Harmel turned to Dietrich. "I want your word."
"You have it."
He nodded. Dietrich led him outside to the waiting military vehicle. They sped off, Dietrich driving and the other soldier in the passenger seat.
"Where are we going," Harmel asked as they moved onto the packed city streets.
"Raven Rock, sir," the second soldier replied.
His eyes widened. "The nuclear bunker? Is that really necessary?"
"It's not our call."
"No, I guess it's not. And what about the other car, are they going to Raven Rock, too?"
The second soldier turned to Dietrich. "Other car?"
Dietrich shot a guilty look at Harmel in the rearview. The senator fumed. "You son of a bitch," he growled, "you turn around right now, or I'll have both of you stripped of your positions."
"I'm sorry, sir, but our orders were for you. Your staff was deemed non-essential."
"You mean expendable."
"Yes, sir."
Harmel let out a long breath. There was nothing he could do to make them turn around. He had to accept the reality of the situation. "Did my family make it out," he asked.
"I believe so, sir."
"They're not really bombing the city, are they?"
"Yes, sir, and not just D.C. It's the only way to be sure." The second soldier stared out his window at the chaos around them. "I tell you, though, I wouldn't want to be the one to pull that trigger."
"We all have our orders," Dietrich said. Behind their vehicle, a series of fires burning throughout the city painted the sky gray.
"The only way we'll know if he's still out there is if we try to flush him out," Will said. They hadn't seen any sign of the hunter in a while. Will didn't know which was worse- seeing him, or not seeing him.
"How exactly do we flush him out," Stan asked.
"With bait."
Stan scoffed. "Be my guest. I'll wait here."
"Afraid you have that the wrong way around."
Stan stood up from the table. "Hold on, you want me to go out there?"
"It's our only choice. One of us needs to cover the other, and I can think of about a hundred reasons why I'm not handing you a gun."
"Name one," Stan dared him.
"I'm a better shot."
Stan ran his hand through his hair. He paced the small cabin. "Can't we just wait it out here? I have heat, food, water, we could last a while."
"And how long until those run out? There's two of us, did you plan for that?"
"No."
"We have to get back to town. Whatever happened to that hunter to make him that way, whether it's just him or some vast government conspiracy, the police need to know about it."
"I'm guessing they already know."
"Okay, then how's this: I'm not spending another hour, let alone days, locked in a tiny cabin with you."
Stan looked at the door, then back at Will. "Shit."
"You'll be fine. Now give me the keys."
Stan blinked. "What?"
"I'm not stupid. If you get to the van with the keys I'll never see you again."
"If I get to the van?"
Will held his hand out. "Keys."
"What if he shows up? What if you miss?"
"I won't."
"What if the gun jams? What if it misfires? You can't leave me out there with nowhere to go. At least if I can get in the van I'll be okay."
"Modern guns rarely jam, if ever."
"Maybe we can lure him away with food," Stan suggested. "I have some beef jerky downstairs."
Will stared at him stone-faced. Eventually, begrudgingly, Stan handed the keys over.
"Just walk in a straight line at an even pace. There's a clean line of sight here, I'll be able to see him coming from a long way's off. The difference between you and me is, I'll actually take the shot."
"What do I do if he reaches me?"
"My best suggestion," Will said, "duck and pray."
"I'm not the praying type." Stan mulled it over. "Alright. But I need to pack my things first." He motioned to the open fallout shelter door in the floor. "My laptop has too much on it to leave behind."
"Be my guest," Will echoed Stan's words back. Stan moved to the ladder. As he kneeled to climb down, Will told him to go slowly. Stan grumbled as he climbed down, Will following just behind him.
The shelter was small but well-built, maybe ten feet by twenty. The walls were poured concrete with a vent that went God-knows-where. Stan's laptop sat on a folding table at the center, next to a shelving unit stocked with food and water. An inflatable mattress was set up against the far wall on top of a foam pad.
Will pounded his fist on the wall. "Dad would've loved this."
"I'll take that as a compliment." Stan powered down his laptop.
"You really shouldn't."
Stan turned to face him. "What's your problem? Why are you so hard on dad?"
"I don't have a problem, the man was mentally ill."
"They never should have put him in that place," Stan said.
"It was to stop him from hurting himself. Or anyone else."
"He wasn't violent. He never raised his hand once."
"No. But when someone's not right in the head, you can't trust them to make the right decisions on their own."
Stan frowned, understanding what Will was getting at. "Dad may have had problems, but at least he stood for something." He put the backpack on and climbed the ladder. "You know what, I changed my mind. I'd rather be out there with that thing than in here.
"Well at least we agree on one thing," Will said.
They climbed back up and checked the windows one more time. Other than some snow blowing off the cabin, the view was clear in every direction. The sun had risen completely. Warm light reflected off the snowy field.
Stan stood by the door. He undid the locks one-at-a-time, being quiet about it. Even though they didn't see any signs of trouble out there, there was no reason to take unnecessary risks.
The door creaked open on cold hinges. Frigid air rushed in through the cracks. The temperature in the cabin dropped almost instantly as Will took up his position just behind Stan, aiming over his brother's shoulder.
"Slowly," Will reminded him.
"Still worried I'll run?"
"It's for your safety," he replied. "But while we're on the subject, if I think you're trying to escape I won't think twice about putting one in your thigh."
"You really know how to inspire confidence in a guy," Stan said. He zipped up his coat, opened the door the rest of the way and stepped out.
-13-
Dietrich and the other soldier had gotten word over the radio that most of D.C.'s bridges were jammed up with cars trying to leave the city. Francis Scott Key and Theodore Roosevelt Bridges were apparently both lost causes, so Dietrich had decided to reroute to Arlington Memorial Bridge.
A bridge to a cemetery, from a city that was becoming one.
Senator Harmel had been trying to call his wife, but every call had failed to go through. He even asked the soldiers if it was possible to call her using their radio, but they explained to him it wasn't. After the tenth call he gave up and shifted his attention to the city outside his window.
On New York Avenue, five blocks from the north lawn of the White House, people gathered along the sidewalks. All of them were headed in the same direction. Some wore surgical masks, others had towels wrapped around the bottom half of their faces. None of them looked happy.
"It looks like a march on the White House," the senator noted.
Dietrich nodded. "The only thing missing is the pitchforks." He slowed the vehicle down as the crowd started to spill onto the street, becoming too dense to pass. One of the younger men in the crowd noticed the military vehicle. He cursed at them as he ran up to the driver's side window. The crowd's attention was quickly drawn. More of them began shouting and converging on the vehicle from all sides.
"You need to get us out of here," Harmel said.
>
"I'm aware of that, sir," Dietrich replied. He tried to maneuver to the left, toward a side street, but the crowd shifted and intentionally blocked the way. A few of them began pounding on the hood. Their spitting, shouting faces filled the side windows. Harmel hoped they couldn't see him through the darkened glass.
One woman caught his eye. A surgical mask covered her mouth, stringy hair spilling out of her fur-lined hood. At first she appeared to be shouting at the vehicle like everyone else, but it was coming out in waves, like a dog barking at an intruder. Her bloodshot eyes were full of tears.
It took him a few seconds to realize she was coughing. As he watched, her tears turned to blood. The woman pulled down her mask to catch her breath, revealing a horribly deformed mouth. The moment she did, she puked black gore onto Harmel's window.
"Oh my God," he gasped.
The people closest to the woman reacted, scattering and trying to climb over each other to get away. Most of them didn't notice. There was too much noise, too much emotion in the air to notice the commotion happening just a few feet away. The sickly woman was hunched over and vomiting more.
The second soldier turned to see why Harmel was scrambling backward in his seat. It didn't take long for him to see the blood-smeared window. "We have infected in the crowd," he called out.
Dietrich went into emergency driving mode. He cut the wheel sharp and began edging to the left, pushing people aside with the vehicle's bumper. They clamored to get out of the way but the crowd was just too thick.
The infected woman straightened up and wiped her face with the sleeve of her coat. Harmel was stunned to see how much her face had changed in a matter of seconds. It wasn't just the features but the expression itself, the awareness behind the eyes. A desire existed in them that hadn't before. The only way he could describe it was an awakening.
As he watched, the woman turned and attacked the man next to her.
Pandemonium broke out. Screams of fear mixed with screams of pain. "Go, go, go," the other soldier shouted. Dietrich gave it some gas. The vehicle lurched through the crowd and one man got pulled under the right tire. There was a panicked yelp, followed by the wet snap of a leg breaking. Harmel was about to say something about it when he realized he cared more about getting out of there alive.
Infection moved through the crowd as the recently attacked became attackers themselves. A chain reaction had been set off, the likes of which shook Harmel to his very core. If it was at all indicative of what was going on in other towns, in other cities, things were about to get very, very bad.
Dietrich finally got the vehicle clear of the crowd. The moment he had a clear escape route, he floored the gas pedal and got them the hell out of there. Senator Harmel stared out the back window at the group they'd left behind. The people had become a tangled mass of teeth and limbs; an implosion of blood and pain.
They cut through side streets, roaring past the various, sprawling buildings that made up the Smithsonian. Harmel was silent as they zoomed past the tall point of the Washington Monument, remembering his first visit there as a child. Since moving to D.C. he'd meant to go back and see it, but he could never found the time. He'd assumed it would always be there when he was ready to go back.
Now, he wasn't so sure.
Will steadied the rifle with his left hand and tucked the butt of the weapon into the pocket of his right shoulder. He kept his trigger finger straight, hovering over the trigger but staying clear. He relaxed and pressed his cheek into the stock.
Meanwhile, Stan had crossed over the threshold and stepped out into the snow. The cold air blew his hair and shook his coat. Will would have to compensate for the wind. There was no room for error here. If the hunter appeared now, he would have a small window of opportunity to take him down.
The green van was parked twenty feet from the cabin. One side was buried up to the wheel wells in a snow drift, which might be a problem if they had to leave in a hurry.
Will's plan was to drive the van over to his truck, transfer to the truck and leave the van behind. Stan could deal with coming back for it on his own time, when he got out of jail. Right now, Will's only concern was getting away from that cabin with his head attached and his bounty in custody.
So far so good. From where he stood, Will could see the steam spewing from his brother's mouth in thick, steady clouds. He was breathing heavily, which meant he was scared. His brother had never changed as long as he'd known him. An unrelenting smart-ass and a giant chicken-shit, wrapped all-in-one. Will almost cracked a smile at the thought.
Under the rising and falling whistle of the wind blowing past the open door, he started to hear a low rumble, like the idle of an engine somewhere close-by. Could a car be approaching? If they were lucky, it was the police. Someone local might have stumbled across the bloody scene nearby and called the cops from a land line. Either that, or someone else had been attacked by the hunter. While he hoped that wasn't the case, he would be beyond thrilled to see a police cruiser drive onto the property.
Stan reached the van. His shoulders relaxed as he turned around to look back at Will, visibly relieved to have made the short but tense journey. He had a stupid grin on his face and his eyes twinkled.
Then they drifted up. Up to the roof. Will knew what that look was on his brother's face, and he knew something else in that same moment.
The sound he'd heard, it wasn't a car engine- it was growling.
With a high-pitched scream the hunter jumped down from the cabin's roof. He landed in the snow, taking the impact in stride as he shot at Stan with frightening speed.
Will had one shot at this. He lined up his shot, keeping the galloping hunter in his sights. Then he held his breath and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet caught the hunter in the center of his naked back. He cried out as he fell to the ground. The crack of the rifle-shot echoed out across the field.
Will ejected the shell as he walked out of the cabin, readying the rifle for a second shot. The hunter squirmed in the snow like a worm that had been cut in half. His spine had been severed, yet he was still trying to attack. He coughed blood into the snow and clawed desperately.
Standing over the gurgling beast, Will shot another round into the back of his head, silencing the hunter.
He looked to his left. His brother stared at the hunter's bloody, shirtless corpse without blinking. He was down on his knees.
"No atheists in foxholes," Will said, remembering the old saying. Then he turned and threw up in the snow.
Arlington Memorial wasn't any better.
The bridge was choked with honking cars from one end to the other, not just its six lanes but the sidewalks, too. It wasn't a long bridge by any means, but the sea of cars made it impassable.
After a time, it became obvious that the traffic jam was never going to clear. They had barely moved past the twin statues guarding the bridge's entrance, a pair of bronze horses led by nude figures entitled the Arts of War. One bore the word valor, the other sacrifice.
Dietrich radioed for help. "That's a negative," the woman on the other end said. "Every available resource is devoted to containment or another extraction. Your best bet is to join up with forces at Myer–Henderson. If you double-time it you can reach them before the base is evacuated."
"Copy that. Over and out." Dietrich put down the radio. "Backup is a no-go," he announced, as if they hadn't heard the entire conversation.
"That's unfortunate," the other soldier remarked.
The soldiers talked over their options as Harmel listened. They made the difficult choice of abandoning their vehicle and proceeding on foot. Their plan was to reach Myer-Henderson, which was located just past Arlington Cemetery. There they could procure another vehicle and continue on to Raven Rock as ordered.
"The base is less than two miles from our location," Dietrich said.
Senator Harmel leaned forward. "Through the cemetery?"
"Now is not the time for superstition, senator."
He disagreed. Watching monsters consume the United States capital felt like the perfect time for superstition. He decided the point wasn't worth arguing. All he wanted to do was get out of the city in one piece and meet up with his wife and two teenage daughters.
Stepping out of the military vehicle, the sounds of the city came crashing in on Harmel. The shouting and screaming, the distant sirens, the occasional pop of gunfire. Robert E. Lee's house looked down on them from the hill on the other side of the water. The confederate general's old home was a painful reminder of the last time this country had torn itself apart.
They began crossing the bridge on foot. Arguments and fistfights were happening left and right, some between men, some between women, and some between men and women. This kind of fear had no use for gender or color. Dietrich took point, leading their small group while the second soldier brought up the rear. Harmel stayed sandwiched between them. He was still their mission, and as such it was their duty to make sure he made it out safely.
The three men were more than three-quarters of the way across the bridge when a ruckus broke out. Ahead of them the angry shouting and honking suddenly intensified, shifting into panic as a commotion could be seen between the cars.
"Check what's going on," Dietrich said to the other soldier, who climbed up on the bed of a pick-up to gain a better vantage point. The young man's body stiffened and a curse escaped his lips. He turned to them and simply said, "We have to go back."
"Why," Harmel asked, but the soldier didn't answer. He jumped down and started to walk backward the way they'd come. Both men drew their sidearms.
Harmel was tired of relying on the two soldiers for information. He took matters into his own hands and climbed onto the pick-up, despite the soldiers calling for him to come back down.
People up ahead were running, shoving, jumping over each other. They looked like rats pouring out of a sinking ship. Beyond them a crowd of soldiers fifty deep, mostly in full uniform, was moving onto the bridge. He didn't understand why people seemed to be running from the very people who could save them from the terrors that were gripping the city. But then he saw their eyes. The hair. The mouths.
Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds): Extinction [Isolation] Page 9
