“Where’s the problem?” Rodriguez asked.
The guard coughed, a crackle over the speaker.
“A tenant—fourth floor. Said he saw a new hole outside. Another breakthrough. H-he thought they might have gotten into the building. Sounded scared.”
I bet, Jack thought.
Rodriguez: “Christ. In the fucking building? Motherfucker.”
Jack knew that it could simply be a case of someone who had too much home-brewed alcohol. The real stuff was hard to come by, and home brew could have weird side effects. A bottle or two and suddenly you start seeing Can Heads all over the fucking place.
“Where the hell is it?” Rodriguez asked.
“The opening? Ah… way in the back. And the… the… tenant’s name is Tomkins. Guy lives alone. Fourth floor. Four-G.”
Jack leaned forward.
“Can we get back there with the car?” Rodriguez said.
The guard looked as if he didn’t know the layout.
“Close. Over there. See those spaces over there? That’s about as close as you can get.”
Rodriguez turned to look at Jack, his expression saying, We’re fucked. We got to get out and fucking walk to the opening? And if there was indeed an opening, they’d have to go hunt for whatever made it.
Rodriguez’s eyes said it all.
Lucky us.
Back to the guard. “Okay. Thanks. You hear anything more while we’re in there, you let us know. You got that, chief?”
The guard nodded.
Rodriguez pulled the car forward as the guard threw a switch. The gate opened, the wall of wire rolling away as they entered the apartment grounds.
Jack looked at his watch.
3:45.
Only about three hours away from finishing his shift.
Shit, he thought.
For all the good that would do.
“What do you want?” he asked Rodriguez.
“The usual. Maybe a few incendiaries, in case there is a hole. We start by sealing that.”
Jack noticed that his partner had already discarded their new lower head/neck covering, an item that had given him the look of a medieval Asian warrior.
“You forgetting something?” Jack said.
“No. I prefer mobility, amigo.”
Out of the car.
Jack knelt down and scanned the opening in the fence while Rodriguez kept up a steady 360-degree scan of the surrounding area.
Jack pulled back on the opening.
“I dunno,” he said. “Barely enough room for someone to wiggle through. Motion sensors should have turned on the big floods. If they even work.”
He looked up at his partner, who kept looking all around, the M-16 held in ready position.
“What you thinking, Jacko? Anything come through here?”
“Someone cut a goddamn hole. I dunno, and—”
“Right. Shit. I hear you. All right, we go talk to the tenant. The eagle eyes who saw something.”
Jack stood back up, shifting his own gun into a ready position.
“Yeah. Maybe we got lucky. False alarm. Some dog.”
Rodriguez looked right at Jack and laughed.
“Yeah. You think there are still dogs in this neighborhood?”
“Well, that hole—”
“Dream on, brother,” Rodriguez said. “Dogs. Shit. Just walking around.” Another big laugh. “Like the good old days? Dream the fuck on.”
They headed to the front door of the building.
3. Inside the Apartments
They took the stairs.
Way too many stories about elevators that just stopped. And then you were truly trapped. All boxed up and waiting for whatever would work its way down the steel cables to you.
Because whatever the Can Heads were, they weren’t completely mindless. They could still think a bit, even when they looked and acted like crazed rabid animals desperate for food.
Only in this case, food meant other people. The ones who hadn’t turned cannibal.
Did they turn on themselves?
Undoubtedly. Hungry enough, they certainly would.
But like any other predator, it was much more efficient for them to hunt weaker prey. Humans.
Jack and Rodriguez took the steps slowly, ears cocked for any sounds from the hallways.
“Seems all quiet,” Rodriguez said.
“Hmm?” Jack said.
Rodriguez turned to him. “See, Jacko? That new stuff around your head. Cuts down on your hearing. Not the best idea.”
Jack pushed the armored flap away from his right ear. “I hear fine. You were just whispering.”
“Riiiight.”
Past the third-floor entrance door, and up one more flight. The steps littered with trash. Kids probably still came here to screw or ingest whatever they could find in hopes that it might get them high. Maybe doing drugs was all the more exciting with the thought that there were dangerous things out there.
These teenagers had grown up with the idea of Can Heads for more than half their lives.
Just part of the wonderful landscape.
Yeah, different world from the one your parents grew up in.
That’s for fucking sure.
“Here we are,” Rodriguez said.
As the senior partner, he’d set up their recon plan.
“Okay, after we’re in, you lay back here. Just watch the hallway, the other apartments, ’kay?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll go talk to our Mr. Tomkins and see what the hell it is he thought he saw. Did the big lights go on outside, then go off? Where did he see them go? Maybe we can be out of here in ten minutes. Shit, maybe even stop for a beer on the way back.”
A local dive, The Hook, stayed open 24/7. Right near the 63rd Precinct, its customers were cops and those who didn’t really have any good place to hide for the night.
Sucking down beers and shots on a stool rather than facing the streets.
“Maybe.”
Rodriguez hesitated at the door to the hallway.
“What? You are so whipped. Don’t want the smell of a brewski on your breath for wifey?” He shook his head. “Better you than me.”
Jack grinned. He doubted there were too many women on the planet who could live with Rodriguez.
Rodriguez grabbed the doorknob.
“Okay. Here we go.”
They walked into the hallway.
Jack stayed twenty feet back from Rodriguez as he went to the apartment door.
The door moved as he knocked. Just an inch. It was open.
Jack kept looking to the rear, down to the other end of the dingy hallway for any signs of movement. Everyone was probably safely locked down and asleep for the night.
After the knock, no reaction.
Rodriguez looked back at Jack and gave a shrug.
Now a small push while at the same time pressing the doorbell.
The bell gave out a raspy shriek, way too loud, as if they had put the ringer on the wrong side of the door.
“Shit. I’m going in,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez kicked at the open door, the noise loud, the door banging open. Jack didn’t like making noise. He kept looking around.
Always fucking bad, he thought. Not knowing if something was about to happen.
Rodriguez took a few steps inside. Then: “Hello?”
Back to Jack.
Gesturing. Two fingers to his eyes. A freaking army move. I go, you stay back.
Like they were in a goddamn war zone. Police as army.
The ear bud in Jack’s left ear was silent. The two-way radios were so damn unreliable. No one from the station house asking how things were going. Everyone dozing. Though Miller undoubtedly had their audio on a speaker somewhere.