Foamers

by Justin Kassab

  Argos launched into the chest of the nearest Tribesman and tumbled with him. As the second swung his spray toward Argos, the dog sank his fangs into the exposed neck of the former soldier with a hair raising snarl. The impact of the bullets swung Argos to the side of the body but didn’t loosen his jaws.

  Fenris clamped down on the second man’s arm, thrashing the rifle away from him. As the man reached for the knife on his belt, Mick, who had since recovered, slammed his shoulder into the man’s chest, knocking him to the ground beside his dead comrade.

  The air crackled from a mini burst of thunder as Mick tased the man. Mick placed a foot on the man’s neck. The pounding of his heart deafened his ears as he aimed at the man’s head.

  “Roll over and put your hands behind your back,” he said, as a whimper caught his ear.

  Argos lay with his head on the corpse’s chest, looking at Mick with slow-blinking eyes that were already glassing over as Fenris licked his muzzle. Argos whimpered again as he lifted his face, just enough to make one hard swallow before laying it back on the corpse.

  Mick checked the chamber and aimed at the man’s chest. “Don’t move, you piece of shit.”

  One—Two—Three—Four—-Five shots hammered into the man’s Kevlar vest. The vest was manufactured to stop a high-powered bullet, but at this range one of Mick’s bullets might penetrate. That wasn’t the chance he was betting on. He hoped all of them stopped at the vest. That would be five bone-shattering, organ-liquefying, painful death punches.

  “Get Tiny and the dogs in the Humvee,” Mick said and stormed off into the snow. He didn’t know where he was going, but he had to clear his mind. As his anger took control the snap inside of him had felt as vivid as a Thanksgiving wishbone. Capture, or even death, wasn’t punishment enough for the man who had shot Argos. Mick didn’t just want him to suffer; he had needed him to suffer. The floodgates of everything that had happened since the Primal Age began, broke, and let forth his rage upon that man. The part that scared Mick was he felt better for having committed the act. He had thought himself above the Primes, a higher order of social code, but he was no different.

  When Mick looked up again, he saw four dark silhouettes coming through the storm. He crouched low, hoping they hadn’t seen him. He aimed his pistol, more in defense than to attempt firing. Outnumbered four-to-one, he would have to pull off flawless neck shots and do all of this when the targets weren’t clearly visible. His friends considered him their best shot with a pistol—some may even have said he was a great shot—but even an expert would struggle with these odds.

  The Humvee groaned in its turnover, which acted as a beacon to the Tribesmen. The four silhouettes hurried through the blowing snow. Mick considered the possibility of dropping a few of them at short range and then engaging the rest in close combat. The idea of moving back to the Humvee crossed his mind, but if they saw him, he was dead.

  “Coming through,” X’s voice shouted from somewhere off to Mick’s right.

  X’s dark figure met with the four gray ghosts, but X wasn’t alone. First there was one silhouette on all fours, and then a second, and a third, and before Mick knew it, the foamer troop was in pursuit of X. The four Tribesmen opened fire on the pack, illuminating them like flashes of lightning. Two of the foamers were immediately cut down, while the rest pounced on the Tribesmen. In the whiteout, Mick couldn’t make out more than shapes, but he could hear the growls of the foamers, the wet rip of flesh, and the screams of the warriors clear enough to piece the feeding together.

  “This way!” Mick shouted through the commotion. X’s shadow came toward Mick, until he materialized out of the snow.

  X paused with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. His chest heaved as he rubbed his goose bumps. His coat had long since been cast away to become faster and harder to grab. As he recovered his breath, he could hear the engine of a Humvee over the gunshots.

  “They coming to pick us up?” X asked.

  “No, they’re back there,” Mick said, pointing in the direction of the rest of the group.

  X’s brow wrinkled as he looked in the opposite direction. Both of them recognized the outline of a Humvee barreling in their direction. They locked arms as they attempted to pull each other to safety. Each of them pulled harder, creating a deadlock, until something tackled them. They crashed to the snow as the Humvee skimmed past. Mick found himself pinned under Grace. The longer that girl was part of their group, the guiltier Mick felt for his treatment of her. This was arguably the third time she had saved his life.

  “Thanks,” Mick said, as X hoisted her to her feet.

  She nodded at him and shakily pointed to where their Humvee waited. The three of them hurried, anxious to keep Kade’s plan moving. When they reached the Humvee, they piled in. John was in the driver’s seat, with Mick beside him and the now-conscious Tiny in the turret spot. X filed in behind John, with Grace on the opposite side. In the rear of the vehicle, Ashton sat against the wall with Argos’s head in her lap, a sleeve from her shirt pressed to one of his wounds. Fenris’s soft eyes remained on her dying partner.

  No one spoke for fear that it would jinx their good fortune. John steered the Humvee to the road. Using the curbs to ping-pong his way along the buried road, John forced himself to feel as tough as he looked. He refused to let his hands shake. He was Primed.

  After a few minutes that felt like hours of on-edge driving, John finally reached the end of the campus road, where Kade was supposed to meet them.

  “Where is he?” John asked.

  “Are there any more flares?” Mick replied.

  “We used them all,” Grace said, her eyes glued to the window, watching for movement.

  “Kade!” Tiny yelled into the vacant, blowing snow.

  “I figured he’d just use himself as a decoy,” X said.

  “And you didn’t try to stop him?” Ashton snapped back.

  “You know damn well I couldn’t have stopped him,” X replied.

  Tiny slouched back into the Humvee. “Kade, where are you?”

  * * *

  Kade was on his knees with Sarge behind him. Kade’s face was a mask of blood, with two white eyes peering out from beneath, and his nose pointed in the wrong direction. A continuous flow of blood ran from his right eyebrow and dripped off his jaw. The zip ties around his wrists had cut bloody lines into his flesh, and the stitches in his side had ripped open again. It was impressive just how much blood his body could produce.

  A slow death ran in his family, so he found this fitting. Huntington’s for his mother, the Flu for his father, and a pummeling from a dickhead for him; and they always said he wasn’t like them. He would have asked Sarge to hurry it along, but every extra minute it took Kade to die was one more his friends could escape. The cold was annoying, though.

  Grabbing the base of his ballistic mask, Sarge rested it on top of his head. Sarge flicked his lighter open and lit his cigar. He took a long puff, causing the tip to grow bright red, and then let the smoke leisurely rise from the side of his mouth like he was golfing with buddies.

  “You know, you’re lucky,” Sarge said, pointing at Kade with his cigar. “We’d have killed you right out of the gate if Victoria didn’t want you to li
ve long enough to know that all of your friends were dead.”

  “Oh my, I am so lucky,” Kade replied, and felt Sarge’s boot swiftly slam between his shoulder blades, knocking him face-first into the snow. The muscles in his neck strained to the side as he took short breaths through the side of his mouth. Two thoughts came to him that confused him more than he had ever been baffled before. The first was that he wasn’t ready to die, and the second was that he didn’t want to die. Never in his existence had they crossed his mind, and in fact he often thought counter to them.

  “I see why she wants you to suffer. You’re a prick,” Sarge said, taking another drag.

  “I prefer to be called an ass,” Kade responded. Sarge answered in kind by stomping his face into the snow. Sarge hoisted him to his feet by the hair and wrenched his head back, holding the embers of the cigar just above his throat.

  “I wonder who died first. Maybe it was your sister, or the one you secretly love. Ah, hell—I don’t care which one of them died first, just as long as you know they’re all dead. Every one of your friends is dead.”

  Kade stared into the storm wondering if Jem was still alive. He wanted to believe his friends had escaped, but at this point, Jem seemed to be his best chance of having a friend still alive on the planet. It seemed so long since he last saw Jem. Less than two weeks had passed, but it felt like years.

  He remembered the two of them on the couch, watching the movie about alien robots from space who didn’t know when to give up. They always fought, even when they were facing certain death. Jem had said he hoped Kade would understand one day why they continued to fight. In the Old World, it made no sense to him, but now, in this moment, it finally did. They fought because they were part of something bigger than themselves. They loved, they cared, and they were totally entwined with each other and found their strength in that. Tiny, Ashton, Mick, X, John, Grace, and even the mutts—they were all just parts of him. As long as they lived, so did he, and he wasn’t going quietly. He was alive. He was Primed.

  His neck singed as he pushed against the embers. Sarge dropped the cigar in shock. Kade kicked Sarge in the groin causing him to double over. Gritting his teeth, Kade yanked his hair free of Sarge’s grip. As Sarge forced himself to stand upright, Kade faced him. Sarge had threatened his friends. Sarge was the only obstacle between living and dying. Kade may have been defeated, but he sure as hell was going to die fighting.

  “Just because Victoria doesn’t want me to kill you, doesn’t mean I won’t,” Sarge said with a sneer as he pulled down his mask.

  Kade smiled back, his white teeth shining against his blood-covered face. “I’m going to kill you.”

  Sarge rushed him, swinging wildly. Kade dodged each attack as he waited for his moment. A huge right hook descended for him, but he spun away and answered with a mule kick to the outside of Sarge’s knee. The impact shoved the knee out of place, causing Sarge to step back.

  “You’re not worth the honor,” Sarge replied, drawing his sidearm.

  Kade lifted himself onto his toes and lowered his upper body. For a brief moment. He felt like he was back in high school, waiting for his opponent to take the penalty kick. The cold tingle ran down his spine. His eyes darted from Sarge’s trigger finger to his eyes and back again.

  Out of the blur of white, Alpha slammed into Sarge, discharging the gun as Kade dropped face-first into the snow. Alpha reared as he straddled Sarge on the ground, revealing a busted lip and a bullet wound to his upper shoulder. Swinging back and forth like a pendulum, Alpha flogged Sarge with his massive fists.

  Kade wriggled through the snow until he got to his knees and popped to his feet. He watched Alpha pummel Sarge and debated running to meet his friends. Alpha beat his fists into Sarge, and although he was inflicting pain, he hadn’t figured out how to get around the armor. This was no longer his fight, Kade thought, and backed away.

  Sarge struggled to lift his pistol against Alpha. The threat to Alpha triggered something in Kade. Logically he knew he should leave his two enemies to kill each other, but Alpha didn’t feel like his adversary. Alpha had attacked Kade before, but Kade was in Alpha’s territory. The monster might be the death of him, but Alpha deserved better than being shot by Sarge.

  Kade joined the fight and pinned on Sarge’s wrist with his foot. He felt entirely uneasy being so close to the foamer, but he would accept the temporary treaty. Sarge’s fingers broke under Kade’s grinding heel. Kade kicked the gun away. Alpha pounded on Sarge with powerful blasts from his gigantic hands.

  “Kade,” Sarge pleaded. “Anything you want. Just kill it.”

  Kade’s odds of survival were low after Alpha finished with Sarge. The deal was tempting but the last time he let Sarge leave he came back for war, a mistake he wouldn’t repeat. He did considered leaving the two of them in the hopes that Alpha would kill Sarge. However, Kade considered Sarge to be the greater monster and would take his chances with Alpha.

  Kade planted his left foot solidly on the ground and pivoted at the hip, swinging his right foot toward Sarge’s head. The knob of Kade’s heel slammed into the joint where Sarge’s jaw met his ear. The collision lifted Sarge’s ballistic mask clear of his face. Alpha immediately sunk his teeth into Sarge’s exposed neck and tore the vein open.

  Other foamers appeared through the whiteout. Alpha stopped pummeling Sarge’s lifeless corpse as Beta and Pepper moved in beside him. Pepper rubbed her body against Alpha’s side, like a cat looking for a scratch, while Beta never took his eyes off Kade.

  Kade stepped back, wondering whether he should run or hold still. So far, he had come to notice that the foamers would fight when they outnumbered their enemies, but run when they were outnumbered. Not only was Kade outnumbered, but his hands were also bound.

  Alpha reared and pounded his chest, letting out the loudest roar Kade had ever heard from a human body. Every muscle in the foamer flexed and stretched as he displayed his dominance. Alpha rushed at him with a roar, and Kade fought to remain still. The beast stood upright and stared into Kade’s gray eyes. Alpha held the stare without blinking. The monster was so close; Kade could smell the blood on his breath. Cocking his head to the side, Alpha looked him up and down, then lowered himself back to all fours and sauntered away. Kade couldn’t be sure, but he thought what he saw in Alpha was confusion. Back in the group, Beta snapped his teeth as foam bubbled down his blood-soaked chin.

  Alpha rocked back and his fist flew toward his chest, smashing against his pectoral muscle with a hollow thud before he showed his back to Kade and stomped off, like everything was normal. Pepper followed after Alpha, but Beta waited behind.

  Though this foamer was smaller, Kade had no desire to fight him. He was having trouble standing up; the burning pain flowed through his body with each beat of his heart. Beta snapped once more at him before following Alpha into the whiteout. Kade felt like the luckiest person alive and vowed to repay his debt to Alpha.

  The foamers’ haunches faded into the snow as Kade stood alone, trying to put together what had happened. The monster had saved and then spared him; that much he knew for sure. The monster that had once kicked his ass, and in the Old World had been an MMA fighter whom he had watched fight, had come to his rescue and then allowed him to live. Each time they had faced foamers in the past, they always stoo
d and fought when they had the numerical advantage. Today, as Kade had stood before three of them, bleeding from countless wounds, they did not attack.

  They must have more rational thought than he had given them credit for, but Kade couldn’t begin to guess what damage the vaccine had done to their brains. They obviously couldn’t speak, but they might think. The way the female approached Alpha seemed like affection. The bottom line was, they needed to study the foamers, and he had been wrong in his immediate assumption that they were monsters. The real monster was lying dead on the ground.

  Kade took one last look at Sarge. His body appeared to be resting, and he could pass for sleeping if half his throat wasn’t spread across the ground. Kade whispered a silent thank you to the dead man for helping him find his way in the Primal Age. Focusing through his light headed state, Kade made his way to the rendezvous.

  “Kade!” John hollered from the Humvee when he appeared like a bloody ghost through the snow. Counting the people in the Humvee, Kade couldn’t have been happier to see all his friends alive.

  “Why’s the kid driving?” Kade asked as he waddled toward the Humvee with his hands still bound behind his back.

  “I was told to drive, so I drove. I’m a natural,” John replied as he smirked at Kade, who winked back.

  “The wink is mine. I’ll let it slide this time cause you look half-dead, but don’t do it again,” X said, as Kade stepped onto the Humvee’s running board.

  “More like three-quarters,” Tiny said.

  John’s hand struck like a snake and latched onto Kade’s shirt before he slammed the accelerator and the Humvee lurched forward. Kade’s body swung like a rag doll as their Humvee barely missed being slammed by the one Victoria drove. John spun the wheel, chasing Victoria.