They slowly went through the samples, testing different voltages and amperages. But each time, all they succeeded in doing, if the tissue reacted at all, was frying the cells within the plate.
“Something isn’t right,” Kate said, after running through another exhaustive experiment. “We’re missing a key component. Not a single tissue has formed a webbing of any kind. And in fact, they all seem to be reacting negatively to the external stimuli.”
“I must admit, I’m completely stumped,” Carr said.
Kate stared at the last plastic plate full of barbecued tissue. The tiny cells held so many secrets, and still she couldn’t unveil them.
With Team Ghost in the field and the threat of more raider and Variant attacks looming over her, she knew she didn’t have the luxury of time now. She had to solve this mystery.
Slowly or quickly.
It had to be done.
The question was how.
***
Fischer had spent much of the day out in the field, sweating away with his men on their hunt for the Variants. He had come back for supper to find breaking news on his laptop. Having internet access had cost him a hell of a lot of money, but being up to date on things going on across the country was worth every penny.
The attempted attack at the New America Coalition rally in Outpost New Boston was shocking even with the other attacks on safe zone outposts. The thwarted assassination attempt in plain daylight was the most brazen thing he had seen in a while.
Such an incident proved to Fischer yet again that President Ringgold and Vice President Lemke did not have even their own security under control. If collaborators could sneak into an event like that, Fischer wasn’t sure there was any safe place left in the country.
At least not under the leadership of the New America Coalition.
He closed his laptop and grabbed a cigar. Moving over to the windows, he glanced out at the star-filled night sky.
In a strange way, he was surprised that out in his little corner of Texas, it looked just as pretty tonight as all those nights before the Great War of Extinction. Back then, he didn’t have to compete with the light pollution of a big city clotting his view of the Big Dipper and all the other constellations swirling above.
Now he didn’t have to compete with anything at all.
It was just him, mother nature, and the monsters.
He lit his cigar and took the first puff as several pickup trucks drove away from the compound, their lights chasing away the darkness. Chase and Tran were heading out with Sergeant Sharp to use the infrared scanners now that it was dark in one last attempt to locate the monsters.
All the money he’d paid for good intel on the Variants’ whereabouts might as well have been burned in an open field.
The pesky fuckers seemed to have abandoned ship. Fischer Fields had lost enough guards and workers to the beasts, not to mention costly equipment. All of it had set back their operations considerably.
Fischer blew out a puff of smoke, hoping that maybe those creatures were smart enough to know he was hunting them now. That maybe they’d run for their lives.
But that was probably being too optimistic.
Optimism had never served him nor his fields well. Realism was much better.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, he thought.
That was why he was skipping whiskey with his cigar tonight. Until his teams returned with an all clear, he wasn’t going to crack open a bottle. The Variants were as sneaky as they were deadly, and he wasn’t going to assume that they’d simply run off without a fight.
A knock on his door sounded, and he turned to see Maddie holding a plate and a glass of water. The fifty-year-old housekeeper doubled as a cook, maid, and friend. She had taken damn good care of him over the past two years.
“Good evening, Mr. Fischer,” she said. “Would you like to eat in here or in the dining room?”
Fischer gestured toward his desk. “I’ll eat in here tonight. Thank you, Maddie.”
He almost always ate at his desk when he didn’t have company. Sitting in the large dining room by himself was damn depressing and reminded him of how much he missed his wife.
Maddie set the food down and he took a seat at his desk.
“Thanks,” he said again.
She nodded and closed the door behind her quietly.
Although he didn’t feel much like eating tonight, he dug into the warm meal of mashed potatoes and broiled chicken. Food wasn’t just for pleasure. It was for fuel. And if he had Variants to deal with, he was going to need a hell of a lot of fuel to keep him fighting.
He continued reading more reports on attacks at other outposts as he chewed.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
By the time he finished eating, he had read about another six attacks.
He stood and looked outside.
What the hell is happening out there?
He took his plate back to the kitchen and set it in the sink.
“Thank you,” he said to Maddie, who was washing the rest of the dishes.
“You’re welcome, sir.”
The news of the Variants had him on edge. He took another cigar out from his humidor and looked out the window.
A carpet of moonlight spread over the fields and the livestock barns on the eastern edge of his property. Opening the window, he lit the cigar and took a deep inhale. Then he blew the smoke outward. The breeze rustled his sweat-stained fatigues. Crickets chirped outside, their calls rising into a steady chorus.
He loved that sound.
Fischer took a seat in his leather recliner, putting his feet up when the insects were silenced by a gunshot.
He froze.
Two more gunshots pierced the night.
Something was wrong.
A siren blared from the guard post on the south side of the property. He got out of his chair and walked to the windows holding the smoking cigar.
The radio on his desk crackled behind him.
“Mr. Fischer, this is Tran. Do you copy?”
What the Sam Hill is going on?” Fischer replied.
“Where are you, sir?”
“In my goddamn office. What’s going on?”
“You need to get to the bunker as soon as possible,” Tran said. “We think we found the Variants, sir.”
Before Fischer could reply Tran added, “They were underground all along.”
“Underground? Where?”
“Here, sir! The guards at the livestock barns were the ones who reported it, and now they aren’t responding.”
“Turn on the floodlights,” Fischer said.
The lights clicked on one at a time, and Fischer’s cigar fell from his mouth at the sight of a fight.
No…
A slaughter.
Dozens of Variants streamed out of a broken-down side door in one barn, chasing cows into the grass. The screams of the livestock filled the night as the monsters tore them to pieces and fed on their fattened flesh.
Other beasts ripped apart the guards that had been patrolling outside. The men hadn’t expected an attack to occur from within the barns and were completely unprepared.
A man was retreating into the eastern corner of the electric fences. He backed up, trying to reload his rifle.
“Oh my god,” Fischer whispered.
A Variant dropped to all fours and bolted after him. The man climbed the barbed wire fence. He managed to get over the top but so did the Variant.
With nowhere to go, the soldier chose the electric fence over claws. It fried him and sent him flying backward into the livestock fence.
The beast dug in on the smoking flesh.
“Sir, we’re almost back!” Tran said on the radio. “If you’re not in the bunker, you need to go. Now!”
Fischer smelled smoke and looked down, seeing the cigar had burned into the carpet. He picked it up and smothered it in a glass ashtray. Then he hurried over to grab his M4. He slung it over his back and then went to his cabinet. Op
ening the doors, he pulled out his Remington 3200 double-barreled 12 gauge.
With his .357 already holstered, he was ready to go.
Two pickup trucks pulled up outside, skidding to a stop. Men jumped out and fired at the beasts around the barns.
“Son of a bitch,” Fischer said. He hurried out of his office and into the hallway.
“Maddie!” he yelled.
The woman stumbled into the hallway. “Sir, those things are out there!”
“Grab the rest of the staff and take them to the bunker right now!”
She nodded and took off down the hallway toward the basement. The bunker there was built to survive a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack. There was enough food and water for his whole staff to live on for a year or more.
Fischer had spent almost a year inside it when the Variants had first overwhelmed the country, and he didn’t like the idea of returning to it now.
Halfway down the hall Maddie stopped and turned.
“Aren’t you coming?” she said.
He plucked another cigar out of his breast pocket.
“I’m not comin’,” Fischer said. “I’ve got some unfinished business with these bastards.”
“But sir!” she called out.
“Go to the bunker, and don’t come out until you’re given the all clear!” he yelled over his shoulder.
He took off in the direction of the gunfire. The wail of the siren, chatter of automatic weapons, and pop of small arms reminded him of the first days of the Great War of Extinction.
He promised himself if this happened again, he wouldn’t run and hide. If he was to die, he wanted to do it standing up, not crouching like a coward.
Bringing up his shotgun, he ran through the living room and to the back doors. He opened it with one hand and stepped outside on the deck, his ears assaulted by the sounds of battle.
“Sir, what are you doing?” someone called out.
Chase ran up the wood steps, his baseball cap splattered with blood. Tran was right behind him, his bicep slashed open. The rest of the men were still holding position near the pickups.
“Mr. Fischer, we need to get to the bunker,” Tran said. “There are too many of them.”
“And leave these men and my livestock out here to die? Hell no,” Fischer said. He moved over to the railing of the deck and set his shotgun against the side. Then he unslung his M4 and palmed in a magazine.
“Fall back!” he shouted. “Everyone, fall back to the deck!”
Tran and Chase both reloaded their weapons, trying to convince him to change his mind, but nothing they could say would work.
The other men all ran up the steps and joined them on the deck. Fischer lined up his scope and zoomed in on the closest fenced off area, about fourteen hundred feet away. It was quite the distance, but he was a good shot and there were enough targets he figured he would hit something.
He centered the sights on a beast with its maw buried in the belly of a squirming cow. He pulled the trigger, firing off a burst. One of the rounds found a home in the creature’s neck.
The monster skittered away a few feet and then crashed to the ground limp. Two other Variants tried to drag a calf away. Fischer killed one with a headshot and then aimed for the other beast, trying to get a clear shot.
He found it a beat later and pulled the trigger. The second Variant slumped to the ground, and the calf pushed itself up and huddled behind another cow.
Fischer sighted up a third creature and brought it down with a shot to the leg. He finished it with shots to the back and side.
The men next to him took down several more, but the rest of the Variants ripping his men and livestock apart behind the first barn were too far to hit.
The beasts retreated back into the barn with their kills. Several more shots rang out from the men around him, but they became more sporadic until finally stopping. After a few seconds, the only noise was that of the wailing siren.
“Shut the thing off,” Fischer said.
Tran brought up his radio and called their command post. The noise rose and fell one last time. Fischer brought the scope to his eye and zoomed in on the distant fences, seeing the Variants had also retreated in those areas.
Soon the screams of the massacred animals and men went quiet and the chirp of the crickets resumed.
“Anyone got eyes on those shits?” Fischer continued to scan the area.
Everyone reported they saw nothing.
“Think they went back underground?” Chase asked.
“We’ll have to send a couple scouts to find out,” Tran replied.
“Where is everyone else?” Fischer said, looking around. He didn’t see Sergeant Sharp or any of his soldiers. He didn’t see his trackers, Galinsky or Welling, either.
“They went to help put the fires out,” Tran said. “The Variants attacked several of the derricks, too.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that earlier?” Fischer said with an angry snort.
“I’m sorry, sir, but my goal was to make sure you were safe,” Tran said.
Chase nodded. “We figured Sharp had that under control.”
“I highly doubt that,” Fischer stated.
He didn’t want to believe it, but there had to be another Alpha out there. Something smart enough to have coordinated this multi-location attack. He cursed through gritted teeth, trying to think of what to do.
The livestock were obviously lost, but maybe he could still save the derricks. One thing was certain: if he didn’t do something, Fischer Fields wasn’t going to make it through the night.
— 18 —
Dohi had spent the better part of the night slowly working his way toward Gold Medal Park in Minneapolis with Rico. The last report from Mendez confirmed he was still holed up in the condo.
But now Dohi was starting to worry. He hadn’t heard anything from Team Alpha either. They were supposed to be working their way across the other side of the city to the University of Minneapolis.
The good news was the team had prepared to be out here for at least two or three days. As long as they didn’t go beyond that, they would be fine.
He took a drink of water and followed Rico through a burned-out pub with exposed brick walls. Charcoaled stools and tables littered the floor. Shards from broken bottles and the bar mirror hid under the debris, making each step dangerous.
Progress just to get to this pub had been painfully slow. They had taken a detour much further south than Dohi would have liked before they had headed north again. Prowling Variants had forced them inside. Even from their hidden location, he could hear their clicking joints and howls as they hunted.
Dohi tried to drown out the noises and the smells.
The rotten fruit odor wasn’t the only thing contributing to the malodorous, bombed-out city. Mold climbed up the walls from puddles of stagnant water along the floor.
In the back of the bar, a refrigerator lay open, its contents a mess of black fur and spiky growths. Crumpled beer cans were adhered to the floor in sticky piles of unrecognizable brown gunk.
At Rico’s command, Dohi positioned himself near a back door and snapped his night vision goggles back on. According to his map, this exit led to an alley. The main thoroughfares were too dangerous, and Bravo hoped to avoid some of those monsters by creeping along in the shadows instead as they made their way to Mendez.
Rico shouldered her M4A1 and gave him a nod. Dohi wrapped his gloved hand around the handle and twisted it, pushing the door open a couple of inches.
Distant growls of Variants filtered in, but none sounded close. He waited there to be sure, counting the passing seconds, not making another move. Just peering into the darkness outside with his NVGs, studying the green and white sliver of alley.
Shadows moved in the street beyond the carcasses of cars and trucks.
Dohi signaled to Rico and she gestured back for him to exit. He eased the door open further and stepped into the alley, clearing both sides before signaling for Ri
co to follow.
She moved and they navigated the scree from devastated buildings side by side. A cool wind cut into them and another distant Variant howled. More of the beasts answered the call, the shrieks rising into the night like a flock of birds taking to the air.
Every hair on the back of his neck stood straight. A single mistake would bring the hordes on them. There was no way he and Rico could survive that.
He swallowed his fear and pushed on, squeezing between an overturned dumpster and a brick wall. Scattered bones lay on the other side, blackened and broken.
Once he got to the end of the alley, he knelt behind the bumper of a car that had slammed into a nearby wall. Inside the front seat sat a picked-over skeleton.
All around him came the scrapes and scratches of other beasts searching the picked-through graveyard. Most of the creatures were starving and desperate, which made them even more dangerous.
Rico pointed at a rusted Humvee. It took him a moment to spot the Variant. It crouched nearby, angling a wart-covered nose in the air.
Dohi rotated so he had the creature in his sights. A suppressed shot now would rupture the silence of the night unless it was timed with a howl. If not, it would draw every Variant within the neighboring blocks on his position.
He waited, hoping that it would simply go on wandering listlessly into the night.
But he had no such luck. The creature seemed to catch a whiff of something and dropped to all fours. He moved his finger to the trigger, waiting for a shriek or howl to mask his shot.
The creature bounded across and he prepared to squeeze the trigger, but the Variant seemed to drop through the street.
Dohi eased off the trigger.
It took a moment for him to realize what had happened.
There was an open manhole in the middle of the street. From there, an animalistic cry exploded. The clicking of joints grew louder, and other cries from Variants responded.
The starving, filthy beasts began to pour out of shops and skittered down the sides of buildings. Others leapt from broken windows.
They rocked into each other as they stormed toward the open manhole. One by one, they squeezed into the hole, vanishing into the darkness.
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