Awakened

by James S. Murray

  Get out of here alive first, then worry about what happens next.

  He nodded his promise, which seemed enough for Reynolds, then asked, “Do you think Van Ness will come after you again?”

  “I’m counting on it. My second order of business is to destroy the Foundation and destroy Van Ness. I’ll put forward a UN resolution to freeze his assets based on his election rigging and murders. Most countries and leaders are afraid not to pay Van Ness. They fear for their own lives. But my very survival proves that Van Ness can be stopped. The Foundation’s axis of fear will crumble. And if any country doesn’t follow our lead, we’ll cut off all their economic ties to the United States. I’ll starve the Foundation to death. Its monopoly will crumble. You can trust me on that. I’ll strip Van Ness of his wealth and his arrogance. When only a shell of the man remains, I’ll draft a secret executive order authorizing his imprisonment for the attempted assassination of the president of the United States. He’ll spend the rest of his life locked in a hole somewhere in the bowels of Gitmo.”

  Munoz wasn’t so sure about that. Hell, he wasn’t sure he even liked how blatantly Reynolds was exposing himself. Why tell me all this?

  “We don’t know if anyone escaped through the other tunnels,” Reynolds said. “I won’t forget what you’ve done today. When it’s all over, you’ll be suitably rewarded. Have a think about what you want.”

  “A quiet life and big compensation packages for the families of the victims. It’s as simple as that.”

  “That’s a certainty, you have my word.”

  Munoz lied about wanting a quiet life, now that he’d had the time to finally contemplate his survival. Today’s events had broken something inside of him, and his old aggression had resurfaced, but this time he aimed to channel it in the right way. He found the idea of simply shutting down the Foundation and imprisoning its leader unsatisfactory. It failed to punish everyone who had taken part in the Z Train plot. Killing these creatures didn’t excuse cold-blooded murder.

  Samuels had mentioned other members two times: once about an exfiltration team and a final unknown man from the Pavilion who activated the timers for the explosion.

  Other people had blood on their hands. It was that simple.

  Munoz refused to let anyone get away with doing this to his life. To the lives of his team. To the lives of the passengers and any victims in the Pavilion. Reynolds may be looking at the big picture, but Munoz saw things differently. The Foundation had made it personal. It had killed his friends. Destroyed the job he worked so hard to gain. Planned his death.

  Those responsible had to answer for their actions.

  I’m old-school Diego again, but with a genuine enemy.

  They fucked up when they woke up these creatures by waking up one more monster.

  Only a hundred yards remained and the first faint sliver of daylight appeared.

  “Mr. President, one last question,” Munoz said. “You plan on destroying the Foundation.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “When Van Ness is finally gone, who’s left to destroy these creatures?”

  Reynolds stared at him without answering.

  The sliver of light went dark, as if something had blocked it.

  “What the hell?” Reynolds said.

  Munoz crept forward and extended his laser.

  An enormous creature moved in the shadows, bigger than any he’d previously seen. It turned its head away from the natural daylight, cowering.

  Reynolds backed behind Munoz.

  The creature let out a long hiss and moved closer, visibly struggling in the cleaner air. Its tail slowly flicked from side to side, and it raised its claws.

  Munoz’s finger sprung away from the trigger. He attempted to force it back, but it wouldn’t move. The gun was frozen in place. “What the fuck?”

  “Shoot!” Reynolds yelled.

  The creature stomped forward, taking short, unwieldy strides.

  Reynolds’ left hand involuntarily rose to his own throat and his fingers crushed around his windpipe. “I’m not doing this! It’s got some kind of hold on me,” he gasped. “Fucking shoot!”

  “I can’t move my hand.”

  “What?”

  The creature’s tail whipped through the air, smashed into Munoz’s ankles, and his ass crashed to the ground. It lumbered toward Reynolds, dug its claws into his shoulders, and raised him against the wall.

  Reynolds screamed and kicked his legs. His face turned beet red as he fought against the creature’s stocky forearms.

  Munoz forced his shaking left hand toward the laser, but the invisible force stopped him from reaching the trigger. The creature’s tail battered the ground next to his face, and its tip sliced his cheek.

  “Fucking do something,” Reynolds yelled.

  “Fucking do something,” the creature echoed, mimicking his exact tone, mocking its prey. It roared in Reynolds’ face, pelting it with strings of sticky saliva.

  The creature’s tail rose for another strike, whipping above Munoz’s head and thrusting down. He forced himself sideways, using every ounce of strength in his body, and rolled away. The tail slammed into the track, denting the rail.

  “Diego!” Reynolds screamed.

  Whatever was happening to him, he felt released from its control, and Munoz’s finger tightened around the trigger. He swung the laser toward the creature and fired a beam across its stomach, holding down the trigger.

  The creature’s innards spewed out and dangled between its legs, and its claws released from the president’s body.

  Reynolds dropped to his knees and scrambled away.

  Munoz fired again, slicing the beam across the creature’s head, and carved off the top of its skull. Its legs collapsed, and it slumped to the left. He fired again, blasting a hole through the center of the creature’s face, and brain matter burst in every direction.

  As the massive creature crumpled to the ground in pieces, the laser gun finally kicked out, spent of all its charge. Munoz let the now useless gun slowly fall to the ground, praying this creature was their last.

  Reynolds edged behind him while maintaining a close eye on the smoldering corpse. “What the hell? How could it possibly survive up here? The oxygen level has got to be close to normal here, we’re so close to the exit.”

  “Evolution, Mr. President. They’re evolving. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

  This time, the president had no qualms about resuming their jog, grimacing and rubbing his neck as he staggered alongside Munoz.

  The latest confrontation sent a chill down Munoz’s spine. The creatures were adapting themselves to humanity’s oxygen-rich environment. But he had also gone through an adaptation of sorts, and he was no longer prepared to lie down. The problem was he wasn’t sure who was really on the right side.

  Fuck what Reynolds wants. I refuse to be silenced. I am owed my revenge.

  Maybe Samuels was right about the war to come.

  Bright sunshine streamed through the mouth of the tunnel and sparkled off the glass pyramid of the Z Train Exhibition Center.

  Confetti drifted across the deserted station platform.

  A few hundred cops and soldiers were packed in behind a security line, staring down the track. Every barrel was pointed in his direction. A military helicopter thwacked overhead. Hundreds of the press in the parking lot and their cameras swung away from reporters to face him.

  A wave of paranoia hit Munoz and he skidded to a halt.

  “Is there a problem?” Reynolds asked.

  “I bet the Foundation has backup plans for their backup plans. What if they have a sniper in one of the office blocks, waiting to finish us off the moment we walk out?”

  “Well then, I’ll walk out first,” Reynolds said. “It’s about time I saved your life for a change.”

  The men cautiously walked out of the subway tunnel, President Reynolds taking point.

  A counterstrike team broke the line and charged toward them, weapons raised
.

  “Mr. President,” one soldier shouted as he approached. “Who are you with?”

  “Diego Munoz, from the command center.”

  The team surrounded Reynolds in a tight circle.

  “Where’s Agent Samuels?” another asked. “We heard about him before we lost contact with the sub. What the hell happened down there?”

  “There’s no time. I need everyone to back away. An explosion is imminent and I don’t want anyone here caught by the blast.”

  “Explosion, sir?”

  “I’ll explain when you get me out of here. Move everyone back.”

  “I’ll call Marine One.”

  “No,” Reynolds said. “That explosion is happening in minutes. Did operations command send any more rescue teams to the Pavilion?”

  “Secretary Mansfield ordered us to stay back until we figured out a way of clearing the gas from the tunnel.”

  Reynolds gave a knowing nod. “I’m sure he did.”

  The agents stayed in a tight formation as they escorted him toward the line. Munoz followed closely behind, staring in awe at the hundreds of uniforms and vehicles. The day’s events still hadn’t sunk in, and he’d had no time to think about the outside world during his escape, only how to reach it with the president in one piece. But now that they were free, he kept on high alert, suspecting Samuels had spoken the truth about the Foundation eliminating all its enemies.

  Sirens blared from the other side of the river, and a thin cloud of smoke drifted over Manhattan. Munoz walked past the diesel train maintenance shed and noticed the missing train. He knew a couple of diesel engine operators, one an old drinking buddy.

  Then it hit him.

  Sal Kirsch was one of the few mad enough to mount a rescue attempt against orders. His longtime buddy had a heart of gold and a strong head to match.

  It had to be Sal’s engine.

  The crazy motherfucker.

  Munoz peered back toward the tunnel and wanted the diesel engine to power out more than anything else in the world. Survivor’s guilt was one thing. Living with the guilt of leaving his team, and them all dying in the subway system, along with Sal, would physically and mentally crush him.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Cafferty and North flanked Bowcut, stabbing beams of light through the misty water vapor. Ellen covered the rear with Flament’s spotlight, behind the single file of freed hostages, one of whom carried Dumont’s rifle. The group had under ten minutes to make it out of the subway system.

  Bowcut wasn’t sure they would make it in time, but instead of constantly checking her watch, she drove the group toward their only option for survival.

  Her boots crunched over the rocky ground as she advanced, laser in one hand, her light in the other. The passage widened to twenty feet, snaking upward into the distance. Large boulders spread to her front. Cave entrances lined the walls, at least thirty of them, each providing a place for the smaller, lightning-fast creatures to shelter from the effects of their lights and reach anyone with a single leap. The stress of knowing that every step could be her last kept her heart in her throat, and it took all her strength to keep moving.

  It helped having David with her. He was ever reliable, always by her side. She wouldn’t have it any other way in their current situation. Cafferty was unproven, but it seemed the size of his balls matched his hubris.

  North activated one of the last four strobe grenades.

  Then shrieks rang out.

  Creatures sprang from behind several boulders and shot into the cover of the pitch-black caves. Bowcut slowed her pace and surveyed the multiple attack points. They were basically in a killing field.

  The only choice was to proceed.

  She jutted her chin up the passage. “I see roughly thirty opportunities for the creatures to take a single lunge and rip us into the darkness.”

  “The strobe keeps them at bay,” North said.

  “For the most part. But we don’t have many. And don’t forget: there are thousands of them. There are nine of us.”

  “There’s not much we can do either way,” Cafferty said. “I’d rather try to get out than just give up and die.”

  Bowcut felt the same way. What else could they do? She continued forward.

  Snarls, hisses, and growls filled the passage. She curled her finger around the trigger and crept between the boulders, searching for any signs of movement. Sweat trickled down her spine and the pain of her headache increased with every step taken away from the soothing air of the oxygenator. Maybe because of that, Bowcut increased her speed to a crouching run. The group’s rapid footsteps followed, and they made it past half the caves.

  A creature burst out of the blackness to her right.

  It crashed into North, sending him skidding across the ground, and sunk its teeth into his leg. He roared and hammered his spotlight against its back. He might as well have been pounding on a rock. The creature thrashed its head, throwing his body from side to side like a dog with a toy.

  Two of the women screamed.

  The creature’s tail lashed Cafferty’s arm, instantly drawing blood. It raked its claws down the side of North’s chest, tearing his shirt and exposing his rib cage.

  No.

  Bowcut dropped to one knee and aimed at its bulbous head, but at the same time, another creature raced out of a cave, leaped in the air, and dropped toward her with its claws primed. She fired.

  A red-hot laser beam cut through its chest, and the creature’s body slammed into Bowcut, knocking her backward, pinning her to the ground.

  She stared into its soulless eyes.

  It slowly opened its mouth, and blood dripped from the creature’s teeth onto her face.

  Claws tightened around her body chest rig.

  Bowcut didn’t even flinch. Calmly, she planted the barrel against the side of its head and fired again.

  In a heartbeat, the beam drilled through the creature and zipped into a cave.

  Deafening screams echoed out of the entrance.

  The creature’s eyes closed and its head slumped onto her shoulder like a spent, gruesome lover. She heaved herself free of the corpse, trained the laser on the one attacking North, and pulled the trigger. A red beam speared from the end of the barrel, punched through the creature’s neck, and blasted chips from the passage wall.

  The creature slumped into a puddle. Blood pulsed from the sizzling gouge below its jaw, each spurt smaller as life drained from its body. She was elated for a moment, but then reality crashed back down. She knew these were only two of thousands, and their attack might have encouraged others to ignore their instincts and charge into the strobing light.

  And the clock was still ticking.

  North wriggled away on his backside, his face contorted with agony. It dragged on her heartstrings, but she forced her emotions to the side and kept a vigilant watch on the caves surrounding them.

  The group clustered around North, focusing their lights on the caves in their immediate vicinity. Everyone’s face that didn’t wear a gas mask displayed the desperation of their situation. To add insult to injury, jets of water hissed from more cracks in the ceiling, soaking the group, and a steady stream flowed around Bowcut’s boots.

  Cafferty winced and clutched his arm. “Nice shooting.”

  “They’re getting braver,” Bowcut said. “David, please tell me you’re okay to move?”

  “It’s just a scratch,” he said, and he unsteadily rose to his feet. “Don’t worry about me.”

  It didn’t look like “just a scratch,” though. The shredded left leg of his trousers exposed deep teeth marks in his calf. He held his bloodstained hand over his ribs, covering where she had seen the creature expose his bones. But there was no time—he could either move or not, but the group couldn’t stay here. It was cold—especially when knowing it was David she was contemplating leaving—but she had no choice. Her emotions meant nothing right now, because she had civilians she needed to protect. Bowcut swallowed hard and strained
not to show any outward signs of emotion.

  Even if it might leave her feeling dead inside.

  Cafferty handed his spotlight to Ellen, ripped the remaining sleeve off his shirt, and one of the women helped him bandage the slice on the side of his biceps.

  “Everyone stay tight,” Bowcut said. “We can’t stop for anything.”

  Some of the women looked at her in disbelief, as if no one could possibly be so calculating after the violent attack. Her mask remained in place, though. “The C-4 doesn’t care that we’re hurt,” she said sharply, and risked a glance at David. For a second her resolve almost collapsed at the sight of his injuries, but he locked eyes with her and nodded his approval, so she quickly spun on her heel and proceeded up the passage, sweeping her aim across the caves’ dark mouths.

  The others followed without question.

  The shrieks increased in intensity.

  Tails whipped out from both sides and battered the ground, spraying Bowcut with water. She kept as close to the middle as possible, out of their reach, vaulting boulders and glancing back every few seconds to ensure everyone had managed to keep up with her pace. They couldn’t afford to become strung out, not with their limited sources of light.

  Then the creatures fell silent. Every single one within earshot. It felt eerie and weird, like they were up to something malicious beyond her already rapidly expanding comprehension of this new threat.

  “Oh fuck,” Cafferty said.

  “What?” Bowcut asked.

  She stumbled to the left, toward the mouth of a cave, as if somebody or something tore at her chest rig. But nothing physical had, and an unseen force continued to tug at her body.

  “Go faster,” North shouted. “Before we’re all dragged away.”

  Bowcut had never heard David so audibly scared shitless—even if what he said made no sense to her—and she didn’t hesitate in following his command.

  She passed between the final six cave entrances, and with every step, the force became stronger, ripping her toward the silent darkness.

  Cafferty bellowed behind her, encouraging everyone else to run for their lives.

  The walls narrowed and Bowcut scrambled into a narrow passage. As fast as the force had gripped her, it vanished. She crouched and waved everyone forward.