He was answered by the crack of a gunshot, so close that his ears rang from the sound, and a grisly splatter of blood, bone, and brain matter splashed across his face as Doc’s bullet took the top of the creature’s head clear off.
The body slumped down on top of Burke, soaking the front of his uniform with blood and other bodily fluids.
“Bastard!” he cursed quietly as he pushed it off him and, with the help of the others, climbed to his feet.
That had been too close for his liking.
As Burke wiped the worst of the detritus off his face and went to retrieve his weapon, he noticed Drummond kept glancing at the walls on either side of them, a nervous expression on his face.
“You hear that?” Drummond asked.
Burke paused, listened; he did hear something.
It sounded like someone shuffling his feet in the dirt.
A lot of someones, in fact.
He was suddenly very happy that there was an eight-foot wall between this courtyard and the next. He just hoped the shredders didn’t figure out how to climb.
“Come on,” he said, waving the others forward. “Let’s get this done and get back to the boat.”
They entered Bedlam through the door at the western end of the building and, just as Drummond had predicted, found themselves in a set of administrative offices that had certainly seen better days. Light came in through several windows, making it easy to see. Desks and chairs were smashed. Bookshelves and filing cabinets were knocked over and their contents scattered all over the floor. Blood was splattered across the walls and ceiling in more than one location. The bodies of two of the former staff lay in the doorway to the hall beyond, their chests and throats torn open, most likely by the very same shredders that Burke and his two companions had just dealt with out in the courtyard.
The trio left the offices behind and stepped into a long hallway that appeared to run the length of the west wing all the way to the main building. Doors lined either side of the hall, one every six feet or so, and the observation windows set in each and every one of them made it clear that the rooms had once housed the hospital’s patients. More than a few of the doors were open, and from where they stood Burke and his men could see corpses lying in the hall.
Step by step they made their way slowly forward, leapfrogging each other over and over again as they checked each and every room, not wanting a shredder to come charging up behind them unexpectedly.
Each time they came to a corpse Drummond had the unpleasant task of trying to determine whether the ravaged and decomposing mess of flesh in front of them was that of the missing Queen, as he was the only one who had met her.
Three-quarters of the way down the hall they discovered an open doorway on the left that led to a stairwell going upward. As they had yet to check out the main structure ahead of them, they bypassed it for now and continued forward.
Burke was tempted to cry out, to see if anyone would answer his calls, but he knew that was just asking for trouble. For all they knew, the next door he opened might lead them into a room full of shredders and he would be much happier to surprise them with his sudden appearance than to find them waiting on the other side of the door for him to open it.
At the end of the hall a set of double doors led from the west wing into the main building, but when he tried them, Burke found them locked. Peering through the window in the door revealed a large open room with what looked like a receptionist’s desk and several couches; perhaps the waiting room by the main entrance.
Something thumped.
Burke went still, holding up a fist in a signal for the others to do the same.
He glanced around and then up at the ceiling, trying to pinpoint the sound, and after a moment it came again. It seemed to be coming from the room above them.
Shredders?
He didn’t think so. The sound had a furtive quality to it, as if who or whatever had made it hadn’t meant for it to be heard. Shredders weren’t exactly known for their subtlety.
The Queen? Some other survivors?
There was only one way to find out.
They backtracked a little until they came to the stairwell they’d passed a few minutes before and then headed up toward the second floor.
On the second flight they found several bodies littering the stairwell, but this time they were shredder corpses rather than those of murdered staff. They checked the features of each corpse, making sure none of them were the royal family. Doing so made Burke aware that they probably should have done the same thing with the shredders in the courtyard and he made a mental note to check them on the way back out if they didn’t find anything on the floor above.
Satisfied that their target was not among the dead, they continued upward.
They slipped through the door at the top of the steps and found themselves in another corridor like the one they’d left below. Just beyond the stairwell they found their first barricade.
It was a thick pile of furniture, pillaged no doubt from patient rooms. Bed frames, mattresses, bureaus, desks, nightstands; you name it, it was in there. Whoever had built the barricade had piled it nearly to ceiling height and, as a result, completely blocked the way forward.
It looked intact.
Burke took that as a good sign.
A few minutes of cooperative effort allowed them to clear a small section on the edge of the barricade. From atop the pile they could see another barricade about twenty feet farther down the hall. The area in between looked clear, so Burke clambered through the opening and then stood watch as the other two followed suit.
The next barricade looked more extensive and, after a few moments of investigation, proved to be about twice as thick. Drummond and Burke were just beginning to pull material from the top when Doc’s whispered voice broke the silence.
“Major! Over here!”
For a moment Burke was certain that it was going to be bad news, that Doc was going to reveal the body of the woman they’d come to find, but as Burke drew closer he saw that Bankowski was grinning.
“What have you got?”
Doc stepped out of the way, revealing an opening low to the ground. “A tunnel.”
Indeed it was. By getting down on his hands and knees, Burke could look down its length and see clear to the other side of the barricade. There was just enough room for a man to pull himself through lying flat on his back or his stomach, though only if he didn’t mind tight spaces.
Very tight spaces.
Burke sat back on his haunches, thinking. He guessed that the barricades had been set up as two separate lines of defense. Those they were designed to protect would make their stand at the first barricade and then, if events got away from them, they could retreat behind the second, using the tunnel to reach the safety of the hall beyond without the need to scramble over the unsteady pile. He had no doubt that there would be some way of closing off the tunnel on the other end once the retreating soldiers reached the safety of the hallway beyond. It was a clever setup and, in usual circumstances, would probably work pretty well.
These were not usual circumstances, however; far from them.
Shredders were exceptionally fast, and the narrow confines of the tunnel would create a bottleneck at precisely the wrong time for the retreating defenders. The fact that the area between the two barricades was empty of bodies told him more than anything else that the defenses had yet to be tested.
And that meant the defenders might still be hiding out somewhere beyond the barricade.
He made up his mind.
“I’m going to check it out,” he told the other two. “Watch my back.”
But Drummond grabbed his arm before he could lower himself to the floor. “You shouldn’t do this,” he said to Burke. “The squad needs you to get us back to the Reliant. Let one of us handle this.”
Burke shook his head.
“You’re the only one who can identify the Queen on sight, so sending you doesn’t make any sense. Neither does sending Doc, as I’m sure we’re going to need him to provide medical attention if we find any survivors. That leaves me.”
Burke wasn’t the type to order his men into any situation that he wasn’t willing to risk himself, which made his decision even easier. Logically, he was the best choice for the job.
“Here, hold this for me till I get back,” he said, handing his Tommy off to Drummond. “I don’t want the strap getting caught on something halfway through.”
The other man took it wordlessly, clearly not happy with Burke’s decision but understanding that he didn’t have any choice in the matter.
Burke drew his pistol, took a deep breath, and then slid into the makeshift tunnel on his stomach, headfirst. It was a tight fit, but he managed to move forward through a combination of pushing off with his feet and pulling with his free hand, squirming his body back and forth as he went. He did his best not to think about the massive mound of furniture just inches over his head, nor what it would do to him should it collapse.
Inch by inch, he slid forward.
As he neared the other end of the makeshift tunnel, he paused, surveying the area in front of him. The hallway beyond the tunnel looked empty but also intact; there was none of the destruction they’d seen elsewhere that indicated that shredders had come through at some point in the recent past. It was a good sign and gave him some hope that they might actually find who they’d come looking for.
With his free hand he reached out, grabbed the upper edge of the tunnel mouth, and pulled himself clear of the obstruction, only to find himself staring down the muzzle of a pistol very much like his own.
The man who held it stood with his back to the barricade a foot or so to the side of the tunnel mouth. He was a grizzled-looking veteran in a stained uniform with a tattered bandage wrapped around his head and at least three days’ worth of unshaven beard on his hard-lined face.
His eyes showed no amusement or relief at Burke’s appearance. “That’s far enough,” the soldier said.
Chapter Twenty-one
Aboard the HMS RELIANT
The River Thames
ENSIGN LOWELL STARED at the group of shredders on the riverbank fifteen yards away and wondered if he should alert the captain to their presence. He counted six, maybe eight of them; it was hard to tell exactly, given the smog that hung about everywhere in the city and the fact that the shredders were constantly moving about, slipping in and out of view.
They hadn’t been there at the start of his watch, he was certain of that. What he wasn’t certain of was just when they had appeared. He’d been staring out into the afternoon haze, doing his best to stay awake during what was turning out to be a very long and boring watch, when the faintest of sounds caught his attention. It sounded like a large fish jumping out of the water and at first he looked for it eagerly, having loved to fish in the cold waters of the lake just outside the borders of his hometown in Wales while growing up. In the process, he’d seen movement on the bank, and a few moments later he realized there were several shredders stumbling about over there.
That they were aware of his presence was clear; he’d seen them stop and stare in his direction often enough that he was starting to doubt the briefing they’d received about the creatures’ allegedly poor eyesight. Seemed the buggers could see him just fine, thank you very much. Still, he kept as still as he could and didn’t make any loud noises that might serve to attract their attention more than he already had.
Lowell raised his rifle and pointed it at the shredders milling around on the bank. “Pow! Pow! Pow-pow!” he muttered softly. He wasn’t a bad shot; a few minutes with his rifle and he could take care of those shredders right quick. And so what if the noise attracted more of them? They could sit out here all day and all night, picking off shredders until the sun came up. There wouldn’t be anything the shredders could do about it either; they were out here in the middle of the river and last he heard shredders couldn’t swim.
Unfortunately for Ensign Lowell, he was about to learn how wrong he was.
TWENTY FEET BELOW and fifty feet farther back from the conning tower, a shredder’s hand broke the surface of the water and slid upward along the steel hull of the submarine.
Its fingers grabbed hold of a slight metal protuberance jutting out from the side of the vessel and the shredder pulled, dragging its head above the waterline so it could take a look around. From that moment on, the minutes left in Ensign Lowell’s life were numbered.
Lowell was correct—shredders couldn’t swim, not really—but they could walk just fine and didn’t have to worry about something as petty as breathing. This particular creature had been roaming back and forth along the shoreline with its brethren, attracted by the nearness of living prey but unable to understand just how to reach them when it had slipped on the wet rocks and fallen off the jetty into the river.
Righting itself, it began to move forward, following its innate attraction to the living, walking out across the muddy river bottom in the direction of the HMS Reliant.
It was simply Ensign Lowell’s bad luck to let his guard down, believing he was safe out on the water.
Bad luck that the shredder didn’t get stuck somewhere in the mud along the way.
Bad luck that it walked into the anchor chain securing the Reliant in position in the middle of the river, for another foot to either side and it would have missed entirely, would have continued walking until it reached the far bank.
Bad luck that some deeply buried instinct floated to the surface of its mind at that moment and it began pulling itself up the chain toward its prey at the other end of the chain.
Hand over hand.
Foot by foot.
Until it encountered the smooth hull of the submersible.
Sensing humans on the other side of the steel, it began climbing upward, looking for a way in.
LOWELL HAD NEVER been this close to a pack of shredders before, and the nearness of the creatures everyone was talking about back in Le Havre made him long for a better look. He wanted to have stories to tell his friends when he returned to base. Figuring he might be able to see more a little closer to the action, he slipped out of the conning tower and made his way across the hull until he stood next to the deck gun. He left the hatch open behind him; that way the executive officer, Sanders, wouldn’t take him by surprise if he decided to check up on him.
He squinted in the afternoon light, trying to get a better look at the creatures on the shore, but the dust and haze in the air kept defeating him. To keep himself amused he began to mimic their motions, lurching back and forth in that oddly disjointed way they had, copying their head and hand motions so he’d be able to better describe them back at base.
The sound of a footfall on the deck behind him caused him to turn, still laughing at his own antics, expecting to find one of his crewmates standing there, but instead he found himself face-to-face with a shredder.
As the sight of the dripping wet creature was still registering in Lowell’s mind, it lunged for him. It seized him in its iron grip and its mouth clamped down on the flesh of his face, its jaws snapping shut like a steel vise and removing most of the flesh from just below his eyeballs to the edge of his chin, including his nose and both lips.
Reeling in shock, Lowell opened his mouth to scream, the gun in his hands completely forgotten, only to have the shredder tear his throat out with a single swipe of its overgrown fingernails, silencing him forever.
His body dropped and the shredder fell on it, claws and teeth working feverishly as it burrowed into the man’s soft flesh, seeking the organs deeper inside.
Lowell’s decision to leave his post damned him forever. His decision to leave the hatch open damned the rest of the crew.
Long moments passed b
efore the shredder raised its head. Sensing the presence of more humans inside the boat beneath it, the shredder headed for the open hatch. It didn’t know how to use the ladder, but that didn’t stop the creature. It simply stepped into the opening and let gravity do the work.
The first man to rush over to help what he thought was a fallen crew member ended up with half of his calf being bitten off for his trouble. Within moments the infection had spread through that man’s system and suddenly the crew of the Reliant had two shredders to deal with inside the narrow confines of its hull.
The odds were not with them, and the screams of the dying continued for some time.
Chapter Twenty-two
Bedlam Hospital
London
BURKE STARED DOWN the barrel of that pistol and thought how ironic it would be to survive three years of fighting in the trenches and a secret mission behind enemy lines only to wind up dead in the British capital thanks to a trigger-happy Allied soldier.
Crazy laughter bubbled up inside but he stomped on it immediately. Laughing at the man pointing a gun at him was not a good idea.
Instead, he opened his hands so his own pistol hung by only a finger and said in a calm, clear voice, “Easy there, Tommy. We’re on the same side.”
The other man visibly started at Burke’s accent, and then a grin wider than the Brooklyn Bridge spread across the soldier’s face.
“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed. “You’re an American!”
“Major Burke, American Expeditionary Forces. I’d appreciate it if you’d stop pointing that gun at my face.”
“What? Oh, right. Sorry about that.” The gun was withdrawn and the other man helped Burke to his feet. “Thought you might have been the Boche, actually.”
Burke shook his head at that one, thinking the Germans wouldn’t have bothered climbing through the barricades; they’d have simply blown the things up.
The other man extended a hand. “Captain Morrison,” he said, “Black Watch, Royal Highlanders. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
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