They had left the wreckage of the C-130 behind, including the bodies of those who had lost their lives in the crash. Shepherd counted nearly a dozen of them. He dreaded to count how many others might be hidden in the wreckage. The smell of blood and smoke had hung thick in the air near the crash site, and the fires from the engines were like beacons to any nearby Skulls. Another distant howl bounced between the trees. It was impossible to place which direction it had come from.
A few of the injured Portuguese groaned. One woman gasped with every hobbling step she took. Her ankle had been broken in the crash, and she limped along with the aid of a large stick. Shepherd couldn’t escape the memory of the woman who’d been impaled by a branch. She’d bled out before anyone could reach her. Not that they would have been able to do anything about such a catastrophic injury. Bodies and—Shepherd shuddered—body parts had littered the cabin. One of the civilians, Alex, had been among them.
Shepherd wondered if they should have stayed to search the wreckage more thoroughly. What if they’d missed someone who could have been saved? A few minutes later, the screeches and growls of the Skulls erupted from behind them. There was little doubt as to what the fate of all those dying or dead airmen would be.
“They found the plane,” Rachel whispered to no one in particular.
More howls filled the air along with the scrape of claws against metal. Skulls searching for food, digging for scraps of human flesh under the burning debris. The survivors continued westward at a slow pace. A crunch of a twig to Shepherd’s right caused him to stop. He swiveled, sighting the rifle toward where he imagined the noise had come from. The others came to a halt.
Shepherd counted off the seconds in his head, waiting for another telltale crunch or scrape. A howl or a snarling growl. Anything to let him know they were being stalked by a Skull. When nothing sounded, he gave the signal to carry on.
“Costas,” Shepherd whispered. “Radio.”
Costas nodded and gave him the handheld unit. Shepherd tried a few open and emergency channels, requesting backup, assistance, anything. They’d lost the C-130’s radio in the crash and had only a five-watt manpack. It had a maximum range of five miles, and that was if they were extremely lucky. So far, no one had answered.
Another snap sounded to his left.
Please be a deer, he thought while he stared down the rifle’s iron sights. A deer would be okay. Even a mountain lion. Do we have mountain lions out here? Anything but a goddamned Skull.
Another howl shook through the trees. The hair on the back of Shepherd’s neck stood on end, and his flesh tingled. His pulse pounded in his ears as he crept forward. The injured behind him were making quite a racket. It didn’t matter how stealthily Shepherd tried to move; they were no better off than the weakest among them.
A thought flashed through his head. They could leave those too injured to walk on their own behind. Set up a shelter. Try to get back with help.
Guilt immediately washed through him for even entertaining such a thought. Leaving anyone behind was a death sentence.
Another howl. This one behind them. It was promptly answered by one from ahead. Then another to their right and left.
“Shit,” Shepherd muttered. Surrounded. He didn’t need to tell the others. He saw it in their wide eyes, their quaking lips. They knew what was about to happen. The group bristled with weapons.
“Há!” one of the Portuguese women said, pointing. There!
A Skull charged from the fog with outstretched claws. Its teeth and lips were dripping crimson. Its overgrown ribs were cracked, and it wore ragged blue coveralls—a mechanic in its former life. The Portuguese woman swiveled with her rifle. She lit up the creature in a flash of gunfire. Bullets peppered its face and limbs with dark splotches. It carried on despite the rounds for two steps and then faltered, limbs tangled and broken.
For a moment, the forest was still. Then the ear-shattering roars of Skulls rent the air. Creatures poured from all directions, erupting from the fog.
Shepherd fired at one still wearing military fatigues and then another in blood-covered scrubs. He squeezed the trigger, plugging round after round into the oncoming pack. The shrieks of the Skulls shook his eardrums. A human scream sounded somewhere in their ranks, but he couldn’t afford to look, couldn’t afford to see who had been taken down.
All was chaos. Ripping flesh. Monstrous shrieks. Gunshots.
The scent of spilled blood, rot, and cordite stung Shepherd’s nostrils. Another Skull barreled toward him, hunched like a defensive lineman and built like one, too. Bullets cracked its bulwarked shoulder plates but did not penetrate its diseased flesh. The beast drew closer then jumped, soaring toward Shepherd.
His vision tunneled on the leaping Skull. Its nostrils flared, and its jaw opened to reveal crooked teeth. He fired at the monster’s chest. Bullets traced up the pectoral plates and into its mouth. The creature was dead in midair but still no less dangerous. Shepherd leapt to the side, barely dodging it. The dead Skull skidded across the wet earth, tearing a trail into the soil and plants. Another Skull in the remnants of a sundress bounded toward Shepherd before he could recover. On another day, the thing might have been comical. But humor was the furthest thing from his mind as the beast wailed and the spikes along its vertebrae bristled.
Three rounds, and it went down hard.
Shepherd’s bolt locked back. Empty.
“Out!” he yelled, fishing in his pockets for one of his hastily scavenged magazines. Before he could slam it into place, he heard a sound that sent a chilling wave of fear through his bones. Gurgling, like a pot boiling over.
Abruptly, he turned to see a skinny Skull with a protruding belly, dragging a bent foot behind it. Wisps of fog parted before the creature, and brown sludge dribbled out of the cavity where its jaw had once been. Holes along its throat and even its abdomen wept the same substance. Everywhere the acid touched left scars in the worn bone-plates covering the Skull’s body. Each drop that hit the ground sizzled and steamed.
“Drooler!” Shepherd bellowed. “We got a Drooler!”
He wondered if the Portuguese even knew what he was talking about. He scrambled to slam his magazine in place. Before it clicked in, the Drooler’s head cocked back, and the gurgling turned into a fire hose of acid.
“Look out!” Shepherd dove, taking one of the airmen down with him.
Another was not so lucky. The acid hit her flesh. Her skin bubbled and peeled within seconds. It looked to Shepherd as if he were watching a sped-up time-lapse image of meat in an oven. Her agonized screams wailed louder than anything coming from the Skulls’ mouths. One man tried to help her but succeeded only in burning himself.
It tore Shepherd apart inside to turn his back on her. But she was already gone, and there were others still to save. With his weapon reloaded, he wheeled on the Drooler. It had to go, but shooting its stomach would be like setting off an acid bomb. He aimed at the thing’s head. Three shots through the monster’s face left it crumpled on the forest floor. Acid poured from its mouth, scorching the earth, but Shepherd was already turning his attention to the next bony bastard charging from the underbrush.
The battle raged on until Shepherd was breathless and beaten. His lungs burned, and he could taste copper on his tongue as if he’d just sprinted a mile straight. Corpses littered the ground, and blood fed the roots of the trees. These twisted creatures, created by man, would return to nature. When all was still, when only the moans of the injured drifted through the fog, he almost felt like laughing. Delirious, he knew. Some kind of twisted reaction to the horror that had just unfolded. All this bloodshed, all this violence between man and Skull, and the forest didn’t give a damn. Trees kept growing. Flowers would bloom again in the spring.
Nature wasn’t bothered that humans had screwed themselves up, that they were fighting themselves to extinction. Nature would adapt even if the humans did not.
Get a grip, Shepherd, he thought. Get a hold of yourself, you old bastard.
He steeled himself and surveyed the group. Rachel and Rory were tending to someone lying in the grass. Divya and Navid had left Matsumoto to tend to the others. The old asshole was still alive somehow, and Shepherd let out a sigh of relief.
“Costas, I need a SITREP.”
“I am on it,” the sergeant replied. “We have three more dead, six more injured. Eight of the people who were already injured were attacked by the Skulls. Three survived.”
“That’s eleven total injured?” Shepherd asked. He was too exhausted to do the math, but it didn’t really matter. No matter what, they were in bad shape.
Costas nodded. “Yes, and just fourteen of my people still healthy.”
It wasn’t the healthy ones that Shepherd was worried about. They wouldn’t turn into Skulls. “Thank you, Sergeant.” To everyone else, he boomed, “We need to move immediately. Any Skulls we didn’t kill are going to be on this location like flies on shit.”
There were a few groans from those who couldn’t walk unaided, but no one complained. They understood what was at stake. He strode toward Divya as she and Navid hoisted Matsumoto up once more. Connor was crying, and his mother was desperately trying to quiet him. Blood droplets covered Rich’s face as he helped carry Terrence.
“Do we need Phoenix Compound booster shots?” Shepherd asked Divya.
“Those of us who have already had an injection should be fine,” Divya said. “But we don’t have enough to go around. Most of it was destroyed in the crash.”
Navid’s expression was stone cold. The scientist stared straight ahead, his voice flat. “We only have three full doses of the compound.”
“Three doses?” Shepherd asked. “You’re saying we can only help three people?”
Navid nodded miserably. Shepherd stared around the group as they began to march, venturing into the unknown and praying they were headed toward some kind of salvation. He feared what other enemies might be prowling the fog. But it wasn’t only the enemies out there he was afraid of. Their worst foes might end up being each other.
“Costas,” Shepherd said. “Try the radio again. We need to find help.”
That was the understatement of the year.
-21-
Meredith crept over the roof. She could hear the soft murmur of voices in the courtyard of the neighboring building. Barbed wire laced the rooftop. There were two sentries roving back and forth. Neither had any kind of night-vision tools, so she figured sticking to the shadows would be about as safe as hiding behind a wall, considering the darkness flooding Tangier.
“These are not the well-equipped men I would have thought Spitkovsky would have guarding his lair,” Andris said, crouched beside Meredith, his own night-vision goggles in place.
“No, they’re not,” Meredith said. The two men wore camouflage fatigues, but even from where she was Meredith could tell they were soiled with the grime and dried blood of combat. “I don’t think these guys are FGL. Not out here alone like this.”
“Maybe it is some kind of forward outpost.”
“Maybe,” Meredith said. But she could tell Andris didn’t think so either. “Could be Royal Moroccan Army. Maybe they got separated from the rest of their forces.” Then she pictured the military vehicles they’d seen in wasted heaps throughout the city. “Or maybe they are all that’s left.”
“They might be civilians. Survivors that happened upon this military equipment.”
Meredith frowned. Amateur soldiers could go either way. They’d been fortunate to encounter a militia in the Congo who were fighting to survive against the Skulls and help civilians there. But back in the States, Kara, Navid, and Sadie had been abducted by a more aggressive group, ransacking everything in their path and killing anyone who got in their way. They’d beaten Adam to death in some kind of sick, hillbilly Thunderdome. She wondered if these people fit either of those categories—or maybe something in between.
“Think we can get in for a closer look?” Meredith asked.
“You are the expert at sneaking and spying,” Andris said. “I am just along for the ride and to sometimes blow things up.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Meredith slunk along the edge of the roof of the riad. She took a moment to look back at the adjacent building where the rest of the team was waiting. Dom had sent her and Andris to scout ahead. If these people were FGL, then there might be a valuable lead to uncover. If they were some independent group doing their own thing, they still might have intel on the port and how the Hunters might best approach it. The trick was figuring out whether they were friendly. That was up to her and Andris to figure out.
“When that guy looks away, we’re leaping for the next roof.” Meredith pointed to the riad abutting the small complex.
One of the sentries paced around the west side of the building. Easy enough to stay out of his view. The nearer one on the east side meandered toward the opposite corner.
“Now,” Meredith whispered.
She and Andris sailed over the gap between buildings and rushed to hide behind one of the squat walls along the lip of the roof. She counted the seconds as she held herself against the wall, trying to be as small as possible. Andris crouched beside her. When she heard the crunch of boots over the neighboring roof carry on uninterrupted, she risked a look. Both sentries were still patrolling their predictable routes. She studied the compound, searching for any clues as to the affiliation of the people within. A large plastic tarp flapped at the center of the compound’s roof, presumably to keep the rain out. Voices drifted from inside, but all she could tell was that none of them seemed to be speaking English.
She studied one of the guards and noted a badge with a star on one of his shoulders. Royal Moroccan Army. Or at least that was where the uniform had come from.
Then she heard another sound. One she hadn’t heard in a while.
A baby was crying. Its wailing leaked from the compound, and Meredith’s skin prickled as she awaited the howl of a Skull in response. None came, and soon the baby quieted.
“A baby?” Andris said. “That is surprising. I am certain that Spitkovsky wouldn’t allow infants at his posts.”
“Weird,” Meredith said. She pushed past a couple of rusted metal patio chairs and tried to look through the windows, but they were all blocked by wooden boards.
“How long must we do this?” Andris asked.
“All night, if we have to,” Meredith said. “We’ve got to know for certain whether we can trust these people. Otherwise, we’ll just move on.”
“I would rather move on now. Playing spy is rather boring.”
“That it is, but—”
Meredith saw a cone of light spread from an opening door. Another man walked out with a boy who looked to be no older than twelve. The boy’s eyes shone in the dim light as if he’d been crying recently. The man was speaking to the boy in a calm, measured tone as he guided him to the edge of the roof. There they stood, talking quietly and pointing down the streets at various buildings.
More kids, Meredith thought. She reported their observations back to Dom.
“Hold tight,” Dom said. “It sounds promising, but I want more recon first.”
Eventually, the man and boy retreated into the complex. Wind rustled through the coils of barbed wire wrapping the building, and the guards were replaced. The hours went by without any other event or any indication to whom these people’s allegiance belonged. They were wasting their time here if they couldn’t get a lead. She was about ready to retreat and join the others. They’d be better off making their own way to the harbor in search of the FGL shipments.
But before she could move from her position, the baby’s cry pierced the night again. The guards went still, shouldering their rifles and probing the darkness around them. Meredith froze. Her pulse beat in her ears, and she listened hard, blocking out the nighttime sounds of buzzing insects and sighing wind.
A howl sliced through the still night air. A few more joined it, rising above the windin
g alleys and streets.
“Meredith, Andris,” Dom called. “Get out of there. Now.”
Meredith didn’t respond. She had seen the boy. She had heard the infant. There were innocents inside that building.
“We must go, Meredith,” Andris said. Then, as if reading her thoughts, he added, “They have survived out here this long. They can survive tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course. You’re right.”
The click-clack of claws against stone echoed between the buildings below. Meredith spotted a half-dozen bright-green shapes charging the riad where the baby was still crying. The infant’s shrill voice was like a homing beacon for the creatures.
From Meredith’s vantage point, it would be an easy shot. She could level all of those monsters right here, right now, in a clean sweep with her suppressed rifle. End the attack before it even began.
She watched the guards, expecting them to do something about the Skulls. It should have been easy enough for them, too. You couldn’t ask for something much better than an enemy combatant running in a straight line without cover.
But the guards weren’t moving. They couldn’t see the Skulls like she could. They didn’t have night vision. She pictured the baby. The boy on the roof.
They didn’t even see the attack coming. It would be a massacre.
***
Andris sighted up the first Skull with his MK11. The ammo would blow a hole in the creature’s chest, leaving nothing but bleeding, broken ribs. But he held his fire, waiting for the order.
“How many contacts?” Dom asked.
Andris counted them. He had a better view with his scope than Meredith did through her NVGs. “There is a group of six coming from the south with four more behind them.”
The Tide: Dead Ashore (Tide Series Book 6) Page 18