Aleman’s voice came back immediately. “Easier said than done, I’m afraid. The island is still locked down, and I don’t have direct access to the CDC or the National Guard. It may take more than just your say so to convince them it’s safe to—”
The rest of the sentence was rendered inaudible by a loud crashing noise in the distance. Knight immediately turned toward the source, as did everyone else, but there was no visible sign of the disturbance.
“What the hell was that?” Rook asked. “It sounded like an avalanche.”
A moment later, a dark cloud rose above the treetops, and a few seconds later, the noise repeated. “Whatever that is,” Knight said, “it’s about a mile away.”
Worry creased King’s forehead. “Sara, this site you want to investigate... You really think there’s a cure there?”
Sara gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know if we’ll find anything there at all. But if Ellen is right, then that’s where the Lost Colony survivors lived, at least for a time. There might be something about that place that keeps the wendigos away. It’s not a great lead, but it’s all I’ve got.”
“Blue, keep working it. We need to get Sara out of here, ASAP.”
“Will do.”
The noise came again, and then with barely a pause, it repeated.
“Getting closer,” Bishop said.
“It’s the wendigos,” King said, with grave certainty. “Tearing their way into houses.”
Rook raised a dubious eyebrow. “I don’t think kicking in a door makes that much noise.”
“They aren’t kicking in doors.” King turned to Sara again. “We need to get moving. You have a car?”
Beck answered first, pointing to a small hatchback in the nearby parking lot. “It’s over there, but I’m not sure we’ll all fit.”
Rook laughed. “Ever see one of those clown cars?”
King shook his head. “Queen, Bishop. Take Sara and the others out in the car. We’ll follow on foot.”
Queen shook her head. “Screw the ‘women and children first’ macho bullshit, King. You’re the one who can barely walk. You take the car. We’ll catch up.”
“This isn’t a democracy.” King’s tone was flat but there was no mistaking the underlying aura of command. “Do it.”
A noise as loud as a gunshot silenced any further discussion. A hundred yards away to the west, what appeared to be most of a large tree, the trunk splintered at the base, limbs still attached and flinging out a flurry of leaves, arced up into the air, spinning end over end like a juggler’s club, before crashing down in a cloud of dust.
“They’re coming,” King shouted. “Go.”
It was already too late. Five pale figures emerged from the direction of the bridge, long limbs and ungainly gait belying their incredible speed. Rook braced the massive 240B against one hip and fired from a standing position like some kind of action-movie superstar. The burst ripped into the charging wendigos, felling two of them and wounding the others, but more were already racing forward to take their place.
Knight brought his rifle up, but the wendigos were too close and moving too fast for him to acquire a target. Around him, the others were firing their SCARs, dropping one wendigo after another, but the creatures weren’t just mindlessly running toward anything on two legs. They were spreading out, as if trying to dodge the team’s shots or flank their position.
That’s exactly what they’re trying to do, Knight realized. He whirled around and saw Beck racing for the parked car with Sara and Ellen in tow. A wendigo appeared in the periphery of his vision. The creature had slipped past the team, though the trails of blood streaming across its torso indicated it had not made it through unnoticed. It was homing in on the retreating women like a heat-seeking missile. With two good eyes, he would have noticed it sooner. He brought his rifle up, putting the crosshairs on the back of its skull, but as its head bobbed up and down with each step, he saw that Beck and the others were in his line of fire.
If I miss…
He squeezed the trigger. Felt the stiff recoil rock against his shoulder. The crosshairs jerked up, ever so slightly, and then the wendigo’s head burst apart.
He glanced around, acutely aware of the fact that by focusing on the threat to the others, he had left himself completely vulnerable. The vigilance and combined firepower of his teammates had kept him safe, but if one of the wendigos could get through, then it was only a matter of time before others did. There was something different about this attack. These wendigos seemed smarter than those they had first encountered, behaving more like pack hunters than rabid dogs.
He felt like he was missing something else vitally important, but the job of picking off individual wendigos consumed his attention. He peered through the scope, sweeping back and forth until he acquired a target, fired and then resumed sweeping.
Tunnel vision. His intense focus, so essential to scoring one lethal hit after another, made it impossible for him to see what was happening practically right in front of him.
“Oh, hell no!”
Rook’s shout broke the spell. Knight looked up and immediately recognized the nagging detail he had earlier overlooked.
The attacking wendigos might have been more intelligent, but they did not appear to be physically different from those they had fought at the drop zone. They certainly weren’t large or strong enough to demolish entire houses or rip trees in half and toss them into the sky like horseshoes.
The same could not be said of the dump-truck sized monstrosity lumbering across the bridge.
50
Beck shoved Sara ahead, then wheeled around, caught Ellen’s hand and whipped her past, propelling her toward the car. She switched the E-tool from her left hand to her right, and faced the advancing horde. The team was holding the line, but a few of the creatures had made it through; one lay twitching just a few yards away.
She glanced over her shoulder. Sara was circling around to get in the passenger seat. “No.” Beck fished out the key and tossed it to Sara over the top of the Nissan. “You drive. I’ll help them clear a path.”
Sara caught the keys and stared at them. “Anna, I can’t—”
Her protest fell abruptly silent, her eyes suddenly wide as saucers and focused on something just past Beck’s shoulder. Beck turned back and felt the blood in her veins go ice cold.
It was a wendigo in the same way that her rented Nissan and an Abrams tank were both vehicles. It had the same ghastly translucent skin stretched taut over corded muscles, but the similarities ended there. This creature’s chest and arms were mottled with a strange colored pattern that coiled around the torso and down the arms. Unlike the other wendigos, which were misshapen and distorted, the limbs of the creature stalking across the bridge were solid, skeleton and musculature in perfect proportion. The same could not be said for its head, which now appeared to be just an enormous set of jaws—like the mouth of a killer whale—protruding from the creature’s shoulders. Aside from twin rows of jagged teeth, the head was almost completely featureless, without eyes or nose, only a pair of dark gaping nostrils above the bear-trap jagged rows of teeth. The prodigious weight of the bestial head had caused the wendigo to walk in a hunched over fashion, on all fours like a gorilla, but even bent nearly double, it was still almost twenty feet high.
The sheer size of the monstrosity commanded her attention like the gravity of a black hole, and appeared to be having the same effect on the rest of the team. She heard the buzzsaw report of Rook’s machine gun, and saw blossoms of red appear on the enormous torpedo-shaped head, but the 7.62-millimeter rounds had about as much effect as mosquito bites. The others were firing at it as well, with no more impressive results, but while their firepower was concentrated on the massive creature, nearly a dozen smaller wendigos slipped out from its shadow and broke for the relative cover of the trees.
Beck tore her eyes away from the battle, turning back to Sara. “Get out of here!”
Sara needed no further convincing. She ha
d circled the car and was sliding behind the driver’s seat. Ellen was already inside.
“Whatever you do,” Beck shouted, “don’t let those things stop you. Keep driving.”
She did not wait for an answer but pivoted back toward the battle. To her amazement, the behemoth appeared to be struggling. The cumulative damage was accomplishing what no single weapon could.
That was the good news. Unfortunately, while they drilled away at the massive monster, more than a dozen wendigos made it past and were closing in on Beck’s location.
The Nissan started with a barely audible purr and backed out of the parking spot.
At least Sara will make it, Beck thought as she hefted the E-tool and started toward the nearest creature. She’ll find a way to stop this disease in its tracks. Maybe even find a cure.
The thought brought some comfort as death closed in around her.
A swipe of the E-tool caved in a wendigo’s head, but the impact rang down the length of the handle. It was all she could do to hold on as she drew back for another swing. The spade-head sliced deeply into another. She drew back, then thrust it forward like a spear, impaling the wounded creature.
She thought she heard someone calling her name. Her given name. Was it Dae-jung? He was one of only a few people who called her ‘Anna.’ She tried to catch one last glimpse of him, but the ever-tightening ring of wendigos blocked her view. All she could see was the car with Sara and Ellen driving away, slipping past evidently unnoticed. Then even that sight was taken from her as the creatures moved in for the kill.
51
“Anna!”
Knight’s howl rose above the din, and Queen risked a quick backward glance to see what was happening. He stood poised to fire, his rifle aimed at something behind them. Then she saw what he was aiming at. A cluster of wendigos had gotten past them, possibly by hiding in the trees or even taking a circuitous route through the nearby complex of buildings. They had made it to the parking lot less than fifty yards away.
Knight had the shot but did not pull the trigger. Instead, he just howled in impotent rage. In front of Queen, Rook’s machine gun was still pouring a hailstorm of lead into the enormous wendigo, and King and Bishop were backing him up. The beast’s flesh was a ragged map of wounds streaming dark blood, but it was still moving faster than she would have thought possible.
The monster on one side, a pack of wendigos on the other. What was the more immediate threat?
The little Nissan tore out of the parking area and headed along the road to the place where the team had chosen to make its stand. One of the creatures took notice and started to pursue, but Queen felled it with a three-round burst that obliterated its ghoulish face. As she brought her sights to bear on the grouped wendigos, she glimpsed Sara behind the wheel of the car, and Ellen Dare in the back seat.
Where’s Beck?
Queen knew the answer as soon as the question formed, and her heart sank. Beck had stayed to fight the wendigos off, so Sara could get away. Queen took aim at the pack.
“No!” Knight cried. “You’ll hit Anna.”
She’s already dead.
Queen didn’t say it aloud. Before she could pull the trigger, another shout split the air. From out of nowhere, Bishop dashed right across Queen’s line of fire, and ran headlong at the wendigos, uttering a long fierce battle cry that might have been a curse in her native tongue or simply a berserker scream.
“Shit!” Queen jerked her rifle away without loosing a shot. Bishop’s desperate charge wasn’t likely to accomplish anything more than getting her killed, too. Worse, it had left Rook and King to deal with the monster that was still relentlessly advancing.
Queen swung around just in time to see Rook push away from his machine gun. The weapon’s removable barrel was glowing a dangerous hue of orange. Continuing to fire the overheated weapon might cause a malfunction or worse—deform the barrel, which could have explosive consequences. Also, the creature would be on them before he could swap out the barrel. Instead he drew one of his Desert Eagle pistols. As if inspired by Bishop’s recklessness, he ran toward the monster.
He held the pistol in a two-handed grip, shooting on the move, but instead of aiming for a vital spot—head or heart—he concentrated his fire on the beast’s legs. The half-inch thick bullets didn’t have the speed or penetration of the sleeker, high-powered rifle rounds from the 240B, but they slammed into the monster’s knee with jackhammer force. The bone shattered under the assault, and no amount of primal fury could keep the monster upright. The wounded leg folded under its weight, and the giant pitched forward like a felled tree.
King and Rook both dodged out of the way of its wildly flailing arms and snapping jaws, but as the monster crashed down with an impact that sent a tremor rippling underfoot, they kept firing until the thing finally stopped moving.
It seemed to take an eternity for it to die, but when Queen heard Sara shouting and turned to see the little car still rolling toward them, she knew that only a few seconds had passed.
“Get in!” Sara yelled from the open window. “Hurry!”
Queen felt rooted in place, caught in a gyre of too many conflicting priorities. In the parking lot, a stone’s throw away, Bishop was locked in a hopeless hand-to-hand battle with half-a-dozen wendigos, in a surely futile attempt to save Anna Beck. Knight was halfway there as well, but staggering, as if the weight of loss was already bearing him down.
“Queen!” King’s snapped her out of her despair. She jerked her head around to meet his steady gaze. “Go with her. Keep her safe. She has to find the cure. That’s the only thing that matters.”
Queen stared at him in disbelief. She heard Rook’s voice, fierce and urgent. “Go with her, boss. Like you said, it’s the only thing that matters.”
Before either she or King could reply, Rook took off at a run after Knight, his right fist still gripping the Desert Eagle. “Don’t worry,” he shouted without looking back. “I got this.”
Now it was King that seemed paralyzed by indecision. Queen could easily guess what was going through his mind. Half the team in peril. Beck, probably dead. Bishop, too—his own flesh and blood. Leaving might mean abandoning Knight and Rook to the same fate. And for what? To escape with Sara? Was he supposed to sacrifice the team to save his fiancée?
Queen knew it was not as simple as that. There was an island crawling with wendigos between them and the refuge, and no guarantees that any of them would make it out alive.
Her own choice was just as stark. Stay and fight with Rook, or help Sara reach the refuge and hopefully stop the wendigo outbreak?
“King, he’s right. We have to go!”
A flicker of movement near the bridge caught her attention, a lone wendigo, late to the party. Queen sighted and fired. The creature went down, but two more appeared even as it fell, and then another. Not stragglers, but the vanguard of another horde.
The report jolted King into action. Without another word, he crossed to the Nissan and got in the back seat.
Fighting the urge to take one last look in the direction Rook had gone, Queen followed suit. Sara started to get out, but Queen shook her head. “You drive. I’ll shoot.”
52
Parrish had just worked up the courage to open the plane’s exit door and venture out onto the tarmac, when the noise of what sounded like an avalanche reached his ears. He backed away from the door and returned to the window. Nothing moved on the runway, but just over the treetops, he saw an enormous plume of dust and smoke lofting into the heavens.
“What was that?” the frightened co-pilot asked.
“Those things are tearing up the city.” Parrish watched a few seconds more, then reached for the lever again.
The pilot forestalled him. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“If they decide to come back, do you think we’ll be safe in here?” He did not wait for an answer. The door fell smoothly away from the fuselage, the steps unfolding to kiss the pavement. Parrish descended quickly a
nd looked up and down the length of the runway. There were small planes parked at the far end of the strip and some kind of structure. It was a place to start.
Behind him, the plane’s crew had closed the door again. The two pilots were either trusting in the thin shell of aluminum to protect them, or in the best tradition of naval officers, they had simply elected to go down with the ship. Further away, the noise of relentless destruction continued without let up, but the dust cloud seemed smaller, more distant. Maybe the pilots had made the right choice.
Parrish was still trying to wrap his head around what he had just seen. If not for the sheer horror of it, he might have laughed. The cartel leader had been such a fool, trusting in his primitive god to protect him, to reward him.
Or maybe this was exactly what Beltran had been expecting.
Parrish had heard stories about Aztec warriors who competed for the dubious honor of being sacrificed to their bloodthirsty gods, probably the very same god Beltran claimed to worship. Maybe that was how Beltran and his men saw themselves: blessed ones, chosen sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli.
“Careful what you wish for,” he murmured. Good advice, but too late to be of any use to Hector Beltran.
Parrish reached the building and tried the door. It was unlocked, but there was no sign of anyone inside. The phone was dead, but he noticed a pickup, the Dare County seal on the door, parked outside. He found the keys hanging from a hook on the wall, but after unlocking it and getting inside, he hesitated. He had only a vague idea about where he was, and those creatures were between him and freedom. On the other hand, he was finally out from under Beltran’s thumb.
The more he thought about it, the better he felt. The entire ordeal, which hadn’t even lasted a whole day, was finally over. Beltran wasn’t going to be a problem for anyone, anymore, which was good news for Marrs, on top of everything else Parrish had done for him.
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