by Matt Rogers
Then he leapt off the stairs and charged out through the ground floor entrance and onto the main road.
Straight away, a lone slayer came sprinting out from an alleyway on his side of the street, hissing and roaring. The injured slayer he incapacitated straightened up, spurred on by its comrade. Jake didn’t have time to unbuckle his Snowdog.
Offence is the best defence. Link had taught him that.
The slayer from the alleyway was running in from the left, while the other was only a few steps in front. He charged at the one in front and punched it square in the face, before it knew what was coming. It slashed at him. The move was slower than he had come to expect. Its three-storey fall had done serious damage to its reflexes. He parried the claws away. Seized it by the shirt. Slammed it back into the car it had fallen on. As he threw it back, taking off the open passenger door with a crash, it slumped over. It was now semi-conscious, and out of the picture.
The healthy slayer pounced as he turned to face it. He dropped low, pressing his stomach to the footpath. It passed far over his head, carried by a frenzy of momentum, and landed on the bonnet of the car. It spun round.
It met all four barrels of his Snowdog.
Jake had drawn the weapon lightning fast. He pulled the trigger once. The slayer was dead before it hit the ground.
The coast seemed clear. Both slayers were down and Zoe was just across the street. But then what? He had no means of escape. His eyes danced over the shopfronts, in search of inspiration. Suddenly, with a pulse-quickening rush of ecstasy, he found exactly what he was looking for.
A couple of hundred metres down, on the opposite side of the street, was a huge sign that read ‘MOTORCYCLE BONANZA – SECOND HAND MADNESS!’ in English, and then in Peruvian above. It lay above a rundown store with large floor-to-ceiling windows. Inside, Jake eyed rows of motorbikes. It didn’t matter what condition they were in. They would get him to where he needed to go.
Now he had an escape plan.
The only experience he had was riding at his uncle’s farm. Rich Hawkins had been a motocross champion in his twenties. He had taught Jake to ride. But that had been four years ago.
Perhaps he could remember a trick or two.
He could sense Zoe watching him from the end of the alleyway ahead, crouched low behind a stack of boxes. He held up a single flat palm, signalling to wait, and took off towards the shop. As he ran, weaving in and out of abandoned cars, he drew the satellite phone from his pocket and dialled Wolfe’s number.
He answered straight away.
“How’d the jump go?” was the first thing Wolfe said. “You okay?”
“So far.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I need you to pick me up in five minutes.”
“Where are you?”
“I have no idea.”
Jake vaulted up onto the bonnet of a minivan and peered down the road. There was a never-ending sprawl of empty vehicles running as far as the eye could see. At the very end of the road, nothing more than a speck, was what looked to be a skyscraper under construction. The framework was in place. It towered above its surroundings – a significant landmark. He described it to Wolfe.
“We’re close to that,” Wolfe said. “We’ll land at its base. Be there in five.”
There was a click as he hung up.
Jake slotted the phone back into his leg holster. He jumped down off the minivan and ran to the entrance of the store. As expected, it was bolted firmly shut. From the inside. He pounded twice on the wood.
“Police!” he yelled. “We can help you!”
He immediately regretted the decision. His voice echoed down the empty street, bouncing off the walls and cars. It cut through the stillness like a knife.
The door swung open before him. At the same time, three or four slayers came stalking out of the shadows, searching for the source of the commotion. One spotted him. It let out a bellowing roar, twice as loud as his initial call. The noise was answered with dozens of shrieks from neighbouring roads. Some faint, some close.
Jake swore. Every slayer in Iquitos was coming for him.
He needed a distraction, for at least a minute. There were a pair of grenades slotted into the back of his equipment belt. One a fragmentation grenade, and the other smoke. He reached back and withdrew the smoke grenade. Already, he could see pale figures in the distance, bounding over cars, heading straight for him. There were more than ten already.
He pulled the pin from the grenade and rolled it along the footpath. Thick grey smoke billowed from the canister in clouds. In seconds, the whole store was shrouded in a veil of cover. Satisfied, Jake turned and bundled into the store. He brushed straight past a small bewildered man with a moustache who had answered his knocking.
The man closed the door. He was staring at Jake, eyes wide, afraid to speak.
“Do you speak English?” Jake said slowly, accentuating each word.
The man held his fingers a centimetre apart. “I speak little bit. Can you help?”
“There’s been an attack,” Jake said. “You need to trust me. I need your fastest bike.”
“You want fast motorcycle?” the man repeated.
“Yes, so I can get rid of the monsters.”
The man beamed. “You kill monster? Okay. Over here.”
He gestured to a neatly arranged row of two-wheelers in the middle of the dingy little showroom. These bikes were designed for off-road purposes. Thin frames and manoeuvrable joints.
“You need to steer around car,” the man said, and mimicked twisting the handlebars. “And you need fast bike. Very fast bike. These ones for you. You pick, you pick.”
Jake chose the one closest to him.
“This very good bike,” the man said with the confidence of an experienced salesman. “This one Suzuki RMX … 450 … Z.” He struggled with the long name. “Big fat tire. They have deep grooves. Light frame. Very good for, uh … agility.”
Jake didn’t care for specifications. “Helmet?”
“Of course,” the man said, and tossed him a thick motorcycle helmet from behind the counter.
Jake caught it one handed and slipped it over his head. It was like a cocoon. The plush interior muffled all sound.
“Do you have a back room?” he said.
The man nodded.
“Go in there. Lock the door. This room won’t be safe anymore.”
Jake slammed the tinted visor down over his eyes and swung one leg over the motorcycle. The kick starter was already hanging out. Jake shifted the bike into neutral and stomped down hard once, twice, three times. The engine roared to life and settled into a throaty chug.
In front lay the glass showroom window, and on the other side, a grey sheet of smoke. Visibility was nil, but he knew there were slayers waiting out there.
Jake gunned the engine. The Suzuki took off across the shiny linoleum floor. It covered the distance to the window in less than two seconds, and he accelerated even faster. The front tire shot up off the ground and ploughed through the window at fifty kilometres an hour. The entire sheet shattered to pieces. Fragments rained down over his torso as he jumped the bike down to the footpath.
He couldn’t see a thing. The smoke obscured all vision. He had to aim to where he thought was the right direction and pray for the best.
The slayers came for him, attracted to the noise. One came flying out of nowhere. Its pounce had been unprepared, off the mark. It missed him, but shouldered the back tire hard enough to throw the whole bike off-balance. He felt himself slipping. He stamped his foot down viciously to the road below in order to regain control. Then he jumped back into the foot slots. Twisted the right handlebar all the way back.
The Suzuki tore away, leaving the lone slayer long behind. It zoomed out from the smokescreen, and instantly Jake regained his sight.
There were slayers everywhere.
They had been waiting. There were dozens. His gut seized up, accompanied by the pounding noise of his heartbeat in
his ears.
There was a gap across the footpath. Jake refused to listen to rational thought and accelerated straight through the pack. There was a moment of unfathomable terror as they surrounded him, then the horde was behind him before they had realised what was happening.
He skidded the Suzuki to a stop in front of the alleyway.
“Move!” he roared.
Zoe didn’t waste a second. She knew that her opportunity had been coming. She didn’t waste it.
Jake watched her dash out from behind the boxes and break into a sprint. He twisted in his seat, unholstering his Snowdog. Slayers were piling over the empty vehicles, visibly salivating. His landing area must have been in the dead centre of town. It seemed like he had drawn every slayer in the city out of hiding.
As Zoe ran, he switched the Snowdog to automatic fire and let loose.
The result was incredible. The gun jerked and jolted in his hands, pouring out bullets at a dizzying rate. Hundreds of rounds tore up the front line of the horde. He worked the Snowdog left and right, cutting a swathe through their ranks. At least twenty slayers fell before Zoe reached the Suzuki. Then there was a dry click, after only a few seconds. It was out of ammunition. He should have realised that automatic fire was unsustainable.
And still they surged toward him.
There were hundreds.
Zoe reached the end of the alleyway and swung her leg over the back of the bike. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed tight to him.
“Jake!” she said. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Sorry, Zoe, but I don’t have time to talk right now.”
Jake jumped the bike down onto the road, veering in between abandoned vehicles. There was an empty stretch of road ahead. It was at least half a kilometre long. As he reached it, he gave the Suzuki everything it had. Its front wheel shot up once again from the acceleration. His stomach dropped. The wheel thumped back down onto the asphalt and the bike took off like a rocket.
There were slayers cascading from the rooftops. They crashed in droves onto either side of the road, drawn to the racket of the Suzuki’s engine. The bike was powering along at full throttle. Jake tried to ignore them.
He couldn’t help himself. He turned his head and glanced at a slayer clambering over the top of an empty bus, heading straight for him. That was all it took.
“Jake!” Zoe screamed.
There was a jarring impact, and the screeching of metal on metal. Jake flew off his seat. The rear frame of the bike, just underneath Zoe, had clipped the bumper of a sedan. The Suzuki lost traction and went sprawling sideways. He fell, almost in slow motion, and smashed into the road. Momentum carried him forward. He tumble-rolled head over heels, his vision a blur of colour, before finally skidding to a halt on his back.
The fall had torn his shirt to pieces. Deep gashes sprouted up all over his body, grazed out by the surface of the road. It stung like hell, but he pushed the pain as far to the back of his mind as he could and staggered to his feet. The world was distant. His helmet muffled all sound. Inside it, sweat was building up. In a sudden burst of anger, he wrenched it off and threw it away.
Zoe was okay. She had rolled over the bonnet of a car, which had in a way cushioned her fall. She was down on all fours, clearly shaken up but otherwise unhurt.
The Suzuki was okay too. It was an off-road bike, built to withstand knocks and bumps. It had skidded on its side for a stretch, but the engine was still purring throatily.
And there were four slayers close enough to attack.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Jake stood in the middle of the empty strip of road. Cars lay on either side of him. Zoe was behind one, out of harm’s way. The four slayers were separated into pairs. Two on the left, two on the right.
They all pounced in unison.
Moving faster than he ever had before, Jake wheeled round and shot one in the head with his now-drawn pistol. Then he ducked low, fell onto his back and rolled out of the way.
The timing was impeccable. The slayer on the left clashed into the other two in a tangle of claws and limbs. All three of them crashed to the ground, scattering in front of him. The one on the left had taken a hard fall. It was slow to rise. The other two scuttled to their feet. Jake shot them both through the skull before they had a chance to move. They died in twin bursts of brain matter.
His attention had wavered from the last remaining slayer. It pounced hastily. It took his brain half a second to register the sight, and he threw his bodyweight toward it. Its claws were not outstretched, which meant the collision would be body-to-body contact. He was fine with that.
As it came down, Jake shouldered it back in the other direction. His jaw loosened from the impact and he felt his teeth clash together violently, but the slayer sprawled back across the ground. With his other hand, he raised the pistol and finished it off.
The fight had lasted five seconds.
There was now a window of opportunity. The main horde was not within range to attack yet. His brief stint of acceleration on the bike had put enough distance between them, and he had just picked off the stragglers, but they were closing fast. He had perhaps a few seconds to act.
Zoe was climbing to her feet. She had been watching Jake’s fight with unconstrained curiosity, clearly horrified at how he had dispatched the four slayers. He could see it in her eyes. She was in shock. But there would be time to recover later.
Jake dashed to the Suzuki and stood it upright. In one fluid movement, he gripped the handlebars and jumped up into the footrests. He felt the familiar warmth of Zoe as she leapt onto the perch behind him and once again wrapped an arm around his mid-section. As soon as he knew she was secure, he floored it.
“You okay?” he yelled.
“I guess…”
The road turned to a blur underneath the bike’s front tire. He kept his eyes transfixed ahead, determined not to make the same mistake twice. This time, it would result in certain death.
The empty road ended as abruptly as it had begun, and then it was back to manoeuvring between cars. Every second he wasted turning gave the slayers time to catch up. He could hear their snarls, the tremors in the earth as they stampeded across the road behind. The noise induced an ominous panic in his chest.
Despite the racket, he felt the satellite phone buzzing against his leg. There was another stretch of open road dead ahead. He kept the Suzuki on a straight path with one hand, and with the other bent down and retrieved the phone. He answered.
“Jake,” Wolfe said.
“Who else would it be, dumbass?”
“We can’t land! There’s equipment everywhere.”
He panicked. “What do I do?”
“How far away are you?”
“However far away the massive pack of slayers is, Wolfe.”
There was a pause. “That’s you on the bike?!”
“Yes, that’s me on the bike. Now help me out here!”
Up ahead, the construction site loomed. The framework of the half-finished skyscraper was enormous. It dwarfed the adjacent buildings. The road ended in a T-junction, with the site dead ahead. Jake saw what Wolfe meant by there being an absence of landing space; the road was crammed full of empty cars, buses and rickshaws. The open working space in front of the construction site was also jam-packed with concrete mixer trucks and building supplies. They were sprawled everywhere, with no-one in sight. Abandoned after the slayer invasion.
The CH-53E Super Stallion hovered above the empty space, just in front of the skyscraper. It was a giant. There was not enough room anywhere for it to land. The rear ramp was still hanging open, tantalisingly close. Jake found himself wishing for a smaller helicopter.
“Stay where you are,” he yelled. “I’ll come up with something!”
“Whatever you do, kid, don’t slow down! There’s at least a hundred of them.”
Jake couldn't resist. He flicked a momentary glance behind. The size of the horde had more than doubled since the l
ast time he had checked. The slayers had merged together, like insects. A living, seething mass of white. If he crashed again, he and Zoe would both get torn to pieces.
Wolfe, Thorn and Felix came into focus, standing on the lip of the chopper’s ramp. They were watching intently, awaiting his call.
The Suzuki sped into the construction site. It mounted the kerb and leapt up onto the grass, but did not slow. It was built for the dirt. Jake weaved the bike in between two concrete mixers. Dirt kicked up from the rear tire, striking him in the back of the head. Zoe was digging her fingernails tight into his stomach, holding on for dear life. The chopper grew closer.
Just like that, the answer presented itself.
It was sitting right there in front of him.
It would be dangerous. But anything was preferable to being eaten alive by a horde of slayers.
“Wolfe!” Jake yelled into the phone. “Bring the chopper in front of that forklift.”
He threw the phone away. There was no need for it anymore. If he mucked this up, they would both be dead anyway.
There was a forklift lying dead ahead, elevated to its fullest height. Lying diagonally against it was a wooden support, easily twenty metres long. The huge beam must have fallen in the mass panic hours earlier. It was resting against the top of the forklift, raised up at one end, and resting in the dirt at Jake’s end.
The Super Stallion swung laterally through the sky. The rear ramp now hovered right near the end of the beam.
He kept his hand on the accelerator.
“What are you doing?!” Zoe cried.
He couldn’t answer her, couldn’t even comprehend his own actions. It was all or nothing. He braced himself, adjusted his aim a little, then floored the Suzuki up the beam. The front tire mounted with a shudder. There was a centimetre of space to spare on each side. The deep grooves only just found purchase on the wood. Jake stayed perfectly balanced, and Zoe must have been doing the same, for the bike tore up the support beam, engine screaming.
It reached the top.
Jake pulled the accelerator back as far as it would go.
