The Tide (Tide Series Book 1)

by Melchiorri, Anthony J

  Shauna shot her a worried look but quickly steeled herself. “Okay. Be careful.” She took a deep breath. “Ready, Eric?”

  A furrow creased his brow, and he nodded as though he was unsure.

  Meredith didn’t give him a chance to second guess his decision. “Go!” she shouted.

  Eric and Shauna shot down the aisle and yanked up the red bar for the emergency exit. They jumped off the back. Meredith ran after them partway down the aisle then stopped and turned to face the front of the bus. She needed to give them a head start and stop as many of their attackers as possible.

  The front door of the bus burst open with a crash. Meredith dropped the first two Skulls, still more human than monster, charging down the aisle with several well-placed shots to their chests. Another two climbed over the corpses, shoving each other as they barreled forward.

  Meredith fired four more rounds, and one of the Skulls tumbled under the feet of a second.

  Taking aim, Meredith squeezed the trigger three more times. Each shot thumped against the chest of the remaining Skull. He staggered but continued forward. She expected to see a gush of blood and waited for the Skull’s life to ebb away. But the thing continued onward. She was almost to the rear exit when the man pounced.

  Squeezing the trigger over and over, Meredith fired until the gun clicked and the slide locked back.

  Empty.

  Still, the spray of bullets had been enough. The Skull fell at Meredith’s feet, a dark hole in the middle of his forehead.

  Across the Skull’s chest, she saw the rounds she’d plugged him with had torn holes in his shirt. The bullets had shorn off part of the Skull’s flesh, but beneath the holes lay hard bone. It appeared to be the beginning of the armored ribcages she’d seen from Dom’s footage of the Skulls aboard the IBSL.

  The Oni Agent was acting quickly on these people. Undoubtedly it wasn’t well known to the general population that antibiotics would slow the transformation, which made the need for her to join up with Dom and make it into Fort Detrick all the more dire.

  One of the two Skulls bashing in the windshield swung around and entered the passenger door. She climbed through the aisle past her downed compatriots, her claws tearing the vinyl seats.

  Meredith jumped out the emergency door and slammed it shut behind her. She saw that Shauna and Eric had made it to the next bus without being noticed. The Skulls were too focused on Meredith, too hungry for her flesh to notice the other healthy humans climb into bus 95.

  As she made her way to join them, she jammed a fresh magazine into the pistol. The Skull she had failed to kill pounded and ripped at the emergency exit. She threw her shoulder into the glass, lacerating her skin and leaving bloody streaks. The glass cracked and shattered, and the Skull pushed herself through just as Meredith reached the bus with Shauna and Eric.

  The bus’s door opened, Meredith tumbled in, and then Shauna pulled the lever to close it again. Eric sat in the driver’s seat but relinquished it as soon as Meredith came aboard.

  The pursuing Skull threw herself at the door. Her arms flailed at the glass panes, and her frustrated screams penetrated the bus’s interior. More Skulls followed the first’s wailing and piled up around the door. Others jumped on the hood as more poured in through the open garage door in front of bus 86.

  The key clicked into the ignition, and Meredith twisted it.

  Nothing.

  One of the Skulls began ramming the windshield, leading with his shoulder. Bony nodules reinforced his physique like a football player’s shoulder pads. Cracks spider webbed across the glass when he threw himself at it again.

  “What’s going on?” Shauna yelled.

  Eric rotated the lug wrench in his hand as if ready to fight to the death, but the pallor of his face spoke to the fear overwhelming him.

  For a moment, Meredith regretted bringing these two down from the Appalachian Trail and into a civilization torn apart by a biological weapon almost no one knew existed just days ago. She wouldn’t let herself be responsible for their deaths. Despite the madness around her, she forced her frantic thoughts from her mind and mustered all the focus she could.

  With a low exhalation, she reinserted the key into its slot and turned the ignition on. The Skulls roiled outside, claws scratching, howls echoing in the service center, and bodies thumping against the bus. A Wait to Start button lit up. She hadn’t noticed it before when she was so intent on escaping. A distant memory of her training in automotives and transportation cropped up. She had never been one of those agents with any need for racing around in foreign cars in distant lands, so it was a vague recollection at best. Still, it eked back to her now. Something about some diesel engines requiring their glow plugs to heat up before they started.

  The Wait to Start button’s light went off, and Meredith turned the key again. This time, the diesel engine rumbled to life, one of the most thrilling and satisfying sounds Meredith ever heard.

  “Now what?” Eric asked, his voice shaky. “The door’s still closed.”

  There was no way to maneuver the large bus to the locked-open service bay door. One of the Skulls screamed and lunged at the windshield again. The fracture lines in the glass spread.

  “Hang on.” Meredith threw the automatic transmission into drive and pressed her foot down.

  They crashed into the garage door. The Skulls on the hood flew forward. The door groaned and squealed but didn’t crumple. She threw the bus into reverse and smashed the gas pedal. She didn’t let go until the bus crashed into the back of the service center. The entire structure shuddered. A clock fell from the wall, and several spare tires bounced from their racks bolted to the metal siding.

  “One more time,” she said and leaned forward across the steering wheel. The bus jolted, the behemoth gaining what speed it could in the confined space. One of the Skulls screamed as she was crushed under a wheel. Meredith ignored the crunching of bones under rubber as the bus hit the door again.

  Metal screeched in resistance but bent outward. The retractable door tore off its track. The bus’s tires squealed on the concrete as Meredith revved the engine. All at once, the door gave, and the bus shot out into the depot’s parking lot. Two of the Skulls pounded away at the windshield even as the door folded over the front of the bus and obscured Meredith’s field of vision.

  Without seeing where they were going, she spun the wheel to shake off the remnants of the door and the two persistent Skulls. The bus jolted to a stop, greeted by the crunch of metal.

  Shauna and Eric yelped in surprise as they were thrown forward. The steering wheel caught Meredith in the sternum, knocking the air from her lungs. The two Skulls flew from the hood, and the garage door flopped over a parked bus they’d hit.

  With the windshield shattered but holding, Meredith reversed the bus and turned it away from the other vehicle. Then she flicked on the headlights. One of them still worked and lit up a swathe of asphalt.

  “Hell of a field trip, man,” Eric called out as the bus swung onto the road.

  Meredith couldn’t help herself from laughing aloud.

  Maybe too loud.

  She didn’t care, because as they barged down the road, littered with abandoned cars and the occasional body, they were still alive. Each block was another they put in between themselves and the pack of Skulls that had almost ended them.

  An occasional Skull ran at them as they passed. Most were left in their dust. A couple ran head on, illuminated by the headlight. The bus crushed their bodies as if it were merely going over a pothole.

  “There’s...a person!” Shauna called, bracing herself between two seats as she stared out the rear exit. “Not a Skull! A woman!”

  Meredith glanced back. She could vaguely see the silhouette of a person running down the middle of the street, waving her arms. It seemed like a call for help. Maybe a desperate plea for them to slow down. Most people had apparently followed the emergency broadcasts to stay inside. If this woman was risking her life for help, something mu
st be wrong.

  Meredith couldn’t leave her. Doing so would be condemning her to death. She put on the brakes and turned the bus so the folding passenger door faced the poor woman. With a pull of the lever, the door slid partway open. The woman, panicked and screaming, hit the side of the bus and half-ran, half-guided herself with her hands along the side of the bus toward the door. She appeared hysterical.

  When Meredith saw the pack of Skulls running to catch up to them, she understood why.

  “Quick, get on!” Meredith called and opened the door the rest of the way.

  The woman scrambled on. Her eyes were wide and her face pale. Meredith pulled the lever to shut the door, and the bus started forward again. The woman opened her mouth as if to thank Meredith. But instead, the woman lunged and wrapped her hands around Meredith’s neck, crushing her windpipe and throat.

  Meredith struggled to keep the bus faced forward while batting at the woman and her gnashing teeth. Footfalls down the bus’s aisle accompanied the woman’s growls.

  Then the loud thump of steel rang out. The hands released, and the woman’s body crumpled. Eric stood over her with the lug wrench in his hands, blood dripping down the metal.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Meredith nodded, her throat still on fire. She gasped for a breath. While she course-corrected the bus, she glanced at the woman.

  From the glow of the bus’s dashboard lights and the one above the passenger door, the woman’s body was partially illuminated. She appeared normal. Her nails were maybe a bit long, but it was otherwise impossible to tell from a distance she was anything but an average person and not a budding Skull.

  Meredith now understood the Army’s response to the swarms of people outside Fort Detrick. Most of the healthy civilians would be frantic for the shelter of the military base. They’d be desperate to scale the security fences and get behind the patrolling soldiers. They would appear no different from the Skulls thirsty for warm blood and flesh.

  And some of the Skulls might even appear like normal citizens.

  She imagined the confusion and fear the soldiers must be experiencing despite their professionalism and training. Their mission was to defend the facility. They didn’t have time to discriminate between an aggressive Skull and a desperate civilian when hundreds, maybe thousands of them scrambled at their gates.

  A distant explosion sent up plumes of smoke and orange fire. The blast scattered her thoughts. It had come from near Detrick. The base would definitely be a no-go until Dom arrived with the helicopter and the means to contact someone beyond its embattled perimeter.

  “Where we headed?” Eric said as he regained his normal breathing. Shauna joined them at the front of the bus.

  “We’ve got to”—Meredith coughed, her voice still raspy—“we’ve got to reach my friend’s place. We’ll pick up his family—they’re the ones with the guns—and he should be on his way to meet up with us.”

  “Where’s he coming from?” Shauna asked.

  “Near Annapolis.”

  “Don’t know how he’ll make it through the roads if they’re all like this,” Shauna said as the bus weaved between two wrecked cars and an abandoned truck.

  “My friend won’t be taking the roads,” Meredith said. “He’ll be flying.”

  Shauna and Eric shared a skeptical look.

  “You didn’t get hit with that crazy virus, did you?” Eric asked.

  Meredith probed her neck. Besides the crushing of her windpipe, her skin hadn’t been broken by the woman’s attack. She’d be okay. “No, I’m not under the influence of the Oni Agent.”

  “Oni Agent?” Shauna’s face blanched.

  “Right...it’s a biological weapon,” Meredith said.

  “How do you know all this?”

  She exhaled slowly. “My friend more or less works for the government. As do I.”

  “Do you two have anything to do with all of this?” Shauna asked. “You seem to know an awful lot about these bioweapons and Skulls and agents.”

  “No, we don’t. We’re trying to stop it. I promise you.”

  Neither Eric nor Shauna said anything.

  “I’m sure my friend, Dominic, can find you better shelter and protection.” She jerked the wheel to the right to avoid a car that had T-boned a minivan. “But if you don’t want our help, I can drop you off somewhere.”

  “No!” Shauna and Eric said in unison.

  “All right, then settle in for the ride. I’m going to swing south; I want to skirt around as many of these Skulls as we can. At this pace, we should be there within an hour or so.”

  Eric and Shauna sat together in the seat nearest Meredith. They wrapped their arms around each other. Meredith stared forward. The growl of the diesel engine was her only talkative companion in the night.

  The bus’s single working headlight swept over the occasional mangled body and continued to attract a smattering of Skulls. She wondered if this was what the rest of America looked like. How far had the Oni Agent already spread?

  If the rest of the country looked like Frederick, what hope did they have in joining up with those at Detrick to reverse the biological progress of the Oni Agent?

  She pushed those questions from her mind. If she dwelled on them too long, she’d fall into a state of utter hopelessness. And right now, hope was all she had left.

  -24-

  Dom sipped a cup of coffee. Its burnt taste left something to be desired, but the warm, caffeine-laden beverage reinvigorated him. Sleep hadn’t been attainable on their approach to Annapolis. This was one of the first times they had taken the Huntress so close to the populated coast of the United States. He usually preferred to leave the ship in international waters.

  While the crew members had been given the opportunity to attempt contact with their family members, few reported any degree of success. As was the nature of groups like Dom’s, most had embarked on their high-seas adventures with him for a sense of purpose and a satisfying challenge to defend their nation in a unique and demanding way. Many hadn’t been tied down by a close family anyway and had made the transition to a covert contracting group like Dom’s relatively easily.

  Dom had offered any who wanted the opportunity to disembark and end their service with the Huntress to go be with their loved ones.

  None showed any interest. They unanimously supported the idea that their best chance at saving any of their friends, family, and the rest of the world relied on them doing what they did best: working together aboard the Huntress to eliminate biological and chemical warfare threats.

  Dom took another sip of coffee. Around him sat Thomas and the Hunters he had selected for the mission: Hector Ko, Renee Boland, and Miguel Ruiz. Despite the closed invitation to these Hunters, others had joined in their eagerness to help and serve. Glenn folded his hands together, waiting next to Jenna Reed. Andris Jansons cracked his knuckles, his brow furrowed in what seemed like a permanent scowl.

  Though she wouldn’t be joining them on their jaunt ashore, Lauren Winters represented the medical team at this meeting. From the communications and electronics workshop, Adam Galloway had been chosen. His training in cyber security, electronic surveillance, and communications had come from his service in the Air Force, which meant he possessed military training that Samantha and Chao did not.

  Since the AW109 could only accommodate eight people, Dom needed Hunters with as many talents as possible. They also needed to be prepared for the hellish landscape they were about to enter.

  The final member of their team, helicopter pilot Frank, sat next to Dom.

  Dom stretched a map on the table between the group members. “Here’s the flight plan.” He traced the line from Annapolis to the outskirts of Frederick. “If all goes well, Meredith Webb will meet us here.” He circled a small spot. “This is my family’s neighborhood. She should be on her way right now, and there’s a cul-de-sac plenty wide enough for us to use as a temporary helipad.”

  “I could land my bird on top of
a house if you need,” Frank replied.

  Dom didn’t doubt the joke was half-serious. “Hopefully, we won’t be relying on your helicopter rodeo skills to get us safely on land.”

  “And we’re just going to sweet-talk the Army into letting us land in their base?” Frank asked. “I know I’m charming, but that seems a bit challenging.”

  “I don’t think your pickup lines are going to work with the comm specialists in Detrick,” Adam said. “Which, either way, we still haven’t gotten into contact with anyone. Nothing, including ocean-borne UHF transmissions or satellite phones, is getting a response from them. And even if we do reach them, how do we convince them to let us land?”

  “Meredith’s role—or former role—in the CIA should help us,” Dom said. “But that might be a bit tenuous with the way things worked out before the outbreak. So our second tactic is to name-drop references to the Amanojaku Project.”

  “And if that doesn’t work, Chief?” Miguel asked, clenching his prosthetic fingers into a solid fist. “Are we supposed to just jump out of the bird and force our way in?”

  “I know you’re itching to get back in the saddle, but I’d prefer to keep our fingers off the trigger as much as possible.” Dom gestured to Lauren. “And that’s why it’s so important our research aboard the Huntress continues while we’re away. I want to have a bargaining chip. Any details, anything you can provide on the biochemistry or the biological origins of the Oni Agent would help us establish some rapport with Detrick. The best thing would be, of course, a cure.”

  “A cure?” Lauren scoffed, turning up her nose. “You want us to find a cure in a matter of days—maybe hours? Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely,” Dom said. “If it can be done, your team is the one to do it. You’re smart, capable, and resourceful enough.”

  “If that’s the case, I’ll need every minute I can in the lab.”

  “Then go ahead,” Dom said. “Get to it.”

  Lauren stood to leave, her face already adopting a serious expression. Her eyes seemed at once distant. Dom had seen the look before whenever the results of a laboratory experiment or a patient’s diagnosis were turning over in her mind.