Pred spun with his .45 up, its own little under-barrel light actuated – illuminating the face of a panicked civilian who had run right up to him. He eased off the trigger again.
He tossed his head and said, “Get the fuck out of here.”
This was suddenly like the shoot-house back at the Delta Ranch – having to make instant shoot/no-shoot decisions on terrorists versus hostages in a CQB situation.
At least it’s familiar, Pred thought, safetying his pistol and holstering it, then raising his rifle to his shoulder and moving out again. He zigged and zagged around some paint-splashed head-height barriers – or the height of a normal-sized person’s head, anyway. As he rounded a corner in the room itself, he found another gas mask in his light and in his sights, and eased off again—
And then it moved, turning and running for it.
A goddamned civilian in a gas mask… “Are these people trying get killed?” he grumbled.
But instantly another one raced around the corner, being chased by a runner. Pred tweaked his shooting stance and shot inches over her shoulder, dropping the runner, which tumbled into the woman’s back, knocking her right into Pred’s chest. He moved his rifle out of the way with his right hand and caught her with his huge left arm. Pressed up against him, she buried her face in his chest.
“Hey,” Pred grumbled. “You okay?”
She turned her head up to look at him – and, hissing, bit into his bicep, which was right beside her face. Cursing, Pred grabbed her by the hair, pulled her off him, pushed her to the deck – and, not enjoying this at all, shot her in the face. She had literally turned that second, and still looked very human.
“You okay?” Juice called.
Pred scanned the darkness ahead, then looked down at his arm. There were definitely tooth marks in his bite-proof assault suit. But that was what it was there for.
“Fine,” he said over his shoulder.
He raised his rifle and took one step – and another woman came out of nowhere, running straight at him. He dropped her with two to the head. But then, figuring he should know better, he paused to turn her body over with his size-15 assault boot. Aside from the two bullet holes, she looked absolutely fine. Then again, so had the one before her.
“No way to know, man.” It was Juice standing at his shoulder. There was concern in his voice, and the two were wired tightly enough together that Pred knew exactly why. The second dead woman on the ground, maybe having just turned, maybe not… had straw-colored blonde hair, chin-length.
“Shake it off and move on,” Juice said, pushing him forward gently but insistently.
Pred tried to shake it off and move on.
But it was obviously him who was shaken.
* * *
“Thieving sons of bitches jacked our ride,” Pred said, squinting into the daylight, both of them standing outside the rear entrance to the building. Sure enough, their truck was absolutely nowhere in sight. “Wesley was right. Bunch of gangsters down here.”
Juice stood five meters away, tracking running targets with his raised rifle, but not taking any shots. “Guess that’s our reward for sparing civilians.”
“Or our punishment for shooting that last one.”
Juice sighed and lowered his weapon. “Yeah, that, too.”
Pred sighed. “Okay. What now?”
Juice just spat tobacco juice into the gravel, rested his weapon on its sling – and, in answer, simply got busy pushing the cart full of paintball gear around the building and then up the road itself, as fast as he could manage. Pred fast-walked alongside, scanning for targets, pulling security.
“I hate this mission,” he grumbled.
This time, Juice didn’t argue with him.
* * *
A mile north of the paintball arena, a Pinzgauer truck full of civilians, with a slashed canvas roof, blasted up the A3 heading toward Wandsworth.
The driver, Ronnie, dodged stopped cars and fleeing civilians, occasionally looking back in the rearview mirror, upon the chaos seeming to give chase. His mate in the passenger seat said, “You were right. They’re definitely coming from the southwest now.”
Ronnie grunted. “Maybe coming from everywhere. Doesn’t matter. We’ll be safe soon.”
“Wait – where’s Vivian?”
Ronnie had thought she was in back. But if she wasn’t, they definitely weren’t turning around and going back for her. It was every man for himself now. Or every woman.
And Ronnie was looking out for number one.
Breached
CentCom – JOC
Ali called a ten-minute leadership meeting to get and give very quick status updates. She wasn’t huge on meetings at the best of times, and didn’t plan to drag this one out.
“The local defenses,” she said, hitting Fick with a Sphinx-like gaze.
“Good as they’re gonna get. With the manpower we got.”
“Our reinforcements,” she said, moving her gaze to Miller.
He shook his head darkly.
“What?” she said. “What does that mean?”
“We can’t make commo with them.”
“What – with any of the three units you called up?”
“Gurkhas, London Regiment, Royal Hussars. All have gone black. Can’t raise them. Any of them. We’ll keep trying.”
Ali exhaled. She figured they’d better get used to that. She looked around the table. “Okay. We assume there’s no one coming – that we’re on our own. We’ve still got a job to do. And we get it done. Vaccine?” she said.
“Literally any minute,” Aliyev said. “Simon is possessed.”
Not yet he isn’t, Ali thought. “The MZ?”
“Still culturing. I’ve got lab staff feeding it as much agar as the culture can eat.”
Fick grunted. “You have to feed it?”
Aliyev rolled his head to one side. “They’re bugs. They have to eat, just like us. Soon, they’ll be eating the dead. For now, it’s polysaccharides from the cell walls of algae.”
“How much MZ do you have – now?” Ali asked.
Aliyev shifted in his chair. “Bacteria grow at different rates – doubling in anything from twenty minutes to twenty-four hours. With conditions optimized as I have them, we’re looking at a doubling time of about forty-five minutes.”
“How much.”
“Right now? Maybe enough to fill five or six paintballs.” No one around the table seemed to think that was great news. “But we’ll have twice as much in forty-five minutes, and sixteen times as much in three hours.” That sounded less dire. “And as for the paintball guns?” Aliyev asked.
Ali sighed. “Airsoft One has been… delayed.”
“Pred and Juice, you mean,” Fick said. “What’s delayed?”
“Their truck got slightly jacked.”
“With the paintball guns in them?”
“No. They’ve got the guns. And they’re making their way back.” Ali sighed and looked annoyed. “They’ll be here.”
“What – carrying them?”
“Moving on,” Ali said. But she realized that was it. They were done. “Back to your duties,” she said, rising from the table and moving back to her desk, not waiting for the others. “The clock hasn’t stopped.”
Last out, Fick said, “That’s Handon’s line.”
Ali looked up from her desk. “Fine. Then it’s not going to suck itself.”
Fick grinned. “Better. That’s the Ali we all know and fear.”
“Get out of my office, Master Guns.”
He did.
* * *
RMP Lance Corporal Booker stood his post outside the southwest guard tower on the walls, and watched the sun getting low on the horizon to his right. The days were getting damned short, and this one was bleeding away. It was cool and very quiet.
He adjusted his grip on the L85A2 rifle in his hands, regarding the length of the barrel with its suppressor attached, and thought about the lie he’d told to the American Marine who was orde
ring everyone around like a bunch of plonkers. He’d told the lie because he didn’t want the Yank judging him, and because it was none of his business.
The fact was he’d nicked the suppressor from the Royal Marines who had been in and out of CentCom, also ordering the local garrison around, in recent days. He’d taken it from one of their dead, after the outbreak. There were never enough suppressors to go around. No one had been looking. And the bootneck sure as hell wasn’t going to need it anymore.
Booker grunted and looked up as a faint rumbling noise floated up at him from the road. He raised his rifle, peered through his SUSAT sight – and immediately recognized the Pinzgauer truck the oversized Americans had gone out in. Now it seemed they were back. He lowered his rifle as they drove up to the walls at high speed and skidded to a stop, then hit his radio, intending to report to the JOC that they were back – and get permission to open the gate.
“JOC, go ahead.”
But then he hesitated. “Stand by.” He raised his rifle again, and watched in confusion as a knot of dumpy-looking civilians piled out of the truck, from both the cab and the cargo area in the rear. And without a word, they started moving on foot straight toward the gate.
Booker hit his radio again. “JOC, Booker, be advised we’ve got a group of civilians approaching the southwest gate.”
“Copy that. How many civilians?”
“Looks like eight or ten. What should I do?”
Slight pause. “Tell them to piss off.”
“Message received.”
Booker stepped to the railing around the guard tower and leaned out, as the civilians were already almost underneath him. “Oi! You lot!” he shouted. “Piss off.”
Their leader, a bald man with wispy white hair around the sides and back of his skull-like head, looked up and locked eyes with him… but then didn’t stop, instead continuing straight to the gate. And as Booker leaned out farther, he saw something profoundly unexpected.
The man had a big set of keys.
And he was using them to work the locks on the gate.
“You! Stop that! Back away from the gate – now!”
The man ignored him. Booker raised his rifle. This was suddenly a very serious situation. His whole job was to keep this side of the walls, and this gate in particular, secure. Now it was about to be opened wide by a bunch of random civilians – who for all Booker knew were already infected. He flashed back to the manic horror of the outbreak that had nearly taken down the whole facility in less than an hour, decimated the ranks of the RMPs – and almost ended humanity with a stake directly into the heart of its defense.
His pupils dilated to twice their normal size as he sighted in, then shouted one last time. But he could already see the skull-man removing the keys and pushing open the gate.
He opened fire, chugging silent but no less deadly suppressed rounds a mere twenty feet down into the crowd of civilians beneath him. And he didn’t stop shooting until every one of them was on the ground and unmoving. As he finally stopped firing and regarded the carnage he had perpetrated, he tried to get his mind around what he’d just done. Then he realized with a cold shock that wasn’t where he needed his mind.
Because the damned gate was open.
He turned, dashed back inside the guard tower, and leapt down the stairs, emerging on the ground beside and just behind the gate, then wheeled to face it. Sure enough, it stood wide open – but the area behind it was also filled with bullet-riddled bodies, and he was confronted again with what had just happened, paralyzed with shock and horror.
Oh, God, Booker thought. What the hell have I done?
He stepped slowly forward, panning his weapon from one unmoving corpse to another, looking for signs of life. But there was nothing. When he circled back to the leader, he squatted down and poked the body with the end of his suppressor. No response. He saw the dead man was still clutching a big brace of keys in his right hand – and he recognized them as the old prison keys. Then he saw there was something in the man’s other hand, which looked like a billfold. He took one hand from his weapon and pried it from the dead man’s grasp.
Flipping it open, he saw one side held a laminated ID, the photo clearly of the man, but back when he had more hair. On the other side was a silver badge, with a crown on top, ER II in the center – and HM PRISON SERVICE circling that. And he suddenly remembered all the guards they had sacked when CentCom took over the prison…
And then he saw the man’s hand twitch.
Booker gasped, thinking he might still be alive. Then he remembered that was hardly the only possibility, and he stood up, backed away, and aimed his rifle down at the dead man, waiting to see if he rose up, or even moved another inch. Dilated by adrenaline, hyper-alertness, and dread, the cone of his vision narrowed to a pin-hole in the fading light, his shaking hands trying to hold his aim steady.
Suddenly, movement – from elsewhere.
He looked up, raising his rifle and refocusing – too late.
A streaking dark figure knocked him to the dirt, the weight of an insistent body pinning him to the ground, frantic hands and teeth clawing, biting, grabbing, and scrabbling at him, faster than he could react or defend himself. He couldn’t seem to scream, and he didn’t even think to go for his radio. As he was torn, scratched, bitten, and devoured, other dark shadows sluiced in the open gate, two stopping and crouching down to tuck into his still-living flesh as he grunted and tried to scream.
But others ran right around him.
And straight out into Wandsworth Common.
Odysseus
CentCom – JOC
Miller broke the plane of Ali’s doorway.
“Sorry, ma’am – need to show you something.”
“Can you pipe it to my station?” Ali asked.
“Not video. Live and in person.” He gestured behind him, and Ali rose and followed him out of the JOC, into a service stairwell, and up one flight. They both emerged onto the roof of the SHQ building, the cool wind of dusk whipping at them.
Looking around, Ali could see that not only was night coming, but rain was threatening as well, a damp wind and gray clouds thickening up as they blew in from the west. But visibility was still pretty decent – and, immediately, Ali wished it weren’t.
“There,” Miller said, pointing due north across the roofs and yards of the prison complex. He handed her a pair of high-power binoculars, but even as she took them, she could somehow sense it, even if she couldn’t quite make it out with the naked eye.
The dead were here.
The great black tide of them were sweeping in and across London from the north. They were already at the banks of the River Thames, a mile away, the frontrunners spilling off the embankment and out into rushing waters. From the elevated position of the rooftop, and through the binoculars, she could just make this out through gaps in the trees.
“How long have we got?” Ali asked.
“Hard to say. Two hours, maybe?”
Ali handed the binos back. “All right. We’ve got a couple of hours to work with – then it’s going to be the Siege of CentCom. But this thing is far from over.”
But then she heard a short series of loud and angry cries – and looked over to see a jet-black raven, surreally big, bigger than it had any right to be, come flapping in and set down on top of the rooftop stairwell access structure, the highest point in sight, and look down upon seemingly everything all around. Like it owned it all – or soon would.
And Ali remembered the last time she’d seen one of those birds – outside that cabin in Michigan, right before the dead found and overran them, and nearly ended their mission then and there. That raven had just driven off three magpies from the foot of a tree, which in accordance with the old nursery rhyme, had seemed to augur a wedding. (“One for sorrow / Two for mirth / Three for a wedding / Four for a birth”) At the time, Ali hadn’t known whose wedding that would be. Homer was only hours away from taking off to look for his wife. Now they knew she was dead, thoug
h he’d found his children alive.
Shortly after, the raven had taken up residence on a bare branch of a tree. Ali remembered worrying that Homer was going to take it as an omen – and there weren’t a hell of a lot of ways to interpret a big black bird perching over your head. On that night, it had in fact proved to be an omen, and a very bad one. And the portents weren’t looking particularly good on this night.
Good thing I’m not superstitious…
But as Ali took a deep breath of the increasingly chilly and damp air, she realized she was getting that old creepy tingly feeling again – the one that always told her they were in a bad static position, and in danger of drawing a singularity. Only this time, they weren’t in a static position so much as a permanently fixed one – and there was nowhere left to displace to, absolutely nowhere else to hide. This was their very last fallback position – and any singularity around it would be the final one. It would finish the work of covering the surface of the Earth, turning it all into one eternal and unified mass of writhing death – the perfect and complete singularity.
And with it, the ultimate destruction of mankind would be complete, the total extinguishment of life.
And the final victory for death.
* * *
“Ma’am – sir!” This chirpy voice belonged to that compact and efficient corporal, Jones. She’d just come bounding up the stairs and out onto the roof. “Um,” she said as she reached them, holding a radio in one hand. “There’s an aircraft on approach, requesting landing clearance.”
Miller and Ali looked at each other. That was weird.
“What type of aircraft?” Miller asked.
“Small jet. American.”
Ali cocked her head and parted her lips.
“There.” Jones pointed low at the horizon in the southeast.
“Guess they’re not waiting for clearance,” Miller said. “Who in the hell could that be?”
ARISEN_Book Thirteen_The Siege Page 24
