“The next morning,” Grace said, “The dog killed three soldiers.”
Grace—then six weeks pregnant with her daughter Maddie—fought hand-to-hand with the dog until she got a grip on the canine’s neck and would not let go. She demonstrated the hold for Wawa by forming her hand into a claw. In his final moments, the dog’s eyes fluttered and his tongue popped out. “A Trojan horse,” Grace said. “But you don’t even know what that means. And if you do, there’s no telling if it was learned, or programmed.”
“Learned.”
“Learned. Did you learn to feel guilty about the things you did in the war?”
“No. That must have been programmed.”
Wawa hoped that Grace would use this as a cue to leave. The strator was late for the communion ceremony on the other end of town.
But then, the first quake hit the building. The thermos wobbled. On the main floor of headquarters, the hanging lights jiggled on their wires. Everyone stopped. Wawa rose from her desk.
“What was that?” Grace asked.
The tremor passed. As Wawa exited her office, a thrum started, distant, as quiet as a breeze. She felt the vibration through the tiles on the floor. This headquarters, she realized, was merely a larger version of the cell in which she had once lived. In the cages, she learned to distinguish the noises, the voices bouncing off the concrete, the clop-clop of her master’s sneakers. Distant sounds closing in always signaled danger.
“Maybe a truck overturned,” Grace said.
Wawa made a note of the humans in the room, where they stood, the fear on their faces. Hogan Brierley, a former Navy SEAL, checked his sidearm, while a drop of sweat rolled along his cheek. Daiyu Fang, who had traveled to this continent on a decrepit Chinese submarine, held out her palms in the universal I don’t know gesture. Carl Jackson and Nell Becker stood by the window, peeking outside in the hopes of finding an answer. None of them—not a single one—could hear the noise approaching. God had chosen these people despite their flaws, their weaknesses, their blissful ignorance. Maybe that was the source of all their problems. They perceived only a mere sliver of the world, yet assumed they knew all of it.
Ever since the war ended, Wawa swore that she had learned to forgive the humans. And yet a dark part of her, buried deep within, drew some pleasure from watching the horror spill into Grace’s eyes as she finally began to hear what was coming.
A roaring avalanche shook the walls. Some of the officers held onto their desks to steady themselves. And then the approaching thunder slammed into the building and continued rushing on, gurgling and sloshing. Wawa knew then that the dam must have burst. Water gushed through the front entrance. It spread throughout the room, clear and cold. Someone actually howled at the sight of it. Wawa tried to think. This first floor of headquarters stood about ten feet above street level. They still had time.
She rushed to the doors and pried them open. The lobby was submerged in shin-deep water. Outside, the streetlamps reflected off a choppy river that flowed over the asphalt. The rooftops of several vehicles poked stubbornly from the water. The electrical grid gave out, several buildings at a time. Hosanna went dark. This city, this pack for which she bled, for which she sacrificed so much. Long ago, she told God, I’ll suffer for all of this, if that’s all you’ll let me do. She stayed awake at night imagining the ways she could die in the line of duty, and the things she would say when the moment arrived. She would not share her life with someone. She would hand it over for everyone. Perhaps tonight.
Wawa climbed on top of the nearest desk. The officers gathered around her. To their credit, they held their positions even as the water rose above their ankles. Grace stood conspicuously outside of the circle, checking her pistol.
“Listen up,” Wawa said. “This whole city is depending on what we do right now.” She searched the faces for someone she knew well. Her gaze settled on a fox whom she had recently promoted to lieutenant. “You, Havoc,” she said. “Take four people. Get to the motorboats on the dock. If they haven’t been washed away, we’ll need them.”
“Right,” Havoc said. He picked out four people and headed for the door.
“Who did this, Chief?” someone shouted.
“We’ll find out later.” She pointed at a raccoon named Veren. “You: there’s a generator in the storage facility next door. We need it.” Doling out tasks made her calm, and brought her out of her master’s cage. Within a minute, she sent people to retrieve weapons, first aid kits. She sent Grissom to the dispatch room to see if any of the equipment could be salvaged. “And brew some tea,” she said. “You’ll be up for a while.”
“Chief,” Grace said. “What are you going to do about the communion?”
Wawa remembered that Grace’s daughter was at the ceremony. “We’re sending the boats there first,” she said.
Wawa pictured the scene they would find. Survivors would call to them from telephone poles and rooftops. Floating bodies would congregate in alleyways, in hotel lobbies, in restaurant kitchens. Many of the dead would still have their eyes open, so they could stare down the rescuers who arrived too late.
Something slammed into the front doors of the building, loud enough to make everyone flinch. Outside, people shouted. Havoc stumbled in, soaking wet, wide-eyed and panting. Three jagged slashes had torn his vest almost completely from his torso.
“Lock the doors!” he said. “Get those desks over here!”
When no one obeyed, Havoc frantically grabbed a desk and pushed it through the water toward the door. “Help me with this! They’re here!”
Wawa knew right away. Alongside Havoc, she put her shoulder into the desk, ignoring the murmurs from the others. “Help him!” Wawa said. “We need to set up a barricade!”
As soon as the desk made contact with the brass handles, the door exploded in a burst of shards and splinters. The force of it knocked Wawa on her tail in a great splash. As she tried to sit up, a creature bounded over the desk, leaping into the crowd of officers. The fish-head had skin the same greenish color as the river. Its claws and tentacles slashed the air, shooting streams of water across the room. The monster made a strange sound as it breathed. Awwk. Awwk. A dog and a cat dropped to the ground face first, clouding the water with their blood. Several officers drew their guns. The shots echoed in the stone hall, piercing Wawa’s ears. She got to her feet, drew her pistol, and tried to aim. She told the others to move, but no one listened. Beside her, another creature jumped through the door and collapsed on Havoc, crushing him. Through the water, Wawa felt the dog’s bones breaking. She swung around to fire as a tentacle batted her in the face. The monster bolted and went after another officer.
A small hand grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and pulled her to her feet. It was Grace. With her other hand, the human fired her pistol with the barrel leveled sideways. Bap-bap-bap. A few of the officers retreated to the Chief of Tranquility’s office, only to find themselves cornered. Wawa was sure she hit one of the creatures square in the shell, but the bullets must have skidded off the armor.
The windows at the other side of the room burst open, with two more fish-heads leaping through. With their claws and tentacles fully spread out, the creatures were twice as big as the emaciated cadaver in the morgue.
Wawa shouted for the others to follow her upstairs. Her voice died out in the noise. Four of the monsters mowed through her officers as they took cover behind their desks. The human Nell Becker crouched in a corner and fired, but a creature charged through the bullets and gripped her by the neck with its claws. Her arm flailed and she continued shooting, forcing Wawa to dive to the ground as the bullets skimmed by her.
“Come on!” Grace shouted.
Wawa aimed at the monster as it dropped Becker’s body. She emptied the magazine. The creature fell, then rose again, its wet eyes focusing on her.
It was time to run.
Grace covered her as Wawa
retreated to the staircase. Daiyu Fang followed, with Carl Jackson limping behind her. Peering over the railing, Wawa caught a glimpse of the floodwater, now painted red. They left bloody footprints on the stairs.
The group retreated to Wawa’s former office. Fang and Jackson propped a bookshelf against the door.
“Can we get to the roof from here?” Grace whispered as she reloaded.
“There’s a ledge. We can climb.”
“The communion’s about a mile away,” Grace said. She pointed to an area of the city that had gone completely dark, like some black hole blotting out the stars. “If they’re going for Michael, we need to get there.”
Wawa tried to hold it together. Grissom and the dispatchers were surely dead. If anyone had made it out of the main room, they were getting butchered in the streets as they tried to swim to safety. And how many officers in the city drowned in the initial wave? How many survived only to find some nameless abomination lunging for them?
Wawa opened the window and immediately heard a scream, many blocks away. It died out. Once again, the humans did not seem to hear it. A fetid breeze laced with ammonia brushed across Wawa’s face. She took her first step onto the ledge.
CHAPTER 16
Face to Face
D’Arc clung to a tilted light pole, several feet above the rushing water. She couldn’t hear anything in her clogged left ear. In her right, she heard the river churning, along with a few screams for help, cries of agony. The striped body of a cat floated underneath her, tail up, the fur plastered to the skin. The corpse bumped against the pole, twirled around, and continued south with the current. At the nearest intersection, three cars had been stacked on top of one another by the force of the water. A few animals paddled over to the roof of a bus. D’Arc counted a dog and two rats, with others swimming closer. More people floated near the entrance of the Prophet’s residence, while the humans on the roof shouted down to them, asking who needed help.
Somehow, a single candle, still lit, lay horizontally on the brick wall in front of the Prophet’s residence.
D’Arc called Falkirk’s name. When he didn’t answer, she scanned the street for him. Only then did she realize that the wave had carried her well over a block from where she once stood. Above her, the streetlamp flickered out. Several others remained lit, giving the water the appearance of some gelatinous oil. Or blood.
Gunfire popped from the roof of the Prophet’s house, like snare drums. D’Arc hugged the pole tighter until her heart throbbed against it. The humans aimed into the water, and the bullets hit the surface in neat vertical splashes. As the muzzles flashed, the survivors below blinked in and out, in different poses each time. Some tried to move away, while others pounded on the door of the building, demanding to be let in.
Then she heard it—a series of gasping sounds, almost like a cough. People screamed and splashed as they tried to escape. Strange shapes broke the surface of the water. D’Arc made out heads, claws, tentacles. The appendages reached into the crowd, wrapping around the hapless animals. One tentacle lifted a squirrel out of the water by its neck and then dunked him, holding him under until a few bubbles broke at the surface.
The monsters rammed the front door of the Prophet’s residence. More gunfire spat from the windows and the rooftop. A few of the people fell, struck by ricochets and flopping into a cloud of their own blood. The door buckled.
Panicked animals made their way past D’Arc. Some tried to swim, while a few stubbornly tried to run. Two of the fish-heads were in pursuit. Under the water, their tentacles flowed behind them, squirming like snakes.
D’Arc searched for the nearest high ground. Behind her, another bus was pinned against the wall of an office building. The vehicle’s windows were caved in, with only the top of the steering wheel above water. D’Arc slid down the lightpole, gritting her teeth as she dunked herself. The river was as high as her chest here. Floating, she kicked off the pole and swam for the bus.
She heard the coughing sound, closer this time.
D’Arc made it to the front grill of the bus and planted her foot on the bumper. Gripping the rearview mirror, she pulled herself to the roof.
Something crashed into the vehicle, making the frame squeal. D’Arc unsheathed her sword. A single tentacle flopped next to her foot, its suckers dilating and contracting as it searched for a grip. D’Arc swung the sword. The blade slashed through the limb, severing it, cutting clean through the metal rooftop. The tentacle retracted, followed by another gagging cough. Two claws clamped onto the roof, and the creature pulled itself up. The eyes—black, with no irises—homed in on D’Arc. The mouth and gills burst open simultaneously, making the strange gasping sound.
With the creature halfway over the roof, D’Arc lunged, aiming the tip of her sword at the base of the neck. Before the blade could find its mark, the three remaining tentacles swirled and caught it. The fourth one—the stump—batted against the side windows. D’Arc yanked and twisted the sword free, spraying cold, thick blood onto the roof. She fell backward and rolled, getting to her feet quickly. Having seen enough, she ran to the rear, launched herself from the vehicle, and splashed into the river. More people streamed by. A terrified cat nearly crashed into her. Before D’Arc could do anything else, the creature leapt from the bus. It landed on the cat, wrapping its tentacles around its victim. Spitting out water, D’Arc hacked at the beast’s shell two, three times, leaving small gashes in the armor. Ignoring her, the fish-head twisted its flexible body until D’Arc felt the crunch of the cat’s spine. The tentacles loosened, and the corpse dropped away. The creature’s head swiveled as it searched for its next target.
D’Arc spun around and collided with something furry. Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
“Come with me! Now!”
It was Falkirk, alive again. She felt the intense urge to smell him, to lick the nape of his neck and ears, to show that she was a member of his pack. D’Arc looked over her shoulder to see the three-tentacled fish-head attacking another victim, no longer concerned with her. Swimming beside Falkirk, D’Arc held onto his belt with her free hand. They made it to the next block, where an overturned SUV sat wheels-up, tilted on the curb. Falkirk pointed at it before plunging under the surface. D’Arc pulled in a lungful of air and dove in. The water muffled the screams and the gunfire. Falkirk squeezed into the sunroof of the vehicle. His tail slipped in last. D’Arc put her head through the opening and found, to her amazement, that she broke the surface once again. Inside the tiny space, Falkirk shook off the excess water, spraying the cabin with droplets.
“Air pocket,” he said. His voice reverberated in the small compartment.
“We should keep going,” D’Arc said.
“No. There are more of them that way. A lot more.”
He held out his hand, and she realized that he was not issuing an order as her superior. He was begging her to stay. She took his hand and shimmied her way into the vehicle. They sat on the ceiling, while the seats hung suspended above them. The water stopped rising at ankle level, but the moisture brought out the smell of plastic, leather, and cloth. It was like being inside a mouth.
Something swam by in the murky water. She yelped and drew closer to Falkirk. She felt his breath on her coat.
“Quiet,” he whispered.
D’Arc held the sword over the sunroof. “Are we safe here?” she asked.
“No. But maybe we will be once the water level goes down.”
The windows fogged. A completely irrelevant memory flashed in her mind. She recalled her time on the boat, the Ronin, right after she had transformed. While Mort(e) drove, she pressed her snout to the window of the main cabin and exhaled. When she bumped her nose into the glass, it left an imprint in the condensation. That is me, she had thought. But then, each time, the shape dissolved, no matter how hard she pressed her snout into it. It was her moment of self-awareness, when she finally
woke up from the dream. She would pass into this world and then blink out of it. The imprint vanished so quickly, without a sound.
D’Arc’s hands ached from holding the blade over the sunroof. She suggested going outside, to try to help people. Falkirk said no. He had unloaded all of his bullets into one of the monsters only to see it stagger and rise again. If they left the vehicle, the most they could hope to accomplish was to flee with the others.
D’Arc could no longer hear the panicked voices and desperate splashing. The water grew turgid from the debris. Several times, something brushed against the windows. D’Arc resisted the urge to scream, even when a tentacle attached its suckers to the glass before sliding away with a little squeak.
“Won’t they smell us?” she asked.
“I thought about that.”
“And?”
He hesitated. “Maybe there’s too much blood in the water for them to detect us.”
“Sorry I asked.”
More water leaked in. They would soon have to abandon their shrinking air pocket. Until then, they would wait in the dark.
“What do they want?” she whispered.
“What did the spider want?”
With the tip of the sword resting on the floor, D’Arc leaned her head on the hilt and tried to imagine the ranch, the Alphas, the Old Man. Was Mort(e) perched on his roof picking off these fish-heads with his rifle? Or was he fleeing west, away from the sea and the rivers that fed it?
“I have another reason to be angry with the fish-heads,” Falkirk said.
“What’s that?”
“They interrupted me. I had some news about the expedition.”
They had not discussed the al-Rihla in some time, not since she applied. When she handed in her paperwork a few weeks earlier, a woman asked her about her eyesight, her military status, and whether she had ever been treated for worms. When the woman dismissed her, D’Arc assumed she had been rejected outright.
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