"Where are they?" Merritt asked.
Good. He hadn't frozen up.
"In the bottom of the crate under the GPR. Arm yourself and take up position between the doorway and the others. If anything manages to get through us, you're the last line of defense. And you'd better make every shot count."
If Merritt said something else, Colton didn't hear it. He focused on the lighted patch in front of him as he swept the barrel of his rifle across the tree line and listened for any sound to betray his adversary's intent. The sheeting rain tore through the glow and pounded the already muddy ground. Torchlight reflected from the expanding puddles and lit the front halves of the tall trees, throwing blankets of shadow behind them. A flash of lightning shimmered on the wet leaves before darkness again advanced with the rumble of thunder.
III
10:12 p.m.
Tasker led McMasters around the western edge of the clearing, careful not to stray into the light. The sentries hadn't split up as he had assumed they would, but that didn't faze him in the slightest. He adjusted his plan on the fly as he always did, and in the process of doing so, was struck by a bolt of inspiration. Rather than just killing two birds with one stone, he could kill all of them every bit as easily. It wouldn't be nearly as much fun as cornering those cowering inside the stone dwelling and executing them in front of each other, but in one swift stroke, the deed would be done and they would have the ruins all to themselves.
Bushes rustled behind him and something splashed in a puddle off in the jungle to his left. Their stalkers were growing more bold by the minute. Fortunately, his masterful solution ought to serve the dual purpose of scaring them off as well.
It was the most perfect plan ever devised. Too bad there would be no one left to share in his triumph when all was said and done, and he was staring out over the Caribbean from the balcony of his private villa.
He paused when they reached the back side of the palatial structure and signaled for McMasters to do the same. Other than the clamor of the rain and the stealthy movement in the trees, he heard nothing, no sign that their ruse had been detected.
With a nod, he guided McMasters over the mounds of rubble that had nearly been reclaimed by the earth to form a rugged hillside from which trees of all shapes and sizes grew. Had he not seen it from the front, he might never have suspected that anything manmade resided under his feet. Silently, they worked their way through the overgrowth until the light from the torches blazed from beyond the next row of trees, and then lowered themselves to their bellies and scuttled toward the edge.
Tasker locked stares with McMasters and pushed himself up just high enough to peer over the precipice. While he couldn't see the guards directly underneath him from that vantage point, at least he could confirm that neither of them had wandered away from their posts far enough that they could clearly see the jungle growing on the roof above them.
He eased back to his stomach, pressed his index finger to his lips, and craned his head to listen.
Faint voices drifted up from below. He couldn't make out their words, but he didn't have to either.
He turned back to McMasters and gave a single nod.
McMasters licked his lips and rolled over onto his back. He reached into the front pocket of his jacket, removed the object as they had discussed, and turned back over again. Holding it tightly in his fist, he pulled the pin with his opposite hand.
The grenade would shred the sentries and undoubtedly collapse the entire ancient structure.
They just needed to make sure that they weren't on top of it when it fell.
Bushes shivered to Tasker's right.
They weren't alone.
McMasters shoved himself to all fours, staying as low as he could, and crawled toward the edge. With the grenade in his right hand, he leaned out over the unsuspecting men below.
Colton watched the branches across the clearing slowly tremble back into place. Again, the forest fell deathly still.
"Where are they?" Sorenson whispered. "I can't see a blasted thing."
Colton could feel them all around him. The weight of unseen eyes made his skin crawl.
The creatures were smart, too smart to blindly charge out into the light. But they weren't passively waiting out there for their prey to make the first move either. They were the hunters, and the darkness was their ally. Colton sensed them surrounding the clearing, just out of sight in the protective embrace of the shrubs and shadows.
The noose was tightening, and soon---
He felt a gentle tap on his right shoulder and leapt away from the wall before the pebble that had fallen from the lip above him even hit the ground. Twisting in midair, he raised his weapon toward the roof of the building and squeezed the trigger.
Automatic gunfire chattered.
McMasters was thrown away from the edge and into the air. Geysers of blood trailed him as he flopped backward.
Tasker watched the arm holding the grenade go limp and the hand relax. The grenade tumbled through the underbrush toward the dark side of the building.
McMasters's body formed a rainbow arch, frozen in time by the strobe of a lightning strike. Dark shapes lunged out of the shrubs and attacked him in midair with a flurry of claws and teeth. Clothes tore and skin parted. A rain of blood patterned the mud, but Tasker only felt it spatter his legs as he propelled himself diagonally to his right. He barely managed to get his legs underneath him in time to launch himself over the front corner of the structure.
Light flashed behind him. With a clap of manmade thunder, the concussive blast hurled him out over the nothingness in a fiery cloud of shrapnel.
IV
10:18 p.m.
There was a muffled whump behind Sam. The ground shook and knocked her to her knees. Smoke and dust blasted through the gaps in the rock barricades to either side of her, filling the room with a chalky haze. She screamed, but couldn't even hear her own voice over what sounded like a freight train bearing down on her. The stones in the ceiling cracked and debris rained down. Rocks tumbled away from the barricades and fissures raced through the support columns, one of which buckled sideways and collapsed.
The entire building was coming down.
Merritt grabbed her hand and pulled her back to her feet. The rifle in his free hand clanked against the incendiary grenades he had clipped to his hip and the spare magazine he had jammed into his pocket.
"Get out of there!" Colton shouted from the doorway. "Now!"
She glanced back at Galen and Leo. They both struggled to stand on the shaking floor.
"Come on!" she shouted, jerking Leo to his feet. He latched onto Galen's arm and dragged him away from the rear wall.
From the edges of her peripheral vision, she saw that enough of the rubble had fallen from the barricades to create dark gaps toward the top, through which clouds of dust funneled. Dark shapes twisted and thrashed in an effort to force their way through.
Something struck her shoulder from above and drove her to the ground, wrenching her hand from Merritt's. She cried out and grabbed at the searing pain. More and more of the stone ceiling cracked away and fell around her.
A shadow passed through the swirling dust, grabbed her around the torso, and hauled her to her feet.
"Hurry!" Merritt shouted directly into her ear. He half-carried, half-dragged her through the collapsing chamber and into the night air, where the dust diffused into a golden fog. She couldn't even see the forest twenty feet away.
Merritt dropped her to her hands and knees in the mud. She coughed and retched into a fern before finding the strength to stand. Her legs trembled. Or was it the earth itself?
She turned toward the building. Shadows raced in her direction through the haze. She saw the vague outline of the trees above the roofline as they fell, canting sideways and toppling on the plummeting stones. A massive expulsion of dust billowed from the jumbled ruins.
"What's happening?" she screamed.
"There's no time," Colton snapped. "We're too expo
sed here. We have to find a more defensible position."
"Is everyone accounted for?" Merritt asked.
"I count six," Sorenson said. "Time to move."
"Who's that over there?" Leo asked. He pointed toward where a human shape was sprawled facedown in the mire a few yards away.
"I don't know," Colton said. The skree of a hawk pierced the night from the jungle to their left. It was quickly answered by another on the opposite side of the destroyed ruins. "But we're not sticking around long enough to find out. He can rot for all I care."
"They want us to run," Galen whispered. "Like field mice."
"I'll take the lead. Sorenson, you cover our asses. The rest of you, keep close together and stay right behind me."
"Where are we going?" Merritt asked.
"I can only think of one place where we'll have any chance of defending ourselves."
"Jesus," Merritt whispered.
"Move out," Colton said, and struck off to the west at a jog.
Sam hurried to catch up with him. Another shrill avian cry echoed through the darkness.
She turned toward the sound.
Even through the rain and dust, she could clearly see the undergrowth rustle in the wake of something that crashed through the brush in the same direction they were headed.
V
10:22 p.m.
Leo struggled to maintain his balance on the sloppy ground as they ran through a gamut of trees and stone ruins toward the sheer face of the mountain, the indifferent goliath that ruled the village from behind the storm clouds. The horrible shrieking sounds were all around them now. To either side of the path, dark forms hurtled through the jungle, slashing through the foliage.
Colton fired sporadic bursts ahead of them, while Sorenson did the same behind. Merritt shot at the shadows surrounding them.
They were all going to die. The reality of that thought cut through the fear and panic with dread certainty. They were all going to die, and it was his fault. The blame fell squarely on his shoulders. He had lied to them from the start in order to gain their assistance. Of course, he could never have imagined the truth in his wildest dreams, but it was his deception that had damned them. He had needed to know what happened to Hunter, for he had simply been unable to accept the loss of his son. The pain had been too great, the anger a physical entity trying to claw its way out through his skin from the inside. Maybe there had been a part of him that lusted after the fortune in gold as well. It was high time he admitted it. Dedicating its extraction to his son's legacy sounded altruistic and noble, but it had always been about the money in that regard, hadn't it? He needed something tangible to hold, something of great value, since he knew he would never again hold the son that in life had always taken a back seat to his global conquests. Only after the discovery of Hunter's body did he truly realize the extent of his failure as a father. There would never be an opportunity to apologize to his son for dragging him all around the world instead of allowing him a normal childhood, to tell him how pleased he was with his accomplishments, how proud he was of the man that Hunter had become.
And it was his guilt that would ultimately be responsible for all of their deaths now.
Muzzle flare strobed the darkness, bringing every shadow to life as the jungle closed in on them from the sides.
The crooked ceiba separated from the night ahead, beyond which the cold, dark maw of the tunnel loomed. Colton couldn't possibly be leading them in there, could he? Not after what they'd seen. Two men from Hunter's group had already been slain inside, and there was that tunnel that led right into the lair of the predators. It was suicide.
"We can't go in there!" he shouted over the rain.
Colton fired a fusillade of bullets past the tree and into the corridor, where they ricocheted from the stone floor and walls with a display of sparks.
"Colton! We can't---!"
"There's no other choice!" Colton snapped, rounding on him. His eyes were wide, his skin pale. Ribbons of water drained down his haggard face. "If we stay out here, we'll all be slaughtered. At least in there we have a fighting chance."
"It's completely dark in there. They'll be all over us the moment we step inside."
"Do you want to live through this or not?"
Leo could only nod as they reached the tree and pulled up short of the mouth of the tunnel.
"Then let me do my job," Colton said. He faced the opening and fired into the pitch black until his clip ran dry, then snapped another into place. "And who said anything about not having light?"
Leo glanced back to make sure that they were all together and advanced into the mountain behind Colton, who fired a burst every few steps. The barrel flashed and bullets pinged. He bumped into Colton from behind and was about to ask why they had stopped so suddenly when he heard a snap. A blinding light flared into being. A canister stood on the ground, firing a flume of concentrated light into the air above it. Molten liquid poured down the sides and puddled around the base. An incendiary grenade.
"We have to move quickly. This won't last very long," Colton said. He kicked the canister and sent it rolling down the tunnel ahead of them. It spat flames at the wall and trailed a path of magma. "It's burning at roughly four thousand degrees, so don't let even a single drop of that stuff touch you."
The distant light created shadows in the recesses to either side where the bodies were interred. One of the skeletal corpses had fallen from its perch and lay in a heap on the ground. They stepped around it and headed deeper into the earth. The glare was already starting to wane.
This was a very bad idea. They would never leave this ossuary alive.
Skree!
The sound echoed all around them, yet there was no denying its origin.
It had come from inside the mountain.
Directly ahead of them.
VI
10:26 p.m.
Merritt balked at the entrance to the underground warren. A piercing glow radiated from inside, turning Galen and Sam to silhouettes as they ducked out of the rain and into the stone passage. Sorenson backed into him from behind with the clamor of suppressive fire.
"Get in there!" Sorenson yelled.
Merritt could only stare at the fissure in the hillside. His legs had locked up and the remainder of his body was unresponsive. Even his voice failed him at first.
"I...I can't."
"We don't have time for this."
Sorenson jabbed him in the back with the butt of his rifle and he stumbled forward, barely able to maintain his balance. The screams of the dying filled his ears, while the scent of burned flesh lingered in his sinuses. His vision grew hazy from the smoke. Even the rain no longer touched him as in his mind he was a thousand miles away in a sun-baked landscape of sand.
He knew on a fundamental level that none of this was truly happening, but that understanding made it no less real. Fear had him in its grip, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to break free.
Sorenson prodded him with the rifle again, harder this time, driving him to his knees.
"Get in there or so help me, I'll leave you right here!"
Merritt peeled his dry tongue from the roof of his mouth to reply, but no words formed.
Sorenson jerked him back to his feet by his collar and shoved him forward into the mountain. Rather than speeding up, his heartbeat slowed and a sensation of warmth spread through his body like an anesthetic, numbing his hands and feet. He was shutting down, going into shock.
"Merritt," Sam said. He felt her cold, wet hands on his cheeks before he realized that she was standing directly in front of him. "We need to keep moving. Do you understand? We can't stay here or whatever those things are will kill us. You can do this."
Flickering light limned her outline. He could barely see her features until she brought her face within inches of his.
"You can do this," she repeated. He drew confidence from her words, and her touch brought him slowly back to the here and now. "Just look into my eyes and place one foo
t in front of the other."
"They're right behind me," Sorenson said. He punctuated his statement with a barrage of gunfire back into the forest. "Either you get him moving or you're both on your own."
"Then go!" Sam shouted. She turned her attention back to Merritt and softened her tone. "Just listen to my voice and look into my eyes. There are very bad things out there and we need to hurry. I want you to focus on moving your legs and following me. I'm not going to leave you."
He couldn't risk slowing her down. She needed to get as far away from him as possible. He would never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to her.
"Go on," he said. "I'll be right behind you."
"You're a terrible liar."
Sorenson fired out of the egress again at the sound of a shrill hawk's cry.
Sam lowered her palms from his face and took him by the hands. She pulled him gently at first, then more insistently. He stumbled after her, eyes locked on hers, the rifle he had slung over his neck clattering against his chest. The smoke remained, but instead of reeking of scorched skin, it smelled of harsh chemicals. The wails of the wounded faded to the sounds of breathing and shuffling footsteps. Feeling returned to his appendages with each step, and the situation resolved from the fugue. He gave Sam's hands a solid squeeze.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Her reply was drowned out by the report of gunfire, both from ahead and behind.
She released his right hand and turned so that she could drag him by his left.
The ruckus of rain metamorphosed into the drone of flies as they fled the outside world.
Merritt gripped the assault rifle in his right hand. It scared him how perfectly it still fit.
Another avian cry from behind.
Burial Ground Page 33