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  “Last Stand For Man”

  Nicholas Ryan

  Copyright © 2018 Nicholas Ryan

  The right of Nicholas Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  LG, A – PBS&ST

  Author’s note:

  This novel is dedicated to Ebony, who flew to Europe and America with me in 2015 to research this novel, visiting the locations mentioned in the book across several months.

  Also by Nicholas Ryan on Amazon:

  Ground Zero

  Die Trying

  Dead Rage

  Zombie War

  Brink of Extinction

  The Apocalypse began on a Thursday.

  At O’Hare Airport.

  Chicago.

  Prologue:

  Emily Statham unlocked the door and then paused on the threshold for a long moment. The apartment was darkened, the drapes drawn against the afternoon light, and there seemed no one home. She had expected to find her mother in the kitchen preparing dinner. Emily frowned – and then heard a rustle of sweaty movement and strained impassioned groans coming from behind her mother’s bedroom door. Emily narrowed her eyes and sighed. Her mom was with her newest boyfriend. Emily’s lip curled into a sordid snarl of disgust. She could imagine what was happening behind that door, and it made her skin crawl with revulsion.

  She crept down the hallway to her own bedroom.

  The little jewelers box still sat on her bedside table, and she stood staring at it for a long time, filled with a rising sense of monumental anxiety.

  She trapped her bottom lip between her teeth and brushed long lank hair away from her eyes. She was a dowdy insignificant person wearing a shabby jacket over a sweater, and a long shapeless skirt, her posture hunched, her shoulders slumped as though to draw attention away from her figure.

  She pushed her glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose with the tip of her finger, and squinted shortsightedly around the rest of the room to be certain nothing had been disturbed – and slowly her unease turned, once more, to grim determined resolve.

  Without removing her jacket or kicking off the sensible shoes that she wore, Emily perched herself on the edge of the narrow bed and reached tentatively for the little jewelry box.

  It was the kind of felt-covered box that diamond rings were presented in; a small cube with a hinged top. Emily prised open the lid and stared down at the capsule, nestled in the bed of red velvet. It looked like a regular cold and flu tablet, completely unremarkable. It might even have been medication for insomnia or high blood pressure.

  But it wasn’t.

  “It’s all down to me,” Emily muttered out loud to herself. “There’s no one left to do God’s work. I’m the only hope, and if I don’t do this thing…” her voice trailed off as though the consequences were too terrible to consider.

  She thought then about Viktor – the first and only man whom she had loved with all her heart. He had come to her when her life had been at its lowest ebb, and had shown her a depth of tenderness that she never thought possible. She remembered his dark blazing eyes and the passion in his voice as he told her about the world and his vision for the future. She listened to him while she lay curled up in his bed, wrung out and exhausted from the intensity of their lovemaking. He had told her that God had visited him, and that the Almighty had shown him a brave new world where there would be peace and harmony.

  But not without a price.

  Emily remembered the languid feel of his fingers, and the lazy way he trailed his touch along her arms, making her shiver deliciously. She remembered the way he kissed her – the sizzle of his lips and then the deep empty space within her that he filled with thrusting passion and simmering intensity until she knew for sure that she would lay down her very life for him.

  Which was why she sat in her tiny bedroom right now, clutching at the jewelry box, the memory of Viktor’s smoldering Eastern European accent and his piercing pale blue eyes so vivid in her mind that she felt she could surely reach out her hand and still touch his swarthy face.

  But Viktor had disappeared two days ago after armed police had raided his dingy little apartment on the south side of the city. Now, she imagined him being tortured, beaten and brutalized, or maybe even dead.

  That sudden thought galvanized her, for life without Viktor would not be worth living. He had become her everything, and if he had died at the ruthless hands of the police, then she too would willingly give up her life for his vision, and for God’s sacred work.

  She snatched up the capsule from within the little box and slipped it into the pocket of her skirt, then took one last look around the room the way someone does when they are about to set out on a long journey. She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror and paused.

  She didn’t look like a revolutionary. She didn’t have the restless eyes of a zealot. She looked just like an ordinary, dowdy young woman – a forgettable face that would be unnoticed in a crowd.

  Emily smiled cruelly.

  She left the room, locked the door carefully behind her, and then went down the hallway and knocked lightly on her mother’s bedroom door. A hoarse startled voice called from within.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “I want to talk to you, mom.”

  Emily pressed her ear against the door. She could hear a sudden rustle of urgent movement and voices harsh and suppressed. The bed squeaked and a moment later her mother cracked the door open and her face appeared.

  Emily kept her expression impassive. She could smell the odors of stale sweat and seedy sex seeping from the room. Her mother’s hair hung awry and her lipstick was smudged around her mouth. Even the soft light was cruel to her, highlighting the wrinkles around her eyes. Beyond her Emily caught a glimpse of the new boyfriend. He was lying naked on top of the soiled rumpled sheets. He had his arms wedged beneath his head, and she could see the spiral of his tattoo across his sweaty chest.

  “What is it, honey?” her mother’s voice sounded a little wild, a little uncomfortable.

  Emily tried to smile. “I just wanted to tell you that I love you, mom.”

  Her mother pressed at her hair and her expression became confused. She stood naked. The door lay open just enough for Emily to see the pale flesh of her mother’s hip.

  “I love you too, honey,” her mother said. The woman’s fingers were trembling, the look in her eyes unfathomable. She cast a quick worried glance over her shoulder and then back to Emily. “Can we talk more about this later?”

  Emily shook her head. “No,” she said. “That’s why I had to interrupt. You see I’m going away for a while – maybe a long time, actually. I might not see you again. I wanted you to know, before I left, that I love you, and I appreciate all you tried to do for me. I know it’s been a hard life for you, and I wanted you to know that I am grateful for all your sacrifices.”

  Emily’s mother smiled benevolently, indulgently, and Emily caught a whiff of the rank stench of alcohol on the woman’s breath. “I love you too, honey,” she tripped on the words and slurred them
a little.

  Emily nodded. There seemed nothing more to say. She started for the front door and heard her mother push the bedroom door closed, followed by the harsh rattle of a lock being thrown. Loud enough to be heard through the thin walls, the man in the bedroom grumbled, “Little fuckin’ bitch. Ain’t got no respect for a man’s time. Did you tell her to fuck off?”

  Emily’s mother whispered something placating and then the apartment fell silent again.

  Emily pulled the front door shut and went down the steps and out into the Chicago afternoon.

  * * *

  Emily drove to the domestic terminals at O’Hare Airport and chose terminal 3 on a whim.

  She parked her car between two concrete planter boxes in front of the glass doors and left the engine idling. At the far end of the terminal she noticed a woman in a yellow rainproof jacket patrolling the area, waving traffic on and barking instructions to drivers as they ducked and weaved between stagnant rows of stalled cars to drop off luggage and passengers. Emily leaped out of her vehicle and left the driver’s door open. It had rained earlier in the day and the blacktop reflected the lights and colors from within the terminal. Emily stood on the yellow line of the curb for a moment. The air felt cool and damp, the late afternoon already darkening beneath a grey sullen sky towards nightfall. The woman in the colored rain jacket came striding briskly towards her. Emily turned her back.

  “’Scuse me,” the traffic patrol, officer thrust her face close to Emily’s. She was a black woman, maybe in her forties, with a weary expression on her face. “Is that your car?”

  Emily turned and stared at her little silver hatchback as if she had never seen it before in her life. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “It belongs to a guy. He went that way.” She pointed to a big blue sign.

  The patrol woman widened her eyes a little and tried to peer through the crowd of people that had gathered around the entrances, smoking and chatting on their cell phones, each of them clutching suitcases. She snatched at a walkie-talkie clipped to her belt and went cautiously towards the rear of the vehicle to report the license plate.

  Emily walked away. Ahead of her were the doors to the terminal. Displayed on the glass was a sticker with a picture of a handgun and a red line through it. Emily grunted. Airports all around the world had similar stickers for ‘No Smoking’ and ‘No Pets Allowed’, but Chicago airport had a reminder for locals not to bring their handguns into the terminal.

  Inside the glass doors Emily stopped and took a moment to settle her jangling nerves. Her legs felt rubbery, and the acid burn of nausea in her guts gnawed at her resolve. She thrust her sweaty shaking hands into the pockets of her skirt – and felt the capsule with her fingertips.

  “Do it for Viktor,” she told herself, chanting the words over and over in her head like a mantra as her feet carried her forward, seemingly of their own volition. “Do it for him and for God.”

  The terminal was a huge cavernous building of polished floors and banks of fluorescent lighting that stretched in either direction for as far as Emily could see into the press of humanity. The entire terminal seemed filled with milling clusters of travelers who were formed into lines between crowd-control barriers of black and yellow tape. The faces of the people were blank; shuffling bovine queues of people lined up to endure the indignity of airport security checks. Two guards walked past Emily, chatting quietly to each other. They were dressed in blue shirts and black pants, with silver shields on their chest pockets and TSA badges on the sleeves of their shirts. Around their necks were plastic identity cards hung like long necklaces. The men came directly towards Emily, and she lowered her head quickly and averted her eyes. Her mouth turned dry as dust and a hot flush of panicked color bloomed on her cheeks. For a moment she thought she might throw up. A wave of giddy vertigo gripped her and she had to clench her teeth to keep her feet and to fight down her nausea. She saw a woman standing nearby talking on her cell phone. The woman had a suitcase at her side. Emily kept her eyes on the woman’s face and shuffled in her direction. The two guards strode on by her without giving her a passing glance.

  “You could be first,” she thought to herself as the guards went purposefully towards the dark press of waiting people at the nearest security checkpoint. “You, or anyone else who tries to stop me.”

  There were rows of seats set along the glass wall of the terminal and Emily sat down heavily. She shook with nerves and apprehension. The sudden realization of what she was about to do assailed her conscience in crashing waves of guilt so that her vision filled with beating black bats wings and she thought she might pass out. She blinked away the darkness, feeling the heated flush of her own dread rising hot beneath the collar of her sweater and scalding across her cheeks. She was about to become the world’s most notorious mass murderer. Millions were about to die – and she would be the bringer of that death.

  Could she do what Viktor had convinced her was necessary?

  Sitting on the seat beside her was a harried young mother with an infant child on her lap. A nest of luggage surrounded the woman, and her baby lay clutched in one arm. Emily glanced at the young woman surreptitiously from the corner of her eye. She looked pretty, with long brown hair and a slim figure. She hummed a distracted tune and gently bounced the baby in her arm. Emily slowly turned her head and smiled. The woman smiled back.

  “You have an adorable child,” Emily said kindly. The baby was swathed in a lemon yellow blanket, its eyes milky and unfocused from sleep. Its skin was soft and perfect. “A boy or a girl?”

  “A girl,” the woman smiled proudly.

  “How old is she?”

  “Five weeks tomorrow,” the woman said and shifted the folds of the soft blanket from around the infant’s face so that Emily could see more clearly. “We’re on our way to Florida, so she can meet her grandparents.”

  Emily smiled and then leaned closer to the woman. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial hush. “Please leave the airport,” she said in a chilling whisper.

  The woman with the child looked bemused. She frowned at Emily and the smile on her face wavered and then froze. “Pardon me?”

  “Please leave the airport,” Emily said again, fixing the woman with her gaze, trying through the force of her eyes to make the woman understand that she was serious. “Immediately.”

  “Why?” the mother asked. She glanced around her, suddenly becoming uncomfortable. She moved the baby into her other arm in an instinctively protective gesture.

  “Because something truly terrible is about to happen,” Emily’s voice became strained. “And I don’t want you or your child to be affected. I want you to have a chance to live.”

  The young mother’s eyes grew wide with alarm. Her posture changed. She leaned away from Emily and then came out of the seat, shifting her feet in agitation. She rocked the child in her arm but the movement had become more jerked, more disconcerted.

  “Are you serious? If this is some kind of a joke, it’s not funny.”

  “I am serious,” Emily said. She took off her glasses and stared at the woman with huge sad eyes. “Please. Take your baby and get out of here.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” the woman’s voice rose suddenly and became shrill on the point of hysteria. She looked into the crowd, over the heads of the milling horde of waiting passengers, searching for a security guard.

  Emily rose slowly to her feet and as she did, she reached into the pocket of her skirt and her fingers wrapped around the capsule. “I am the bringer of death,” she shouted. “I am the Lord’s disciple, sent on a sacred mission to free the world from its corruption and evil so that humanity may start again, better, purer, kinder…”

  The young mother backed away, clutching her child tightly in her arms, the luggage forgotten. She started screaming, the sound of her voice echoing around the walls of the cavernous terminal. She stood pointing at Emily. Emily felt her cheeks flush. Hundreds of faces turned curiously towards her and then four armed airport security g
uards came bursting through the crowd, shoving milling bodies aside. Suddenly Emily found herself standing alone and isolated, and around her stood a semi-circle of bodies, their expressions filling with fear and panic as they tried to shrink away. Over their heads, she could see people beginning to run for the terminal’s huge glass exit doors.

  “Too late,” she thought cynically.

  Miraculously the nausea, the fear, and the terrible dread all fell away from her. She felt ice cold. She felt detached – as though she were suspended above her own body, removed from the drama and watching the scene play out like a clinical observer. Time broke down into fractured seconds, each one crystal clear, as Emily’s senses seemed to overload. She could smell the anxiety in the crowd. It was in their eyes and it was on their skin – a tangible scent that seemed to hang like a cloud in the air. And she could see the alarm in their faces, the wild fear in their expressions, the twisted wrench of their mouths.

  A voice seemed to reach out to her from a great distance, and she had to narrow her eyes and concentrate to bring it into focus. It was one of the security guards – a slim man with a boyish face and just the faint wisp of a downy moustache above his lip. He had a gun in his hand, the weapon thrust out at her. His legs were braced wide apart; his body crouched into a shooting stance. The man’s face glistened shiny with sweat. He was shouting, and Emily frowned and watched the man’s lips moving as though she were deaf and the sound was somehow muffled.

  Then at last it all came to her clearly.

  “Down on the ground!” the guard kept shouting. Another security guard poised on the edge of the crowd, also had his weapon drawn. Over her shoulder she could see two more blue uniforms. She concentrated on the man closest to her. A trickle of sweat ran from the man’s brow, down his cheek, and then got trapped in the edges of his moustache.

  “Get on the fucking ground!” he screamed.