The Tide (Book 5): Iron Wind

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Frank ran toward the chopper, trying to stay light and quiet on his feet. A Skull with a bony blade where its forearm should have been noticed him. The Musketeer Skull swiveled in his direction, and Frank dropped to his belly. He froze, holding his breath. The Skull’s face roved back and forth, its eyes seeming to pierce the darkness with uncanny certainty. Its lips drew back into a snarl, and a low growl rumbled from between its jagged teeth.

  Come on, buddy, you haven’t seen anything. It’s just the wind. Just the goddamned wind. Got it?

  The Skull finally turned away, and Frank breathed a sigh of relief. He ran at a stoop. He didn’t bother to glance at the monsters until he made it to the chopper and pressed himself against the cold metal fuselage. His chest heaved as he caught his breath. The click of claws on asphalt and the rattle of bone plates echoed around him. He peeked through the cockpit to see the Musketeer Skull wandering on the other side of the chopper. A group of six other Skulls were scattered around a pair of bubble-shaped Robinson R44s.

  Frank dug into his pocket and grabbed the Bell’s key. The soft tap of metal against metal rang out, sounding deafening to his ears, and he froze again, peering through from one side of the chopper to the other to ensure the Skulls hadn’t noticed.

  A second Skull, this one dressed in the tattered uniform of a National Guardsman, was now veering toward the Musketeer. Neither seemed to have noticed the noise.

  Frank opened the cockpit door as quietly as he could then slipped inside, shutting it behind him. Perspiration beaded across his forehead as he cozied into the pilot seat. He settled his pack into one of the passenger seats and then studied the controls. His mind reviewed all the things he would normally check before attempting a flight: oil, fuel, battery, lights, clutch cables.

  Unfortunately, the Skulls didn’t care about pre-flight checks. He didn’t have time to do a full inspection. His fingers moved over the controls, preparing to engage the engine starter button on the end of the collective. As his quaking finger touched the plastic, a loud roar caught his attention.

  He jerked, expecting to see one of the Skulls clawing at the glass cockpit. Instead, he watched as the sword-armed Skull collided with the National Guard monster. They growled and snapped at each other like crocodiles fighting over prey. The Guardsman threw the Musketeer into the chopper’s fuselage, and it rang out like a bass drum. In response, the Musketeer stabbed out with its jagged, sword-like appendage, piercing a weak point in the Guardsman’s shoulder armor. Blood wept from the wound as the Skulls howled, clawing and biting.

  Frank shrank into the pilot’s seat, praying neither of them would see him. The clamor drew the attention of the other Skulls nearby, and one by one, the monsters moved toward the fighting duo, cocking their heads and tensing the gray muscles under their bony plates as if they were choosing which side they’d join in the fight.

  The Musketeer landed another blow on the Guardsman, and more blood poured from its fresh wound. But the Guardsman seemed to become enraged, whipping about wildly and dragging the other Skull to the asphalt. They became an entangled mess of scraping talons, gnashing teeth, and spiked limbs.

  Patience, old boy, Frank thought as his fingers twitched toward the controls. Patience is a goddamned virtue.

  He sat like a statue as the Skulls tumbled across the tarmac. One would die soon, and the fight would be over. The others would return to their aimless wandering, and he would have a little more space to start the helicopter before they all descended on him. But movement across the tarmac caught his eyes. The Skulls lingering near the crashed passenger jets had decided they too should investigate.

  Maybe waiting wasn’t such a good idea. As it stood, only a half dozen Skulls were nearby right now. If he waited, there’d be another forty, fifty, maybe a hundred bored monsters looking for anything to pique their interest.

  Frank eyed the fuel gauge. At least that looks good.

  He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a brief second, then jammed down the starter button. The engines thrummed to life, and the rotors accelerated as Frank carefully pushed the throttle forward.

  The Musketeer and Guardsman forgot about their scuffle and targeted all their animosity toward the chopper. The other Skulls broke into a mad run, closing the distance between them and the chopper faster than Olympic sprinters.

  Frank’s fingers started to shake, but he tried not to throttle the bird too hard. Fracturing the fragile blades now would be a death sentence.

  “Come on, baby, come on,” Frank said as the engine roared louder. Everything seemed to be working well, and all fluid levels were at least adequate for the flight he had planned. Finally, something was going right.

  The Musketeer, either smarter or braver than the others, climbed up on the backs of its brothers and then sprang at the chopper. It started to climb the cockpit, thrashing its lone fist and ramming its head against the glass. Pieces of its horns chipped off as the monster bashed its skull over and over against the canopy. Cracks fissured across the glass.

  “No ticket, no ride, you ugly bastard!” Frank flipped on the chopper’s navigation lights, flicking them on and off to blind the beast. Maybe it would become confused and lose its balance.

  But he had no such luck. The monster beat the glass harder, and the fractures spread, threatening to block Frank’s view out of the cockpit.

  “All right, baby, we can’t wait any longer. Hope you’re warmed up.” He pulled up on the collective, and the helicopter pitched up. Its skids scraped a couple of feet as a side wind caught the bird. The mob of Skulls followed. The Guardsman jumped onto the side of the chopper, clinging to the door with one claw and bashing a side window with the other.

  Frank jerked the cyclic, trying to shake off both monsters. The Musketeer’s claws scraped at the cracked glass as it fought for purchase, and Frank tilted the chopper slightly to the side, still only a few feet above the ground, desperately trying to lose the monster before it broke in.

  The Musketeer straightened, finding a handhold. It renewed its attack, bringing one hand up to bash the cockpit. But it lifted its hand too high, and the accelerating rotor blades sheared off the Skull’s sword-like forearm with a violent thwack. Blood spurted from the maimed limb, but the injury did nothing to assuage the monster’s unyielding fury. It slashed the bloody appendage against the cockpit again as the Guardsman resumed its own assault on the side window.

  Six more Skulls wrapped their talons around the chopper’s skid, crying with animalistic hunger. Frank had flown some tough missions with the Hunters, but he didn’t look forward to flying with a pack of Skulls beating down the door.

  Cracks crisscrossed on the window where the Guardsman was throwing his spiked fists into the glass.

  “Here comes the rodeo,” Frank said. “Hope none of you were cowboys.”

  He jockeyed with the cyclic and collective, rocking the chopper back and forth, shaking the expensive piece of machinery like it was a steroid-riddled bull fifteen feet in the air. A few Skulls lost their grip on the skids and tumbled down, cracking against the tarmac. Their skeletal plates burst open, spilling blood and guts over the asphalt. The Guardsman and Musketeer still battered the chopper, and Frank swerved hard to the right.

  In response, the Guardsman punched its fist through the glass. Shards sprayed Frank’s face. The Skull’s claws swished by Frank’s nose as he recoiled. He tried to keep his hands around the cyclic, but the Guardsman’s slicing talons kept him leaning to the right.

  “What did I say about free rides?” Frank yelled.

  He pitched the chopper hard to the left then drew his leg back and gave the Skull a powerful kick. His boot connected with the Skull’s chest, and it wheeled backward, catching nothing but open air as it fell.

  “Good riddance,” Frank said. He turned his attention to the Musketeer. The cockpit’s glass was still intact, but only just.

  He pushed the chopper down and forward then jerked it immediately backward. Momentum carried the Musketeer, and F
rank watched its body soar, limbs flailing. It crumpled against the brick wall of the office. Its head blew apart in fragments, and as it slumped to the grass, it left a smear of gore, glinting in the navigation lights of the chopper.

  Frank had done it. It felt good to be back in the pilot’s seat, no longer traipsing through the woods or playing hide-and-go-seek with hordes of bloodthirsty creatures.

  And then he saw something that ripped away any feeling of victory, any shred of pride at his fancy flying. In the window of the office, a face appeared, glowing in the lights from the chopper. It looked at the chopper with big, round eyes. No horns crowned its head. No fangs curled from beneath its lips. Instead, a messy tangle of blond hair crowned the young girl’s face as she gawked at the helicopter. Her breath fogged the glass, and she pressed a small palm against it.

  Frank groaned, realizing full well what he’d done.

  There’d been two pink suitcases. And that noise in the closet? Good God, he’d condemned that girl to death. She’d lost her father to the Oni Agent. Then her mother and sister. And now she was alone, with no food, no water, and a horde of Skulls roiling around outside, rowdy as a crowd of soccer hooligans thanks to his escape.

  As the Skulls descended on the school from all over the airport, joining their brethren in a mass of rattling limbs and unholy screams, Frank realized he might as well have used the single bullet left in his gun to kill that girl himself.

  She was as good as dead, and it was all his fault.

  -19-

  Congealed oil slurped at her soles with each step Meredith took. She picked up a soiled rag from a bucket coated in black grease. “It’s oily as hell in here. Think we got a leak?”

  Miguel used the back of his hand to wipe away the grime from a set of gauges on a control panel. “Fuel levels look good. Oil levels, too. Think the gauges are busted?”

  At one of the huge oil sumps along the bottom of the hulking diesel engine, Andris was bent over a fist-sized rubber plug. “This engine is like something out of the seventies, no? It is old. Maybe that is all. Too aged to function.”

  “All the same,” Jenna said, scanning the engine room with her rifle, “I’d rather get this thing working than hike through that jungle.”

  “I thought you liked hiking,” Miguel said as he peered at another gauge. “Didn’t you do Mount St. Helens?”

  “Sure,” Jenna said, tapping her fingers against the stock of her rifle. “Did the Great Himalaya Trail, too. Wish I could’ve done Everest, but it doesn’t look like that’s happening anytime soon.” Her eyes caught Meredith’s. “Weren’t you on the Appalachian trail before the outbreak hit? How’d you like it?”

  Meredith used the soaked rag she’d found to clean the sludge off the jointed pipe. “I was running from some CIA spooks, and the Skulls were already on the radio. It wasn’t exactly a pleasure trip.”

  “Right. Those little details,” Jenna said breezily. “Maybe when this is all over, you and I can do the Appalachian trail together. That is, if you think it’s worth redoing the trail without the threat of Skulls.”

  Meredith was surprised at the invitation and looked up at Jenna. The woman appeared as serious as a Skull. “If we can save the world from Skulls, I’ll do any damn hike you want.”

  “Deal.” Jenna offered a pleasant smile before returning to her work.

  As Meredith cleaned the pipe’s joints, she found no dripping leaks to indicate an engine failure. The Hunters continued their banter as they worked, their tasks intermittently interrupted by Chao coming over the comm link to tell them to check out some gauge or dial or other part of the engine.

  Meredith couldn’t quite bring herself to join in their casual conversation. Each time the ferry creaked or she heard a rodent scurrying along the deck, a tingle of fright cut through her. The Hunters were joking around about Miguel’s old habit of buying cars he intended to restore—classic American muscle cars. Apparently, his attention span hadn’t lasted much longer than picking out which car he was transporting home for the weekend, so he had a small collection of rust buckets and shells of vehicles sitting in his garage.

  “You never got a single one of ’em fixed up, huh?” Jenna asked, still staring down the sights of her rifle as she faced the hatch.

  Andris let out a short laugh. “I imagine his house looks worse than the deck of this ferry.”

  Meredith stood from the pipe, straightening her back. “How the hell do you three act so calm when there are goddamn monsters frolicking in that jungle and we’re stuck here in the den of some Skull that’s probably more awful than anything we’ve seen so far?” She held out her hands, exasperated. “I don’t get it.”

  Andris shrugged. “Put it this way, yes? Would you rather we run around screaming? I would rather we not.”

  Miguel rubbed the back of his neck. He stared at the control panel for the engine. “It’s just...this is how we do things, okay?”

  Chao’s voice sounded over the comm link before Meredith could answer. “Still no luck on the engine?”

  “Nada,” Miguel said.

  Meredith chinned the comm link to the public channel. “Dom, this is Meredith. We’re lost down here.”

  “No progress?” he asked.

  “The engines look as good as the Huntress’s, Chief,” Miguel said.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Jenna added.

  Miguel gave her a sideways glance. “Well, they look like they work and give every indication they should, at least.”

  “Got anything else you can try?” Dom asked.

  “Afraid not, Alpha,” Chao said. “They’ve tried troubleshooting everything I can think of.”

  Meredith looked around at the others. Their faces were drawn, no longer feigning the air of nonchalance they had earlier. They knew what would happen if they couldn’t get the engines working. They’d be relegated to the shoddy lifeboats with their tiny motors and oars. She wondered if the fuel in those things would make it halfway up the river. Then they’d either row or walk, and neither option sounded appealing.

  Before she could suggest that they throw in the grease-soaked towel, a shrill noise rent the night air. It sounded like some demonic trumpeter calling an army to battle. The fear in Meredith’s gut gripped her tighter, winding around her insides like a boa constrictor.

  “What fresh hell,” she murmured, bracing herself for whatever came next.

  ***

  Dom pressed the night-vision binos to his eyes and scanned the forest. He saw the trees shifting again, like the wake of a shark circling just under the water’s surface. Whatever was moving those branches aside was coming closer. He guessed they were the same things he had glimpsed earlier through the thick foliage. A plunging sensation of nausea dragged itself through Dom’s belly, leaving a smear of fear and worry in its wake. Every nerve tingled.

  “Hunters, get your asses to the lifeboats,” he ordered. “We need to move!”

  A voice groaned, and then Renee shifted on the chart table of the bridge.

  “She’s waking up, Captain!” Terrence proclaimed. He leaned over Renee’s face, brushing a blond lock of hair out of her eyes. “Renee, can you hear me?”

  Renee’s mouth opened, and her eyes blinked. One of her hands reached out as she licked her lips. “What’s...what’s going on?”

  “Terrence, help me with her,” Dom said, grabbing one end of the makeshift stretcher, his heart pounding. He was relieved beyond words that Renee had regained consciousness, but the monsters were closing in. He judged they had less than ten minutes to get to the lifeboats. Terrence lifted from the other end, and they hoisted Renee. Dom’s muscles strained as they took her out of the pilothouse. One of his wounds split open, blood seeping from a laceration in his arm. Agony coursed through the reignited injury, but he ignored it, trusting the flood of adrenaline to wash his pain away.

  When they reached the dingy wooden lifeboat with its single outboard motor, Dom climbed inside and helped Terrence lower Renee onto one of the
benches. Boots clacked against the metal ladders behind them as the rest of the Hunters arrived.

  “Get in!” Dom said, wasting no time in greetings. The others climbed into the boat.

  “What’s going on, Chief?” Miguel asked.

  Dom shoved a pair of binos into the Hunter’s hand and pointed to the jungle before hopping out of the lifeboat. Miguel held the binos to his eyes and stared into the darkness of the Congo forest for a moment. His jaw went slack.

  “What the fuck is that?” Miguel asked.

  “No idea,” Dom said. He spun the wheel of the lifeboat’s release mechanism so it was swinging out over the water, ready to drop into the river. “I’m going to lower it, then I’ll jump in after you.”

  “I got it, Dom,” Meredith said, rising from her seat in the lifeboat. “You’re injured.”

  Dom shook his head, looking at Renee. She was still struggling to come out of the fog.

  “No, I got you all into this,” Dom said. “I’m getting you out.”

  As the boat started its slow descent, a voice broke over the comm link. “Alpha, this is the Huntress,” Thomas said.

  “Alpha One here. I read you loud and clear,” Dom said, still rotating the wheel. It squeaked with each turn, protesting against the movement. Rust flaked off, coating his gloves. “We’ve got unidentified contacts moving our direction, and the ferry is a no-go, so we’re taking a lifeboat.”

  “Might not need to,” Thomas said. “I have a guess about that ferry of yours. You got a couple of minutes?”

  “Couple of minutes is stretching it,” Dom said through gritted teeth.

  “Remember that time I took you fishing?” Thomas asked.

  “Look, Thomas, I’m not in the mood to settle the score on who caught the biggest marlin—” Then it hit him. Dom let go of the wheel. “Goddammit.”

  “Ah, you remember now, don’t you?” Thomas said. Dom could practically hear him grinning, a cigar clamped between his teeth.