The Hunters acknowledged the statement with silent nods. They tightened their grips around their suppressed rifles.
Dom slowly rotated the door handle and then peered out. An olive-hued jeep was parked nearby with the letters MP emblazoned on its door panels. A charred Honda sat in the middle of the road. An SUV’s front tires were planted on a smaller car’s hood as if the SUV driver had realized the vehicle wasn’t a monster truck halfway through the car-crushing maneuver.
Ignoring the vehicular carnage for the moment, Dom scanned the storefronts lining the street. The front windows of the bookstore had been blasted out, and shredded pages fluttered in the wind. Shops had been burned or looted, and a few of the buildings had been completely destroyed. Then he saw what he was looking for: Quantico Dive Shop. The wide front window was cracked from a few stray bullet holes. Dom could make out the shape of a mannequin in full SCUBA gear behind the fractured glass.
He hoped they’d be able to find what they needed inside the shop—but first the Hunters had to contend with the dozens of Skulls milling about the street. Many wore the remains of torn fatigues. Like the Skull Dom had fought at the docks, these creatures were heavily muscled and armored with thick, bony plates. None of these beasts would go down easily. Worse than that, the hunting cry of just one of these Skulls would attract the swarms Dom had no doubt were wandering about the Quantico military base.
Slowly, he closed the door. The others looked at him expectantly.
“What are we going to do, Chief?” Miguel asked.
Dom thought for a moment. Fighting the Skulls in an all-out brawl wasn’t smart. Trying to sneak down the street likely wouldn’t work either. Then he thought back to the first Skull he’d brought down on the dock, the one that had been so entranced by the seagulls. He reached into one of his tac vest pockets and felt around for an emergency pack of rations.
“This might sound insane, but I think I’ve got an idea.”
-26-
Kara squeezed the rifle’s trigger. A Skull went down. Two more careened toward them. Kara focused on each Skull, one at a time, as they came down the corridor, screeching and howling in a furious rage. Her vision tunneled on the beasts. Meredith stood beside her, firing rhythmically. She could vaguely hear Maggie barking. Sadie was working with the Hunters to barricade the window they’d broken into.
Meredith had to stop to reload, and Andris joined them. His rifle chattered to life. Rounds lanced into the nearest Skull’s shoulder. But it wasn’t dead; it galloped at them on all fours like an animal. Kara caught the monster’s head in her sights and pulled the trigger again and again. Her ears rang with the enclosed gunfire, and spent cases bounced off the wall and pinged on the floor. The stock kicked against her shoulder. Her hands were shaking so badly that most of the rounds flew past the creature, but a few slammed into the thick, bony plates on its torso. Finally, a bullet cut through its nasal cavity. It toppled forward, falling over itself in a messy heap, and slid the rest of the way to Kara’s feet in its own blood.
As her hearing returned, she could make out the sounds of Skulls attacking the window the Hunters had bulwarked with desks, shelves, and chairs. They howled and clawed at the wood, and it wouldn’t be long before they broke through the makeshift barrier.
“No way that’s holding out,” Spencer said. “We need to go.”
“There,” Renee yelled, pointing down another corridor. “Skulls or not, we’ve got shit to pick up!”
Meredith took point, but when Kara tried to follow, Renee grabbed her shoulder. “You’re in the middle of the pack,” she said.
Spencer and Andris took rearguard as Maggie, Sadie, and Navid were ushered into the center of the formation.
“Damn it,” Spencer said, slamming the door to the office room shut. The additional barrier helped drown out the uproar of the hungry Skulls, but Kara could still hear them. “This was supposed to be an easy in and out.”
“Should we take them somewhere safe?” Meredith nodded to indicate Kara and the rest of the civilians. “I can keep watch over them elsewhere.”
“We’re already spread too thin as it is between Alpha and Bravo,” Renee said over her shoulder. “We’re safer together. No way I’m letting us get separated.”
Kara performed a tactical reload as she ran behind the others. As much as she wanted to prove to the Hunters that she was more than just deadweight, she preferred they didn’t run into more Skulls at the moment.
Renee led them through an intersection and along another corridor. They passed a myriad of doors but did not stop to check what lay behind them. Small, square windows in the doors allowed brief glimpses of the shelves, lab benches, desks, and chairs in various rooms, offices, and labs.
The hallway dead-ended at an enormous door. Unlike the other doors, the one before them looked like the entry to a bank vault. Renee didn’t have to issue any commands for Andris to step forward and set to work. Kara watched as he pressed plastic explosive in various spots around the door. Apparently they were no longer worried about making a quiet entrance. Speed was more important at this point.
Kara heard the telltale clicks of claws on tile and huffing breaths and growls of the Skulls scampering for food. The monsters wouldn’t know which path the Hunters had taken, but the explosion Andris was setting up would be a dead giveaway.
“Shelter! Now!” Andris shouted.
Spencer grabbed Maggie’s collar and shouldered through an office door. Kara and the others quickly joined them. They waited with bated breath until Andris appeared.
“Showtime,” he said. He depressed a detonator. An explosion tore through the hallway, kicking up broken tiles. Splinters whizzed through the air, and a dust cloud rolled past the office door. Overwhelming heat followed the screech of protesting metal.
They left the shelter of the office at a run. Howls and the click of Skull claws were growing louder. Kara watched the adjoining corridors as they ran. Her finger hovered near the trigger guard, and she reminded herself to wait for a clean shot at the first bony face to look in her direction. When the group reached the massive door, her heart climbed into her throat.
“It’s not open!” she said. The clamor of the encroaching Skulls was becoming deafening.
“Not to worry,” Andris said. He grunted and pushed on the door. Metal groaned, but it didn’t budge.
“Shit, man!” Spencer yelled, putting his shoulder into it as well, fighting against the evident pain of his injuries. Once Renee and Meredith joined in, the door slowly started to open.
The first Skull galloped down the hallway. It wore a civil service uniform. The clothes had once been white but were now stained with the dried blood of its prey. Kara fired on the beast as soon as it opened its fanged maw. Navid let loose with a pistol he’d been given. His shots were wilder than Kara’s, but he gallantly stood beside her, protecting Sadie and Maggie.
Kara’s gun kicked with each shot, and the blasts sent tremors through her arms. She trained the iron sights on one monster after another, but it didn’t seem to matter. The two amateur soldiers were no match for the rapid flow of the oncoming Skulls.
“We need help!” Kara barked, maintaining her aim. She fired again and again.
Meredith and Glenn soon stepped side by side with them and sent a devastating salvo of gunfire into the pack of Skulls. Bullets riddled the monsters’ ranks. The bodies piled up, but more Skulls trampled their fallen brethren.
“Door’s open!” Renee bellowed.
“Go, go, go!” Glenn said. He and Meredith covered Kara’s retreat. Spencer and Andris helped them through the door.
Bones crunched under the weight of the hungry Skulls rushing toward them. Meredith and Glenn fired a final volley into the monsters. The carnage of the most recent charge clogged the hallway, but even as Meredith and Glenn ran through the door, Skulls squirmed through the wall of corpses after them.
“Everyone, help now!” Andris said. The entire group pressed themselves against the back of the d
oor. Kara’s quads burned, and her boots slipped. The Hunters grunted, and Maggie barked wildly. Kara mustered all the strength she could. Sadie was sweating profusely beside her, throwing her back into it despite her small frame, and Navid let out a yell full of frustration and anger.
The door clanged shut with a satisfying ring. The muffled cries of the Skulls outside and their desperate scratching reminded Kara they weren’t yet safe, though. If the Hunters had been able to shove open the door, eventually the sheer, unorganized weight and strength of the Skulls might reopen it.
“This is it,” Renee said as she stared into the cavernous room that lay before them. Crates and cases filled various shelves. Massive steel girders and beams lined the space as if they’d been swallowed by a steel leviathan.
“The armory,” Spencer said, answering the question Kara hadn’t yet asked.
“The experimental armory, to be accurate,” Renee said. “Everyone knows what to get, right?”
The Hunters nodded, but Kara stepped forward. “What do you want us to do?”
Renee eyed the door nervously. “Find some cover and watch the door, okay? Yell if you need us. Shouldn’t take long.”
“You got it,” Kara said. She led Navid, Sadie, and Maggie to a steel crate. It was situated far enough away for Kara to feel a little safer while still giving a direct line of sight to the entrance. She heard the bangs and resonating thuds of the Skulls throwing themselves at the door. It seemed as though the door might actually hold out while the Hunters gathered the necessary supplies. But that left Kara with a frightening question. There was only one entrance and exit to the vault-like armory. With the Skulls desperate to get in, how the hell were they supposed to get out?
-27-
Lauren followed Smith and the soldiers out of the lab and into the medical bay. She tried to maintain a bewildered expression, but inside she was frantic with worry. Had he already discovered her secret communications with Dom? Her mind raced through possibilities. She wondered if she’d screwed up the instructions Samantha had given her. That seemed the most likely explanation.
“What can I help you with?” she asked as innocently as possible.
One of them with a scar across his cheek gestured to the isolation ward where Scott and Ivan were lying in medically induced comas. Terrence was seated in another bed with fresh bandages covering his burns. “We heard those men were recovering from neurological trauma. Is that true?”
“Y-yes,” she stammered, now legitimately confused.
“And you’re keeping them in comas until the swelling goes down?” the scarred soldier said.
“Exactly,” Lauren said.
Smith narrowed his eyes and pointed toward a computer terminal. “Interesting. Because that’s not what’s on the medical charts.”
Lauren gulped. Of course. While she’d been focused on establishing comms with Dom, she’d neglected to see Smith and the guards do a fair bit of snooping on their own. The terminal in the bay allowed the whole team access to the patients’ charts. They’d never had a reason to protect those charts from prying eyes.
“I’m not sure what you thought you read, but—”
“Don’t lie,” Smith said. “The men in there were infected with the Oni Agent.”
Lauren fumed. “What’s your point?”
“Does your team have a cure for the brain damage the agent causes?”
“No, but if we can catch it in time, we can prevent the prions from—”
“Does your team have a cure for the damage?” Smith said, his voice rising. “I just need a simple yes or no.”
Lauren balled her hands into fists and said through gritted teeth, “No, not yet.”
“So these men are more or less Skulls, and you’re wasting resources to keep them alive.”
“While also risking the lives of everyone else on this ship if these monsters get out,” Scar added.
“They’re not monsters,” she said. “Their names are Ivan and Scott. And we’re working on—”
Scar raised his rifle to her chest. She shut her mouth with a snap, and they pushed her aside and stepped toward the isolation ward. Terrence asked them something, and then he stood up. Smith yelled at the Hunter, and they started arguing. Lauren tried to open the hatch, but another soldier—Tucker—kept it closed from the inside. Scar lashed out with his rifle and knocked Terrence back. He tore the tubes administering medicine and sedatives to Ivan and Scott.
“Just like the movies, right?” Scar asked his comrade as he unwrapped the packaging around a syringe and discarded a paper slip with instructions. He slammed the shot of adrenaline into Ivan.
The man jolted awake and looked around, confused. He thrashed in his bed, knocking off the sheets and revealing the restraints around his limbs.
Scar eyed the straps then glared at Lauren. His rifle barrel never wavered from the man’s chest. Ivan’s furious bellowing was loud enough to be heard through the isolation ward’s acrylic partitions.
A single shot echoed out.
Anger fueled her. She threw her body weight into the hatch. It gave slightly, and Tucker, still trying to hold it, cursed. Pain ran up her shoulder. She backed up and then rammed it again. More pain. But she didn’t care. Once more she hit the hatch. Tucker lost his footing. He slipped, and Lauren charged in. Smith aimed at Scott. Terrence lunged and wrestled him to the deck. The rifle went off, but the round sank into the bulkhead, missing Scott.
“Stop!” Lauren yelled over the incessant drone of Ivan’s flatlining EKG. “Stop!”
She grabbed the hot barrel of the rifle and pushed it away. Terrence struggled to subdue the soldier.
A loud blast echoed in the cramped quarters.
Scar, Lauren realized as she felt warm blood spray over her neck. Another blast. Everything seemed to go in slow motion. Something hit the back of her head. Her vision swam in reds and flashes of white. She pictured Glenn, his smile, his touch, his warmth. She imagined his embrace, and a momentary wave of comfort washed through her. She crashed to the floor as her world went dark.
***
Dom crumbled an energy bar into bits and held them in his palm.
“Can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Jenna said.
“Don’t have much to lose if it doesn’t work.”
“And if it does, I owe you a drink,” Miguel said.
Dom motioned for silence, and they settled into a hiding spot behind a dumpster. Down the street, the Skulls still prowled in front of the SCUBA shop. He tossed a handful of crumbs onto the sidewalk. Two gulls were circling overhead. One landed to check out the new source of food, and its companion quickly followed. Miguel and Glenn threw another handful each. A few more gulls flapped and squawked near the first two.
More gulls dove to the spot where they’d thrown the crumbs. The birds squawked and cawed loudly. They jostled each other for the morsels of energy bar. Their raucous cries were like music to Dom’s ears.
With a nod, Dom gestured for the Hunters to return to the boathouse. Dom leapt over a Skull they’d taken out on the way down.
One by one, the Skulls on the street turned and stared at the birds. One broke into a sprint. The others followed. Their bone plates rattled, but they didn’t let out their usual hunting cries. The first Skull pounced as the others drew near. It clenched its teeth around a bird. The flock took off but didn’t go far.
“Go!” Dom said. They ran across the now-empty street and tore into the dive shop.
The first Skull munched on a mouthful of white feathers, meat, and bone. The others stared sullenly at the birds, their eyes transfixed on the sky. As Dom had suspected, they’d learned that howling before pouncing meant their prey would escape. The Skull that had managed to snag a gull had only succeeded because it had adapted stealthier methods of attack.
They were definitely learning.
“Stay on your toes,” he said, probing the dark dive shop. He played his barrel between the shelves of equipment. “If they’re attacking birds li
ke that, they might try the same tactic on us.”
They crept between the empty tanks, hanging wetsuits, and displays full of BCDs, regulators, and gauges. Fliers hung from bulletin boards advertising the next round of classes or week-long dive trips that would never happen. Dom instructed them to clear the shop before searching for salvage. He gestured to Miguel, and the Hunter moved behind the checkout counter in the rear of the store. Jenna covered his movements.
Miguel cursed suddenly, hopping back. He sliced out with his blade as Dom joined Jenna to investigate. A creature was crawling across the floor. Its lower limbs were gone except for the femur of its left leg. Near it lay a harpoon gun and another Skull. This one was dead. A harpoon was firmly embedded in its neck. A dried pool of blood surrounded the two monsters. Dom imagined the struggle that had taken place. The Skull with the harpoon through it had attacked the other, even gnawed off the other person’s legs. And in a desperate race for survival, that person had defended themselves. But the damage had already been done, their fate sealed.
The half-Skull dragged itself onward until Miguel lashed out again. He impaled the creature this time. Its claw reached for the Hunter once more, trembled, and then fell.
“Clear,” Miguel said.
“Grab a dive bag,” Dom said. “And start putting together kits. We need fins, regulators, BCDs, tanks, everything.”
“We got a problem,” Glenn said. “All the display tanks are empty.”
“Right,” Dom said, rubbing his eyes. “Glenn, you’re with me. Let’s see if we can fix the tank situation. Miguel, Jenna, pack those bags.”
“On it, Chief,” Miguel said.
Dom led Glenn down a short hallway next to a single bathroom. Pressing his ear to the door, he listened for any signs of lingering Skulls. There was no scratching. No growling.
“Ready?”
Glenn nodded, and Dom opened the door. Only a sliver of weak light made it all the way from the main room. There were no windows. The hairs on the back of Dom’s neck rose. He flipped on a barrel-mounted flashlight. Slowly, he swept the room. He felt hopeful at the sight of all the available tanks. Some had their valves off; those would be awaiting inspection and would therefore be useless to him. Most had intact valves, and he hoped he’d find some still holding pressure.
The Tide: Deadrise Page 19
