by A. J. Sikes
“Doesn’t look green to me,” Jo said.
Before Jed could say anything, Reeve looked at her over his shoulder. “So I was wrong. Take it up with my superior officer. Half his ass might be left out there somewhere, but the sucker faces got the rest.”
Jo ignored him and went back to checking out Mahton’s art while Jed watched the window. Sergeant G and Dom came in a beat later.
“They’re fucking with us,” she said. “Trying to push us out to the street.”
“That’s what Jed was saying,” Jo added. “Are they really that smart now? Maybe they just don’t know where we’re hiding.”
“That kind of thinking will get you and probably all of us killed,” Sergeant G said.
Jed angled his view out the window, so he could see more of the street. “We got nothing out here, Sergeant.”
A violent screech split the air and was followed by the sound of joints clicking and snapping outside. Jed stepped up closer and craned his neck to get sight of the exterior wall. Three sucker faces raced up the side of the building and were followed by a clutch of at least five more. They were all focused on following the leader of their little formation, but Jed ducked out of sight and stepped back from the window. He put an arm out toward Jo, waving her back toward the others.
“They’re going for the roof.”
“Then we move out fast and furious,” Sergeant G said. “Closest firehole is two rooms down the hall. We move in teams of three. Clear the rooms as we go. First team is Reeve, Matty, and Jo. And you need to put that thumper to rest. Sidearm only for this operation, rah?”
Jo nodded and slung the grenade launcher around her shoulder. She drew her pistol and checked the safety was off.
“Good to go,” she said.
“Then move out.”
The three stepped out of the room without missing a beat. Reeve took point, Matty followed, and Jo brought up the rear. She looked back at Jed and gave him a thumbs up before stepping out of view.
☣
Gallegos watched the other team depart before lining her men up for their turn.
“Welch, take our six. Dom, you’re in the middle, behind me. We hear their banger, we move out and clear the next room. Then be ready to cover their movement. We leap frog like that to the firehole. Rah?”
Both men replied together.
“Let’s go,” she said and stepped out of the room. Shuffling boots behind her confirmed her men were in the game and on mission. The other team was a few yards ahead in the hallway, beside an open doorway. Reeve tossed the banger into the room and spun around the doorframe the instant the grenade went off. Matty and Jo followed him in with fast steps.
“Clear!” Reeve yelled out.
“On me,” Gallegos told her men and took fast steps down the hall. She drew up outside the next door and repeated Reeve’s action.
The banger went off and she was inside, posting against the near wall to leave room for the others. Dom was slow to follow her in. He stayed behind her while Welch pushed in and took a post on her right. Through the dust and smoke of the grenade she could just make out two shuddering forms in the far corner of the room. She fired twice and the figures went still. A broken window let in weak light. The smoke cleared away, revealing two dead suckers tangled up together.
“Clear!” Gallegos yelled.
“Moving!” Reeve shouted.
☣
Jed waited for the hit. He knew it had to happen soon. They’d been too lucky so far, getting down to the second floor without any trouble. Reeve’s team moved up the hallway now, heading for the firehole to the ground floor. Jed got a look at Matty and Jo as they went by.
Matty had his pistol up and his eyes were open, but he had to shuffle forward every couple steps. The trauma bag swung against his hip as he moved. Jo was on the opposite side of the hall, walking like she’d always been in combat, pistol up and near her cheek so she could hold a good sight picture. Her feet hit the floor just like Reeve’s as she went by.
A single howl chased them from somewhere in the building, like the call of a ghost that wouldn’t leave them alone. Jed couldn’t stop the shakes that rippled through his arms and hands.
“Welch,” Sergeant G said. “Welch, you with us?”
“Huh? Yeah, Sergeant. Yeah, rah. I’m here. Just . . .”
“Just what?”
“Them things are fucking with my head, Sergeant. They’re playing with us and it’s fucking with my head.”
“Stay frosty, Marine. It ain’t nothing but a thing.”
Jed nodded and put his attention back on the hallway, doing his best to ignore the creeping feeling working its way up his spine.
A sharp clap burst through the air and Jed flinched, nearly losing his grip on the SAW.
Just the banger. Reeve and them just cleared the room with the firehole.
“Let’s go!” Sergeant G shouted.
Jed peeled away from the wall and took the point position, running up to the firehole room. Dust spiraled in the air outside the door. He got there in time to see Jo helping Matty down the hole. The firefighter’s head disappeared into the darkness as he dropped into the closet below. Jed posted outside the door while Sergeant G and Dom moved up the hall behind him.
Jo turned to face him from inside the room.
“You good, Jed?”
“Yeah. I’m good. Go on. I got your six.”
Jo dropped to a crouch, swung her legs into the hole and slipped down and out of sight.
Crunching and scuffling sounds behind him were all Jed heard for a moment. Then the sucker faces started up their song and dance outside again.
They’re just fucking with us. This has been their game all along, and now they’re just fucking with us for fun.
His heart hammered as he entered the room and posted on the right. Dom and Sergeant G came in and posted on the left.
“Down the hole, Welch.”
With shaking steps, Jed moved away from the wall and looked through the floor into the darkness of the mop closet.
One more floor and we’ll be on the ground.
“Welch, time to move,” Sergeant G said. He looked at her and nodded, then stepped forward, dropped down to his butt and swung his legs into the hole.
A screech and howl greeted him. Reeve’s scream of agony followed.
Gallegos pushed Dom aside and dropped down the hole after Welch. Chatter from the SAW blasted through the building, punching holes in the silence that followed Reeve’s scream.
I am not losing another man. Not today, not now.
She burst from the mop closet and slammed up against Welch’s back. He staggered forward a step and caught himself, firing off a burst without missing a beat. He sent sustained fire down the hallway and she couldn’t see what he was engaging. Across the hall, Jo, Matty, and Reeve were crouched in a tangle. Jo was working on Reeve while Matty split his attention between helping her and watching back down the hallway. A spray of fresh blood marked the wall above Reeve’s body.
A sucker face lay slumped against the wall farther down the hall. It had three holes in its chest, and its claws were stained bright with blood. Beyond the body was one of the barricades she, Mahton, and Reeve had set up. The desks were covered in scratches and claw marks.
The barricade had been pulled apart.
That’s why they were making all the noise. To cover their break-in. These motherfuckers got smart in a bad way.
Welch stopped firing and Gallegos got a better look at their AO. The barricade was all but useless now. If any more suckers came from that direction, her squad would be swarmed in seconds. Down the other way, a pile of at least a dozen dead monsters filled the hallway leading to the front of the building. More howling came from that direction, but nothing moved in the hall.
“Sergeant,” Jo said.
Gallegos stepped up close to cover the firefighters and Reeve before she answered.
“How is he?” she asked while she monitored the ruins of their barr
icade. “Tell me I still have my Marine.”
“I’m fine,” Reeve said, but his voice cracked with pain at the end.
“How fine is fine, Reeve?”
“His AC joint is in pieces,” Matty said. “The damn thing sliced right through it. And he took a few strikes to his ribs. It jumped on him and rode him to the ground before I could shoot it.”
“I’m fine. Like I said. Fucking—gahh! Fuck. I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine,” Gallegos said.
“He’s can’t use his arm,” Jo said. “We can put some CELOX on it, but he needs a sling and we need to irrigate the wound. We only have a can of spray saline in the bag. How much water do we have?”
“Barely enough to drink,” Gallegos said. “Use what you have to. We’ll get you right, Reeve. Rah?”
“Oo—rah,” he choked out.
☣
Jed kept his finger on the trigger and tucked the SAW in tighter against his shoulder. Weaker howls and screeches found them, stealing into their position from every crack and crevice. Ahead in the hallway, three tall windows let in strips of light. Jed couldn’t stop watching the dead sucker faces on the other side of the light.
Outside, the suckers kept shrieking and howling. They’d stopped hiding their movement. The sickening pop of their joints mixed with their screeches as they raced around in the street.
When’s it going to stop? When are they just going to come in and get us? They broke in down here, and they’re heading up to the roof. They know where we are. They have to.
Jed moved up to the first window and angled for a look outside. The city around them was empty and still. The sun seemed to drop fast in the sky, casting everything into an odd dance of light and shadow. Now and then a small shadow would detach itself from the ruins and scurry across the open street.
A sucker face’s shriek would always come a few seconds later, making Jed think he was watching a movie with a lagging soundtrack. The alpha appeared, striding forward with a cluster of small ones around its legs. Jed couldn’t miss it for its size, and as it passed, he saw the bones hanging off its back.
“Alpha’s up here, Sergeant,” he said. “The one with the bones on him.”
“I don’t want to hear about where they are, Welch. If they’re in your sight picture and present a threat, you are cleared hot.”
“Errr,” Jed said back.
Behind him, Reeve groaned while Jo and Matty took care of his arm. Dom came out from the mop closet and Sergeant G told him to move up to join Jed. The firefighter had his pistol up and came to stand right next to Jed in the middle of the hall.
“Get behind me, man. Shoot over my shoulder if anything comes at us, and don’t hit me, rah?”
“Yeah, rah,” Dom said and stepped back a pace. He handed Jed a flash-bang a second later. Jed pocketed it without asking any questions.
If he’s planning on going out, I’d rather have the firepower with me from the get go.
☣
Gallegos kept watch down the hall while the firefighters got Reeve on his feet. They’d put his arm in a sling and wrapped his shoulder with bandages. Blood soaked the cloth and still oozed around the edges. Reeve’s face paled and he took shaking breaths.
“You’re gonna be okay, Reeve. We’re moving out. Welch and Dom, you’re at our six. I’ll take point. Jo and Matty, you have our wounded man.”
The firefighters lifted Reeve in a seat carry. When they had him settled, Jo asked, “Which way are we going?”
“We have to go out the back. Front door is compromised, but we have to expect enemy contact out the back, too. I have six bangers left, and we have at least three corners between here and the exit. What’s everyone holding?”
“Two bangers on my person, and one box in the SAW, Sergeant,” Welch said.
“We have two rounds left for the grenade launcher,” Jo said.
“Couple in the pistols,” Matty added. “Maybe a dozen between us if we’re lucky.”
“Use the bangers if the suckers get on our ass. Everyone conserve ammo. Fire only if you have no choice. Dom, take Reeve’s weapon.”
“I’m fine, Sergeant. I can shoot,” Reeve said, holding his M4 with his good hand.
“Negative, Marine,” she said, reaching for the weapon. Reeve let it go. She unclipped it from his sling and handed it to Dom. He handed his pistol to Reeve, who took it and let it rest in his lap.
“We’re going outside at the rear of the building. That’s where the busses pull in, so we have some cover at first. Once we’re outside, we go for the high rises.”
“On foot, Sergeant?” Welch asked.
“Truck’s a lost cause. Suckers are out there, Welch, and you said the alpha was with them, rah?”
He nodded.
“That settles it,” Gallegos said. “They’d be on us before we could get everyone in the truck and be moving.”
Reeve grunted in pain next to her and she stepped up close to look him in the eye.
“You’ll be good, Reeve. Just stay with us. Stay here. We got you and we’re going somewhere we can get you right.”
☣
Jed backed down the hall with Dom behind him, guiding their movement with one hand on Jed’s shoulder. He stayed focused on the squad’s six as they backed through the corridors of the bus depot and around the ruins of the barricade. When they cleared the first corner, Jed caught the muzzle of the Dom’s weapon drooping in his peripheral.
“We ain’t out yet. Weapon up, man,” he said. He breathed easier when Dom lifted the M4 in a steady grip.
“You’re getting it, Dom. Keep on keeping on now.”
“Rah,” he said, holding his pace steady.
Sergeant G yelled back from her position that she was throwing a banger around the first corner.
Jed braced himself for the shock, but only felt it as a quick punch against his ears and gut.
“Move! Go!” Sergeant G yelled.
Dom tugged on Jed’s vest as he led the two of them backwards and then around the corner. They stepped through the dust and smoke of the banger and across two bodies lying on the floor. Jed glanced down at them as he moved. Whoever they were, they’d still been people when they died. One of them was a man wearing a bus driver’s dark blue sweater. The patches on the shoulders and elbows were stained with blood and soot.
Wish we had you with us, too, man. I’d give anything for a ride out of hell right now.
☣
Gallegos held up a hand and the squad came to a halt behind her. The first corner had been easy. But now the sucker faces were pacing them. Their shrieks and screams bounced around the hallway, coming in from broken windows up ahead, and probably in the building somewhere above them.
The last of the firehole closets was just ahead on the left. Gallegos could swear the sucker faces were in the room above the hole and were just toying with the squad for shits and grins.
They could have rushed in and taken us down, but they just sent one through the barricade. It took Reeve out, and the others came from the opposite end of the hall. They’re trying to weaken us. And it’s working.
“Banger on three,” she said over her shoulder as she readied the next grenade.
“One, t—”
Scraping claws and snapping joints resounded through the hallway and she tossed the banger around the corner, rolling back against the wall as it exploded and then rushing around with her weapon up, firing at everything that moved.
☣
Jed spun around when Sergeant G cut off her count. He pushed Dom ahead of him as the grenade went off.
“Dom, get up there!” he yelled. “Sergeant G needs backup!”
She’d started firing right away and was still popping off rounds up ahead. Every shot cracked as loud as a thunderclap in the narrow space.
The firefighter stayed put for a beat, and then ran forward and around the corner. Two blasts from his weapon joined with Sergeant G’s fire. Jed turned back to their six. The hall was clear. He p
ressed his shoulder up against Matty and Jo. They held Reeve between them. The man had his feet under him now, but his shoulder looked like hell and his face was drawn down in a grimace.
“Let’s move,” Jed said and nudged Matty to get them going. With slow steps, the whole group of them moved around the corner after Sergeant G. Jed split his attention between monitoring the path ahead and watching their six for movement.
Matty and Jo shouted and Jed turned back to see Reeve stumbling forward with an M9 in one hand.
He rounded the corner and was out of sight with Matty following after him.
“Move out, but stay with me; stay close,” Jed said to Jo.
She kept tight with him and together they moved around the corner after the others.
Jed couldn’t risk taking his eyes off their six. The sucker faces were playing fast and loose and changing the rules with every beat.
A roar filled the hallway behind them. Jed had one hand on his vest, reaching for a banger when a swarm of sucker faces poured around the last corner. Jed forgot about the grenade and yelled for Jo to run as he opened up.
The hallway in front of Gallegos was a bloodbath. Sucker faces lay in piles on both sides. Beside her, Dominic held his weapon by his side and breathed in heavy gasps, coughing from the dust.
A shout came from around the corner and Reeve staggered into view with a pistol in his hand. Gallegos reached for him, but he fell against the wall and cried out as his shoulder took his weight. He reeled away. Matty caught him and steadied him on his feet.
Welch hollered a beat later and Jo’s face appeared. The chop of Welch’s weapon followed Jo around the corner.
“Run!” she yelled and helped Matty get Reeve back on his feet. They stepped around Gallegos and Jo paused to look her in the eye.
“We have to go,” Jo said. “They’re coming in the windows. They’re probably going to come in the back door in a second. We’re going to die if we don’t get moving!”
Gallegos felt like she was losing control of the situation. Jo was right. They’d let themselves get trapped. They’d treated the col-labs like the real threat, but it was always the suckers who had the game in hand.