The Tide (Tide Series Book 1)

by Melchiorri, Anthony J

  Giving the doctor one more smile, Lauren moved on to their other patients, who were still medically sedated. She held her breath as she took each of them off their sedatives in turn. The first to come around was Amir. His eyes widened, and he almost jumped from his bed before Peter restrained him. His words came out in jumbled Farsi.

  “What’s he saying?” Lauren asked Glenn.

  The former Green Beret cocked his head, straining to understand. “I think he’s asking for his whereabouts and who you all are. He’s saying something about danger and monsters.”

  Glenn spoke some words in Farsi and tried to calm Amir down. Soon the rescued IBSL mechanic’s breathing regained a normal rhythm, and he peered around cautiously at the lab.

  “Maybe I’ll finally continue the conversation he owes me,” Glenn said.

  “I hope so,” Lauren replied. “It’d be nice if now that he’s stabilized, he’s a bit more helpful.”

  Ivan’s eyelids began to flutter open. Peter and Lauren rushed to his side.

  “Ivan,” Lauren started, “how are you feeling?”

  His dark pupils met hers. His mouth opened as if to respond. Instead, his head jolted forward, his teeth grinding together. He struggled against his restraints. The entire hospital bed jumped as he thrashed. The only thing to escape his lips was a shrieking howl.

  “Ivan Price,” Lauren said, willing her voice to remain calm. “You’re okay. You’re in the medical bay of the Huntress. Do you understand me?”

  Ivan’s broad nose wrinkled as he growled at them. His chin jutted out, and he struggled to bite at Lauren with all the ferocity of a great white shark churned on by blood. A deep pit formed in Lauren’s stomach. Maybe the Oni Agent antibody levels were a false positive, a red herring in their attempt to discover a way to reverse the biological weapon’s effects.

  “Sedate him again?” Peter asked.

  Lauren gave him a weak nod.

  Seconds later, Scott awoke. His howls filled the isolation ward. Divya clapped her hands over their ears as Lauren rushed to put Scott under once more. She clenched her jaw as Scott slowly succumbed to the sedatives and fell into a deep slumber. What had she gotten wrong? What had she missed?

  Peter shook his head. “We tried,” he said. “We tried.”

  Then Lauren glanced at Amir, Divya, and Glenn again. She went to Amir first, checking his fingernails. Underneath his bandages, his wounds were no longer laced with the calcified tissue left by the nanobacteria. She repeated the examination on Glenn and Divya. They too were free from the outward signs of the infection.

  An idea struck her. She moved to a corner of the room with Peter, out of earshot from the rest their patients. “None of them have any sign of a nanobacteria-induced mineralization.”

  “So? It might not have hit them yet.”

  “No, that’s not it. It took Scott only a few hours to show outward symptoms of the Oni Agent. Amir has been with us much longer, and even after an almost certain infection from Scott, he’s fine.”

  “What are you saying then?” Peter arched an eyebrow.

  “The nanobacteria themselves might not be responsible for the neurological changes leading to the violent outbursts. There’s something else at work. Think about it.”

  “Go on.”

  “Maybe the nanobacteria are producing a molecule, a drug, something that causes the neurological changes we haven’t been able to fix in Ivan and Scott. The nanobacteria act like little factories, doing what they naturally do by reproducing and forming the protective bony mineralized tissues around them. But they’re also making a byproduct, something we didn’t catch before. Something that affects the brain.” She paced around the ward. “If we catch the Oni Agent soon enough, we can eliminate the side effects and prevent the brain from succumbing to the agent’s long-term effects. But if we let it go...” She let her words hang in the air.

  “So we need to find out what these little nanofactories are producing when we don’t kill them fast enough, don’t we?” Peter asked.

  “Right,” Lauren said. She walked toward the morgue drawer in the isolation ward, where they’d stored Brett’s body. She pulled the heavy drawer open. “We’re going to need to perform an autopsy.”

  Once they’d prepped the body, Lauren used the T-shaped skull key to remove Brett’s skullcap. The surgical lights beat down in the lab where she and Peter had set up the makeshift autopsy room. She leaned in, peering through her visor. Before her, Brett’s brain lay exposed. She didn’t need an MRI to confirm what she saw in the grey, wrinkled organ. White plaques, almost glaringly pale, were everywhere. Holes perforated the tissue like an aerated lawn. A large volume of Brett’s brain had been eaten away.

  The brain was a plastic organ, capable of adaption. But nothing could adapt to the voids left in this tissue. What she and Peter were looking at was nothing less than irreversible brain damage.

  “What the hell are those?” Peter pointed one gloved finger toward the white plaques.

  Lauren gulped. “Didn’t Samantha and Chao report something about protein complexes potentially associated with the Amanojaku Project? Wasn’t that in the original project description?”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Then I believe what we’re looking at is the result of a prion infection. Spongiform encephalopathy.”

  “Prions? Infectious proteins? Like the ones that cause mad cow disease?”

  “Right,” Lauren said. “I’m almost one hundred percent positive we can prove that in any number of HPLC, immunohistochemistry, and histology experiments, but I believe we’re looking at what happens when these prions decimate the human brain.”

  “Good God,” Peter said. “So if you’re right, someone genetically engineered these infectious nanobacteria to produce the protein complexes—the prions. And those prions are turning people into killing machines.”

  “This is one of those rare times when I desperately wish I was wrong,” Lauren said. “But I’m afraid that’s not the case.”

  “So there’s no cure at all? Nothing we can do to reverse these changes?”

  Lauren shook her head. “There’s only one potential way to stop prions, and that’s something the agricultural industry practices whenever they fear an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy—mad cow disease—has set in.”

  “What is it?”

  Lauren met his eyes. “Mass extermination.”

  She felt a surge of helplessness, wondering if she and her medical team stood even a hair of a chance at helping those who’d suffered the Oni Agent for too long, like Ivan and Scott.

  As if sensing her despair, Peter spoke up again. “Lauren, we’ll find a way. We’ll find something. In a matter of days, you made an incredible breakthrough. I know I was skeptical, but I’m behind you now. If anyone can scrounge up a better way to combat the Oni Agent, it’s you.”

  “Thanks,” Lauren said. She appreciated the doctor’s confidence, but confidence wouldn’t be enough in the coming days. She took a final glance at the damage the Oni Agent had caused on Brett’s emaciated body. Her eyes traced over the jagged bones stabbing out from his joints and the plates wrapping around his ribs, along with the talon-like fingernails, yellowed and sharp. From everything they’d learned about the Amanojaku Project so far, it had taken over half a century for some misguided scientists to develop this terrifying bioweapon.

  And she was expected to unravel its mysteries, to delve into its biological intricacies, and develop a way to combat it. Even if they did have all the time in the world, she wondered if her medical team aboard the Huntress was up to the challenge. If Dom got Fort Detrick on their side, would that be enough?

  It would have to be, she decided. Dom’s Hunters would fight the Skulls in the streets, and she vowed to fight in the labs every waking hour available to her. For Scott. For Ivan. For Brett. For the millions upon millions of others still suffering the Oni Agent. She held her head high.

  They would stop the spread of this bioweapon.
Their only other choice was to let humanity wipe itself out. And she couldn’t let that happen.

  “I guess it’s back to the lab for us,” Lauren said. “We’ve got some work to do.”

  -36-

  The Skull slammed against the windshield, shattering the already fractured glass. His body rolled into the aisle, and the beast stood, lashing out with its talons, eyes bulging and bloodshot. Dom kicked it into the doorwell and fired three shots, ending the monster’s life. He wouldn’t let the bastard get to his Hunters or the people they were protecting.

  The bus shuddered as Meredith propelled it through the Skulls. The endless, sickening crunch of bodies under the fourteen-ton vehicle accompanied the constant jostling of the bus as if they were off-roading in a Jeep. Bright-red blood trickled out of the cuts in Meredith’s face where the shattered windshield had struck her. She didn’t so much as wipe it out of her eyes as she steered the vehicle through the Skulls.

  Several more of the creatures climbed up the hood. Dom picked them off as fast he could, with Miguel and Renee assisting. There wasn’t enough room for anyone else to join in the desperate shooting gallery for survival.

  “Holy shit!” Joe yelled out. “They’re hanging off the sides.”

  Adding to the chaos, Skulls dug their claws into the rubber seals of the passenger windows. They hung precariously from these positions, smashing their fists and foreheads against the glass. The sea of bodies in front of the bus slowed it despite Meredith’s commitment to keeping the pedal pressed tight to the floor.

  Another Skull managed to climb onto the hood. It lunged for Renee. Miguel fired at it, but his shots went wide, and Dom couldn’t react soon enough. As the Skull swiped at her, Renee flew backward into the aisle. Miguel pulled the Skull off her with his prosthetic and plugged several rounds into its face. Its body went slack, and it slumped onto the floor.

  Dom helped Renee up. “You okay?”

  She nodded, but even Dom could see the tears in her fatigues and the blood soaking her shirt. His stomach twisted at the sight, but Renee seemed to ignore her own fate, retaking her place beside the others at the front of the bus. They did their best to clear a swath from the masses before them. It didn’t take Dom long to realize they were fighting a losing battle. He clipped in another magazine. The constant rattle of gunfire almost seemed hypnotic, pushed to the background of his senses as adrenaline overtook him.

  The basic instinct of fight or flight had kicked in. With nowhere to run, all they could do was fight. The crash of a broken window in the rear of the bus drew Dom’s attention for a moment. Shauna shrieked, but Dom turned back to the front, sending salvo after salvo into the onslaught of mutated humans as Eric protected his girlfriend from an invading Skull.

  The end of the Skulls was in sight. A brief glimmer of hope fluttered through Dom.

  Then the bus slammed into something solid. Dom flew forward, and the lip of the bus’s dashboard caught him under his ribs. He recovered enough to see the burned-out husk of a car they’d hit. It had been obscured by the tidal wave of Skulls surging over it.

  The rear of the bus was propelled forward even as the front of it caught on the cars blocking their path. As if in slow motion, the rear of the bus continued forward until the vehicle was sideways in the street. Meredith twisted the wheel hard, trying to correct the bus’s path, but their inertia was too strong. It carried the bus forward. Meredith tried to hold the wheel tight, but physics fought against her.

  The bus toppled sideways and slid along the street, crushing the cars trapped beneath it. Skulls stuck between the cars and the bus burst like blood-filled balloons.

  Dom and the rest of the crew tumbled, no longer in control of their own bodies. Screams and cries filled Dom’s ears. The gunfire had ceased, but the Skulls’ throaty roars had not. Metal scraped and screeched against asphalt. A cloud of dust filled the air as the vehicle groaned to a halt, overturned.

  Dom’s ears rang, and he fought against the disorientation threatening to halt him. He picked up Meredith’s unconscious form. Her chest still rose and fell with each belabored breath. Miguel, his face contorted in pain, climbed over the seats and shoved the emergency exit in the roof open. Maggie followed close at his heels as he jumped through it and reached back through to help Joe, then Shauna, and then Eric exit. One of Eric’s arms hung at his side, bleeding and bent at an unnatural angle. But there was no time for first aid.

  Renee helped Dom hoist Meredith over the seats. They passed her unconscious form out to Shauna. Hector followed them out as the dust cloud around the bus settled.

  Dom lifted Meredith’s body over his back in a fireman’s carry. He and the Hunters sprinted down the street. Sheer agony coursed up his leg from his injured ankle, but he pushed forward. When he stumbled, Renee caught him, her own wounds bleeding profusely.

  The bus lay on its side behind them. It was no more than a hulking mess of shorn metal blocking the street. Skulls poured over the top of it, spending no time mourning for their lost brethren.

  Dom surveyed his wounded compatriots. The fastest among them seemed to be Maggie, and the dog was still hobbling with her injured paw. They would never outrun the beasts chasing them. They didn’t stand a chance on the ground. He fumbled with his tac vest and pulled off an incendiary grenade. He lobbed it behind them. The fiery blast was lost in the mob of Skulls. Flames caught on several of the creatures, yet they still charged forward. Pain was no obstacle to them.

  There was only one chance, one escape.

  “We need to go up!” Dom yelled. He pointed toward a four–story building.

  Unquestioning, Miguel veered off to his right and burst through the glass door. The impact sent him rolling on the floor. He recovered and charged to the rear of the antique store. The others followed, knocking over old lamps and vases, desks and bookshelves.

  “This way!” Miguel called, leading them up a set of stairs.

  The Skulls flooded the bottom floor, hot on their trail.

  Dom twisted his body with Meredith still over his shoulders. He fired off a spray of gunfire, sending the first row of Skulls tumbling into a mess of destroyed antiques.

  Renee pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade and tossed it into the remnants of the Skulls. The resulting fire devoured the varnished wood and flowery fabric of mid-century couches and kitchen sets. Flames engulfed the first floor. Still the beasts charged through the conflagration like demons from hell.

  Pounding up the stairs, Dom brought up the rear of the crew. The footfalls of the Skulls chased up after them. At the third floor, Miguel waited at the landing. He shoved a bookcase filled with old tomes down the stairs. It was heavy and bulky enough to clog most of the stairwell, yet it didn’t even slow the Skulls down.

  “Worth a try,” Miguel said. He sent a volley of bullets into the creatures before continuing on after Dom.

  They finally reached the door to the roof of the building. Hector and Renee had already taken positions facing the doorway, their weapons shouldered and ready to destroy the Skulls in pursuit.

  Dom set Meredith on the far side of the flat rooftop. He clicked on his comm link, activating the private link to Frank and Adam. “This is Dom. Frank, Adam, do you read? We need an immediate evac.”

  Static.

  Hector and Renee’s weapons burst to life. Miguel joined them. Shauna tended to Eric, helping him to sit next to Meredith. She chambered a round into her borrowed handgun. The young woman appeared ready to defend her injured boyfriend to the death.

  If Dom had it his way, that wouldn’t have to happen.

  “Frank, Adam, do you copy? Answer, damn it!” He fought to contain the panic welling up within him.

  More static. He thought he heard voices beyond the wall of white noise, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Renee lobbed another grenade into the stairwell. Billowing fire and plumes of smoke poured forth, as did the Skulls, hardly perturbed by the relentless hail of bullets and explosives. The beasts were hell-bent on brin
ging down their fresh prey.

  “Help!” Joe cried, firing his pistol at a Skull charging across the roof. The creature hadn’t come from the stairwell.

  Dom fired several rounds into the Skull’s body. Bone fragments and flesh splattered as the rounds tore through the creature’s head. For a second, Dom was confused, uncertain where the beast had come from. Then he saw others climbing over the edge of the building. Their bone-plated bodies twisted and scraped against the brick walls, their bloodshot eyes seeking out prey.

  While Renee and Hector continued their struggle against the onslaught from the stairwell, Miguel joined Dom in picking off the creatures hoisting themselves over the knee-high lip of brick surrounding them.

  Joe’s machine pistol clicked, empty. He jammed in another magazine. One of the Skulls took advantage of his temporary helplessness. Dom adjusted his aim and fired at the charging Skull.

  He missed.

  The Skull leapt and stabbed at Joe with a clawed hand. The skeletal fingers pierced Joe’s chest, exiting out his back. The creature dug its teeth into Joe’s neck and tore away a chunk of flesh.

  “Motherfucker!” Dom cried, charging the Skull. He fired at it, bullets clattering against the bony cage around the beast’s chest. A round smashed through the creature’s sinus cavity, ending its existence.

  Joe grasped at his chest, his lips quivering. Dom ran to his side and caught the man before he fell.

  “Tell—” he coughed, blood bubbling up from his throat. He opened his mouth again to speak, but his tongue pressed against the top of his mouth, crimson liquid seeping from the corners of his lips. His eyes rolled back. He fell limp in Dom’s arms, unable to finish the unspoken thought, the words Dom never wanted to have to hear.

  “I know,” Dom said. “I will.”

  Another Skull swung its legs onto the roof and pounced at Eric. Shauna threw herself between the beast and her boyfriend. She pistol-whipped the creature and threw her heel into its chest, sending it plummeting off the roof.