Boston Under Siege (Book 1): Virus:

by Willson, Fisher

  “Maybe we should consider saving ourselves,” Alexx said, pulling her sword from the carcass of an undead man. “Off the wall.”

  “This is your fault. You ran off.” Trips said, cutting the throat of a creature.

  “We can't leave, brother. There are cages downstairs,” Snake said. “I saw ‘em.”

  “You mean with live people?” Trips asked.

  Snake nodded, as he retracted an arrow from a zombie's eye. “That's how Alexx grabbed the little sword. From down the dungeon. But now that you're here with your broad sword, those locks don't stand a cha...”

  “Ick! They just get slobber all over you!” Alexx stomped a zombie with a swift kick. “Ick!”

  Trips sliced through an artery. Black blood spurted on Alexx. She gave Trips a nasty look. “Sorry, ducks.” He gave her a grin. “So, Snake, where are these cages? Was Mark there?” Trips raised his voice, “Mark?”

  The chamber echoed his call all around them.

  Moments later, a voice echoed through the vast hall. “Trips! Is that you?”

  “Mark?” Trips yelled, again. The zombies began moaning louder.

  Mark shouted in a whine, “Get me down from here, now!”

  “Working on it, cupcake!” Trips yelled, getting two with one blow. “That’s Mark! I can’t tell which way. Which way?”

  “Cupcake?” Dewey asked.

  “Trips! Something is wrong with Amanda.” The name Amanda echoed three times. “She won’t wake up.” Mark fell into a retching sob.

  “Don't cry, honey!” Trips yelled. “Where is he?” Trips asked, a more intense panic taking hold of him.

  “Honey?” Dewey gasped, decapitating a zombie.

  Snake nodded and plowed the invisible shield faster toward the nearest arched door. “No idea. It echoes too much to pinpoint.”

  “Crikey! Where are you?” Trips bellowed. “Got to be one of these doors.”

  “Locked,” Snake said as he slid back into formation.

  “Try the right.” Trips turned to look directly at Alexx. “Did you see him, Ally? Oh, my God, Alexx! What happened to your face?” Trips almost fell out of formation. Alexx's face had been ripped to shreds on one side.

  “Took you long enough. What does it look like happened? I got mauled, jerk-off.”

  “By what?” Trips asked. Alexx huffed, and rolled her good eye, slicing at a zombie just beyond Trips.

  “You guys! Get us out of here,” Mark wailed. They could hear him rattling his chains, and it was echoing less.

  “Where are you?” Trips called out.

  “I don't know! I think Amanda is dead! We're hanging in this giant room with bars on tiny windows. It's like Saint Martin's in Trafalgar.”

  “Hanging? What does he mean,” Dewey asked Trips, “Like in chains?” Dewey yelled.

  “Yes! And it fucking hurts!” Mark shrieked, rattling his chains and falling into stuttered sobs.

  “Just calm down, buttercup,” Trips said, stabbing a vampire in the mid-section and then chopping its head off with a grumble. “Dewey don't you have that fucking radar thing on?”

  “Oh, yeah. Cover me dumpling...” Dewey stepped out of formation. He hacked and chopped at zombies gnawing his firefighter's coat. “Keep 'em off me!”

  Trips took over cutting them away. “Stay with me, Alexx.”

  “Like white on rice.”

  They were almost to the next room. The air was different. Alexx unexpectedly screamed and turned on her flashlight. A zombie was gnashing its teeth on her thigh, and one was staring her in the face, drooling. Trips helped her dispatch them. “Sorry about that. It grabbed me. Came up on my bad side!”

  “I don't see your friend, Trips. I think the range isn't wide enough on this thing,” Dewey said, scanning the room. “Or the walls are too thick.”

  Snake bashed a zombie as it tried to take hold of him and Trips knocked it away.

  “Surround him. Surround Dewey” Alexx ordered as she switched places with Trips. “You get in the middle, Dewmeister. Keep searching.”

  Dewey stood in the center of the triangle as Trips and Snake pushed a path to the door using the Invisasheild.

  “Shhh,” Dewey said, explaining, he needed quiet to be able to find the signal from any other living beings in the area, while Alexx wondered aloud if they should just take the hallway all the way up. Maybe they’d find the way out. “Be quiet. I can't tell which direction Mark's voice is coming from even with the goddamn software.”

  “Told you. It's like an echo chamber in here.” Snake reseated his pack. “We can move faster if we use the Invisasheild like a battering-ram.”

  Trips glanced up and down the halls with his night vision goggles. There were intersections every fifty meters. But what if we’re going the wrong way? “Let’s get into the next room. See if we find Mark.”

  “Gee, sounds like a swell plan, Scooter.” Dewey got back into formation.

  “Snarky,” Alexx said, flicking a zombie's arm off with her nun-chucks, it ran off after its body part.

  “Look who is freaking talking,” Trips said.

  “What did she do?” Mark asked. No one said anything. “Tell me,” Mark yelled.

  “Later, man,” Trips said. “Where are you? We’re trying to find you.”

  “I think it’s this way. Why isn’t there an echo suppression setting on this thing?” Dewey said as he scanned the area. “Keep him talking.”

  Alexx leapt from a slobbering figure in their path and grabbed onto Trips. He pulled her behind the shield as he turned to Snake. “So we're invisible? It can’t see us?”

  “That’s what the invisasheild does. Duh! Jesus! You stink so bad,” Alexx whispered.

  “My stink will protect us from them smelling you.” Trips snorted. “What're you wearing? Probably Seduction or CK.” The zombie sniffed the air and looked puzzled regarding his missing meal as it passed by.

  “I wear Dolce and Gabanna La Force - if you must know.”

  Trips chortled. “That, my lass, is a bloody riot. You wear La Force, and you're giving Ichiro crap because he's a Jedi. That's just perfect!”

  “Hey, they’re staying back. It’s getting thin of zombies. Weird,” Dewey said, as they stood in a four-way crossroads of the underground labyrinth.

  “Dewey, you stink, too!” Alexx said as he joined them behind the shield.

  “It's deer musk, dear.”

  “I know. I just don't know how we're going to breathe!”

  “Can we just stay quiet?” Snake asked.

  “Now you sound like him,” Alexx whispered.

  The four of them shuffled along, stopping when a zombie got in their way and waiting for it to wander off. If they killed it, the noise might attract others. It was taking a very long time.

  “Trips? Are you still here? He left me!” Mark cried out. There was a pause. “Oh, my God, I'm losing my mind. Are you still here? Help! Trips! It's coming. No!”

  “Oh, bugger all! Hang on Mark! Dewey, find him!” Trips yelled, and with that, the mosh pit horde encroached and they scattered into the four halls.

  Trips caught his breath after a long run down a steep slope. He was alone. He tried the comm, but he was too deep underground for it to work. It was close and dank in the rough-hewn dirt and stone passage. Great, alone in a crypt, with no GPS, and no comm. This is why I don't take the subway! Dammit. Worse than spelunking. Creepy crawlies everywhere.

  Trips regained his composure by watching the clouds of his breath through the IR glasses. After a few seconds of staring at two pinpricks of green light coming toward him, he realized he was no longer alone. Snake? That you? Yeah, no doesn’t look right, Kentigern.

  He blinked and tried flicking the switch on the goggles for a readout. Nothing. Not registering anything. He blinked again. They’re getting larger. Not your imagination. Could be animal, zombie, vampire, or human. Go. Get going.

  Trips navigated the downward slope until it changed into roughhewn steps. He turned around, like it was
a ladder, and crawled down into the hole his fingernails scratching the clay soil as each foot found its foot hold in the wall until it leveled out into a wide trench. It’s even colder.

  He turned when he heard something behind him in the dark. He found he was face-to-face with a giant zombie. He moved to go back up the steps but the zombie pinned him to the wall, then dragged him to the ground.

  Trips managed a rolling slam lying on his back, then scrambled up. The creature blocked his only escape and lumbered toward him as it rose to its full towering height.

  Jesus, he’s eight feet tall! It’s fixing to crush me!

  He dodged its lumbering grasp and hacked off a hand, sliding under its legs and clambering up the crumbling earthen staircase.

  The giant creature howled. Trips gripped the wall scrambling away until he tumbled into a new chute. The zombie roared, pawing after him, but Trips scurried into the narrow passageway, leaving the zombie behind. At the other end of the tunnel, Trips could see a dim light. He pulled his night vision goggles down. Light and air!

  When he got to the end, he peered over the ledge lying on his belly. The room was vast. The air smelled of blood, not of earth. Dim light streamed in from barred windows on the facing wall. He blinked, adjusting to the light, and glanced down. He was up high in a hole on the wall, like in a clock tower.

  Movement below caught his attention. He shrunk back and peered at the shadows lacing the floor and crawling up the wall. He watched for some time until he finally understood what he was seeing. Vampires were climbing ladders to people chained on walls under barred windows. He put the goggles back on and switched them to low light conditions for a better look, afraid of what he might find.

  “Mark,” Trips whispered, spotting him being suckled by a vampire.

  For each window ledge, there was a ladder that leaned against it and two vampire guards below. Mark rattled his chains gently. Through the goggles, Trips watched Marks' eyes change from white to green. That can’t be good. The only other prisoner he recognized was Amanda, slumped over on the next ledge. Trips counted. Six prisoners in total.

  He pulled himself into a squat and studied the wrought iron grates over the windows surrounding the crown of the room. Lets in the natural light and air where they’re chained under the windows. Maybe you could kick through one of the windows. He glanced over the ledge at the floor. Be bad if you broke your leg. Dead meat. Must be ten meters, easy. Higher than the diving deck at school. Too far. So, just cool your jets. Just wait a minute. Got to think.

  Trips slipped his phone from his pocket and texted his coordinates. He watched the icon spin. Nuts!

  He calculated the geometry of the room, the strength of his opposition, and his odds. The wrist rocket rods won’t make the distance. Wish I had a bow. He tapped the comm in his ear, and got nothing back but static.

  Trips’ thighs burned from squatting as he duck-walked his way back down the tunnel. As he reached the end of the passage, it was quiet. He’s gone.

  A pebble clicked, bouncing off the wall as the zombie reached into the tight space and grabbed him by the ankle. Trips scrambled, digging his fingers into the earthen walls. He was losing traction as he slid towards the dark maw.

  He rolled to his side, landed a solid kick, and extracted his sword then frantically chopped at the wrist in the small space. The creature roared. Trips got to his knees and crawled full bore away from the giant. He glanced over his shoulder, but miscalculated where he was and fell sword first through the window into the room below. There was a crackle in his headset. Snake’s tinny voice asked, “What was that? Come again?”

  Trips felt the pressure of his landing all the way up into his throat, astonished that he’d survived the drop. Shaking, he caught his breath, and whispered, “Jolly Green Giant. I’m still here. Wow.” He looked up. “I found Mark, and it isn’t pretty.”

  “We're at the cages!” Dewey said over the crackle of the comm. “We can’t leave.”

  “Don't do anything rash,” Snake added.

  “I think I did something rash.” A surprised vampire turned on him, and Trips cut through him, then squared-off in the middle of the room with others closing in. “Vamps everywhere. Surrounded. Right, but one down.” He shot a wrist rocket arrow hitting his target. “Always the optimist, make that two, but quite a few to go.”

  “Trips, if you can hear me, Snake is on his way. I've got to get these folks to safety,” Dewey said, his words phasing in and out.

  More dark figures appeared through a side door. “Could really use some help. Anytime now.”

  Vampires are faster and smarter than zombies. Too quick to hit with his wrist rocket, now that they knew it was there. He swat at them with his sword, keeping them at bay, backing towards a zombie horde filling the room.

  Bit off more than you can chew, didn’t you Kentigern? “Guys, there are zombies, too. C'mon come join the party! And the sooner the better!”

  He heard chains rattle and Mark call out, “Trips, behind you!”

  He spun as zombies tugged at him, then shoved a creature sending it rolling into the oncoming group like a strike ball into bowling pins.

  Vampires flew in from all corners and he grappled with a trio in hand-to-hand combat. Blood coursed and spewed. Trips could tell one wasn’t long for this world as its eyes glazed, and internal bleeding set in. Another turn, and Trips felt his Claymore blade slice through a skull as he stumbled onto a raised platform.

  More vampires charged in from opposite directions. With an upward stroke, Trips sliced through the femoral artery of a leg. The blood pooled out of the vampire boots as it collapsed in a heap against the platform.

  Another vampire closed in, her eyes were a magnificent shade of violet. She reminded him of Sandy. Trips faltered as she flew at him. She got him by the throat and lifted him up. He choked, her icy fingers gripping tighter as he swung around high in the air. The heady notes of her orange blossom scent were making him woozy. Do it Kentigern. Before it’s too late. You’ve got to hit the lady.

  He closed his eyes and ended the assault with a knee to the chest followed by a boot to the skull.

  The female vampire dispatched, he stumbled backwards. An iron bar sticking out of the wall offered a step into delivering a devastating roundhouse, breaking the last assailant's femur, and with a slam from the Claymore, Trips cleaved the torso in two.

  A blur raced around the room, and Trips was trounced from behind. The vampire wrestled him to the ground then delivered a back kick to the groin and a sharp lateral elbow to the ribs, and wound Trips into a chokehold. He couldn't breathe. You’re going to black out. Do something!

  The sword clanged to the floor as Trips yanked and pulled on his assailant’s arm. It wouldn’t budge. He closed his eyes and cuffed the vampire ear with his wrist rocket. That’s it!

  He put the wrist rocket to the vampire’s right temple and shot. The creature collapsed on top of him. He shoved the body away and rubbed his throat, taking a deep breath. Jesus!

  Hands clapped and a deep voice reverberated from across the room. “Superb. Splendid.”

  Trips was jerked up by cold hands wrenching his arms behind him as bright light blinded him. He closed his eyes and felt his courier bag, IR goggles, and weapons ripped from him as he struggled. He squinted, blinking away the white spots, as he tried to focus in the direction of the ringing sound of leather boot heels crossing the stone floor. Three blurry figures came into view. The one in the center was dressed in red leather and lace. Trips twisted in the thug’s grip. “Amos,” he hissed, “I just got to say, you people are really beginning to piss me off.”

  “Your friend is correct.” Amos laughed, as he looked around the room. “It is rather like Cafe in the Crypt, isn't it?” he asked, referring to Mark’s comment about Trafalgar Square. Amos fluffed his cuffs, then turned to his entourage, “But, I know what, instead of an espresso bar with jazz and poetry readings,” he turned to Trips, “we could have a blood bar with dinner theatre. For
example, I could kill you,” he laughed, “for the amusement of everyone here, and then we could dine on you.” His laughter pitched toward hysterics. More vampires had fanned out. Amos snapped his fingers, and the vampires on the prisoners went back to feeding.

  Mark moaned. “Trips, no. Don’t let them.”

  Amos sauntered across the room to where two vampires held Trips. He got in close and inhaled Trips neck. “Oh, my, you do have the most pungent unpleasant odor, but under that,” he sniffed again, “Mm, undeniably delicious.” Amos grinned salaciously, taking Trips’ sword from an underling’s hand. “Any particular reason you favor a broadsword? Compensating for something?”

  Amos got in close, and Trips turned away, shutting his eyes, sickened by Amos' cold, sweet breath. “Yes, undeniably delicious,” Amos added in a whisper, “just like your girlfriend.”

  Trips' eyes popped open. Ami? What about Ami? Two vampire thugs dragged him backward on the platform toward the wall. “What? What do you mean?”

  Amos hefted the sword over his shoulder and stuck out his lower lip in a pout. “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt me.”

  The vampire thugs wrapped ropes around Trips' upper arms and neck and torso. Amos flicked his index finger, and Trips was wrenched off the floor, the noose tightening around his neck as he rose into the air.

  His feet peddling, seeking purchase on something stable, Trips choked, changing from red to purple.

  This is for realsy. Jesus!! Help! He blinked away the green spots and wiggled, widening his kick until he struck something that moved. He dropped a few inches and twisted. He’d knocked a vampire off balance. Now or never, Kentigern.

  Trips pumped his legs and landed a hard blow to the creature’s neck. Arrows flew through the air, the rope slackened, and Trips plummeted, crashing to the floor. The vampires surrounding him dropped dead.

  Trips scrambled back to his feet, his wrists still bound, he barreled head first into Amos’ solar plexus. The Claymore skittered across the floor from Amos’ hands.

  Trips rolled struggling to untie himself. Suddenly, Alexx was above him. She jammed her elbow into a leather-clad ribcage, producing a resounding crack. The vampire yelped in pain. Another rushed at them and Trips rolled out of the way as Alexx kicked and pummeled the creature with her nun-chucks. Trips stuck out a leg, and the vampire fell backwards. Alexx threw Trips a kiss and finished off her vampire.