But she wasn’t the only one feeling momentarily disoriented. The Skulls scrambled over each other, tripping as they tried to stand. Andris pointed toward the opposite side of the chamber, past the stone pillars rising above the mounds of Skulls. There was a door hanging off its hinges. Behind it was a staircase. Meredith plugged a Skull near her with three armor-piercing rounds to its rotund chest then leapt over its body, bounding for the stairs.
One of the monsters reached for her, claws coming within a fraction of an inch of her face. She knocked it away with the stock of her rifle. Bone chipped and flew, spraying from the creature’s destroyed hand. Onward Meredith sprinted. Skulls writhed as she passed them, churned past the limitations of their now-mangled limbs. Glenn and Andris weren’t far behind.
At the door to the stairs, Meredith turned on her heel. She fired into the ranks of Skulls, prodding them back, doing her best to clear a path for her comrades. The duo rushed toward her, lashing out with the occasional elbow or jabbing a rifle into the jaw of a reaching Skull. By the time Andris and Glenn made it to the stairs, the Skulls had largely recovered from the blast. A few pulled themselves along with their claws, their lower limbs and torsos chewed to bits by the explosion. Others limped on ankles or knees bent at excruciatingly strange angles. Those that had been unharmed pushed past their injured comrades, surging in a second wave.
“Up!” Meredith yelled. She took point. She had no choice. The winding, narrow staircase barely allowed her to travel up it, burdened by her pack and equipment. Glenn and Andris struggled up the stairs behind her. At least the Skulls would only be able to take them one at a time.
She gasped for breath, pushing herself up one stair at a time. It seemed to take a very long time, but eventually she reached a heavy wooden door at the top of the minaret.
She threw her shoulder into it. The door flung her back.
“What is the hold up?” Andris said, just out of sight around the bend of the spiraling stairs.
“We got another door!” Meredith yelled.
“Then open it!”
She couldn’t tell if he was merely frustrated, running on desperation, or if this was one of his dry attempts at gallows humor. She didn’t particularly care either way, because whatever the case, he was right.
The goddamned door needed opening.
Meredith lunged at it again. Wood creaked, and she heard the crack of something behind it. The roars of the Skulls below grew deafening. Sweat rolled across her forehead and into her eyes. Gunfire burst right below her. Glenn had joined Andris’s last-ditch efforts to keep the Skulls back.
For a third time, Meredith threw herself at the door. This time it buckled inward and spilled her onto an empty precipice. Glenn and Andris were right behind her. As soon as they were clear, Meredith slammed the door shut. A broken board lay across the floor of the minaret under the speakers that had once called the city to prayer. There was no way in hell it would keep the Skulls back now. Instead, as the Skulls scraped against the wood, the voices spilling out from under the door, she placed the only goddamned thing she could think of back into the iron arms that had held the door shut: her rifle. The door shook on its hinges, golden dust spilling from cracks in the wood. But the rifle held it in place.
As soon as that problem was solved, another one erupted in her mind. Someone had put that board there. And that person must still be on the roof. Knowing her luck, that individual was probably already a Skull, waiting to finish the job the others below had started.
She swiveled on her heel and pulled out her pistol. But the only person on the minaret besides Andris and Glenn was long dead. His torso was bent over as if he were kneeling in prayer. White robes covered the rotting body, stained by bodily fluids and weather, a skullcap still secured to his withered head.
“The imam,” Meredith gasped, catching her breath. “Trapped up here alone.”
“Shitty way to die,” Glenn said.
“If we become trapped up here, at least we have another way out,” Andris said, gesturing to his rifle. Then he chinned his comm. “Alpha, we are atop the minaret now as you asked.”
“Awful noisy over there,” Dom called back. “Still got contacts?”
Meredith gazed over the side of the platform. Skulls lumbered all around the courtyard, clambering over each other. Most still had their attention on the front door of the mosque. They hammered at the door and windows and fought with each other to be the first inside. A few still scratched at the door to the minaret’s platform. But she didn’t think there was enough critical mass for them to bust the door down.
The Skulls she was worried about were the ones that had turned their attention skyward, toward the last place they’d heard gunfire. The first ones had started digging their claws into the stonework walls of the mosque. They ascended like bony overgrown spiders.
“Contacts?” Andris said, repeating Dom’s question. “Yes, we have enough to share. Would you like some?”
“You telling me you need assistance?” Dom asked.
“Affirmative, Alpha,” Meredith said. She looked over the side of the minaret. “And very fast.”
***
Dom leaned past the corner of a crumbling building. A van with deflated tires and broken windows stood in the street, as dead as the picked-over bones beside it. A couple of Skulls, their gray flesh wizened and dry, limped toward the commotion at the mosque.
He had thought having an eye in the sky would help their mission, providing them a tremendous advantage scouting the route forward. Instead, it seemed to have done precisely the opposite, halting their progress and acting as an unrelenting beacon to all nearby Skulls, drawing the creatures from the disheveled buildings and littered streets.
Dom glanced at the rest of Alpha, ready to leapfrog to their next position. He shot a hand signal to Miguel, and the Hunter charged forward. He twisted his prosthetic arm to reveal the glistening blade within. With a precise jab, the blade bit into an unsuspecting Skull. Gouts of blood poured out of the creature’s throat. Miguel gently lowered the monster’s body as Spencer sprinted to the next position, battering the back of another Skull’s head. Jenna went next, followed by Dom.
One by one, they worked their way up the side streets, eliminating any Skulls in their way. Dom’s pulse pummeled his eardrums. It wasn’t from the fear of facing the few Skulls. It was the fear of taking too long, of leaving Bravo to fend off the attack by themselves. Of letting Meredith down. He lunged out onto the next street, determined to get to them in time.
What he saw next made him jump back into the shadows. He had only seen the monstrous shape for a fraction of a second. Huge gorilla arms covered in unnaturally gargantuan muscles. A back lined with bony plates, each at least a couple inches thick. Tusks jutting from a massive underbite.
“Goliath,” he whispered over the comms.
“Shit,” Miguel said. “We gonna tussle with that thing, Chief?”
Dom weighed their options. The Goliath was already drawing away, heading toward the mosque, but a few long-distance shots from their rifles wouldn’t be near enough to bring it down.
“We’ve got to catch up to that bastard,” Dom said. “Or at least get Bravo out of there before the Goliath arrives.”
“Uh, and before that one gets there,” Jenna said. She nodded down another street. Dom followed her gaze. A second hulking beast was bounding ahead at full speed. It pushed aside abandoned vehicles and carts, crushing smaller Skulls that happened to get in its way.
“Christ,” Dom said. There was no more time for caution. “Take the alleys. Double-time.”
Miguel led the charge. The few Skulls they ran into went down in a flurry of blades and blows from rifles, but no shots. Not yet. With no map through the labyrinthine alleys, they found themselves at a dead end. Curtains and rugs left behind by deceased merchants rotted in the heat. Just a couple lonely doors punctuated golden-brown walls.
“Bust one of these down, Cap?” Spencer asked.
Dom sur
veyed the doors. There was no telling whether they would find another exit beyond. Then his eyes followed one of the lone, dangling black wires hanging from a nearby roof. He yanked it, and the wire came loose in a cloud of dust and pebbles.
“Open that one,” Dom said, nodding to the nearest door.
Spencer leveled the door with a single blow, and Miguel cleared the antechamber.
Dom and Jenna spilled in after them. Musty air overwhelmed the dark space. Dom vaguely recognized the structure as a riad. Rooms were built around a central open-air courtyard that allowed the house to breathe. A small pool was situated in the middle of the courtyard. Instead of crystal-blue water, however, mud and grime filled it. Sunlight blinked through the tears in a canvas awning overhead.
“Up!” Dom said.
Each step sent splinters of pain stabbing through his leg. He tried to ignore them. They traveled up three stories to the roof. Once there, they were met with a landscape of other roofs, all similar in design and shape, some pressed together, some offering wide canyons between buildings. Lines of neglected laundry still hung from wires. Tables and chairs filled the living spaces, and satellite TV dishes pocked the strangely Martian landscape.
A few hundred yards away, the minaret rose above the roofs. Spindly Skulls were scaling the tower. They fell in waves as Glenn, Meredith, and Andris knocked them down, yet still more climbed up the pitted tower for fresh prey.
“You’d think we’d catch a break,” Miguel grumbled. “Just once.”
“Fat chance,” Spencer said.
“There’ll be time to complain later,” Dom said. He stood at the edge of the roof. The next roof was only a few feet away. Surveying the options from there, he calculated a rough pathway to get them near the mosque. He could see the head of one of the Goliaths bobbing as it ran through the streets, taking a circuitous route. They couldn’t delay any longer.
Dom backed up then ran and jumped. His calf burned with the effort. Lauren would chide him later—if there was a later—and tell him that every time he pushed himself, he risked permanent injury. But he’d burn through every last bit of strength and energy in his body before he saw this mission fail.
“Bravo,” Dom said, “we’re on our way.”
Roof by roof, they ran and leapt. After clearing a larger gap, Dom hit the next roof and rolled, carried by momentum. He recovered and kept going, blazing toward the mosque as fast as he could. The closer he got, the more clearly he saw Meredith, Glenn, and Andris. They appeared to be taking careful shots, cautious not to expend their ammunition. With a glance behind him, Dom saw they had at least overtaken one of the Goliaths.
The other Goliath pummeled through the wall surrounding the mosque. Stones and Skulls flew, crashing into neighboring buildings. Like King Kong, the Goliath lunged for the minaret, ready to begin its ascent.
“Son of a bitch,” Dom muttered.
The Goliath bellowed. Its huge muscles coiled beneath the scarred bone plates covering its legs. Immense stores of power built up in that single motion, and Dom watched, a bolt of terror striking through his body, as it prepared to jump. Still he pushed forward, leaping over a gap in the roofs before the others caught up with him. The curses of the other Hunters fell away, all the sounds of the moaning and growling Skulls fading.
All he knew was the Goliath. Its claws plunging into the base of the tower. Cracks spiderwebbing through the stonework. Dust falling like silty waterfalls.
He could not let it reach Meredith.
The Goliath fought for purchase, but it was too heavy. It was dragged down under its own weight. Its claws left gouges in the side of the tower. Its feet smashed several smaller Skulls trying to follow it up. The Goliath cared no more for them than if it had stomped a stray ant or two. A frustrated roar exploded from its tusked maw, and it threw itself against the minaret again.
Then an explosion enveloped the Goliath. Smoke and fire poured from its body, its ribs peeling away.
“Eat that, you horrible thing,” Andris called over the comm link. The Goliath stumbled back, clutching its chest and roaring, its blood speckling the minaret. Now Dom and the others were close enough to smell the charred flesh. They provided fire support, raining hell down on all the lesser Skulls milling about. Tendrils of smoke rose as Andris lobbed another grenade down at the Goliath. A flash of light and fire, and the Goliath roared.
But it wasn’t done yet. Covered in fractured plates, bones all askew, and scarlet covering its chest and grotesque face, it charged the minaret. It leapt again with all its remaining strength. It slammed into the tower like a wrecking ball. Smaller Skulls fell away at the impact, squawking. Fissures spread with an audible snap and crack. It scrabbled for purchase for a moment longer and then fell back to the earth.
Then Dom saw something more terrifying than the now-dead Goliath.
The tower was beginning to fall.
-17-
“Is there another goddamn pilot on board?” Shepherd yelled.
No one spoke up.
“Are you kidding me? I’m in a plane full of airmen, and there’s not a single pilot?”
The stench of death seeped from the cockpit. Shepherd wiped away the crazed pilot’s blood from his face and searched the cabin. The man who had killed the pilot was operating the plane the best he could, which consisted mainly of trying not to push the wrong button and pulling back on the controls. But neither he nor Shepherd actually knew how to fly a C-130.
“I’m sorry, sir,” a man yelled over the whine of the engines. Sgt. Costas, his name badge read. “We were sent for security detail. We are not all pilots in the air force.”
“Fuck,” Shepherd spat. He shouldn’t be so angry. In the US Army, most people weren’t combat soldiers. They served in other roles, from technical support to intelligence to the guy manning the slop lines at an FOB. The Portuguese Air Force was apparently no different.
“What should we do?” Costas asked.
“Send an SOS,” Shepherd said. “Tell Lajes we’re going down.”
“We can’t,” Costas said. He motioned to the communications panels, all punctuated with bullet holes.
Shepherd cursed again. Some trigger-happy soldier had made a bad situation worse. “Then the only thing left to do is brace for impact.”
Shepherd left Costas, who was crossing himself and muttering a prayer. He moved toward Divya as the plane shuddered. “How’s the old bastard?”
“I’m not sure he can survive a crash landing,” she said.
He had expected fear in her eyes. But she stared straight at him, giving away nothing. Delivering a fatal diagnosis and not batting an eye. He admired the shit out of that.
“We’ve got to keep that bastard alive,” Shepherd said through gritted teeth. The plane shuddered and bucked. Air whistled over the fuselage, and the wings flexed as if they were going to break off. “We promised to get him to Kinsey.”
“I’ve got the old man strapped up tight as I can,” Divya said.
Shepherd looked at the Japanese scientist. He was cocooned in blankets and pillows, secured to a seat. His eyes were barely open, but his jaw seemed to be set as if he was in pain.
“Never thought I’d say this, but God, let this asshole live.”
“Amen to that,” Divya said.
Navid sat next to her. His eyes were staring ahead as if he were going to bore a hole straight out of the fuselage and parachute to safety.
“You all right, son?” Shepherd asked over the roaring engines. He heard a massive pop. Metal screeched beneath them, and he looked toward the cockpit. The Portuguese Air Force personnel were cursing and arguing with each other. That probably wasn’t helping, but he had nothing better to offer.
“I’ll be better when we land,” Navid said.
Rory looked as if he was going to throw up or start screaming. Hopefully not both, Shepherd thought wryly. He didn’t blame him. Not after their last rough Atlantic crossing and their crash-landing into the ocean before being picked up by the Hun
tress. Rachel, normally the stone-cold courageous one of the duo, shared his frightened expression.
“Hold on tight,” Shepherd said to them. “We’re going to make it, okay? This thing is built to withstand all kinds of abuse.”
“Even...even a crash?” Rachel asked, slowly turning toward him.
“We’ll be okay,” Shepherd said. Then he eyed the civilians. Rich and Tammy were doing their best to reassure their crying son. Alex Li was pale but stoic. There was a reason these individuals had survived when Mass Gen had been overtaken by Skulls.
Terrence was still unconscious next to Matsumoto. Shepherd prayed the man wouldn’t come out of this crash with worse injuries than he came in with.
The man in the cockpit yelled something back into the cabin, and the others rushed for their seats to strap in. Shepherd settled in beside Divya. He placed an arm around Matsumoto, determined to protect the old bastard if it was the last thing he did. He needed to get that man back, fully intact, to Kinsey’s intel officers. That was the deal, and Shepherd did not welch on his word.
Through the cockpit window, he saw flashes of green and blue rising to meet them. At least they had made it to land. Crashing into the ocean would’ve been one thing. Even if they survived, they probably would’ve been left to rot in the water, dying on lifeboats.
If they survived the landing.
What had been splotches of green morphed to forests and then individual trees. The forest had no idea what was about to hit it. All that green gave way beneath screeching metal and exploding glass. The cockpit disappeared, showering the cabin with debris. Shepherd’s head slammed back against the bulkhead. Screams and yells exploded all around him, and the air was sucked from his lungs. He couldn’t tell whether he was yelling or just silently screaming inside his mind. Everything was a cacophony of metal and wood.
The Tide: Dead Ashore (Tide Series Book 6) Page 15
