The Tide: Salvage

by Melchiorri, Anthony J

  Surviving Skulls scattered, confused by the raucous noise. Bits of the ceiling and broken pipes crashed down. A gaping void was left in the wall. The creatures started cautiously approaching the spot where the blasts had emanated from.

  Another low rumble sounded. This time, it was more distant. But whatever had caused it, the flashing alarms went silent. The Goliath’s head cocked to the side. It eyed the hole in the wall, then the Hunters on the catwalk. Gunfire burst from the settling dust like flashes of lightning.

  “Come on, asshole!” a voice rang out.

  Dom’s heart kicked as rapidly as the automatic gunfire. He knew that voice. It was Meredith.

  The Goliath took a final glance at Dom. Bullets smashed against its armor and cracked into the side of its head. Meredith stood her ground, spraying the Goliath even as Skulls on the ground dashed toward her.

  “Meredith, run!” Dom yelled.

  She ignored him. Dirt and dried blood covered her face. Her jaw remained clenched and her gaze focused. The Goliath leapt from the bioreactor. It crashed down on a pack of smaller Skulls. Their bodies crunched under it like insect carcasses. It charged Meredith, and as it loped, it flung other Skulls from its path. Their bodies careened into the walls and splattered in bloody messes.

  Dom watched helplessly. Just before the Goliath reached her, Meredith sprinted away. She disappeared down the hall, and Dom could no longer see her. But the report of her rifle continued. The Goliath followed her, its minions roiling in hot pursuit. After a moment, the gunfire went silent, and Dom’s heart sank.

  ***

  “Now, Andris!” Meredith cried. She dove over a pile of heavy desks and fallen bookshelves. Throwing her hands over the back of her neck and crouching, she squeezed her eyes shut.

  A thunderous explosion boomed down the corridor. Fiery heat rushed over her. The concussion picked her body up, and she slammed into a wall. Even through her closed eyelids she could see the blinding white light of the blast. A shrill ringing echoed in her ears, and she stumbled to her feet. Andris rushed down the hallway to meet her. He dropped the detonator and caught her in both hands.

  The armor plates in his tac vest had protected his heart and lungs. The Marines’ bullets had knocked the air from him, and he’d been rendered momentarily unconscious when he hit the ground. But he was alive. And goddammit, so was she.

  He mouthed something that Meredith couldn’t hear. She thought it looked like, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she tried to say, though the sounds were muddled. She felt like she was chewing cotton. “Are you okay?”

  He bobbed his head and then shouldered his rifle. Meredith’s eardrums started to burn with an intense pain, but the sound of crackling fire, gunshots, and distant cries of the Skulls were still loud enough to pierce her damaged hearing. She pressed the stock of her rifle to her shoulder and swept the muzzle across the wreckage. Fire enveloped the walls. Electrical cords snapped like snakes, sparking from the ceiling, which was torn open like a fatal wound. Pieces of unrecognizable gray flesh and splinters of bone were strewn across the floor. The Goliath lay on its side—its only remaining side. The other half of its body had been annihilated in the blast.

  “He’s more fucked than me,” Andris said, forcing a laugh.

  Meredith couldn’t help the strange emotion twisting through her like a tornado. A mixture of relief, giddiness, and fear stormed through her. They’d actually done it. They’d brought down the bastard and a whole menagerie of the smaller beasts around it. But more creatures would continue to flood the building. Far too many for this plan to work again.

  “Let’s get the others!” Meredith yelled. She leapt back over the barricade of desks and bookshelves. Andris followed. Their boots slapped sickeningly over the gore as they traced their way back to the bioreactor room.

  A smattering of remaining Skulls lingered on the ground. A couple climbed the destroyed staircase at one end of the catwalk, while others leapt over each other in a fruitless effort to reach the isolated Hunters. Jenna, Glenn, Miguel, and Renee worked to pick off the remaining Skulls. Dom was helping Spencer. Meredith could see from where she stood that the man’s face was covered in bandages, but at least he was alive. In fact, it seemed all the Hunters, now reunited, were alive.

  “Dom!” Meredith yelled, waving from the bottom floor. Andris brought down a few more Skulls. “We have to move! More are coming!”

  A nearby Skull lunged, and she leveled her rifle at it. Holes formed in its face, and it went down, sliding into another mangled corpse. She and Andris fired their way through the remaining Skulls. They made it to the bottom of the destroyed staircase. The others started to climb down. Miguel came first. Glenn followed, helping Dom carry Spencer down. The man groaned but managed to stand when he reached the bottom.

  Dom leapt the rest of the way. His boots smacked against the floor, and he recovered a rifle, one he must’ve lost earlier, from a pile of Skulls. He ran to Meredith and wrapped both arms around her. His embrace hurt her bruised ribs, but she didn’t care. She returned the hug.

  “Thought I might not see you again,” Dom said and then pulled back. Dried blood was caked along his face. “I’m sorry. You were right.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said, brushing her gloved thumb over his cheek.

  The sound of gunfire broke up their reunion, and Meredith turned to see a Skull fall to Renee’s rifle. The staircase, serving more as a ladder, started to buckle and pull away from the catwalk when Renee was halfway down. Metal shrieked as the last remaining wires and bolts holding it upright tore. Renee jumped before the whole structure came crashing down. She tucked her body and rolled then sprang up.

  “Tada!” the former gymnast said, looking around as if expecting applause.

  “Nice trick saving our asses,” Dom said.

  Andris winked. “Always told you, I know explosives.”

  “And I take it you’ve got a way to get us out of this mess?”

  Andris shrugged. “Maybe.” He pulled a detonator from his pocket and depressed the trigger.

  Dom stared, waiting for something to explode.

  “Not like that,” Andris said. “Not this time.”

  Hissing sounded from somewhere in the distance. Smoke started to billow out of the busted ventilation shaft, carried by a current of air.

  “Thought you guys killed the power?” Miguel asked.

  “Just to the security systems,” Meredith said.

  Smoke started to fill the bioreactor room, obscuring the Hunters’ vision.

  “Thermal time,” Dom said.

  The Hunters clicked their goggles into place. Meredith did likewise, and her world became bathed in bright splashes of red, orange, blue, and green. The smokescreen would obscure the Skulls’ vision, but it would be no problem for them.

  “Follow me.” She guided the Hunters into the corridor. A flash of orange appeared before her, but she quickly dispatched the hissing monster with a spray of gunfire. In a matter of minutes, she guided them through the narrow corridors and outside. Smoke billowed from the vents in the side of the building. Enough to obscure everything in close proximity to the VPPL. Enough to hide them from Kinsey’s choppers overhead.

  “Where do we go from here?” Dom asked.

  Meredith grinned. “Remember how that backstabbing bastard Kinsey mentioned the metro station?”

  Dom nodded. “He hasn’t secured it yet, has he?”

  “What if it’s overrun with Skulls?” Glenn asked, one arm holding Spencer up.

  “The whole goddamned world is overrun with Skulls,” Miguel replied. “At least down there we can get away from prying eyes.” He looked at Meredith. “So is this whole shit-show Kinsey’s fault?”

  “It was. I think he used you all as bait, but he wants me.”

  “Who else at the CIA knew about you investigating the Amanojaku Project?” Dom asked, peering around another corner.

  “When I defected, only my boss, David Lawson, knew.” She
added the extra info for the benefit of the other Hunters who might not know the full story. “But I don’t know who he might’ve told.”

  The sounds of men yelling and gunfire echoed over the campus. Skulls shrieked. An agonized, human cry hit Meredith’s ears, followed by the sickening sounds of flesh tearing and being devoured.

  “We’ll figure it out later,” Dom said. “For now, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Meredith nodded. She checked her smartwatch map one more time and then sprinted across a parking lot filled with the husks of charred vehicles and corpses of dead Skulls and humans alike. The others followed. They flitted between the useless ambulances, Humvees, and sedans. Something grabbed at her boot from under a car. She swung her rifle down at a blackened hand. A singed Skull pulled itself from under the vehicle. It looked up at her with one eye hanging out of its socket. Its mouth opened in a weak, but angry, growl. Ropey intestines dragged from the bottom of its torso where its legs no longer existed. Meredith plugged a single shot into the monster’s head to end its misery.

  She led the Hunters the rest of the way through the parking lot and toward the wide, dark opening before them. There it was. The entrance to the metro. Their boots clanged along the frozen escalators as they rushed underground.

  Meredith’s vision once again switched, this time to green, white, and black hues. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw nothing moving in the darkness. Dom held a fist up when they reached the cavernous underground platform. A single train sat idle on the track. Dark splotches stained the cracked windows. She saw shreds of clothing and discarded bones with their marrow sucked dry. Still, no Skulls.

  “Which way?” Meredith asked, glancing at Dom.

  He stared at the two different tunnels leading away from the track. One went north, back into Maryland. The other led south, toward DC. She already knew which direction Dom intended to go before he pointed. They both wanted to get some answers, and Kinsey was holing up at the Pentagon.

  The Hunters fell in behind him, fanning out to cover the wide track. They marched in silence. After about half an hour, they came upon another train. The clicks of claws against glass sounded from inside it in an eerie, rhythmic beat. They pushed on, avoiding any confrontation with the creatures imprisoned within the train. They passed other metro stations where tableaus no less gruesome than the one near the NIH campus greeted them. Bloody blotches on walls. Scattered bones. Backpacks and suitcases left to rot. Meredith spotted a pair of small, pink shoes near the station’s turnstile entrance. Looking away, she focused on the tracks.

  Deep underground, they had no connection with the outside world. She wondered, even if they were topside, if they’d hear from Frank or anyone aboard the Huntress again. The Hunters trudged on, alone in the darkness. Meredith shivered, taken by a cool breeze as the air in the tunnel shifted. She glanced at Dom, leading the group of men and women in grim silence. She had no doubt as to the immense weight on his mind. He’d almost lost his daughters once. Now he might’ve lost them again. And all the progress they’d achieved toward fighting the Oni Agent, toward righting the wrongs imparted on the world by the founders of the IBSL and the Amanojaku Project, might be gone too. She’d thought they’d actually stood a chance. That they’d actually be able to turn the tide of this increasingly desperate war of biological attrition.

  But now she wasn’t so sure. She hung her head for a moment. She could hear Spencer’s slow groans as he trudged onward. She couldn’t imagine the pain from his Drooler-inflicted wounds. She admired the Hunter’s determination to keep going, to keep taking one more step. She wouldn’t give up so long as that man trooped on. She imagined each of the Hunters shared that sentiment. She’d fought beside them long enough to understand no situation, no matter how despairing, would convince them to sit idly by and let death take them willingly.

  They’d march through as many dark tunnels as it took. They’d fight as many goddamned Skulls as they could. They’d take this fight wherever it might lead them, even if they no longer had the support of the US military or, even worse, the Huntress itself. And Meredith knew all this was true for each of the Hunters whose footfalls echoed in the empty tunnel. Because they had Dom, a man who would march through the hottest bowels of hell if it meant he could save a single life.

  She caught up to Dom and walked by his side. “To the end, Captain,” she said, slipping her hand into his. He looked down at it in surprise for a moment and then tightened his fingers around hers.

  “To the end,” he agreed.

  -34-

  Shepherd ushered Rachel and Rory up the stairs. He had no idea where he was going, but he figured that since they’d come down a flight of stairs when they’d been imprisoned, going up was the right direction. He rounded a corner. Another soldier-turned-Skull raced at him. It still wore a helmet and a fully intact set of combat fatigues. Shepherd squeezed his trigger, and a cluster of red, bleeding wounds formed in the freshly turned Skull’s chest. It collapsed to the stone floor.

  “Keep going!” Shepherd yelled, hurdling over the fallen creature. The two midshipmen ran behind him, clutching rifles they’d picked up from other fallen soldiers.

  “Here! This way!” a man’s voice shouted down a nearby corridor.

  Shepherd pressed himself flat against the wall. The midshipmen did likewise. At an intersection several yards away, a squad of Marines ran past. They seemed intent on reaching whatever destination they had in mind and didn’t so much as glance at the trio of escaped prisoners.

  They pressed on and went up another set of staircases. A metal door opened to the cold rush of air. Outside at last. But Shepherd’s momentary relief quickly faded. He scanned their surroundings with his rifle. Thick tree trunks stood sentinel around them. A dirt road, lined with bushes, wound between the trees. Scattered military vehicles idled in the middle of the road. Gunfire sounded all around them. Shapes flitted between shadows.

  Shepherd signaled for the midshipmen to run in a crouch. They used a low-lying stone wall for cover and followed it until they reached a line of trees. Skulls darted through the foliage, and bullets ripped indiscriminately around them. But Shepherd had no intention of getting mired in a gunfight with either the Skulls or the soldiers.

  He lowered himself to his belly and army-crawled under a tangle of bushes. Their spiky evergreen leaves scratched his scalp and face. Crunching branches behind him told him the midshipmen were still on his tail. A loud shriek sounded to his left, and Shepherd shouldered his rifle, still lying flat on his stomach. Sweat beaded down his forehead. He could hear Rachel and Rory’s breathing pause as they held their breath.

  The beast bounded toward the explosive chatter of rifles and machine guns, away from their position. Shepherd and the midshipmen kept crawling, using the underbrush as cover. After what seemed like hours, the gunfire became sporadic. Only the occasional distant crack of a rifle broke the chorus of singing birds and wind whistling through the trees. He raised himself to a crouch and scanned the woods with his rifle. No Skulls leapt out. No soldiers ordered them to drop their weapons.

  “Move out!” Shepherd called as he broke into a run. He hoped to put as much ground as possible between the prison and them. They jogged through the forest. Shepherd used the infrequent glimpses of the sun through the branches to guess they were headed roughly east. He had no concept of what time it was—or even what day it was—but he did the best he could. He figured eventually they’d run into another road or at least find higher ground to figure out where the hell they were.

  Finally, they made it to a clearing. The sound of rushing water drew Shepherd’s attention. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was. After his torture, he had doubted he’d ever want to drink anything again. Rachel and Rory followed him toward the river, their eyes wide and their faces covered in dirt. He climbed a small hill to survey the land and immediately recognized where they were from the old fort he spotted across the water.

  “What’s that?” Rachel asked.
<
br />   “Fort Washington,” Shepherd said. “Originally destroyed in the war of 1812.”

  “Wait, that’s south of DC,” Rachel said. Shepherd could see the gears turning inside her head. “Which means...”

  “We’re in Virginia.” Shepherd gestured toward the river. “And this is the Potomac.”

  “So what now?” Rory asked.

  “Good question.” Shepherd trod down to the muddy-brown water. It wasn’t his first choice for drinking water, but his dry throat and tongue urged him on. He splashed water over his face and drank some. The midshipmen joined in.

  Shepherd looked down the bank of the river. “There’s a bunch of towns all along the water. Maybe we find one with a boat. Head back to Kent Island.”

  Rachel’s eyes seemed to light up. “You said you think those people are blaming Meredith and Dom for the Oni Agent outbreak, right?”

  “Right,” Shepherd said.

  “Do you believe them?” Rory asked.

  Shepherd didn’t hesitate. “No. Not those two.”

  “Good,” Rachel said. “Because I don’t buy it either. And we definitely need to go to Kent.”

  Rory smiled wistfully. “Too bad you don’t still have that—”

  “The radio,” Rachel cut him off. “I’ve got a radio Captain Holland gave me to call his ship if we were ever in trouble. But it’s at Kent.”

  “If we get it, we can reach him and the Huntress?” Shepherd asked.

  Rachel nodded.

  Shepherd stood, slinging his rifle over his back. “Then we have no time to waste. We have to warn Dom before it’s too late.”

  ***

  Dom shielded his eyes as the Hunters marched up the stairs to the metro station’s entrance. With his rifle at the ready, he led them up into a small plaza surrounded by glass walls.

  “Through there,” Dom whispered, using his hand to indicate the door to a coffee shop.