Asimov was able to reload the weapon only an instant before the creature landed. There was no time to aim — he just raised the .45 and shot as fast as he could pull the trigger, almost point-blank. A heartbeat later and it was a jumble of tumbling bodies — man and monster rolled across the ground, and somehow Asimov ended on top. Quickly, he stuck the gun in the open mouth of the creature and fired again, blowing out the back of the Shade’s head.
Then something hit him on the side — the goddamn female! For a moment, Asimov’s vision was covered up by a veil made of pure darkness. A second later he felt claws closing over his neck. His feet left the ground, and Asimov was looking at the distorted face of the Shade — and he knew that that thing wouldn’t try to choke him; it would simply snap his neck with a loud and wet crack.
With the knowledge came the action — or perhaps the action came first, after all, given the infinitesimal interval between the two. It was a move of absolute instinct; Asimov grabbed the Shade’s wrist with one hand and tapped the other palm on the female’s elbow. The creature yelled as its arm snapped up. The tightness in Asimov’s throat loosened, and he lifted his legs and kicked the female in the chest, tossing her away from him.
When his feet hit the ground, Asimov felt the sharp pain on the side of his body. He whirled with a curse on his lips, hands going to ribs and feeling the bleeding. Asimov forced himself to his feet, sensing the ground sway beneath his feet, struck by a sudden dizziness. There was blood on his fingers — his blood.
About twenty feet away, the Shade was already upright, with a sort of sickening crack coming from her throat. The female didn’t even seem to notice the broken wrist — surely the wound wouldn’t slow her down.
A cold shudder of nausea bubbled through his gut and Asimov spat blood, experimenting an uncontrollable desire to blink, a chain of electricity running on his brain. He didn’t turn his attention away from the female, part of his brain saying it was the end — he was wounded and unarmed; he didn’t even know where the gun was anymore.
Then he cringed at the sound of a woman’s voice.
“Kill!” she grunted. “Kill it, now!”
Asimov turned, looking for the woman. There she was, watching him from the doorway of one of the motel’s rooms, the umbrella barely shielding her from the heavy rain.
“You must kill!” The woman almost growled, looking at him and then at the Shade. Asimov followed her gaze, watching the monster move its feet, preparing for the attack. In an unconscious act, Asimov’s hands moved and his fingers found the metal handle of his knife. He pulled it out and then looked at the blade and the monster ahead.
And he felt invaded by the heat.
It was a fury, a desire on terms with combat, the savagery licking his flesh like a polished flame that burned but didn’t consume. The pressure supplanted everything but the beating of the Shade’s heart. His vision narrowed, making the world smaller until there were only him, the blade and its prey.
“Do it!” the woman yelled. “Do it, before it kills you! DO IT NOW!”
The female Shade screamed and jumped, that same energy, that same explosion of movement. She was in the air, flying. Dominated by that thirst for blood, the desire to destroy, the hunger to kill, Asimov’s pain and fear are gone.
The Shadow let out a final howl, falling on him, and Asimov went to meet it.
♦♦♦
Thomas did the only thing an eleven-year-old could do when he was grabbed by a monster three times bigger than him — he screamed and kicked like a girl, grabbing everything he could see; a completely superfluous attempt to break away from its grip.
The claws of the Shade, clinging to his ankle, might well be of steel. The thing easily dragged the boy around the room. Thomas fought, he did his best, but possibly it would have been more productive to have concentrated his efforts on crying and preparing his soul to leave that world. Thomas gave up and, as the Shade passed with him through the broken window of the room, he closed his eyes and thought of his mother.
And suddenly, the room cleared and thunder exploded inside it. The Shade dropped Thomas, staggering out of the room. He lifted his face and saw Olivia standing in the doorway of the bathroom, the .38 on her hands, shaking, and her breathing ragged.
“Run!” She yelled. The Shade was rising, its attention turned to her, forgetting entirely the boy. “Thomas, run!”
She fired again with the .38, just as the Shade burst out into a blur of motion. The bullet hit the nothingness, and then the monster was there in front of her, at a speed that crushed rational thought, so close that she could feel the damp heat of the thing’s breath. Olivia was still trying to process what she was seeing, listening and feeling, when the Shade jumped over her.
She screamed.
And then she was making little noises that would haunt the dreams of any sane person, while Thomas sprinted away from there, as fast as his legs could carry his body.
♦♦♦
Asimov entered the room just three minutes later, bearing the marks of his duel. He looked like a mad savage — and God knew he felt like one, with blood dripping from him at every step. His face was flayed and bruised, bleeding from a new scalp wound. There were deep cuts in his thighs and arms. The back and pectoral muscles had been practically shredded.
His appearance wasn’t extremely terrifying thanks to the rain constantly washing his body and the black uniform that didn’t highlight the dirt and concealed the severity of his wounds. The only thing that kept Asimov standing seemed to be the amalgamation of his remaining strength in the midst of that strange killer instinct. Although he gasped heavily, there was a murderous, brutal glint in his eyes, and his combat knife, quivering in his hands, was red to the hilt.
When he entered the room he saw Olivia’s body on the floor, with the last Shade above her, tearing at her with broken teeth.
“NO!”
His voice had turned into a mad cry as he attacked. At the sound of his scream, the Shade turned to him, but Asimov was faster and was in full stride now, matching momentum and energy with a perfect and straight angle of attack. Asimov hit the thing in a flash, thrusting the knife into its chest. His other hand squeezed the Shade’s throat as it let a yelp, and even though the thing was bigger than him, Asimov lifted the monster up and carried it across the room at an abyssal speed, slapping the thing against a wall, so strong that dust fell from the beams.
He pulled the knife back and moved it violently across the Shade’s throat, sawing out tendons, muscles, and esophagus. The blood soaked the monster’s chest and Asimov’s face.
The Shade gurgled, and a fleshy fist connected with Asimov’s head, throwing him back. The monster staggered for a few moments, clawing at the slash on the neck. For a second, its despair almost remembered a human.
Asimov rolled over one shoulder and stood up, screaming as he went headfirst against the thing. The wounded Shade tried to push him away with the left arm. Asimov avoided the claws and grabbed its arm, twisting it brutally until the bones cracked. Then he grabbed the creature by the head, seeing its big eyes and its mouth warping in a silent scream of pain. If there was anything like a request for clemency there, Asimov didn’t accept it.
Holding the skull of the Shade with both hands, he lifted the creature with a force no man on Earth should ever possess, and then brought it back to the ground, bursting its head against the floor, hearing it breaking and the skull shattering by the same token.
The Shade slumped beneath him, dead for good.
Overpowered by anger and panting exhausted, his forehead dripping with sweat and fresh blood, Asimov staggered away from the lifeless creature. His body was soaked with blood and he wasn’t even sure how much it was his or from the monsters.
His own breathing was a wheeze. With his head light and his energy exhausted He looked at Olivia, writhing in the center of a pool of blood only a few paces away.
He dropped to his knees beside her. Olivia was dying. Blood bubbled from her slash
ed throat with every attempt to breathe. Asimov held her hands, knowing that there wasn’t anything he could do for her now. Olivia’s eyes rose to his face, but there was no recognition in them. He didn’t look away from her, however — he wouldn’t dare. He held the girl’s hands and waited.
How long had it taken for her to die? It shouldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Suddenly, her body quivered frantically and went flaccid. Her fingers in his hand loosened, and Olivia was gone.
Asimov closed her eyes with the base of his hand and looked away from her body, feeling a swirl of emotions. His hands were shaking — he was about to lose control. Somewhere in his memory, something told him to count from one to ten. He did so, and then forced himself to his feet, a terrible exercise — it looked like there was a cloak made of lead on his shoulders.
Thomas, a voice in your head echoed, where is he? I have to find Thomas...
But where was he? Had he been taken? Had he run away? There was no sign of the boy nowhere. Asimov knew he had to find him. With some discrepancy, he left the room. A sudden dizziness made his vision mix up, and his body seemed to weigh a ton. It was the blood loss, something told him. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind — he couldn’t stop, not now. He had to find the boy. He was wounded, very wounded, but none of that mattered. He had to find Thomas and make sure he was fine; everything else could wait.
His sight blurred further. Asimov felt his legs wobble, staggered, and banged his head against a wall. Then he fell back on it, his trembling legs apart, no longer able to support him.
Get up! He ordered himself. Get the fuck up!!!
But his body wouldn’t comply with. Asimov felt his head spin as if he was drunk, and he soon beat it to the concrete on the floor. His arms and legs didn’t respond. The body was too heavy. The eyelids weighed sleepily with each breath that exhaled through his mouth. He saw his blood forming a puddle around him. As it grew, it was diluted by rainwater.
Thomas...
A feminine figure approached, her sneakers stopping before his face. As she crouched down, Asimov looked up and saw a hint of sadness hidden under the playful grimace. She closed the umbrella, staring at him in silence.
“Don’t blame yourself. You did well,” she said, and then kissed his injured face. “Don’t worry; I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Asimov’s eyes closed. For a while, he heard only his heavy breathing and the sound of the rain pounding against the ground.
Then his mind plunged into oblivion.
JACKPOT
“This car it’s busted, bro.”
“No shit, man, and I don’t think I can fit inside it, either — too small for me.”
“That’s what I said to Marsha.”
Archer didn’t need to look to know that Schaeffer was showing the finger to him. He got out the car and scanned the street, searching both for vehicles that seem good to try to hotwire and also for hostile movement. There were plenty of vehicles scattered on the streets, but mostly are either crashed against something or resting in angles to odd to worth a shot.
To the Shades, there were no signs. Apart from the bits of trash on the street, skittering in the slight wind, nothing moved. All that Archer could see evidence of a struggle for survival long lost. He wondered if he wasn’t having a vision of the future of his own country if they lose the war.
“Come on,” he called Schaeffer as his hands moved to the grip of his customized rifle, “I want to get dry soon…”
It was a little odd, however, to play stealth during the day — regardless of a rain storm that reduced the sunlight to 40% of its aptitude. During years Special Operations Forces used to own the night, but now the rules had changed and even they feared the darkness.
They moved out smartly, boots making only the barest of whispers across the concrete, bodies soaked by the rain and eyes darting from side to side, hugging the walls — a deadly taboo when facing hostile shooters, but a effective tactic when someone want to stay out of sight of a thing that try to tear you to pieces with long tooth and nails.
Archer took point. He scanned down streets and into open windows and doors, his rifle following everywhere his eyes went. A few short steps behind him, Schaeffer kept an eye on their flanks. They couldn’t trust their ears as the heavy rain noise coated the entire vicinity, forcing them to search rely on the eyes as they would never pick up the sound of running feet beating against the asphalt. Still, they didn’t found anything beyond death, and their motion sensors also didn’t pick anything.
Checking his forearm digital map periodically — they all have one — it was Schaeffer who saw the car lot, ten blocks ahead.
“Jackpot,” he said.
The lot had about thirty cars. The newer models were toward the front, the older ones were off to the back. There was a small two-story building with offices at the side of the lot. Instead of going straight to hotwire, they decide to look for the keys in the building.
Archer and Schaeffer stepped slowly through at the front doors, which, by the way, hung broken as though someone had tried to rip them off the wall. Once inside, they took a few steps into the hallway, then knelt down to just listen and observe, but all they could hear were the sounds of the rain outside.
Inside the building, there was nothing other than empty rooms, bullet holes, brass and broken furniture everywhere. A fight happened there, a long time ago. Archer and Schaeffer checked all of the corners and dead spaces, but the building looked untouched.
“Archer, Hendrix, how copy?”
Archer keyed his radio, “Loud and clear, boss.”
“Give me a sit-rep.”
“Still looking for a working vehicle; we are within a car lot, ten blocks from our original designated area. No treats in the surrounding area.”
“Roger that. Don’t take too long.”
“Solid copy, out.”
“Out.”
After fifteen minutes, inside a small office on the second floor, they found a wooden shelf full of car keys. Schaeffer took some of the keys, reading the names on the metal tags.
“Found an Audio R9 here and a Volkswagen Amarok truck,” he said. “Which one the boss will like?”
“I bet on the R9,” Archer answered, “that much I can guarantee.”
“Oh, well, never gambles with a professional gambler…”
“Not funny, man.”
“Yes, it was,” Schaeffer put the keys in his pocket. Then he thought again and grabbed as many keys as he could. “Now we just need to actually find the cars—”, he started to say as half dozen red dots appeared on his motion sensors, and without more ado a group of Shades blows up a window, landing inside the office in a rain of twinkle shards.
So much for an uncomplicated car sale, Archer thought, lifting his rifle. He quickly noticed that those Shades were bigger than the ones he had engaged back in the States. Those were the White Dead, the Deltas.
Next, he was firing his weapons like a maniac.
♦♦♦
Close-quarters battle, or CQB, it’s a tactical concept that forms a component of the strategic notion of urban warfare. It requires a fast and accurate application of deadly force, demanding from an operator great proficiency with their weapons and the ability to make split-seconds decisions and reactions.
The idea of CQB was straightforwardly like that — though CQB against a man-eater takes the game to a whole new level. Having to deal with the Shades in a confined environment was like being in the cage of a lion with a water gun to save your ass — not funny and not fair.
There were suppressed shots, roars, and next something like a muffled explosion as Archer ran at a wall, shoulder first, bursting through the bricks and soaring out into the cold and wet air outside the building — and down, a two-store fall straight to the parking lot. He fell badly, not enough to break his body but to make him bite his tongue in pain.
Ok, maybe that wasn’t too smart, Archer thought as he regained his feet, feeling his shoulder aching. The
exoskeleton could give to him strength and resilience but didn’t provide any armor and it wouldn’t do anything about a broken bone.
He whirled to face the two Deltas that rushed toward him by the hole he had just manufacture. Archer fired with his rifle, finishing one with a headshot and the thing slumped to the side. As he aims at the second, the Delta dropped on all fours and galloped, crossing the distance between them in three rapid movements and hitting him on the chest.
Archer left the ground as he was tossed back several feet like a ragdoll. He crashed into a sedan with a grunt, the impact knocking the wind out of him as the monster plummets on him. His rifle was gone, and Archer had taken out his pistol, but now his two hands were busy trying to keep the monster’s fangs away from his neck.
Archer had fought Shades hand-to-hand before — not something a wise man should do —, and knew they were dangerously strong, but those Deltas plays on a different level — even with his exosuit exerting all the force it was designed to produce, it was clear he couldn’t keep the monster away for long. It wasn’t a lion, no sir — it was a fucking bear! With no option, Archer hauled his own head back — and smashed his helmet right into the Shade’s open mouth, knocking teeth back into its throat.
A keening howl came out of the Shade, a tiny hiatus on the struggle was provided and Archer used the moment to unholster his pistol, shove the gun against the Shade’s temple and pull the trigger. Blood and brains splattered everywhere and Archer expressed his gratitude to Lady Luck for the fact that he was using a gas mask. As the thing went down, he pushed it aside and found out the third Shade running at him.
He lifted his pistol and fired. Bullets tore into flesh, but the enraged creature didn’t seem to feel it. And that was another thing that he quickly learned: White Shades didn’t always fall when they are supposed to. But Archer didn’t get paralyzed or contemplative — instead, he rolled sideways as the Delta strike empty space; on that, Archer jumped to his feet and backward, his exoskeleton — Oh, technology, I love you so much! — sending him flying, ascending and then descending like an arrow toward a truck parked twenty feet away from the monster.
The War Within #1: Victims Page 11