by Hunter Shea
Mickey considered it. “No one is getting out by car,” he said. “We overheard on a military walkie that no one from the Hamptons on down is to get out alive. Something about Megiddo.”
“They can’t trap people here to die!” Dalton shouted.
“They can, and they will,” Winn said. “Kid, if what I heard is right, whoever those creatures don’t kill, the military will finish the job. Ever since we found out, we’ve been trying to get people off the roads. They’re sitting ducks out here.”
“But we haven’t convinced a single person,” Mickey added.
They looked at the long line of cars.
Something exploded in the distance. The horizon flashed an eerie tangerine.
The big guns had come out. Death was on the march. Car windows rolled up as if they could hold back the unholy terror that would eventually sweep over the clogged road.
“Where are the skiffs?” Mickey asked.
“Down by the beach. They brought them in special for some photo shoots.”
Mickey drew a hand around Winn’s waist, helping him to Dalton’s car. “I doubt the Coast Guard will be down there. Not enough boats out that way to be worth their time. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 42
Dr. Ling stared out the window in wide-eyed horror.
They were too late.
The military checkpoint loomed ahead, drawing nearer at gut-wrenching speed. The gloom lit up with fireflies as soldiers blasted rounds into the cars bunched up at the roadblock.
Working for the CDC, she always feared dying by contamination. No matter how diligent you were, deadly microbes could always find a chink in your armor. In a way, her end would be just as she feared, though it wouldn’t be in a hospital bed under quarantine.
She’d secured the still unconscious Dr. Greene in the back with the techs. They all knew that the RV would crumple like an accordion when they hit the military blockade. There was no safe place to be. If they didn’t make it, she was glad her mentor wouldn’t be awake to feel it. The last six months had been a living hell. Maybe out of everyone, he would be the one to find true peace.
Standing by the galley kitchen, Kathryn saw the soldiers’ attention turn toward the Winnebago, a multi-ton rocket on wheels. They opened fire. The windshield was pockmarked with holes and spidery cracks. A bullet whistled past her ear, thunking into a cabinet.
Sorely shouted something, aiming for the soldiers. The RV lurched as the wheels rolled over their bodies.
She dove for the couch a second before he slammed into the Humvee. Her head hit so hard, her spine compressed, bringing a wave of numbness to her extremities.
The RV kept moving, smashing another obstacle. Bullets whined as soldiers behind the checkpoint opened fire.
Suddenly, their world canted ninety degrees. Now on its side, the Winnebago slid, sending up a shower of sparks that lit up the inside of the cabin. She slammed into the side of the RV. The contents of the refrigerator hammered Ling, peppering her with cans and bottles. She screamed, but in the madness, even she couldn’t hear her cries.
With a final groan, the RV came to a stop. She heard more shots and men shouting.
Looking to the rear of the Winnebago, she saw a tangle of limbs and equipment. Her ears rang like church bells and she couldn’t get her right eye to focus. Staggering to her knees, she crawled to the front of the RV.
Don Sorely’s bloody body was still strapped into the chair. His face had been sheared away by glass, his body a pincushion of leaking bullet holes. It was hard to tell through the gore, but she thought he was smiling.
So dizzy she thought she would pass out, she wormed her way through the shattered windshield. Car after car sped by, soldiers chasing after them with barking rifles.
It had worked. She had to hold on to the upturned tire to keep from falling. Dozens of cars sped through the demolished checkpoint. Don was right. The soldiers couldn’t get them all.
A small, insane laugh bubbled up. It hurt to let it out. There was no way to stop it as she watched the soldiers try to maintain their hold.
You’ ll never clean this one up.
Her heart sank when she looked down the road, the path to freedom and salvation. For there was a wall of flame higher than any building on the island. It looked as if they had been firebombed. Everyone who had escaped Montauk was heading straight for the furnace.
Kathryn sank against the RV.
A pair of bright, golden eyes blinked in the darkness.
The war machine, a hideous blue monstrosity, crept toward her, smelling her blood, knowing she was easy prey.
Several more eyes moved about. A shadowy blur dashed across the road. They were surrounding them.
“Come here, boy,” she said. She’d rather die by their bite than the infection they carried.
It ran for her, tongue lolling from the side of its bird-like mouth.
The first bite at her throat was painless. Her head spun to the side from the force. She watched another war machine dive into the RV, anxious to get at the men inside.
She wasn’t conscious to feel the second bite.
Meredith clamped her hands over the boy’s ears when the first helicopter fired a missile into the snarl of traffic behind them. Cars jumped into the air, spewing jets of flame and a mushroom cloud of smoke. Another helicopter hovered alongside the first, launching missile after missile until the night became day.
“Goddamn Nazis,” Winn grimaced. “I don’t care who you are, you don’t follow orders to kill your own innocent civilians.”
Dalton’s eyes were wild when he looked in the rearview mirror. He pushed the car well over eighty. They passed the end of the traffic. Out here, there were no private residences. They were the only ones headed to the state park.
As they pulled into the lot, they noticed the lighthouse brightly lit by a pair of spotlights. A handful of the war machines clung to the old edifice, scrabbling to get out of the light.
“If they couldn’t hold them off, how can we get to the beach?” Meredith said, pointing to the dead soldiers that littered the grounds.
“Look how many of them are out there,” Mickey said, pulling the hammer back on his pistol.
The boy was still as a statue in Meredith’s lap.
“We need those spotlights,” Dalton said. “Those things can’t take the light.”
“The military had them and look what good it did them,” Winn said.
“It looks like they used them to spot the creatures,” Dalton said. “We need them to clear a path to the beach, covering our front and backs.”
“Leaving our flanks exposed,” Mickey said.
“We can’t have everything,” Dalton answered. “If we turn back, those helicopters will blow us off the road.”
The spotlights were mounted on the backs of a pair of Humvees.
Dalton pulled up alongside them, gaining the attention of a dozen war machines. “Meredith, take the wheel. Mickey, come out with me. We’ll train the lights on the path leading to the beach. Winn, can you cover us?”
The injured cop held up one of the M16s in the backseat. “I’ve got you. Go!”
There was no time to waste. Now that they had been spotted, the war machines smelled fresh meat. Meredith slid into the driver’s seat, sick with worry. If they so much as slipped, those creatures would be all over them.
They climbed up the Humvees.
“It’s locked!” Dalton shouted, yanking the spotlight to no avail.
Mickey fidgeted with a host of knobs and levers on the side of the big light. His palm smacked a bar into an upright position and the spotlight moved off the lighthouse, trailing down the grass embankment.
“Hit that bar!” Mickey commanded Dalton.
The creatures, now freed from the painful light, gathered en masse and began galloping toward their position.
Winn leaned out of the window and opened fire on a beast creeping up from behind Mickey’s Humvee. The animal wailed, flipping onto its back.
/> Dalton freed the spotlight, swinging it down to face the narrow, rocky path that led to the small strip of a beach. Mickey fired off a few rounds at something on the other side of the Humvee. He and Dalton both leapt onto the asphalt.
Meredith watched the war machine numbers grow. She turned the car’s spotlight on the driver’s side, aiming it at the approaching beasts. It parted them like the Red Sea, but they kept coming.
Winn continued firing, hitting as many as he could. The heavy rounds took their toll, but did little to slow them down. It was as if they had been driven imperviously mad with bloodlust.
The boy had crouched down into a ball in the footwell.
Dalton fell forward as one of the war machines caromed into his upper back. Its cloven hooves thundered over the hood of the car as its momentum carried it forward. He slipped from view. Meredith screamed.
Mickey, turning to help him, was slammed into the side of the car by another creature. His chest crunched into the car’s frame. The side of his head thumped off the roof.
Winn tried to shoot it, but the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. An inhuman cry burst from Mickey’s lips as a river of blood sprayed across the closed front window.
CHAPTER 43
Dalton’s diaphragm hitched painfully when he tried to draw a breath. He had rolled to the front of the car, bathed by the headlights. A pair of war machines paced around the perimeter of the light, anxious to have another chance at him.
He spun in time to see one of the creatures bury its already bloody muzzle into the back of Mickey’s neck. He went down in a shower of blood.
Dalton slapped the car’s hood, getting Meredith’s attention. She jumped when she saw him.
“Drive!” he shouted, pointing to the path.
Her hands shook as she grabbed the gearshift. He rolled onto the hood and clung to the wiper blades, careful not to get close to Mickey’s blood.
She steered the car into the harsh shaft of light. The war machines followed, but didn’t dare penetrate its radiance. They did, however, gather at the sides of the car, keeping pace with them, a multitude of killing machines. The car bounced and rocked as they descended, and he almost lost his grip.
When they got to the end of the light, Meredith stepped on the brake.
“Winn, throw me the grenades,” Dalton yelled.
Searching the backseat, Winn tossed them out the window as he found them. Dalton pulled the pins and chucked them into the darkness. A trio of earth-pounding concussions laid waste to his eardrums. It felt and sounded like someone had stuffed thick swabs of cotton into his ears.
Severed limbs and heads of the assembled creatures bounded into the air, mixing with sand and shattered seashells.
“Everyone out, now!”
Meredith snatched the boy into her arms. Winn came out with the remaining grenades and a pair of pistols. He tossed one to Dalton.
“Run down to the water and turn left,” he said to Meredith. “The skiffs should be pulled up onto the beach.”
It was hard going for her on the uneven terrain. She limped and lurched as best she could, the boy clinging to her like a second skin.
“I’m going to make a big boom,” he said to Winn. “Go follow her.”
Winn clutched his ribs with one hand, looking as pale as moonlight. He was in a world of pain. He nodded, trotting after Meredith.
Dalton, standing within the headlights, stared back at the chimeric features gathering around the car. The first grenades didn’t get as many as he’d hoped. They were just too fast. And fearless.
Jaundiced eyes narrowed and blinked. He was grateful that he could see little of their malformed faces. But he could feel the heat of their murderous desire.
“A little closer,” he said, taking a step back.
True to their form, they advanced a step.
“Just a little more. Look at me, a nice juicy steak, all for you. Come and get it.”
His throat was so dry, it was hard to swallow. A pellet of rain splashed over his eyelashes. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t dare look back to see how Meredith, the boy and Winn were faring. Taking his eyes off the war machines would be his undoing.
He counted ten of the creatures slinking around the car.
“Perfect.”
He pulled the pins, tossed the grenades into the car and ran as fast as his legs could carry him, rapidly joining Winn’s side.
The car burst into a brilliant halo of fire, igniting the nearby reeds. War machines, those that weren’t torn to shreds, dashed around the beach, their flesh engulfed in flame.
Hopefully that buys us enough time to get the boat in the water, he thought. He looped an arm around Winn, helping him along. The man readily leaned into him. He was clearly running out of gas.
They joined Meredith and the boy at the edge of the beach. Her eyes were immense, hopeless.
The skiffs were gone.
“Dammit!”
He had led them to a literal dead end.
Either someone else had gotten the same idea or the historical society had removed them before the shit hit the fan. Now all they had was a bluff filled with war machines on one side, and the roiling Atlantic Ocean on the other.
“Now what?” Meredith said. The boy had wrapped his arms around her neck, burying his face in her shoulder.
Winn dropped to the sand. “Now you get in the water and swim for it while I hold them off.”
“We’re not leaving you behind,” Dalton said.
Winn waved him off. “I’m done. If I got in that water, I’d sink like a stone, dragging anyone with me. I just hope that death by killer animal is covered in my insurance policy. I’d like to leave something for my ex-wife. We were always better apart than together.”
“Jake, no. We’ll keep you afloat.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
The sound of scrabbling footsteps drew their attention. They were coming. They were like zombies. No matter what you did, they just kept coming.
Winn was right, but it did little to ease his already troubled conscience.
“Can you swim?” Dalton asked the boy. He didn’t reply. “Meredith, I need you to stay close to me, okay?”
She nodded. He pulled her into a kiss weighted with all the potentiality of a final good-bye. Her lips were dry and cracked, but they were still wonderful.
“We’re going to get out of this,” he said.
“I believe you.”
Winn’s scream sent jolts down their spines. One of the war machines, a piglike thing with a mix of paws and hooves, clamped its jaws around his arm. He fired his pistol into its eye. It slumped to the sand but didn’t release its grip.
“Go! Go!” he implored them.
More war machines converged on him, each taking hold with their deadly jaws as if he was a six-foot chew toy. They tugged at him, whipping their heads. He fired until his gun was empty.
Dalton pushed Meredith toward the water while shooting at the creatures. Winn had gone silent.
Meredith screamed as a war machine sprinted down the shoreline, crashing into her knee. She fell into the receding tide. The boy rolled from her arms.
“Meredith!”
Dalton took aim at the beast and pulled the trigger.
The gun was empty.
He ran, hoping to get the creature’s attention so it would go for him instead.
The war machine reared back.
Gunfire sounded behind them. The creature’s stomach exploded. Meredith rolled away, avoiding the grisly spray, landing over the boy as a frothing wave washed over them.
Dalton skidded to a stop. He looked back and saw Can Man stepping out from behind a tall stand of sea grass, a military rifle in his hands.
“Can Man! Are you all right?”
The homeless man had a faraway look in his eyes and his clothes were tattered beyond repair. His beard was full of nettles and grass.
“There’s a boat out there,” he said, pointing. Dalton couldn’t see a thing.
“I don’t see it.”
“Lights are off, but I can hear it.”
Dalton saw a war machine heading their way. “Look out!”
Can Man pivoted, aimed, and shot the creature in the neck. It somersaulted, regained its footing and was met with another bullet, this time to its face. Sand piled up in front of it as it plowed on its side to a bloody stop. A wave instantly clawed onto the beach and tried to claim its body as a prize.
“You never forget the lessons Uncle Sam teaches you,” Can Man said. “Let’s head for that boat.”
As impossible as it seemed, Dalton took the boy and helped Meredith to her feet, thanks to a gun-wielding Can Man. The homeless man chucked the rifle into an incoming wave and dove.
They followed him, hoping his ears were right.
Dalton stole a glance at the beach in time to see the war machines head back up the bluff.
Jason spotted the bobbing heads to their left. So did Grace. “We have to help them,” he said.
It sounded like the mother of all Fourth of July parties had erupted on the island. This was no celebration. He was glad as hell that his family was away. There was no telling what would be happening to them right now if they hadn’t left.
He angled the boat to intercept the swimmers. “Can you help them up when I get close enough?”
Grace nodded. “I think I can.”
It was the most coherent thing she’d said so far. He’d have to hope that the reality star had the strength to pull them out of the water. The waves were getting rougher by the minute. A storm was definitely on its way.
A man was the first to arrive. He held up a little boy. “Please, take him aboard.”
Grace hooked her hands under his armpits and lifted the boy to safety. Jason watched the kid scuttle to a corner of the boat, not saying a word.
A woman wearing a cop’s uniform was next, followed by none other than Can Man, who then helped another cop aboard. The boat was overcrowded, to say the least, and the motor began to struggle.
“Where are you headed?” the male cop asked.