Piero pulled the gun away from his face and fired a shot to the west. This time the flash captured the creature stalking him. An emaciated Varianti with a swollen, hairy belly crept toward him. Every inch of its bony flesh was covered in rashes. Yet another creature that had escaped to the tunnels to avoid the bioweapon they had dropped on Rome.
He squeezed off two more shots that missed. The creature seemed to twist and distort in the waning light. It jumped to the wall in a swift motion.
Piero tightened his grip on his gun and centered it in the direction the monster had leapt.
Six more bullets, make them count!
He fired again, and this time the flash lit up a mangled corpse wearing tattered vestments.
The sight made Piero’s heart kick even harder. It was the priest he had killed. That meant his old hiding place, which he had abandoned days earlier, wasn’t far. But how was that possible? He had been going west, not east. Had he been wandering in circles?
The scream of the Varianti dragged him back to the present moment. He fired bullets five and four. The blasts captured the creature hanging upside down from the ceiling. The smack-smack of swollen lips covered in open sores made him cringe.
He lined up a shot and squeezed the trigger just as something grabbed his leg.
Piero fell so fast he had no time to brace himself. He only just turned in time to land on his left shoulder so he didn’t crush Ringo. His bones ground together at the joint, but the hot slash of a talon on his ankle was what made him scream.
He remembered the horror of three Varianti stripping one of his old friend’s legs to the bone.
No, I will not go out like that!
Piero kicked at the beast and tried to struggle free. Another claw grabbed his shoulder from behind. He was lifted off the ground, squirming and screaming at the top of his lungs. The pair of beasts pulled him in different directions like two hyenas fighting over meat. His left shoulder flared with agony, and claws sank deeper into his ankle.
“Run, Ringo! Get out of here!”
The mouse squirmed in his pocket, squeaking frantically. Piero’s left leg went numb as the monster behind him gave a mighty heave.
“Please, please let me go!” Piero yelled. Hot tears blurred around his eyes. He swatted with his free right hand, striking the cold, clammy flesh of a creature that had no ability to reason and no capacity for mercy.
The numbness worked its way up his body. This was it—his time had finally arrived. Where there should have been terror, Piero felt only a strange, floating sensation. It felt a lot like relief.
After avoiding death for so long, the last man on earth, Piero Angaran, was about to die.
The monsters pulled harder, stretching his muscles and tendons to their limits. He stopped screaming, or maybe he just couldn’t hear himself anymore. He went limp. There was a silence, almost peaceful, until a screech shattered it into a million pieces.
Piero felt the pressure release on his arms and legs. Claws struck sparks on the walls as the two monsters retreated into the darkness.
“Ringo,” he whispered. “Are you okay?”
The mouse moved in his pocket as he sat up. Piero reached over his shoulder and felt blood running from a deep gash. His legs weren’t in much better shape, but he got to his feet and scrambled for his rifle.
A blast of air caught him in the face as he stood. It carried the sour, rotting fruit scent of the monsters.
Piero pulled a lighter from his pocket and struck it to look for his rifle. He found his candle in the process. He snatched it off the ground and lit it with a shaking hand. He grabbed his rifle and ran for the bars of his old hiding spot.
Another draft of air hit him as the approaching demon flapped wings nearly the width of the hallway. He didn’t dare turn to look.
“Hold on Ringo, don’t jump out,” Piero whispered. He set the candle near the bars, slung the rifle over his back, got onto his belly, and crawled under the gap.
His boots hit the floor of the tomb below with a thud. He snatched the candle and pulled his rifle through just as the winged juvenile reached the passage. It bent down to sniff the bars and grabbed them with claws the size of butcher knives. A quick yank ripped the entire pallet away from the stone.
Piero fell on his butt and palmed the ground to scoot backward. The candle fell on its side, but the flame continued to burn. He tried to grab it, but the monster stuck its bulbous head through the opening and snapped at him.
He stared in horror at the creature’s horned nose and wart-covered face. It tilted its head, then let out a bellowing shriek that covered him in mucus.
Piero pushed himself off the ground and called for Ringo to hold on. He limped across the small room and jumped onto the stairs as the beast tried to squirm through the entry into the tomb. Armor screeched against the stone behind him. He stopped on the fourth step when he realized he had left the candle. He looked back and saw the beast’s head and shoulders were stuck in the opening.
You’re still a soldier. Stay and kill it.
The mouse chirped for him to run.
No, run. Run and hide. Ringo is right.
His last candle was on the ground just feet away from the monster’s jaws. But the monster was wedged in the gap. There was no way the thing could get inside.
Raising his rifle and taking stuttering breaths, Piero slowly walked back down the steps. Ringo kept up his desperate chirping sounds, but Piero had made up his mind. The creature watched his every move, lips popping and jagged teeth dripping saliva. The reptilian eyes focused on him as he aimed his rifle.
Piero saw a flash of something like fear in its gaze.
Does it know it is about to die?
Piero didn’t care. He was done running and hiding like a cockroach.
He approached the beast as it squirmed again, armored shoulders cracking the foundation around the grate. Flecks of stone pattered the floor at Piero’s feet.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, he stayed to fight.
Piero pushed the rifle into the monster’s sucker mouth and pulled the trigger, once, then again just to be sure. A cracking sound echoed as the bullets ping-ponged inside the monster’s skull. The beast let out a final breath that smelled like a fish market left to rot in the summer sun. Its eyes were still locked onto Piero, even in death.
He almost fired another bullet for good measure, but he needed to save it for himself. If and when the time came, he wasn’t going to let them take him—or his friend. His knife would do for Ringo first, and then he would end this nightmare once and for all.
He grabbed the candle and limped up the staircase that snaked up through St. Peter’s Basilica. Piero and Ringo were returning to the light. They weren’t going to live in the darkness anymore.
Piero Angaran was a man, not a monster.
And if he was going to die, he was going to do it on a full stomach.
-19-
Fitz did his best to keep the impact of his blades minimal on the narrow stone steps leading up to the balcony, but they had been built when humans had shorter strides—and he doubted the medieval architects had considered mobility prosthetics like his in their plans. Every time Meg’s hatchet clanked against his thigh or the speared tips of his blades scraped across a step, Dohi glared at him.
Fitz paused to reposition the hatchet and Michel bumped into him from behind.
“What’s the holdup?” the kid whispered. “We’re almost there.”
“Sorry,” Fitz mumbled. He patted Apollo and let the dog go ahead. Moonlight streamed through small gaps between boarded-up windows and filled the balcony with ghostly rays of light.
Fitz stopped and pressed his eye against a gap, but he could only make out indistinct shapes and shadows below. Wind whistled past the basilica, followed by something else he couldn’t quite place—a rumble, like a far-off earthquake.
He continued on, moving slowly up the balcony. Michel hurried past Fitz to the next set of windows, where
a girl with braided blonde hair sat on a crate. She stood as they approached, a revolver in her hand. She acknowledged their presence with a contemptuous glare.
“It’s okay, they’re friends,” Michel whispered.
The girl sat back down on the crate and said something in French that didn’t sound friendly at all.
“Take a look,” Dohi whispered, beckoning Fitz over to another window.
Fitz raised the loose top board and leaned forward. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
“What am I looking for?”
Dohi’s response was lost in the same rumbling sound from before.
Fitz squinted and focused on a bulging mound of soil. He stepped back, then pushed his rifle out of the small opening to zoom in using the scope. The raised earth suddenly moved toward the wall of the basilica right underneath them. He cursed as a dozen more of the mounds emerged and darted forward. Something was moving just below the surface.
“What the hell are those things?” Fitz whispered.
Michel stepped up. “Let me see.”
At first he just stood there looking through the gap in the boards, his back slowly moving up and down as he took in calm breaths.
How is this kid so calm? Fitz wondered.
“Yup, those are Wormers,” Michel announced a moment later. “The most I’ve ever seen. And if they’re out there, the Pinchers and Black Beetles aren’t far.”
Fitz caught Dohi’s worried gaze. It was the first time Fitz had ever seen a hint of fear in the man’s features.
“I’ll try Command again.” Fitz flicked his comm mic back to his lips. “Lion 1, Ghost 1. Does anyone copy? Over.”
Fitz bent back down to the small window while he waited for a reply. Static rushed into his ear, then a muffled voice, more static, and finally, a response.
“Copy Ghost 1. This is Lion 1. We’ve been hit by another wave of Reavers. Took down our comm tower for almost an hour. How about a SITREP?”
“Roger, Lion 1. I have the intel.”
“Good job, son. Relay your intel to Lion 2. Wait one.”
“Wait, sir. We have enemy forces movement, and, uh—” Fitz didn’t know how to describe what he’d just seen. What could he say?
“You there, Ghost?”
“Roger, Lion 1. I’m here. These things…whatever they are, they’re big, and they’re moving underground now.”
“Repeat. Underground?”
“That’s right, Lion 1. They’re tunneling.”
“We’ll cook those ugly bastards no matter where they’re hiding. Our bombers are standing by. Operation Reach is a go. We are just waiting on your intel and the intel from several other recon teams in Spain and Germany.”
Fitz remembered what Mira had told him about the radiation.
“Lion 1, there’s something else. The creatures here seem to have mutated, and the locals think it’s from radiation.”
“Copy that, Ghost 1. That’s no surprise. We’re getting a ton of reports of new Variants out there. But don’t worry, our bombs will kill all of them.”
“The dirty bombs though. What if they make things worse?”
“Ghost 1, you just focus on staying alive until I can get you an evac. You let me worry about the other shit. I’ll pass your concerns up the chain of command.”
“Roger that, sir. How long until our evac?”
There was a pause, then, “You’ll have to wait a few hours. We lost another Apache, and the big birds were damaged. They’re being repaired now. I got one King Stallion in service and can’t risk it right now.”
Fitz’s heart sank as he watched the approaching Wormers. The gardens were a network of brown veins webbing toward the basilica.
“We have hostiles closing on our location,” Fitz said. “We aren’t going to last out here.”
“I’ll get you that evac as soon as I can. Until then, hunker down. Good luck. Lion 1 out.”
Bradley’s transmission ended, and a woman’s voice came over the channel.
“Ghost 1, Lion 2. Ready to receive your report. Over.”
Fitz was so stunned he couldn’t manage a reply. Apollo whimpered and sat back on his haunches, sensing his handler’s anxiety.
“Ghost 1, Lion 2. Do you copy? Over.”
“Lion 2, this is Ghost 1,” Fitz said heavily.
He did his duty and finished his mission by relaying the coordinates Mira had given him. Command now had the information they needed to take out the Variant and juvenile armies with radioactive bombs in the next phase of the invasion. Operation Reach was meant to kill the majority of the monsters, allowing the MEUs and supporting forces to advance to Paris. He just hoped General Nixon knew what the hell he was doing.
After Fitz gave the last set of coordinates, his shoulders sagged and he found himself unable to meet the eyes of the people watching him. Bradley would wait to drop those bombs until they got out. He wouldn’t break his promise to Beckham to get Team Ghost home in once piece. Or would he?
No…Team Ghost is expendable.
Fitz swallowed hard, knowing he might have just called in a death sentence for his team and these kids.
The greater good. That’s what being a soldier is all about.
“Are we going to take your truck, mister?” Michel asked. His gaze flitted to Fitz’s laughing joker bandana, then to his eyes.
Fitz had considered taking the MATV, but he wasn’t going to risk leaving the building with all those things out there. He tried to think of other options. Maybe they could survive the Variant army by hiding in the crypts like the Ombres, but they would still be within the blast zone of Operation Reach.
Even if they did fight their way outside to the MATV, not all of them would fit inside. He couldn’t leave a single one of these kids behind.
Apollo whined at his knee. The dog’s tail was between his legs, and Fitz quickly saw why. A shadow had blotted out the moonlight streaming in through the gap in the boards. Dohi slowly replaced the board over the hole and took a step back. More shadows shrouded the room on all sides. The buffeting wind of the Reavers’ wings slammed into the basilica like a brewing tornado.
Fitz motioned for everyone to move down the stairs, but he waited to get a final look at what they were facing. At the far end of the gardens, a pack of frail adult Variants prowled along a fort of bushes. To the north, a juvenile perched on a stone ledge, its head tilted to watch the sky. A dozen more of the armored beasts were moving in from the parking lot. In the small wood to the west, a tree suddenly sagged into the earth. The branches swayed and vibrated like the trunk was in a blender. It jolted violently before the base of the tree vanished into the earth, leaving only the top branches.
“Come on, sir,” Dohi called.
Fitz raised a finger, watching as a black beast with a curved beak for a mouth emerged from the hole in the ground. It was almost twice the size of an average juvenile, but instead of the rigid, turtle-like armor he’d come to expect, this one had the smooth shell of a beetle.
“Jesus,” Fitz whispered.
Dohi tapped him on the arm. “What do you see?”
He pulled his eye away and slowly lowered the board.
“The devil,” he whispered back.
Ringgold ran as fast as she could across the new White House lawn. Her lungs burned with every chilly breath. Soprano had already stumbled twice and was now leaning on a Secret Service agent.
“Hurry!” Nelson yelled.
They ran toward an unmarked Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. It had the same stealth modifications as the one SEAL Team Six had used to raid Osama Bin Laden’s compound. Nelson claimed it would get them out of here without being detected.
“How much time?” Ringgold asked.
“Five minutes to clear the infection zone, Madame President,” Nelson said, running smoothly beside her.
“What about the teams out here?”
“We lost contact with them.”
Ringgold cursed. Snipers and Marines were somew
here in the woods, rushing to get back, but with the comms down there was no way to know where they were. In five minutes, that missile would hit. And then they would start to turn…
An image of her cousin, her eyes turned yellow and bloody, flashed across her mind. She shook the nightmarish images away.
I will not become a monster.
The thump of rotors forced her thoughts back to the tarmac. Nelson was already at the chopper. He motioned for Ringgold to duck, then held out his hand to help her into the troop hold.
She took a seat and strapped the buckles across her chest. The lights of the old resort glowed warm and bright in the distance. Ringgold hated to leave it with nothing but the clothes on her back, but she hated leaving behind the majority of her staff even more.
“Three minutes!” Nelson shouted. “Hurry!”
Barnes jumped inside and took a seat next to Nelson. The remaining two agents heaved a wheezing Soprano inside and climbed in after him.
“Let’s go!” Nelson held up a thumbs up sign to the cockpit.
Ringgold watched the gardens fall away below them, saying a silent farewell to the roses she had loved. Then movement caught her eye.
“Down there!” she shouted.
Soprano was breathing heavily, his hand gripping his chest. He twisted to follow her finger to the eastern fences. A team of Marines was opening the gate. They were still at least a quarter-mile from the White House.
As she watched their progress, praying they’d make it to safety, Ringgold saw the fiery trail of the missile emerge over the horizon.
“Move it!” Nelson ordered. “Get us the hell out of here!”
The bird rolled hard to the right, making the harness tighten across her chest. Pain raced across her injured shoulder, but it seemed distant, like none of this was actually happening to her.
To the south, the missile was already descending toward its target. Ringgold twisted to follow its trajectory as the pilots turned hard to the east.
“Thirty seconds!” Nelson yelled. “Punch it!”
“Fast as we can go!”
Ringgold barely heard the pilot’s reply. She was watching the team of Marines below. They had crossed the gardens and were running toward the door of the main building.
The Extinction Cycle (Book 6): Extinction Aftermath Page 25
