Something hard hit him hard in the chest a moment later, and he crashed to the ground, gasping for air. He blinked again and saw the creature toss the shield away. It used its knee to break through the middle of the spear like a toothpick. Holding the two pieces in each hand, it strode toward Fitz.
“Get up, Fitz!” Rico shouted.
“Come on!” Tanaka yelled.
Grunting and shouts sounded from the balcony.
Fitz winced and pushed himself up. He sliced through the air with the sword as soon as he was on both of his blades. The sword hit one of the shafts, sticking into the wood, but the beast used the other to smack Fitz in his helmet. The rattle shook his brain, and he backed up, blinking away another flurry of stars and fuzz.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” the creature said. It let out a bellowing laugh. In that moment everything froze, and although Fitz couldn’t see he could hear the creature preparing to strike.
Blind and desperate, Fitz ducked just as the blade whooshed above his head. Then, with all of his strength, he lunged. The blade cracked through armor, and then sunk into flesh.
Warm liquid peppered his arms, and a scream so loud it hurt his ears followed.
Part human, part monster.
Blinking rapidly, Fitz’s vision finally cleared. He had impaled the beast right through the heart.
The other creatures and Team Ghost fell into silence.
Nothing stirred in the massive room.
Fitz winced again, the blood rushing in his ears. He stood and pulled the sword from the beast’s chest, a crunching sound echoing. The hybrid man dropped to both armored knees, staring at Fitz with one monster eye and one human. A grin still on its face, the creature crashed to the ground. Blood pooled around the body, spreading toward Fitz’s blades. He took a step back and glanced up at the monsters on the balcony.
They continued to glare at their fallen leader as if they expected him to get back up. Rico, Tanaka, and Dohi waited with their weapons at the ready.
A tense moment passed that was shattered by the squawk from a frail female. She let out a pained roar at the team.
Had this creature been the mate of the beast Fitz had killed?
Team Ghost gripped their weapons, ready to raise them and open fire, but Fitz ordered them to stand down as the beasts slowly withdrew through the open doorways, disappearing into the ancient Nazi facility.
“Holy shit, Fitz,” Rico said. “Are you okay?” She lowered her gun and ran over to Fitz with Apollo trotting along.
“I… I think so,” Fitz said. A wave of dizziness washed over him and he crouched. “Hurry, get Stevenson and those other men down.”
Keep your head above your heart, man. Don’t…
Fitz closed his eyes and felt the second rush of blood in his ears. His skull pounded like someone was hitting him with a hammer.
He was going to crash. He couldn’t get enough air, and his vision was failing.
Something warm brushed his right hand.
Apollo glanced up, his amber eyes stricken with worry.
“Fitzie!” Rico exclaimed as he collapsed. He fell on his stomach; his arms limp at his sides. He tried to talk, tried to move, but he couldn’t fight the darkness. The last thing he saw was the listless yellow slitted and blue eye of the monster he had killed staring back at him.
* * *
Fitz woke up on a vibrating floor. His brain felt like applesauce sloshing inside his skull. Ringing echoed in his ears, but there was another noise beyond that, some sort of chopping. And voices. He could hear faint voices.
He struggled to move, wiggling his fingers first, and then his hands. The shades of red and orange framing his vision slowly retreated. All at once, the ringing stopped like the final suck of a vacuum and he heard a soft voice.
“Fitz, you’re back.”
He put his hand on his head, but where his helmet should have been he felt soft padding.
“Where am I?”
The whoosh-whoosh of helicopter blades answered his question.
The bright colors vanished, and in their place, he saw a dead face. Everything came crashing back, and he remembered the beast back at the facility.
But this was no monster.
It was Mapes. His eyelids were closed, and the ice on his five o’clock shadow was already melting. Team Ghost had retrieved his body. Fitz had kept his promise to the man after all.
A few feet behind Mapes lay Stevenson. Dohi and Tanaka hovered over him and applied bandages to wounds that Fitz couldn’t see. Two other bodies, both covered by white sheets were resting near the open door.
“Hang on, Ghost,” said Tito over the comms. “I’m getting you the hell out of this frozen shit hole!”
Fitz struggled to sit, but Rico pushed back on his chest. Apollo wedged up to his side, resting his head on Fitz’s vest.
“Stay put, Fitzie. You took a beating back there,” Rico said with a smile. Her dimples were the best thing Fitz had seen all day. She blew a bubble, and her grin widened now that she had his attention.
“If you’re going to blow it, now’s the time!” Tito said.
Dohi stood and walked over to the open Black Hawk door with something in his hand.
Below, branches from hundreds of trees reached up toward the chopper like skeletal fingers. The tunnel to the Nazi facility and the pickup truck came into focus.
Dohi looked back at Fitz for orders. With a nod, Fitz gave him the all clear.
Raising the detonator, Dohi pushed it once, then twice, and then a third time. Three concussions thudded in the distance, deep and loud. Fireballs shot out of the tunnel entrance, slamming into the gate and flipping the pickup truck. The flames raced over the snow, plowing into the graveyard of human and Juvenile corpses, and slamming through the forest.
The bluff over the facility sagged, cracked, and caved in, sealing the prison where the military had once again tried to play God. The weapon had ended up not being a vile or tube after all. Like VX-99, the weapon designed here had turned the poor souls that had once lived in the fishing village into monsters.
Fitz watched the rooftops pass below, saying a mental prayer for the innocent civilians that had lost their lives. Some of the hybrid creatures might have escaped the inferno and retreated into the forest, and Fitz secretly hoped they might be able to find some sort of peace.
All that mattered now was that Team Ghost had completed their mission. They had killed the monster and destroyed the old Nazi facility. Somehow, once again, Fitz hadn’t lost a man, woman, or dog.
But this time he had come very close. Stevenson wasn’t out of the woods yet, either. Fitz crawled over to him and grabbed his hand as Tito flew over the harbor and ocean, returning to the USS Forrest Sherman for fresh orders.
Webb, the Crew Chief, sat across the troop hold, incredulous eyes on Fitz.
“What the hell happened out there, Master Sergeant?” he asked.
Team Ghost had one hell of a story, but Fitz wasn’t prepared to tell it now. Instead, he tightened his grip on Stevenson’s hand. The man cracked his eyelids and focused on Fitz, his lips trembling.
“Hang in there brother,” Fitz whispered. “This battle is over, but we’re going back to war.”
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About the Author
Nicholas Sansbury Smith is the USA Today bestselling author of the Hell Divers series, the Orbs series, the Trackers series, and the Extinction Cycle series. He worked for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management in disaster mitigation before switching careers to focus on his one true passion—writing. When he isn’t writing or daydreaming about the apocalypse, he enjoys running, biking, spending time with his family, and traveling the world. He is an Ironman triathlete and lives in Iowa with his wife, their dogs, and a house full of books.
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