Rye Ironstone: Mother Tesla's Death Ray Read online

  Rye Ironstone

  Mother Tesla’s Death Ray

  I’ve always thought book dedications were a bit superfluous. Not to squander an opportunity for one last zinger, Rye suggested I include a note of thanks to the guys who helped shape many of the one-liners used within this story.

  Rich, Ron, Dan, Ken, James

  I think we need to leave, fix our armor, and then come back…

  Copyright

  2017

  John D. Wilkerson

  Torrent file sharing still requires payment to the author.

  JohnWilkerson.com

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  This is a work of fiction.

  The story is original, as are the characters.

  Table of Contents

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

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  Chapter One

  “Hey guys? This is Rye. You know. The good looking guy locked in the library basement?”

  Static hissed from the walkie-talkie. Pipes over my head vibrated with an unholy groan.

  “It’s been half an hour, come on guys. Open the door.”

  The university’s security office didn’t answer.

  The pipes changed pitch, sounding more like a demonic medieval pipe organ.

  I twisted the radio’s volume button. Static crackled along with a rhythmic popping.

  I peered around the stone-walled basement for the twentieth time. The same stuff looked back. White paint added an antiseptic feel to the walls. Wires, electronic control junk, and a box furnace which must have been fifty years old filled the center of the forty foot square space. My eyeballs drilled into the behemoth. I swear it chuckled.

  “Shut up,” I said. “You’re stuck down here with me.”

  The furnace’s array of gauges and one large grill resembling a sinister-looking metallic face smiled back.

  Not really. It was my stressed out mind wanting something to gripe at.

  Meet the furnace. I’ll call it Charlene. Charlene the furnace was red-hot and crazy as a walnut, three kids’ with three different daddies, and looking for a new bus to hitch along for the ride.

  Sorry, old girlfriend issues floating up from somewhere.

  Charlene popped and clicked.

  Great, now major appliances are starting to make fun of me.

  I re-clicked the power knob on the radio again and waited.

  Why are the overhead pipes still shaking?

  “Hey dude, it’s me, Rye. Open the door.” My hand yanked the big steel handle. The door rattled with a hollow echo. I could tell the electronic lock didn’t disengage.

  I think my mind finally kicked-in. No motors humming, my radio won’t work, and why are the pipes singing like strings on a badly tuned bass?

  The emergency lights were glowing orange, giving the place a strange industrial disco feel. What gives?

  I tried the radio again. “Guys? There’s no power down here. I think we have an emergency.”

  Nada. Silence. Well, almost. The building was starting to hum.

  I don’t know if you believe in God or Karma, but some little voice in my gut started screaming, ‘big trouble dude.’

  Isn’t this where the first zombie always shows up? I’m not kidding. I really looked around for the zombie.

  My little voice screamed again. ‘You’re gonna die.’

  Yep, you guessed it. Boom.

  Wait, wait, wait. It was more like this—BOOOOOM!!!

  The floor came up, my butt went down, and my knees met my chest somewhere in the middle. It really hurt and I swear I popped something my future wife would not be pleased about. My breath whooshed out and I sucked in a lung full of century old boiler room dust.

  Donkey breath, where did the water come from?

  I found the big workbench in the corner, crawled under it, and screamed like a little girl. You know the prissy girl type. Perfect hair, smells like rainbows, and collects those little dolls with big.

  No crap, there I was. Destruction was raining down around my cave-of-safety. Chunks of concrete, old bricks, and a bicycle all took their turn tumbling past my underground view of the apocalypse.

  **

  My crusty eyes opened sometime after dawn. I must have slept, but felt none the better for the experience. Wet dust and cold water liquefied the sticky air and wrapped me in the embrace of an ice-coated banshee.

  I was cold.

  The work bench did its duty and acted as my own personal collapsing-building-safety-device. A gritty shaft of sunlight clawed its way through the rubble-covered basement window. The patch of light was my Mecca. I had a destination, and only a thousand cubic yards of rubble perched above my head. I squared my back to the wet concrete wall and pushed with both my feet as hard as I could. My thick-sole boots squished around my soaked socks. Finally the chunks parted. I peered out the escape hole from under the table. I was halfway there.

  Those pipes I’d heard the night before? A couple dribbled some unknown fluid. One of them was sticking out of the lower wall and sprayed like a hydrant. I could hear cavernous groans over my head as jagged bits of the building continued to settle. I felt like an ant might when a two-year old child drops dirt on its head.

  Raw sewage has a sweet aroma all its own, and my childhood days at the truck stop burned the scent into my memory. Splat, splat, the gray goo dribbled from a crushed iron pipe as big as my leg.

  The window was pretty high. I judged my chances. Die in a sewage filled basement or squeeze through the jagged opening. Easy choice, I clawed my way toward the window.

  I cleared rubble off the workbench and dragged it over. I was so close I could touch the jagged glass in the window frame, yet my stiff fingers could not grip the sill. I needed more height. I surveyed my collection of twisted building.

  Here’s why the bike was important. Not only was it my Zen focus during the cataclysm, it could provide the last few inches of reach I needed to swing my body up to the window ledge. These moments raise the cosmic question, ‘did the child working in the sweatshop in Indonesia ever consider the bike would be used to escape a collapsed building?’ Really puts life in perspective, doesn’t it.

  There stood the window. Twelve feet up and perched like a super model wearing this year’s bikini. I was focused on the shimmering portal. Yeah, I’m going to survive this. No problem, I told myself. Mount the window and I’m home free.

  It’s hard to climb a mangled bike to get out of a basement. I kept telling myself this is going to make a great story. In truth, it hurt. Cuts and scrapes made my eyes water, not to mention the giant goose egg on my shin.

  But I made it, freedom and sunlight in the raw.

  Why are all the dead people lying around in the quad?

  My pride had taken a beating the pas
t few hours, and maybe my grip on reality. Once again I looked around for the zombie. No feasting evidence on the corpses. Whew. If I sound a little crazy, it’s okay. A library did fall on my head. It kinda skewed my point of reference.

  Ten, maybe twenty bodies lay spread around the open grass and shrubbery. They’d all been shot. Gruesome, I thought. Who could do such a thing? I swallowed my bile, hiked up my pants, and did what any reasonable university security personnel would do. I looked for one of those big blue poles you’re supposed to use to call for help.

  Pass the problem up the chain of command. Yep, Rye was a good employee. The nearest blue light pole was around the next corner. I tapped my radio again and was rewarded with no response. Even the annoying hiss and the strange thumping were gone. Fifteen short strides and my mind cleared a bit. Building fell down, no power, lots of dead people. I can do this, I can do this.

  The screaming started. Not mine, but a bunch of girls and girly-boys in a nearby building. Gunshots too. Screams and gunshots, not how I wanted to start my morning. But in truth, given my night, starting that day in any way was an improvement.

  The gunshots sounded big. Not the pistols we security folk carried, but big like a rifle. I stopped walking and checked my watch. It worked, which was a relief, and I spent a couple of seconds winding the little knob thing on the side. It was half past six, kinda early for the student body to be moving about. A couple more gunshots penetrated the early morning chill. I set my eyes on the cafeteria. What an idiot I’d been.

  Most of the campus was in ruins. An earthquake must have shaken the whole area. Only the science building looked unscathed. I raised my gaze up a bit, above the trees. Lots of smoke trails wisped skyward. The horizon was streaked with hundreds of columns sprouting sooty gray tendrils.

  Small chunks of the mighty elm next to my head splintered. Bang—a gunshot rang louder than the rest and reverberated across the quad. I swear I felt the screaming lead slice the air beside my ear.

  I consider myself a level-headed and fairly tough guy. I’m fit, with lots of those cool muscles you get from pounding the pavement and moving black-iron weights around the rubber floor. But I might have pissed myself a little. Yep, first time for everything. Some crazy was shooting at me and I swear I stood there like a deer in the headlights before my survival instincts kicked in.

  I scooted behind the big tree and let my hand slide to the M-1911 .45 strapped to my waist. Old Betsy was her name, my grandpa’s pistol. I scanned the surroundings as I drew the old girl. My practiced fingers checked the hammer and safety. She was cocked and locked with fresh bang-bang in the chamber.

  Crack—another rifle bullet thudded into the tree behind my head. Cosmic question number two: how much wood does it take to stop a bullet? I didn’t hang around to find out. Crack, crack—more shots followed me across the quad as I zigged and zagged my way to the backside of the library rubble.

  Some dead guy was sprawled at my feet. He was really dead. A bullet looked to have ripped through his chest, messy. My pistol wasn’t going to do me much good seventy-five yards from the crazy who was shooting. Think, Rye, you’re supposed to be prepared for this kinda stuff. All the survival preps, lots of training. You shoot expert in all the gun classes.

  What am I missing? Oh yeah, courage.

  It’s was time to hike up the pants again and take inventory of the stuff in my pockets. I wiggled down between some of the bigger piles of the building rubble and started riffling through my jacket and pants: Flashlight, cigarette lighter, twine, handcuffs, first aid kit, monocular, candy bar. Monocular. Let’s take a peaky with the miniature telescope.

  There she stood. Magnificent or scary, I guess it depended on your choice of world view. The buxom blond of rifle-wielding prowess kept her eye glued to the scope, letting her view slowly wash across the quad. She was crouched down behind the rail of the cafeteria upper level breezeway.

  Boy, was I lucky to not be lying out there with the rest of the corpses.

  I belly-crawled to a better vantage point ripping, my pants on the piles of bricks, and settled in for another look. Ms. Blondie was still hard at work looking for more groundhogs. Her rifle was pretty steady. I could admire the woman. Well, not this woman. Her cold streak was about twenty bodies long. Maybe the students were the evil ones? Okay, I’m stalling, time to make a decision. I focused my eyepiece on the blue security pole. All the lights were out, probably no power. I wasn’t going to report a darn thing unless I booked it back to the office.

  There was one positive side to all the rubble, it provided lots of cover. I kept low and started making my way closer to the cafeteria. Yeah I know, stupid.

  Dirt and freshly fallen autumn leaves ground into my skin and left me smelling like an old dog I use to play with as a child. A bike rack and lovely field stone wall presented themselves as my best options. Close enough to see, but not so close someone could run out of the building and take me by surprise.

  Not likely. My inner me was so alert not even an invisible gnat could have gotten by my super senses.

  I wasn’t alone. A college girl was cowering and trying to disappear into the ground between some bikes. She lay perfectly still with only her eyes tracking me as I wiggled close to the wall. We shared a brief glance so I threw her what I thought was a macho wink. She didn’t look impressed, scared actually. Big white saucers glowed from where dark eyes should have been. I filed the failure away. Timing’s everything. Don’t flirt with girls in the middle of a mass shooting.

  “What happened?” I asked Bike-girl with more force to my words.

  She just stared, not moving, except for the eyes.

  “It’s okay. I’m with security.” I flipped my jacket open and showed her the pretty silver shield pined to my chest. “Security Specialists, Rye Ironstone.”

  Still nada, she was quiet like prey should be.

  What happened kept rolling around in my mind. Was it an earthquake? Why all the dead people, and the crazed Norse woman with a rifle? Oh boy, something was off and for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out.

  “Hey, what happened?” I tilted my head toward the coed and softened my approach.

  I saw her twitch a little.

  “I’m with security. What happened?” I repeated.

  Her gaze settled on me. “I, I don’t know.”

  My training kicked in. Security training 101. Things like how to ask questions and get answers from people who have been involved in a crisis. “Okay, you don’t know nothin’. I get it. Did you get here this morning or last night?”

  I swear I saw her mind turn a little and the vacant expression started to fade.

  “When did you get here?” I asked again.

  Her saucer like eyes lost a little of their alabaster. “This morning, as the sun was coming up.”

  “Were all the dead people already here?”

  “No.” Her eyes grew larger as if the shock of the previous day replayed its gruesome trick.

  I screwed up. I mentioned the bodies.

  I shuffled a few more questions through my mind and decided on one I thought would be pretty safe. “Why did the buildings fall down?”

  It seemed the banshee from the basement followed me so it could terrorize this poor girl. She about went into convulsions. Her fingers gripped and released the frame of one of the bikes and I saw her shoe tips dig into the soil. “The bombs.”

  “What? What bombs?”

  She twisted some more, and drops of perspiration began to form on her brow. “Somebody dropped bombs on us.”

  “No way?”

  Her mouth opened and words started for form. Then she screamed, cried, and made a sobbing noise.

  Huff, huff, sob, sob, it was unnerving. And I believed her. Some straight faced military commander could have stood in front of me and repeated the same news and I would have doubts as wide as a river, but this terrified girl did it with one simple answer. Crap, I thought. Bombs.

  The shapely sharp shooter was still kee
ping her perch behind the upper railing playing whack-a-mole.

  Crying girl tapered off to a sniffle a minute or two later. I eased past her and tried to plot a way out of the shooting gallery. Luck was with me. The hedge continued for another twenty or so yards till it ran into the rubble from some statue.

  “Hey, crawl this way and keep going till the hedge ends. Then you can run. Head for the security office,” I said and pointed out the direction.

  She moved fast. Like a crab chasing bait.

  I took the coward’s way and decided to follow the shrubs over to the office. Besides, the training manuals said to report as soon as possible if an active shooter was on campus. Blondie qualified, and I was going to report her, after I took a couple of pictures.

  I pulled the Kodak 110 from my pocket, raised my arm, and snapped a few frames at the library cafeteria.

  Bike girl was long gone by the time I got to the statue. I didn’t see any more bodies either. It appeared whatever was happening was focused on one side of the building. Good. I picked up speed and started to hustle across campus.

  After a couple of minutes I reached the main road. I remember when it happened, the moment I became a new man. Yep you always remember your first time. It was Ms. Blondie riding in the back of a flatbed truck. Her long golden hair was blowing behind her as she sat on top of a collection of cardboard boxes. The beautiful sight with sinister undercurrents beguiled my concentration.

  It was all in slow motion. She saw me about the same time I saw her.

  Old Betsy started vibrating in her holster.

  Her beautiful pale hands caressed her rifle. The massive scope and slim black barrel reminded me of two mismatched eyeballs telling my fortune. I was dead, I knew it. Shot by a Norse Goddess and nothing to show for it but a dumb smile on my face.

  I slipped Betsy into my hand, and focused on the front sight.

  Bang! The concussion of the cartridge echoed through the trees and I ate a face full of sizzling powder.