Night movie. He swaggered forward, baseball bat in a tight grip.

  His first swing missed by a mile. Undeterred by failure, he lunged at Nolan, snapping his teeth together like a rabid dog. Nolan judged the kid’s reach coupled with the length of the bat. He took three rapid steps backwards, deftly avoiding Monkey Nazi’s second attempt to crack his skull open. Nolan then sprang forward, turning his left hand into a four-fingered spear. He aimed at the young man’s eyes and found the fleshy target.

  “Owww!”

  Monkey Nazi sounded like a little boy who’d stood on a thumbtack. Nolan stepped forward. He yanked the bat out of the kid’s hand. Then he swung hard and and belted the little asshole in the chest, sending him down onto all fours. Monkey Nazi retched as his lungs grasped for air.

  “Get him!” Switchblade yelled, backing off a step further.

  The other Nazis charged to war. Despite their ferocious appearance they were clumsy brutes with a low fighting IQ. They reached for Nolan, demonstrating no awareness of closing the gap. This left their defense wide open. Nolan brought Monkey Nazi’s baseball bat down on their skulls, fending each one off before they got too close. He took three out in rapid-fire succession. When it was Albino Nazi’s turn, Nolan prolonged the action by kicking him in the balls first, dropping him onto his knees. One hard left hook to the jaw and Albino Nazi was asleep on the sidewalk.