Nightmares From Hell (Apocalypse Paused Book 5)

by Michael Todd

  Wallace intended to enlighten them on that subject.

  The low-lying clearing he had found was an absolutely terrible place for anyone mounted on a motorcycle. On one side, trees and their roots made a short but steep cliff, beyond which lay a small area where the earth had faulted and sunk and which was mostly composed of thick mud, thorny vines, and some of the same big purple flowers that he had seen not far from the mercs’ camp. On the other side, the bushes were so thick that they would have to putz along at minimum speed while wielding a chainsaw to penetrate through it at all.

  “He’s here! Look at the tracks,” someone shouted.

  Engines growled as the bikes came to a stop. Someone walked forward and peeked through the grass around the bases of the trees that defined the small cliff.

  “Whoa, yeah. This ain’t gonna work,” said the Texan. “Goddamn son of a bitch. Y’all dismount. It’s only one man, and he can’t hardly walk. We take him out on foot.”

  Wallace smiled. They had proved so wonderfully predictable.

  His carefully made tracks led to the small grove of big magenta-violet flowers. It looked like a place that a man—especially a tired and desperate man—might try to hide.

  “He here,” a heavily-accented voice reported. Two pairs of footsteps moved closer to the flowers and rifle barrels began to shove the plants aside.

  Barely a second passed before a sound emitted that was rather like someone shooting an arrow from a bow, followed by a slight rustle of air. Then two men screamed in a horrible mixture of pain, fear, and revulsion.

  “What the hell?” the Texan exclaimed. He stormed past another of his men toward the two who’d investigated the flower patch.

  Chris had briefly studied a sample of those blossoms, and Wallace had heard a quick summary of their capabilities. Back at the camp, he’d forgotten the details, but the memory had returned to him when he found the things in this little clearing while considering his plan. “Quill violets,” the scientist had named them—the Zoo’s answer to such human inventions as mines and drone turrets. Touching one, or even getting too close to it, caused it to spit a volley of poisonous spines. A simple graze from one or two of these quills might have been treatable, albeit painful as hell. Taking the full payload which could range from six to ten, on the other hand, was an entirely different story.

  “Goddamn! God dammit!” the Texan cursed. He stood over the two mercs and drew his pistol. Both men writhed on the ground in agony and half a dozen or so little white spikes protruded of their thighs, groins, and bellies.

  “Sorry,” the Texan said and put a bullet in each man’s head to shut him up. Too many screams would draw predators. The cracking gunshots rang louder, of course, but quickly faded to silence.

  It seemed that Chris hadn’t warned his new friends about the quill violets. Too bad. Wallace estimated that there were either three or four men left now.

  “Should we go back?” someone asked.

  “No, dipshit,” said the Texan. “We know he’s here. We do a quick scan—a careful scan—and if that don’t work, we blow this whole place up or flamethrow it or some shit. I don’t care what that bitch tries to say about wasting ammo. We’ve hunted this guy for too long.”

  They took a few more steps into the center of the clearing.

  Wallace yanked on a crude rope he’d made out of a vine. As he did so, his “friend” swooped down out of the trees toward the mercenaries.

  “Holy fuck!” one of them exclaimed as the ungainly bluish creature descended on them. Three or four men fired at once before one of them first groaned and then cursed and sputtered in pain.

  “Stop shooting!” the Texan ordered. “It’s a fuckin’ decoy!”

  One of the men, in a panic, had shot another in the leg while he tried to blast the thing that had apparently attacked them. The wounded man had fallen to the ground and now tried to stand while he bound part of his jacket around the wound, which bled freely.

  The other two—Wallace could count them now that they were closer—stood and stared at the “creature.” It was simply a large forked branch tied to a vine, with the hide of a chimera draped over it. This time, it was turned the right way with the blue feathers on the outside.

  By now, Wallace knew, they would have definite second thoughts—and maybe third and fourth—about their willingness to search this little valley for him. Maybe they’d regroup with their comrades and come back with reinforcements and flamethrowers, at which point he would be long gone, limping as fast as he could toward the wall.

  His traps had done their job well, but there were still three men with guns out there, even if one had taken a hit. He, on the other hand, was one man with a pointy stick. It would be foolish to try to fight them all. The idea was simply to make their job difficult enough to stall them while he escaped. Unfortunately, he had to wait a little longer until he knew exactly what they planned.

  They were only a few feet from his hiding place now.

  “This is stupid, mate,” declared one of the two mercs in what sounded like a South African accent. “We should simply say he’s dead already and head back.”

  “Hell no,” said the Texan. “Frankie would know. She’ll want to see the body, or at least his head or his damn thumb to get a print. Some kind of proof.”

  “Why does she care so much about this one prick? Did Nerdy-Boy order this?”

  “No, dipshit,” the Texan replied. “She ain’t even really working for him. And after Wallace is dead, he’s next.”

  The sergeant’s eyes widened and his breath caught. Who exactly was Nerdy-Boy? They had to be talking about Chris, he realized. This changed everything. But what exactly did they mean? And who the hell did Frankie work for, then?

  He changed his mind. Lying low until they gave up would be the smarter move. But there was new information to consider and he no longer felt like being smart.

  The Texan stood with his back to Wallace and blocked his view of the South African. The third man barely supported himself and focused on his injured thigh. His rifle was slung over his shoulder, his pistol in its side holster, and his hands slick with blood.

  So be it, then. Wallace pushed himself to his feet with his arms, raised his spear, and charged directly at them—stiff and with a sidelong gait, but faster than even he would have expected.

  The Texan had barely begun to turn when the hand-hewn spear pierced his back. The man squawked and his arms shook and dropped to either side, his rifle grasped in the left hand. The sergeant slid an arm around his throat and pulled him back as the South African, his mouth hanging agape, raised a machine pistol and fired.

  Bullets were designed for the specific purpose of tearing through the human body. As such, human bodies didn’t make very good shields. They were superior to thin air, though.

  “No!” the Texan snarled as small-caliber rounds perforated his chest and stomach. Wallace snatched the rifle out of the man’s grasp and raised it immediately to fire at the South African. The man’s forehead and upper chest exploded in gaping red holes and he sprawled backward in the mud.

  Wallace pivoted toward the last merc with the wounded leg. The man had turned and already tried to flee, limping in terror back toward the bikes. The soldier calmly unloaded a three-round burst into the man’s back. Two of the three bullets shattered his spine, and the third probably punctured a lung. The merc fell onto his face and did not move.

  The Texan was still alive, although he wouldn’t be for much longer. Wallace kicked his legs out from under him but held his hand on the spear still lodged in the man’s back. He twisted it savagely.

  “Goddammit!” the man screamed.

  “I need some answers,” he said. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll finish you off quick. You have my word as a fellow American.”

  “Okay, okay,” the Texan gasped. His breaths came short and fast under his bushy mustache, and his face contorted as he made a wheezing sort of laugh at the obvious irony of his fate. At least the man
had a sense of humor. Blood from his multiple bullet wounds was already seeping into the mud.

  “Who is Frankie really working for?” Wallace asked. “And how does Chris Lin fit into all this?”

  The man seemed to hesitate, but then he spoke. “It don’t matter, I guess. Frankie’s always worked for the same man but I don’t know who. She didn’t say and it’s not my business. Even before Chris came to her and hired all of us. But she’s only stringing him along for now. The plan is to kill him once the mission’s over.”

  Wallace nodded. “I believe you. Thank you for your cooperation.” He took a firm grip on the spear and shoved it all the way through, out the Texan’s chest, and into the ground. The man gurgled, stiffened, and expired.

  The little clearing was quiet for only a moment before Wallace heard the sound of motorbikes as they roared and growled their way through the jungle in his direction. Of course, they would have heard all that gunfire and commotion.

  He had to make a decision, and quickly.

  The first option would be to continue as he’d planned, back toward the wall. He was close, but they were closing in and would probably start in with the flamethrowers and explosives soon.

  Or, he could complete the original mission, which would likely take them by surprise. He felt uppity again. That thing in his gut that felt like a cold, numbing knife-wound, the invisible injury made by betrayal, had already healed itself. New meaning dawned over Frankie’s words—the ones about Wallace not really knowing what was going on. That must have been true, even if what she’d said about Chris was total horseshit.

  The enemy had lost five men. And Chris, who hadn’t really ordered them to do this after all, was in danger.

  “Hall’s gonna owe me a vacation,” Wallace grumbled and prepared for battle.

  Chapter Seventeen

  For a man who’d had next to nothing to work with for days now, the men Wallace had killed brought him a veritable smorgasbord of gear and provisions.

  The clock was ticking, and he needed to move fast. The first thing he did was collect the old-fashioned canteens that the two North Africans had carried in lieu of CamelBaks and drain them of water in short order. His thirst assuaged, he grabbed an MRE from the Texan and devoured a pouch. While it didn’t satisfy his hunger entirely, it was enough to give him a boost. He had other work to do before the bikes he’d heard closed in on him.

  The dead mercs supplied a hell of a variety of weapons. They weren’t a formal military group, so there was no standardization of arms or equipment. The low-level, locally-recruited grunts used old but decent-enough Kalashnikovs, whereas the Texan and the South African carried M-92s. Wallace helped himself to one each of these along with all the extra magazines he could carry, as well as a semiautomatic handgun similar to his own usual sidearm and an extra magazine. He also took half a dozen grenades. And, fittingly, the Texan had a high-quality Bowie knife. Someone might as well use it.

  He paused in his search when he encountered a weapon—or, at least, he assumed it was one—that was completely unfamiliar to him. At first glance, he thought it was a flamethrower, but closer inspection said otherwise. It resembled a squirt gun, and it was attached to a large pressurized canister. While he suspected it might come in handy, he first needed to know what the hell it was. Cautious but intrigued, he aimed it at a tree surrounded by a few weeds and bushes and squeezed the trigger.

  The weapon jerked minimally in his hands and emitted a tight, strong cone of clear vapor for a good fifteen feet and slightly past the tree. It left a shiny coating on the plants and surfaces and the weeds and bushes wilted almost immediately and turned practically into dust. The tree took longer to die, but only by a few seconds, and parts of it began to crack and crumble. Wallace, concerned the damn thing might topple over on him, backed away and hobbled toward another tree whose branches might break the fall. Fortunately, the dead tree remained where it was but he didn’t need to inspect it closely to realize that it would have been easy to break and remove it.

  That little demonstration immediately solved the mystery of the totally-bare campsites the mercs had created. Chris must have managed to synthesize his super weed-killer from the so-called forbidden fruit, after all. Kemp had devised the almost irresistible fruit specifically to tempt humans but oddly enough, they were highly toxic to the Zoo’s life-forms as well. Wallace wasn’t sure how the gas might affect humans but there was only one way to find out.

  He breathed in and out in a sustaining rhythm while he hauled his loot toward the low cliff and heaved most of it onto the higher ground. A moment later, he retrieved his spear from the Texan’s body and used it to brace himself as he climbed the lowest and easiest part of the cliff, careful to grasp the protruding vines where necessary.

  The bikes drew steadily closer. From what he could hear, there didn’t seem to be very many of them but certainly enough that he didn’t want to encounter them alone. Besides, his main target was unlikely to be among them.

  Wallace reached the top and struggled to his feet. The three bikes left by the mercs he’d killed were there. One of them had an RPG launcher, and another had a claymore mine. Good.

  He loaded all the extra weapons he wanted to take into the passenger cab of one of the bikes—the Texan’s, presumably, since it had a small lone-star flag painted on the back.

  A quick rummage in one of the mercs’ packs also turned up a long, supple plastic tube and he nodded with approval. Listening all the while to the distant drone of the approaching bikes, he used this to siphon gasoline from the tanks of the other two vehicles into the empty canteens and a goddamn thermos in which the Texan had stored what looked like instant coffee. He added these swiftly to his stockpile of armaments.

  Next, he quickly set up the claymore mine, which turned out to be one of the newer and especially easy-to-use models. He hid it behind some weeds, facing toward the two empty motorbikes, and ran a tripwire beside one’s passenger cab. After a moment’s thought, he put a Kalashnikov in the same cab with the barrel pointed skywards to draw the attention of the men who would arrive shortly.

  Now came the hard part—driving.

  Wallace had ridden his brother’s motorcycle back home a couple of times, but it had been years before and he’d only gone rather slowly down a street with almost no traffic. The real truth was that he’d never been all that good at it. He’d skipped the bike safety course the Army offered on the grounds that they were dangerous and impractical vehicles and that his efforts would be better spent elsewhere. Disgruntled by his previous lack of foresight, he wracked his brain and tried to remember all the controls and hoped they were the same on this vehicle as on his brother’s.

  The growing roar of engines confirmed that the other bikes were closing in. They would be there within a minute, at most, Wallace guessed. With a groan of resignation, he climbed onto the cab alongside his spare weapons and worked his legs over the seat to position himself comfortably.

  “Left side controls the gears,” he said to himself as he recollected the basics. “Right side controls acceleration and braking. Right. Got it.”

  He fired it up, encouraged by the fact that the basics at least seem to come back to him. And when the mercs had arrived, they’d left an obvious trail behind and their wheels had cut ruts into the earth that was still soft from the recent rainfall. The trail looked like it went in the proper direction—probably, he decided, although he couldn’t be sure. But he had a rough idea, by now, of where the main mercenary camp was in relation to his current position. It was a good distance away, but that was what would grant him the element of surprise. They would not expect him to abandon his push for the wall when he was almost there and return to attack them.

  “Time to go,” he muttered and accelerated cautiously.

  The bike jerked and rumbled ahead. Operating the foot levers was not as difficult as he’d feared since it required far less strength than when he had to support the weight of his body, but the splints he’d made were alr
eady in the way. Once he’d moved a safe distance from there, he might have to discard them. Trees and leaves passed by in flashes of green and brown, and the warm, moist air blew in his face as he picked up speed.

  The site of the remaining two empty bikes had barely vanished behind him when he heard the sound of another engine draw up to what he assumed was that very spot. If any of the mercs said or even shouted anything, he couldn’t hear it over the roar of his motorcycle. What he did hear a moment later was the explosion of the claymore mine.

  He smiled grimly. Unless the pricks who’d tripped the wire had been very lucky, that was likely another one or two of them down. Unfortunately, he had no idea how many more there were to go. Still, though he barely felt in control of the bike as it hurtled over the bumpy and unforgiving landscape, he had a very positive, uplifting sense about the outcome of this enterprise, even if it was basically a suicide mission. He might as well get it over with, in any event.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Wallace nearly crashed the bike twice and almost fell off once. In a way, it was even more frightening than combat for him since combat—terrifying though it was and with all the variables that could go wrong—was something he was used to. Riding a damn motorbike was something he was barely functional at, even on a smooth, maintained road. He simply did not feel in control and if he died, he almost felt it would be due to a dumb mistake without him even realizing he’d made it. He’d narrowly dodged trees that seemed to appear out of nowhere and barely held on when negotiating a curve that turned out to be sharper and more treacherous than he’d expected.

  He knew he was close to the mercs’ base when burned and blasted debris blighted the landscape. Sections of the Zoo had been ravaged by fires and explosions and he recognized that this was where the enemy had unleashed their continuous volley of grenades, both rocket-propelled and hand-tossed, in their brute-force effort to kill him and his men. Soon, he passed the mound of muck and collapsed earth that marked the green pond and the cliff above it, both of which he had effectively destroyed.