Fuck. Think, Garcia. Think.
He had to do something. He wasn’t just going to sit here and wait to die. With exaggerated care, he used his right index finger to pick at the glue.
Another tortured voice rang out. This one seemed familiar.
“You motherfu—”
Stevo?
Garcia peeled strip after strip of the glue away until he felt a pocket. He plucked it open and fingered for the knife. As he grabbed the handle, two blurred figures stopped in front of him. His fingers were wrapped around the handle of the switchblade, but he didn’t pull the knife. Not yet.
His gut tightened as a hand outside his cocoon reached forward. For a second, he thought he even heard the thing speak. But that couldn’t be right.
Garcia tilted his head back to the cold wall as a talon sliced through the outside of the cocoon. He closed one eye, wincing as he waited for his opportunity to stab the freak in the jugular. The monster cut a square through the film in front of his face and tore it away. Garcia blinked rapidly in the glow of natural light. Between blinks, he glimpsed the creature that had come to eat him.
Only this wasn’t a monster. It wasn’t a Variant at all. It was a man, his face filthy with grime and his forehead covered in scabs and open cuts. His right eye was wider than the left, almost bulging from his head. He wore a tattered Army uniform that was soiled with dark splotches of crimson and brown.
“That’s him, Frankie,” the man said.
A second figure leaned in front of Garcia. He had his arm around a soldier in fatigues. It took Garcia a moment to recognize the battered, slumped figure as Stevo. Garcia tried to say something, but all that came out was a groan. He loosened his grip around the switchblade, studying his rescuers. Frankie, bearded and dressed in a mud-soaked Army uniform, hoisted Stevo farther up.
“Hurry up and get him loose,” Frankie said.
The soldier with the face covered in scabs flashed a grin with two missing front teeth. Behind them, the shadows shifted, and a blur of emaciated flesh raced by.
Garcia’s heart flipped at the sight of Variants lurking in the shadows. “Quiet,” he whispered. “Those things will hear you.”
Scabs let out a lunatic laugh. “Wait till you see him.”
“See who?”
“The White King.”
Garcia wrapped his fingers around the switchblade again, still dazed but finally comprehending. He glanced over at Stevo, who looked up and caught his gaze. It was then he realized Frankie and Scabs weren’t soldiers who had come to rescue them. They weren’t there to save them at all. They were there to take them to the Variant leader.
-11-
Beckham had lost track of how many days had passed since the outbreak began. But he certainly hadn’t forgotten the Osprey ride that had started it all. He could still picture Dr. Ellis’s nervous yet excited face, and the herd of horses running freely through a field in North Carolina. It seemed like a long time ago. Much longer than the month or so that had passed.
Now he was on another Osprey, on another mission with limited intel. Working with men he didn’t trust was part of being a Delta Force Operator. For years he’d operated in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa with foreign soldiers. Never had he imagined his own military would be responsible for the end of the world.
Kate smiled at him from her seat in the other aisle before turning back to her hushed conversation with Ringgold. Beckham reached down to stroke Apollo’s coat.
“When you said members of Team Ghost, I didn’t realize that would include a bomb-sniffing dog,” General Johnson said from a few seats to Beckham’s left.
“Apollo here has become my shadow, sir. He wouldn’t have let me go without a fight.”
Johnson chuckled. “Is that so? Well, he’ll fit right in on the GW. We have a whole squad of bomb-sniffing dogs. Some Variant sniffers, too.”
“Sir?”
“Dogs trained to identify Variants long before they identify us. From what Captain Humphrey told me, it’s partly why the GW is still in the water. Before they realized those things could swim, the strike group lost several sailors at the dockyards of Virginia. Now we patrol the decks with dogs. The Variants have excellent olfactory senses, but nothing like a German Shepherd.”
Beckham stroked Apollo’s coat again. “Sounds like Captain Humphrey succeeded where plenty have failed. Surviving out there this long must have been difficult.”
“Resilience, strength, and a bit of luck had something to do with it, I would say,” Johnson said. “I’ll tell you one thing—the view sure as hell beats what we had at Offutt.”
Johnson rested his head on the seat, and Beckham attempted to relax in his own. He wanted to trust it was over. He wanted to believe in the military he had sworn his allegiance and life to, but Johnson’s connection to Gibson, Kennor, and Wood made that nearly impossible. Johnson seemed like a nice Southern gentleman, but Beckham had known some Southern politicians. They were good actors.
As long as the human race still walked the Earth, there would be evil men and women in positions of power. Beckham knew the woman sitting next to Kate wasn’t one of them. The future President had listened quietly for most of the flight, only chatting with Kate from time to time. Ringgold was skeptical, just like Beckham, and that was good. It’s what he liked about her.
The blare of the comm system echoed in the troop hold a few minutes later. “Home plate ETA fifteen minutes,” one the pilots said.
“We should be passing the coast of Georgia,” Johnson said. He twisted to look at Lieutenant Rowe a few seats to his left. “Are the Variant Hunters still in the field?”
“Yes, sir,” Rowe answered. “But they haven’t checked in for four hours.”
Chow and Horn, sitting in the row in front of Beckham, both tilted their heads to listen. Johnson cursed under his breath.
“Not going to lie to you, Master Sergeant,” Johnson said. “Your reputation precedes you. I’d heard of Team Ghost long before Fitz put Colonel Wood down. I was hoping you and the Variant Hunters would meet. Share some of your secrets, even, but I’m afraid they might have used up their nine lives.”
“Variant Hunters?” Beckham asked.
“A Marine Force Recon team. According to Captain Humphrey, they’ve provided valuable intel on the Variants since day one. Racked up quite the kills too. They were on a mission in Atlanta to collect intel on reports of breeding.”
“Don’t give up on them yet. We’ve been stuck in the field too,” Beckham said. He tried to sound sincere, but deep down he knew they were probably dead. Now he wondered what was running through Chow and Horn’s minds. He guessed they were thinking the same thing. Maybe Johnson hadn’t only agreed to let Team Ghost come with Ringgold just because she’d asked. Perhaps Johnson had plans for Team Ghost—plans that would send them back into the field.
Beckham balled his hand into a fist, released it, and patted Apollo on the head. When he glanced over at Kate, her blue eyes were dull and melancholy. She must have been thinking the same thing as everyone else. But it wasn’t just that—she was still hiding something from him. He just hoped they’d have a chance to talk in private before Johnson gave Team Ghost their orders.
“Prepare for landing,” one of the pilots said over the comm.
Lights flicked on above to alert them of the imminent landing. Beckham broke Kate’s gaze and turned to look down the left aisle, past Johnson and Rowe. On the horizon was one of the most beautiful sights he’d seen in a long time. Navy destroyers, cruisers, and even an aircraft carrier coasted over the sapphire water in the glow of the moonlight. The sailors and soldiers down there knew how to fight a war. Beckham just hoped he could trust them to be on his side.
Garcia stepped over the ragged, bloody stump of a human neck. The missing skull was a few feet away. Both eyeballs were gone, and the cheeks, forehead, ears, even the scalp had been ripped clean off the bone. The only thing left was a piece of upper lip.
The ex-soldiers, Frankie and Scabs,
were leading Garcia and Stevo down a tunnel littered with bones, stripped of all but ligaments and gristle. Garcia couldn’t believe his eyes. He didn’t want to believe them. He had never been this deep into one of the lairs before.
An electrical line snaked overhead. A single flickering bulb emitted just enough light to see the slaughterhouse. Garcia had no idea where the electricity was coming from, nor did he care. It looked like the monsters had moved on from this passage, and so far Garcia only heard their distant echoing shrieks.
He continued through the carnage with Stevo leaning on him as a crutch. The Marine had injured both knees in the fall and couldn’t walk on his own. They followed a curve in the tunnel into a darker corridor, leaving the weak glow of light behind.
Garcia caught a drift of the rotting human prisoners before he saw them. The potent, acidic aroma of the glue-like cocoons filled the air. Combined with the stench of decay and infected wounds, it was one of the most dreadful things he’d ever experienced. Stevo stumbled, and Garcia tightened his grip on the Marine.
“Slow down,” Garcia whispered.
Scabs stopped twenty feet ahead and waved his hands at a light bulb. It clicked on, casting dull light on the shadowy shapes of human prisoners stuck to the walls. The bulbs were motion detectors, running off battery power, Garcia realized. Most were dead, like the prisoners.
In the darkness beyond, a figure clambered across the ceiling and looked down at a human hand protruding from one of the cocoons.
“Hel-p,” came a weak female voice. Scabs bent down and watched the Variant skitter over to the human prisoner.
Garcia reached for his switchblade. He could easily kill Frankie and Scabs, but what about the Variants? And how would he get Stevo out of here? The man could hardly move. Garcia had to wait for the right opportunity to escape. The perfect opportunity, when no Variants were around.
The creature hung upside down by its hands and feet. Then it dropped to the ground and ambled up to the female prisoner plastered to the wall.
“No!” came the voice again. “Please. Please!”
“We got to do something,” Stevo said.
Scabs turned, a screwdriver in his hand. “Shut the fuck up,” he growled.
A guttural choking sound erupted from the Variant’s mouth. It reared back, gagging on something on its throat. Then it lurched forward, a stream of goo projecting from its mouth and covering the woman’s loose arm.
The potent scent of stomach acid and sour fruit filled the tunnel as the creature spewed the white glue. Her pleas dwindled until they were stifled and faint.
“You bastards,” Stevo said. “Why don’t you help—”
Garcia shushed the Marine, but it was already too late. The beast craned its head at an unnatural angle that would have broken the neck of a human. Yellow irises homed in on Frankie.
The Variant sniffed the air, let out a low squawk, and lunged to the wall above the woman. It scaled the concrete and leapt to the ceiling, where it hung for several seconds. Frankie and Scabs bowed their heads to the ground as if in shame, but Garcia couldn’t look away.
In a swift motion, the Variant dropped to the floor and burst into a gallop toward Frankie. He cowered, raising his hands to shield his face as the monster charged. It slid through the muck and came to a stop inches from the man, splattering his already soiled pants.
Garcia took a step backward, ready to pull Stevo away, but the creature didn’t attack. Instead, it rose on two feet, towered over Frankie, and leaned in until its sucker lips were mere inches from his nose. The beast snorted into the man’s face, then popped its wormy lips together and let out an appalling roar that sent the man backpedaling until he fell on his ass. The Variant retreated, its howls reverberating away as it vanished in the darkness.
Frankie got back to his feet like nothing had happened. He staggered under the light, his boots slopping through a soup of blood and sewage.
“Come on, and keep your mouths shut,” Scabs said, gesturing with his middle finger. “We’re almost there.”
Garcia wanted to ask the ex-soldiers questions. There was one that was especially itching to get out of his mind. Instead, he hoisted Stevo farther up with his right arm and continued forward.
“You doin’ okay, Stevo?”
“I’m okay, Sarge,”
“That’s right, Marine,” Garcia whispered. “We’re going to get out of here.”
Stevo nodded and let his head sag to his chest. That was good, Garcia thought. That way he didn’t have to see the woman prisoner. They passed her a moment later. Her body was covered in the drying glue. She didn’t make a sound as Scabs hurried by her. Garcia slowed, but was powerless to help. There was nothing he could do, and that ate at him more than anything.
As they worked their way down the corridor, they passed dozens of human prisoners. Dread rose inside of Garcia with every step. He was a Marine. He was supposed to help these people. But even if he could fight off his captors and the Variants, he wasn’t sure any of these people could be saved. Some were missing limbs. Moving them would be nearly impossible.
Scabs stopped and squatted at the end of the passage next to Frankie, who was perched in the filth like a Variant.
“You two are lucky sons of bitches,” Scabs whispered. “Lucky sons of bitches.”
Garcia kept silent. Despite his aching head, his senses were on full alert. He used the time to search the shadows for the Variants and for a potential escape route.
Scabs rubbed at his twitching eye and said, “The White King lets us live if we bring him more.”
“More meat,” Frankie cut in.
“He likes soldiers,” Scabs said, pointing to Garcia and then Stevo. “People that can show him where other survivors are. People that know stuff.”
Garcia wanted to throw up—throw up and stab Scabs in the neck with his switchblade. The ex-soldier made him sick, but killing him wouldn’t do any good. Not yet. Garcia needed to keep his sanity. For now, all that mattered was escaping with Stevo and getting topside. That was the mission, but judging by Stevo’s slurred words, the Marine was injured even worse than Garcia had originally thought. Escaping wasn’t going to be easy.
Garcia brought his left sleeve to his face and wiped the crusted blood off his mustache. He kept it there on the second pass in an attempt to block out the rancid smells.
“The White King lives close. Do not look at him. Do not talk. Maybe he will let you live,” Frankie said. “Maybe he will let you serve him like we do.”
Garcia kept his mouth shut, giving away nothing. God, how he wanted to ask why Scabs and Frankie had betrayed their uniforms and their country. How long had they been collaborators?
He was reminded of a quote from Luke 6:37. Judge not, and you will not be judged, Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Yeah right, Garcia thought. He didn’t have it in him not to judge or to forgive these men. They should have done what they were trained to do—to fight, even if it ended their miserable lives.
“You listenin’ to me?” Scabs asked.
“Yeah, you sick fuck,” Stevo moaned, spitting at the man.
Scabs scratched at an open cut on his forehead. He snorted, a cross between a laugh and a whimper. Then he clambered over on all fours, stopping to sit cross-legged in front of Stevo’s face.
“You don’t get it, man. You don’t get it at all. We’re not on the top of the food chain anymore. If you don’t help, you end up like them.” Scabs slowly tilted his head, his wide eyes seeming to bulge even farther from his skull as he scanned the human meat locker.
“We’ll help you find others,” Garcia said. “I know where they are.”
“Sarge,” Stevo protested.
“Shut the fuck up and follow orders,” Garcia said. He hoped the Marine understood what he was doing. But the fall had rattled Stevo pretty bad. He wasn’t sure the man was completely coherent.
Scabs’s eyes flitted to Garcia. He scratched a
t his head again, then picked at a scab on his chin. “What do you think, Frankie?”
Frankie seemed even more mentally fucked than Scabs. He stared ahead vacantly, his rail thin figure looking like a skeleton in the dim light.
Scabs poked Stevo in the ribs with his screwdriver. The Marine swiped back with his fingers. That made Scabs chuckle harder, a deep wet, laugh. He pushed himself to his feet.
“You guys have no idea,” he repeated, glancing over his shoulder. “They got no idea, Frankie.”
“No idea about what?” Garcia asked in a subdued growl.
“Those things aren’t what you think they are,” Scabs said. “They are so much more. The White King tells me things.”
This time Garcia couldn’t hold back a question. “It talks?”
The grin on the man’s scab covered face vanished, his features transforming in a single heartbeat. Stern and serious, he nodded, first slowly and then more rapidly.
Garcia looked down the tunnel, trying to see into the next passage, but the darkness was too difficult to penetrate. It was like something was making it even darker. His stomach flipped, but he knew he had no other choice. He needed to see if Scabs was lying. The mission had just changed. If those things could really communicate, then that was intel Command needed. A talking Variant was just as important as the Variant offspring. His new objective was identifying this White King and confirming if he could really speak.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Garcia asked. “Take us to your leader, assholes.”
The Osprey landed on the USS George Washington, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier with a runway full of F-18 Super Hornets. Team Ghost stood on the deck staring out over the waves. It was easy to get lost in the beautiful display of American military muscle, but Beckham wasn’t about to let his guard down.
On the port side, two Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers, the USS Cowpens and USS Antietam, split through the water. The USS Lassen and USS Mustin, both Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, cruised along the starboard side. The USS Emory S. Land submarine lurked somewhere beneath the water. There were two other vessels following the strike group: the USNS Charles Drew Clark-class dry cargo ship and a Pathfinder-class oceanographic survey ship called the USNS Bowditch.
Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4) Page 14