Winter Cove

by Skye Knizley

  “What the hell was that?” Hartwell demanded.

  “The boss didn’t say anything about that, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Scales said. “What in God’s name are you?”

  River dropped to the deck, sweat pouring from her. She shook her head and met Rylee’s eyes. Rylee smiled and took her hand. “It’s not her, it is the amulet. It has some kind of armor effect or something that protects her, but she can’t control it.”

  “It’s why your boss wanted me along. If I have to, I can fight those Overlord things,” River said. “Morse, get us moving, we’re sitting ducks up here.”

  Morse spat again then stood and moved back to the controls.

  “Why would we need you to fight those little parasite things?” Darling asked.

  Scales squatted beside River. “I get it. Not the little ones, the full grown things, like the carrier, right? The thing that came through?”

  River nodded. She felt like she was going to be sick. “Yeah, I killed one back at Ravenstein.”

  Scales straightened and offered her his hand. “Then I’m glad you are on our side. You can explain how that shit works later.”

  River took his hand and let him haul her to her feet. “Thanks. Morse, why aren’t we moving?”

  “Working on it, boss,” Morse said. His voice sounded rough. “The motors are jammed.”

  River looked up. She couldn’t see the motors, they were far above and shrouded in darkness. In her mind’s eye she could see more of the parasites, chewing on the cables.

  “We have to move. Everyone grab ahold of something, this is going to get interesting,” she said.

  She drew her pistol and aimed at one of the pulleys. As far as she could tell, the elevator cables were stored in a spool above the platform, which was attached to a single cable that vanished overhead. If she released the brakes holding them in place, they should fall to the basement at a reasonable speed.

  Scales grabbed the nearest railing. “Define interesting.”

  Rylee gaped at him. “Really?”

  Darling cut her off before she could finish the joke. “Hunter, if you do this, getting out is going to be difficult. The stairs are questionable, at best.”

  “If I don’t, we’re going to die!”

  She wrapped one hand around the railing behind her, then squeezed the trigger. Her aim was true, the bullet pinged off the break, destroying it. With it gone, the elevator began to descend. It was faster than the elevator had been, but that wasn’t saying much. It was designed for carrying capacity not speed.

  She estimated they were only twenty feet above the floor when the main cable snapped with a sound that echoed down the shaft. She felt the sudden, stomach-turning lurch of weightlessness then the pain of impact. She fell to the deck and rolled aside a beat before the cable slammed into the floor where she’d been lying. There was a gristly, wet noise followed a gasp, then nothing but the creak of settling metal. The amulet had winked out in the fall, leaving River bathed in darkness. When she could breathe again she stood and shined her M4 light around the chamber.

  “Scales? Hartwell? Report! Rylee? Baby are you okay?”

  “Here, boss,” Scales said from her left. She helped him up and almost tripped over Morse, who was alive, but stunned. She helped him up then resumed the search.

  “Rylee? Rylee! Where are you?”

  “I’m up, I’m up,” Rylee groaned. “Did anyone get the number of that bus?”

  River knelt beside her. “Anything broken?”

  Rylee raised her foot. A chunk of rubber was missing from the toe. “Only my Uggs, they weren’t made for this shit.”

  River kissed her forehead then raised her voice. “Darling? Hartwell? Come on guys, nap time is over.”

  “I’m here, I just got the wind knocked out of me,” Darling said.

  River aimed her light at him, he was leaning against a twisted piece of metal that was once part of the elevator. It had been cut clean off by the passage of the main cable.

  “Hartwell? Come on, buddy,” Scales said.

  Scales was on the other side of the elevator. It looked as if Hartwell was trapped beneath the rubble. River staggered over to help, but was stopped by Rylee’s voice.

  “Don’t.”

  “What? Why?” River asked.

  Rylee pointed. River followed her gaze and spotted Hartwell’s legs. They were at least ten feet from his body.

  “Fuck,” Morse choked. “We’re all going to die down here.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The elevator crash had been devastating. The platform itself was bent beyond recognition, the rails were twisted into pretzels and the cables lay on the floor like so much steel spaghetti. And that wasn’t the worst of it. River sat and stared at Hartwell’s body, unmoving. She had no idea how long she’d been there.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Rylee said after a while.

  She was sitting beside River, her shotgun across her knees.

  River kept staring at Hartwell. Blood still flowed from his wounds.

  “You asked me about running a team, asked if I’d lied to you. I never lied. I ran a team, but just for a few months. It started when my people were taken as prisoners after the IED explosion,” She said. “I pulled a squad together out of the survivors and we went after my unit.”

  She closed her eyes, but the image of Hartwell, his body cut neatly in half, his intestines hanging out like so much hamburger, stayed with her.

  “Six months ago, when I went back, instead of putting me back behind the wheel, they gave me a fireteam. Said I’d earned it,” she continued. “I never had the chance to tell you. For three months, we rocked it out alongside the other engagement teams. Then we got ambushed in this little village. It wasn’t even supposed to be a fight, just a door to door check, routine stuff.”

  Rylee’s eyes widened. “You lost someone. That’s why you retired.”

  River opened her eyes and felt tears running down her cheeks. “I lost three in one afternoon. I never even saw it coming. Afterward, they assigned me new people, said it wasn’t my fault, the intelligence was bad. But that didn’t make it better. I turned in my paperwork and quit.”

  Rylee hugged her tight. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. You should have told me, let me help you through it. You don’t have to deal with these things on your own.”

  River hugged Rylee back. “I couldn’t tell you, not and ruin our holiday. I was going to tell you when we got home.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, love,” Rylee said.

  River straightened. “I was in command.”

  “With bad info. You can only do so much, you aren’t a wizard or something.”

  “Boss?” Scales interrupted. “We have to move. I just got word from our pilot, things are getting worse around the island. The infected have stopped hiding indoors and are roaming the streets in packs killing anything not already infected.”

  River wiped her eyes. “How the hell did you get a signal down here?”

  Scales pointed up. “The shaft more or less goes straight up to the roof. The chopper is up there on station and the pilot was able to get a signal down to us. Once we leave the shaft, we’ll be cut off again.”

  “Won’t that be fun,” Rylee groused.

  ***

  There were no doors out of the shaft, rather four tunnels vanished into darkness in four separate directions. There were no signs and no lights, just the luminescence inside the stone. River looked into the nearest corridor with her light held overhead.

  “Does this seem odd to anyone else?”

  “This whole damn thing is odd,” Darling said.

  “I can’t argue with that, big guy” Scales said. He pointed to the west, a tunnel that descended more sharply than the others. “The lab should be that way.”

  River turned. “Why aren’t t
here any signs? Lights? Indicators that anyone has been working down here or that the, what did you call it, Momma? That Momma was down here?”

  Scales shined his own light around the chamber. “What do you mean?”

  “She means this makes no sense,” Rylee said. “We’re at the bottom of a shaft somewhere beneath an ancient pyramid and there are no signs anyone has been down here recently. Even I think this is stupid.”

  Morse held up his fist. “Quiet! Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Darling asked.

  River closed her eyes and strained her ears. At first all she could hear was the breathing of the team. They were ragged, tired and their breathing was labored. Then a new sound, like shuffling feet.

  “There. Something is moving in there.”

  River opened her eyes. Morse was pointing down a different corridor.

  Scales shook his head. “No, it’s behind us.”

  Rylee flicked her light on. “You’re both right, they’re all around us.”

  “This whole damn thing is a setup.”

  River raised her weapon. One by one the others followed suit, all aiming in different directions.

  “Morse, give Rylee the map. Rye, try to find us a way out.”

  Beside her, Morse unsnapped the computer from his wrist and handed it to Rylee, who oohed appreciatively over the small device.

  “It’s the new Z-pad! This has an operating system that hasn’t even been released to the public yet!”

  Morse’s face twisted into a genuine smile. “I got one of the first field units. That thing has more power than your laptop.”

  “Can we compare tech later? Rye, we need an escape route!” River snapped.

  “Right, sorry, boss,” Morse said. “Rylee, you break it you bought it.”

  Rylee attached it to her wrist and started her work. “As if. I save lives for a living, I can protect your toy.”

  River rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the tunnels in front of her. She no longer had to strain to hear them, they were so close she could smell the death and decay.

  “Here they come!” Scales said. “They’re faster than the others!”

  Scales wasn’t wrong. Where the other infected were slowed by the effects of the disease and death, these had no such hindrances. They were swift and evil, moving more like predatory animals than television zombies.

  “Conserve ammo, go for head shots and cover each other!” River barked.

  She raised her rifle and began to fire. She choked back her fear and took her time, making each shot count. Bodies fell in front of her, one after the other, and still the infected came.

  Other weapons added their voices to hers. The rat-tat of gunfire became a symphony of destruction keeping the zombies at bay. Seconds that seemed like hours ticked by and River’s last three rounds punched through the face of an infected that had once been a female scientist clad in a pink lab coat and scrubs. River ejected the magazine and reached for another.

  “Rye, tell me you’ve found something!” she said as she slotted the magazine into place.

  “I think…yeah, yeah I’ve got something. The south tunnel is some kind of burial chamber,” Rylee said.

  Morse hit an approaching infected with the stock of his weapon and shot another. “How does that help? Isn’t that a dead end?”

  River flicked her rifle to single shot and resumed firing. “Darling, back up and start clearing the southern tunnel. Morse, you help him. Scales, form up with me, let’s keep the rest off their backs.”

  She felt rather than saw the men carry out her orders. From the corner of her eye she saw Scales join her, his own weapon chattering away like an angry teen.

  “They must be wall to wall down there,” he grated.

  River blinked. That gave her an idea. These things were smarter than the other infected, faster, but they were still undead.

  “Try to block the tunnels with them. Shoot them before they can get out!”

  “Are you crazy? What about the ones in here with us?” Scales asked.

  “Just do it! Rylee, cover me!”

  In a flash, Rylee was by her side, shotgun spitting lead. What she lacked in experience and aim she made up for with enthusiasm and bravery.

  River slung her rifle and switched to her pistol. Her left hand gripped the amulet around her neck and pulled it over her head.

  Okay, whatever you are, I need you to work, she thought.

  She shot an infected approaching Rylee from the left. Its head exploded into a pink mist laced with yellow mucus and what looked like maggots. The smell made her and Rylee both gag.

  Come on, dammit, glow! She tried, swallowing bile.

  The amulet’s glow was dim, but lights glittered within and grew brighter. River held it in her open palm and shot an infected that was crawling over his brothers and trying to bite her leg. She stepped away from its corpse and kicked another in the face.

  Above her, the amulet became a beacon, a light so bright it hurt to look at. The infected that could retreated into the dark confines of their tunnels while those that remained in the shaft were dispatched with ease.

  “The path is clear,” Darling said from inside the tunnel.

  “Don’t wait for me, go!” River ordered.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Rylee,” Morse said.

  He fired one more burst into an infected still twitching at his feet and ran. He was followed by Scales, who took the opportunity to reload.

  “Time to go, lover,” Rylee said.

  “You go, Rye. I have to make sure these things stay in their holes.”

  Rylee began reloading her shotgun. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You aren’t, honey. I’ll be right behind you, I promise,” River said.

  Rylee was unconvinced. “I feel like you’re about to do something really stupid. I know this is a strain on you−”

  “You’re right. I didn’t want this, I didn’t want any of this. I’m not a leader. But we play the hand we’re dealt.”

  She kissed Rylee’s cheek. “Go.”

  Reluctantly, Rylee turned and entered the tunnel. River watched her go, then faced the infected still huddled away from the light. She could see them just at the edge of shadow, their claws opening and closing in anticipation. Somehow, they seemed to know she had the amulet, but couldn’t control it.

  River backed away, her pistol ready. As soon as she started to move, the amulet’s light dimmed and the infected began to move. River shot the first three to scurry out of their holes then turned and ran.

  The southern tunnel ended in an octagonal chamber big enough for the team and not much else. Alcoves on three sides held the remains of people garbed like something out of a B-grade fantasy movie, complete with skimpy loincloths on the men and barely there bikinis on the women. On any other day, that would have been cause for both amazement and comment, as the figures appeared perfectly preserved and untouched, but even Rylee was silent.

  In the middle of the room was a near-vertical vent that climbed up into the black tomb. Rylee stood beneath it, shining her light into the vent.

  “This is our way out,” she said.

  Darling’s massive brows knit. “You can’t be serious. How are we going to climb that?”

  “It isn’t all vertical, we just have to make the first twenty feet then it turns and will drop us in a chamber above us,” Rylee said.

  Scales looked over her shoulder. “That area hasn’t been explored, we don’t know what we might find.”

  “It has to be better than waiting here to run out of ammo and get eaten, or worse,” River said. “Darling, boost Morse into the shaft.”

  “Why me?” Morse asked.

  River blew hair out of her face and fought back her temper. “Because you’re the second smallest. Get your as
s in there and see what it looks like!”

  “Shit. Okay big guy, don’t drop me.”

  Darling cupped his hands and Morse stepped into them. A brief shower of dust and stone later, he was gone.

  “The rest of you, set up a firing line, it should be like shooting fish in a barrel. Stack’em and rack’em in the opening, choke their access,” River snapped.

  The team complied and she sagged against the wall. Her head ached and she wanted to be anywhere but here. Rylee was right, she’d thought about doing something ‘stupid,’ but these people were depending on her. She’d already let too many down. For now, she would be what they needed her to be. Later, would be later.

  “Are you okay, hoochie?” Rylee asked.

  River forced a smile. “Just tired, honey. My head feels like someone has been using it for a bowling ball.”

  “They’re here!” Darling shouted.

  River stood and joined the rest of the team in a narrow semi-circle. Just as she’d thought, the creatures were smart, but either too stupid or too hungry to avoid the gunfire. They fell in groups of two and three, their heads smashed like overripe melons leaking yellow goo.

  “Where the hell is Morse?” Scales snarled.

  “Keep your panties on, I’m right here,” Morse said on the radio. “Rylee was right, it’s a short chimney climb then it’s an easy crawl. Come on up, the weather’s fine.”

  “Rylee, you’re next,” River said. “Darling, help her.”

  “As you wish.”

  The loud rattle of the MG4 stopped and River moved to fill in the gap. Just a few more minutes and they would be safe.

  “You better be right behind me or I’m haunting your ass,” Rylee said.

  Then she was gone and Scales was backing away for his turn in the vent. River again concentrated on the amulet, hoping its glow would help her stem the tide of undead crawling over each other for the chance to gnaw on her bones, but it remained dark, almost sullen.

  “I must be the only girl in the universe with a pouty magik amulet,” she muttered.

  She drew her pistol and added its voice to that of her M4. She had hoped that the falling bodies would choke the entrance and give them breathing room, but they only slowed the creatures instead of stopping them.