Max Anders was Blount’s theologian, versed in different culture’s religious beliefs and spiritual folklore. If there were any relics or ruins on the island, he might be able to identify them. What if the theories on sunken cities weren’t that far off the mark?
There was also the usual collection of grunts. Blount’s firepower, just in case things got rough. The man in charge of this nine member ragtag tactical team, known only to the Black Rock organization, was Simon Baxter. Baxter was one tough mother. Almost as tough as Blount, but Blount had been in more combat situations. After all, he’d lived many more lives than Baxter. Finally, Doctor Graham Saylors, military-trained medical officer, would serve as doctor for the entire team.
“We all ready? This is for real people. We don’t know what the hell awaits us out there, but something does. I don’t care what ELDON says. The twins have been picking something up for days, even before the thing surfaced. So stay alert. Stay alive. And somebody wake that jerk up.” Blount pointed at a sleeping soldier in the back.
“Brooks, you clown!” Simon yelled. “Get the hell up. This isn’t a damn siesta!”
There was no response from the man. A fellow trooper shook him, and his head bobbed to one side.
“He hates flying sir. Was complaining about some chattering in his ears,” Private Amanda Fletcher volunteered. “He takes sleeping pills on every flight to sleep through it. Wakes when we land. He wanted to make the noise stop.”
“Say what?” Simon looked perplexed.
Blount made his way down the aisle, grabbing a hold of the slumbering soldier. He shook him hard, and an empty pharmaceutical bottle fell out of his pack. Blount eyeballed it, then looked up at the others. “He’s not sleeping. He’s dead. The bottle is empty. Your boy’s overdosed, and I doubt it was an accident. Something got to him.”
Blount let the fallen soldier gently slip back into the seat. The soldier trembled all over, arms and legs flailing before he belted Blount across the chin, sending him to the floor.
The rest of the team scrambled, withdrawing from the dead soldier as he twitched and jumped up like an out of control marionette. He stumbled forward and made another lunge for Blount, who was not about to get caught off guard twice. He rolled out of the dead soldier’s way and pulled out his pistol.
One round hit the man’s chest, but all he did was roll over. He crawled on his hands and knees and hissed at Blount, drool escaping his lips, his eyes enflamed.
Simon Baxter shot him in the back of the head, blood splattering an arc across the walls, and yet the soldier kept on crawling. He was determined to reach Blount, hands dragging him along, his blood leaving a glistening trail down the aisle.
Blount heard fingers snapping as the dead man closed in on him, then he noticed something stranger yet. A shadow crawled ahead of the soldier—a dark carbon copy that was illusive and cunning. It was barely noticeable until the lights overhead picked it up. Something wasn’t right. This shadow mimicked the soldier’s every move, yet seemed intelligent. At the same time, it was not of this reality. It was composed of little substance, made of translucent blackness that used the soldier’s body. Blount saw it stretch before him, parts of it splintering when it touched the seats and walls. He put two and two together, aimed at this new target, and fired.
He blew holes in the shadow, watching it explode into pieces before dissolving and vanishing. In the distance, he heard a faint screech. The soldier fell to the floor, lifeless. Getting to his feet, Blount wiped the sweat from his brow and holstered his gun. He looked at the stunned team, their eyes wide and faces pale.
“Like I said, stay alert. Stay alive. Right, let’s open the doors.”
What the hell have we gotten ourselves into here?
Chapter Two
Outlook, Montana
“We’ll touch down in Outlook in about eight minutes,” Sam Veleska said to Archer, as he stared at his watch.
They’d left Air Force One on the ground back in New Orleans, and they’d hauled ass in the Pave Hawk not a moment too soon. Looking out over the bleak moonlit landscape below, he was beginning to regret leaving the big plane with all its supplies and weapons. They’d fit what they could in the chopper, to the point of almost overloading it.
“Great,” Sam said. Archer followed her gaze. The low fuel level light flashed on the remaining reserve tank. Sam ignored it. “Why are we in Montana again?”
“It’s one of many classified fallout shelters for POTUS,” Archer said. “It’s just outside the town. Besides, the population is about eighty people in Outlook. The more isolated we are, the less likely we run into those things. This town is totally off anyone’s radar, and I’ll bet more than half the adult population works for the government.”
Archer felt Sam’s unease about the whole thing, but she did her best to keep it under wraps. He appreciated it. He didn’t need anymore head cases right now. “You OK?”
“Just thinking about Hurt. Where he might be heading.”
“That’s a good question.” Archer wondered the same thing. To maintain security, President Wendell, refrained from divulging his group’s destination, only telling them they were headed to another secure facility.
He glanced out at the western horizon and squinted against the glow. All those people dead, all those cities now silent and covered with radioactive dust. The eastern horizon wasn’t much better.
The phone Major Woodard handed Archer would only blast static at him, and he wondered if the SAT system had been taken out, what with hell now hitting the planet. He didn’t know what was worse: the tsunamis, the nuclear launches, or the damn shadow creatures in every shape and size trying to overrun the friggin’ world.
Sam set the chopper down a few miles outside of town in some of the flattest land Archer had ever seen. He stepped out first, surveyed the area with pistol in hand, and when he was convinced it was clear, gestured for the others to join him.
Secretary of the Interior Patricia Carling emerged next, followed by Sam. Both women looked around anxiously as the wind blew a thin film of dirt across their faces. Travis Muldoon brought up the rear. There was an unnatural heat to the breeze.
Travis glanced at him and confirmed his fears. “It’s from the blasts. That’s why it’s so hot out here.”
“OK, Archer, what do we need to do next?” Carling asked.
“We need to walk. Head for town and locate our contact.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Anyone in town might be one of those shadow creatures gone mad. Remember those back in New Orleans?”
“I understand that, but standing out in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to cut it either. We have no way of contacting anyone at the fallout shelter with the SAT phone on the fritz, and we just can’t wait out here, hoping someone will pick us up. Trust me, we need to head to town. I can get us to the base from there.”
“Fine. Whatever you think is best.”
Archer glanced at the others. “We walk. Let’s fall out.”
He wasn’t expecting such resistance from Carling. Her tone was changing, becoming more argumentative, and there was something about her voice. Why does she sound familiar? Where have I heard her before? It had nagged him for some time now, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He pushed it aside for the time being.
Archer, Sam, Travis, and Secretary Carling walked from the middle of nowhere into the great unknown. Archer felt eyes on him. Something watched them from above—something shadowy, illusive and perhaps…massive? He hoped to God it wasn’t ready to start something with them. He doubted his service pistol could handle the job.
All Archer could dwell on as they walked was the fact it had finally happened. Nuclear weapons had been launched and cities were gone—wiped off the map. Even in his most sweat-soaked nightmares, he never thought the idiotic leaders of the world had the rocks to actually do it. He was wrong.
What now? What did this mean? Were there survivors in those cities? How long would a nuclear winter last?
What did this mean for the world?
He found his thoughts turning to Casey. It was all he could do to keep himself from falling apart. Knowing she was alive out there helped. Though he couldn’t explain it, he sensed they needed her to stay alive. Surely, the cult sheltered themselves and Casey from the nuclear fallout. They needed her for their plans, and they would have seen this coming. Right? But for how long was she safe? How long would they wait? Old ones…shadows…the island. He was convinced the cult knew something about how this all fit together, but what did it have to do with Casey?
A glimmer of light appeared on the horizon. The town proper of Outlook was only a couple miles away. They picked up their pace with anxious excitement, needing to find answers, needing to make sense of a world that was quickly going to hell.
Travis muttered something about leading the lambs to the slaughter. Archer ignored him. He could stay with them or not. He couldn’t care less. He had more important things on his mind.
* * *
Outlook looked like a ghost town. There were no running cars in the street, no pedestrians out and about. Darkness clung to the buildings in patches. The occasional streetlight or bar sign provided the only light.
A few houses that dotted the horizon sat devoid of any signs of life. No lights or sound—nothing. Archer began to wonder about this government fallout center.
Secretary Carling continued to walk toward the horizon. Sam walked beside her, one hand on her pistol. Archer thought Sam was acting more and more like him in these last few hours.
Archer turned his gaze to Travis, who cracked a few jokes and toyed with his rifle. It was obvious he avoided the reality of the situation at all cost. Archer still didn’t trust him. He was not coping well with what he had seen. It wouldn’t be long before his sanity cracked.
The group crossed an intersection and listened to the wind howl. Carling somewhat took the lead, as she moved the team down a narrow street with decrepit apartment buildings sprawling on either side. Archer detected a rank smell in the air, mixed with that of motor oil and dirt.
American flags hung outside some of the buildings, rippling in the wind. Archer stared at them in surreal disbelief, before he heard the familiar sound of someone tapping cigarettes. He swiveled his head and saw Carling lighting a smoke. She noticed his gaze and offered the pack. He hesitated for a brief second, and then took it. He’d quit a year ago, but the act of lighting the cigarette calmed him, and he inhaled deeply.
“Thanks.” The smoke felt like magic in his chest. Old habits never died.
The group stopped to rest and smoke when the wind picked up again. Archer dragged and expelled smoke one more time, before catching movement on one of the rooftops of the adjacent apartment buildings.
A person came crashing down on Travis, sending him onto the street. His rifle slid out of his hands as a wild man grabbed handfuls of his hair and bashed his head into the pavement. Howls of agony filled the night air as the group reacted, spreading out and reaching for their weapons in white-knuckled shock.
The crazed undead man drove Travis’s head into the street over and over, until it was nothing but a pulpy mess. Archer saw the black shadow figure above the man, mimicking the actions of its host. The form was darker than night and here, too, as Archer had noticed before, it seemed more solid, as if gaining ground in this world.
“You son of a bitch!” Sam screamed, drawing her pistol and running to Travis. She took aim at the stranger’s head, but it was too late. Travis was gone, his hands twitching slightly until falling still against the street.
The shadow figure turned and swiped its arm towards Sam before she got off a shot. Its host followed suit, as the dead man leapt to his feet and smashed Sam across the jaw, sending her reeling.
Archer whipped his service pistol up and fired at the shadowy form several times. It buckled under its spasms, shattering into thousands of pieces and dissolving into mist the air carried away. Its host collapsed to the ground motionless.
Sam rolled around on the street favoring her jaw. Archer pulled her to her feet, noticing the blood that seeped from her lips. “You all right?”
Archer was pissed. Just as Sam opened her mouth to respond, they heard moans rising in the distance. They turned and saw a group of people lumbering out of a nearby alley. Their faces were drained of all color and their eyes were blank. Some of them had mortal wounds still pumping blood out of their bodies. Ahead of them, their shadows strolled like apparitions floating on fetid air.
“This is crazy,” Sam said after she spit up blood.
Archer agreed. They lifted their guns.
Archer pushed Carling behind him. What good that would do, he didn’t know. As the group of about fifteen advanced on them, something came roaring down the street. Seconds later, a pick-up truck plowed into the oncoming dead. Bodies sailed into the air, and a few were crushed beneath the wheels.
The truck screeched as it completed a semi-circle, wheels tossing dirt and grit, a body rolling over its hood. It raced over to Archer and his team. The door flew open and a young man shouted, “I’m Agent Palmer. Get the hell in!”
There was no time for arguments or verifying credentials. Archer had to trust he was the man the president mentioned. He and the others piled into the truck and its bed.
The truck sped away. As Archer looked up, he saw a hole rip into the star-lit sky, and watched in disbelief as a giant shadow bird soared through it. Darkness fell over the entire area as the thing swooped towards them to make an attack with its talons. A shrill screech filled their ears, threatening to drive them all to the brink of madness.
“Hold on!” Palmer called as he slammed the accelerator. The truck leapt like a wild stallion and burned through the streets, narrowly missing streetlights and mailboxes, passing over unpaved roads and tossing its occupants around like pin balls.
Above, the winged beast made of sentient darkness cut through the air, attempting to follow the truck as it escaped at break-neck speed. At last, the truck ditched the hellish thing by squeezing in between tenement buildings. Sparks flickered as the truck pushed its way in, side mirrors clattering to the ground. For the moment, they waited. There was no sign of the thing, now.
Palmer turned to them with a boyish grin. “Welcome to Outlook!”
The group said nothing.
“Is all of your team here and accounted for?” Palmer’s tone turned serious.
“We lost one of us back there,” Archer replied. “But yeah, we’re all here.”
“Very good. I’ll be taking you to Dust Bowl. It’s underground a mile south of town. Don’t worry. We’re all tight and by the book down there. Safe from the world’s issues for now. There’s a lot of debriefing needed, so let’s get you there.”
“You got it,” Archer said, looking at Carling.
She smiled knowingly. “Good to see you agent. Secretary of the Interior Patricia Carling.”
“Ma’am, Agent Eli Palmer. Glad to be of service. We were expecting you. President Wendell said you were headed our way.”
“President Wendell? Then he’s still alive?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I see. We must meet with your commanding officer.”
“No problem, ma’am. We’re on our way.”
Archer simply shook his head and watched the skies, as the truck headed south out of town.
Chapter Three
Rugby Rock, North Dakota
Flickering torches illuminated the cold, stone walls as the six of them gathered, their faces partially hidden beneath the red hoods of their robes. There was a collection of whispering among them, fraught with tension and worry. Two separated from the others.
“Catastrophes have hit the planet,” the man said. “We’re lucky to be alive.”
“It is just as it should be,” the woman answered. “It was foretold to us. Of course we are spared. He protects us. There will be terrible disasters laying waste to mankind, preparing the way for the return of the Old One. We
will be rewarded beyond our wildest imaginations.”
“Why don’t we get on with it then?”
“You know we must wait for our leader. She must bring him to us. The cycle cannot be closed until he is here.”
“The Old One is not the only thing we’ve brought into our world.”
“We are aware of them.”
“There are many in number.”
“They will be dealt with. Remain in hiding and use the skills you have learned.”
“Why has she not contacted us?”
“She will in good time. She has left me in charge until her return. We have been faithful. Patricia will not let us down. We must have patience.”
“And what of the One?”
“Come…”
The two took up torches and made their way to the back of the room. Hidden in the shadows was a passage. The torch flames revealed a set of fungus-encrusted stairs slithering down into the darkness. They descended the twisting passages that was ripe with stalactites. Finally they entered a chamber of etched stone. Inscribed in its walls were ancient hieroglyphics and texts—inscriptions from cultures long dead.
A pedestal stood in the room, and upon it was the Ponape Scriptures—the most sacred of writings to their cult. The binding was said to be made of an ancient, now-extinct cycadean wood, and written in the language of a people who vanished at the dawn of human history.
Passed down from generation to generation, it had been guarded by the lives of those in the dark faith. It crossed from inhuman to human hands, and had been kept a secret for centuries. Now, there it sat—the most dangerous pile of brittle paper ever to be read. It taught them all they needed to know, and brought the very planet to its knees. At last it had made its way into skilled hands, and without killing themselves or going insane, they had managed to learn its darkest of teachings and knowledge.
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