Colonel Nicholas Nave never gave a rat’s ass about doing what was politically correct. The minute his wife, Becky, woke him up to tell him the news he was on the phone to his subordinates at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
He had Lieutenant Sanchez on speakerphone as he got hurriedly dressed. “Report I got says Hurricane Gary should be downgraded to a Category 2 by the time our Black Hawks reach the Pennsylvania state line,” he said, buttoning his shirt as he spoke. “It’s supposed to die out over Ohio. I’ve been on the phone with Colonel Armstrong out of Kansas and Colonel Slade out of San Antonio. Slade’s sending fighter planes to DC. He’s also sending a team of birds to act as an offensive to Colonel Allman’s troops.”
“Allman’s in Barker’s command?” the voice coming out of the speakerphone asked.
“Affirmative.” Colonel Nave had been stationed at Fort Bliss for twenty years. He was in his late fifties with a strong, lean build. He’d quickly suited up and was psyching himself up for his ride, which was due to pick him up at the house in two minutes. “And I want to be in the air at 0200 hours.”
“Yes, sir,” the voice on the speakerphone said. “We’re getting birds ready now. We have ground troops assembling, too.”
“Good. Any word from Livingston personally?”
“Not yet, sir. Communications in that area are still down, but we should have it re-established at 0200 hours.”
“Excellent!”
While Colonel Nicholas Nave prepared to lead his troops out of Fort Bliss into battle on the East Coast, this scenario was being repeated at no less than three dozen military bases across the country, most of them from areas unaffected by the storm and the creatures. One retired Army Colonel, a man named Dallas Bradbury, who’d served with Livingston in VietNam, was watching CNN at his home in Las Vegas when the footage came on. He called the nearest Army base a minute later, identified himself, and when he learned they were assembling troops to make the trip to the East Coast, told them he wanted to accompany them to Maryland. “But sir,” the young grunt on the phone said. “If you’re retired we can’t just reactivate you!”
“I don’t want to be reactivated, son,” Bradbury said. “I’m volunteering.”
In Lexington, Kentucky, a firefight erupted between two squads of soldiers. One group had been assembled at the command of their drill Sergeant, Alfred Rossington, who was gunning to kick some righteous crustacean ass over what he’d seen on the news. They were confronted by base Sergeant Michaels, who had a life-sized poster of Secretary of Defense Barker on his office wall and a signed photo of President Jeffrey Tyler in a gold-tinged frame on his desk. Michaels had a core group of soldiers who hung on his every word, and when he ordered Rossington’s troops to cease their mission, Rossington gave the order to ignore it. The resulting firefight killed eighteen men and wounded a dozen, Rossington and base Sergeant Michaels included.
Soon, dozens of fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters equipped with soldiers, weapons, and ammunition were winging their way to Washington DC, Baltimore, Maryland, and the Peachbottom Nuclear Plant in Pennsylvania. Other planes and helicopters bearing troops were heading toward affected areas from Maine to Florida. Depending on their area of departure, arrival time was estimated at forty-five minutes to two hours.
The only good thing about that was Hurricane Gary was, indeed, weakening.
But the armies of the Dark Ones were getting stronger.
* * *
Peachbottom Nuclear Plant
2:53 AM
Tony glanced around at the other civilians and wondered what the fuck to do next. He’d managed to escape the Clickers in the river by diving all the way down to the bottom and letting the current speed him away. When he could no longer hold his breath, he’d dart back to the surface, grab a lungful of air, and then go under again. He kept this up until hitting the dam, after which the troops had pulled him from the water.
The muffled sounds of rapid, automatic gunfire echoed outside, along with screams and shouts. Nobody spoke. The technicians and employees were sprawled out on chairs and across the floor. The two marine experts, who’d been introduced to him as Jennifer and Richard, sat off to one side. The woman had her eyes closed, and the older man was reading a day-old newspaper. The other guy, William Mark, kept staring at him, and it was making Tony paranoid.
The chances of William Mark recognizing him were unlikely, but not impossible. Tony studied his face. He certainly didn’t recognize him. Guy didn’t look like he belonged to anyone’s crew. But even still, he was hard. Tony could tell that. Mr. William Mark might not be a criminal, might not be in “the life,” but he’d faced down death a time or two. It was easy enough to see, if you knew what to look for; the signs were there in his posture, the lines on his face, and the haunted look in his eyes.
He was staring at Tony again.
Tony stared back, unflinching.
Mark broke the gaze, letting his eyes wander over the sleeping woman’s form.
Tony’s paranoia grew.
He wished he still had his gun.
* * *
Doug Wath had been a janitor at Peachbottom for almost thirty years. He was looking forward to early retirement in another five, provided he lived through the night, of course. He’d bought a little piece of land in West Virginia and built a hunting cabin on it. With nothing to tie him down, his wife now an ex-wife and his kids long grown with families of their own, he couldn’t wait to move there permanently and hunt every day. Maybe sometimes he’d let his best buddy, Dale Murphy, come hunt, but then again, maybe he’d keep it all to himself. Game was abundant around the cabin; deer, pheasants, wild turkey, and bears.
Nothing like those things outside, though.
He wondered what it would be like to hunt one. As the siege began, he’d asked one of the soldiers if they had any extra rifles, and if so, could he lend a hand in the fight. The soldier, barely old enough to shave, had dismissed him with a shake of his head, telling him to stay inside and out of harm’s way.
Anxious and needing something to occupy his time, Doug had decided to clean up the blood all over the floor in the vending area. One of the soldiers had been wounded and they’d brought him in there temporarily. Doug didn’t know where he was now; maybe back on the front lines or maybe dead. But scarlet traces of the wounded man remained, and the way he saw it, if they wouldn’t let him fight, he might as well do his job.
Deciding to retrieve his mop and bucket, he opened the door to the janitor’s closet and a dead man fell out. Doug gave a frightened yelp and shrank away. The dead man’s head sounded like a melon as it hit the floor and cracked, but there was very little blood. When Doug rolled him over, he saw why. There was a neat little bullet hole in the guy’s forehead about the size of a dime.
“Holy shit...”
He knew the dead man. His name was Mitch Johnson, and he was—had been—a boiler operator. The man’s uniform was missing and he’d been stripped naked, his hands and feet bound with duct tape, and his underwear stuffed in his mouth.
Doug had listened when Colonel Livingston had addressed Peachbottom’s personnel. He knew about the Clickers and the Dark Ones. He knew that the Dark Ones were smart and deadly and could use weapons. But the Colonel had insisted the Dark Ones didn’t use firearms, which meant that someone else had killed Johnson.
As he knelt by the corpse, a shadow fell over him. Doug started to turn and then something hard smashed into his face. His mouth erupted with pain and filled with blood.
“Nothing personal,” a voice said. “You just happened to come across something that was none of your business.”
A second blow crashed down upon his head, and Doug Wath’s vision went black.
* * *
Rick was growing paranoid.
His imagination was running wild due to the sounds of the battle outside and with the constant flashbacks to Phillipsport, 1994 replaying in his mind.
Being stuck in this lounge reminded him of being stuck in that s
upermarket freezer at the height of Hurricane Floyd.
And with that, his mind was playing tricks on him.
He was hearing noises.
Something had breached the walls of the Power Plant.
He was lying on a couch in the lounge. He couldn’t sleep—how could he sleep knowing what was going on outside? Livingston was standing near a table where some weapons had been laid, communicating with his troops outside via walkie-talkie. Rick could hear the battle over the squawk of feedback and static.
And he could swear he was hearing a noise from somewhere outside of the command center in the plant.
After Jennifer tended to Tony’s wounds, she’d retreated back to her chair near Richard. Tony had flexed his wounded leg, gritting his teeth. Rick had watched him warily from his perch on the sofa. Maybe he was being paranoid, but something about that guy just wasn’t right.
Livingston had ordered a handful of men to remain just within the perimeter of the building to guard the interior. Perhaps it was their footfalls he was hearing outside the lounge. That’s what he kept trying to tell himself.
Besides, another employee had just entered the room a few moments ago; a maintenance guy or something, judging by his coveralls. The name stenciled on his uniform said “Mitch.” He’d glanced around the room and then taken a seat in the corner, not speaking to anyone. But if there had been something out in the corridors, it would have slaughtered him.
Unless it had let him slip by, hoping to trap them all together...
The area they were currently sequestered in was on the ground floor of the plant. There were three floors above them consisting of administrative office space. The ground floor housed the command center where the general daily activities of the plant were directed from as well as building security, the operations and maintenance areas, the building cafeteria and the IT data center. The basement level housed more of what was in the command center—machinery and computers that operated the nuclear reactors.
What Rick was hearing outside the area of the command center, which consisted of the bullpen that overlooked the basement command center and the lounge where he and the other civilians were, was akin to what he’d heard twelve years ago when he was trapped inside the freezer at the supermarket in Phillipsport.
It was the stealthy slither of large, reptilian claws clicking on linoleum floor.
Tony was sitting upright on the chair, flexing his leg. He was surveying his surroundings. “It’s pretty nice in here,” he said.
“Yeah, it is,” Richard said, looking up from his newspaper. “You’re lucky you were so close. Those things almost killed us.”
“I bet,” Tony said. His hands brushed the sides of his suit coat. “They ran me off the road.”
Behind Rick, he could hear Livingston talking to his troops via walkie-talkie. It sounded like the battle outside was growing worse. He also felt Livingston’s gaze directed at them as he talked, as if he were watching them.
“How long were you out there?” Richard asked Tony.
“A couple hours.”
Rick felt a chilly finger run down his spine.
If he was out there for a couple of hours, why didn’t Livingston’s convoy pick him up when they arrived? Surely he would have seen them from where he was…right?
Unless he approached Peachbottom from another direction, the voice of reason shot back to counter Rick’s growing paranoia. Maybe nobody knew he was out there because there were no guards out there at the time. And if we showed up on one side, there’s no way Livingston and his troops would have seen this guy, much less—
Peachbottom’s Security Team would have seen him if he’d shown up anywhere within the perimeter of the plant. They were expecting us because Livingston called ahead. If this guy showed up before we did, or even around the same time, they would have seen him and either shot him or hauled his ass in here with us.
What if Tony Genova was really with the government? An assassin. What if they’d sent him to kill Rick, or even Colonel Livingston—or both?
Rick held his breath. The sounds he thought he was hearing grew closer. They weren’t his imagination. He hoisted himself up into a sitting position. Jennifer was scrunched up on one of the chairs on his right; she opened her eyes and looked over at him.
“You hear that?” Rick asked.
Jennifer cocked her head to the side, listening.
Richard sat up. “What do you hear?”
Jennifer held up her hand for silence.
The four of them were still for a moment.
Colonel Livingston noticed the exchange and shut off his walkie-talkie. He stood at his corner of the lounge, silent.
When the sound came again all four of them heard it this time. It was unmistakable.
Something very large and heavy was traversing the hallways of the power plant’s interior.
“They got in,” Livingston said.
Rick was on his feet in an instant. “Holy Jesus fucking Christ, now what?”
His outburst disturbed the rest of the civilians. All of them were instantly alert, babbling in excited confusion.
“Stay calm,” Livingston said. He slung an assault rifle over his shoulder. Then in one swift motion he drew his side arm and pointed it at Tony. “Mr. Genova, will you get on your knees with your hands on your head, please?”
Jennifer looked at Livingston with shock. “What?”
Rick felt his heart race, the paranoia he felt toward Tony justified.
Tony looked calmly up at Colonel Livingston. “What for? What’s wrong?”
“Just do as I say, now!”
What happened next occurred in what seemed like slow motion to Rick. He watched as Tony turned away from Colonel Livingston and began to do as he was told. He slunk down onto the floor of the lounge on his knees. As he did so, Mitch, the late arrival, snaked his right hand into the pocket of his coveralls. Rick wasn’t sure if it was the retort from Livingston’s sidearm or the gun by Mitch’s body as it fell to the floor. Jennifer screamed; Richard yelled in surprise; the other civilians scrambled out of the way; and blinking in surprise, Tony pissed his pants. Rick wasn’t even aware that he’d scrambled off his safe position on the sofa and was standing with his back against the wall of the lounge until Colonel Livingston stepped over Mitch Johnson’s prone body and pumped a second bullet into the man’s head. Then he turned to Tony.
“My apologies, sir. I assumed you were the one at first.”
Tony grinned. “No sweat. I like your style.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jennifer screamed. “You just killed that man.”
“I did, indeed. He would have done the same to us.”
Jennifer shook her head. “You’re insane.”
“Colonel Livingston,” Richard said slowly, hands held out in front of him, “while we appreciate all of your efforts tonight, I believe you owe us an explanation. I will not sanction nor be party to cold-blooded murder.”
Livingston bent down and picked up a black handgun that had fallen out of the dead man’s hand. He ejected the magazine and checked the chamber. “A Glock. Round already chambered. Here’s your man in black, Rick.”
“You guys thought I was some government assassin?” Tony asked.
“Yeah,” Rick admitted. “You’ve got to admit that it was awfully weird how you just showed up out of nowhere and made it in here alive.”
Tony shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a resourceful guy.”
“Who are you, really?”
Before Tony could answer, footsteps pounded toward the lounge and the door was wrenched open. Jeremiah Brown and two of his security guards were there, firearms out and ready. “What happened?” Brown asked. “Is that man dead? And why is he wearing Mitch Johnson’s uniform?”
“Just a minor inconvenience,” Colonel Livingston said as he whisked the Glock away. He looked at Rick. “I had a gut instinct about this guy the minute I laid eyes on him. He’s from the same agency that forced me into retirement
and has been after you and Melissa.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” Jennifer was clearly upset. Her eyes were wide, panic-stricken. “You barely talked to the guy!”
Livingston shoved his hand into the dead man’s pocket and extracted his wallet. He flipped it open and found what he was looking for. He held it out to her. “Does this satisfy you?”
The ID on the badge identified “Mitch Johnson” as Harold Bronski, a member of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The thought that he’d just escaped certain death was not lost on Rick, but it wasn’t the first time he’d been through this tonight. He remembered the sounds he’d heard in the corridor.
“Mr. Brown,” he asked, “did you see anything else in the hallways when you rushed in here?”
Jeremiah frowned. “No. Why?”
A sudden burst of static from the walkie-talkie and Tranning’s voice came on the line, breaking his thoughts. “This is Four Actual calling Command. Colonel Livingston, sir? Do you copy?”
“Right here, Tranning!”
“There’s dozens of these things, sir, and they’re breaching the walls!” Amid the static was the sound of gunfire and screams from the battle outside. “They’re climbing up the walls and we’re getting a lot of them but…holy shit, one of them just got over. Oh fuck!”
“Four Actual, repeat that. Four Actual? Tranning! Tranning! Do you read me! Tranning!”
A burst of static erupted from the speaker, followed by Tranning moaning. And then...CLICK-CLICK... CLICK-CLICK...
Then the transmission ended.
“Team Two, did you copy that?”
There was no response.
Livingston sprinted out of the make-shift command center he’d set up for himself in the lounge and ran into the bullpen, brushing past Jeremiah and his security team.
“Shit!” Rick muttered.
“What are we going to do?” Jennifer sounded scared.
Clickers II: The Next Wave Page 26