Haus watched a few that were crawling on their hands and knees trying to move away from the kill zone. One or two rose to their feet as they bounded to buildings on either side of the street hoping to find some cover without going too far inside. Haus pressed the button on the forearm switching back to rifle mode and zeroed in on those two first, shooting them in quick succession before lowering the weapon and targeting a third moving toward the street side that Haus was on. As was expected by an exploding .50 caliber round the bodies blew apart.
Haus did some quick arithmetic. Eight or nine dead in the bunker. Fifteen to twenty on the street below either dead or severely wounded. He’d wiped out over half of the Day Breakers, maybe two-thirds. Haus figured the rest would be with Graybeard trying to get to the gold or to protect it from the INFIL-rats.
The radio crackled with a static tone, meaning the transmitter was some distance away. “Time to move.”
Fifteen seconds later, Haus rocketed away as fast as he dared. The tires of his pickup truck squealed away from his perch and all the way down the structure. At the street level, he yanked the steering wheel to the left and accelerated out of the parking garage and toward the burning wreckage thirty meters down the street. Spotting a man crawling along the pavement he pushed hard on the brakes. The pickup truck slammed to a stop right in front of the wounded Day Breaker.
Haus stepped from the truck, his weapon trained out in front. Moans and calls for help arose from an area of thick black smoke on the other side of the burning rigs to his right. Haus paid them no attention. He cautiously scanned the dead or dying lying about, watching to see if anyone was trying to raise a weapon as he stepped to the front of his vehicle.
Satisfied that it was safe to do so, he crouched down to the man resting there. Second and third-degree burns covered his hands and part of his face. Red blood ran down over the burnt skin. He was shaking and clearly in shock and not the least, pain.
“Hey, INFIL-man,” he started as respectfully as he could with a weak voice. “Don’t leave me here for the DEVO’s.”
Haus lifted his face mask.
The man did a double-take. “Graybeard said you was dead.”
Haus ignored the statement. “Looks like the DEVO’s will be eating well tonight mate. Few hours they will be all rushing to this bar-bee.” Haus looked around, still scanning for threats then continued.
“Course, you tell me where Graybeard is, and I can see to it that you are at least dead when they start ripping the flesh from your body. You know what happens to you when they are finished. That’s a death and a rebirth only the INFIL-scum should experience.”
“Please. I was just following orders.”
“Looks like that injury is not life threatening; too bad you can’t walk.” Haus nodded to a gaping hole in the man’s leg; a shagged piece of metal protruding from it before standing back up and moving to a shotgun that the man had been crawling to on the ground. Haus picked it up and threw it in the back of his pickup truck then returned to the man.
He crouched back down and stared at the wounded rival Outfitter.
“Tell me where Graybeard is and maybe I’ll feel a little better about you trespassing on Crewmen turf.”
The man trying and failing to stand on his feet winced up at him. “He’s in the Galleria at Heritage Square. That’s where they were when I left them. The boss INFIL-man told him to move a click away so not to wake the DEVO’s.”
“Is he in the Galleria or a click away? Don’t play games with me and why is he taking orders from an INFIL-boss?”
“The INFIL-boss-man went in to get the gold, took some of our guys with him. Graybeard and the rest stayed topside with the rest of the infiltrators a click south.”
“How many of them are left?”
“Graybeard’s got one rig with six or seven guys; the rest went with the INFIL-boss. There are two of those armored rigs with the heavy machine guns mounted on top in armored turrets. They’re loaded for bear.”
“INFIL-rats always are mate.”
Haus stood up and walked back to the driver’s side door and got in his truck. His mind now preoccupied about what deal Graybeard cut with the infiltration team. The power the gold would give him was what the Day Breaker boss was after. Haus smiled to himself. He’d take the gold from graybeard and his power with it. If Graybeard were smart, he’d hunker down, but then that would go against the man’s enormous ego.
Haus pulled around and stopped next to the man still trying to get up.
“What about me?”
Haus’s thoughts returned to the present.
“We’ll catch up when I get back, probably after dark.” Haus lowered the face mask and threw the vehicle into reverse, he sped back into the parking structure; he wanted to make sure that the Day Breakers had nowhere to go.
Haus drove up to the third level of the building where he left the fuel pouring down into the access corridor. Grabbing a couple of gasoline cans stored against a wall, he opened them and poured the contents down the hatch into the electrical room. He saved a small portion of one of the five-gallon containers to pour into a glass bottle, sticking a rag into the top. Lighting the rag, he dropped it into the hole.
It may have ignited on its own, but Haus figured the gas would help, which it did. Racing to the train track side of the parking structure he looked back before climbing down. He saw the orange glow licking at the top of the opening. No doubt the bunker below would be like a fireplace as oxygen was sucked in from the sewer.
“The DEVO’s don’t mind burnt food.” Haus chuckled to himself as he returned to his rig on the other side of the rail tracks; his next stop, Heritage Square.
Chapter Forty-Four
“NOD’s on.” The word was pushed back in a hushed tone from Andy so the Day Breakers would know they needed to have their night vision activated. Andy and his team did not have to do anything, their field of view automatically adjusted from bright light to low light to no light where a low-powered infrared floodlight built into the top of their helmet would light up a pitch-black space in their face shield.
Andy pulled the door open at the bottom of the stairs. The stench of the creatures and their environment quickly hit the four Day Breakers. The filtered helmets of the Voracious Soldiers kept it out.
“Shhh.” Both Andy and Logan said in response to the Outfitter’s reactions to the odor, something akin to a mixture of rotting meat, decomposing garbage, and decaying bodies. Logan thought it a mistake to allow the Outfitters to go inside with them. They were undisciplined and untrained in deep infiltrations. Andy, aware of that as well had other plans for the motley crew. They would not be rejoining their Outfit.
Andy moved into the hallway that led to the wide opening of the underground mall and strode towards the opening. He gazed into the large space with benches lining the middle along with decorative lamps and large pots with plants, their plastic green leaves and bright flowers covered with a layer of dust. Above them, an arched ceiling made of glass designed to replicate the blue sky through special lighting that would change depending on the time of day remained dormant. With no power, it along with the multitude of stores lining both sides were pitch black or would have been to the human eye and even the DEVO’s who could see quite well in the dark but nothing like the night vision that Andy and his troops wore. The creatures relied primarily on their sense of smell in the blackness.
Andy and Logan moved from the hallway and out onto the mall floor taking up positions to the left and right of the opening. They covered the broad space in front of them with their weapons as the rest of the group moved up and joined them.
“Holy shit Mr. Crawley, look at all them DEVO’s,” Hicks said over the inner-team net, which only the other Victor Sierras could hear.
The Outfitters had the same reaction, but their voices carried into the cavernous space.
“Quiet!” Logan’s hushed voice came over the external speaker on his helmet; his voice through the comm system set for ste
alth; he needed to click his mic to talk externally and then only in a hushed tone.
Logan looked out to the sea of DEVO’s, hundreds just within sight. All in a sitting position, their backs resting against the walls or windows of the shops and businesses in the hallway with more in the stores slumped against whatever would support them. DEVO’s always slept like that, upright from the waist while their lower bodies laid flat. Their heads leaned against the DEVO’s next to them, vibrating against each other as their bodies exhibited a slight tremor in their Catatonic Stupor.
“DEVO’s are sound sleepers; they won’t wake up with us just walking by, even if we talk in a hushed tone we’re good. All the same, we need to stay as quiet as possible. Absolutely no light, if you can’t work like that, then head back upstairs. We’re going to be moving deep inside. If they wake up none of us will likely make it out, well not until you rise as one.” Logan turned his head from the Day Breakers gazing into the mall then back.
“You ready to move?”
There was some hesitation, but the four Outfitters nodded their heads.
Logan moved back next to Andy. Two by two in a column formation the eight figures moved with Andy and Logan taking point followed by the four Outfitters then the two remaining team members bringing up the rear, watching both the group’s six and keeping an eye on the rag tag bunch between them and their leader.
Andy glanced down at the sleeping mass of former humanity lying to his left and right. He thought it might have been just as well that the Day Breakers older and limited night vision did not allow them to see everything as clearly as he did.
Some of the creatures were horribly disfigured, either when they were eaten or from some other injury or the virus. It was bad enough thinking about them waking, but it was terrifying to realize that just feet away from each of them was a glimpse into what their fate would be if taken.
While Andy and Logan were accomplished at this kind of thing, for the rest in the group it was a new and nerve rattling experience. For the uninitiated, it required every ounce of willpower to place one foot in front of the other and continue to advance rather than turn around and head back out to the door leading to the outside and the safety of the daylight just a dozen or so meters away. Every step in the opposite direction seemed like madness and inevitable suicide, or what was often called “DEVO’s-cide.”
Andy as he always did, had a plan B. If the DEVO’s awoke he and the other VS team members had enough flares to hold the creatures at bay while they worked their way back out. The deeper they went in though, the tougher that would be. The real danger was not in the mob waking but an individual one doing so when it was near enough to leap onto you. The Kevlar lined uniforms and gloves would protect the Voracious Soldiers from random bites. The Outfitters would not fare as well, one blood to blood contact and they were goners. Advanced medical treatment in the first hours might stop the virus, but Andy had no intention of wasting time and resources on an Outfitter.
Andy cursed as an empty tin can rattled then rolled to the feet of one of the DEVO’s that stopped it.
“Sorry, Mr. Crawley.” It was Anderson.
“Don’t drag your feet, pick them up and look down to where you are stepping.”
“Yes, sir.”
Logan looked down to the floor. Empty and half empty tins of cans lay scattered all about as did the carcasses of cats, squirrels, and fat rats while live rats scurried this way and that, walking over the top of the DEVO’s torsos or even their heads. What looked like rice on the floor was on closer inspection, maggots taking over the remains of some larger mammal where only the fur remained. The floor was slick in places with ooze from the remnants of their meals or the creatures themselves.
“It’s thick in here Andy; it’s going to slow us down. We still need to go down two levels; then we need to get the gold and get it back out, sundown in 4.5 hours, man.”
“It will be faster coming out.”
“How do you figure bro? We’re going to be weighed down with the gold, and then we’re going to have to get back through this cesspool.”
Andy moved forward a few more stores. He took note of a jeweler that looked reasonably intact and wondered what might remain inside. Most of the businesses near the entrances had been scavenged, but the ones farther in looked ripe for the pickings. He shook off the temptation and focused on Mia.
Andy’s thoughts returned to the task at hand. A circular staircase that descended two more floors with two glass elevators that ran up and down the center lay in front of him. Every step down occupied with at least one of the ghoulish things, most with two sitting opposite of one another. Garbage and animal carcasses filled up what space was left, oozy brackish liquid dripped down the steps.
“We’re not coming back this way.”
“What? How are we getting out then?”
Andy turned and looked at Logan
“Oh, no. I’m not spending another night with you downtown.”
“Don’t worry. There’s a fifty percent chance we won’t have to.”
“Fuck me.”
The two FNG’s looked at each other and shrugged, not quite understanding the last reference from Logan as they brought up the rear while the two veterans picked their way down the steps.
***
The RV bounced down the dirt road after leaving the end of the pavement. Bowen slowed to keep the bouncing to a minimum as he passed a few homes under construction. Just ahead was the road that led down to the partially completed boat ramp. Lindel had chosen this spot, known as “Dead Man’s Point” not because of the name but because the bottom of the lake dropped steeply from the beach and since the shore there was under construction, it would not be in use.
Bowen lined the vehicle up with the boat ramp, not necessary since the Auto-Drive would maneuver it but so that the RV could pick up maximum speed; it needed to get out far enough to completely submerge. Bowen backed the RV up to a group of trees where he squeezed it between two, keeping it generally pointed towards the pavement leading down to the water. Leaving the engine running he went to the closet and got his backpack.
“Where are you going?”
Bowen looked at the woman sitting on the edge of the bed and smirked.
“If I was you, I’d be more concerned about where you’re going.” Bowen nodded towards the water then to the auto-drive system.
“Looks like you have 15 minutes.”
Mia fought the panic as she spoke. “What about your partner? Aren’t you supposed to check with him first, maybe he got the gold, and you can just leave me here.”
“Things are too hot around here. Besides you are the only one that can recognize me.”
“You’ll never get away with this!”
“Sure, I will. I was never here; no one will be looking for me. By the time they haul this thing out of the lake and figure out it was no accident I will be long gone. Besides I got no connection to you or this rig.”
Bowen swung his backpack up to his shoulders and still moving slowly and in some discomfort, went to the door before going out. Holding it open just enough before closing it as he yelled back inside. “Enjoy your swim.”
Chapter Forty-Five
The Day Breaker boss turned his head and looked at the radio hissing to life on the hood of the pickup truck. “Graybeard, this is Haus, copy?” The signal strong and clear caused anxiety to set in as the boss realized his nemesis must be close, perhaps even watching him now. Shifting his eyes to the three grinning Crewmen, now prisoners of the Day Breaker’s he grew furious. They were just one more complication that he didn’t need
The large man grabbed the radio and walked off a distance leaving his rig and the two Humvee’s behind. Before turning to the right and walking up the steps of a towering skyscraper. Graybeard stepped inside as far as he would chance. He didn’t like being out on the street and in the open, particularly with Haus near. Despite the outward appearances of a deserted city, there were few places safe from Haus or the D
EVO’s.
“Graybeard, this is Haus, do you copy?” The radio crackled again.
Standing in the light of the broken windows of a lobby of some luxury apartment building Graybeard looked around behind him into the darkened spaces leading deeper inside before turning back and looking out into the street. He brought the handheld radio up to his face.
“Graybeard.”
“One of your crew, that is the only one left alive from the two rigs you sent, told me you’re at Heritage Square and with INFIL-rats to boot. You’ve not only gone stupid, attacking the Crewmen on our turf but now you’ve gone soft, joining with an infiltration team to help you.”
Graybeard gripped the radio so hard he thought he might crush it. How the hell Haus had survived the night the DEVO’s came out in legions, Crawley’s Vulcan and now more than two dozen of his Outfit was beyond him. Haus had not only survived he was bringing the fight to the Day Breakers and so far, winning.
It wasn’t supposed to go down this way. Why couldn’t several dozens of his crew stop one man or at least keep him at bay? He always expected that if Haus did survive that night that he would try to regroup, but by then it would be too late, He’d have the gold and could purchase the equipment that would attract those wanting to be Outfitters to join him. He would have the choicest hunting ground for trophies and would ultimately reign supreme in the zone. Haus would be an afterthought.
Graybeard’s options were quickly dwindling. Even killing Crawley and his team would be much tougher now with two-thirds of his crew gone, at Haus’s hands. The best he could hope for now was a standoff with Crawley and take half the gold, then let Crawley go deal with Haus.
Graybeard still had one ace left up his sleeve, however. One that Haus was a part of even if the leader of the Crewmen didn’t know a thing about it.
METAVERSE GAMES: OMNIBUS Page 30
