The Tide (Book 5): Iron Wind

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Nothing charged from the darkness. No one called for help. No whimpers echoed from the shadows.

  Sucking in a long breath, Frank swiveled back to the hallway and crept to the last door. His heart thundered as he drew closer. A nearby window was partially blocked by another bookshelf full of flight training books and tomes filled with photographs of different helicopters. It left just enough space for moonlight to filter through. The pale light washed over gouges in the wood. A door handle rested on the ground, leaving a gaping hole where it had once been.

  Frank pushed the door open slowly. Something moved in the darkness, scuffling across a carpet. The creature ran at him. But it was no Skull. It was a rat. A goddamned rat, and nothing more.

  He kicked at it, hurrying the rat on its way.

  “Damn varmint,” Frank said with an exaggerated Southern twang. He felt a twinge of guilt for trying to kick it, but he’d been caught off guard by the rodent. In his experience, the creatures ran from people, not at them. He pushed the thoughts of the rat out of his mind as he inched the door open. A faint ferrous scent tickled his nostrils. Every window in this room was barricaded, shrouding the space in darkness. As the door opened wider, moonlight slipped in, illuminating the floor, inch by sullen inch. The ends of sleeping bags appeared, followed by a lantern on its side, the light long since gone out. Bullet casings glinted over a dark stain in the carpet. The stain led to a pistol with its slide locked back. It had been fired until empty.

  Frank had an inkling he knew what the weapon had been aimed at, but he still didn’t see who had fired it. Not until he opened the door wide enough for the light to wash over a sight that made his stomach lurch.

  Bones. More bones.

  He covered his hand with his mouth. He’d seen death. He’d seen people mauled and torn apart. But those two skeletons, picked clean, made him sick and sad and angry all at once. The smaller skeleton lay next to a larger one, teeth marks etching ringed patterns across both sets of bones. A family, torn apart by the Oni Agent. Leonard had brought his family here, maybe received a scratch defending them. Thought they were safe. Thought he’d done well. Instead, he’d condemned them to a violent death.

  Just like Frank had when he sent Philip and Marie up in the chopper with Gerald. The parallels were too much, crushing him like an avalanche. Frank pressed his palms into his eyes and leaned against the wall. He slid down it until he slumped on the floor, his head in his hands. All the horrors he’d seen seemed to overwhelm him at once. He sat like that, face hot in his palms, for some time.

  A few Skulls still groaned and howled from the airfield, and the scent of rot drifted into the room, mixing with the pungent smell of death clinging to the walls of this one. This was not a place for the living.

  Wallowing in his grief would not keep him alive. It wouldn’t change anything. And besides, he still had to reunite with Dom and the rest of the Hunters. He might not have any idea where in the world they were, but judging by the events at the NIH, they could very well need his help. He opened his eyes again and gazed up the wall. A wooden board with pegs hung on it, and on those pegs glimmered the door keys to the training school’s choppers.

  Frank had no way of knowing which choppers were fully fueled or still in working condition, so he pocketed them all. He quickly checked around to see if there was any more ammunition for the emptied pistol he’d found. But he found no other spare magazines or rounds, so he walked back to the hall, shutting the door respectfully behind him.

  Rummaging through the suitcases and backpacks, doing his best to ignore the thoughts of whom they’d once belonged to, he found a box of protein bars. His stomach growled, twisting on itself, as he unwrapped a bar and devoured it. Thirst took him next, and he pulled a bottle of water from the duffel. When his stomach no longer rumbled, he put the rest of the protein bars and all the canned goods into the duffel with the water bottles.

  He moved one of the bookshelves covering the glass front door to let in more light. It looked out on the neat row of helicopters. Several Skulls lumbered between the choppers, circling them like aimless vultures without a morsel of meat in sight.

  “Hope you all aren’t too hungry,” Frank said, eyeing the Skulls as he slowly opened the door to slip out. He pulled his pistol, holding it low against his leg. “I’ve only got one serving of lead to share.”

  -14-

  Kara sat on a stool in the mess hall and sipped a cup of coffee. Maggie lay nearby, her tail brushing the floor, back and forth, as she watched Kara. The dog nodded off every few minutes, but each time, she’d shake herself awake.

  “You’re a good girl,” Kara said. “But you don’t have to wait up with me.”

  Maggie licked Kara’s hand as if to say she disagreed, that she did have to stay awake to protect and comfort her.

  “Seriously, Maggie. Go back to Sadie. What’ll she do when she wakes up all alone? She’s going to be mad at you for leaving her.”

  The dog slumped, spreading her front legs across the floor, and groaned, tail still fanning behind her. She closed one eye but kept the other lazily open, watching. Maybe it was Maggie’s way of trying to get her to return to her and Sadie’s quarters. But she’d already tried that. She couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to close her eyes.

  Each time she did, images of what her father and the Hunters might be facing flashed across her mind, each more despairing than the last. The frantic voices drifting from the closed door of the electronics workshop made her nervous, and Thomas wouldn’t even let her and Sadie down in the cargo hold to play catch with Maggie. He’d said they needed to keep the whole place clear so he could get a boat out with a small team should the Hunters need their help.

  She’d known things were taking a turn for the worse when Lauren ushered her and Navid out of the med bay. The scientists had transitioned into their roles as the ship’s medical team as quickly as Clark Kent changing in a phone booth. If they were gearing up that fast, Kara figured there must’ve been a casualty. But everyone she wanted to ask about it was locked up in the electronics workshop studying maps, listening to the comms, and watching the views from the Hunters’ helmet-mounted cameras. All she’d gotten out of Lauren was that her father was okay.

  “Get some sleep. Things will be better in the morning,” Lauren had said. “And we’ll get the first results from our organ-on-a-chip.”

  Tomorrow seemed too far away.

  Kara nervously rubbed the rigid scars stretching along her cheek and jaw. She took another sip of the coffee. The instant brew tasted burned, reminiscent of the Capana Coffee Company shop she used to frequent at the University of Maryland. The flavor evoked memories of days before the outbreak, days when her mom wasn’t a Skull, when Sadie was innocent, and—

  “Hey,” a voice said, and Kara jumped, spilling a splash of coffee on herself.

  “Damn it,” she said.

  “Oh, man, I’m so sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” It was Navid. He was looking at her from the hatch, one hand pressed against the bulkhead, the other brushing through his longish hair. “Mind if I join you?”

  Kara shook her head, dabbing the coffee off her hand. “Be my guest.”

  Navid disappeared into the galley for a moment then returned with his own cup of steaming coffee. The cup clinked on the table as he sat across from her and blinked his groggy eyes.

  “You can’t sleep either?” she asked.

  “Not a wink.”

  “Too excited about the Phoenix Compound?”

  Navid shook his head, fidgeting with the splint on one of his fingers. “Not exactly.” He chugged a gulp of coffee that Kara figured must’ve burned his tongue, yet he didn’t seem to care. “I mean, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens, hoping it’ll be successful. But...”

  “But that’s not what you’re losing sleep over.” Kara guessed she knew what haunted him. Abby. They’d only briefly talked about his girlfriend a couple of times, and he’d said precious little about her. Yet
her ghost seemed to dog him like a shadow, a piece of darkness following him everywhere.

  They sat in silence for some time. Maggie finally drifted off, her tail growing still and her breaths long and dreamy.

  Navid was the first to speak. “I’m guessing the experiment isn’t what’s keeping you up, either, is it?”

  “You know me too well already.”

  “Doesn’t take a PhD to guess why you’d be up late.”

  “That easy to read, huh?”

  “Call it an educated guess. A scientific hypothesis, maybe.”

  A slight smile threatened to crack Kara’s lips. “It’s all about science with you.”

  Navid suddenly appeared sullen. All the brightness left his eyes as he looked down at his hands wrapped around the cup.

  “I’m sorry,” Kara started tentatively. “Did I say something wrong?”

  Navid snorted. “No, it’s just...” He sighed. “She used to say that all the time.”

  “Abby,” Kara said. It wasn’t really a question. Just a statement. As easy as it was for him to guess what she’d been thinking about. She knew what stewing in your emotions did to a person’s psyche because she’d practically been a crockpot full of boiling emotions herself. “Tell me about her.”

  Navid gave her a dubious look, cocking his head.

  “Seriously, I mean it.”

  When Navid started to speak again, Kara was afraid he would just give her the same details he’d given her before. Blond. Blue eyes. Runner. Getting her PhD in neuroscience. Nothing too deep, nothing too personal. But to her astonishment, Navid finally opened up, relating to her his last moments with Abby, the look in her eyes when she first knew she’d been scratched by a Skull and found out fate had damned her, the promises Navid had made about whisking her away to anywhere outside Boston, anywhere that might be safe. Anywhere they could be together. About the ring he had considered buying her. As he talked, Kara forgot her own worries and why they were both still awake in the early hours before the sun rose. Then the hatch to the mess hall swung open, clanging on the bulkhead, and a disheveled face poked in.

  It was Sean from the medical team. “Whoa, you guys are still up?”

  Sensing the urgency behind his wild eyes, Kara stood. “Need something?”

  “Coffee,” he said, eyeing their cups hungrily. “But since you asked, yes, matter of fact, I could use your help.”

  ***

  Dom pressed himself deeper into the brush, willing himself to blend in with the jungle. With a slow, deliberate hand gesture, he commanded the rest of the Hunters to remain still among the thick ropes of vines and roots twisting from the ground. He heard their hushed breathing over the comm link as the mammoth creatures passed, mostly unseen, a good thirty or forty yards away. The creatures were far enough for the dense forest to conceal their movements. Dom caught more flashes of bone-plated limbs pushing through trees that would’ve stopped a tank. But these things kept lumbering along like the massive trees were nothing but dandelions.

  His fingers twitched slightly from the effects of adrenaline as his body prepared for its instinctual fight-or-flight response. Fighting or fleeing right now would be absolutely the wrong move. The last thing he wanted to do was attract the monsters to the Hunters’ positions.

  The ground trembled with each thumping footstep. Leaves trickled down from the jungle canopy, along with occasional branches thudding into the weeds. Dom counted the seconds, slowly bringing his rifle up with one hand. With his other, he reached quietly for one of the FN40GL grenade cases stowed in his utility belt. He had no delusions these giant monsters would be brought down by mere armor-piercing bullets.

  But before his fingers found his grenade cases, the quaking began to calm. The creatures continued on their trajectory and pushed onward into the forest past the Hunters. Dom waited a good five minutes after the ground stopped shaking and he could no longer hear the monsters’ thundering footsteps before he gave the Hunters the signal to move again.

  Apprehension tingled in the air between them as their unvoiced questions lingered. What the hell had just happened? And more importantly, would they see those things again? But they didn’t have the luxury of discussion. They only had one option: to move forward. As they continued through the overgrown riverbank, the hairs on the back of Dom’s neck prickled. He listened intently for Skulls stumbling through the underbrush or the herd of gargantuan creatures returning.

  But he heard nothing. Just the rustle of the wind tickling the treetops.

  That made his heart hammer like an off-kilter piston. It was too silent. No buzzing insects. No birds calling for a mate. No monkeys, hidden among the leaves, yowling and hooting.

  With his rifle, he scanned the path in front of him and signaled for the Hunters to survey the area. No one reported contacts.

  Something isn’t right, Dom thought.

  Before he could give the matter more thought, something plummeted from the trees and slammed into his shoulders. The impact knocked him off his feet, and the creature tore his rifle from its strap. The thing that had dropped on him stood atop his chest. It lifted its small fists into the air. Needle-sharp claws jutted from the ends of its fingers. Horns curled from its brow, and its ribs had burst from its flesh, encompassing its chest like armor. Twisted and bumpy plates of bone covered its thin, lanky legs. It was a Skull, no larger than a child.

  Dom heard the whistles of other Skulls dropping from tree limbs and landing amid the Hunters’ ranks.

  “Huntress to Alpha, what’s going on?” Chao’s voice called through the comm link. Worry laced his words; he was undoubtedly watching the scene through the Hunters’ helmet-mounted cams.

  But Dom had no time to answer. He grabbed one of the small Skull’s hands as it flailed at him, searching for flesh. His gloved fingers tightened around the skinny wrist, and he squeezed until he heard a crack. The breaking bones did nothing to allay the Skull’s fury. Its free hand came slicing down at Dom’s face before he could stand again.

  The claws tore into his cheek. Warm blood gushed from the wounds, but surging adrenaline numbed the pain. He ignored the injury and burst to his feet, knocking the barely three-foot-high Skull from his chest. The beast slammed into a tree trunk, its injured wrist dangling uselessly, and its head clunked into the tough bark with a hollow thud.

  Dom withdrew his knife from its sheath and charged the creature. The sounds of slashing blades and low growls sounded all around him. In his periphery, he saw only the silhouettes of Hunters fighting monsters, disappearing and reappearing in the camouflage of the entangling vines and plants.

  As Dom closed in on his attacker, the small Skull stood upright. It puffed its bulwarked ribs out, and its lips peeled back as it bared a set of fangs that would make a vampire jealous. It lunged, and Dom thrust the knife out to meet the enraged creature. The blade glanced off the organic armor on its shoulder, and the monster clung to Dom’s body armor. While holding onto Dom with one bony hand, the Skull slashed at him with its other. Its attacks tore into Dom’s fatigues, but its claws met only the armor plates over Dom’s vitals. Dom tried to pry the creature off, but it clung stubbornly to him.

  A cry sounded out to his left. It wasn’t one of the Skulls—Dom was sure of that. It had been a human cry, one of pain.

  His anger boiled over, and he tried to bash the creature with an elbow. But the Skull hugged itself close to him, raking with its claws. Most continued to glance off his armor plates, but the occasional blow snagged through his fatigues and scraped his arms. His mind whirled in frustration and desperation. A single voice echoed in his head, his conscience reminding him he’d been the one to urge his team forward. He’d gotten them mired in this mess in the first place. He’d led them into this dark chaos.

  Another groan of agony sounded to his left, somewhere in the shadows of the tree trunks. He couldn’t tell whom it belonged to as Hunters and Skulls roiled in hand-to-hand combat. Another Skull pounced, and he tried to kick it away but succeede
d only in allowing the thing to chomp into his shin. Flames of pain radiated up his leg as he limped forward, fighting against gravity and agony. The creatures were all so damn small, so quick. Nothing like the Skulls they’d seen before. The things looked like they had tails, too. Maybe he was going crazy, but they looked like imps sent to terrorize him and the Hunters on a devilish mission.

  Another creature leapt at Dom, landing on his shoulder and tearing at his helmet. This one was smaller than the other two. But the weight of all three was too much, and he couldn’t parry their blows in time. Nor could he reach for his pistol with the one on his chest blocking his hand.

  He lurched forward, still trying to push the one off his chest. Through his NVGs, now knocked off-balance, he saw Miguel impaling one of the impish Skulls into a tree with his prosthetic’s concealed blade. Another creature clung to Miguel’s back, and a third lunged for the Hunter from the shadows. Renee fired on the diminutive monster just as another swung off a branch for her.

  Glenn used his huge fists to punch the creatures away as they ran at him. Andris and Jenna fell into the foliage, battling several creatures, and Terrence fired at another that skipped through the tree branches.

  Another violent slash at Dom’s face caused him to spin. He tried to restrain the creature clinging to his front, crushing its arm with his grip. But even as the bones crunched between his fingers, the other two attacking him renewed their assaults with unbridled vigor.

  Dom’s eyes found Meredith. A regular-sized Skull had wrapped its arms around her in a death grip, pinning her against a tree. A low growl escaped its lips as it bared its glistening teeth and thrust its face into the crook of her neck, preparing to bite.

  Good God, Dom thought again. What the hell have I done?