Part 28 (2/2)
She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand back, and blood came gus.h.i.+ng out of the neatly sliced stump of her wrist. Flailing, she screamed, then flames shot out around her midriff, melting the s.h.i.+rt and causing her to twist and turn in agony, then to run to the far end of the long kitchen and smash into the wall.
All the while, Mack watched with the coldest eyes Caroline had ever seen. He did not try to help Katie at all, but kept his gun trained on the two of them.
Katie struggled in her death agonies, her pealing screams dropping to choked gargles as the room filled with a sickening stench of charred flesh and the overwhelming stink of burned hair.
The portal lay flat. Pressed into the gra.s.s on the other side of its surface was Katie's hand and most of her forearm.
”What in h.e.l.l happened to her?” Mack snarled.
”She was marked,” David said quietly.
Mack thrust the gun into his stomach.
”What is this about these marks?”
”You get them from the life you've lived. A life beyond redemption, and you-”
Mack slammed him with the pistol and sent him sprawling and spitting.
”All right, shut up with that bulls.h.i.+t! You listen to me, both of you, and listen close, or you will die slower and harder than you can imagine. That Humvee out there is a recce unit. Behind it is a strike force. They know what you have and these are your choices. Either tell us how to work this thing right now, or we will torture the life out of you until you do, then go to the clinic and waste whoever there is left to waste. Choose, children. Now.”
”Mack, listen to me,” Caroline said, putting all the urgency she could into her voice. ”We can all go together. We can be friends. Partners!”
With a speed so sudden that it was in itself terrifying, Mack lunged at her and slammed her against the wall so hard she slumped, momentarily stunned. He shook her back to consciousness.
”I tried it before and it hurt so much I couldn't do it. Then this woman-G.o.dd.a.m.n! But this f.u.c.ker works and there's a secret to it, and you will will tell me that secret.” tell me that secret.”
She remained silent. What else could she do? If he couldn't get through, it was because he was judged.
”Okay, Doc David, then you tell me how it works.”
He had something in his free hand that was not a gun, then she heard her clothes ripping and felt coldness and tightness against her skin. It was a point, she knew, and a little more pressure and it would penetrate.
”I swear to you, I will take every inch of skin off her, every f.u.c.king inch, f.u.c.king inch, unless you tell me the truth.” unless you tell me the truth.”
”There's nothing to tell,” David said. ”It's a sort of filter, it only lets certain people through.”
”Then you're gonna change it.”
”We can't.”
The knife began sliding along her skin. She forced her pain to remain silent.
”You will hold her skin in your hands and she will still be alive, David. She will be in agony unlike any either of you have ever known. The only way you will be able to stop her pain will be to kill her with your own hands!”
”David-”
David turned on her. ”Shut up!” Then, back to Mack. ”Mack, we can change it. For you. You can go through.”
”Where? Where is that place? It sure as h.e.l.l isn't anywhere on this Earth.”
”It is, Mack. It's on this Earth.”
”Where?”
”Mack, it's right here. It's where we're standing right now. It's what the Earth will become after ... after what's going to happen.”
”And what would that be?”
”The end of this cycle.”
”And the Earth is totally destroyed?”
”The cycle is over. Those of us who enter the new Earth start the new cycle there.”
Caroline felt the pressure of the knife lessen.
”And who decides?”
”We decide,” David said. ”We can change the portal for you.”
He lifted it from the floor. Caroline wasn't sure what he was doing, and remained silent. But one thing she did know. He could not change the portal in such a way that it would let someone with the mark through, because that mark identified them as being below the human level, lacking higher morality, compa.s.sion, and judgment. This is why it was called the mark of the beast. It meant, simply, that your life had left you more animal than human.
From outside, there came the snarling of big vehicles, then the squealing of brakes, followed by voices.
”That's the general,” Mack said. ”He's seen the truck.”
”He knows about your truck? How?”
”We have communications. Just enough.”
David looked doubtful. ”May I ask-”
”Just fix the d.a.m.n portal. Do it now!”
Caroline realized that Mack did not know how General Wylie had found them. A lucky guess, perhaps.
David picked up the portal. ”Caroline, we have to do this.”
There wasn't a thing she could do to change it. All she could think was that he was buying time, so she took it from him. Up close like this, it was indistinguishable from a window. It was marvelous, just the most extraordinary thing she'd ever seen. But what would she do to make Mack think she'd changed it?
”It has to be tuned to the people who're going to use it,” David said. ”It works like a fingerprint reader. Let us-Caroline, print Mack to it.”
Dear G.o.d, he was going to trick Mack into doing the same thing that Katie had done.
She had no choice but to go along. ”Give me your hand, Mack,” she said. Touching his damp skin was horrible. There was a sense of the corpse about it, not like the skin of a living person.
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