by Mel Odom
“Pete! Pete!”
Explosive weapons blew pieces of zombies in all directions. Limbs, heads, and chunks of dead meat stuck to the ceiling and dropped over the battlers.
The line broke as the first of the zombies reached them. Leah couldn’t blame them. The dead eyes, sunken and flat black, were horrible to contemplate.
This is wrong, Leah told herself, trying to calm the mindless terror that reached for her. I’ve never been in this situation. I’ve always escaped.
Unable to hold against the onslaught of the undead, the line buckled. The frightened cries of men and women choked the small space.
Leah tried to fight clear of the confusion of limbs. Many of them were no longer attached to the original bodies. Blood filmed her lenses and the world took on a red tint. Panic filled her, and she fought against everything and everyone that touched her.
She fired the Scorcher directly into the ravaged face of the zombie in front of her. Head on fire, the undead thing wrapped its one good arm around her and bore her to the ground.
The living and the dead stepped on her. Pain rattled through her mind as her arms and legs broke beneath the weight. Then her ribs shattered and pierced her lungs. She drowned in her own blood.
“Do you see how it is, human?” a raucous voice asked. “Do you see how you are being used?”
Weakly, Leah pried her eyes open. The demon’s features slowly came out of the darkness enveloping her. The solid, flat surface behind her told her that she was once more inside the chamber.
“You never left,” the demon barked. “Not physically. Only your thoughts. Only your fear. And you have spread it to all those people you know.”
The creature was unlike anything Leah had ever seen before. A segmented, dark green carapace covered the demon, and it gleamed wetly, as if it had just been polished with oil. The face was a narrow blade with bulging, bulbous eyes that gleamed orange. A cluster of antennae, at least a dozen stalks nearly two feet in length, sprouted from the top of its head and brushed its narrow shoulders.
The thing radiated fear. A massive cloud of the emotion slammed into Leah. Her gut reaction forced her to squirm back from it. The wall kept her from going anywhere. Unable to sit still, she kicked at the demon’s face.
It moved with incredible swiftness, shifting even as she started the kick. She kicked again and again, but only met defeat.
“You can’t touch me,” the demon taunted in that hoarse voice. “But I can touch you.” A six-fingered hand flicked out. Light flashed on the gleaming black talons.
Before Leah could move, one or more of the talons scored her face right above the eye the Templar surgeons had replaced. Blood wept into her eye and blinded her. Panic screamed through her when she thought it had taken her eye. She pressed back against the wall, dug her heels in as hard as she could, and created as much distance between the demon and herself as she could.
“We know you,” the demon said. “We know what you’re afraid of. We use your fear to awaken the fear inside your fellow humans. When you sleep, you work for us. So sleep. Sleep and dream the most horrible things so that you can take them into the minds of those who are with you.”
Despite her fear and the proximity of the demon, Leah’s eyes closed. She slept. And then she dreamed.
Timothy Robinson slept, and Leah slid into the twisted nightmares that had haunted the young man for the past three weeks. That night, he’d nearly died at the talons of a demon patrol. His team had been scouting, marking enemy targets, lurking in the shadows and trying to decide which of those targets were more important, more vulnerable.
They’d been found out by a Templar under the spell of a cursed weapon. Their intel had found out about such things, and even people among their organization sometimes fell prey to them.
Timothy was in his early twenties. When the invasion had come, he’d still been wet behind the ears, just recruited out of Sandhurst Academy. None of his training had prepared him to fight monsters, or the undead.
The Stalkers had erupted out of the darkness and dropped on him and his team. In seconds, the low rooftop where they’d set up their surveillance had turned into a bloody battlefield.
“Run!” Parker, the team leader, had cried.
Timothy had pulled up and run immediately. He laid down covering fire out of habit. In three seconds, five of his scout team were down. In real life, he’d been the only one to escape that rooftop that night, and that hadn’t been without cost.
In his nightmare, he didn’t get away.
As Leah watched, helpless to do anything, Timothy was brought down by the pack of Stalkers. One of the demons caught him by the ankle. He tripped and fell, managing to catch himself on one hand. He twisted and brought up the machine pistol. When the event had really happened, he’d filled the demon’s face with exploding bullets. Tonight, though, the pistol misfired.
Before he cleared the action, another Stalker leaped forward and seized his throat. Fangs passed through the protective armor with effort. It was even money whether the pressure would collapse his throat or the fangs would rip it out.
Timothy gagged and tried to draw a breath. Leah felt his fear and pain. She ran to his side and reached for the Stalker before she thought about what she was doing. Her hands passed through the demon.
“No!” Leah said, certain she was going to be forced to watch the young man die.
“Help!” Timothy croaked. He beat the demon with his fists. “It didn’t happen this way! I got away! I didn’t die! I didn’t die!” He jerked and fought.
In the next instant, Timothy woke in twisted sheets. He realized that he was in the barracks in the underground complex. He was safe. But his heartbeat felt as if his heart was going to explode at any second.
Leah stood at his bedside. Somehow the young man was still locked into the dream. She was still with him.
He drew the SRAC machine pistol hanging from his bed and leveled it at her. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Leah answered. Even to her ears, her voice sounded like it came from a million miles away.
“Get out of my head,” Timothy ordered. “Take those bloody nightmares with you.”
Leah backed away. All around her, other men and women writhed in their beds. She felt the nightmares forming inside their minds.
Face pale and splotchy, Timothy climbed from the bed and kept his weapon trained on Leah. She knew it wouldn’t hurt her; she wasn’t really there. This was just another nightmare.
“You,” Timothy said. “You’re the one causing all of this.”
“No,” Leah said. “It’s not me.”
“I saw you in my dream.”
More people in the barracks came awake. They were lethargic, haunted by sleepless nights and past horrors. They looked at Timothy.
“You weren’t there,” Timothy said. “You weren’t there the night all of them died.”
“It’s not me,” Leah said. “They’re using me.”
“Who’s using you?”
“The demons,” Leah said.
“Timothy,” a burly man roared. “Who are you talking to?”
“It’s a woman.” Timothy never took his feverish gaze from Leah. “She’s dressed like one of us.”
“Timothy,” the burly man said in a calm voice. “There’s nobody there. Just put the pistol down. Before somebody gets hurt.”
A man and a woman crept up on Timothy from behind.
“They can’t see you,” Timothy growled. “Why can’t they see you?”
“I don’t know,” Leah said. “I don’t know how you can see me.”
“I want you to get away from me,” Timothy said. “I want you out of my head.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”
“You brought the nightmares.”
“No.”
“Timothy, put the weapon down.”
“No, Sergeant. It’s this woman.” Timothy pointed at Leah. “She’s m
essing with all of our heads. She’s bringing the nightmares.”
The sergeant slowly kept coming. “Just take it easy, mate.” His voice sounded soft and soothing. “Nobody here is going to hurt you.”
“Can’t you see her?” Timothy demanded. “She’s standing right here.”
Desperate, knowing that the connection she had with the young man had to have been unexpected by the demons, Leah said, “Keep calm, Timothy.”
“Don’t tell me to keep calm!” Timothy exploded. “I’ve been watching people around me die for years! I’m tired of it! I’m tired of going out there every night wondering if I’m going to be the next one that gets his ticket punched! You can’t live like—”
The two people behind Timothy launched themselves at him. They wrapped him up in arms and legs and took him down to the floor. The big sergeant stepped in quickly and snatched the SRAC pistol away. Timothy fought to get free, but the people lying on top of him had him in cunning grips that he couldn’t escape.
He yelled and cursed, and struggled as much as he was able. “She’s here! She’s the one causing the nightmares!”
“Somebody get a tranquilizer in him,” the sergeant said.
Helpless, Leah watched as one of the captors injected the young man. He squirmed and cursed her, then his eyes grew tired and started to droop. Everything around Leah grew fuzzy.
“You’ve got to listen to me,” she told him. “I’m not doing this. I need help. You’ve got to—”
“—help me.” Leah blinked and she was back inside the sterile steel cage. Her heart thudded and pain throbbed at her temples.
The demon was gone, but its mocking laughter lingered.
Get control, she told herself. Calm down and think. But all she could think about was that somehow the demons had found a way to use her to get into the sleep of everyone at the complex.
FORTY-TWO
S imon helped log in the latest haul the Templar teams had brought in from the storage area. It felt good to have that much food all in one place. Crates, boxes, and barrels of the dry goods lined one of the caverns they’d claimed when they’d moved into the underground bunker.
“I have to admit, this makes things a little easier,” Sarah Kerosky said. She was in her early fifties and served as one of the nutritionists. “In addition to having a more rounded and balanced diet, it’s good that people are talking about how much we have instead of how we’re doing without.”
“I know.” During the past five days, since they’d returned with the first shipment, words of hope and encouragement to the Templar scavenger teams filled the redoubt.
“We’ve got meat and grains,” Sarah said. “The only thing I could wish for at this point is fresh vegetables and fruit.”
“Maybe in the spring,” Simon said. “I know big farms exist outside London proper.”
“Do you think those will be tended?”
“I don’t know. If they aren’t, it’s possible that some of the plants could have volunteered. Just come up with new plants from seeds that dropped in previous years. Plus, we have seeds now. We could plant those fields.”
“You’re talking about farming them?”
“No. That would be too dangerous.”
Sarah looked wistful for a moment. “They’d do better if they had someone looking after them.”
“There’s no way to make that happen,” Simon replied. “Not yet. But it’s something we can think about.”
“Someone’s looking for us, mate,” Nathan stated quietly.
With dawn just bleaching the sky behind him, Simon stood below the rim of a snow-covered hill overlooking the valley where the deer had retreated. Anger and helplessness surged inside him as he surveyed the dead deer scattered across the hillside.
At least three dozen animals sprawled in the snow. Their limbs were twisted and broken. Some of them had been decapitated. Others had bite marks on their bodies. The small herd had been massacred down to the last deer.
Mixed in with the deer tracks, demon footprints and hook marks shone in the gleaming snow crust. Blood stained the snow and melted it in places.
“They know we’re hunting the deer,” Nathan said. “So they’re going to try to starve us out by killing the herds.”
Simon had nothing to say. They’d become more vulnerable, and he’d known it would happen.
“What are we going to do?” Danielle asked.
Simon stood. “The first thing we’re going to do is harvest the meat here that we can. Send for extra crews to help take the meat. We can at least make sure that the meat’s not wasted.”
“That’s today, mate,” Nathan said softly. “This demon, whoever’s doing this, is going to come back tonight and find more of the herds.”
“We don’t have any choice about what we’re going to do,” Simon said. “The demons are escalating the stakes, so we’re going to have to do the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“When night comes on, we’re going hunting for the demons,” Simon said. “We’re going to be the predators for a while, not the prey.”
Harvesting the meat was bitter, bloody work. Simon rotated the teams between butchering the kills and keeping guard. Getting the meat back to the redoubt proved problematic. They had to make certain they didn’t leave a blood trail back to the sanctuary.
Inside the redoubt, the story of what the demons were doing had spread like wildfire. Morale dipped lower and lower. The morale gains they’d made by bringing the Templar surplus into the redoubt vanished within hours.
By midafternoon, all of the meat they ould possibly salvage had been harvested and packed away. Simon posted guards, then assigned the men to the hunting party he planned to lead that night. He also gave orders for them to get to bed and rest up before the evening.
Simon sat in front of the computer and went over the topographical maps of the areas around the redoubt. Flying drones canvassed the valley where the deer massacre had occurred. He’d also sent out scouting teams on foot.
So far, no one had found the demons preying on the deer.
The door opened and Nathan entered the room. He joined Simon and surveyed the maps as well.
“Thought you were going to get some sleep, mate,” Nathan said.
“I will.”
“The clock’s ticking. You’re not going to have time for a lot of it if you don’t start now.”
“We need to know where to go if we’re going hunting.”
“If we don’t find anything out here,” Nathan said, “we can always go into London. A message is a message.”
“I know. But I’m hoping that whatever demon is out here is just an isolated incident.”
“Not bloody likely.”
Simon heaved a sigh of disgust. “I know.”
“The Burn is spreading farther, too.”
That had been apparent from the drone recon, and from reports generated by scouts that moved in close to the city’s outskirts.
“At best, we only have a few more months in this place,” Nathan said. “It’s time we started thinking about moving.”
“We’ve already been considering that.”
“We need to think more seriously, mate. Children and noncoms are hard to move. If we get trapped in the spring thaw, or if the Burn accelerates and turns the ground around us to mush, we’re going to find the way even harder going.”
“I know.”
“If we wait till summer, we chance our water supply.”
Simon knew that, too. The Burn affected too much of the groundwater.
“The biggest problem is finding somewhere to go,” Simon said.
“You’ve got somewhere in mind?”
“Exeter.” Simon tapped a key and a map of the city replaced the topographical images of the area around the redoubt.
“Why there?”
“It’s centrally located, to a degree. At least we’re not backed up against the English Channel and can be cut off. If we get attacked there, we can run in all d
irections. Also, there are fortifications there we can use. Military places as well as Exeter Cathedral and other buildings that could withstand an attack.”
“Especially now that the Nodes are somewhat functional.”
“There are tunnels beneath the city that we can use, too,” Simon said. “To fight. To hide.”
“Sounds good, mate, but it’s a bloody long haul. And you try moving these people en masse, you’re going to make an awfully tempting target.”
“That’s the downside.” Simon sat up straighter. “I’ve been working some of the logistics with Wertham. What we’ll have to do is move the people from here in stages. Send them out with Templar escort, leave them with Templar escort to protect them in case there’s a need.”
“The manpower we have is going to be spread pretty thin.”
“That’s the biggest problem. We need more people to make this happen. But it’s the only chance we have. From Exeter, we can try for France if we can find enough boats. Or maybe even the United States if we can find a ship.”
“There’s no guarantee the North Atlantic Ocean is safe. There are stories that the demons have set up warrens along the coastline and attack any ships they find out in those waters. And there’s supposed to be Hellgates that have opened up in the United States and France as well.”
“Staying,” Simon said, “isn’t an option at this juncture. We’re going to keep working on it.”
“I know.” Nathan clapped him on the shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll get it figured out, mate. But you need to get some sleep.”
“I will.”
“Have you heard anything from Leah?”
The topic was a sore point. It had been over a week since Simon had last seen her. She hadn’t been out of his mind for more than five minutes at a stretch.
“No,” Simon answered.
“You given any thought to checking up on her?”
“No,” Simon lied. He’d thought about it, but he knew he couldn’t. He had no idea even where to start looking.
