Forsaken

by Michael McBride

  Shouting in the distance. The echoes of the voices made it hard to divine their location.

  “Go back!” Evans whispered. “We can’t get through that way. The whole ceiling came down.”

  A flicker of light.

  Villarreal ducked through the nearest orifice.

  “Keep going!” Evans whispered.

  They were barely around the corner when the light brightened, granting them just enough illumination to see that the passage turned to the right. There was a wall fifteen feet ahead. Jade saw what looked like an opening to the right before the light faded once more.

  “This way,” someone said. Jade didn’t recognize the voice. While still distant, it was far too close for her liking.

  “Careful,” another said. “Do not touch—”

  An agonized shout erupted from somewhere behind them and to their left.

  “Go!” Evans whispered, and pushed her from behind.

  They needed to take advantage of the momentary confusion to expand their lead. Whatever happened, it couldn’t have been pleasant.

  What looked like one branch to the right was actually two running side-by-side and separated by a single wall. The sloshing of water to the left was louder, at least what she could hear over the shouting, suggesting an enclosed space.

  “Go right,” she whispered, and swam past Anya and Villarreal.

  “Wait,” Evans whispered.

  The shouting degenerated into coughing. Deep and wet. Jade recognized the sound right away. The man had punctured a lung. His pleural cavity was rapidly filling with blood, no matter how hard his body tried to cough it out.

  “Do not shoot—!”

  Thoom!

  The gunshot was deafening. Its echo rolled through the maze like thunder. When it faded, only silence remained. Their hunters had executed one of their own.

  They were going to die in here.

  The thought cut through the exhaustion and triggered her primitive fight-or-flight instincts. Adrenaline surged through her, and she swam as fast as she could, heedless of anything in her way. She both felt and heard an opening pass to her left.

  Something caught her by the leg and jerked her backward. She turned and lashed out with both arms like a wild animal.

  Evans managed to catch one of her wrists and wrapped his other around her lower back. Drew her to him.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”

  She grabbed the strap of his oxygen tank and sobbed silently into his shoulder.

  What little strength remained in her legs abandoned her and she started to sink.

  “Don’t you dare,” Evans whispered. “Keep fighting it.”

  Jade released him and stroked with both arms, but she couldn’t seem to keep her mouth above the surface. She managed to take a deep breath through her nose before she went under, knowing full well what might happen if her feet hit the ground.

  34

  BARNETT

  Command Center, FOB Atlantis

  Barnett watched helplessly as the chaos unfolded around him. The bank of monitors on the wall of the command center displayed images from the cameras on his men’s helmets and from strategic points around the complex. He watched through their eyes as Harrison was driven to his back and assailed by a flurry of claws, felt their terror when they looked up to find the ice dome overhead crawling with what had to be at least a dozen indistinct orange shapes. Their shouts crackled through the speakers alongside gunfire he could simultaneously hear through the walls of the building.

  Footsteps overhead. Running.

  Thump-thump-thump-thump-thud.

  “We need to fall back to the central hub,” Avila said.

  Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack.

  Wet tearing sounds emerged from the speakers as, one by one, the screams were cut short and the gunfire ceased. His men’s cameras recorded images of the polyfiber-coated steel rooftops and the rocky lake bed. One showed an ice dome entirely bereft of the heat signatures.

  Twelve highly trained operatives gone in a matter of seconds, leaving the outer defenses of the base exposed and vulnerable.

  The external monitors showed orange shapes stalking the rooftops, scurrying up and down the arched sides of the buildings, moving so fast that the fusion cameras couldn’t get a clear picture of them.

  “There’s nothing more we can do for them,” Avila said.

  Barnett felt as though he were rooted to his chair. Never in his worst nightmares had he imagined that something like this could happen. There were so many of them. Where in the name of God had they come from?

  Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack.

  He looked up at the ceiling and could tell exactly where it was. It went straight down the wall beside him without losing traction.

  “Director!” Avila shouted.

  Barnett stood so fast he sent his chair clattering to the floor.

  “Everyone fall back to the mess hall!” he shouted.

  “You heard the man!” Avila shouted. “Everyone assume fallback positions!”

  He walked around the front of his desk and stared at the wall of monitors.

  One of his men rolled over and for a second Barnett thought he was still alive, until the ground rushed past beneath him, his camera clattering from the rocks until it broke and the screen went black.

  Barnett shook off his stupor and ran for the central hub. He caught a glimpse of orange from the corner of his eye and stopped halfway out the door. Turned to face the monitor and saw what looked like a palsied hand lower into the screen, blurred by proximity. It splayed when it hit the ground. One of the fingers remained erect, like the tail of a scorpion, although rather than a stinger, it was crowned with a massive hooked claw.

  “Jesus.”

  He sprinted through the corridor into the adjacent building and veered right toward the tunnel leading to the mess hall. He could feel the panic radiating from inside. Men and women shouted to be heard and practically trampled one another as the remaining agents began sealing off the doors on the far side.

  “Start moving people into the vault!” Barnett shouted, but even he couldn’t hear himself over the bedlam. He pushed his way into the hub and grabbed the nearest agent. Shouted into his face. “Is everyone accounted for?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  Barnett shoved him aside and climbed up onto the table in the center of the room so he could see over everyone’s heads. Eight of the twelve doors were already barricaded, and it would only be a matter of seconds before the last four followed suit. It would take nothing shy of an act of God to open them from the outside once they were sealed.

  Avila had overturned the serving station to access the floor hatch, which stood wide open as men and women commenced with the arduous process of funneling down the narrow staircase into the vault. The walls were composed of the same concrete-reinforced steel as Subject Z’s cage and were even stronger and more secure than the President’s Emergency Operations Center under the East Wing of the White House.

  “I’ve got things under control up here!” he shouted to Avila. “Make sure everyone gets down there and fire up the generators!”

  She nodded, fought her way to the head of the line, and ducked down the stairs.

  “Director Barnett!”

  Barnett turned at the sound of his name to see Special Agent Young hailing him from the mouth of the lone unsealed doorway. He jumped down from the table and hustled to meet his agent. If the door was jammed—

  “I have to show you something!” Young shouted.

  Barnett read the direness of the situation on the man’s face.

  “Make it fast.”

  Young turned without another word and ran straight through the corridor into Midnight, past the row of computers, and to a monitoring station glowing with lights. The screens displayed the same images as those in the command center, only from the limited perspective of this individual building.

  “What’s so important—?”

 
Barnett saw it before he could even finish his sentence. The external view of the main deck from the vantage point of the light post showed an orange shape on the ground, approximately fifty feet from the front door. There was no doubt it was human.

  “He’s still alive,” Young said.

  The man on the screen reached out with one arm and dragged himself forward, leaving behind a diffuse orange trail that faded before their eyes. Several seconds later, he did the same thing again.

  “Christ Almighty,” Barnett said.

  “We can’t leave him out there.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Does it matter? We need to get whoever it is inside before they come back for him.”

  “We don’t even know that they’re gone.”

  Barnett looked from one monitor to the next, but could see no other heat signatures. At a guess, the cameras covered a radius of maybe three hundred feet, which wasn’t nearly as much as he would have liked.

  “It’ll take less than thirty seconds if the two of us do it.”

  “We open that door and we risk the lives of everyone in this station.”

  “We don’t and he’ll die.”

  Barnett bellowed in frustration.

  “Get the door, goddammit!”

  Young raced past him and drew his Glock 17 from the holster on his hip. He waited for Barnett to do the same and held his hand over the control panel for the electromagnetic lock.

  “On my mark,” Barnett said. He watched the monitors from across the room for the first hint of orange. “Three. Two. One.”

  Young hit the button and the lock disengaged with a thud. Barnett shouldered through the door and ran straight out across the deck, the echo of his footsteps like a drumroll. The man lay facedown right where he expected, only he seemed so much farther away. Young caught up with him by the time he reached the fallen agent, who no longer made any effort to move.

  Each of them grabbed a wrist and backed as quickly as they could toward the open door. The trail of blood rushing from the unconscious man glistened in the red glare. Barnett recognized Special Agent David Harrison by the profile of his face, which bobbed limply against his chest as they dragged him. He was one of the best sharpshooters in the world. His skill with a rifle had even earned him the nickname Talibang, because he’d picked off countless Al-Qaeda operatives before becoming disillusioned with the military-industrial complex. He’d jumped at the opportunity for a fresh start, and this was his reward.

  They were nearly to the door when Barnett detected movement in his peripheral vision.

  “Hurry!” he shouted.

  More movement from the other side. And from behind him, the clacking sound of nails on top of the prefabricated building.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  “Run!” Barnett shouted and shoved Young toward the door. He fired blindly in the direction of the movement, holstered his weapon, and dropped to his knees. Lifted Harrison onto his shoulders and shouted as he struggled to his feet. Turned and pushed his body harder than he ever had before. Watched Young pass through the open doorway and take position at the electromagnetic lock.

  “They’re right behind you!” he shouted.

  Barnett didn’t dare look back. He focused on the doorway.

  Fifteen feet.

  Ten.

  A shadow fell upon him from above.

  Five feet.

  He was nearly to the door when something clipped his heel and sent him sprawling. He hit the ground hard and lost his grip on Harrison, who slid under the table. Computer monitors crashed to the floor. Chairs toppled.

  “Get the door!” Barnett shouted.

  Young grabbed the handle and yanked it—

  Something stopped it.

  He tried again.

  A shrill cry.

  Both men looked up at the sound to see the creature trying to jerk its head back out. It snapped its jaws. The elongated scales on its jawline and the ridge of its skull bristled like quills.

  Barnett flipped over, grabbed Harrison by the arms, and dragged him across the room.

  “I can’t hold this much longer!” Young shouted.

  “Give me as much time as you can!”

  Barnett backed through the tunnel and into the mess hall, where Avila met him and helped him pull Harrison toward the hatch.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The sound echoed from the main building, where the creatures outside hurled themselves against the door.

  Young shouted and stumbled back from the entryway. Barnett could see him through the corridor, a dark silhouette in the red glow. He shot several times behind him and ran toward them.

  The door flew open behind him and shadows streaked across the ground at his heels.

  Young blew through the tunnel, but they were upon him before he took a single stride into the mess hall.

  He hit the ground on his face. When he looked up, his features were covered with blood, which dribbled from his mouth when he spoke.

  “Go!”

  Young rolled onto his back, raised his weapon, and fired back into the corridor. He screamed and pulled the trigger as fast as he could, his spent casings pinging from the wall. An errant shot hit the control panel for the door, which dropped from the ceiling and slammed down onto his midsection.

  His head rocked back and he brayed in agony. Blood sputtered from his mouth and flooded out from beneath him.

  Barnett unholstered his Glock, sighted down the top of Young’s head, and ended his suffering.

  His ears were still ringing when he closed the hatch, sealed it from the inside, and descended into the vault.

  35

  MOIRA

  The Vault, FOB Atlantis

  “Somebody help me!” Avila shouted.

  She lost her balance and slid down the final three stairs, dropping Special Agent Harrison’s legs. Barnett stumbled, but managed to hold on to the man’s torso.

  Moira rushed to his aid and helped him lower the injured soldier to the floor. She could tell at first glance that there was nothing she could do. While field medicine was one of her many skills, this surpassed even what a classically trained surgeon could handle under the best of conditions.

  “Get me some light so I can see what I’m doing!”

  She gripped either side of Harrison’s shirt and ripped it open, sending buttons skittering into the room. She was about to call for the emergency medical kit when Barnett set it down beside her.

  “Do everything you possibly can,” he said, and backed away.

  She unzipped the soft case and threw open the top. Found a pair of scissors and cut straight up the front of his T-shirt. His chest was pale and covered with so much blood that at first she couldn’t see where he was injured, until she tugged on the waistband of his pants and his abdominal contents nearly spilled out.

  “I need water to irrigate this!”

  She carefully unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down past the wound. A ragged laceration had been drawn diagonally from his right hip to just beside his navel. The skin and superficial fascia had pulled away from the underlying muscle.

  “Here.”

  Someone thrust a cup of water into her hand. She took it without looking and splashed it onto the wound, causing a fresh layer of blood to rise to the surface.

  “Is he still breathing?” Moira shouted.

  Avila assumed position near Harrison’s head. She leaned over him and brought her ear to within millimeters of his lips.

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Can you feel a pulse?”

  Avila pressed her index and middle fingers into the side of his neck.

  “I think . . . I think so.”

  Moira dumped the contents of the emergency kit onto the ground. Tore open a package of four-by-fours and tried to sop up the blood inside the wound so she could see what was going on. If any of the bowels had been nicked, she was better off letting him die now and sparing him a grueling and ultimately fatal bout of sepsis.

&n
bsp; “Tell me you can save him,” Barnett said.

  “Where’s that light?” One of the engineers—Russo, if she remembered correctly—crouched beside her and shined a handheld flashlight onto the wound. “Keep it pointed right there until I tell you otherwise.”

  The subcutaneous tissue and rectus sheath were both cleanly parted. She retracted them with a pair of forceps. All four layers of the abdominal muscles underneath were lacerated, but even that wasn’t enough to justify the sheer volume of blood. The wound had to be deeper than she’d initially suspected.

  She parted the rectus abdominus muscle and blood flooded to the surface. The incision had passed straight through the muscle and punctured the peritoneum. She grabbed more gauze and blotted it as fast as it rose.

  Harrison arched his back and made a violent gasping sound.

  “Hold him down!” Moira shouted. She’d lost traction and had to dig back through the muscles to find the opening into the abdomen. The rich black blood that welled from inside overwhelmed the gauze. “More water!”

  She doused the wound again, but there was nothing she could do. A loop of intestine bloomed through the hole. She pushed it back inside and felt something solid and roughly the size of a cantaloupe underneath. Compartment syndrome, she feared. It was a consequence of severe internal bleeding that caused the exponential increase in abdominal pressure, essentially creating a giant blood balloon within an enclosed space. If she was right and inadvertently breached it, he would bleed out and there wasn’t a blasted thing she could do to stop it. At the same time, if she didn’t relieve the pressure, it was only a matter of time—

  Harrison shuddered and released a quivering sigh.

  Moira looked up from the wound and read the truth on Avila’s face.

  “Dammit,” Barnett said. He stormed off into the underground command center and slammed the door behind him.

  Avila placed her palm over Harrison’s forehead and gently closed his eyelids.

  Moira stared down at her red hands. Already she could feel the blood tightening on her skin as it dried. No amount of water would get it all off.