The Titan’s head lifted slightly, its jaw slack. Meredith braced herself for another deafening howl. Her finger hovered near her trigger, ready to lance the thing with gunfire straight through its eye. But instead, only the long rattle of air escaping its lungs rushed out, followed by a dribble of blood seeping down its lips.
“You seriously didn’t do that?” Meredith asked Andris.
“I wish I had,” he said. “But I lost most of my toys on the ferry. I have some C4 left, but not quite enough to pull something like that off.”
They soon realized it had been more than the explosion that had killed the beast. Long iron pikes studded the ground near the body. Most of the spikes had been bent or smashed by the creature’s heavy armor. But the few that had pierced its flesh had done their job well.
Meredith shuddered. Chain-link nets. Explosives. Rudimentary spike traps. What the hell was going on?
“Is it...is it actually dead?” Jenna asked.
“I hope to God it is,” Miguel said. “I’m tired of playing tag with that motherfucker.”
“You and me both, brother,” Terrence said.
Eerie howls rang out through the night. Skulls had heard the gunfire and explosives. There was no telling how long it would be until the monsters swarmed their position.
“Out of the frying pan...” Glenn let his words trail off.
“Back on track,” Dom said. “Miguel, take point. Glenn, Terrence, rearguard. We’re going quietly from here on out.”
There was no backup. No lifeboats, no choppers, no Zodiacs. Nothing. This time, the Hunters were well and truly on their own. Dom didn’t have to tell the rest of them this. There were no more lifelines. They either took the long way back home—or continued toward their goal.
Having made it this far, with their target only a day or two away by foot, she could see the steely look of determination in each of the Hunters’ eyes. Were they resilient, or merely too stubborn to give up? Retreat was a safer choice, a more sensible choice. They were far too ill equipped to invade a secret organization’s laboratory or base both in terms of armaments and intel.
Amid the crack of lightning and pounding rain, the distant howls of Skulls continued all around. It was impossible to tell which direction they were coming from. But there was another sound—one she recognized. It could have been mistaken for the snap of twigs, but Meredith knew what it was.
Nearby, in the darkness of the jungle, an unknown number of weapons had just been cocked. The Hunters weren’t the only ones sneaking around tonight.
-37-
Dom sighted up the first figure to emerge from the brush. Dozens of them had crept up on them from every side. Water streamed over their horns and cracked bony plates. Then he noticed the guns.
“Fucking Skulls with guns?” Miguel muttered over the comm link.
Every goddamned one of their weapons was pointed at the Hunters. If he or any of his crew fired a shot, it was no longer just claws or teeth that would find his flesh.
“Do not fire on us,” one of the Skulls said with a heavy accent. “We are here to help.”
Dom squinted, peering closer at the nearest Skull. He saw dark skin under the bony plates covering its body. And the plates themselves weren’t held together by sinew and flesh, but rather fabric and metal links. These were people wearing the repurposed armor of dead Skulls.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t monsters.
In Mount Vernon, he’d rescued his daughters and Navid from a crazed group of marauders led by a wicked man named Rick. Those bastards had carved bone plates from Skull corpses and worn them as disgusting decorations.
But these people hadn’t just fashioned a helmet or chest plate and called it good. They had entirely encased their bodies like macabre suits of armor.
“We must hurry,” a woman said in a firm voice. “If we do not move, even our disguises will not protect us for long.”
Unlike the others, she let her AK-47 fall to her side. She stepped toward Dom, confident but unthreatening. He recognized her as a fellow leader. Whatever she did, however she felt, her followers would react accordingly. With all the other insane unknowns swirling in his mind, at least he had discovered one thing: This was not a woman to piss off.
“Who are you?” Dom asked.
She lifted the Skull mask from her face. A long scar stretched over her cheek. Half of her flat nose had been torn and left a gaping void where her left nostril used to be. It was an old injury—one endured far before the Oni Agent outbreak, as evidenced by the uneven but healthy scar tissue around the edges of the wound. She stopped and stood before Dom, offering her right hand. Dom clasped it. She squeezed back with a power that matched her confidence.
“I am Alizia Mudimbe”—she gestured with a wide hand to her armored compatriots—”and these are the Citizens Defense Force.”
“Captain Dominic Holland. These are the Hunters.”
A shining smile broke over Alizia’s face. “Captain?” she began with a laugh. “I hope it was not that old ferry you were captain of.”
“God, no. You saw that wreck?”
“My people watched it sink, yes. We saw you fix it. We saw you board it. We saw the creature hunting you.”
A dark cloud lifted from Dom’s mind. The voice he had heard in the woods when the Imps had ambushed them had been from a human.
“How many of your people did you lose following us?” Dom asked. “Back near Soyo...”
Alizia bowed her head. For the first time, her confidence seemed to flag. But it lasted only a second before the resilient fire burned bright in her eyes once more. “Just one man. A father. He left two children behind. Someday they will meet him in Heaven, but today is not that day. So come. Come with us.”
The howls and hunting cries of Skulls continued. Rain sluiced down Alizia’s arm as she held out a hand, beckoning Dom and the Hunters to follow her. He noticed that none of her people were aiming their weapons at the Hunters anymore. Instead they watched the jungle.
“We have food, shelter, first aid supplies, and ammunition,” she said. “Please, come.”
But Dom didn’t need convincing. Try to make a wild last stand against the monsters, or follow these people? There wasn’t much of a choice to be made. If they had wanted him and the Hunters dead, their corpses would already be lying on the ground. And since these people had survived in the jungle this long, maybe they knew something that would help him find out what was going on in Bikoro.
Dom looked to Meredith. Always the voice of reason. If he had missed something, she would have been the one to see it. She gave him an assenting nod.
“We’ll go,” Dom said. The Hunters, their fatigues soaking wet and covered in mud, didn’t protest.
“Good,” Alizia said. “I can see you have more questions. We will be glad to answer them once we are safe.”
The deep bellow of a Goliath sounded above the shrieks and squawks of the other Skulls.
“The demons will soon be here. Let’s go!”
The Civilian Defense Force members escorted the Hunters, jogging along on all sides. At first, as they wound through the forest with Alizia at the lead, it made Dom nervous to be surrounded by these unfamiliar armed troops. But the people behind the Skull masks kept their focus firmly on the dark shadows, constantly scanning for contacts.
Without warning, the group veered right. A flickering light shone in the distance, and Alizia headed toward it. It grew brighter as they swerved between the trees. As they drew nearer, it became more apparent that the light bloomed from a cave of sorts. Dom followed Alizia inside, nearly blinded until his eyes adjusted. The light had been nothing more than a couple of gas lanterns held up by two other CDF members. These two wore no skeletal armor; instead, they had on soiled fatigues with a faded jungle pattern.
The CDF filed in behind the Hunters, and the two men in the fatigues pulled a large lever. A door slammed over the entrance, letting in only a trickle of rainwater that coursed under it in a thin str
eam. Not long after they were all marching through the manmade cave, heavy footsteps pounded overhead, and silt shifted between the wooden slats covering the ceiling of the tunnel.
“Don’t worry,” Alizia said. “It will hold unless one of those giant demons stomps on us.”
“That’s reassuring,” Dom said. He could tell Alizia wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not. She didn’t bother asking, and he didn’t clarify. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure. This entire situation was so strange that he didn’t know what to think.
The group slowed from a jog to a steady march with the two men with lanterns leading them onward. Intersections branched off before them, presenting a winding maze of choices. Alizia’s men never hesitated, guiding them right then left then right again, constantly twisting down different pathways. Soon the tunnels opened into a wide cavern with barren rock walls. The lanterns cast shadows that danced over the ceiling and floor. Those shadows unnerved Dom. He half-expected a Skull to bore its way through the wall and lunge at someone. But the CDF members didn’t seem concerned. Their ease told him they were well accustomed to these underground passages.
Dom’s muscles burned from their march, and the back of his throat and tongue felt sticky and dry. A musty scent permeated the corridors, and his wet fatigues had grown cold and very uncomfortable. They entered another large dugout room reinforced with steel and wood beams. Here, strings of lights hung from the ceiling. They wavered, growing dimmer and then brighter like fireflies. He half-expected to see the place lit up by candlelight, but the lights were powered by electricity. Dom marveled at the makeshift shelter.
All along the walls, cots and blankets were lined with people, mostly the elderly and children. A few cots held people whose limbs were wrapped in bandages or splinted. Soft voices murmured all around them. Older people—those who had not been on the mission with Alizia—moved between the beds and offered bowls of soup to those who appeared to be patients.
The sight reassured Dom. These weren’t the type of people who had taken his daughters hostage. These were survivors who seemed to have formed a community in the bowels of this hellish world. It reminded him of how civilians had banded together on Kent Island, and a spark of hope flamed brighter within him. They soon entered another chamber filled with wooden crates. Some bore the names and logos of foreign aid groups like the Red Cross and UNICEF. Several people stood around the crates as if they were guarding them.
“Unload and get some food,” Alizia said to her warriors. “Does anyone need medical assistance?”
Meredith’s lips tightened, but then she let her face relax. “Think I dislocated my shoulder.”
“Ah, we can deal with that.” Alizia called over two nurses and pointed at Meredith.
They sat her down at the foot of one of the beds and probed her shoulder. She grimaced, and Dom felt a tinge of worry as he watched them rotate Meredith’s arm before jamming it into her socket. Meredith’s eyes closed, and her face turned white, but she didn’t cry out. After taking a few pills the nurses gave her, she returned to the group, touching her shoulder gingerly.
“I guess that’s better,” she said. “Feels like hell, though.”
“Good,” Alizia said. She turned to one of the warriors. “Kofi, come with me.”
The man set aside his mask and limb armor on a wooden rack. Other CDF soldiers followed as Alizia walked between them, whispering words of encouragement and thanks to each. She reached Dom and his ragtag group last.
“If you will, I would have you and your group follow me,” Alizia said. “Kofi and I have much to discuss with you.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Dom said. “Do you have any water or food you can spare?”
“It would be my honor,” she said. She turned and walked away, her long braids swaying over muscled shoulders.
Meredith strode next to Dom as they wound through another passage. “Is this real? I mean, I feel like after everything we’ve been through, this is the last thing I’d expect to find in the middle of the jungle.”
“What’s your read on these people?” Dom asked.
“I don’t think they’re a danger. They want something, though, no doubt about it.”
“My thoughts, too,” Dom whispered. “Keep your eyes and ears out.”
“Never turn ’em off. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“Had to ask anyway.”
Meredith grinned slightly. “Of course.”
The passage led to a door that Kofi held open. Dom and the Hunters entered a chamber with a squat table. Blankets and mats were scattered around it.
“Please, have a seat,” Alizia said and motioned to the mats.
It took everything in Dom’s power not to simply collapse. He tried to settle himself on the ground comfortably and had to lean on the table for support. His back ached, though he fought to keep his spine straight. The door shut when the last Hunter sat, and Kofi disappeared into the passage.
“You have caused quite the commotion in my jungle,” Alizia said as she sat across from Dom. The dim electric lights were reflected in the beads of sweat dripping over her pronounced cheekbones.
“Your jungle?” Dom asked. “Are you militia?”
Alizia laughed. Not in a menacing way, but more in the carefree manner of friends seated over drinks at a bar. “The looks on your faces. I’m sorry. This is your first visit to the Congo, isn’t it? We are not all paramilitary warlords here.”
“You got me,” Dom said. “It’s a little too easy to believe the worst in people when the world has turned to shit.”
“Ah, I will not disagree there.” Alizia paused as Kofi came back into the room. Several other CDF members followed him bearing bowls of food. They passed them out to the Hunters. “Please, eat.”
The Hunters willingly obliged. Dom tried not to scarf the food down as messily or noisily as Miguel, but the salty broth and bread was surprisingly delicious. Kofi sat next to Alizia, and they too dug in. It seemed to Dom as if they hadn’t had a proper meal in at least as long as the Hunters.
Miguel spoke, his mouth still full, talking mid-chew. “Let me ask you all something. We’ve seen this before. The bone plates used as armor and shit. What do you do to make sure it doesn’t, you know, infect you?”
Alizia grinned. “You treat it like any medical equipment. Sterilize it with heat, boil it. Bleach it. Leave it to sit for a week.”
“That really works?” Miguel said. “Hate to be the guy who tries his armor for the first time, and it doesn’t.”
“We do what we must to survive,” Alizia said.
Dom paused between bites, slowing now that he had filled his belly. “How have you all survived so long down here?”
Alizia wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I will be happy to answer all your questions. But first, I would prefer to know better who I have invited into my house.”
“You had scouts follow us down the river.” Dom wasn’t sure yet what he could tell her. He was used to operating covertly. It probably didn’t matter now, since the CIA and the military had turned on them, but old habits were hard to break.
“We did,” Alizia said. “But I don’t understand why a small group like yours dares venture into the Congo. I saw the news reports. We heard the stories of how the rest of the world has burned.” Her face screwed up in a sorrowful expression. “I am especially sad to hear about the state of New York. It is where I was educated before returning here. My second home.”
Dom nodded and said diplomatically, “And I’m sorry to see what has happened to this beautiful country.”
Again, Alizia laughed. “There is no need for falsehoods. This country, for the most part, was already in the middle of the apocalypse long before the demon plague. We have lived in constant fear of marauding groups of rapists, killers, and slavers who call themselves militias. At least now, the CDF no longer needs to defend the victims of those crimes. It would seem the bravado of those pigs was no match for the hunger of demons
.”
“So you were operating before the Oni Agent?”
“The Oni Agent?” Alizia asked. “This is what you call the plague destroying our people?”
“It is,” Meredith replied. “And we’ve taken to calling your demons ‘Skulls.’”
Kofi crossed his thick arms, tattooed with leopards, and huffed. “Skulls? That, too, is a fitting name. But I think ‘demons’ is more accurate.”
“And why is that?” Dom asked, raising a brow.
“Because I have seen firsthand the way the demons possess people. And I know where the wicked men are that have conjured these monsters.”
-38-
Rough air buffeted the Cessna Caravan, and the fuselage groaned and quaked. Gray skies coursed with distant lightning and the dark sheets of falling rain. Soon enough the weather would hit them, and there wasn’t much Frank could do about it. They had already tapped into their spare fuel tank. The nearest land mass was still a hundred miles away, and there was no telling if they would have the fuel to land at Lajes Field in the Azores Island, their planned pit stop on this leg of the journey.
Frank tried to appear calm as he looked back at his passengers. Rory had both hands wrapped tightly around the edges of his seat. Rachel wore a stern expression, but the nervous sweat beading on her forehead and dripping from her hair belied her confidence.
Next to him, Shepherd fiddled with the radio. “I miss having a goddamned military radio. Could’ve used SINCGARS to see if someone was still alive on the island.”
“If they are alive, they should be monitoring VHF guard,” Frank said, no longer trying to sound like a relaxed commercial airlines pilot. He’d given up that shtick three hundred miles ago when no one laughed. “At least, that’s what I would do if I were them. I’d want to know about any goddamned aircraft in my vicinity.”
The Tide (Book 5): Iron Wind Page 24
