The Tide (Book 5): Iron Wind

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  “As soon as we hit the shore,” Dom yelled over the crash of the ocean waters, “we port this sucker”—he patted the gunwale of the Zodiac—“and hightail it to the river. Remember, stealth is the key here.”

  As the Hunters nodded, Dom surveyed the team. Jenna and Terrence looked at him expectantly. Miguel crouched at the tiller, his face wrought in determination. Renee sat at the prow with Meredith and Glenn behind her, and Andris was parked near the supplies in the center of the craft. Dom gave a quick hand signal, and the boat took off, gliding over the dark water.

  “Can’t help but notice how damn small our team seems, Captain,” Jenna said.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Terrence said. “Damn shame Spencer’s Drooler burns aren’t healed.”

  “Burns like that don’t heal overnight,” Dom said. “We’ll have to work that much harder to make up for Spence. He’s going to hate missing out on this.”

  “I’ll kill an extra Skull or two for him.” Miguel flexed the fingers on his prosthetic. “I’m itching to try out my new toy and give those bastards a taste of their own medicine.”

  “Like a kid at Christmas,” Dom muttered.

  As they skimmed the water, they approached the jumble of wrecked freighters, fishing trawlers, and barges. Dom held up a fist for silence. Several Skulls were meandering atop one of the freighters, their spikes and demonic crowns of horns contrasting sharply against the full moon.

  The low gurgle of the motor accompanied the groans of shifting, rusted metal as they passed by the wreckage. The Zodiac sailed south along the coast, and Dom studied the abandoned piers and toppled cranes, searching for the best route to the river.

  Skulls ambled everywhere he looked. Between the great white oil tanks, among the warehouses, and near the dry-docked ships, the monsters shuffled with their half-hearted gait. He used his night-vision binos to identify the skeletal bright-green shapes hiking through the woods between the tree trunks and dense foliage. There would be no avoiding the creatures even if they took a long route through the jungle to the south.

  This would not be easy.

  He spotted a shadowy pier next to a trawler lurching unhealthily to its port. Only one Skull limped near it, dragging its left foot.

  One lamed Skull, they could handle.

  Dom signaled Miguel to steer the Zodiac toward the dock. The others crouched low at the gunwale. Their packs rustled as they situated themselves, ready to leap from the craft and bring it to shore. Dom motioned to Miguel to take point, and the Hunter eased his way to the prow.

  “Think you can take this guy out quietly?” Dom whispered.

  Miguel nodded, his eyes already locked on the monster. As the craft neared the dock, Miguel slipped off his pack, jumped over the side, and then sprinted across the wooden planks. His feet padded softly, and he reached the Skull without it noticing him. With a twist of his prosthetic arm, the concealed blade jutted from the hidden compartment in his wrist. It gleamed in the moonlight as the blade found its home in the soft flesh under the Skull’s chin. Blood flowed from the wound, streaking over Miguel’s arm and puddling onto the dock and dripping into the sloshing ocean water. Gently, Miguel lowered the Skull and then let its body slip into the black waves, where it disappeared.

  “Clear,” Dom said to the others. “Glenn, you’re on rearguard with Renee. Miguel and I will take point. Everyone else, get the Zodiac ashore.”

  Silent nods from the Hunters met his commands, and they piled out of the craft. Dom and Miguel rushed to the end of the dock. They scanned their surroundings with their rifle barrels. Dom’s finger hovered near his trigger guard. He listened to the muted grunts of the others as they lifted the Zodiac from the water. They had brought as much ammunition and supplies as they could fit in the packs they carried, as well as in extra packs tied down inside the Zodiac. Carrying the rubber craft with its added weight through the shipyard was not a task any of them had been looking forward to.

  “Ready to go,” Renee said in a low voice over the comm link.

  Dom held up a hand and pointed to a row of dry-docked ships in various stages of disrepair and neglect. A breeze twisted between them as they ran to the nearest vessel and hid behind the rusted hull. The pungent odor of fermenting bacteria and rotten meat, characteristic of the Oni Agent chewing through the flesh of its victims, stung Dom’s nostrils.

  When Renee and Glenn reached the protection of the broken ship, she gave Dom a hand signal to let him know none of the beasts had spotted them. Dom peeked around the bow toward their next objective. A huge warehouse stood near the edge of the jungle. Its doors stood open like the mouth of a hungry leviathan waiting to devour them. On the other side of the warehouse, a few barges and ferries floated on the Congo. They had once connected the villages and towns along the waterway, allowing civilians to take the long and sometimes dangerous trek to sell their goods or try their luck in a different part of the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now the vessels were abandoned and the people they had once carried either dead or turned into monsters.

  Soyo, never a popular tourist destination even in its heyday, was a city of ghosts.

  Between the dry-docked ship where they hid and the warehouse stood a row of oil tanks, each one several stories tall. A huge crater lay next to the ruins of one tank, and a fallen crane lay across their path like a giant serpentine corpse. Small groups of Skulls wandered the asphalt, crunching some sort of debris underfoot.

  As Dom used his night-vision binos to examine what they were walking on, his chest tightened. The Skulls were walking over the bones of corpses whose flesh had long since been shredded and eaten. Amid the scattered bones and remnants of clothing, spent casings and weapons littered the ground. Dom spied several other craters, all of them documenting the battle that had taken place here, and there was no mystery as to who—or what—had been the victor.

  Shouldering his own weapon, Dom walked in a crouch to a nearby fishing boat with Miguel. He stopped near a skeleton slumped against the hull with a rifle lying by its side.

  “Careful, everyone,” Dom said over the comm link. “We don’t want to end up like these guys.”

  The others followed, carrying the Zodiac. Sweat glimmered on their faces as the relentless heat and humidity washed over them. Each step they took away from the ocean and toward the warehouse seemed to increase the mugginess of the air they breathed.

  Dom paused. Between this last boat and the shelter of the oil tanks lay the crumpled crane and a host of Skulls. He surveyed the landscape. There was no getting around it. At either end of the crane were groups of Skulls numbering at least three to four dozen.

  “We need to make this quick,” Dom said. “No guns, if possible. Slice ’em, then run. Get the Zodiac over the fallen crane and then sprint for that first oil tank. I don’t see any contacts there yet, so we might get lucky. Ready?”

  The Hunters nodded in unison.

  “Radio silence until we make it to the other side.”

  Dom strapped his SCAR-H over his back and drew his blade from his thigh sheath. Miguel’s blade clicked out from his prosthetic arm, and he held another knife in his right hand. With a subtle nod from Dom, they bolted from their cover and straight at the first pair of Skulls in their path. One turned slowly, long horns hooking from its brow and its mouth agape in what looked like a lazy yawn. Its eyes went wide when it spotted Dom, and its cracked lips curled back into a snarl, ready to shriek.

  Dom’s blade cut through the roof of its mouth. Hot blood poured over his wrist as a second Skull leapt, attracted by the commotion. Its bone plates rattled as it dashed for Dom. He struggled with the dying Skull in his arms, unable to get his knife free.

  Before the second monster could reach him, Miguel intercepted it. He buried one knife up to the hilt in the creature’s eye. His second blade found a weak spot between the plates in the creature’s neck. It sliced into the vocal cords before the monster could cry out. The beast managed only a feeble death rattle as its body f
ell to the ground. Its bony plates connected with the asphalt, letting out a dull thud.

  The monster thrashing in Dom’s arms slowed as more blood trickled from its fatal wound, and he lowered it next to the other dead monster. The Hunters dashed over the tarmac with the Zodiac in tow. Glenn and Renee ran behind them, their suppressed rifles playing across the darkness.

  They were almost halfway to the latticework of the fallen crane when another three Skulls turned their direction. Legs pumping and muscles burning, Dom rushed to intercept them with Miguel at his side. He flashed Glenn a hand signal to leave his position and help. Together, they met the trio of Skulls like bulls crashing against each other.

  The Skull Dom had engaged knocked away his blade before he could cut into the creature’s jugular. The knife skittered away, just out of reach. The Skull’s bloodshot eyes glared, and it opened its mouth to howl. Dom slammed the creature’s jaws shut before it could call the others, and the noise came out only as a gargling growl. The Skull writhed as he wrapped his arm around the creature’s neck, struggling to wrestle it to the ground. Desperation and anger fueled him. He tried to force the creature down using his body weight, but the Skull drove its shoulder hard into Dom’s body armor. The plates in his tac vest deflected what would have been a terrible wound from the spikes jutting from the Skull’s shoulders and upper arms, but he still felt the force of the impact.

  Dom kicked the back of the Skull’s knee. The blow sent the Skull off-balance. Its arms swung out, scything claws raking the air and forcing Dom to jump back. His fingers slipped from around the creature’s jaw. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Dom felt a twisting sickness squirm in his gut. Yellowed teeth, glistening with saliva, protruded from the Skull’s mouth as it opened. Spittle flew in disgusting strings. The monster let out a howl that split the night air, bouncing off the aluminum siding on the warehouses and the hulls of the dry-docked vessels.

  In a swift motion, Dom dove to grab his knife and threw it into the creature’s open mouth. The blade dug in, and the Skull fell backward, silenced.

  But as the howls of Skulls across Soyo wailed in response, Dom realized the damage had already been done.

  -5-

  Frank had no other choice. His leg was still stuck in the loop of barbed wire, and the hungry Skulls were almost upon him. He took the pistol from his waistband and leveled the gun at the first Skull’s face. It had a snubbed pig nose, protruding cheekbones, wisps of gray hair, and bugged-out eyes that gave it a distinctly Tales from the Crypt look. Frank might have laughed at the ridiculous-looking Skull if it didn’t look about ready to tear a chunk of flesh from his leg.

  He squeezed the trigger. The blast echoed over the construction site.

  Just seven bullets left.

  A clink rang out as the spent casing pinged against a rock, and the Skull slumped forward. Crimson liquid poured from its broken nasal cavity. It stopped chomping, and its claws gave a final twitch before going still. Three more Skulls prepared to pounce, their muscles coiled beneath bony plates and spikes.

  Frank struggled again to get free. The barbs tore into his flesh, but that pain would be nothing compared to the teeth of a Skull. He bit the inside of his cheeks to refrain from screaming and at last heaved his leg from the coiled wire. Fabric and skin tore, but the pain faded away as adrenaline flooded his system, urging him to run, to flee the ugly shits chasing after him.

  There were at least two dozen Skulls in the construction site behind him. Math had never been his best subject, but seven bullets plus twenty-four Skulls did not equal a happy, healthy Frank. He searched the site for weapons as he ran. Veering around a set of tools and a cement mixer, he spotted the wooden handle of a sledgehammer sticking up next to a large tool chest. He grabbed it with one hand and tucked his pistol into his waistband with the other.

  His boots slapped in the mud, spraying the filth around him. He did not know where he was going, only that there was no turning back.

  An inhuman shriek wailed to his right, and a Skull barreled at him from an open trailer. Its arms spread wide, like it wanted to give him a hug. A tool belt still hung around its hips. Frank cocked back the sledgehammer.

  “Sorry Home Improvement ended, but damn, Tim, you really need to take care of yourself,” Frank said. Even at the grisly sight of the monster, he couldn’t help the gallows humor as he unleashed all the power stored in his muscles. The sledgehammer connected with the Skull’s face. Bone chips flew, and half of the creature’s skull caved in. Its eye devolved into a mangled mess of red gore, and its shattered teeth fell from its crooked mouth.

  And still it ran. A slicing claw caught Frank’s shirt, and he recoiled. Again, he swung the sledgehammer, not as powerfully as before but with all the desperation of a man knowing his life depended on this one action. One miss, one false move would end with Skulls descending on him like a bunch of ravenous all-you-can-eat-buffet patrons when the fresh crab legs have just been brought out.

  The sledgehammer crushed the Skull’s head. Blood sprayed into Frank’s face. He squeezed his eyes closed and clamped his mouth shut. A brief wave of relief washed through him when the creature dropped to the ground. But the relief was short-lived.

  Another two Skulls burst from woods across the parking lot. They ran between the trucks standing idle on the asphalt, leaping over skeletons and neglected construction equipment with all the muscled grace of lions hunting gazelle. Frank held up the sledgehammer again as the two Skulls narrowed the distance between themselves and him. There was no avoiding them. It was either take them out or slow down and let the horde devour him. Frank’s muscles burned. He was weak from dehydration, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a decent meal.

  “But if I don’t get to eat, neither do you bastards!” Frank said.

  With a yell full of pent-up anger and frustration, he swung the sledgehammer like an all-star batter. This time the Skull’s head caved inward on the first blow, and the monster went down. “How’s my hammer taste, bitch?”

  The one-liner wasn’t his best. He knew that. But goddammit, he got points for trying in the face of almost certain death. Let the record show that he was still cracking jokes right up until the end. Frank juked to his left to avoid the second Skull. The monster twisted, carried by its own momentum, and crashed to the ground. It still wore a construction helmet secured over its head by fraying straps. The Skull scrambled to right itself, its claws clicking, but Frank was quicker.

  An overhead slice of the sledgehammer debilitated the Skull, and its jaw was smashed between the sledgehammer and the ground. As Frank panted for breath, he knew he wouldn’t outrun the rest of the creatures. The burn of lactic acid wore on his overworked muscles.

  It was time to find some wheels.

  “You’re no helicopter, but you’ll do,” Frank said, heading for the nearest pickup truck. He yanked open the door. A brief glimmer of hope flashed through him as he noticed the keys still dangling in the ignition. Frank jumped into the driver’s seat and set the sledgehammer on the floor. His heart thumping, he twisted the key. But instead of being rewarded with a revving engine, only a soft clicking came from the starter.

  “Damn it!” He punched the dashboard. The battery was dead. He tried the keys once more but was met with the same result. Through the windshield, he eyed the next pickup. Maybe this one would be in better shape.

  But before he could slide out the driver’s door, something slammed into the truck. The whole vehicle shook as the Skulls attacked. Then the driver’s-side window exploded in a spray of glass shards as one of the Skulls punched its fist through, reaching for Frank. He cowered, retreating into the passenger’s seat. The Skull squeezed itself into the window as the others clamored around it, desperate to reach their prey.

  Frank picked up the sledgehammer and shoved it in the Skull’s face. But with little room to maneuver, the impact wasn’t enough to convince the Skull to cease its attack. The monster’s claws dug into Frank’s boot, and he kick
ed, warding the beast off. With one hand gripping the sledgehammer, he fumbled for the door handle. The truck rocked as the pack of Skulls slammed against the vehicle’s driver-side door like a crashing wave.

  A shallow click sounded behind him as the door released, and he tumbled backward with the sledgehammer in tow. The Skull in the truck pulled itself forward, claws slashing into the fabric bench seat of the truck, and it let out a frustrated shriek as Frank sprinted away.

  The mob of Skulls hadn’t yet realized that their dinner had escaped. Frank ran to the next truck in the line. It was locked. As he yanked uselessly on the door handle, the Skulls succeeded in tipping the first truck onto its side. The noise was deafening, and Frank used the cover to bash the window in with his sledgehammer.

  The safety glass fell into the driver’s seat. A loud wailing joined the din of the angry Skulls. The truck’s security alarm announced his presence to all the monsters running around the construction site.

  “Can’t catch a break,” Frank muttered. His pulse thundered in his ears as he leaned into the cab to unlock the door. He scrambled in, and the glint of light on metal caught his attention. He picked up a key ring from the dash. He fumbled with the keys, trying to insert each into the ignition as the Skulls sprinted from the other wrecked pickup to this one. None fit.

  Then he read the plastic tag attached to the key ring: BD #09.

  BD. What the hell is BD? He glanced frantically around the parking lot as the cacophony of screaming Skulls surrounded him. More pickup trucks, a couple of cars. He spotted a backhoe and a cement truck.

  BD?

  The first Skull crashed into the side of the truck. It pounded on the windshield. A fracture line appeared, cracking across the glass. Then he saw it. BD is for Bulldozer.

  He piled out the passenger side again and sprang across the parking lot. Most of the horde was preoccupied with the truck and its screaming alarm. A few Skulls broke away and headed toward Frank. A stitch pulled in his side as he sprinted. He pulled the bulldozer’s cab door and sat in the bucket seat. Finding the ignition slot, he shoved the key in, and to his relief, the diesel engine rumbled to life.