Miguel stopped as if to help him.
“Go,” Dom said. “Get the others and go!”
He could handle this lone Skull. He’d dealt with worse, after all. Miguel seemed uncertain, but he followed his captain’s orders. Dom lashed out with the blade, catching the Skull under its chin. It swatted him away and then launched an unrelenting attack. Dom dodged blow after blow. His heart pounded in rhythm with the thumping chopper blades drawing ever nearer, reminding him time was short.
He jumped to the side as the Skull dove headlong and crashed into the side of a pickup. With a powerful kick, he slammed the creature’s head into the truck. Bone crunched against metal. The Skull turned, dazed but still snarling. With another slice, Dom connected with the creature’s neck, and blood poured out. The creature took a step forward and then staggered. It reached with one outstretched claw, still desperate to bring down its prey despite certain death.
Dom ignored it and sprinted to catch up with the others. One chopper had already returned to the end of the bridge where they’d come from, its searchlight already swinging toward the Hunters. The others had almost reached the other side. Meredith and Renee were first, followed by Glenn and Miguel. Jenna and Andris jumped into the ditch beside the highway.
Spencer was only a few yards behind them. Dom watched him try to leap over a fallen motorcycle. The injured Hunter’s boot snagged, and he went down hard. His head slammed against the pavement with a sickening thud. His helmet, which had been left loose because of the bandages, bounced off.
“Spencer!” Dom yelled. He picked up his pace, huffing and straining. The chopper’s spotlight drew ever closer, glinting off the vehicles behind him. He reached the motorcycle where Spencer had fallen. “Spencer! Get up!”
But the man didn’t respond. The spotlight beam was almost on them. There was no way Dom could lug the heavy man to where the others were. They were completely out in the open, and the beam was illuminating the cars just feet away from them. With no other options, Dom grabbed Spencer’s body in a bear hug and rolled them under a nearby SUV. Dom held his breath as the light swept over them. He prayed the lookout in the chopper hadn’t seen his desperate move.
Soon the intense light passed.
“Clear?” Dom asked over the comm link.
“Chopper looks like it’s going to make another sweep,” Meredith called back. “You got maybe ten, twenty seconds.”
Dom shoved Spencer’s unconscious body out from under the SUV. Normally he’d be more careful with the injured man, but they had to get away from the Skulls and the prowling military. He heaved Spencer into a fireman’s carry. As Meredith had promised, the chopper started its second sweep. Even more birds seemed to be in the air now, swarming the city. The occasional spurt of gunfire rained down into the decimated city blocks. Whatever the chopper crews were searching for, they weren’t holding back. Dom did not want to be caught in the crossfire. He used up his energy reserves to beat the spotlight to the end of the bridge and practically tumbled into the ditch with the rest of the Hunters.
He let Spencer fall to the ground next to Meredith and Andris. The duo checked the Hunter’s vitals while Dom caught his breath.
“He’s breathing,” Meredith said.
“Heartbeat’s normal,” Andris reported.
“Keep an eye on him,” Dom said. He peeked above the ditch. “How’s everyone on ammo?”
Glenn forced a low, sardonic laugh. “I think I used damn near every bullet we scrounged up at the airport.”
“Me, too,” Renee said.
“Understood,” Dom said. “Look, we aren’t going to make it far tonight. Not with those birds overhead, Skulls everywhere, and an injured Hunter.” He gestured to an apartment building with busted windows and missing a roof. “Let’s hole up there. I haven’t seen any ground forces. And after that Goliath took down one chopper, I doubt they’re keen on combing through the wreckage by foot. We might be safe if we stay undercover for a while.”
“What then?” Miguel asked, always pushing, always probing for the answers.
The Hunters murmured their assent. Dom’s mind raced as he tried to figure out how to get from here to his daughters and then to the Huntress. But trying to solve all those problems at once would be a recipe for disaster. He knew from his training as a field agent that it was best to take these things one step at a time. He needed to break his goals down into small, accomplishable tasks.
“Let’s focus on getting some better cover for now,” Dom said. “Miguel, you’re on point.”
The Hunter nodded and, on Dom’s command, rushed across the street. He played his muzzle over empty vehicles. Only a few Skulls lingered nearby. The Hunters took turns running to the other side. Soon they were all filing into the apartment building. Glenn had Spencer over his back as they headed upstairs to find a defendable apartment.
They quickly cleared a three-bedroom unit. Clothes were strewn about, and most of the canned goods were gone. The owners appeared to have fled the apartment at the beginning of the outbreak. It would certainly do for a one-night stay.
“Barricade the door, Chief?” Miguel asked, ready to push a sofa to the entrance.
“Not yet.”
Miguel cocked his head.
“I’m not planning on holing up for the night.”
“But I thought you said—”
Dom patted his rifle. “We need ammo. And I need some people to stay behind and watch Spencer.” He paused. “We can’t risk everyone leaving. Not tonight. But we also can’t wait until we have the cover of darkness again tomorrow. Andris, Meredith, you’re coming with me. I want to keep our numbers small.”
He glanced at each of the remaining Hunters meaningfully. “If we don’t make it back, you carry on to Mt. Vernon without me.”
Jenna stepped forward. “No way, Captain. That’s not how this works.”
“It is now,” Dom said. “I’m not going to risk your lives while I sit here and watch from above again.”
Meredith replaced a strand of hair that had fallen out from under her helmet. “What midnight outing did you have in mind for us?”
Dom brought up his smartwatch. He scanned the map for both police stations and gun stores nearby. No problem in Virginia.
“Do you really think these places won’t already be raided?” Meredith asked.
“No, no chance,” Dom replied. “But it’s not exactly like I can call them up and ask them whether they still have ammo in stock. We’ll go door-to-door until we find enough.”
“Great,” Andris said. “I’m ready for a stroll.”
“We’ll check here first,” Dom said, pointing to the nearest shop. “Everyone else, sit tight.”
“Whatever you say, Captain,” Glenn said. “But you let us know the second you think you need backup.”
“Will do, brother,” Dom said.
He led Meredith and Andris back down the stairs. They crept between overturned dumpsters and trashcans, sticking to the alleys as they made their way to the gun shop. A few skinny Skulls walked through the streets; they looked as if they were starving. Little wonder they hadn’t made it across the bridge like so many of the others, even with the commotion in Alexandria. They were wasting away. Dom wondered if the Skulls would start to die out if they stopped feeding. He hoped so.
But hope wouldn’t help him survive right now. Firepower would.
“There!” Dom pointed to a storefront with windows reinforced by steel bars. They sprinted to the store, sticking close to the shadows. The front door was already broken open. At his signal, Meredith took her place beside the entrance.
After a curt nod from Dom, Meredith swung the door back. Dom and Andris rushed in. Dom played his rifle over the toppled shelves and empty boxes littering the floor. His boots crunched over broken glass as he prowled through the store. Most of the racks along the walls were empty, and only a few shells rolled underfoot. The sound of distant gunfire still boomed from across the river, and he wished the military was stil
l on their side. It would have been so much easier to resupply at the base instead of scavenging.
Dom rounded the rear counter. He had hoped there would be some secret stash of ammunition there, but again his hopes were dashed. But another door grabbed his attention. He motioned to his eyes, then to the door. The others nodded and crept into position, poised for action.
Dom shot Meredith a hand signal. Like before, she opened the door. Andris and Dom rushed through. He was forced to rely on his NVGs in the darkness beyond. He followed a set of wooden stairs down to a cellar. There was a pile of sandbags at one end of the underground room. Spent casings were scattered across the cracked cement floor. The cinderblock walls were pockmarked with small craters. There had undoubtedly been a gun battle here.
But Dom found no Skull corpses. Instead, there were two bodies near the bottom of the stairs. Normal human bodies. Both wore camouflage, though neither looked military. The stench of death and the buzzing of flies threatened to overwhelm his senses. He moved past the puddles of dried blood. Another body at the opposite end of the room was draped over a wooden crate. As he, Andris, and Meredith probed the empty storage shelves, it started to become clear to Dom what had transpired.
The gun shop owner had created a holdout for himself in the basement. The two men in camo must’ve tried to take the man’s supplies, and he had put up a fight. Dom examined a few of the spent casings on the floor. There were at least four different calibers and types of bullets. Four weapons, yet only three bodies. And as far as he could tell, the corpses had been stripped of useful gear.
“There are others out there,” Dom whispered, nodding to the two dead men in camo.
“And likely armed to the teeth,” Meredith said. Her eyebrows pinched together in thought.
“I wonder how big of a group we’re talking about,” Dom said. “Maybe the Joint Force base got riled up because there’s some armed militia out there causing them trouble.”
“Maybe,” Andris said. “I’m certainly not interested in running into guys like this. They do not seem too friendly.” He gestured toward the man Dom guessed was the former store owner. “And there’s not a damn thing left for us to take.”
“Don’t know about that,” Dom said. A glint of metal had caught his eye. He moved aside a few shelves near one of the corpses. Before him was an enormous steel door with a combination lock. “Gun safe.”
“Ah,” Meredith said. “Looks like these guys were a little hasty in killing the storekeeper. I bet if they’d talked nice, the guy would’ve opened this for them.”
“Seeing as he’s no longer around,” Andris said, “want me to do the honors?”
-10-
Lauren applied a new antibiotic gel over Thomas’s thigh wound. He cringed but didn’t protest. After she replaced the bandages, she glanced at the survivors from Boston’s Mass Gen Hospital. They were stable, at least for the immediate future, so she moved into the quarantine room. She was pleased the guards had allowed her to help her patients. Now she needed to press her luck a tad farther.
She wanted to be back in the lab. No, she needed to be there. Each minute and hour spent away from her research meant time wasted. She should be working to solve the biological mysteries behind Skulls, Goliaths, Droolers, and the Oni Agent.
She stood in front of the isolation ward, looking in. There, Ivan and Scott lay in what appeared to be a peaceful slumber. She knew the truth was nothing so pleasant. Their brains had been altered by the Oni Agent. The skeletal growths characteristic of the Skulls had been eliminated through the chelation treatment Lauren had developed, but that only prevented the overgrown claws and armor plating by killing the nanobacteria. Unfortunately, the nanobacteria didn’t just produce those horrific mutations. They also acted like microscopic factories, churning out prions similar to the ones that caused Mad Cow Disease.
Those prions had so far eluded Lauren’s team. The infectious proteins wreaked havoc on the brain, causing the neurological damage that led to the Skulls’ cannibalistic thirst for human flesh. Lauren still held out hope they’d find a way to reverse that damage and restore Ivan and Scott’s humanity. For now, all she could do was change their IV bags and move them to prevent bedsores while they slept on in their medically induced comas.
“What happened to them?” Smith asked. His demeanor seemed to have softened. Maybe he was quick to trust—a trait Lauren had no problem exploiting if necessary.
“Brain trauma,” Lauren half-lied. “Had to put them in comas until we’re sure their neurological function is restored.”
“How long will that take?” Smith asked, curiosity evident in his tone.
“Hard to tell,” Lauren said. “I don’t have half the equipment a good land-based hospital does. We thought with access to Fort Detrick we could treat them better, but I guess that’s not in the cards.”
“Nope,” Smith said, standing near the doorway of the isolation room with his weapon cradled carelessly in his arms. “Are they all taken care of now?”
“For now,” Lauren said.
“Then sit back down with the rest of your team.”
Lauren decided to take a calculated risk. “You know what’s in there, right?” She indicated the hatch to the laboratory.
Smith raised an eyebrow. “Your mad scientist lab.”
Lauren offered him a tight smile. “Not exactly. We were researching ways to stop the Oni Agent.”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“Look,” Lauren said as patiently as possible. “Our research isn’t going anywhere. If I could just—”
“Come on,” Smith said, more forcefully. “Sit down and shut up.”
Lauren ignored him. “Have you seen what’s really going on out there? There are worse things than the Skulls.”
The guard narrowed his eyes. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Goliaths. The Droolers. These things are getting more dangerous.”
“And General Kinsey is going to make sure we kill every single one of them.”
Aha, Lauren thought. That confirmed her suspicions about their association with Kinsey. “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.” She held out her hands in a beseeching manner. “Look, we really are trying to help. Before you boarded our ship, my team was working on a way to protect against the acid spray.”
“Seriously, shut up,” Smith said again. “All this Droolers and Goliaths nonsense. Jesus. Just sit down.”
Lauren could see she wasn’t getting anywhere with the guard, so she took a seat by Divya, Peter, and Sean. They gave her wary looks, and Peter seemed to be warning her to back off.
“Are you going to be in the field when Kinsey orders you to destroy all the Skulls?” Lauren asked Smith.
“Quiet! I let you help your patients, so now shut it.”
“Just a friendly warning. You don’t know what you’re up against. If you don’t believe me, check that computer. Watch some of the videos from our crew’s helmet-mounted cameras. You can see for yourself.”
Smith watched her suspiciously and then glanced at the other guard. Lauren was quiet, letting the seeds of skepticism take root in the two men. After a few tense moments of silence, Smith moved to the computer terminal nearest him. His fingers tapped across the keyboard. He started scrolling through the list of videos and selected one at random. While Lauren couldn’t quite see which one he’d chosen, she heard the distinct bellowing of Goliaths pour through the tinny speakers, followed by the yells of panicked Hunters. Then the guard played another video. She cringed as she recognized Owen’s agonized screams. It must’ve been the one where the poor Hunter had been shorn in half by a Goliath. Smith looked visibly shocked before switching to another clip. Gurgling sounded over the speakers. Droolers. Smith took a step back from the display and rubbed his face with his hand.
He turned to the other guard. They conferred quietly before Smith turned to her. “You said you were working to stop these things?”
Lauren nodded. “We were.
”
“Anything that would protect us from them?” Smith asked, indicating himself and his fellow guard.
“Certainly.”
“I’m not buying it,” Smith said.
Thomas groaned and managed to sit up straighter. Despite his obvious pain, he leveled his gaze at the two guards. “The research these people are doing is crucial to humanity’s survival. If you want to delay that, if you want to be the people to let more die, be my guest. But that’s on your conscience.”
Smith stared at him, seeming to consider the implications.
“I’m willing to bet my life on this team,” Thomas said, gesturing to Lauren and the others. “If you think they’re trying something they shouldn’t be, you can shoot me.”
“Thomas!” Lauren said.
Thomas never took his eyes off Smith. “I’m serious. Take the bargain, kid. Their research could save your life.”
“What do you think?” Smith asked another guard.
“Take the deal,” the man said, his hand on his sidearm.
Smith glanced at the computer terminal and then back at Lauren. He spoke briefly to the other guard and then stalked out of the medical bay.
Peter turned to Lauren. “I sure hope you have a plan or something.”
“Or something,” Lauren said.
***
A low explosion echoed as the door of the gun safe popped open. Dom, Meredith, and Andris were greeted with shelves full of ammunition and weapons.
“Jackpot,” Andris said.
“Not sure I’d call it that,” Dom said, “but it’ll do for now. Grab as much as you can.”
The group indiscriminately heaved boxes of rounds into their packs. Sorting their spoils could wait until they’d made it back to the apartment. Once they finished cleaning out the safe, they ran up the stairs. Dom froze when he reached the top and signaled for the others to drop low.
“Shit,” he muttered, inching around the corner of the counter. He shouldered his rifle and aimed at what had caught his attention. A single Skull stood in the doorway. Its head swiveled back and forth, hunting. It stepped into the shop, hunched over, fingers twitching in anticipation. The damn thing must have heard the muffled pop from the explosives Andris had used to breach the gun safe. There was no sneaking past the Skull as it prowled into the store. Its feet snapped broken glass shards and kicked away pinging bullet shells. It was painfully thin, almost skeletal.
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