A man in a white lab-coat started to step out carrying a box full of supplies.
Dohi didn’t hesitate.
He charged the man, shoving him back inside the walk-in cooler, knocking the box from his hands. Plastic vials spilled across the floor.
The door closed shut, sealing them inside.
Before the guy could scream, Dohi punched him in the neck. He crumpled into a shelf, knocking off plastic bottles that broke open on the floor.
Dohi holstered his pistol and pulled out his knife, bringing it to the man’s throat.
In the dim light of the walk-in cooler, he saw this was no man.
Golden reptilian eyes glistened at him. A flat nose with slitted nostrils sniffled. Scars ran down the length of his face and an underbite of sharp teeth protruded out of his sucker lips.
Dohi pushed his knife against the mutant’s throat. Trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The beast wasn’t dressed like a soldier. He wore a lab coat.
“Where are the prisoners?” Dohi asked. He pressed the blade deeper until a dribble of blood trickled out.
“Prisoners?” the mutated scientist seemed confused. Then he took a long sniff, his lips peeling into a snarl.
“I’m only asking you one more time,” Dohi said.
“You’re a dead man.”
Dohi rotated the scientist and slammed him against the back wall. This time the creature resisted and turned, snarling.
He had no choice but to punch the creature in the face. That did the trick, dropping the hybrid to the ground. Dohi got down, pushing a knee on the scientist’s chest to keep him down. Then he pressed his knife against the creature’s throat again.
“Try anything else and I’ll fillet you,” Dohi said.
The creature went limp under his knee, reptilian eyes locked with his. There wasn’t the raw anger he had noticed before—there was something else.
“Where are the prisoners?” Dohi entreated.
“They’re…they’re…upstairs. The vivisection labs.”
“Vivisection?” Dohi asked.
The scientist managed a nod, blood dripping away from the knife. “The place…where they do the experiments…on us…”
Dohi recognized what he saw in those yellow eyes now.
Not anger.
Fear.
Dohi sensed there was no more information he could gain from this man. Interrogation like this only worked if the subject thought there was some hope for them, some chance they might make it out alive.
But now the Chimera seemed resigned to his fate. He knew death was coming. Dying at Dohi’s hands was probably better than at the hands of the wicked people that had made him into a monster.
Dohi thought about what he could do.
He was sick of killing. Sick of hunting. And sick of hiding.
Maybe there was another option.
Dohi knocked the creature out, then tied him up with supplies he had found inside the cooler. After taping the scientist’s mouth shut, he patted him down, withdrawing another keycard and ID badge.
It wouldn’t be long before his handiwork was discovered, and Dohi hurried back to the lab. The Chimeras that had been talking outside were gone.
He snuck back to the stairwell and took it up a flight of webbing-covered stairs. Idle voices and footsteps echoed in the distance, but they seemed to be coming from below, not above.
The next floor stretched out into long corridors. Old signs peeked out from behind the tendrils of red. One read, Executive Offices. The second read, Product Testing Facilities.
He followed the second sign all the way to a pair of large steel doors secured by a keycard slot. Unlike the other laboratories, this one didn’t have glass windows leading into them.
From what Dohi knew about buildings like this, that usually meant the company didn’t want the average person to see what was going on inside.
In the days of medical therapeutics testing, this was where they would hide the animal testing labs.
The low growl of voices forced him to shrink into a doorway. Two soldiers on patrol walked down the corridor. He had to figure out a way past them and into those labs—and do it quickly before the monsters saw or smelled him.
He tried to formulate a plan as he hid, but when he heard an all-too human scream of agony, he clamped up.
The scream came again, and Dohi recognized the voice.
It was Ace, but it wasn’t his normal scream of fear—it sounded like he was being torn apart.
— 24 —
Beckham was almost halfway to Mount Katahdin when the primary pilot of their chopper broke the news.
Lower Manhattan had fallen.
“Did anyone escape?” Rico asked.
“There was an evacuation,” replied the pilot. “But they said it happened too fast to save everyone.”
Beckham listened to the story of how the collaborators had ambushed the defenses at Battery Park before Variants flooded the outpost. His gut clenched at the thought of Fischer and his team being overwhelmed by the enemy forces.
“They must have found out the president and science team were there,” Horn said.
Beckham agreed, but he was surprised the collaborators had used ground forces instead of the nuke.
Then again, why waste a nuke when your army is so powerful?
If the collaborators were saving that nuke, that meant his family was still in danger and so was the president, no matter where they decided to go.
Leaving them back at command had been one of the hardest things Beckham had done. He had hugged Kate for over a minute, praying this wasn’t the last time. He did the same thing with Javier.
Then Beckham had said the rest of his goodbyes and boarded the Black Hawk with a new primary pilot. Liam joined them as the secondary. Four Marines were also assigned to the mission. They sat in the seats next to Beckham, along with Rico and Horn.
In the past, Beckham had known his team well, but the four newcomers were men he had just met.
They at least looked rested, which was more than Beckham, Rico, and Horn could say. The operators had been on the move for the past two days, only grabbing brief reprieves here and there.
Beckham was used to fighting exhausted, but this was different. He was almost a decade older and his body was battered. He couldn’t see well out of his right eye, and the new prosthetic leg they had grabbed at the bunker wasn’t properly fitted.
All it takes is all you got, he thought.
“It’s on us now,” Beckham said. “We can’t fail.”
They went over the plan. Two more teams would carry out their own strikes on Katahdin to ensure better odds of success. Each team was a failsafe in case any of the others were killed or captured.
The only intel they had on the site was an old Cold War map that General Souza had scrounged up from classified archives.
Beckham held it up and searched for insertion points. There were multiple ways into the base, which meant they would have to split up.
“We’re passing Boston now,” Liam said.
Putting the map aside, Beckham turned to look out the window. A huge section of the city burned on the horizon.
Another outpost utterly wiped out.
Anger boiled inside of him as he watched the flames.
Nearly an hour later, when they flew past Portland that anger boiled over into unbridled fury. Remembering his former life, the peace they had for eight years—it was all too much.
The Variants and their human allies had returned like a cancer with an insatiable appetite, killing everything in their path.
“Ten minutes to LZ,” said Liam.
“The other two strike teams have landed,” said the primary pilot.
Rico bowed her head. She hadn’t said much for the past hour, but Beckham knew she was worrying about more than this raid. Fitz was still out west with Dohi and Ace. So far, no one had heard anything from them.
He looked at his watch.
Three in the morning.
He paused to sweep his gaze over the warriors in front of him.
“No mistakes, we keep it tight, and fast,” Beckham said.
“And we send these assholes to hell,” Horn added.
“Oorah!” said the Marine sergeant.
The other Marines finished checking their NVGs and gear, and began loading their weapons.
“Horn, you got point, Rico, rearguard,” Beckham said. “Radio silent from here on out, we’ll meet at the blast doors. Watch for traps and sensors.”
Horn pulled his skull bandana up over his mouth and tied it behind his head. Beckham snapped his NVGs down.
The bird lowered over the forest, whipping the branches of the pine trees.
“Looks good!” said the primary pilot.
Rico placed the braided rope onto the hook. One-by-one, the Marines and soldiers fast-roped to the bed of pine needles below.
Beckham was the last to go.
“Good luck!” Liam said.
Beckham nodded at his new friend, then slid out into the cold early morning.
The chopper pulled up and disappeared over the trees. They would put down and wait until the mission was complete.
The Marines spread out, heading east to ensure if one team was ambushed, another might have a chance, in addition to the other two teams that had landed in other locations.
Horn led the way and Beckham scanned the black and green hue of his night vision. He searched the pine trees and ferns growing along the base of the mountain that could hide snipers or other traps.
Horn moved fast, his SAW roving for targets. Beckham alternated between his NVGs and the thermal detection on his M4A1. Every time they paused, he flipped up his NVGs and scanned for heat signatures.
It might not pick up the beasts if they had thermally camouflaged themselves, but it would pick up any collaborators.
Horn started up a hill, keeping low. Beckham went next, and Rico followed close behind. At the crest, they moved out in combat intervals through a forest.
Beckham held up a hand, then stopped to scan their surroundings.
Sure enough, there was a heat signature in the rocks. Someone was lying prone on a ledge. He motioned to the outcropping. Rico and Horn took cover.
Beckham kept his scope up as he searched for a better vantage, making sure the sniper didn’t move. Finding a rock cluster of his own, he aimed at the suspected collaborator.
If he missed, the sniper would sound an alarm.
He was only going to get one chance.
Lining up the sights, he held his breath, and then squeezed the trigger.
The body of his target jerked, then went still.
Beckham sighed with relief.
Horn and Rico fell in line with him, and they worked their way up another hill. Halfway up, Beckham heard footsteps over the rustle of the wind through the trees. He searched for heat signatures, but saw nothing.
Maybe it was just in his mind.
As they advanced, loose rocks and mud made progress difficult, but the new blade, uncomfortable as it was, still performed better than the improvised junk prosthetic they had put together on the last mission.
He balled his hand when he saw movement ahead.
A look through his scope confirmed the heat signatures of two men patrolling a path.
Beckham, Horn, and Rico slipped off the side of the path and into the trees to flank the collaborators.
When he was in position, Horn burst onto the trail, tackling one of the men into the brush. Rico took her knife to the other man’s throat, sawing his neck open.
Beckham spotted a third soldier further down the trail and fired a suppressed burst into his chest. The team pulled the corpses off the path before continuing up the trail.
A few minutes later they came to a clearing where they spotted an AH-6 Little Bird helicopter. Beckham took cover behind the brush on a side of the clearing with a road leading right through a set of open blast doors.
This was their target.
He scoped out the area, but saw nothing.
Had the Marines already beat him here?
Cautiously, he started toward the blast doors with Rico and Horn flanking him.
When they reached the tunnel, they found spent shell casings littering the ground and the scent of cordite drifting through the wide corridor. But there was no sign of the Marines or any hostiles.
Maybe one of their other teams had reached this place first and engaged the collaborator guards.
Horn took the lead with his SAW down a passage wide enough for a truck. Overhead lights guided them to another smaller door that had been left open.
They cleared the tunnel and entered a narrow concrete corridor. An intersection gave them two options. Beckham paused to get his bearings. The missile silo would be further from the mountain where the ground was flatter.
He headed down the left passage that he thought would take them away from the mountain. They didn’t find any guards, which made Beckham uneasy.
If the Marines or one of other teams were inside, then the collaborators knew they were here. Their cover might already be blown.
A trail of blood supported that theory.
Beckham increased his pace. The concrete tunnels led to more doors. He didn’t bother trying to clear the rooms. They didn’t have time. With no signs pointing to a nuclear silo or any other leads, Horn simply followed the blood.
The trail continued around a corner until it stopped outside an open door to another chamber. Moonlight streamed through an open roof. Beckham could smell the forest and something else…
The stench of death.
Rifle up, he slowly entered. Another step and he stopped to flip up his NVGs. Cast in moonlight were bodies centered in the concrete chamber.
Not bodies…pieces of bodies.
The Marines, he realized. The men were nothing but shreds of ragged flesh and bones. He only recognized them because of their scattered weapons.
A growl sounded and Beckham turned to look for the monsters when a beast knocked him to the ground. Horn and Rico fired, blasting two men before a group of collaborators in black fatigues overwhelmed them from the shadows.
Beckham tried to push himself up, but his captor pressed down on his back. He twisted to try and grab the neck of the Variant.
But it wasn’t a monster. Not fully.
This creature was half Variant, half man.
The beast held a saw-toothed cutlass to Beckham’s neck and snarled. The scarred face was similar to the corpses he had seen in Denver, and just like the ones Team Ghost had reported on the West Coast.
Chimeras, Ghost had called them.
They weren’t alone.
Two actual men walked over, one with dreadlocks and the other with a thick beard.
The guy with dreads knelt in front of Beckham with a smile.
The monster with the cutlass applied pressure, drawing blood as the blade bit into Beckham’s neck.
“Holy shit,” the dreadlocked man said. “You’re Captain Reed Beckham, aren’t you? I wasn’t expecting to see you, but I should have known.”
Beckham looked for a way out. But there were four of the Chimeras. Rico and Horn were already pinned against a wall. A fifth beast writhed on the ground, groaning, but still alive. Only one of the creatures was dead from a bullet to the skull.
“Get him up,” said the man in front of Beckham.
Beckham was yanked up by his captor and joined his friends against the wall. For the first time since they had entered, he got a good look at his surroundings.
Other prisoners were trapped by Variant glue across the room, but most appeared to be dead. Only a few other soldiers fought against their organic restraints. They had to be the other teams Ringgold had sent.
“I’d like to introduce you to someone,” said the guy with dreads. He gestured to a shadowed corner where blood had poole
d out into the moonlight.
Out of the black strode an Alpha bigger than Horn. Blood dripped out of the corners of its elongated jaw.
The beast approached slowly. Black eyes flashed yellow as they roved from Beckham to Horn and then to Rico. The monster went to her first and licked his lips with a lizard-like tongue.
“Beautiful…” he said in a gravelly voice. Spittle and blood painted her face as he breathed in and out with deep gasps.
The abomination of nature leaned closer, its jaw widening. As the lips parted, the gums burst open like a blooming flower.
But this was no flower.
The fleshy petals were ridged in tiny sharp teeth. Hundreds of them.
Rico squirmed, trying to get away.
“Our general likes females the best,” said the man with dreads. “They taste better.”
Horn broke away from his captors, throwing one to the ground. He rushed the general. A Chimera slammed into him before he could get close. They hit the ground, rolling while Beckham and Rico shouted.
Horn managed to knock the beast out with an elbow to the head. As soon as he got up, a second Chimera tackled him. Then a third helped hold him down.
The Alpha remained next to Rico, licking its lips. Long webs of saliva stretched across the red petal-like gums.
Beckham fought against his restraints, his veins and eyes bulging as he tried to get free.
“HORN!” he screamed.
Rico shouted and squirmed too, trying to get away from those sharp, red petals.
But none of it mattered.
There weren’t any allies left to hear their screams.
Beckham hadn’t led his team to the nuclear silo; he had led them straight to a feeding chamber.
He watched in horror as the Alpha leaned in to feast on Rico. She twisted and tried to pull back, whimpering in agony.
The petals opened wider as it prepared to clamp down on her face.
But the beast suddenly tilted his head, ears perking. It looked toward the opening in the ceiling, sniffing the air through slitted nostrils.
All of the meaty flaps covered in teeth retracted. The Alpha snarled at Rico then directed its wild eyes at the collaborators.
Extinction Cycle Dark Age (Book 3): Extinction Ashes Page 29
