"NO!" Takakura shouted as Taylor, standing for a strange moment, fell back before the beast. In the shadows Takakura saw that a wide portion of the commando's chest had been torn cleanly away, leaving half a man falling backward to the ground. The creature tossed a black mass to the side, and turned its grotesque face toward Takakura.
Fangs parted in a menacing smile.
Takakura saw the other soldiers converging on the site—twenty seconds—and dropped to a knee, firing all that remained in the thirty-round clip at the creature as it strode slowly forward. So contemptuous was it of the Japanese and the rifle that it did not rush at all, but came with thundering, remorseless strides that closed the distance in horrible certainty.
Somewhere in the last few rounds Takakura understood its inhuman pleasure at a slow kill and spaced the bullets, firing the last one—it was still moving slowly—when it was five feet away. It opened its fanged mouth in an explosive roar.
Gambling that it would expect him to react as the others had reacted at its horrific image and approach, Takakura lifted the rifle in a frightened stance, feigning shock. Gloating, growling, it raised its right hand high, fangs wide with a hellish smile.
Takakura moved.
With the speed and skill perfected from a lifetime of kendo he dropped the rifle and quick-drew the long katana, angling the sword through a cross-body cut with all the strength of his back and arms and wrists. The entire movement, from the time his hands left the gun until the momentum of his cut carried him to the side, had lasted less than a second.
A normal man would have been cut cleanly in half through the hips. But the thing staggered forward a space, glaring down at the deep gash torn in its chest, blood already descending in dark rivulets. Then it turned slowly in a tight half-circle, staring at itself, then at Takakura with an odd mixture of shock and anger.
Takakura knew he would not be so lucky next time. He had deceived it with its own pride. But now it knew it could be injured by the katana. It would not make the same mistake twice.
The other platoons now reached the site and opened fire. Takakura ducked away as they unleashed hundreds of rounds at the creature. Glaring back in the deafening smoke-choked atmosphere Takakura could see the lead impacting against the thick skin, bouncing or flattening and utterly failing to penetrate.
Yet its rage ran deep, for despite the concentrated attack it came for Takakura again, who stood sword in hand. Takakura knew it would kill him this time; if his first masterful blow had not been enough to finish it, then he could not kill it at all. And although the Japanese moved as quickly as he could, far quicker than most men, it was on top of him as he hit the ground, rolling under a thirty-ton Dooley.
Charging at the last, it struck the gigantic transport vehicle in the door with its shoulder—a thunderous impact that shattered glass and half-lifted the Dooley from the ground—and a split second later Takakura saw the wide steel door ripped away and hurled into shadow.
It reached beneath the cab to snatch him and Takakura scampered to the far side, narrowly avoiding the reach of that colossal arm and rending talons.
But he knew he couldn't keep up the game; sooner or later it would get him. Then the entire night was a wall of rifle fire, illuminating everything—the Dooley, tires, vehicles, lights, the fence, and the creature, screaming and roaring in the apocalyptic night. And with a hideous bellow it charged fully through a line of soldiers, hesitating only a heartbeat to kill anyone in reach, and was lost.
Stunned, breathless, and shocked, Takakura rolled onto his back, feeling his chest, checking for injury. As caught up as he was in battle, he knew he could be hit in half a dozen places and not notice. After a moment, as scattered fighting continued to rage—the creature continuing to play its game of devastating guerrilla attacks—he rolled out from beneath the truck and wearily gained his footing.
He searched for his rifle, saw a dozen slaughtered troops in the smoking opening. Then he staggered forward as an invisible fist whistled in from the darkness—a rocket he did not see but sensed—and an unseen baseball bat hit him hard in the chest, fully flattening him back against the ground.
Groaning, rolling, fighting violently for breath, Takakura knew what it was: a stray .223 round had found him. He had not been the target, but so many rounds fired in so small a place would eventually find friendly casualties.
Breathless, dazed, and nauseated, he managed to detach the bulky load-bearing vest, dropping it to the ground. Then, eyes blurring, he ripped away two of the Velcro straps securing the bulletproof vest, feeling his sweat-slicked chest beneath.
He groaned, too tired to feel relief.
No, it hadn't penetrated.
As he struggled to rise, he felt the night whiter, lighter, warm, and hazy. He took one staggering step ... two ...
Blackness rushed up.
***
Hunter heard Brick hurl the elephant rifle violently across a desk and began to rise when, on impulse, Hunter whirled, swiping with the speed of a leopard with the Bowie. The butt of the hilt caught Hamilton, also attempting to rise, square on the cluster of nerves located midway up the neck, and the physician fell limp to the tiles.
Reorienting, Hunter saw the second guard's rifle lying close but still too far to reach without exposing himself. So he risked a quick glance and saw that the other four had opened up on Brick's position with fully automatic fire, apparently forgetting him in the presence of an armed and obviously very dangerous intruder firing upon them.
Launching himself forward, Hunter dove and snatched up the M-16 as he sailed over the cleaved body of the second soldier. Then he hit the ground and rolled, instantly finding cover behind a thick metal desk as one of the guards glimpsed the bold move and fired, bullets tearing through the steel panels.
Moving quickly, Hunter rounded half a dozen corners and threw his back against the wall as he ripped out the magazine. Shaking his head to clear his face from the sudden eruption of sweat, he saw that it held thirty rounds. So he set the selector switch on fully automatic and chambered a cartridge, insuring that the safety was off. Holding the rifle close, he angled back to the firefight.
Brick had obviously hurled the Weatherby aside after the first two thunderous rounds—there had been no time to reload—and was using the semiauto. Listening and catching quick glimpses of desperate black shapes outlined by a strobe of gunfire, Hunter targeted two of the guards. He lowered the barrel around a corner, taking time to adjust for elevation, and pulled the trigger.
Recoil was greater than he'd anticipated and he lowered the aim quickly, striking both guards, the equipment around them, and the floor, losing a number of rounds into the ceiling before he completely adjusted. But when he turned and retreated, breathlessly selecting a new line of attack, he had acclimated. Not as bad as a 30.30, the M-16 nevertheless became quickly unmanageable on fully auto if a firm grip wasn't applied to the stock. With no backup magazines, Hunter realized he would have to conserve rounds.
Raging, firing, cursing, and roaring, Brick was holding his own against the surviving four, and Hunter located him by the distinctive sound of the rifle. It was a louder, booming blast that by comparison made the M-16's sound weak and wispy. Then the shooting stopped—stopped all at once to a ringing silence—and Hunter froze.
He had been halfway to his intended location when somehow, somewhere far above they heard the report of a tremendous explosion, followed by a subterranean vibration that rattled the floor and walls and ceiling.
Hunter knew it had begun.
He had to get up top.
He had to reach Bobbi Jo.
***
"No," Bobbi Jo whispered as the tanker exploded, engulfing a third of the compound in flame.
It had finally happened, as she knew it would. The wild and erratic rifle fire of the troops had found the gasoline tank, and now the compound roared with the inferno. Night rushed over her head, sucked into a firestorm that created its own wind.
She saw proba
bly thirty troops fully aflame, rushing blindly around the motor pool. Other soldiers grabbed them and threw them to the ground only to have their arms and legs light up from the rain of fire still spiraling from the sky. She shook her head, shocked at the carnage.
Never had she seen anything like this. This was the end of the world, a war fought in hell with the devil among them. They would die tonight, she thought. Every one of them. They would die.
Her attention was snapped awake as she saw a Herculean form striding, neither fast nor slow, from behind a Humvee, moving for the back of a soldier assisting a burn victim. She didn't need any more to recognize that Goliath-like profile—the shaggy squared head with gray hair sweeping back—and her eye was at the scope. She had instantly flicked off the safety, sighting solid.
She knew the range by heart: 120 yards.
Point-of-aim contact.
It raised wide hands when it was ten feet away from the unaware victim ...
Bobbi Jo fired.
The incredible blast of the Barrett blinded her for a split second and she blinked. A moment later she saw the unwounded soldier already on his feet, firing his rifle at the creature, prostrate beside the Humvee. The burn victim had ceased moving, lay still in the flame.
The next explosion, from generators overheated by the burning tanker, rocked the mountains around them. Thousands of gallons of gasoline stored in the shed for emergencies went up with a small nuclear-shaped mushroom cloud of fire that scorched her face though she was three hundred yards away. The roar of the explosion continued on and on into the distant cold night, reverberating from mountain to mountain, over the world.
Bobbi Jo shouted at the secondary concussion, a breathtaking shock wave that shook the building. Blasted-out windows and rocketing antennas clattered behind her as they fell.
She was instantly up and searching, flicking on starlight illumination to acquisition the creature in the flame-lit night. She didn't find it beside the Humvee where it had fallen. It wasn't finishing off the wounded from the explosions. It wasn't slaughtering the last group of unwounded soldiers huddled tightly in the middle of the compound. Struck by quick fear she swung the scope, searching desperately for that terrifying—
"No!" she screamed.
It landed with solid intent on the cab of a truck less than twenty feet away and she fired. But even as the Barrett discharged she knew she had missed and set her shoulder tight against the butt, forgoing the scope; at this range she didn't need it.
Ten soldiers stationed on the roof opened up with her, a cascade of lead pouring defiantly down, but it leaped forward and at the ground launched itself powerfully forward, running full speed—a wild bull with the speed of a cheetah—to smash with awesome force into the steel door securing the rear of the building. Following its lightning-quick strides they tracked a devastating deluge of lead, centering on its mutated form until it burst the door from its hinges and bolts and vanished.
Soldiers on the roof, already electrified with panic at the horrifying slaughter in the motor pool, erupted in confused panic and contradictory orders. Then Maddox, fear and desperation strengthening his spine, bellowed for them to lay down a cross fire with the M-60's—heavy-caliber, fully automatic machine guns that were the major small arms of the Vietnam era—on the single door leading to the roof.
They moved with the efficiency of action inspired by life-and-death situations. In quick time they had the door covered. If it could walk through that concentrated barrage, there would be no stopping it. Ever.
Crouching behind the short wall that hid her profile from the ground, Bobbi Jo reviewed what she knew about it, tried to remember what Hunter had told her. It was difficult to think but she concentrated, closing her eyes briefly to regain control. A few breaths, and she analyzed what it had done . . .
Would it simply come up the stairs?
Did it ever attack as they anticipated?
Flashing through every confrontation that she'd suffered with the creature, she knew that only one thing was indisputable. It never attacked like you anticipated.
"Not this time, no," she whispered, running to the south side of the building, searching down. Nothing. She ran to the east, behind the cubicle that housed the stairway, to the warning cries of soldiers. They were simultaneously screaming at her, ten voices bellowing the same thing, colliding with each other for supremacy; "Bobbijo! Get out of the way! If it breaks the door we'll have to shoot you, too!"
Grimacing with physical exhaustion and ravaged nerves, she searched over the edge. Nothing.
"Get out of the way, Bobbi!" a soldier bellowed with concern and rage.
Sweat pouring, Bobbijo ran for the north side as—
She saw it emerge, backlit by roaring flame that reached hundreds of feet into the air, and it did not see her. And she knew; it had simply leaped, as before, clearing the twenty feet to land on the edge of the roof. It landed hulking and bent, broad bowed head glaring at the backs of those who'd been deceived. As she stopped and spun the Barrett, sighting from the hip, it noticed her and turned its head slowly.
Snarled.
What happened next could only happen to those who knew they would surely die, here and now, if they did not reach deep within, to that place where even professional soldiers rarely went, for that last measure of courage.
Bobbi Jo fired and the impact was high in its torso, slamming it back against the wall. Mentally she calculated how many rounds remained in the magazine: two. She fired the next as it leaped, and she hit it again, center chest contact. It staggered a step before it fell onto its face, folding slowly to its knees, a hand rising with a growl. Bobbi Jo dropped the near-empty clip and did a tactical reload, slamming in a new magazine of five rounds.
The rest of the platoon, well aware of its surprise attack by now and having adjusted to swing aim, opened up together. And at the irritating impacts, bruised and burned and somehow bloodied, the creature rose and ran toward Bobbi Jo.
Standing solid, Bobbi Jo frowned: there was nothing else to do,
She fired, teeth emerging in a snarl, the six-foot flame almost joining them past the long barrel. It roared, grunted, staggered, and she raised aim, hitting it again as the Barrett lit the rooftop with its devastating muzzle blast. She hit its chest, heart, placed another round to the heart, saw her last bullet tear off a chunk of its neck.
It stood, staggered off balance, as if in shock. Apparently deeply wounded, broken, it twisted slightly away from her, placing a monsters hand against its savaged throat.
Frowning—with nowhere to retreat to, anyway—Bobbi Jo dropped the clip and inserted another in less than a second, racking the six-inch bolt almost for the sheer pleasure of letting it know what was coming. But her action didn't get its attention. It staggered away, clutching its throat, groaning.
"Hey!" she shouted. "We ain't finished!"
The thing staggered toward the platoon.
"Bobbi Jo!" they screamed together. "Get out of the way!"
It closed on them.
They were in each other's line of fire. The platoon couldn't shoot the creature without also shooting her, and she couldn't open up with the Barrett with them so close in front of it.
Ten more steps and it would be on them.
She didn't have time to run to the sides.
She read the panic on their faces: God help me, they have to be able to shoot. . .
Twisting her head, she glared over the edge of the roof, saw a twenty-foot drop to a rusty brown gazebo above the kitchen door. Trash cans littered the tiny area. Only for a tenth of a second did she consider the possibility of a safe descent. Then, Barrett in hand, she placed the other hand on the waist-high wall and vaulted into the night.
"Kill it!" she screamed as she was claimed by the fall.
Behind her the sky was instantly lit by strobe and roars and wounded rage. It continued as white flashed past her and she struck something hard that shattered, surrendering, and closed.
She struck agai
n, harder.
She lay there, hair across her face.
Then darkness.
Clenching his teeth with heated emotion and adrenaline surging in his system, Hunter narrowly suppressed the impulse to rush, knowing it would be a mistake. Then, moving carefully but wasting no time, he rose and continued forward.
As quickly as the gunfire had halted it began again, Brick viciously returning as good as he got, and then Hunter had come up behind them, more worried about Brick's unceasing wall of lead than the two soldiers yet unaware of his presence.
Just as Hunter edged carefully around a concrete pillar he glimpsed Brick's flattop-gray image—an old, big guy with teeth clenched in rage firing a fully automatic rifle with beefy arms—erupt from behind an overturned desk. Ducking back instantly Hunter evaded the cascading round that ripped steel and plastic and buried his section of the room in rifle fire. He waited until the barrage broke, then dropped the barrel of the M-16 around the edge and fired.
One guard went down as the other turned, raising aim. Hunter ducked back again as cement was reduced to chalk, and then Brick's enraged voice cut through the booming chaos.
"Vis a vous, darlin'!"
Hunter didn't look but knew who had fired first. Then he peeked out to see Brick standing coldly over the last guard. Massacred by a long stream of 7.62's fired from what Hunter now recognized as a cut down AK-47, the guard was unmoving. Brick dropped a banana clip and withdrew another from his vest, racking the slide. When he looked at Hunter, his face held no remorse, no emotion.
"I think we got 'em all," the big man said.
Even so, Hunter knew what he had said more by vision than sound because he was temporarily deafened. He shook his head a moment and dropped the clip from the M-16, pausing to remove a bandoleer from one of the dead guards that had another six full clips. He inserted a full thirty-round mag and racked the bolt, rising as Brick approached carrying the Weatherby. The big man snapped the breech shut as another explosion rocked the laboratory.
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