Beckham patted the armor above Horn’s heart. “But your girls are alive. And we’re almost there, man. Almost fucking there.”
They embraced. Just like old times. For the first time that day Beckham felt a sense of pride, of friendship. The small act reminded him, again, that he was only as good as the man next to him. Horn was his best friend, his brother. And they were going to find his daughters.
Together they trailed Chow and the rest of the team into the next hallway, moving cautiously this time. Moving as one.
-6-
Meg Pratt felt piss running down her legs. Instant relief washed over her as she let out a day’s worth of the warm fluid. She’d held it for longer than that, actually, in the same stinking closet that she shared with Rex and Jed. The space had been built to house outdated gear—small items like helmets, suits, boots, not oversized firefighters.
The closet stank of more than bodily fluids—it stank of death. They’d escaped the Variants that had infiltrated their station by hiding under a pile of dead bodies in the basement. The corpses had been other firefighters and several families they’d taken in after all hell had broken loose. They’d covered them in tarps to minimize the smell.
It was a last-ditch effort to escape. Meg had observed the Variants from a distance for days. They never ate the dead. Only the living.
After spending countless hours under the bodies, Meg had ordered Rex and Jed back upstairs. They made it to the stairwell when they heard the ruckus of another one of the creatures above and were forced to retreat to the gear closet. They’d been there ever since.
“Think it’s safe yet?” Rex asked. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and squirmed.
“Shhhh,” Jed whispered.
Meg hadn’t heard anything for a couple hours. The silence was starting to make her nervous. Was it possible the creatures were waiting upstairs?
That was a crazy thought, she realized. They would have come crashing down into the basement hours ago if they knew the firefighters were down there. Meg changed hands with the axe handle and pushed herself to her feet, using the blade as a crutch. The numbness from her right leg made her cringe as the blood began to flow again. She bit the inside of her lip and waited until it passed.
“Where ya goin?” Rex asked. He tried to reposition himself for a better look.
Jed shushed the man again.
Straining her ears, Meg listened for any movement. All was quiet. Eerily quiet. She was still getting used to the sound of nothing, especially in a city like New York. In the hours of monotony, she wondered if she had gone deaf. Or crazy. The truth was she’d entered a nightmare. A world where the only sounds were made by things that wanted to tear her apart.
Holding her breath in anticipation, Meg slowly opened the closet door. She glared back at Rex as if to say Keep your big ass mouth shut.
Stepping out of the closet, Meg raised her axe and held it close to her chest. One step at a time, she thought as she slowly crossed the basement. Rays of light bled into the room from the small windowsills.
Meg emerged from the shadows and made her way to the staircase, placing her back against the wall and craning her neck around the corner. She held in another breath, half expecting to see one of the monsters dangling from the ceiling or crab-walking back down the stairs like that girl in The Exorcist. But the stairwell was empty. She waved the others out of their hiding spot and started up the concrete steps.
Above, the garage had been completely ransacked. Suits, helmets, boots, and hoses that had been perfectly organized were now a complete mess.
Meg sighed. She doubted anyone would suit up ever again.
“Come on,” she finally whispered, motioning for the others to follow. She crossed the garage carefully, sidestepping around gear and equipment, and then stopped in the open doorway to the stairs.
Staring into the darkness was like looking into a portal. The thought of spending another minute up there made her pause. But the alternative was the basement, and she couldn’t bear the idea of returning to the morgue.
Grabbing a railing, she climbed up the stairs. With every step, the scent of sour fruit grew. It was one of those smells she just couldn’t place. Maybe lemon. Or grapefruit. Meg wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it stank like an open garbage bin on a hot summer day.
Pulling her collar up around her nose, she continued toward the open door and the idle ceiling fans above. Meg paused again to listen.
Nothing.
She used the time to think. Although she’d come up with a plan in the closet, she wasn’t sure she had the guts to implement it now. The idea was to leave the fire station and find other survivors. Preferably the military. But the closer she got to their old hiding spot, the more she wanted to just hunker down. They had food and supplies. The only thing outside was death and hungry, crazed ex-humans.
Meg was a fighter. Always had been. She’d grown up a tomboy and prided herself with the bruises she got from playing football with the boys. As an adult, there wasn’t anything that got her blood flowing like kicking in doors and running into burning buildings. But her life had never been threatened like it had now. The danger was exciting back then. Now it was truly terrifying. She wasn’t ready to die, especially at the hands of the monsters.
When she saw the empty room of beds and the boarded-up windows, she made her decision. They were staying put. She wasn’t going to risk moving unless a damn chopper landed in the street outside.
Rex and Jed passed her and reclaimed their bunks. Rex pulled a plastic bag of food from under his and began rifling through the contents. How he could eat when the place reeked of rotting fruit was beyond her. She laid her axe on the nearest bed, pulled her brown hair into a ponytail and changed out of her wet clothes.
Meg had never been the bashful type. Working and living with mostly men had ensured that. And besides, at the end of the world, formalities like pissing in a toilet and changing in a bathroom had gone out the window. Pulling on a clean shirt, she sat down slowly, cautious not to make the bed squeak. For the first time in days, she felt the closest thing to safety.
The feeling vanished when the shriek of one of the creatures ripped through the night. Meg froze, her gaze falling on Rex’s terrified features. Jed stood in place, his eyes locked on the window.
The screech was distant.
A second voice answered the call.
Meg waited anxiously for a third. Several minutes ticked by and she slowly relaxed again, her hand scooting away from the axe.
Swinging her feet off the floor, she lay down and let her head sink into the pillow. What she needed was some good rest. She pulled her collar up over her nose again. The rot lingered, but she was tired enough not to care.
Closing her eyes, she crossed her arms and let her body and mind succumb to fatigue. She sank into the comfortable bed and started to drift off when a third sound came.
Meg jolted up. This wasn’t a screech, but the click-clack of joints.
“Shit,” Jed said. He poked his eye against the gap in the boards. “Those things are…”
Rex dropped his bag of food and stood, his hands trembling.
Meg rushed to the window and nudged Jed to the side. She gasped when she saw the adjacent buildings. The creatures were perched on the rooftops, all of them staring at the fire station.
Stumbling away from the window, Meg looked to Jed for support. The Marine didn’t speak. None of them did. They were cornered with no hope of escape.
The team was more than a mile into the tunnel systems when they came to the final hallway. Four orange drums and a wall of sandbags sat in front of two steel doors. Someone had gone to great lengths to seal the entrance.
“We’re here,” Chow said. “The 100-gallon barrels are full of water. They’ve been down here a long time. Disaster supplies.”
Horn threw the strap of his M27 around his shoulders and approached the blockade.
“Our makeshift shelter’s on the other side,” Chow continued. “C
ome on. Let’s move these things.”
Horn was already angling his shoulder into the side of the closest drum on the left. After a few grunts he had created a gap wide enough for another body. Beckham squeezed through and helped him move the barrel against the wall. The plastic screeched across the concrete as they moved. Chow and Jinx worked on the barrel to the right and the team repeated the process for the second set. The four Rangers stepped through the narrow gap and began to remove the sandbags.
Sweat formed on Beckham’s forehead. His uniform was wet by the time they finished clearing the doors, a mixture of perspiration and blood.
“Well?” Horn asked. “Is there a password or what?”
Chow pulled off his gas mask and rapped his fist against the metal three times. “It’s Chow, open up.”
The only response was a hollow echo.
Horn yanked on one of the handles. The locking mechanism clicked, locked from the other side. Chow pounded the door again. “Hey, Williams! You awake? It’s Chow, and we have company.” He pressed his ear against the steel and listened.
“Shit,” he muttered, stepping away from the door.
“What do you mean, shit?” Horn said. “You said you had this place guarded.”
“It was,” Jinx chimed in.
“It is,” Chow corrected him. He tossed his M4 to Jinx and reached for a pocket in his vest, retrieving a small lock pick. “Williams is on security. He’s probably patrolling the other hallways.”
“He better be,” Horn snarled.
“Keep it down,” one of the Rangers said. The man’s tag said Rich. He removed his gas mask and ran a hand through his hair. Then he took a drink and turned to scan the other end of the tunnel, his eyes roving back and forth anxiously.
“What the hell were you guys doing outside anyways?” Horn asked. “Why’d you leave the others?”
Chow glanced over his shoulder. “Supply run. We were trying to make it to an ammo depot when those things ambushed us. Lost two men.”
Rich shook his head and walked over to the other three Rangers. Beckham’s heart sank as the four men talked in hushed voices. He wondered how many other squads and teams had been torn apart like Team Ghost. So much death and loss, and all for what? Colonel Gibson’s fucking dream.
The lock clicked and Chow flexed his arm into an uppercut. “Got it,” he said, smiling. He stepped back and reached for his rifle.
“Keep sharp,” Beckham said. “You take point, Chow. You know this place the best.”
The operator nodded and grabbed the handle, eyeing each man in turn. After a beat he twisted it and pulled the door back to reveal an empty passage. There were piles upon piles of boxes stacked to the ceiling on the right-hand side.
Horn moved next, his weapon angled into the darkness. The damp hallway stank of stale water, but the sour fruit smell was absent. Chow stopped at the first curve and propped his shoulder against the wall. Placing two fingers to his eyes, he flashed a hand signal to Beckham and Jinx. Beckham gripped his 10mm, tensed his body and bolted around the corner. A beam of intense light hit him in the face, momentarily blinding him. He stared into the ray, his palm extended in an attempt to shield his eyes, his trigger finger dangerously close to squeezing off a shot.
“Friendly, friendly!” Jinx yelled.
Beckham blinked away white fuzz and saw a Ranger standing in the middle of the corridor, a look of shock painted across his features. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-one years old.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me,” the man said.
Chow and Horn hustled into the hallway. “Well, Jinx just about shot you in the face, Williams,” Chow said. “Didn’t you hear the gunfire earlier?”
“I can’t hear shit,” the man said. “My ears have been fucked since the bombs dropped.” He smacked the side of his helmet and scanned the new faces.
“Where are the others?” Horn asked.
“Who the hell are these guys?” Williams asked. “And where’s Ricardo and Bonner?”
“These are Delta Operators Horn and Beckham,” Chow said. His gaze flicked to the floor in a moment of silence. Looking up, he said, “Ricardo and Bonner didn’t make it.”
“Fuck” Williams said softly. Anguish streaked across his features, and he gave his helmet another smack.
“Rich, Timbo, Steve, and Ryan—you guys secure that back door. Then report to command,” Chow said. He turned to Horn next and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You ready to see your daughters?” Chow asked.
Horn smiled for the first time in days. “Hell yes.”
Kate stared at her food. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking at. The man who had slopped the mush onto her plate called it meat. But maybe he was joking. It had the same consistency as mashed potatoes.
She’d learned to stop taking things for granted when she began her career in the field. Traveling to remote villages in India, the Sudan, and Guinea had a way of changing a person, making them realize how great Americans really had it. The majority of the world did not have access to clean drinking water, health care or electricity, let alone porterhouse steaks.
Kate jammed a forkful into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. It didn’t taste that bad, actually. She told herself it was mashed potatoes and finished half the meal before checking on Ellis.
The doctor sat across the table, shoveling green beans in his mouth as he thumbed through pictures on his cell phone. With service gone, the devices were nothing more than picture albums or toys. Some of Kate’s old apps still worked. Ironically, the plague game she used to play still functioned. Dismissing these trivial thoughts, Kate let her mind wander to the people she would never see again.
Her brother. Michael. Possibly her parents. And…
Kate shook the thought away. Beckham was coming back. He would swim back to Plum Island if he had to.
“I miss CNN,” Ellis muttered. He placed his phone down on the table.
“I miss the Discovery Channel.”
“We’re living in a Discovery Channel documentary about the end of the world,” Ellis said.
Kate wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I know. I never thought I’d be one of the stars.”
Ellis popped another green bean into his mouth. “Do you think things will ever go back to normal?”
“Are you kidding?”
He shrugged. “I believe in miracles.”
“Would take one hell of a miracle,” Kate said under her breath.
“I still have hope. That’s why I became a doctor in the first place.”
He was right, and Kate knew it. She had a tendency to treat Ellis like a kid, like her little brother, Javier.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Ellis rolled his eyes and grabbed his cell again, swiping the screen with a greasy finger.
“Ellis,” she insisted. “You’re right. It’s just…”
He looked away from his phone with casual curiosity.
“This documentary sucks,” Kate finished.
Ellis laughed. “Yeah, yeah, it does. But, Kate, if it weren’t for you, the Hemorrhage Virus would have infected an even larger percentage of the population.”
The brief moment of humor faded away. Kate dropped her fork. “I know, but I can’t stop thinking of Javier. VariantX9H9 killed him. I killed my brother.” She cupped her head in her hands. “I killed my own brother,” she whispered.
“Javier was probably already dead. Just like my family. You didn’t want him to suffer, did you?”
Kate shook her head. “No.”
“Do you know why I haven’t completely lost my mind?”
She shook her head again.
“Because I direct my anger toward Colonel Gibson and Dr. Medford. Those bastards created the Hemorrhage Virus. And the way I look at it, we destroyed that virus.” Ellis pushed his tray aside, focusing on Kate with a stern look. “We can defeat the Variants. We can take back the country. I believe that. I do.”
Kate pulled her hands away
from her face and sat up. Straight. Professional.
Ellis reached across the table with his right hand. “Kate.”
The gesture took her by surprise. Ellis wasn’t an emotional man, but the end of the world had a way of changing people. Things that didn’t seem to matter before were important now. She gripped his hand in her own.
“You can’t continue to blame yourself for the death of Michael or Javier or anyone else. You did your job,” Ellis said.
“But I couldn’t save them,” she said.
“You tried your best.”
“I know,” Kate whispered.
He pulled out of her grasp and then patted her hand. “If you need anything, just let me know.”
She smiled and brushed the residue of a tear away from her eye. “I will. Same goes for you.”
“Shit,” Ellis said. “Look who’s coming.”
Lieutenant Colonel Jensen was striding across the cafeteria.
“What now?” Kate said. Her stomach churned when she thought of Beckham. Did he have news?
“Dr. Lovato, Dr. Ellis,” Jensen said. “I want to apologize for losing my temper with Colonel Gibson. That man…At any rate, I’m sorry.”
“We understand,” Kate said.
“Secondly, I need to share some intel with you,” Jensen said. He threw a glance over his shoulder at a table of Marines. “Perhaps it would be better if we discussed this in my office.”
Kate’s legs tingled. “Is it Beckham?”
Jensen looked uncharacteristically confused. “I don’t know. We haven’t heard from him yet.” He checked the Marines again and said, “Meet me in the CIC in fifteen minutes.”
“We’ll be there,” Ellis said.
Kate stood, grabbed her tray, and hurried over to the trash bins. Jensen knew something—something he didn’t want to share in front of the Marines—and she was anxious to know what it was.
-7-
The weight pressing on Beckham’s chest lifted the moment he spied the freckled faces of Horn’s daughters. Relief flooded through him, the burden vanishing as the girls burst from a pack of civilians huddled together in the middle of the tunnel.
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