by Chris Fox
The angry-looking blonde ducked through the tent flap, looking directly at Roberts. “Medico, we’ve got a problem. Team four didn’t report back, so we sent out a team to investigate. They found traces of a fight. Shots fired. There was blood everywhere, but they said they couldn’t find any bodies.”
“Did they have any other details?” Roberts asked, shooting Jordan a look that promised this wasn’t over. “Send the scout in. Now.”
“Sure, I’ll grab him. One sec,” she said, ducking back out. She returned a moment later with a skinny teen in tow, baggy shorts stained black from use. “This is Fiero. He was the lead scout. Fiero, tell the Medico what you saw.”
“It was awful, sir,” the boy said, ducking his head to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze. “There was blood all over the top of the semi. And these scratches, sir, like from claws. But there weren't any bodies. I think they were eaten, sir. Maybe by zombies, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense. They’d have gotten away. Yselda can kill a whole pack of zombies. She would have gotten away. She’d have gotten them out.”
“Did this happen a little ways north?” Blair interrupted, looking directly at the boy. “Maybe four or five kilometers?”
“Yes, about four, I think. Out there on the freeway. It’s the farthest north we patrol, towards the border with Panama,” he explained, darting quick glances at Blair as he spoke.
“Did you find any shell casings?” Jordan broke in, leaning forward in his chair. He hoped the gesture made him slightly less intimidating.
“Yes, sir,” the boy said, darting a single look Jordan’s way and then dropping his gaze. “We found three bullets.”
“Did you find the rounds, or just the shell casings?” Jordan asked, steepling his fingers and resting his elbows on the table in front of him.
“Both, sir. I’ve got them right here,” he reached into his pocket and extended a dirty hand. “Here you go, sir. I wasn’t sure what to make of them.”
“Three bullets from a .45 caliber pistol,” Jordan said, examining one of the shells. He held it up so they could all see that the entire front had flattened. “This one probably fired into the skull, judging by the round. It punched through the bone and into the brain, killing him instantly. This second one might have been fired into the heart. See how it’s only flat on one side? Probably hit a rib on the way in. The third one looks just like the first, so probably another head shot. Someone executed those people with extreme precision at close range. Then they ate the bodies, because otherwise these bullets would still be lodged in their victims.”
“That would account for the team with Yselda,” Roberts said, shifting his gaze to Jordan. He still wore his skepticism. “But how did they take her out? What could beat a female werewolf? She was one of our best. You know what did this, don’t you?”
“Yeah, we do,” Jordan said. He turned to face Blair. “You should probably field this one, Professor Smith. I’m not sure he’d believe anything I said and even if he did I don’t know that I can explain exactly what it is we’re chasing.”
“All right,” Blair said, giving a short nod. He removed his hat, dropping the sweaty thing on the desk. His hair was all askew, but somehow it didn’t detract from his air of seriousness. He'd changed so much since arriving at the dig site just a couple months back. In another couple, he'd be a damned good soldier. “I’m sure you remember the woman sleeping in the sarcophagus.”
“Of course I do. All we did was wonder who she was, for weeks,” Roberts said, face tightening.
“The woman you saw was the Mother, the progenitor of the werewolf species,” Blair explained. He used both hands in an unconscious attempt to tame his wild hair. It failed. “She created them to battle what you and I call zombies, something she referred to as deathless. I’m sure you’re well aware of what a threat the zombies pose, and since you’re still alive you know first-hand about werewolves. You’ve probably even spoken to the beast in your head. That was very deliberately created by the Mother to help guide us.”
"Okay, let’s assume I’m willing to accept this narrative,” Doctor Roberts replied, expression anything but accepting. This was going to be a tough sell. “What does this have to do with my missing team? I’ll take a history lesson later, but right now I need answers.”
“I’m getting there. Something else was asleep in the pyramid, what the Mother calls an Ark. This thing stowed away when The Mother put the Ark into stasis just over thirteen thousand years ago. He woke up and stole something very important,” Blair explained, sinking back into his chair. “His name is Irakesh and he’s a deathless. Not the typical mindless zombie, but something more akin to a vampire. He’s smart and powerful, with abilities we’re just beginning to understand. We’ve been chasing him all the way from Cajamarca.”
“Chasing him where?” Roberts asked. He’d relaxed slightly, but was still scowling.
“To Panama. This is the part that’s really going to piss you off,” Jordan interrupted, a bead of sweat trickling down his cheek like a stray tear. He had to own up to this, like it or not. “This is news to everyone, something that wasn’t relevant until now. Mohn was terrified of the werewolves. They were sending a nuke to blow up the Ark, but it never made it. I believe it’s at the Mohn airfield in Panama. It’s possible Irakesh is after that nuke and we have no idea what he’ll use it for. What we do know is his final destination. He’s heading for an Ark in North America, probably somewhere near San Francisco. If he reaches it before we do he’ll control every zombie for thousands of miles. He’ll wipe out the few survivors and set up his own little empire.”
Everyone stared at Jordan.
“So you were going to nuke the pyramid and wipe out Cajamarca. Millions of souls. Yep, sounds like Mohn. So let me guess, this Irakesh is who you believe took out my team?” Roberts asked, straightening. His gaze was unreadable.
“We haven’t seen anything else that could do it, not with that level of precision,” Jordan continued. His posture was as slumped as he ever allowed it to get, almost ramrod straight. “We need to keep him from getting that nuke.”
“All right, you’ve got my attention. I want to run this by my advisor before I make a decision,” he said, rising from his chair and crossing to the tent’s entryway. “Wait here. I’ll return in a moment.”
He left before anyone could give an answer, leaving them sitting in silence. Jordan refused to make eye contact with anyone, fearing the condemnation he'd find there.
He eyed Liz-wolf sidelong as she touched Blair on the shoulder. “Can you feel him?”
“He’s close,” Blair said, staring up at her. “Just a few miles from here. This is the closest we’ve been.”
The tent flap stirred, admitting Roberts and a man who must have been lurking just outside the tent somewhere. He was tall and handsome, with a neatly trimmed black beard and grey eyes. He wore loose black pants of something that might have been silk, and a tight-fitting black tank top that showed off impressively muscled shoulders. He screamed douche.
“Steve?” Bridget cried, surging to her feet. She’d been so quiet Jordan had almost forgotten she’d been in the room. “My god, you’re alive.” She flung her arms around him, burying her face in his chest.
Steve looked down at her distastefully, gently disengaging himself from her. “Hello, Bridget. Blair. Commander Jordan.”
“How the fuck are you alive?” Jordan roared, slack-jawed. His .45 appeared in his hand, and he broke out in a cold sweat. “I killed you. We all saw it.”
Chapter 32- Ambushed
Blair gaped at Steve. Bridget had told him how Mohn had executed him, though Blair had never heard Jordan had been the one to do the executing. Steve pushed Bridget away, walking straight over to him. Blair rose, tensing as the man who’d once been his best friend approached. The last time he’d seen Steve the man had been in the throes of radiation sickness. His mind had deteriorated into madness to the point that he’d attacked Blair.
The stranger before him cou
ldn’t have been more different. He stood taller and wore a familiar confidence Blair had come to expect. Steve had always been cocky, yet this was more pronounced and less in your face. The quiet air of a man who knows how dangerous he is, but takes no pleasure from the fact.
“Hello Blair, it’s been a long time. I don’t really count the Ark, since I wasn’t in my right mind,” Steve said. He extended a hand. Blair stared at it. Steve had betrayed him, had taken Bridget and any chance he’d had at making it in the archeology world. It had knocked Blair all the way to the bottom of a wine bottle for the better part of three years. He’d spent a lot of evenings wallowing there, hating his old friend. Blaming him for the wretch he’d become.
“Hello Steve,” Blair finally replied, seizing Steve's hand just as he was starting to drop it back to his side. It was time to let go, to get over all the bullshit. To try, anyway. Steve had fucked him, but hadn’t he made mistakes, too? He was too tired to hold on to the anger anymore. “I’m glad to see rumors of your death were greatly exaggerated. How the hell did you end up in Columbia?”
“And how are you still alive?” Jordan interjected, .45 still cradled in his hand as if he were considering whether or not to use it.
“You believed me dead because that’s what I wished you to believe,” Steve said, giving Jordan a predatory smile. Then he turned back to Blair. Steve’s grip was just a bit too firm, not quite enough to hurt but enough to show it could. Yup, same old Steve. “I shaped the Commander's mind and those of the others gathered there. They believed I was dead, a necessary fiction if I was going to escape.”
“There were several dozen of us watching. You shaped all of us?” Jordan interrupted. He raised an eyebrow, obviously skeptical.
“Just the few of you close enough to see what had really happened,” Steve admitted, looking a trifle less smug. He walked over to one of the chairs and settled into it with the grace of a jungle cat, something he’d never possessed before. “Everyone else assumed I died in the blast and I blurred away before they could figure out otherwise. From there I made my way north. I was trying to make it back to the states when the world ended. I’ve never seen anything like the fireworks in the sky. After that I started looking for survivors and ran into Dr. Roberts and his group.”
Blair was conscious of Bridget sinking into a chair on the far side of the room. He glanced at her, but she was staring at her feet. Her hair screened her face, the defensive mechanism he’d seen so often over the years. It still affected him, but much less powerfully than it once had. It had ripped the scab off his old wound when she’d run to Steve, though ironically he'd also felt a stab of pity. She’d been rejected and he knew exactly what that was like. He shouldn’t be involved with Bridget, shouldn’t open up his heart to her. Yet all he wanted to do was offer comfort.
“I’m glad that we’re all acquainted,” Roberts broke in, sarcasm lathered all over the statement. He leaned against one of the poles holding up the pavilion. “The question remains what are we going to do about this Irakesh. If he’s as big a threat as- .”
Someone screamed in the distance. Then someone else. A third. A chorus. People were panicking, somewhere to the northeast. Blair looked to Liz for instruction.
“Let’s get out there and find out what the problem is. Maybe Irakesh has come to us,” she said, turning away from Blair.
Blair stripped as quickly as he could. Everyone else had started to do the same, even Doctor Roberts. The only exception was Steve, who gave a sympathetic shake of his head as if they were all cretins. He shifted, clothing disappearing as he did. In his place stood a seven foot black werewolf. There was no trace of the clothing. It seemed he knew the same trick the Mother used, but how had he learned it?
Liz-wolf ducked through the tent flap, followed by Bridget. Jordan came next, his shotgun comically small in the meaty werewolf fist. Roberts had shifted into a grey werewolf, fur the color of ash the morning after a campfire.
“After you,” Steve-wolf said, his lupine grin disconcerting despite the fact that Blair had grown used to such grins. He slipped into the moonlit evening that had descended while they were in the tent. It was still ungodly hot, but that was quickly forgotten when he saw the level of chaos. Cracks of sporadic gunfire came from all directions, as did the screams. They were under attack, but by what?
Blair leapt atop a one of the tall markers at the end of each row of parking spaces. This one read B6 in faded red lettering, a reminder of a more sane world when this place would have been used for soccer games. He scanned the rows of tents, immediately spotting the threat.
Zombies streamed through two holes in the row of SUVs blocking the northwest part of the parking lot. It looked as though they’d pushed through by sheer numbers. There were hundreds of them, most shambling but more than one sprinting towards targets. People were tackled to the ground where clusters of zombies began feeding on their still living victims.
Helpless refugees stampeded away from the threat, pushing frantically towards the southern exit. A woman was shoved to the ground, her short scream terminated as person after person trampled over her. She wasn’t the only casualty. Children were separated from parents, some crushed under the weight of the crowd, while others were left sobbing in forgotten corners.
“Blair,” Liz-wolf bellowed from the next row of tents. “We have to stop them. Bridget and I are going to drive a wedge in their ranks. Back us up.”
She didn’t wait for a response, bounding down the row towards the zombies. The crowd parted before her, streaming around her as they continued their mad flight. There was no sign of Bridget, but Blair guessed she’d already taken to the shadows.
“Steve, with me,” Roberts yelled from a spot not far below Blair’s perch. “We need to get to the southern gate. This might be a trap and if it is I don’t want those people to rush right into a bunch of zombies.”
“Of course,” Steve said, unruffled by the chaos. He loped after Roberts as the pair headed for the southern gate.
Blair blurred after Liz, rolling under a small pavilion and into the next row. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Jordan blurring down the next row. It was good to see him embracing some of his abilities.
Then Blair was amidst the zombies. He tore and gouged, ripping through spines and tearing out throats. The thing that had once been a young woman loomed in front of him, dress torn down the front to expose a milky white breast splotchy with blood. Blair grabbed the side of her head, slamming it into the pavement with a sickening crunch and a spray of gore. Again and again he fought, struggling to stay near Liz and Bridget as they fought their way towards the breach.
Zombies still flowed inside, a seemingly endless stream. They’d been joined by those unfortunates caught by the initial horde, and now there were more zombies in the parking lot than humans. The werewolves were making a dent, but it just wasn’t enough.
He had to do something. But what? What would Ahiga have done? He’d have had some bullshit Yoda-like advice that would have amounted to ‘figure it out your fucking self, whelp’. Ahiga’s mental abilities had been more powerful, more developed that his own. Yet surely that strength had come from practice, from pushing his abilities. Blair had already proven he could stop a handful of zombies. He had to find a way to do more.
He leapt into the air, grabbing a sign emblazoned with L2 and using his momentum to swing onto the top of the crossbeam, landing in a crouch. He surveyed the sea of zombies before him. How many could he stop?
Blair shaped his will into a mass of spikes that surrounded him like a sea urchin. They wavered and then burst in a flash of pain. He shook his head to clear it. This time he shaped the spikes more slowly, concentrating on making each one a perfect stiletto. Only after he’d finished one did he attempt another. He built one after another in quick succession, but it wasn’t fast enough.
Be calm, Ka-Dun. Power comes through deliberate, focused attention. The beast rumbled in the back of his mind. You possess the power to save these
people, but you must block out the world and give yourself wholly to your task.
People screamed below even as Liz and Bridget did their best to stem the tide. Jordan had entered the fray, dropping zombies with well-placed shots from his shotgun or cutting down those who came too close with his wickedly sharp claws. Their effort seemed so pitiful in the face of that much carnage.
Blair shaped more quickly, adding dozens of spikes. It tore at his brain, flashes of agony rippling through him as he struggled to sustain them all. Then at last he’d reached his limit. He knew if he tried just one more, the rest would unravel. So he closed his eyes, flinging the spikes in every direction. They sank into the zombies, gathering hundreds of disparate wills under his control.
It was like trying to swim upstream against a waterfall, so many wills buffeting him. A cacophony of half-formed consciousnesses, each driven by the singular need to feed. Even though each was a weak-willed zombie, the sheer number made the task nearly impossible. Yet he persevered. He would not give up, not abandon the survivors below.
Blair opened his eyes. Every zombie within a hundred yards had frozen, each turning their ruined faces at him. They glared hatefully, straining to reach the freedom he denied them.
“Liz,” he roared, his voice echoing over the chaotic din. “I can’t hold them for long.”
Liz and Bridget blazed through the captive zombies, cutting them down in a flurry of carnage. Nor were they the only ones. Jordan led nearly a dozen men and women into the fray. Most had knives or machetes, though a few emptied rounds into the helpless zombies. They joined the grisly work, mowing through the enemy with an intensity that made him proud.
Each death made his work easier, the strain less. Eventually it became effortless, with only a dozen or so zombies remaining. Then those too were cut down, leaving Blair sweating and tired on top of his perch. He dropped to the ground, leaning heavily against the pole he’d been standing on.
"Blair, that was amazing,” Liz cried, flinging furry arms around him. Bridget wasn’t far behind, joining the group hug. “I can’t believe you held them all.”
