Zommunist Invasion | Book 2 | Snipers

by Picott, Camille

  “Look out!” Bruce cried.

  A tire sailed out of the darkness, coming straight for Leo.

  Chapter 34

  Bridge

  LEO HAD JUST ENOUGH time to throw himself out of the kayak before the tire landed. It clipped him in the leg, delivering a jolt of pain that radiated up his thigh. Water rushed into his nose and mouth.

  He burst back to the surface of the river, legs kicking. Luckily, it was late summer, when the river was at its lowest. His boots connected with the gravely bottom just as more debris sailed out of the dark.

  “Heads up!” Spill cried.

  Rocks. A picnic basket. An empty tool box. A hammer.

  Leo came to grips with their situation between a mouthful of water and a crowbar hitting the water a mere foot from him. Apparently, Cassie’s rock-throwing mutant hadn’t been an anomaly. There were mutants attacking them. But from where?

  There was too much chaos to get his bearings. His group was in disarray, everyone shouting and trying to dodge the attack. Paddles and kayaks drifted downriver without them. They were making enough noise to wake Russians all the way back in Bastopol. Where the hell was Cassie?

  “South shore,” Leo barked. “Everyone get to the south shore!”

  He spotted Cassie’s silhouette off to his left. She yelped as a discarded ice chest flew in her direction.

  Leo tackled her, pushing her sideways and submerging her in the water. The ice chest made a loud thunk in the water as it landed.

  He latched onto Cassie’s shirt and pulled her to the surface. She coughed and sputtered. Her hands twisted into the front of his shirt as she clung to him.

  “They’re on the Monte Rio Bridge,” she gasped.

  She was right. Leo hadn’t realized they’d come so far downstream. He could just make out the old truss bridge that spanned the river. It was something of a historical landmark in the tiny river town of Monte Rio.

  On the bridge were no less than three mutants. Another tire sailed through the air. Leo shielded Cassie with his body and hustled her to the shore.

  “Where the hell are they getting all their ammunition?” he growled as the tire hit the water. Had they raided a junkyard?

  He raised his hunting rifle as Spill, Bruce, Jennifer, and Griggs hustled onto the shore. “Either of you guys a good shot in the dark?” he asked the soldiers.

  “I am.” Spill stopped beside him and raised a machine gun, taking aim at the bridge.

  “The rest of you, get to the trees and stay out of sight,” Leo ordered. He threw all his focus into the mutants on the bridge. Now that he didn’t have a face full of water, he could see there were several wrecked cars on Monte Rio Bridge. That’s where the mutants were getting their ammunition.

  A baby car seat flew off the bridge, coming straight for Leo and Spill. It was followed closely by a suitcase.

  “Dammit!” Leo dodged sideways. The suitcase hit the ground and split open, spilling clothes all along the riverfront. He couldn’t stand still long enough to get in a shot.

  He crouched low and raced to the trunk of a large tree that lay on the shore. It wasn’t uncommon for fallen trees to wash up during the winter. The locals usually left them wherever they landed.

  He dropped down behind the tree, breathing hard. Spill skidded to his knees beside him. Both men rested the barrels of their weapons on the tree, taking aim at the mutants.

  More items flew at them through the night, but they had some protection now. Leo held steady and took aim at the figures on the bridge.

  He was a good shot, but a head shot at a hundred yards in the dark was going to be a tall order.

  Beside him, Spill began to fire. Bullets sparked off the trusses of the bridge. The mutants howled as he hit one of them in the shoulder.

  Leo’s first shot pinged off a car. He swore and readjusted. The slight wind along the river had thrown off his shot. He fired again. This one landed, but it wasn’t a head shot. All he did was piss the thing off.

  He and Spill kept firing. Leo finally hit one of the monsters, dropping him to the ground. The others howled in fury.

  Leo had thought the situation couldn’t get any worse. He was wrong. As soon as he killed the first mutant, the other two scattered. They loped off the south side of the bridge, their deformed bodies disappearing from sight.

  “Shit,” he breathed. He knew without a doubt the mutants were coming for them. This may have been their plan all along—to drive them out of the water.

  “River,” he barked, looking for his companions at the tree line. “The mutants are coming!”

  Cassie, Jennifer, Bruce, and Griggs barreled out of the darkness, running hard for the water. As they did, Leo saw another two mutants scuttle north across the bridge. They were gone before he could even raise his rifle. Shit. Were those the same two they’d been firing at, or were those new ones? It was impossible to know.

  “Hurry up!” He splashed into the water. The kayaks and paddles had drifted downstream. They were going to have to swim. With any luck, they could catch up with their kayaks.

  Cassie and the others piled into the water. Laden with water-logged jeans, guns, and backpacks of supplies, none of them were buoyant. Still, they threw themselves into the deepest part of the current in the middle of the river and began to dog paddle. Long strands of algae slithered up from the river bottom, feathering along their bodies.

  Leo brought up the rear. He alternated between scanning the shoreline and keeping one eye on the water. His knee connected painfully with a rock in the water. He swallowed back a curse.

  They reached Monte Rio Bridge. Leo stopped just before swimming underneath it, standing up out of the water. The sodden backpack was an unwieldy counterweight. Leo raised his rifle, keeping watch to make sure no other mutants showed up to attack his companions. As soon as the five of them were safely on the other side and swimming away, he hurried after them.

  A howl went up to his left. Leo jerked instinctively in that direction, but all he could see was a solid line of dark trees.

  Several more howls went up from his right. Fucking shit. There were mutants on both sides of the river.

  “We are fucked,” Spill murmured beside him.

  Leo gritted his teeth. He refused to go down. They could survive this. They just had to get past the mutants and farther downriver. They just had to—

  Several rocks sailed out of the darkness. Leo’s heart froze as Cassie screamed. The rock collided with her shoulder, sending her sideways through the water.

  Jennifer reached her first and pulled her up. Leo took aim at the shoreline, looking for the attacking mutant.

  More rocks flew out of the tree line, all of them coming from the north side of the river. He couldn’t see a fucking thing. The trees were too thick and grew right up to the side of the water.

  The onslaught intensified. Griggs let up a string of curses as he was hit in the chest.

  Leo had to get them out of here. They couldn’t out-swim the mutants. Not unless he wanted to risk one of them getting hit in the head.

  “South shore,” he barked. There were mutants on that side as well, but for the moment, it was the lesser of two evils. “Hurry—shit!” He swore as a rock the size of his head careened straight for him.

  He dove sideways and swam as fast as he could. More rocks rained down all around them.

  The south side of the river didn’t have a shoreline. The currents had cut a small bluff into the base of the tree line.

  Cassie and Jennifer were just ahead of him, the two girls scrambling on the bluff. They grabbed exposed tree roots, pulling themselves up the embankment.

  The howls behind them went up in pitch. The sound grated along his bones. He knew for a fact this was their pissed-off sound.

  Even worse, their howls were met by more howls—this time from the south side of the river where they were. From the sound of things, there were a lot more than two of them. It sounded like there was a whole pack of them on both sides of the water
.

  Leo boosted himself over the bluff and crawled into the concealment of the trees. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs as the mutants continued to howl.

  They had to move. Find someplace to hide.

  “Stay together,” Leo whispered. “Follow the river south. Look for a place to hide. Shoot anything that moves.”

  They fell into a tight line. Griggs led the way. Leo brought up the rear. They threaded their way through the trees.

  Leo’s wet clothes and sodden backpack felt like they weighed an extra fifty pounds. Even worse, the wind picked up along the river. It was getting cold. If they ever found a safe place to hide, they needed to get dry.

  The woods went eerily quiet. Was that a good sign, or were they royally fucked? Leo strained his ears, listening for signs of pursuit.

  The trees fell away, opening up to a large rocky beach. Discarded canoes lay near the trees. There was none of the usual river flotsam on this beach; no garbage or forgotten pieces of clothing. There were no bodies, either. It looked oddly pristine.

  “Anyone else think it’s weird there are no bodies here?” Cassie whispered. “There were bodies on the other beaches we saw.”

  Her question made his skin crawl. “Maybe it’s a private beach.” Leo’s words fell flat. All his instincts told him something was off. He just didn’t know what was off.

  “Stay in the tree line,” he said. No way was he going to risk them going out in the open. “Stay alert. Something’s not right.”

  No one argued with this. Griggs once again led the way, picking his way through the ferns and redwoods. Leo noticed they’d entered an old growth section of the woods. The trees were goliaths, some of them as much as six feet in diameter.

  He wracked his brain, trying to figure out where they were. There weren’t a lot of old growth redwoods in his area. One nearby state park that boasted an old-growth grove, but it was miles away from the Russian River. He’d never heard of one on the south side of the river. Maybe they were on someone’s private property. Maybe—

  “Look out!” Cassie screamed.

  Burning pain lanced up his left side. Gunfire rang in his ears.

  Chapter 35

  Bohemian Grove

  SOMETHING RUSTLED IN the trees behind them. Cassie spun around in time to see a Russian soldier lunge out of the darkness and slash at Leo with a knife.

  “Look out!” she screamed.

  A second Soviet popped up and aimed his machine gun—right at Jennifer.

  Cassie didn’t have time to think. She crashed into her sister. Her ears reverberated with the gunfire.

  Cassie and Jennifer hit the ground, landing on top of a large tree root. The bark bit through her sodden clothing and scraped along her ribcage.

  More gunfire lit the night. Cassie instinctively covered her ears and screamed.

  It was over in less than thirty seconds.

  Two Russians lay dead. Griggs had been shot in the shoulder. And Leo—

  Cassie stopped breathing at the sight of Leo. He leaned against a tree, pressing a hand to his side. Even in the dark, Cassie saw dark liquid seeping through the fabric of his flannel shirt.

  “Leo!” She ran to him, pressing her hands over his.

  As if that could help.

  “Fucker cut me,” Leo ground out.

  Cassie dropped her pack and yanked it open. Nonna had sent her with a small first aid kit.

  Griggs groaned, also leaning up against a tree. “Hurts like a motherfucker.” He gripped his shoulder wound.

  “I found it!” Cassie held up the small first aid kit. Her heart sank as she registered its small size. There was no way it contained enough bandages.

  She yanked it open anyway, rifling through the contents. She found only one roll of bandage. “We only have one.” Panic threatened to choke her.

  “Wrap Leo,” Jennifer told her. She turned to Bruce. “Cut off my sleeve. We’ll use it to bandage Griggs.”

  Bruce pulled out his knife and cut off the sleeve of her shirt with curt efficiency.

  “Did the bullet go through, man?” Spill asked Griggs.

  “Think so.” Griggs was sweating from the pain.

  “Take this.” Cassie handed Leo two pain killers from the kit, then handed another two to Griggs. The men swallowed them dry.

  “Let me see it,” Cassie said to Leo.

  When he raised his hand from the wound, blood gushed out. Cassie dragged the edge of his wet shirt out of his even wetter jeans.

  The gash was long, wrapping from the front of Leo’s lean torso all the way around to the back. The sight of it made Cassie’s eyes water with tears. Even though Leo was alive and standing right in front of her, she was hit with a wave of crippling loss. In that split second, she understood how much it would cost her if anything happened to him.

  The mutants were still out there. They had once again begun to howl on both sides of the river. How long before the monsters hunted them down and ate them like rabbits?

  Or would the Russians find them first? Cassie heard nearby shouting. There were more Soviets out there. Fear nearly choked her.

  Cassie couldn’t remember ever feeling so frightened. Which, all things considered, said a lot. She was pretty sure she was going to have PTSD for the rest of her life. If she lived that long. Honestly, considering the current circumstance, she wasn’t giving any of them great odds. Math wasn’t her strongest subject, but it didn’t take a genius to measure the facts:

  a) There were Soviets out there hunting them.

  b) There were mutants on both sides of the river, also hunting them.

  c) They’d lost their kayaks.

  d) Visibility within the trees wasn’t more than twenty or thirty feet. It was like moving around in a really big closet. With monsters of all shapes and sizes.

  “Cas.” Leo touched her cheek.

  She sniffled and shook herself. Leo was alive. She needed to make sure he stayed that way. She needed to bandage his wound so they could keep moving.

  She pressed the bandage over the wound and wrapped it around his waist. The blood soaked through.

  “Here’s my other sleeve.” Jennifer handed her a wad of flannel. Both sleeves of her shirt and been cut off, loose threads handing around her exposed shoulders.

  Cassie took the wad of flannel and shoved it beneath the bandage. She stared at it critically, watching for more blood flow.

  “Thanks, Squirt.” Leo gave her a smile that didn’t quite touch his eyes. It occurred to her that Leo was scared shitless like the rest of them.

  She swallowed, summoning every scrap of courage she could find. “You’re welcome, Jock Face.”

  This time, the smile did touch his eyes. Leo pushed off the tree. Pain pinched the corners of his eyes and mouth.

  “Griggs, you okay?” he asked.

  The solider’s shoulder had been wrapped with Jennifer’s flannel sleeve. Griggs grunted. “Rambo makes this shit look easy.”

  That may have brought a round of laughter if the Soviets couldn’t be heard out there in the forest. Cassie wasn’t sure what was more frightening: Soviets or mutants.

  “We keep moving,” Leo said. “Stay alert. Come on.”

  This time, Spill took the lead. Leo insisted on bringing up the rear, even though he walked slightly hunched over his wound. Cassie kept both hands on her machine gun, ready to shoot at anything that moved.

  The howling was getting closer. She couldn’t hear the Russians anymore, but she had no illusion to the fact they were out there. What were they doing out here, anyway? They were in the middle of nowhere.

  Soviets were definitely scarier, she decided. At least mutants would crack open their skulls and kill them quickly. There was no telling what the Soviets would do if they captured them.

  Catcalls erupted off to their left. Cassie jumped, but she couldn’t see anything. It was too dark under the tree canopy. They were being taunted by the Russians.

  “They’re making so much noise,” Jennifer whispe
red. “They must not know their nezhit immunization doesn’t work on mutants.”

  Cassie’s mind spun. Jennifer was right. They could use this to their advantage. “There’s a chance the Russians and mutants will kill each other off if we give them the chance. We should find a place to hide.”

  “But where?” Jennifer asked. “We’re in the middle of a forest. Hell, we don’t even know where we are—“

  “What the hell is that?” Spill ground to an abrupt halt.

  Cassie stopped, gaping. Out of the darkness rose a giant—a giant thing. What they heck was it?

  “It’s an owl,” Griggs said, dumbstruck.

  It was an owl. It had to be at least thirty feet high and made entirely out of cement.

  And it was out here in the middle of the woods, surrounded by a large wooden dais. Where the hell were they?

  “We’re in the Bohemian Grove,” Jennifer breathed. “I worked here one summer.”

  The Bohemian Grove. The place was infamous around West County, though Cassie had never been here before. It was a private, men’s-only campground for the rich and famous. Every year for two weeks in July, rich men descended on the elite, secretive campground.

  Rumor said that plots to control the world were hatched in the Bohemian Grove. She knew for a fact that Ronald Regan was a member. Richard Nixon too, and even Walter Cronkite. She’d even heard the Manhattan Project had been hatched here.

  And Jennifer had worked here one summer with the club’s catering company.

  “Come on,” Jennifer said. “I know a place we can hide.”

  She led the way, threading through the trees. Cassie glimpsed well-worn dirt paths, which Jennifer avoided like the plague.

  The Soviets had gone silent. So had the mutants.

  Cassie’s shiver had nothing to do with her sodden clothing. If they could just get to the hiding place, everything would be okay. Or at least, this is what she kept telling herself.

  “There’s a small general store just up ahead,” Jennifer whispered. “One of the girls I worked with used to hide cigarettes under the back porch. We can hide under there—”