The Tide (Tide Series Book 1)

by Melchiorri, Anthony J

  The blue glow of the computer monitors shone on Samantha, Chao, and Adam. Dom, Thomas, and Miguel stood around Chao’s desk.

  “I’d love to hear what I’ve been missing out on,” Miguel said, flexing the fingers on his prosthetic. Lauren and Peter had agreed he could end his stay in isolation, given he had been asymptomatic and sustained no injuries. Besides, given Scott’s instability and the mechanic’s burgeoning infection, Dom had agreed with the doctors that Miguel would be much safer outside the confines of the ward. “How’d you nerds do?”

  Samantha gave him a menacing look and shot him a one-finger gesture to convey her distaste.

  Then again, Dom might’ve been wrong. Miguel might still be safer back in quarantine.

  “Us nerds,” Samantha began, “used a natural language processing algorithm—”

  “Sorry,” Dom cut her off. “I want to make it back into Medical to see how Glenn is getting on. So cut the computer jargon and help me understand what’s going on. If there’s anything I can ask the mechanic before Lauren induces him into a coma, better spill it fast.”

  “Right,” Samantha said, rolling her eyes. Dom knew she took special pride in regaling the crew with her technical wizardry, but with so many cogs in this disaster moving at once, he didn’t have time to entertain her ego. “I think our biggest discovery is that an early iteration of the Oni Agent originated from late-1940s government research.”

  Thomas scratched the stubble along his jaw. “World War II-era tech? Was this a result of Operation Paperclip?”

  “The name Amanojaku is Japanese,” Dom said. “Paperclip was focused on the Germans, not the Japanese, so I’m betting this isn’t Nazi tech. Still, the US did take their fair share of doctors and scientists from Japan. Most were from Unit 731.”

  “That was the chemical and biological warfare research arm of the Japanese military, right?” Thomas asked.

  Dom nodded. “For some reason, it never reached the levels of infamy Josef Mengele’s human experiments in Auschwitz did, but Unit 731’s research led to the death of thousands of men, women, and children.” A twinge of disgust and anger rose up in him as he spoke. “These people served as guinea pigs for vivisections, germ-releasing bombs, radiation exposure, and bubonic plague infections, among other grotesque experiments. It wouldn’t be a far cry to assume the Oni Agent came from the same research.”

  “We think so,” Samantha said, standing from behind her bank of computer monitors. “And the paper trail we’ve followed through the non-corrupted data starts with the CIA. At one point, this project was moved to another military installation, but we can’t determine where.”

  “Sounds like Fort Detrick might be a top candidate.” Dom wondered if that might explain the response Meredith had witnessed at the base. “Is that all you’ve got on the historical context?”

  “That’s it,” Adam said, tugging his beard and looking disappointed. Chao and Samantha both nodded. “I’m not sure anything else is salvageable. The connection between the rig and the Huntress was too short for us to bust through all their layers of firewalls and encryption.”

  “Fair enough,” Dom said, leaning against Chao’s desk. “What about the science side of things?”

  “Yeah, tell me what I didn’t catch,” Miguel said.

  “Not much, I’m afraid. We got random numbers and tables, but we have no idea what these values mean. There aren’t any textual labels.” Samantha shook her head, her long dark braids tossing about her shoulders. “We tried some pattern analysis to see if we could identify any probable correlation between the experimental variables they could’ve been studying, but we’ve found nothing significant.”

  “In English?” Thomas asked.

  “We’re at a loss,” Samantha said. She lowered her gaze in defeat.

  “Anything we can ask our pal from the rig to help you all out?” Dom asked. “I’m not sure how long he’s got before the Oni Agent takes hold.”

  “Yeah,” Chao said. “Ask him what the hell it is.”

  “Anything besides the obvious?”

  “Anything that might help us analyze what little data we’ve recovered.” Adam paused his typing and looked up over his glasses for the first time. “But honestly, at this point, your guess is as good as ours.”

  ***

  Glenn nodded at Dom through the window of the isolation ward. He and Lauren stood next to the worker from the oil rig. They no longer wore the positive pressure suits since determining that the Oni Agent wasn’t airborne.

  Still, Dom had asked Lauren to keep Scott and the mechanic within the isolation ward for added protection. Not from the Oni Agent itself, but as a prison of sorts in case the sedatives and induced coma weren’t enough and Scott or the mechanic lashed out in rage under the poisonous influence of the agent.

  “His name is Amir,” Glenn’s voice sound over the intercom. “He was a maintenance worker. Took care of the generator and mechanical equipment. He claims to know nothing about the labs or what they were doing aboard the platform. In fact, he was forbidden from entering that entire deck. Sounds like he was more or less kept prisoner on the generator deck.”

  Disappointment welled up in Dom. He had hoped this man would be the key to filling in the cracks between the scientific studies and computer analyses his team had conducted. “Do you believe him?”

  Glenn lifted his bulky shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “I think so. My Farsi is a bit rusty, so it’s hard for me to gauge his honesty through spoken word.” He tilted his head at Amir. “And the poor guy isn’t doing too hot, so reading his body language isn’t helpful.”

  Pallor had replaced the healthy brown of Amir’s face. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. Dom imagined the wounds in his arms were filled with the same bone-like tissue covering Scott’s injuries and Brett’s body.

  “We’re losing him fast,” Lauren said. “I’ve kept him on antibiotics to slow the progress of the Oni Agent, but Scott scraped him up good. I think the sheer number of scratches is contributing to the rate at which the agent is forming calcified tissue. Presumably, that’s linked to the spread of whatever is causing the neurological changes that led to Scott’s aggressive outburst.”

  It wouldn’t be long before the Oni Agent completely took over Amir’s mind, turning him bloodthirsty like Scott. The Oni Agent would slowly ravage both their bodies until the transformation was complete and they turned into demonic Skulls.

  “So in other words, we don’t have much longer to talk to this guy,” Dom said.

  “Not unless we find a cure.”

  “Glenn, thanks for your efforts,” Dom said. “See if you can’t get anything else useful from him. Maybe he knows something but doesn’t even realize it.”

  “Understood,” Glenn said.

  Waiting for Amir to magically give them something more helpful and praying his electronics team or the medical team would make a sudden breakthrough wouldn’t be enough.

  But his team had come away with something interesting. The vague but telling clue regarding a military installation that had taken control of the Amanojaku Project might prove important. Coupled with Meredith’s observations at Detrick, Dom felt more convinced they urgently needed to make contact with the base. It seemed logical, judging by Detrick’s response to the Oni Agent outbreak, that someone there knew something Dom and his team didn’t.

  He glanced at Scott’s rigid form. The man’s eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell in shallow waves.

  Never before in the history of the Huntress had Dom lost a man or woman, not until they’d boarded the IBSL. He didn’t intend to lose another. If a potential cure lay in the confines of Fort Detrick, Dom would take the chance to find out. By traveling to Frederick, he might save Scott and his girls in one fell swoop.

  He and Meredith had agreed to meet at his family’s home, but he still hadn’t heard from his daughters. He prayed Kara and Sadie were bunkered down with Bethany watching over them, waiting for someone to sweep them away to s
afety. Yet he knew that it wasn’t just his family’s lives at risk as the Oni Agent spread; the entire human species was hanging in the balance.

  ***

  Kara lowered the shotgun and let it drop in a nearby bush. She crouched on the roof and waited to see if any of the crazies flitting about the neighborhood noticed. Maybe nightfall would help conceal her.

  A half dozen had run down the main road, and now only a couple meandered about the cul-de-sac. She believed at least three had invaded the Weavers’ home.

  Gingerly, she slipped over the side of the roof and hung over the edge. The coarse shingles scraped her fingers, but she inched off as far as she could before letting go. She bent her knees to absorb the impact. As soon as she hit the ground, she bent and recovered her shotgun. She paused and strained her ears.

  No guttural howls or charging crazies greeted her.

  She steered far from the streetlights as she snuck toward the Weavers’ two-story home. She ducked behind a hydrangea. Its flowers had long since bloomed and withered away, but the branches spanned wide and dense enough to provide cover.

  A crash of glass sounded from within the home. Kara knew patience and caution were virtues when it came to hunting, but that wouldn’t save Sadie or the family of four’s lives tonight. She sprinted across the front yard. Wind rushed past her as she barreled forward. She jumped and dove through the gaping hole in the window the crazies had made during their assault on the home.

  Broken glass cut into her arm as she rolled across the Weavers’ carpeted floor. She ignored the pain and came to a stop on her knees. With the stock of the shotgun pressed to her shoulder, she played its barrel across the dark room. Nothing but the spindly shapes of chairs and a long dining room table stood in her way.

  A mix of shuffling and scraping sounded from deeper in the house. Staying light on her feet, she hurried to the kitchen, where a cabinet lay askew. Moonlight filtered in through the windows and glimmered on shattered glasses and plates strewn across the hardwood floor.

  More scraping and shuffling, along with growls, echoed up a set of stairs leading to the basement. Kara ran down them.

  Without any windows and only the light filtering from upstairs to guide her path, she could hardly make out the shapes around her. She prayed it was just as hard for the crazies to see as it was for her.

  The guttural grunts and scratching grew louder as she inched forward.

  A muffled scream came from her left. It sounded as though it had come from a child—Leah or Zack.

  She paused near a thick column. Heavy breathing and the scratch of nails against wood caught her attention. She swiveled toward the source of the noise. Darkness bathed the basement, and she squinted, desperate to see what lay before her. Then she heard the tearing of wood. A door being taken apart.

  An unbridled scream filled the air.

  “No!” She recognized Joe’s deep baritone.

  Her finger shook near the trigger, but she couldn’t risk firing. Not now. Not with children somewhere beyond her line of sight.

  More tearing and crashing and a beam of orange light burst from the darkness.

  Candles burned from beyond a broken door. The glow illuminated the rabid faces of three crazies tearing at the wooden door. They’d burst through part of it and now ripped away the rest of the wood.

  Screams came from beyond the door where Joe and his family cowered in a corner, just visible through the widening hole.

  “Hey, assholes!” Kara yelled.

  The crazies ignored her as they shoved each other, desperate to get at their cornered prey. One, a fit woman in a T-shirt and yoga pants, began to push through.

  Kara dashed beside the attackers and let loose a shotgun blast. The female crazy’s chest blew apart in a burst of blood, flesh, and bone. Kara ignored the ringing in her ears and fired again and again at the other two crazies. Their bodies twisted with the spray of buckshot. Kara pumped and fired her last shot into the mutilated crazies.

  All three lay still on the floor. Murky pools of blood formed underneath their bodies, appearing as innocuous as shadows in the dim lighting. But the darkness could not mask the stinging, ferrous odor of the liquid.

  Kara kicked aside the bodies and peered into the room. Candlelight flickered over the shocked faces of the Weavers. Nina, her hair cropped short and blue eyes wide with fear, stood behind Joe. Leah held a teddy bear and cowered behind her mother. Zack peeked out from behind Nina’s protective arms. Joe cocked a baseball bat over his shoulder, ready to swing for his family’s lives. He wore a Baltimore Orioles shirt but didn’t appear near as athletic as his favorite baseball team. His eyes were searching Kara wildly, and sweat matted down his thinning hair.

  His family was safe and accounted for, but where was Sadie?

  “Kara!” The twelve-year-old, who shared the same auburn locks as Kara, rushed out of the destroyed door and threw her arms around her sister. She sobbed into Kara’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” Kara said, letting the gun fall to her side and wrapping an arm around Sadie. Her voice still sounded foggy through her damaged hearing. She glanced around the office. The Weavers had nothing to protect themselves besides Joe’s bat and Leah’s teddy bear. “We can go back to my house. We’ve got guns enough for everybody.”

  Joe’s muscles relaxed. Lowering the bat, he stepped forward. He nudged the remnants of the door open, an unnecessary gesture. “Thank you.”

  “Yeah,” Nina said, one hand on each of her children’s shoulders. “Thank you.”

  Kara nodded. “No, thank you for keeping Sadie safe.”

  “We couldn’t let her go home,” Nina said. “Not when your mom was gone and the reports on the radio...”

  “No, we didn’t want her to be alone,” Joe finished for his wife. He rubbed his fingers over his ears, evidently as deafened by the close-quarter volley of gunfire as Kara.

  Kara motioned for them to follow her. For a moment, she considered leaving them and coming back with the guns. But they didn’t have much time. The gun blasts wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by the crazies she’d seen around her cul-de-sac and those traveling along the main street. She couldn’t leave the family here defenseless, especially not with their house already broken into.

  Nina ushered Leah and Zack from their hiding place, and Kara led the family up the stairs. They reached the first floor. The crunch of glass caught her attention, and she spun to her left. One of the crazies climbed through the window. It locked eyes with Kara and charged.

  She shouldered the shotgun, but her finger clicked the trigger uselessly. She’d forgotten to reload it.

  The crazy, a larger man in a T-shirt and sweatpants, let out a gurgling cry. Kara spun the shotgun in her hands and held the barrel. Like a batter ready to swing, she brought it back over her shoulder.

  With a final growl, the man leapt. Kara let loose. The stock of the shotgun connected with the man’s jaw. His neck twisted with a sickening snap. Legs locking, the man fell forward and crashed into the wall. He struggled to stand, but Kara bashed him again, and he dropped flat on the floor.

  “Come on!” Kara called to Sadie and the Weavers. They followed her forward to the entrance hall.

  Kara peeked out the small half-circle window in the top of the front door. Several people started toward the house. Others began to follow, caught in the fervor pulsing through the crowd of crazies.

  Nina pointed toward the broken window in the connected dining room. “There’s another!”

  A woman crawled through. The glass shards hanging in the window like jagged teeth tore into her arm. Blood trickled from her wounds, but her focus never wavered from her prey.

  Joe threw himself between the woman and his family. He swung his metal bat once, then twice. The woman’s skull cracked, but still her teeth chattered. Another swing and her body went limp, her legs still dangling outside.

  Another man, a half-crown of hair gracing his tanned scalp, squeezed between the dead woman and the window. He clawed
at the glass, breaking it into more shards.

  Kara dug out a couple shells from her pocket as Joe let loose with the bat.

  As the crazed man’s growling and scratching ceased, another tried to push himself through the window. Sadie cried out as Leah and Zack screamed. Something else pounded and slammed against the door. Joe flipped the dining table on its side and pressed it against the two dead crazies stuck in the window. He slid a china cabinet behind it for reinforcement.

  “Out the back!” Kara said. She led them to the kitchen and gestured for them to freeze. Joe crept to the sliding glass door leading to their back porch.

  A couple of shapes wandered near the Weavers’ vegetable garden. They were about a dozen yards away, but Kara wasn’t sure she, Sadie, and the Weavers could make it past without being spotted.

  They’d been lucky to take down three of the crazies in the brief melee. But out in the open, if one swing of Joe’s bat or a shot from her gun missed, that would be the end for them. And if she was forced to fire her weapon, she’d attract the attention of more.

  “We need a distraction,” Joe said, sizing up the situation immediately.

  Kara nodded. Then she remembered the candles downstairs.

  “You’ve got matches? A lighter or something?” Kara asked Joe.

  Joe dug into this pocket and withdrew a plastic Bic lighter. “Right here.”

  Zack whimpered as more scratching and growls sounded outside their home. Leah squeezed her teddy bear tighter.

  Kara wondered if she was crazy for what she was about to suggest, but she couldn’t think of a better option now. “Do you have any high-proof alcohol?”

  Joe’s eyes lit up with understanding. Careful to avoid the glass and broken dishware on the kitchen floor, he retrieved a bottle of vodka from a cabinet above the stove. He pulled a washcloth from a drawer near the sink then poured enough vodka on the cloth to saturate it. “Think this will work?”

  “Hollywood seems to think so,” Kara said. “Unless you’ve got a gallon of gasoline stashed away somewhere, we might as well try.”