by JT Sawyer
As Runa glanced in every direction, he could see a mix of personnel bustling about the grounds as if it was a normal day. It seemed so surreal walking past the golf course, a pizzeria, and a movie theater, and he made an abrupt stop when he saw a group of mothers with their toddlers laughing as they played at the park. It was the first time since the start of the pandemic that he had seen children, and it made him wonder how staggering the loss of life had been for those who were most vulnerable. The sight made his breathing come easy, and he resumed his stride with vigor as he headed to the lobby of the Family Housing Building.
Megan and Jody sprang up from the couch in the lobby when they saw Runa enter, both women running up to him.
“You look ten years younger now that you’ve shaved and cleaned up,” said Megan, whose piping voice reminded Runa that she was only seventeen.
He rubbed his chin. “I actually didn’t shave—never had much to take care of—but thanks for the compliment.” Runa nudged her with his elbow.
“Any word from my brother?” said Jody.
“No. We’ll hear from him when he gets settled in after he’s finished in California—at least that’s where he was supposed to be when we last spoke.”
He heard soft footfalls behind him and turned to see Valerie walking up. The red t-shirt she had on hugged her frame nicely, and he found it hard to pull his eyes away. She smiled at him, extending the steaming coffee cup in her hand towards him. “Jonas, you must try this. I brewed it myself in the kitchen upstairs—which, by the way, you must come see sometime when we have dinner.”
He clasped the mug and sipped, wondering if Valerie had already taken over as manager of the building. He found her vivacious personality hypnotizing, and he had to remind himself he was heading to a briefing with General Dorr.
Runa looked at the others then back at Valerie. “We’ve been here for less than twelve hours and you three ladies act like you’ve always called this place home.”
“It’s not hard to do—this is some place,” said Jody. “Makes me almost forget at times that the world outside of here is what it is now.”
Runa nodded, then he craned his head to the left as he watched Mark descend the stairs. The high-school-age kid looked five years beyond the age of sixteen, and Runa wondered if this was the best location to house a wily teenager like him.
“I thought they put you up in the quarters outside the chapel?” said Runa.
“No room, so they assigned me to this location after I mentioned the rest of my family was staying here.”
“So, we’re your family now, eh?” said Jody.
Mark chuckled. “Well, most of you, though Runa’s more like that uncle that you try to avoid at holiday parties.”
Runa grinned then moved up alongside Mark, sliding his arm around the youth’s neck and pulling him closer as he applied pressure. “Did I ever tell you about this deadly choke I learned from an Afghan warlord?”
Mark pulled away, twisting his head slightly and frowning. “You and your stories. What’s scary is they’re probably all true.”
Runa felt like the band of survivors he had fought alongside and traveled with over the past week had become his adopted family, and he was proud to be in the presence of such fine human beings. Though they didn’t come from the ranks of the agency or the military, they had conducted themselves with courage in the face of unspeakable horror and hardship. Before the pandemic, Runa could count the number of people that he would take a bullet for on one hand, but standing here with these four brave souls rekindled his faith in his fellow kind—and he knew that was something he was going to have to draw upon in the battles that still lay ahead.
“Where are you off to?” said Jody.
“A meeting with the general and Secretary of State Hemmings.”
“Oh, is that all,” grinned Valerie, resting her fingers on his shoulder for a second. “Well, we’re supposed to meet with one of the sergeants to see what work duties we can fit into. Other than that, maybe we’ll see you around here later this evening.”
“Sounds good. I’ll definitely check back in when I can.” He nodded, giving Valerie a drawn-out smile as he walked towards the door.
Once outside, he resumed heading towards the tactical operations center across the compound while watching a row of ominous clouds edging their way across the sky. Runa was certain there would be many more battles looming on another storm front in the coming weeks. He balled his fists, hoping he was wrong.
Chapter 4
“Contact on my right,” yelled Reisner as he stopped beside a rusted dumpster in the alley behind a Chinese restaurant. He fired off two rounds from his suppressed AR into the head of a small creature, then swung to his left and shot another drone in the side of its head. The dim streetlight above illuminated the splintered bone and worms that had spewed out onto the greasy pavement.
He could hear gunfire behind him coming from Nash, who was thirty feet away at the rear. Blake and Porter were covering the nearby rooftop as the group cleared their way through another alley four blocks from the NSA building.
The two sonic devices that Porter had rigged up provided some measure of defense from the majority of drones, but a few appeared to be unaffected by the low-frequency sound and had to be dispatched. Reisner kept looking at the rooftops, his heart racing as he wondered where the alpha female was located. She has to be directing the drones to follow us, but why won’t she show herself?
“She’s close by—trust me,” muttered Blake as he stopped beside Reisner at the corner of a second-hand clothing store. The silhouettes of several drones could be seen darting along the street one block over. The creatures had been shadowing them since they hit the pavement, but the darkness had helped obscure their passage through the dimly lit alleys.
“How can you be so sure?” said Porter. “She could be blocks away from here for all we know.”
“I spent three days trapped in the tunnels in her little lair with those drone bastards keeping guard on me and my group—I saw how they operated up close. She’s the queen bee that directs their every move. My guess is that without her, they’d just be a mindless rabble, wandering the streets without purpose.”
“And their purpose is to feast upon us,” said Nash, who had just joined the rest of the group. A heavy bead of perspiration dripped off his brow as he gulped down a breath of air.
“Not all of us,” said Blake. “When they first attacked me and my guys at Nikki’s—the biker bar we were at—the drones killed most of my crew except for me and a waitress. They dragged her and me back to the tunnels near the Sixth Street Viaduct.” He rubbed his chin. “There were eighteen other people there, of all ages and types—chinks, ragheads, spics, you name it—and one by one those things would come throughout the day and take people off to that queen bitch. We could hear their screams echoing throughout the tunnels.” His eyes widened as he stared up at the sky. “At first I thought they was taking people to chow on, but I saw her draining a guy with my own eyes when we escaped. She—it—was sucking his spine dry. It was some kind of clear fluid—and she had already done that to dozens of others whose bodies were lining the room.” He wriggled his index finger in the air. “This huge parasite darting out of her mouth—it kept dipping into the cut she’d made along either side of the backbone.” He shook his head as he chewed on his lower lip. “I’d never seen any of the other creatures do that to anyone. It was beyond disgusting.”
“The location you describe along the spine—that’s where the adrenals are located,” said Nash, recalling his combat medic training. “She must need the hormones for nourishment.”
“And only from certain blood types like Blake’s,” said Porter. “That would correspond with what Doc Munroe told us about the different blood types.”
Blake rubbed the back of his thick neck. “Look, you guys gotta promise me that you won’t let me be taken alive by those things. Not again—I’m not going to go through that.”
The other three
operators glanced around at each other then back at Blake, each one nodding. “But we’re not gonna have to make that decision because we’ll all be out of this city soon,” said Nash.
Reisner peered around the corner of the building towards the intersection ahead. “For now, we need to locate a vehicle that can be easily hotwired and then hightail it to the coast.”
“That’s about fifteen miles from here, but with all the freeways being blocked, I’d imagine it’s going to take us most of the night just to get there,” said Blake.
“And the drones are going to be running a parallel route the whole way there, I’m sure,” said Porter, whose head was still craned up in search of movement.
They all stopped to listen to a grating sound coming from the east. It filled the night air and resembled a vehicle scraping along the ground.
“The hell is that?” said Blake.
A second later, the noise was gone. “Sounded like a barge being dragged through the streets,” said Porter. Maybe a house just came down somewhere or they toppled over an eighteen-wheeler.”
Reisner looked down at the small gadget affixed to his tactical vest. “How long are the batteries going to last on these sonic devices?”
Porter didn’t avert his eyes from the rooftop to his left. “The one you have is the newest, so probably a few hours. Mine is depleted from earlier, so who knows—thirty minutes, maybe.”
“How come some of the drones aren’t affected by the sound?” said Nash.
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Porter. “They looked like they were in pain the closer they got.”
“Maybe they were scouts then—or kamikazes,” said Reisner. “Testing the waters for the alpha to see how close they could get.” He strained his eyes to study an abandoned SUV parked at an odd angle on the sidewalk beside a parking garage. The driver’s door was ajar and there was a crimson trail of blood on the pavement that was glinting in the overhead streetlight. “Looks like we got us a ride—now let’s just hope there’s enough fuel.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the others. “Blake and Porter, stay here and cover us.” Reisner patted Nash on the shoulder and both of them trotted into the street towards the white Ford Explorer. As they moved, Reisner could see the darkened heads of drones appearing on rooftops. The creatures would pause and stare at them for a second before dipping out of sight, only to be replaced by more silent figures. If only the alpha would show herself. Where is she?
Arriving at the SUV, Reisner swung open the rear doors and peered inside. The gray bench seat had a dried blood stain in the center, and strands of blond hair lay on the carpet beside a mangled ear that still held a gold hoop. He winced, imagining the ugly battle that had occurred here and the woman who had lost her life. He pulled his attention away, gazing in the rear, where a half-empty case of bottled water and some suitcases had been hastily arranged.
“Give me a couple minutes and we should be on our way,” said Nash, whose torso was twisted beneath the steering column as he worked on hotwiring the vehicle.
Reisner heard movement above and craned his head up, raising his AR. He saw a dozen creatures moving along the fifth level of the parking structure. Four of them had climbed onto the cement wall, their gaze fixed on the Explorer. He heard a high-pitched shrill sound coming from the rooftop behind him and swung around just in time to see the alpha female dart away. Reisner had seen her lithe figure in the NSA security camera footage, and it was the creature’s bold gait and spry movements that reminded him they were not facing a mindless drone.
As Nash fired up the engine, Reisner heard a grating sound and caught sight of two creatures leaping from the parking structure.
“Look out,” he yelled, shuffling quickly to the sidewalk as Nash sprung out from under the dashboard and scurried away from the Bronco just before the creatures crashed onto the roof of the vehicle. The front windshield blew out, sending splinters into the street. Reisner glanced down at the partially collapsed top of the Explorer, where the mangled corpses were spread out, their heads leaking gray fluid and parasites onto the seats inside.
As two more creatures prepared to leap, Reisner swiftly swung his rifle back up and dropped them with headshots, their bodies falling backward out of sight. Four more appeared, and Nash and Reisner began plucking off the drones in what resembled a shooting gallery of exploding heads that were immediately replaced by more figures that clambered to the edge of the parking structure roof. Again, he heard the shrill sound of the alpha from the building behind him. As he stopped to reload his AR, a drone sprung forward from above and hurled its body onto the vehicle, this time striking the hood. The wrenching metal bit into the engine, causing it to sputter then come to a screeching halt as black smoke hissed from the seams of the hood.
Reisner swung his recharged rifle back to the roof of the parking structure and saw that the creatures were standing still, their attention fixed on the opposite rooftop as another shrill sound emanated from that location.
“What are they waiting for?” said Nash, who still had his AR trained on the row of creatures above them.
“Not sure—but I’m guessing they know our ride is dead now, so they’re waiting on our next move.”
“Sounds like a fucking chess game. She sacrificed a few of her pawns to prevent us from leaving. How can she—can it—be that clever?”
“This one seems different than the other alphas we’ve encountered elsewhere—more intelligent and capable of forethought.” He backpedaled, keeping his rifle trained on the group of drones on the cusp of the parking garage. “Let’s get back into the alley with the others. Maybe Blake knows another way out of this city.” Reisner felt his stomach coil in knots as they trotted back across the street. Fifteen miles to the coast and it seems like it’s a world away. He hoped the surly biker had the local knowledge that could get them out of the clutches of this new menace. And he also hoped the sonic devices would last long enough for that to unfold. He wished for the days when he could radio Runa for a helicopter extraction or a ground team to come in and provide support as they made their escape.
Looking up at the silent skyscrapers of the derelict city, he felt like a castaway who had just washed up in a foreign land with horror waiting around every street corner. As he adjusted his vest, he heard the sound of scraping coming from above and saw a dozen creatures clambering on the concrete wall of the six-story building to their right. A second later, they were airborne, their gaping mouths ajar as they dove towards the group.
Chapter 5
Reisner leapt back while everyone else scattered. The first four drones hit the ground, their heads splattering open like spent water balloons. The spray of worms shot out along the alley, coating the blacktop with a frothy gray liquid mixed with traces of blood. Reisner backpedaled further to avoid the blast radius of parasites, frantically inspecting his boots and clothing for any worms.
A few dozen drones landed beyond Nash and Blake, both men dropping behind trash barrels and shooting. Three drones landed on a pile of discarded car tires stacked against the wall of the building, twenty feet from Reisner. They sprung up, all of them showing fractured segments of bone protruding from their arms and backs, but it didn’t seem to slow them down. Reisner drove the barrel into the first beast’s jaw and fired twice. He heard the staccato of gunfire erupting from the others as the demonic sounds of more creatures hurling themselves through the air filled the alley. Three creatures rushed at Reisner, and he had to pivot to his right to draw them out of the line of sight with Nash.
Reisner blasted the first one in the head, taking off the back of the skull. The next one was nearly upon him, its yellow teeth gnashing at the air as it lunged at his face, and he barely got off a round. The minced flesh and bone fragments squirted out onto the graffitied wall, and Reisner kicked the drone back while he prepared to shoot the one to his left. It snaked around the slumping body of the other drone and dove at him, driving him to the ground. Reisner’s head impacted the gritty surface as hi
s world shifted to a narrow vision of his columnar surroundings—the red bricks of the dilapidated building on the right, the barbed wire fence to his left, followed by the savage face of the ravenous freak now squirming up his legs. The ghastly odor of sweat and putrid flesh was coupled with the smell of spent cartridges as he fought to focus his vision like he was adjusting the knob on a pair of old binoculars.
His AR was gone from his grip, and he thrust his right hand down to his belt to remove his Glock. The drone was pawing up his legs as Reisner scurried back. The creature swung its left hand out, raking open Reisner’s cheek with its jagged nails. He winced, leaning away as the drone raised its head, preparing to bite down on his leg but then suddenly hesitating. Reisner drove the heel of his boot into the lower mandible, unhinging it. The crumpled jaw still tried to snap like a floppy shutter on a window while the drone lashed out again with its damaged mandible. Reisner sent another kick into its chest, hearing the sternum crack and sending the beast back into a puddle of water. He sprung up on one knee then deftly removed his pistol, firing a round into the crumpled nose.
He shook his head, his vision still blurred. He knew that the pain from his facial wound must be significant if the sting was punching through his adrenaline rush. Reisner saw a flutter of black images to his right as more drones descended from the roof. Some of them were soon splattered on the ground, but many more landed on the pallets and tires and were soon ambulatory despite their broken appendages. We gotta get out of here. She’s not gonna stop throwing more drones at us. He felt surprised at his own admission, acknowledging that the alpha was the quarterback sending in a blitz.
He grabbed his AR and leapt to his feet, shooting two smaller drones that were dressed in basketball jerseys.
“Fall back!” he yelled at the others as he fired another round into a creature rushing up behind Blake. Reisner bolted past another drone trying to stand on one leg as the other snapped appendage tottered like a splintered two-by-four. He slammed the butt of his rifle into the beast’s head as he ran by, then rejoined the rest of his team, who had just finished off a half-dozen drones, their weapons still smoking from the frenzied assault.