“We need a barricade, now!” Dom said, pointing at Renee and Hector. They hoisted up the kitchen table as a makeshift replacement for the sliding door and positioned it into place. “We’re going to need more than that!”
Miguel nodded. “Yes, sir!”
Hector and Dom laid down a stream of cover fire. Miguel and Renee disappeared out of the kitchen as bullets pierced the flesh of the Skulls. While their salvos knocked out the first wave, some continued their unabashed charge, unfazed by the rounds pounding against their freshly grown skeletal pseudo-body armor.
“Faces!” Dom yelled. “Like on the rig!”
When Miguel returned with Renee, they were carrying a leather sofa between them.
“Thought we could use a rest,” Miguel said, sweat beading out from under his helmet as they braced the table with the couch.
“Dom, this is Frank.” The pilot’s voice sounded over the comm link. “It looks like you’ve got a swarm of them. Seem to be a bit agitated by the gunfire. Coming in from the north.”
“Hector and Renee, take the front of the house,” Dom said.
“You got it,” Renee said. She and Hector ran out of the kitchen. Dom heard glass shatter as they broke windowpanes to fire out of.
The backyard was filling with Skulls. It seemed every time they brought one down, two more showed up.
“Reloading,” Miguel said, jamming in a new magazine. “There aren’t enough bullets on the Huntress to take these all out.”
“Bullets aren’t the only thing we brought,” Dom said. He pulled an M67 hand grenade from his tac vest. “Fire in the hole.”
Miguel ducked behind the makeshift barricade as Dom threw the grenade. It landed in the middle of the yard as Skulls swarmed past it. They ignored the explosive.
But not for long.
A loud blast shook the house. The Skulls nearest the detonation point tore apart, and those several yards out flew through the air like rag dolls.
The others continued to press on Dom’s position, unperturbed by those fallen around them.
Dom’s jaw clenched as he chose his marks carefully. One, two, three Skulls torn apart by a flurry of gunfire. Corpses filled the yard, and the ferrous odor of blood intermingled with the scent of gunpowder. More gunshots rang out in the front of the house, adding to the din of howling Skulls and small arms fire.
“We can’t hold them off much longer,” Renee called out.
“Hunters, I’m going to come in low, see if I can’t pull them away from your position,” Frank said over the comm link. The heavy beat of the chopper came to a roar as the AW109 buzzed over the backyard. A half dozen Skulls turned and followed the drone of the chopper, but their void was filled in by more charging the house.
Dom and Miguel cut down the ranks of Skulls, but a couple made it to the patio. They slammed against the makeshift barricade. The table tremored, but Dom and Miguel leaned against it, bracing the structure.
“Good lord, these guys are like cockroaches,” Miguel said between grunts.
Two hands reached over the table, grasping. Dom planted a bullet in the Skull’s face, and the creature dropped to the patio.
“Renee, how are you holding up in the front?” he asked over the comm link.
Shrieks and howls answered before Renee could. “I think I see an end of the swarm in sight, but these guys are relentless.”
Another three Skulls made it past Dom’s wall of gunfire. They climbed over the others, desperate to make it into the house. He considered they might just be able to hold off the Skull assault, but beating down this swarm would require every last round they’d brought. He’d hoped they could take this mission more covertly—a quick in and out.
He wasn’t prepared for a full-on siege.
An inhuman cry almost deafened him. This one wasn’t from outside.
Dom spun around in time to see a woman barreling at him. She sprang into the air, her talons outstretched and her face contorted in a vicious snarl. Dropping and rolling to the side, he dodged the woman. She crashed into the kitchen-table barricade. The wood cracked under the pressure of the Skulls outside and now inside the house.
Miguel shouldered his rifle, trying to get a bead on her. She swiped it aside. The weapon skittered across the floor. In one fluid motion, Miguel ducked her second attack and blocked a downward swing with his prosthetic arm. The woman’s claws tore into his fatigues. Vessels bulged out of the side of his neck as he strained to withstand her blow.
Dom recovered and shouldered his rifle. He plugged two rounds into the woman’s torso, sending her off Miguel and into the wall.
Chest heaving, Miguel stood and recovered his rifle. As he did, the Skull followed suit, shaking herself off. From beneath her blouse, the remnants of the bullets fell and clattered to the floor.
Miguel twisted his prosthetic arm, and the blade slid out from it. He used it to stab under the woman’s chin and through her brain. She dropped again, this time for good.
“Renee, Hector, do we have a breach?” Dom asked, panting.
“Nothing from the front,” Hector reported.
“We had a hostile inside the house,” Dom said. “Might’ve been one of the house’s occupants. Stay alert.”
Miguel continued picking off the Skulls in the backyard as more threw themselves at the barricade and windows. A harsh crack sounded as a fracture formed in one of the windows. Three more Skulls pounded against the window, their fists sending spider webs of fissures across the glass. Other Skulls rammed into each other, desperate to be the first to sink their teeth into Dom and his Hunters.
They couldn’t hold them off. Dom knew it. He glanced around the kitchen, formulating a secondary plan.
“Renee, Hector, how’s the front yard look?” Dom asked.
“We got a couple dozen Skulls clambering to get in,” Renee said.
“Is there a roof over the front porch?”
“Sure is, Captain.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Hector asked.
“When I give you the word, you run your asses up to the second floor and get on that roof. We’re going to exit from the second floor.”
“And what about the Skulls?” Hector yelled.
“Open the front door for them. Let them all in.”
“You’re crazy, Chief,” Miguel said. “If we die, I want you to know that.”
“We aren’t dying,” Dom said. “Set a plastic explosive. Doesn’t have to be big, just enough to start a small fire. Give me sixty seconds on the wire.”
Miguel inserted a blasting cap with a built-in time delay fuse into the C4. “Where do you want it?”
“I’ll take it,” Dom said. “Now get upstairs. Same with you, Renee and Hector!”
The three Hunters footfalls echoed in the halls as they pounded upstairs. Dom sprinted to the oven.
“Hold your fire!” he bellowed over the comm link.
The shrieks and cries of the Skulls filled the house as the gunfire quieted.
Dom reached behind the stove. He used the stock of his weapon to break the gas line. He placed the live explosive near the gas leak with fifty seconds to go. Noxious fumes filled his nostrils as he ran for the stairs.
One of the windows in the kitchen exploded inward, and a Skull tumbled in. He shrieked at Dom and charged. Dom threw his rifle over his back and whipped out a knife from his thigh sheath. He plunged the blade into the Skull’s face. Even as he did so, others poured in through the front door.
Firing on them now would almost certainly result in his death.
Forty seconds. Plenty of time.
Dom huffed up the stairs. Skulls filled the bottom floor of the house. The click and scrape of their skeletal appendages accompanied their terrifying bellows. As he rounded the landing toward the second floor, a Skull leapt at him from below. She stabbed her fingers at his throat. He grabbed her wrists and then kicked her back down the stairs. Her body bowled over the first couple of Skulls. It gave Dom a few extra seconds to follow the route
his Hunters had taken. All the doors, except one, were open on the second floor.
“We’re right in front of you,” Miguel called over the comm link.
Dom nodded, catching sight of them through an open bedroom window. He charged for them. Then another cry sounded.
It froze Dom in his tracks.
This one was unlike the other Skulls.
It was human.
“What’s the delay, Captain?” Renee asked. “Front yard’s clear. We’re ready to go.”
“You go!” Dom yelled.
Twenty seconds to go.
There, he heard it again. The Skulls poured up the stairs as Dom searched for the source of the cry.
He ran at the only closed door on the hall and burst through. In the corner of the room, a young boy was crouched, huddled and pale. He held his small fists over his face, shielding himself from the intruder. Dom lifted the boy, no older than six or seven, under his arm.
Ten seconds to go. No time for introductions.
The boy wailed as Dom charged back down the hall. He plunged his knife into the first Skull barreling at them through the narrow corridor. He shoved its body backward, powered by adrenaline and desperation. The window lay open just yards away. He jumped through it, protecting the boy as he rolled onto the roof.
Already, Hector, Miguel, and Renee were on the other side of the street. Skulls filled the bedroom behind him, scrambling to catch their quarry.
Dom leapt from the roof, kept his legs limber, and rolled onto the grass. Pain shot up through his ankle as he rolled, still protecting the boy, and ran toward the street. The windows blew out behind him as a rumbling explosion leveled the first floor. Heat, glass, and wood fragments washed over Dom. The concussion sent him sprawling as he formed a protective barrier between the boy and the blast.
His arms and legs scraped across the asphalt. A lancing blast of heat rolled over his back. But Dom didn’t care. His team was alive; he was alive.
Bits of gore and bone rained down on them from Skulls torn apart in the blast. His ears rang as he stumbled forward, carrying the boy in his arms. Miguel, Renee, and Hector ran toward him, shouting, their mouths open but no sound seeming to come out.
Dom fell to his knees, dizziness bringing him down. He set the child on the ground before him. Blackness threatened to overtake him, but he fought against it.
The boy opened his eyes, still shivering, still frightened. He said something. Just one word. One word Dom easily read on the boy’s lips: Mom?
That was who the Skull had been in the house, the woman who had attacked him. The woman whose body was now burning with the rest of the Skulls.
-32-
The ringing in Dom’s ears faded. The crackle of fire and the acrid scent of smoke filled the air around them. He and the Hunters ran through another yard toward a familiar street. The sight prompted a second dose of adrenaline to shoot through him. He limped faster, waving his Hunters away from the smoldering Skulls.
Renee took point as temporary squad leader. Hector carried the boy in his arms.
Dom limped along, helped by Miguel. A fierce pain throbbed through his nerves, but he pushed past it. “We’re almost there,” he grunted. Each time he breathed, agony swelled in his lungs. It felt as though the hot air had singed them, and he struggled to regain his voice. “Frank, Adam,” Dom called over the comm link. “What do you see?”
Adam answered. “You guys are looking clear to the target. Whatever mess you caused down there pretty much attracted all the Skulls in the vicinity. There are still some milling around, but they don’t look like they’re anywhere near your trail.”
“Great,” Dom said with a pained breath. The group paused for a moment near a berm in another backyard. Renee and Miguel kept watch as Hector tended to the boy, ensuring he suffered from nothing but shock. “Any word from Detrick?” Dom asked.
“We haven’t gotten any hits through UHF yet,” Adam said.
“Something’s got to be up with those boys,” Frank said. “Makes me worried we won’t have a place to land at all. If comms are down, we’re going to be hard-pressed to convince them to let us in.”
“Meredith said she saw Black Hawk activity over the base. They’ve got to be active on some channel.” Dom paused. “Though I suppose that could’ve changed.”
Frank’s voice crackled over the comm link again. “If I were guessing, worst-case scenario, their comm station is down or overrun or whatever, but there’s got to be someone on the ground monitoring a SINCGARS. Although Adam’s giving me the output power to transmit a message to them, we might not be able to receive a message until we’re within line of sight.”
“How’s your fuel?” Dom asked.
“We’re still fit for a round trip, but if we’re floating around for much longer...”
“Got it,” Dom said. “You’re going to need to land one way or another.”
Dom struggled to his feet. Miguel offered a hand, but Dom waved him off. He hoped Meredith had had better luck. They’d barely traveled a mile, and she’d had much farther to go to find his ex-wife’s place. And she didn’t have the benefit of a squad full of Hunters.
“I’ll keep to your south,” Frank said. “If you need me, give me the signal and I’ll bring this bird to you.”
With each step, pain arced up from his ankle. But it could do nothing to delay him from seeing his daughters again. Despite the odds, despite the destruction he’d seen around Maryland since they’d disembarked from the Huntress, he knew his daughters would be alive.
They had to be.
If not...he shook the thought from his mind as he bounded forward through a thin line of trees separating this row of houses from the next. He plunged through foliage and crashed through the underbrush. The other Hunters kept pace.
When a Skull looked up from a trickle of a creek, Dom rushed at it. He withdrew his suppressed HK45C and plugged two .45 caliber rounds into the Skull’s face. It dropped before it could utter a shriek.
Onward they ran into another backyard. He recognized the vegetable garden at once, along with the brick-lined fire pit. They rushed toward the house, and Dom’s heart pumped wildly in his chest. His world seemed to narrow. He almost tripped over the stake in the middle of the yard used to secure Maggie’s chain. His boots hit the deck, the pain in his ankle distant. He looked back, ensuring his Hunters were still safe, still with him.
Then the sliding glass door whooshed back. Two girls with auburn hair stood before him. He stared at them a moment.
No, not girls. No longer. The shell-shocked gaze, the bags under their eyes. Their survival had come at a cost. He could see it.
All the same, he enveloped them both in a hug. He swept them into the kitchen, twirling them around. He barely saw Meredith step forward to greet him and the Hunters, a grin plastered across her face.
“You kept your promise,” he said to her.
“Oh, it wasn’t me who saved them,” she said. “Kara rescued me.”
***
The rhythmic beep of the EKGs and low hum of biomonitoring equipment filled the isolation ward. Lauren dabbed a cotton swab doused in isopropyl alcohol over a vein in Glenn’s arm.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Still hurts like hell where you first injected me,” Glenn said.
She eyed the injection site of the EDTA chelation therapy. A red ring encircled it, bright against his dark skin. “Anything else?”
“Not really,” Glenn said. “Is that good, bad?”
“Good,” Lauren said. “No headaches? No pain?”
Glenn shrugged. “Nothing yet. Maybe a little queasy.”
“It’s probably a side effect of the antibiotics. We loaded you up a bit high to err on the side of caution.” She hoped she was right, hoped she’d found a treatment. If Glenn didn’t feel any worse, it might be a good sign. He certainly seemed to be in good spirits, and his head was screwed on right. But until she tested his blood for antibodies against the Oni Agent, sh
e wouldn’t know if anything had changed.
“Thanks, Doc.” Glenn patted her wrist, as if he could sense her doubt. She smiled back as she drew his blood. He didn’t so much as wince. She took samples from Amir, Scott, Ivan, and Divya, too. The others remained unconscious. Divya was still out from her injuries. Amir and Scott were kept under medical sedation to protect the others from any potential aggressive outbursts.
She reached for the door when Glenn called out, “Doc, one second.”
Lauren went back to his side. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist again. For a battle-hardened Hunter, his touch was warm and soft, reminding Lauren of their more intimate past. “If I am going to turn into one of those things, will you tell me? Don’t sugarcoat it, okay?”
Lauren hesitated.
“I’m serious. I want to know before I lose my mind.”
“I promise. I will.”
But she prayed she’d never have to say those words to him. She left him again, passed the samples through a sterilization and disinfection chamber between the lab and the isolation ward, and exited into the lab. At the lab bench, she squeezed in next to Sean and Peter, both preparing solutions for the antibody assay.
They worked in silence with the blood samples, pipetting small aliquots into plastic tubes. Lauren then ran a radioimmunassay to detect the Oni Agent antibodies in each of the patients. She held her breath as they calculated the results and compared them with the initial antibody concentrations. The numbers lit up on the computer screen between them.
“Is this right?” Lauren asked.
“I think so,” Peter said.
Sean grinned behind his visor. “You did it, Lauren. You actually did it.”
Lauren couldn’t restrain the victorious grin spreading across her face. Her pulse raced with the growing sense of achievement. The Oni Agent antibody levels had dropped in all four of their patients.
“I’ll admit it, you were probably right,” Peter said.
“Probably,” Lauren said. But soon the smile vanished and her short-lived giddiness evaporated. “Of course, our treatment could be hampering their immune systems, which might be responsible for the drop in antibody levels. If that’s the case, we’re getting a false positive.”
The Tide (Tide Series Book 1) Page 25