by LC Champlin
“Wow,” Denver breathed.
Chapter 50
Peace Corpse
I See Demons – Book of Black Earth
June 5, 2016—
Movement on the left: a white, unmarked cargo van akin to a Penske moving truck rolled through the gate along Mark Dabling. The SUV had pulled aside.
“They’re not leaving!” Birk snarled through clenched teeth. “Now we’re stuck here with no transportation. What a stupid idea. We should’ve gone with her.”
“I didn’t see you coming up with any brilliant strategies.” They didn’t have time to snipe at each other like fourth graders. After committing many of the same crimes as Birk had, judging him turned into an experience of mutual pain. Judge not lest ye be judged? He already stood convicted.
Birk shot Nathan a withering look. “Oh, of course, excuse me for thinking people who came for the specific reason of taking me had a plan for how to, I don’t know, do that.”
Attention on the white van, Nathan shook his head. “Blame your sister and her betrayal for that.”
“This is insane,” the researcher spat as he began to stomp off.
“What are you doing?” Nathan yanked the idiot back into cover.
The van’s cargo door rattled up of its own will. Auto open? Not standard equipment in a moving van.
“Oh no,” Birk breathed. Face as white as the truck, he retreated behind Nathan. “Them.”
“Who?”
In answer, a score of black-clad individuals leapt from the bay. They wore helmets and body armor like infantry or SWAT officers, but they carried no firearms. Instead, a number of them wielded short, thick baseball bats. Knees bent, shoulders back, heads swiveling side to side, they radiated a predator’s aura.
“Peace Monitors!” Birk scrambled backward to put the nearest vehicle between him and the squad.
“What is it?” Nathan dropped behind the truck adjacent to Birk’s. “I take it they’re not simply guards.”
Sweat stood out on Birk’s brow, and not from the sun’s warmth. “They’re an improved version of the cannibals.”
“Those are cannibals?” The bone-chilling, nerve-numbing grip of panic tightened around Nathan’s chest.
“They’re armored to make them harder to kill.”
“And now they can wield weapons?”
“That’s not the worst part. They’re stronger, more agile, and can work in teams better. They look more human, you’ll notice. You can’t see it from here, but the blisters aren’t nearly as severe. That came from the shedding of tissue as the body released inflammatory—”
“Shh.” Making a throat-slitting motion, Nathan crossed the gap to Birk.
The troops fanned out in pairs. They scanned the area, eyes hidden behind tactical sport-frame sunglasses.
“Are you sure they’re cannibals?”
Shaking his head in disgust, Birk huffed. “By all means, go out and have a chat with them. I’m sure I don’t know a damn thing, considering I’ve been in one of the labs that created them, learning all the new advances.”
“I’d rather throw you to them as a distraction, but your brain is valuable.” Too bad he had to put up with the mouth.
“Yes, it certainly is.” Overly defiant, compensating for the fear that drained the blood from his face.
“We have to get to the van.”
Birk backed farther away. “We’ll never make it. Give me a gun.” He put his hand out like a toddler begging for candy.
“So you can shoot me as you did your coworkers? I think not.” But Nathan couldn’t work up too much outrage, considering he’d attempted to kill his best friend.
“You better not have brought me out here to die.”
“Come on.” Using the vehicles as concealment, Nathan trotted toward the gate in the fence to the right. The shrubs and wooden fence on the opposite side of Enterprize Road, beyond the lot’s chain-link fence, obscured what lay beyond it.
An SUV blocked this egress. The driver, however, watched the cannibals—the Peace Monitors. No way to reach the van, or the cover of the garage without someone seeing the fugitives.
“Is that a trailer park over there?” Birk pointed through the chain-link fence, across Enterprize Road, to a wooden fence between a self-storage and industrial building nearby. “Maybe somebody there will let us in. You’ve got a gun.”
“Maybe.”
Keeping in the driver’s blind spot, the duo kept low and sprinted for the SUV. And . . . safe! But not before two of the Peace Monitor cannibals glanced their way. The new-and-improved abominations straightened like beasts that scented prey. As one, the rest of the cannibals turned to stare at the escapees. Then they broke into their lope, falling forward at the waist, catching themselves on their hands, launching forward with powerful rear legs. These wore their bats in sheaths across their backs. Without a word, the other four pairs of cannibals began to converge on the Suburban.
Now the driver spotted Nathan and Birk too. No doubt bulletproof glass protected the man in the can.
Birk dashed across Enterprize. At the wooden fence, he scrambled over. Nathan hit the wall a few seconds later. Despite aching ribs, he struggled to the other side, landing in the tidy but barren yard of a mobile home. Images of the massacred residents of San Luis and their decrepit hovels intruded.
Ahead, Birk hammered on the mobile home’s door. “Help! Please!”
Across Enterprize pounded the ten shock troops. Peace Monitors? Oxymoron of the century.
The home’s door opened a crack. “What do you want—”
Nathan shouldered Birk out of the way and shoved through the doorway, knocking the occupant backward. “Pardon me,” he growled as he dragged Birk after him. “Don’t go out. There are cannibals.” As he spoke, he locked the door.
The other exit? Likely at the opposite end of the hall. And closer to the cannibals. Damn it. He might have to use a window.
“What’s going on?” the voice filtered through. “Who are you? Are you with the Air Force? The police?”
Ah, yes, the homeowner. A woman in her early seventies, wearing a house dress, and with her hair in tight curls. She gaped at the newcomers. Two men—one with combat gear and weapons—barging inside her home as they fled cannibals evidently didn’t happen every day.
“SWAT,” Nathan cut off Birk’s open mouth. “I’m escorting this man away from a hostage scene. He’s a doctor.”
Birk pushed past to reach the hall. He wrenched open the room at the terminus for a view out the window. “They’re spreading out,” he announced.
“Open the window a few inches.” Bringing his carbine to his shoulder, Nathan strode toward the researcher’s vantage.
“What are you doing?” the woman gasped. “Are you going to kill them? I thought the government was trying to catch them—”
Her babbling faded to background noise as Nathan joined Birk at the window. Shoot them now, or let them pass?
Crash!
Nathan whipped about. A cannibal was pulling itself through a side window. Its visored glare locked on its prey: Nathan.
The old woman’s scream drowned out the monster’s hiss.
Nathan’s red-dot sight snapped up, hovered over the creature’s face. Bang-bang! The cannibal went limp, its brain now shredded Jell-O inside its helmet.
Grandma drew breath for another scream, but Nathan reached her first. Putting his gloved hand over her mouth—“Shh. You’ll just bring more. I apologize that this happened.”
Behind the cannibal’s corpse appeared more of the bastards. They began to yank the body free. Blood splattered as the carcass flopped about in its gore.
“Birk,” Nathan snapped, “Get her”—nod to the senior citizen—“into the closet or bathroom.”
Shockingly, the scientist obeyed, hustling her into the tiny bathroom they’d passed on the way to the back room.
Glass shattered—from all directions, as if a bomb had
gone off, blowing in every window. Armed and armored cannibals began clambering through the openings.
“Come on!” Nathan barreled toward the nearest bedroom, which opened across from the bathroom.
“What the hell do we do!” Birk’s screeching matched the woman’s. “They’re going to kill us!”
Chapter 51
Change of Scenery
Blut und Feuer – Varg
Birk dashed into the room, on Nathan’s heels. He slammed the bedroom door behind him.
Boxes and a few couches occupied the space. And soon a cannibal would too. With a last heave, one of the invaders flopped from the window, into the room. It landed on all fours, teeth bared and black oil dripping from its lips. The sport-frame glasses concealed the red eyes, but not the pale, twitching face.
Nathan’s weapon snapped up, but the target sprang to the side. It pushed off the wall to launch back at him. Sidestep! Instinct brought the carbine’s butt around. Clang! Into the helmet.
Staggering, the cannibal crashed into the wall.
“Raaa!” A blur—Birk slammed a kitchen chair over the Dalit’s head. Wood splintered. This only unbalanced it, though. And enraged it.
Bang-bang! Bang! At least one round found the skull. Two cannibals down, eight to go.
Pounding at the door—The frame tore from its nails.
Nathan kicked the middle strut from the window, then jumped out. Birk landed beside him. He held one of the chair legs like a club.
“Move!” Nathan took off for the front of the trailers, where a road wound through the park. The map had shown this area, but the specifics escaped him.
“Don’t they have any weaknesses?”
“They’re too effective, does that count?” Eyes bulging, face the same shade of white as his lab coat, Birk glanced back. “They’re coming!”
“Look.” A ladder leaned against one of the mobile homes. High ground.
Attention on the incoming monsters, Nathan motioned for Birk to go first. “Hurry!”
Hisses chased the escapees. Finally, the roof. Nathan raised the carbine; the red dot glowed, a beacon of hope and a death sentence in one. The creatures would make difficult targets, but—bang, bang, bang! One stumbled, fell. Its fellows scattered, surrounding the mobile home atop which the two targets made their stand.
Next target. Before the dot could settle, the cannibal and its comrades slipped around the other buildings.
“Where are they?” Birk whispered.
Thud!
Two—no, three Dalits occupied the roof of a nearby trailer.
Thud-thud! More, on the roof behind him. The bastards darted along the length of their buildings, keeping low. Pack hunters.
They challenged the wrong wolf. Now that the fuckers surrounded him, he could attack in all directions. The closest Dalit, then. Bang! Bang! Misses. Fuck this new agility.
“The others! Go!” Birk charged down the roof. He hurled himself across the gap and onto the next.
Nathan pounded after him. Jump! The five-foot alley flashed by beneath. It required a few steps to slow his momentum on the landing.
The cannibals continued their flanking maneuver, widening their circle around Nathan and Birk.
A door banged closed. Across the street, a resident exited his mobile home, oblivious to the chaos outside. How could he miss the gunfire? The man headed toward his vehicle, a red Civic with a white hood.
Finally a break. “Birk!” Survival instinct had driven the researcher to the next mobile home’s roof. “Our ride has arrived.”
“I see it.”
The cannibals closed in. Nathan paused to release a string of fire at the nearest. A hit somewhere in the body, perhaps on an armor plate. Nathan barreled down the roof. Leap left! One more until they paralleled the Civic and put an acceptable distance between themselves and the ground-level Dalits.
Ahead, Birk barely made the next gap, panic his main fuel.
Nathan cleared it, landing in a crouch. One last strafe of the enemy, while Birk dropped off the edge of the roof.
The area below appeared clear. Nathan thudded to the ground. The pain in his ribs surged across his chest. No time for this. Eyes on the prize: the Civic.
“Put the keys down!” Nathan roared at the driver, who’d half stepped into his vehicle.
The local squinted at him from behind dreadlocks. “What’s going on, man?”
The source of the Reggae Head’s calm hit Nathan in the olfactory center when he came within four yards of the vehicle: weed. Colorado would at least remain calm while the cannibals destroyed it. Ride in the Mary Jane mobile, or take his chances with the cannibals? Not much of a choice, as six Dalits still pursued.
“Get out!” Birk pulled the confused man from the car. Then he swung into the driver’s seat.
Fucking—Well, someone did have to act as gunner. Nathan slung the passenger-side door open. Once inside, he hit the locks. “Go!”
++++++++++++
June 4, 2016—
Coming alongside Albin, Denver gawked at their underground surroundings. “This place is so cool!”
The other four travelers voiced similar amazement at their surroundings.
Kingston meandered to stand at the edge of the group. “It’s supposed to look like the Marriott Hotel in downtown Atlanta. I’ve never been, so I can’t say.”
“The Marriott?” Bridges brightened. “I’ve been there. I went to Dragon Con. It’s a bit like that, I guess.”
Halls extended at intervals around the bottom level’s circular perimeter. Kingston led the visitors toward the nearest passage. It curved, blocking the destination from view. “I’m going to get you checked in. Think of this as a condo rental like HomeAway or Airbnb.”
“We don’t have cash,” Behrmann related. “Are the credit cards up yet?”
“Pay? Don’t worry about that.” He grinned again, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. “When the people here heard what happened to you, they agreed we should let you use the guest dorm, as we call it. It’s where prospective residents stay while they’re checking out the place. It’s not cheap to be here, as you can imagine, so people like to know they can handle it and fit in well. Gives the residents a chance to cast a yes or no vote, too.”
“So,” Bridges drew the word out, “you can get voted off the cave?”
Kingston laughed. “You don’t have to worry about that. Come on.”
At the end of the hall, the group halted at a check-in desk similar to one at a hotel. Kingston disappeared through an Employees Only door, then emerged behind the desk. “If you have any ID, I need to see it. Then I can get you some key cards.” The visitors handed over the requested identification, which allowed him to perform the secret rights common to hotel managers.
Then he spread six key cards on the counter. Taupe in color, the cards bore the midnight-blue silhouette of the Tree of Life: a deciduous species with its roots mirroring its boughs. The Celts called it Yggdrasil. Stylized text read, Anástasi Condominiums.
“These are going to be your IDs, too. Your names are encoded in them.”
“I feel like I’m in some sort of super-secret government installation,” Bridges murmured as he studied his card.
Chapter 52
Up in Smoke
Reigniting – Mountains vs. Machines
June 5, 2016—
Birk stamped on the gas. The tin can shot forward, colliding with one of the cannibals. The body rolled across the hood, up over the windshield.
“Don’t hit them,” Nathan snapped. “The airbags might deploy in this piece of shit.” He belted in, cracking windows with his free hand. An inch gap would strengthen them. And air out the vehicle.
“This is going to be a long ride.” Birk coughed, looking slightly green. “It’s like being inside a bong.”
“I wouldn’t know.” The hell with a crack. Nathan ran the windows all the way down. He needed them for rifle ports anyway.
Behind, the cannibals made short work of the stoner: a blow to the head with a bat caved in his skull. But they didn’t stay to eat. Hissing, they dropped into a lope. Only four? “Where are the other—”
Nathan jerked forward, the seat belt locking. Squinting through the pain that radiated across his chest, he looked up. A black Suburban blocked their way. Two of the missing cannibals flanked it. They knew to work with the SUV. Clever bastards.
“Cover your ears.” Carbine raised, Nathan leaned out the window. Bang-bang! The cannibal at the Suburban’s fore fell, one bullet punching out an eye, the other annihilating the nose. Beautiful.
Birk yelped. “That’s fucking loud!”
The Civic jerked into reverse. The distance opened a clear view of the other cannibal. Four shots cracked from the AR: two misses, two hits. Nathan snapped a full mag into the weapon.
Tires squealed as Birk ripped into a driveway. He rammed into drive and—swerving around the cannibals—roared down the street. Another SUV pulled in to block it, but it couldn’t stretch completely between the mobile homes. Birk plowed through a low chain-link fence, a lawn furniture set, a trash can, and a row of shrubs.
As Birk hunched over the wheel, teeth bared, Nathan braced himself against the seat. And they called him a reckless driver! The Civic careened past the SUV. Not bad driving, all things considered.
Gunfire rattled. Thuk-thuk-thuk! Bullets peppering metal.
“Where do I go?” Birk moaned.
“Keep going north on Mark Dabling.” Nathan fished the GPS from one if his vest’s pouches. Hopefully the secondary meeting place, the Hyatt, wouldn’t also end in a cluster.
Behind them, two black SUVs swung into the lane. Shooting them from this angle would prove too awkward. Nathan pulled the seatback release, dropping it into the rear.
“What are you doing back there?”
