The Tide: Deadrise

by Melchiorri, Anthony J

  Together, they dashed down the hall, breaking down doors and searching offices filled with fluttering papers, upturned desks, and broken chairs. They burst through another set of doors and ran down a flight of stairs. The sounds of howling Skulls and scratching claws sounded even louder.

  Then Dom realized the noise wasn’t coming from outside.

  -29-

  Kara fired a round into a Skull wearing a white lab coat. Shreds of blue nitrile gloves still hung from its claws. Other Skulls trampled it even as its body twitched. Then something slammed against the armory door. The impact let out a hollow, shaking thud, and the door swung wide open. An ear-shattering bellow thundered through the room.

  Goliath.

  Its jaw shook as it roared again. Both of its pointed tusks were stained with blood. The thick, hooking claws jutting from its massive fists clicked together as it bounded toward them.

  Sadie screamed. Maggie let out a weak bark, her eyes half-closed, and then fell still beside Kara. She adjusted her aim. Fear latched its icy grip around her heart. Bullets pinged, cutting across the Goliath’s bulwarking chest plates and helmet-like skull. The beast’s manhole cover-sized feet landed on the smaller Skulls, crushing them. They squawked and squealed. Kara squeezed the trigger, wondering if this pull would be the one to set off an explosion or if she’d be lucky and bring down the Goliath. But even if they killed the giant, there were far too many smaller Skulls for them to fend off.

  And then she noticed something that made a spark of hope ignite in her chest.

  The smaller Skulls had started to stumble and trip over each other. They skidded along the floor or ran headlong into the metal shelves. One by one, they fell.

  The Goliath crushed another fallen Skull. Its claws continued to arc through the air, and its mouth opened as if to roar again. Instead, its gait slowed until it was barely shuffling forward. The beast seemed to deflate, and it crashed to the floor. Several smaller Skulls were smashed by the tumbling behemoth.

  The Hunters had stopped firing. They played their muzzles across the crowd of Skulls lying prone around the armory. Kara looked at Maggie. The dog’s chest was rising in slow breaths, but her eyes were closed.

  “It...worked,” Renee said, almost distantly. “It worked!” She grinned and whooped, but then composed herself and added, “Stay sharp! It’s time to get back to our boat.”

  Sadie was staring into the distance at some point Kara couldn’t see. She guessed her sister was in shock. She tried shaking Sadie, but it didn’t rouse her.

  “Navid, help me with her?” she said, nodding at Maggie.

  “Of course,” Navid said, scooping up the golden retriever. “Come on, Sadie. We’re alive. We’ve got this, okay?” He kept uttering words of encouragement as the group stepped over the sleeping Skulls.

  Kara wiped a fleck of blood off her gas mask. It had become more and more difficult to find any open space on the floor to walk. Skull limbs were tangled where they had fallen. She tried desperately not to step on any. Soon the group had no choice but to climb over the pile of Skulls at the armory’s entrance.

  “Careful,” Renee said unnecessarily.

  Kara climbed over another Skull. A gray haze filled the hallway, and Kara felt almost reassured by the fog’s presence. It was like a force field around them. She sucked in a clean breath through the gas mask. As they trudged on, Sadie staggered, almost fainting, and Kara caught her in her arms.

  “Need me to help?” Andris asked.

  “Thanks,” Kara said. She felt slightly guilty as Andris took one of Sadie’s arms and lowered his rifle. She didn’t want herself or Sadie to burden one of the Hunters. Because, as they prowled through the hallways full of snoozing Skulls, she knew they’d soon be outside again and beyond the protection of the sleeping gas.

  “Alpha, this is Bravo,” Renee called over the comm link. “Do you read?”

  Kara stared intently at Renee, waiting for a sign. She wished she could see the Hunter’s face behind the mask.

  “Roger that, Captain,” Renee said after a beat. “We got everything we came for. Even had a chance to try the knockout gas. Happy to report it works. We should be at your position within fifteen minutes.” She was silent for a long while this time. “Got it. Over and out.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “Is my dad okay?”

  “Yes, he’s fine. Glenn’s been injured, and the Skulls are gathering on their position. Dom and Jenna are picking up Tasers and other nonlethals from the MP station. After that, they’re done.”

  Kara wanted to ask how many Skulls were out there, how her dad and Jenna would avoid the monsters, and how bad Glenn’s injuries were. But she let the questions remain unasked, figuring it would be better to focus on the task at hand. They weren’t out of harm’s way yet themselves.

  Soon enough they reached the main entrance. Kara spotted the office where they’d entered. The door had been chewed to splinters, and as they passed the room, she saw their makeshift barricade was now nothing more than shattered fragments of wood. This time they didn’t have to use the window. Andris unlocked the mechanisms securing the formidable front doors and pushed them outward. The gray haze of the sleeping gas drifted out, dispersing into the open air. He jogged outside and took off his gas mask. The others followed and, one by one, removed their masks. With Maggie still sleeping in her arms, Kara couldn’t take hers off, so Meredith helped remove it. One of the clasps caught in her hair, and she winced.

  “Sorry about that,” Meredith said, undoing the clasp. She stowed the mask into her pack with the others.

  Although a few Skulls cried out in the distance, they made it back to the Zodiac before any appeared. Renee started the motor and directed the boat away from shore. Kara sucked in the fresh air over the river. The smell of cordite, blood, and death was gone, left behind in the experimental ordnance research building. The songs of birds in trees overlooking the river provided the soundtrack to their escape. She stroked Maggie’s golden fur and soaked in the warmth of the sun. If only her father was there with them, she might have actually felt happy and safe.

  ***

  Dom played the muzzle of his rifle over the doors leading off the hall. Jenna followed close, her labored breathing loud over the open comm link. The intertwining smells of must and rotting meat wafted over them. Bones littered the floor alongside broken picture frames and fluttering sheets of torn paper. Cold seeped up from the concrete floors. The clanging of bones against metal rang out loudly.

  Dom tried to make sense of the scene. Most of the walls were covered in splotches of blood and gashes from raking skeletal claws. He ignored the litter and signs of a lost battle, choosing to focus instead on the path forward.

  “Captain,” Miguel’s voice called over the comm link. “Couple of Skulls hassled us at the docks.”

  Dom paused as Jenna swept the hallway with her muzzle. “Found a boat?”

  “Found one, got loaded up. Too many Skulls to board safely. We’re camped out in the boathouse. Need backup.”

  “Alpha, this is Bravo,” Renee said. “We’re listening in and headed your direction. We’ll provide cover.”

  “Copy that,” Dom said. “Bravo, stay back until Jenna and I rendezvous with Miguel and Glenn. We’re gonna have one shot at getting everyone out.”

  Renee’s voice came back again. “Roger that. We’ll be awaiting orders, Captain.”

  The clamor of the Skulls within the military police station grew more deafening as the hall opened into a larger room bathed in darkness. A stinging, pungent scent of death and decay threatened to overwhelm them. Their barrel-mounted flashlights were no match for the vast shroud of gloom.

  “NVGs,” Dom said.

  He heard the click of Jenna’s optics falling into place as he dragged his goggles down. The room lit up in an array of greens and blacks. Jenna inhaled sharply, the closest thing to a surprised gasp the seasoned Hunter would allow. Dom didn’t blame her.

  Beyond the wire-reinforced
windows and glass doors of the processing room, vertical metal bars formed a perimeter around several holding cells that lined the hallway. Each was chock-full of Skulls. They pressed against each other, their arms reaching between the bars, their claws cutting through the air. There was only a small pathway between their grasping limbs that stuck out from the holding cells. According to a placard hanging from the ceiling, that path led to the officers’ lockers and the firearms storage.

  “There’s got to be another way, right?” Jenna whispered as they prowled toward the glass doors. “The only path to the lockers can’t be past the holding cells.”

  “You’re probably right. But we don’t have time to scour the damn place for an alternate route.” He slowly opened the door, and the duo aimed their rifles around. The noise and stink rolled over them like a powerful wave.

  “Stay low!” Dom yelled to be heard over the clamor. Jenna acknowledged the command with a thumbs-up. They lowered themselves into a crouching walk. Dom’s pulse raced. He fought every urge in his body screaming at him to run, to barrel between the lashing limbs.

  But he knew that if he was careful and took it slowly, he could make it through the tunnel of slicing claws and clicking joints. The growls and the snarls of the frustrated Skulls surrounded them as they immersed themselves deeper into the living tunnel of bones. He kept repeating a single mantra in his mind: They’re behind bars. They’re behind bars. As fearsome as the twisted creatures were, Skulls couldn’t break through steel bars.

  At least, the normal Skulls couldn’t. He shuddered at the thought of what a Goliath would do to the holding cells.

  After what seemed like ages, he and Jenna cleared the writhing, desperate creatures who continued to cry out as their prey escaped.

  “Wouldn’t you love to know the story of how so many of those assholes got put in there?” Jenna whispered.

  “I think I’ll be okay without knowing that one.” He placed his hand on the handle of another door. A small, wire-reinforced window gave him a slightly obscured view of the next hall. “This better be it. Ready?”

  Jenna backed away from the door and shouldered her rifle. She aimed down its sights, preparing to bring down any creature that might ambush them. “Ready.”

  Dom shoved the door open. Jenna drifted past with the smoothness of a floating ghost. Her torso swiveled left and right as she cleared the hall. Dom followed after her in a half-crouch, covering her back. He chose his steps carefully to avoid chewed bones. A couple of helmets lay on the floor next to a ribcage and broken hip bones. Spent bullet cases were everywhere, gleaming in his NVG-enhanced sight. He tried to read the placards along the hallway. Most were covered in dark stains, but he made out one he thought had, at one time, spelled LOCKER.

  He signaled Jenna to the door. There was no window in this door to tell him what was next. He twisted the handle, held his breath, and swung the door open.

  Jenna’s barrel aimed left, then right. She took a few quiet steps forward before Dom followed. Rows of lockers formed three aisles in the middle of the room. They scanned the aisles, one by one. Some lockers hung open. Other locker doors were dented. A few were torn off. More bones lay around the floor. A bulletproof vest lay over a cracked ribcage.

  Didn’t do the owner much good, Dom thought.

  They moved through the center aisle to the back of the locker. There, they found an open doorway to the showers and a closed door leading to the firearms storage. Dom gestured to the door with a nod. Finally, they’d found what they’d come for.

  Like before, he prepared to open the door, and Jenna lined up ready to fire on anything waiting beyond it. He started to twist the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Something was behind it, blocking the door. He pushed harder, but it gave only slightly. Images of Miguel and Glenn bunkered down in the boathouse whirled through his mind. They didn’t have time for obstacles like this.

  He took a step back and then rammed the door with his shoulder. The impact sent a wave of pain through his bones. Whatever was behind the door crashed to the floor in a jumble of falling wood and clanging metal. The noise echoed hollowly in the locker room.

  As the makeshift barricade settled, Dom heard something behind him. A loud gurgling announced the presence of a Drooler. The ugly creature clumsily walked out of the showers. Its claws twitched, and its skinny, bony arms trembled. The void where its jaw had been revealed the dark recesses of its devastated throat. The gurgling grew louder, and the beast let loose its acid spray.

  -30-

  Dom shoved Jenna past the broken desks and chairs into the other room. Acid splashed against the locker room walls. The Drooler stumbled forward, still gushing. The corrosive liquid hit the door. Wood burned and sizzled as the acid hit.

  Another rasping noise caught his attention. Jenna had already turned to deal with another Skull. This one wore a ragged uniform that hung off its limbs in tatters. A patch on its left shoulder was emblazoned with the letters MP, and it still wore a blood-spattered riot face shield. A rifle was slung across its back, but the strap was entangled in its overgrown shoulder blades. A bulletproof vest strained against the spiky ribs growing out from its flesh. It ran at Jenna, its feet clicking along the concrete as the Drooler lumbered toward Dom.

  The Drooler was gurgling again. Dom played his rifle over the thing’s head. He had to be very careful at this range; a misplaced bullet could cause the Drooler to erupt and douse him and Jenna in its devastating brew.

  A smattering of gunfire sounded off to his right as Jenna tried to bring down the MP Skull. Dom heard rounds thud against the monster’s body armor—both the military-issued vest and plates and the organic skeletal bulwarking. Bullet cases pinged across the floor as the creature screamed in fury.

  Dom had to trust Jenna to handle it. The Drooler wrenched its head back in preparation for the second round of acid. Dom fired. Two rounds lanced through the back of the creature’s throat, but it continued to gargle. Another blasted its eye socket. The Drooler listed to its left. As the sounds of Jenna’s struggle with the MP Skull continued, Dom lowered his shoulders and ran at the Drooler. He slammed into the monster and picked it up. The creature let out a long groan.

  He threw the Drooler into the showers where it had come from. Acid shot from the creature’s gruesome mouth as it twisted through the air. It crashed into a tiled wall, and several bony plates split with an audible snap. Acid bubbled through those fresh cracks. Dom ducked as more acid burst from the monster’s belly, tearing the Drooler open. It sizzled and popped as it hit the tiles. Wet, slurping sounds echoed off the walls as chunks of acid-soaked flesh dripped down.

  The creature ignored what Dom assumed would be sheer, unadulterated agony and flipped itself over to crawl toward Dom, dragging its ruined body through pools of burning acid with its dissolving front claws. Its one good eye looked at him with pure malice. Dom tore his HK45C from his side holster and sent three rounds of hot lead through the Drooler’s skull. The creature’s face disappeared in the blaze of gunfire, and it finally stopped. Its body was slowly disintegrated by its own acid.

  With the pistol still in his hands, he ran to Jenna. She was on her back, blood dripping from a wound in her head. Her rifle lay several yards away on the floor. Her fingers were wrapped around the Skull’s wrists, holding the monster back. It snapped and writhed, pushing her along the floor. Its jaws gnashed behind the riot shield visor, and it slammed its head down as if trying to take a chunk out of Jenna’s face. The visor prevented the creature’s teeth from tearing into her flesh, but it did nothing to lessen the impact of the monster’s helmet cracking against Jenna’s skull again. She yelped in pain and fought to keep the creature at bay.

  Her arms shook with the effort. Dom saw she wouldn’t hold out much longer. He also realized he couldn’t take a shot without risking hitting her. Besides, the damn monster was twice as well protected as a normal Skull.

  He holstered his weapon and ran straight at the Skull. His momentum carried it off Jenna an
d into the wall. Shelves tumbled around it, spilling file folders. It screamed, and bloody spittle sprayed the inside of its visor. With a kick, it brought itself back to its feet and sliced at Dom. He ducked to avoid the crooked claws and returned the attack with a boot to the creature’s knee. The bony plates cracked, and its joint bent backward. It stumbled forward, still lashing out.

  Dom planted another boot on its chest and sent it sprawling. Seeing an opening, he jumped on the Skull’s chest, keeping it down with his knee, and unholstered his pistol. He pressed the barrel under the Skull’s chin and pulled the trigger. Chunks of flesh and bone spattered the inside of the visor and helmet. The creature’s flailing limbs went still, and its head lolled to the side.

  Dom’s chest heaved as he gasped for breath. He ran to Jenna and knelt by her side. “You okay?” He looked at the bleeding gash across her forehead.

  “Dazed, but all right,” she said.

  “Your head?”

  She wiped away the blood with the back of her gloved hand. “No Oni Agent contact. Just busted open from that asshole’s helmet.”

  Dom offered her a hand. She took it and stood. After brushing herself off, she recovered her rifle and then picked up Dom’s and tossed it to him. They stood, back to back, and surveyed the room. He spotted a case of bottled water near a box of MREs along with several weapons. But, most importantly, no more Skulls.

  He saw gauze wrapped around the MP Skull’s wrist. It had probably been a minor injury, just a small scratch. The story was all too familiar to Dom, and he could easily guess what had happened. After locking the infected in the holding cells, the MP had barricaded himself in here with enough supplies to hold out until help arrived. He would have had no idea that one scratch was all it took to become one of the monsters himself.