by JT Sawyer
Chapter 32
As he began his ascent, Reisner paced himself, thinking about how the others were doing in their escape. He thought back to a childhood story from Greek mythology his father told him about the terror that Theseus endured in the maze with the Minotaur, and wondered now just how much of the story was actually fiction.
When he reached the fourth floor, he paused, resting his weary arm against the railing and sucking in deep breaths. His body felt like he had been in a boxing match and his knees, shoulders, and ribs ached from the constant battles during the past day. Besides the faint hum of fluorescent lighting, his heavy breathing was the only other sound. He glanced up at the red exit sign at the terminus of the stairwell, fixing a lusty gaze on it.
He pushed on, his deflated stomach rumbling with hunger and his limbs finding little to move them forward except the intermittent flashes of adrenaline. He was sweating profusely and his throat burned for a drink. Each step caused him to force his boots forward. Reisner looked up, blinking his eyes hard, wondering if he had made any progress moving upward. Did I just start walking? He just wanted to sit down and rest—not for five minutes or a night but for an eternity. He was tired on a level that he had never known, and he felt like his soul had been pummeled by all the loss and suffering he had witnessed since the pandemic began. He thought of all the creatures in all the cities he had killed and their overwhelming numbers.
Maybe we weren’t meant to survive as a species? Maybe our time is truly up on this earth. If that’s so then none of this matters.
He trudged up to another landing, his heart cleaving through his chest.
We are just the tail of a comet racing across the night sky, soon to disappear from sight.
He gripped the railing and kept moving, his pace slowing.
What does it matter if Selene finds a cure? There won’t be enough of us left to make a difference. Our light is nearly extinguished.
His head was pounding. The walls seemed to narrow, as if they were trying to prevent him from moving up another level. He thought of the men on his watch that had died since the pandemic began: Byrne, Dominguez, Santos. He couldn’t lose any more of the few friends he had left in this world.
Jody and Runa survived and are safe—but for how long? No place is secure anymore. They could die tomorrow. The geographic distance between him and his sister now seemed like it was astronomical, her smiling face fading from his thoughts as if she was a dream. He thought of Selene and Connelly, the two other women in his life, both of them polar opposites. Tried to keep Connelly at a distance—not her fault. She’s a good agent—a good woman. Remember your rule about not getting involved with someone on your team.
He trudged past the seventh floor. The pistol in his hand felt like it was a thirty-pound kettlebell.
And Selene… He saw her face clearly and reached his hand out as if she was there reaching for him. I will get back to you, I promise. There will be time for us later…later…later on…too late. He stopped, slamming his fist against the wall. There’s never been time for what I want. Now, what does it matter?
He paused, catching his breath and dragging his sleeve across his sweaty brow. God, I need to get out of here and out of this city. He felt like his sanity was slipping away with each floor that he passed. Reisner quickened his pace, then stopped abruptly on the tenth floor as he heard the clanking of metal below. Peering over the edge, he saw the silhouettes of dozens of creatures filling the stairwell near the ground entrance. A river of limbs and squirming torsos began hemorrhaging into the corridor, their numbers increasing until they surged like floodwaters beyond the second level. He thought of Nash, Porter, and Blake, who were depending on him. He had to make it to the radio tower and signal Ivins.
Shit—move faster—now! He clutched his Glock, feeling a short burst of adrenaline dumping into his veins as he began bounding up the stairs. He didn’t bother to focus on the floor numbers, just kept his head fixed forward and robotically hammered out the steps as the faint red lights of the exit sign above grew larger.
Arriving on the last level, he flung open the door and burst through, his weary arms trying to sweep the pistol to either side. Rushing for the areal antenna, he located the central junction box attached to the corner pylon of the thirty-foot tower. He depressed the latch and opened the box, flipping on the power. Reisner turned the red dial that controlled the short-wave frequency, cranking the knob to full capacity.
He stepped back, craning his neck up to the top of the antenna, and saw a blue light flashing. The bright light of the beacon sent a rush of excitement up his spine, and he waved a fist towards the heavens, letting out a laugh.
His satisfaction was short-lived as he heard the clamor of drones emerging from the stairwell door. He trotted towards them, taking up a position behind a large vent, then began driving lead in their direction.
He couldn’t hide and wait them out—he had to take the fight to the enemy and kill as many as he could in the chokepoint of the door while he could. Maybe I can jam them up long enough to get off this roof somehow. His thoughts were drowned out by the staccato of his own gunfire as eight creatures fell from his headshots. They were replaced by another batch of maniacal drones who fought their way over the corpses. Reisner burned through the rest of his magazine, dropping in another and resuming the carnage. The mound kept growing, but it only slowed the rising tide in the stairwell below. His mind was on autopilot as his Glock kept punching rounds into the horde as if he was at a shooting gallery. Another magazine was drained in mere seconds and was deftly replaced as more creatures fell, some of them breaking through and sprinting wildly at him only to be cut down. He felt his heart sink as he shoved in the last magazine, hoping his memory was off and he still had another one left in his vest. As he continued shooting, he kept waiting for the roar of a Blackhawk landing on the roof. Ivins, where the hell are you?
He counted down his last rounds, knowing the smoking Glock would soon be nothing more than a poor substitute for a bludgeoning tool before he resorted to the fixed blade on his hip. The deafening howl of the drones was all he could hear now as his gun clicked and the slide locked back. Reisner arched up, sucking in a deep breath and realizing he was about to die. His mind raced to the thought of his friends below, hoping this would pay off and that they would soon be on their way out of this godforsaken city. As three dozen drones poured out of the clogged stairwell, sliding over the shattered corpses, he continued backing up, removing his nine-inch blade from its sheath and staring into the menace before him. His throat went dry and he smirked, never imagining that he would die alone like this, torn to pieces by monsters created by the same agency that trained him.
The drones slowed down, fanning out around him in a half-circle, their seething breaths filling the cool air.
The sound of claws scraping across concrete rose above the din of the drones. He slowly pivoted to his right and saw the alpha climbing over the lip of the roof where a drainpipe was welded. She nimbly leapt onto the blacktop like a skilled gymnast after a dismount. He marveled at her agility and her bold gait as she moved towards him, the ragged red shirt and jeans looking like they were a second skin on her athletic frame.
She paused for a moment, staring up at the antenna, her gaze fixed on the blue beacon. She resumed moving to his location as the drones pressed back a few feet with her approach. Their breathing quieted, and Reisner could hear the shrill sounds emanating from the alpha’s lips with each step. She closed the distance with blinding speed, sending out an open-palmed swing with her right arm. He stepped off on an angle, her crusty red claws barely missing his nose. Reisner swung wide with his blade, the tip grazing an open swath of gray flesh above her right hip. She squealed, jumping back with wide eyes while pressing her palm against the wound. Reisner was surprised by her startled expression, and wondered how much she had actually engaged in combat, or if her drones did all the work for her. As he shuffled forward to strike again with his blade poised at his s
ide, the alpha rushed in, jamming his movement. He was so close now that he saw a flurry of gray parasites wriggling near the corners of her mouth, their frenzied movement matching hers. She brought her hand up from underneath, striking him across the left cheek. Reisner crashed into the pylon, shaking his head at the savage blow that almost caused him to black out. Jesus—you can’t afford to take many more of those.
He kept his right hand up, waving the blade in a small circle to fend her off, his arm feeling like it was weighted down in tar. Why is she doing this? Why not just kill me? Then it dawned on him why they had been allowed to escape from the NSA building, why their escape efforts on the streets had been so successful: she was corralling us—blocking off the routes to the west so we would be forced to push this way towards the prison. No longer did he see her as a savage beast but as a shrewd tactician. God—this was all orchestrated from the beginning: cutting off our escape to the ocean, driving us here, and not attacking us until we made it inside the prison and Morgan eliminated the defenses. She’s after this place for her own nerve center—a hive to protect her own. His mind reeled from the implications, and he knew he had to survive long enough to warn others about this surge in the alpha’s evolution.
The beast rushed at him, slamming her fist into his forearm as he tried to raise his blade. The crushing force felt like it had snapped his ulna, and he watched the blade fly off to the right as he retracted his throbbing arm to his side. She delivered another backhand at his head, this one connecting with the side of his skull above the left ear. His world became horizontal, and he felt like he was on a toboggan rushing down into an icy abyss. Reisner crumbled to the ground, the pain in his upper extremities blurring together until he felt cocooned in a sheath of agony. He could see the glint of steel from his fixed blade lying a few feet away. He shrimped on his side to try and reach it. He felt pressure on his ribs and saw the alpha leaning over him. With each thrust of her foot, he felt his breath slip away. Reisner clawed at the ground for his weapon, feeling his determination thwarted with each attempt. He thought of Nash and Porter. You’ve been my brothers to the end, and for that I thank you. Jody’s image was all that he saw in front of him with each painful move, as it sunk in that he had failed her. She would hear about his death from Runa, wondering why he had let her down again.
His fingers were inches away from his blade when he felt another fierce compression on his ribs. It felt like several might have cracked. The alpha flung him on his back, her mouth agape as her face pressed closer to his. She delicately removed a small egg sac from her mouth, the mass resembling angel-hair pasta that was undulating wildly. She brought it closer to his face, her other hand grabbing his jaw as the shrill sound fluttered out from her lips, echoing in his foggy brain.
Your kind will be ours.
Reisner’s eyes widened and he blinked hard, studying her lips to make sure they had just moved—or was that noise inside his head? He thought the blows to his skull had rattled his thinking, and he questioned if he was even still alive. She speaks! How—? He didn’t have time to finish his thought as she moved the parasite closer. He squirmed under her weight, his head thrashing, then her body bolted upright, her head swiveling to her right. He wasn’t sure if the faint sound of thumping was his own beleaguered heart or the antenna overhead pulsing. He didn’t wait to find out. Reisner twisted on his side, sending the alpha’s foot off his ribs as he lunged for the blade and drove it into her inner thigh. The femoral throbbed out a stream of gray -and-red liquid, with worms leaking onto the asphalt, causing him to shuffle back as the beast let out a howl. He saw the alpha’s right shoulder explode and heard the pleasing sound of a rifle above as a helicopter came into view to the east. Reisner felt a last tinge of adrenaline spike through his weary body and he stood up, coughing and still clutching his wounded forearm to his side. He staggered forward as the alpha fell to the ground. The beast was bellowing out a shrill sound so loud it drowned out the rotors of the approaching helicopter. Gunfire now erupted from both sides of the bird, strafing through the lines of drones around him.
Reisner hobbled towards the alpha, kicking her in the jaw, sending her head back with a sickening snap. Then he collapsed on one knee and drove the full length of the blade into her forehead, thrusting it while grinding his teeth.
“My kind is here to stay.” He twisted the handle, the knife splintering apart fragments of the alpha’s cranium as gray ooze poured from the opening and her ears.
The drones around him kept swiveling their heads at the lifeless corpse of their leader then back towards each other as the survivors began darting like beads of grease on a hot wok. Reisner looked up at the helicopter, where Connelly and Pacelle were unleashing a torrent of lead downrange while Ivins was circling the bird near the east edge of the roof. A few seconds later, he staggered over the pile of mangled corpses and hobbled towards the helicopter. He squinted as much from the whirlwind of dust and debris around him as from the sight of familiar faces, trying to drive away the agony in his limbs so they would keep propelling him forward.
When the skids of the helicopter were a few feet from the roof, Connelly jumped out and trotted towards him while Pacelle kept punching rounds into the drones near the exit door. She slid in beside him, gripping his other shoulder and helping to hold him up as they trot-walked to the helicopter. The excruciating pain in his ribs was temporarily blotted out as he climbed into the cabin, collapsing on the floor. Ivins swung the bird hard to the right, away from the dispersing drones on the roof.
“Nash and the others are down by the southeast entrance.” He choked out the words as he sat up on his good arm, looking below at the splayed corpse of the alpha. Why was she trying to turn me into one of them?
“We weren’t sure if you had gotten my message,” shouted Pacelle from the other door. “Looks like you’ve had one helluva night.”
Reisner gave a thumbs-up then nodded towards Connelly, pointing to the bandage on her head from the previous battle at the NSA building. “We’re gonna have a lot of stories to tell down the road with all these war wounds.”
“Hoping not. I’d say you’ve had enough for a few lifetimes. You look like hell.”
He tried to chuckle, the pain in his side causing him to wince.
Connelly strapped him in, then she returned to her door-gunner position, buckling herself in place and grabbing the .308 SCAR rifle.
Ivins pointed to the intersection a half-block from the prison where Nash and Porter were standing atop an overturned bread truck, waving their arms frantically in the air.
Ivins leaned back towards Pacelle. “Get ’em on board fast—ETA to impact is four minutes.”
“What happens then?” said Reisner, watching the helicopter descend and Nash and Porter climb inside. Their faces were as weary and bruised as he figured his was. The three men just slunk back in their seats, giving faint nods as they tried to catch their breath.
“Where’s Blake?” said Reisner.
Porter just shook his head then lowered his eyes. Reisner felt like he had just been struck again in the ribs.
They gripped the bench seats as Ivins arced the helicopter to the south and then sped away from the burning prison grounds. Pacelle and Connelly slid their doors closed then gave each operator a bottle of water.
“Cent-Com is conducting Operation Raptor—an orchestrated tactical strike on several U.S. cities where they’ve identified the location of the alphas based upon variations in heat signatures.”
“But you killed that one below before she could kill you, so that might be enough to create a rift within the drones,” said Pacelle.
“She wasn’t trying to kill me—more like absorb me into her ranks or something. I don’t know exactly.” Everyone looked around at each other, their faces taut. Reisner almost mentioned the words the alpha had spoken to him, but he still wasn’t sure if that had really happened or if it was the result of the multiple blows to his head. He reflected back on the events leading from their de
parture from the NSA building at midnight up until the assault on the prison, marveling again at the alpha and her strategic abilities. They keep evolving and learning with every encounter they have with us—what’s next?
“There’s no calling off the strikes now,” said Connelly as she sat down next to Reisner and pulled out the first-aid kit under the bench.
“We should have ample fuel for making it back to the border. After that we can continue on towards the CDC in Phoenix,” said Ivins, who was pushing the helicopter’s engines to the edge as he sped east over the city.
“Phoenix—why not the GoodWill?” said Nash. “Something happen in the past sixteen hours since we’ve been gone?”
Pacelle and Connelly gave each other sideways glances. “Where do we even begin?” said Connelly as she dabbed an antiseptic wipe on Reisner’s forehead then gave him some pain meds with his water.
“And I was looking forward to being on that fine Navy ship along the coast,” said Nash.
“Thirty seconds to impact,” yelled Ivins as he listened to the feed from Cent-Com on his headset. “Hold on.”
Reisner saw the contrail from a missile as it arced over the city from the north. He figured it must have come from a base in Nevada.
“Any survivors in that prison back there?” said Pacelle.
Reisner shook his head slowly, giving a knowing glance to Nash and Porter, all of them recalling the shady actions surrounding Healey and the guards. Reisner wondered who the real monsters were in the world at times. You don’t see the creatures violently exploiting each other when the chips are down. He let out a muffled sigh as he thought about losing Blake, who, despite his gruff demeanor, was a rock-solid guy who would have walked through a storm of flying daggers for the people around him.
A second later, a thunderous crack echoed from behind them, causing the entire cabin to vibrate. He could see Ivins white-knuckling the controls as the view outside the front windows made it appear like there was an earthquake unfolding. Reisner felt his throbbing head rattle as everyone’s eyes darted around the cabin. A second later, there was only the hum of the turbine engines and the ground below leveling out.