The Black River (The Complete Adrift Trilogy)

by K. R. Griffiths

  Thick black smoke rose in boiling columns toward the sky, dropping unnatural shadows over much of the city. It was still afternoon, but it was late in the year. Even so, there were supposed to be a couple of hours of daylight left.

  A couple of hours.

  After that, natural darkness would take what the city-wide inferno and the blanket of smoke couldn’t.

  Jerome turned away from the sizzling cityscape, putting the now-still fountains at his back.

  “On me,” he grunted, and the other six members of Bravo gathered close. Mills’ sub-team was highly trained, battle-tested in more than one continent. He knew he could trust each and every one of them with his life.

  A voice in a shadowy, cynical corner of his mind whispered that it didn’t mean anything. No amount of training or real world experience could have readied them for this. The mission to Vegas wasn’t planned, it wasn’t prepared. It was a frantic reaction, and though nobody aboard the choppers had said so, it had felt desperate even before the burning city had hovered into view. Mills had no idea what he was fighting. What had initially felt like a terror attack had turned out to be just the opening shot in a far larger battle. Insanity and savage violence had broken out across virtually every state, and as the bloodsoaked minutes passed, contact with other parts of the country was being lost at an alarming rate.

  Lives were being lost.

  The battle was being lost.

  The Bellagio—despite just how goddamned apocalyptic the place looked to Jerome’s eyes—was where the powers that be had declared that the dire situation would begin to turn around.

  The sheer scale of the disaster whispered darkly in his mind that the Brass were wrong, but orders were orders, no matter how insane they seemed.

  One step at a time, Jerome thought. Focus on the Bellagio.

  Captain Figueroa’s voice crackled in his ear again, laying out the strategy that would ultimately secure the casino.

  Alpha team were heading straight to ground level, where they would clear and hold the main entrance. Mills would lead Bravo down from the roof at a more cautious pace. They were going to go down floor by floor, clear and secure, clear and secure, and finally meet up with Alpha at the bottom. Slow and methodical was the key to success. Secure the Bellagio and set it up as a base of operations and refugee centre. LZ on the roof for reinforcements. The hotel would be the first step in taking control of the city.

  Simple and clean.

  On the far side of the roof, Jerome watched Alpha detonate a charge and breach a fire door before moving into the hotel and disappearing from his sight.

  He turned away.

  And his jaw dropped.

  Through the fiery columns of smoke draped across the city, a passenger jet streaked low, its engines ablaze. Jerome had time to wonder if it had taken off from McCarran—if there was anybody aboard other than a deranged pilot—before it cleared his position by what felt like inches, heading south, diving like an under-fire submarine.

  He ducked instinctively, and almost lost his balance as the blast of air trailing in the jet’s wake punched him hard. He didn’t take his eyes off the plane, though; not for a second.

  It connected with the Monte Carlo, just a few blocks south, at full speed.

  The casino became a ball of molten fire, swallowing up the Black Hawks still hovering above it, and when the roar of the blast reached Jerome’s ears a fraction of a second after the light of the explosion scorched his retinas, it sounded like God screaming.

  Simple and clean, he thought numbly.

  He turned away from the horror, trying not to think about how many lives had just been incinerated; how many good soldiers were being cooked alive just a few hundred yards away, and gestured at the other members of Bravo to follow him.

  “Move it, assholes,” he yelled, trying to inject his voice with enough authority to cover up the shock running through his body. “We ain’t here for sightseeing; we’re here to work!”

  Jerome took off at speed, heading for a nearby fire door, preparing to breach and enter the north side of the hotel.

  He would, he thought, feel better once he couldn’t see what was happening across the city.

  Things would improve once he got inside.

  17

  Conny caught up to the line of injured refugees from the ranch just as they reached the entrance to the bunker.

  The last part of the journey had taken her into the fringes of a thick forest, where the difficult terrain had enabled her to catch up with the more severely injured, but which dropped a veil of shadows across her, making her nerves tingle.

  Relief flooded through her when she heard a ripple of excitement passing through the group of kids up ahead, and she lifted her eyes to see the door itself. The entrance to the bunker was set in a narrow cave that looked like little more than a crack in the rocky base of the mountain.

  The final few yards would be an arduous climb up huge boulders that bordered a trickling waterfall. From any angle other than virtually straight-on, the heavy steel door set a few yards inside the cave mouth, elevated above the forest floor, would have been easy to miss.

  The girl that Conny had rescued—the last of the refugees to make it out alive—had regained consciousness about fifteen minutes earlier, and when the initial confusion had lifted from her features, she had stared at Conny with lethal venom in her eyes. Conny had managed to get her name—Shahana Akthar—and Shaharun, the name of her sister who Conny had, in Shahana’s words, ‘murdered,’ but not much else.

  From the moment that Shahana had been able to stand and walk under her own steam, the girl had kept her distance from Conny, ignoring the older woman’s efforts to explain that Shaharun couldn’t have been saved; that the bullet wound in her leg had been as fatal, in that terrible situation, as a direct shot to the heart. Conny’s words had been met with stiff silence and unblinking hatred.

  At least, once she no longer had to carry the girl physically, Conny had been able to increase her pace to catch the others, but she had a feeling that she would carry Shahana’s accusing eyes in her own heart forever. A different, more permanent sort of burden.

  Conny would bear it. She carried the weight of many dead people in her heart now.

  Her colleagues back on the police force in England, one of whom she had killed herself in a panic, mistakenly believing that he was one of the vampires, coming to kill her in the dark tunnels beneath the city.

  Her extended family and friends, scattered around London, now almost certainly dead.

  Her husband, who had long ago lost his own battle with the disease that would eventually claim her son.

  Logan.

  A space in her heart was reserved for Logan. When death inked his name alongside the others, she thought that the burden might finally prove too much for her to bear.

  She glanced at Shahana, who kept her tear-filled eyes fixed on her feet, and sighed. There was nothing else Conny could do for her now, other than remove herself from the girl’s presence and give her space to grieve.

  She looked away, peering back through the trees one final time at the terrain she had covered, scanning for any sign of movement; of being followed. She saw nothing at all.

  There were no roads here; no sign of anything like civilization. Even the ranch couldn’t be seen at this distance, obscured by the edge of the forest and the undulating ground.

  She hauled herself up over the rocks, lending a hand to those whose injuries were making the short climb near-impossible, and felt another wave of relief flood through her when she reached the narrow plateau on which the entrance stood, and saw Logan and Remy waiting for her.

  At the sight of her, Remy bolted forward, excitedly nuzzling her hand like he hadn’t seen her in years. Conny gazed at her son.

  “You okay, Lo?”

  Logan nodded. For the moment, the resentment that bubbled inside him seemed to have cooled a little, though Conny didn’t doubt that it would resurface when he had time to think about
the disease that was claiming his body inch by inch once more.

  Huntington’s was a life sentence, and Logan’s life would be snuffed out completely in around fifteen to twenty years, most likely. The symptoms he had already exhibited: the slight tremor in his fingers and the instability in his mood, would start to worsen. But Conny hadn’t been lying to him earlier: there was a chance that he could live for ten good years yet, and a lot could happen in that time. If not a cure, then maybe at least some form of treatment could be developed; something to help manage his symptoms and prolong his life.

  Unless the whole world is destroyed in the meantime.

  Conny discarded that idea as soon as it popped into her head. One problem at a time, she thought.

  To her surprise, Logan held out the Glock she had given him.

  Conny studied his eyes.

  He was a man, almost. Still tormented by teenage hormones, still tortured by the knowledge that his own genes were working against him, but despite all of that, he hadn’t yet lost his mind at the collapse of the world. He had held it together admirably where many others—including experienced police officers—had not.

  Unspoken words hung in the air between them. From his demeanour over the past few weeks, while he awaited that final confirmation of his illness, Conny had strongly suspected that Logan had been having suicidal thoughts. She could hardly blame him for harbouring grave doubts about the prospect of living on when his future seemed to offer only pain.

  Yet he had responded positively to her trusting him with the gun, while her prior attempts to wrap him in cotton wool had only seemed to make matters worse. Suffocating him was driving him away, making him hate her. Maybe, what Logan really needed was to be given a clear sense of purpose and a sense of independence.

  “Keep it,” Conny said, surprising herself with the words.

  Logan’s eyes were full of hesitation.

  “I meant what I said at the ranch, Lo. It’s my job to keep you safe, and I’ll give my last breath for you if that’s what it takes, but the way things are going out there?” Conny shook her head. “You need to make your own decisions, and there might come a time when you need to protect yourself. Or me.”

  Logan smiled, just a little, and Conny’s heart skipped.

  “Keep it,” she said again, pushing the weapon away. “Just promise you won’t point it at me the next time I piss you off, okay?”

  Logan laughed.

  A sound that Conny had believed she would never hear again.

  “When we get a chance, I’ll show you how to use it properly. Maybe get in some target practice.”

  “Okay,” Logan said. His tone was hesitant, but Conny could tell he was holding himself back. The prospect of learning to shoot excited him.

  “Deal,” Conny said with a smile. “Trust me, it’s a little more difficult than Grand Theft Auto.”

  Logan snorted, but he slipped the Glock back into his waistband, and arched his back, standing upright, puffing out his bony chest, just a little.

  “Come on,” Conny said, beckoning at Remy to follow, “let’s go inside and see what these crazy bastards have cooked up for us next, huh?”

  18

  “Watch your damn shot!"

  Jerome hunkered down behind the low wall to reload, and glared at Weapons Sergeant Eddie Baker, who had damn near put a bullet in his own team leader’s back.

  Baker offered up wide eyes and an apologetic shrug.

  As far as Jerome was concerned, the US Army Special Forces—the green berets—were America’s premier fighting unit. He had no doubt his rivals in the Marines, or even those pussies in the SEALS would disagree, but he was damn sure that no part of the American military was as well-rounded and capable in just about any scenario as the guys in SF. Everything from recon to counterterrorism to direct action fell within their remit, and they were masters of it all. Every single green beret prided themselves on being utterly adaptable, and utterly indefatigable. They didn’t lose. They never lost. If they weren’t currently winning, it was only because they were in the process of finding another way through or around the problem.

  They were losing now.

  Starting to make mistakes.

  Like nearly blowing my fucking head off.

  Jerome grimaced, still glaring back at Baker, and then lifted himself from cover, spraying bullets down the dark corridor.

  Covering fire, on the thirty-second floor of the damn Bellagio.

  Fucking Vegas.

  The ‘plan’ to secure the hotel was in ruins before they had even cleared the top three floors. And the first two of those had been fucking empty. As the team had descended down those first levels, checking the eye-wateringly opulent penthouse suites and discovering them devoid of life, Jerome had allowed himself to be lulled into a false sense of security.

  It didn’t last long.

  Shit, the whole fucking plan died at first contact with the enemy. An enemy that, despite all the hurried briefings, they were totally unprepared to face.

  On the third floor down, as he and the six other members of Bravo moved cautiously along the dark corridors, checking the rooms and suites as they passed, Jerome had heard glass breaking and distant screaming up ahead.

  He had ordered his team to freeze, certain that the noise had come from one of the suites at the far end of the wide corridor. They needed to proceed with caution.

  Yet before he had been able to relay that order to Intelligence Sergeant McKenzie, his second-in-command, the door to the room right in front of Jerome had burst open, and a woman with a goddamned squalling baby strapped to her chest had rushed right at him, brandishing a kitchen knife.

  Jerome’s moment of hesitation, as his mind tried to answer the question who brings a fucking baby to Vegas? had almost proved fatal.

  The shrieking woman was right on top of him instantly, jabbing at him with the knife, and Jerome had fallen backward instinctively, almost pulling her down onto his chest. There had been no time to react in any way other than the most primal. He squeezed the trigger of his M4A1, unloading most of the carbine’s extended mag directly into the woman’s gut. At such close quarters, his weapon deposited most of her spine on the ceiling.

  And most of the baby.

  It was the first time Jerome had ever killed a child, and on some level he had known, even as the bullets leapt from his weapon, that no matter what other atrocities Vegas might throw at him, his mind would be scarred forever by that first encounter with the madness gripping the residents of the city.

  Tears had stung his eyes, and he had blinked them away furiously, determined that the rest of the team would not see them, wishing that he could crawl away to some quiet corner and bawl his eyes out at what Las Vegas had forced him to do.

  But there was no time for bawling. Precious little time for thinking.

  As he had rolled out from beneath the remains of the mother and child, McKenzie had let out a yelp behind him, going down to the carpet hard. Another woman with a knife, but this time the attack had come from the side, while the team had been distracted by the horror of what Jerome had just done.

  Jerome had let out a bestial roar as he rose to his feet, opening fire on the second woman, but it was too late. McKenzie hadn’t seen her coming, and she had opened up the soldier’s throat like a wet envelope.

  McKenzie’s eyelids had still been fluttering, but there was nothing to be done for him: death had already handed him an invitation to the last party. Another member of Bravo, Medical Sergeant Allison Pierce, had tried to press down on the wound, but her hands almost went clean inside. The chasm in McKenzie’s muscular neck was deep enough that the guy’s fucking spinal column was visible.

  At that point, they had been in the hotel for a matter of minutes.

  On the next floor down, something even stranger—and even worse—had happened, something that Jerome couldn’t wrap his head around at all. Comms Sergeant Jacob Goodman, who had been bringing up the rear, and who was in supposedly the safest
position of all of them, closest to the stairs that led to the levels which had already been cleared, had just...disappeared.

  Like he had been taken by something. Gone without so much as a whimper.

  Yet there had been nothing left on the levels above, after the two maniac women had been dealt with. Nothing at all. Jerome’s team had cleared every single room quickly and efficiently before moving on. They hadn’t missed anything. As FUBAR as the situation was, none of his unit would have made rookie mistakes like that. That sort of shit had been trained right out of them a long time ago by real-world combat experience.

  Jerome had struggled to understand. It was almost as if something had crawled up the damn outside of the building before gaining entry to take Goodman from the rear.

  Barely a minute after Goodman’s disappearance, while Jerome was still lost in confusion and starting to suspect that Vegas would be his final deployment, the missing soldier had reappeared, walking along the dark corridor toward the others with an odd, unnatural gait. Almost like he was trying to act casual; not quite nailing it.

  Goodman hadn’t been responsive to Bravo’s hails, and Jerome’s nerves had begun to tingle.

  Goodman opened fire on his own team when he was just thirty yards away, killing Pierce instantly and grazing Baldwin’s shoulder.

  And now?

  Now, here Jerome Mills was, engaged in a firefight with a member of his own team, ducking behind cover while the soldiers who were supposedly still on his side damn-near took his head off with careless shots from behind.

  Baker moved alongside Jerome.

  “Sorry, Sarge, thought you was reloading.”

  “Yeah,” Jerome snapped back. “Maybe wait for me to clear your line of sight anyhow, huh?”

  Baker nodded, and Jerome felt a surge of frustration. The weapons sergeant didn’t need to be told something so basic: the guy had been in active combat arenas on two continents; he had a full decade of experience. If a guy like Eddie Baker was making errors that would make a first-day greenhorn blush, it was because he knew full well that the situation was spiralling out of control, and headed toward a very bad place.