She’d seen what stepped out of that ellipse on news programs, on film of the fighting in the Middle East, but she’d never expected to see something like it in her local mall. A baldrick, fully nine feet tall, complete with horns, tail and trident. Eyes glowing red and small pointed beard seeming to bristle at the stunned shoppers. There was an eerie silence as people tried to absorb what was happening. A silence that was interrupted by a crack and brilliant blue flash as the baldrick discharged his trident at a woman pushing baby carriage. The crash as the woman went down, convulsing from the massive electrical shock, broke the spell.
“Run!” Shana grabbed Maria and started bundling her forward. Years of threatened shootings in high schools had lead Americans to learn a vital lesson; when trouble is breaking out, get as far and as fast in the opposite direction as possible. Maria didn’t have that inbred instinct and had to be shown. Her friends half-pushed, half- dragged her towards the exit adjacent to the mall’s Macy’s store.
Across the mall, the shoppers were dispersing in different directions, depending in which exit was nearest. The silence was replaced by the sound of screaming from the chaotic mob of people. In its midst, the baldrick grabbed another victim with the claws of one hand, ripped him open with the other and threw the disintegrating body into the mass of running people. Then, it looked around, its eyes fixed on a group running for the Macy’s exit and set off after them.
Philip Phelan didn’t run. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a gun either. The mall rentacops weren’t allowed to carry them. He did have a taser and he used it, helplessly watching the barbed metal spikes bounce off the skin of the baldrick. The monster had already carved its way through three more people, throwing their dismembered remains around and Phelan believed that his job was now to buy as much time as he could for the rest to get clear. The monster reached out for him, almost lazily, its great claws reaching for his throat. Phelan had drawn his baton and he swiped at the grabbing hand, knocking it to one side. Them he slashed back in the opposite direction, hitting the monster in the throat, causing it to stagger for a second. For one delirious moment, he actually believed he had a chance of winning the encounter, then he felt the claws on the baldrick’s other hand sinking into his abdomen. They hooked around the bottom of his ribs and the last thing that Phelan ever felt was him being hurled into the air as his chest came apart.
The baldrick watched the fat old man land in the food court on the floor below and looked around for another victim. A middle-aged woman had stopped running and was facing him, holding both hands out as if she was praying. A ridiculous idea but who knew what these humans would try. Then there were a series of bright flashes from the woman’s hands and the baldrick felt six jabbing pains in his chest. He paused for a brief second then started after the woman.
“Lady you got reloads?”
“No.” She wailed, looking at the monster bearing down on her.
“Run!” The man speaking had another handgun out. One a lot bigger than the woman’s little Kel-Tec. 32. He was in the correct position, M1911A1 in both hands, right hand pushing, left hand pulling and his nine shots made a perfect group on the baldricks chest. Then, his slide locked back on empty, he followed the woman running for the exit, the baldrick now streaming green blood from the wound in its chest, closing rapidly on them.
They were saved by the shoe salesman in Gary’s Shoe Store, who had been a mighty athlete in his day. As the baldrick crossed in front of his store, he ran out and took it in a perfect football tackle, slamming it off its feet and into the guard rail. The railing, more decorative than ornamental, cracked free of the floor and for a moment looked like it might give way under the impact, but it held and the fighting human and baldrick bounced off it back onto the floor. The baldrick managed to tear at the human’s face with one hand and that gained him enough of an advantage to throw him off. The shoe salesman was blinded, crippled by the injury and didn’t have a chance of evading the slash that tore out his heart. By that time, the man and woman who had shot the baldrick were safely away.
Out in the car park was a Ford F-150 pick-up truck, covered with NRA stickers. More significantly, both its driver and passenger were hunters who had come in for some supplies at the Northwest Face store before going off on a trip. Bill Redfield saw the people pouring out of the exits and managed to stop one as he ran past the truck.
“What’s going on?”
“Baldricks, in the mall. They’re killing everybody.” The man tore himself free and continued running.
“Can’t get in though the doors Jim, too many people coming out. Like running into an avalanche.”
“The Cafe.”
“Hit It.”
The Coffee Cup Cafe was on the ground floor level with the car park and, better, it had a terrace and windows that were a rare interruption in the otherwise blank mall walls. Jim Caldwell slammed his truck into gear and floored the accelerator. He was doing over 60 miles an hour when his truck ploughed through the terrace tables and smashed open the windows beyond. Redfield and Caldwell, and their truck, were in the mall. A few seconds later they were running into the main concourse holding their hunting rifles.
“Escalators, up.” The screaming said the baldricks were on the top floor. They sprinted up the escalator in time to see a single baldrick, there was only one, tearing a man apart outside a shoe store. The baldrick stood up and started to close in on the people struggling outside Macys but Caldwell dropped to one knee and took aim. He had an old Garand, sporterized and fitted with a scope, across the width of the mall it was murderously accurate. He squeezed out his eight rounds of. 30-06 and heard the characteristic ‘ting’ as the clip was ejected. The baldrick staggered with the impacts, obviously finding it had to stay on its feet, but it was still obviously determined to get into the crowd of humans. That wasn’t bad tactics either, once mixed in with humans, the usefulness of the hunting rifles would be much diminished.
Redfield stopped that happening. His favored game was elk and moose and he had the rifle to match. A Weatherby Mark V Deluxe chambered for. 416 Weatherby Magnum. With its scope, it had cost him almost $3,000 and his wife had given him the silent treatment for three months after she’d found it in the gun safe. He dropped flat and took careful aim, squeezing the trigger and feeling the brutal recoil as the rifle sent the heavy bullet tearing down range. He didn’t stop to see what the result was, he was working the bolt to feed the second round into the chamber. By the time he got his eye back to the scope, the baldrick was sitting down, the wall behind it splattered green with its blood. Redfield fired again, seeing the baldrick jerk as the bullet ploughed into it. There was no doubt, it was down for good but he still had a single round left in his rifle and the thing was still moving. He worked the bolt again then took careful aim at the monster’s head. It burst very pleasingly as the bullet struck home.
Redfield straightened up, pleased with himself despite the pain in his shoulder. Caldwell was looking at him. “Remind me never to poke fun at that cannon of yours again,” he said.
Across the concourse, it was hard to believe it was over. The baldrick lay dead barely ten feet from where Maria stood crying. She was in shock, from terror and the deafening explosions that had brought the monster down. She and her friends had been at the back of the crowd trying to escape and they would have been the first to die if the baldrick had reached the crowd. Maria knew it but all she could think of was that in the panic she’d lost the bag holding her new blouse. Now she’d lost it, it seemed enormously important to her. Behind her, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Hey Maria.” It was Kelly, one of the Anglo girls with Maria’s shopping bag. “You dropped this. Second lesson on being a mall rat, never, ever, let go of your loot.”
Across the mall concourse, two men in hunting clothes stood up. There was silence for a second, then an eruption of cheering. One of the men waved, the other held his rifle above his head. The cheering redoubled.
Maria found a microphone stuck in her face. “KVTW News. What did you see?”
“I saw the devil coming to kill us and an old security man attacked it with a stick. It killed him but he saved our lives. Era el hombre mas valiente que nunca haya visto.”
The television reporter turned to another person, a woman who was staring at a tiny semi-automatic pistol in her hand. “Ma’am, what do you think?”
She looked dazedly at the camera. “I need a bigger fucking gun.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Military Attache’s Offices, Royal Thai Embassy, Washington DC
Major General Asanee settled back in her seat to watch the early morning news. She knew what the leading
