Villain (Gone 8)

The first of the missiles was fired at the fifth tank back. The tank erupted in flame. Leaning eagerly out of the window with his drink in hand, Dillon saw the tank’s tread spool off. Crewmen bailed and were shot or stabbed or mauled.

Maybe, Dillon thought, his true calling was as a military leader. He was doing pretty well, it seemed to him. But could you be a great leader and still be a comic?

The army column was still advancing, but slowly, at a crawl. “Time for round two,” Dillon said. “Let’s play Civilian Crush.” He yelled through his bullhorn, “Battalion two! Do it now!”

Approximately a thousand people dropped to the ground. They scooted around, getting into position until they formed a human chain of prostrate bodies across the Strip. It was a wide street, so his human chain was only four people deep, and he’d have liked to have more, but still, he figured he had presented the army commander with an insoluble problem. Would the tanks roll over passive, unarmed civilians just lying in the street?

At first he thought it had worked. As he watched, the tank column suddenly executed a crisp left turn onto Flamingo Road, treads gouging concrete, machine gunners picking off attackers.

“Shit!” Dillon yelled. “You know what they’re doing?” he demanded of Kate, currently wearing her cheerleader outfit crisscrossed by heavy ammo belts. “They’re going around!”

&

nbsp; “Yes,” Kate said. It was just about the only safe word to use around Dillon. Kate, like the other Cheerios, was bound to the power of Dillon’s voice and had no choice but to obey. But that did not mean she liked it. In fact, she was straining her last nerve to get herself to draw her gun and shoot the monster.

“Maybe stick with comedy after all,” Dillon muttered. But his audience—the Dark Watchers—sustained him. To Dillon, they were a demanding but fair audience. Not easy to please, but not impossible, either. They seemed glued to the action. On the other hand, he’d never sensed them laughing at any of his jokes.

“Battalion two, get up and run after them! Throw yourselves in front of them!”

He glanced up at the news helicopter that was defying the army’s no-fly order. The camera up there recorded a dozen or more people, including one in a wheelchair, literally throwing themselves in front of vehicles that remorselessly rolled on over them.

Dillon shook his head. “Not enough.” Raising his bullhorn, Dillon said, “Battalions three and four, run to the Triunfo! Run! And Kate? Drive the fuel truck back there.”

CHAPTER 23

Rough Beasts, No Bethlehem

“SURE, I DID a tour in Afghanistan,” Master Sergeant Matthew Tolliver said. “Iraq, too. None of that was good. But hey, one thing you can say about floating around on Navy ships, the squids keep a nice mess. Steak once a week. Fried chicken . . .”

Justin DeVeere was torn. Should he stay on the flatbed with the deranged marine? The truck of misfit toys? He had quickly grown bored with the old marine’s war stories and reminiscences. But as an artist, this trip down the two-lane 95 through the utter wasteland of the Nevada desert was a field day.

I’m on a truck with an entire bestiary of monsters. And the sunset is gorgeous.

“. . . ice cream. It’s boring, but the Navy will definitely feed a man.”

“Are you hungry, Tolliver?” Justin smirked.

“No,” Tolliver replied. “I don’t have a stomach anymore.”

This was said without rancor, just a fact of life: I don’t have a stomach.

What the hell lunatic asylum am I in?

He could jump off the truck at any point; no one was keeping him prisoner. But A) there was nothing but rock, sand, and scruffy plant life. And B) when would he ever get a chance to see a woman who could morph into an abomination that was half turtle, including a faintly purple shell?

But mostly it was A): it was a long, long, dry walk to anywhere. They were heading toward Las Vegas, and as it happened, Las Vegas was the nearest human habitation worth going to.

He slept for a while and dreamed of his long-lost patron and girlfriend, Erin O’Day. She had been killed.

He woke to a night sky and dropping temperatures made colder by the wind that buffeted the open truck bed. And tears on his cheeks. He wiped them away angrily.

He hadn’t loved Erin, but he’d liked her. And she was rich and could have done amazing things for his career.

Career. As what? As a promising young art prodigy? Or as the monster who destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge?

Justin knew the answer. Even if he created art to rival DaVinci, Van Gogh, and Picasso it would never wipe away the image the world had of him. Never.

His stomach turned and his mouth twisted, and he wallowed for a while in self-pity. The phrase “not my fault that . . .” kept coming up, followed by various specifics. Not my fault what happened on the plane at La Guardia; not my fault what happened on the bridge; not my fault that Erin was blown to pieces and died beneath an obscure lighthouse.