Wind rustled over the structures and rippled the blades of overgrown grass.
Timothy kept his rifle pressed tightly against his shoulder. While the other soldiers wanted to avoid the beasts, he wanted to find and kill them. The more dead Variants, the faster the war would be over, and then maybe he could have a life, maybe even with Tasha.
He thought of her as he walked, recalling the moments they had managed to steal away together on Galveston. Soon he would be back to the island, and with Horn gone, he didn’t have to worry about her dad breathing down their necks every second.
The team continued through the street, prowling through the darkness. They found no animal carcasses or misshapen footprints in the mud or grass, nothing that would indicate any monsters had been here recently.
Wong took them down another boulevard into the second neighborhood they were assigned to clear. The once-picturesque street was lined with the arching branches of southern live oak trees.
A light tapping noise made Timothy halt.
Wong continued forward but Ruckley stopped.
“What?” she asked.
He listened but heard nothing.
Maybe he was just being paranoid.
Then he heard the tapping again.
He held up a fist.
Wong and Boyd stopped and crouched.
Timothy pointed to his ears, then started a hand signal when a shape burst from the grass, exploding toward them.
All four of them spun, but not fast enough.
Before Timothy could fully understand what had happened, Boyd was down on his back. On top of him was a skinny Variant with gray flesh and dilated vessels pulsating over its muscles.
Boyd swung his wrist up to block a snapping bite from the Variant, then let out a cry of pain as it ripped into his flesh.
Timothy rushed forward, letting his rifle fall on its sling. He could not risk taking a shot, and instead he took out his knife and threw his shoulder into the creature’s exposed ribs. It reared up, and he jabbed the knife deep into its guts.
The beast let out a pained squeal as Timothy dug the blade deeper, warm blood spilling over his hand. With a kick, he shoved the Variant off Boyd. It scrambled back on all fours, facing Timothy, grotesque face drawn in an aggressive snarl.
Timothy put himself between Boyd and the starving abomination. A suppressed shot burst through its forehead a moment later. Two more shots tore into its chest, and the monster crumpled.
Ruckley stepped beside Timothy, aiming her M9 down the street.
“Thanks, Temper,” Boyd said. He winced, holding his bleeding wrist.
“Quiet,” Ruckley said. “Might be more.”
Wong swiveled on his heels, rifle roving over the empty lawns. No other creatures howled or pounced from the tall grass. Timothy knelt next to the fallen monster to check out something around its neck. He reached down to find a black collar like the one the collaborators had used on their Thralls in Maine. Boyd and Wong appeared confused, but Ruckley knew exactly what the collar represented.
Somewhere to their south, they heard more rustling grass and another growl.
“Quick!” Ruckley whispered. “Get to cover!”
Wong helped Boyd up, and they sprinted the opposite direction, running straight for a house toward the end of the street. Timothy was the last one inside, his boots splashing over soggy, mildew-covered carpet. He followed the team upstairs where they spread out inside a bedroom with broken windows.
They each took a spot along the wall and Timothy snuck a glance out the window while Wong helped Boyd clean and bandage the bleeding wound from the Variant bite. The scent would draw the beasts if they didn’t hurry.
“Command, Recon Sigma One,” Ruckley whispered over the radio. “We have multiple contacts, standby for location.”
“Copy, Recon Sigma,” replied the operator. “What’s your location?”
Ruckley looked at Wong.
“Riverbend North, Nail’s Creek,” the Houston native whispered.
Ruckley relayed the answer.
Outside, the sound of gruff voices grew closer, along with another howl. Timothy went still, and Ruckley turned off the radio, silently observing the unfolding scene.
Another Variant ran to the dead one. It paused at the corpse, sniffing at the dead monster, then looked back over its shoulder, teeth bared. Cranking back its head, it let out a short howl.
Timothy expected to see collaborators emerge from the grass with a remote control like Nick and Pete had possessed at Mount Katahdin. Sure enough, three humanoid shapes walked out carrying rifles.
But these weren’t men.
The hybrid beasts had scything claws protruding from the ends of their fingers, and their faces were flat and scarred with golden eyes.
They were Chimeras.
Deadlier than normal Variants and collaborators. These were the infamous Scions of the New Gods, the ultimate combination of manmade science and Mother Nature’s evolution.
And now they were just outside Houston.
— 4 —
Beckham finally had a chance to grab some shuteye in the Outpost Houston apartment he and Kate were given when frantic knocking jolted him awake. A glance out the window showed it was still dark. Maybe three or four in the morning, if he had to guess.
Kate turned over in bed, planting her feet on the floor. “Wonder who it’s for this time.”
Together they wandered toward the front door and opened it. Outside was a big red-haired man with a shit-eating grin.
“Morning, boss,” Big Horn said with a yawn. “You’ll never guess what the cat dragged into Houston.”
“Guess it’s for me,” Beckham said. “You can go back to sleep, Kate. You need it.”
“I’m already awake. Might as well go to work.”
She disappeared back into the bedroom to change.
“What’s going on?” Beckham asked Horn.
“We found some enemy scouts.”
All the exhaustion and stupor of being woken up in the middle of the dark early morning hours disappeared in a blast of adrenaline. It took only a couple minutes for Beckham to slip on his ACUs, grab his rifle, and say goodbye to Kate. He followed Horn down the stairs from the apartment to the street where three Humvees waited.
Beckham hopped into the back of the lead vehicle with Horn, and they took off.
“Where are these scouts?” Beckham asked.
“I’ll let her explain,” Horn said, nodding to a soldier in the front seat.
Rico turned to look at him, a shock of pink hair poking out from below her helmet. “Good to see you, Captain. I’ve been up all night helping with security detail.”
Then she pointed at the driver, a man with sandy blond hair.
“This is Corporal Max Lindquist. He’ll be on Team Reaper for the rest of the morning. We’ve been organizing tonight’s scouting and security ops. Recon Sigma ran across some starving Variants about twenty minutes ago.”
“You got us up for that?” Horn asked. “Can’t they handle some—”
“There are Chimeras in the area, too,” Rico said.
Beckham cursed under his breath. He had thought they might have a few more days to prepare the outpost for a potential attack. But hearing the beasts had come all the way down here to Houston dashed those hopes.
“Ruckley’s team tracked them to an encampment,” Rico said.
“So we’re rolling in and carpet bombing them, right?” Horn asked. He rubbed his big hands together. “That’s worth getting up before the ass crack of dawn.”
“No, command wants one of them alive,” Rico said.
“Jesus, command’s never going to learn,” Horn said.
Rico ignored him. “Since we have so much experience in the field, Jacobs wanted you to lead tonight’s snatch-and-grab.”
“You got a map of the area?”
Rico passed one back to Beckham. She leaned over her seat, circling the neighborhood where Ruckley had last reported their location an
d the Chimera encampment.
“Tell Ruckley to maintain her position,” Beckham said. “The four of us in this Humvee are Reaper. Humvee two, Bravo. Three, Charlie.” He laid out on the map where he wanted each Humvee to park and how they would approach the encampment to give each team clear firing lanes while surrounding the Chimeras.
Rico relayed it over the radio.
After another fifteen minutes of driving they pulled off the highway and wound through roads littered with abandoned cars. The other two Humvees peeled off down separate roads. They killed their headlights, and Lindquist pulled down his night vision goggles, slowing so the engine noise didn’t give away their position.
When they finally parked behind a two-story house for cover, Beckham got out first, stepping out onto the pavement with his prosthetic blade. He dropped low immediately, signaling for Horn to take rearguard. Rico and Lindquist took the flanks, and together they prowled through the overgrown grass like sharks after prey.
They followed a creek, staying close to the grass for cover. According to the map, the waterway would take them straight to the camp.
If they had timed everything right, they would converge there the same time Bravo and Charlie did. Then with the help of Recon Sigma, they would ambush the Variants and Chimeras.
As they approached the target, Beckham paused. A park with a rusted playground and several picnic shelters protruded from the unkempt weeds. At one of those shelters, he noticed three Chimeras talking and sharing food.
Even from his vantage behind a thicket of trees and bushes, Beckham could hear the tearing of flesh and meat. He counted another four Variants circling eagerly around the Chimeras, waiting for a morsel.
Where were their lookouts? He didn’t see any scouts or guards.
The Chimeras were smarter than this.
Rico knelt beside him, with Horn and Lindquist watching their backs. Across the park, in another backyard lined with trees, Beckham noticed four infrared tags in his NVGs. That was Bravo. To the east, he could see the IR tags glowing from Recon Sigma’s NVGs from their position near an abandoned RV.
He didn’t know which one, but one of those tags represented Timothy. He knew the young man would be fighting Variants again, but the thought of him facing even the deadlier Chimeras filled Beckham with dread.
Toward the west, he studied the lines of trees next to a pond. That was where Charlie was supposed to be. But no IR tags glowed.
Maybe the team was just slower or ran into some unexpected obstacles. But the fact that a Chimera and two Variants were missing, too, was not a good sign.
Beckham considered breaking radio silence to get a sitrep, but making any noise now, so close to the enemy, could ruin their cover.
Each second without seeing Charlie passed as its own agonizing eternity. The other team had to be out there. No one had called for assistance or reported any issues. He hadn’t heard any gunshots either.
Another two minutes passed.
Horn suddenly pointed as two Chimeras appeared from between a couple houses. Each lugged a body over their shoulders. A pack of Variants followed on all fours, snapping and snarling at each other. Then came a second pair of the hybrid soldiers with two more human prisoners.
Beckham took his binoculars from his tac vest and pulled them up to his eyes, zooming in for a better look, confirming his worst fears.
“Son of a bitch, that’s Charlie team,” he said quietly.
The Chimeras carrying the dead soldiers dumped them on the ground and the Variants dove in for the feed. The two surviving Charlie soldiers squirmed to get away. One thrashed himself free from the grip of a Chimera, only to have his throat slashed.
The Thrall Variants surrounding the shelter dove into the fresh corpses, teeth and claws ripping into the dying soldier.
“We have to do something,” Rico said.
The Chimeras tied up the last surviving soldier to a post of the shelter.
Horn wedged up next to Beckham with his M249 SAW, ready to let some lead fly. “Let me at ’em, boss.”
One Chimera stuck its nose into the air, freezing, bloody entrails still dripping from its mouth. It sniffed, then signaled to the other monsters. The starving Thralls even stopped feeding for a moment.
Beckham knew this was their only chance to save the final survivor of team Charlie and capture a Chimera, but it would put them all at risk. A long moment passed, the tension nearly palpable as his team looked at him for orders. He squeezed the call button on his radio. “All teams, go!”
Horn practically jumped up to fire, tracer rounds splitting the darkness. The beasts scattered in all directions.
Reaper pushed forward through the tall grass, disappearing into the foliage. Beckham looked for the telltale shifting of blades that would show where the other Variants were. He listened for the clicking joints or growls.
A deep boom shook the ground, halting Beckham. Horn stopped firing for a beat.
“That came from Bravo’s position,” he said.
Gunshots barked from across the park, followed by the pained howl of a Variant. Beckham pushed through the grass, his vision blocked by the foliage. He took the team closer to the creek that they had initially followed.
That was when he felt it. A slight tug on his prosthetic like he’d run into a fishing line, providing just a modicum of resistance. Then he heard a whir, like a spring releasing.
“Get down!” he roared.
Beckham dropped to the ground, Rico diving next to him. Horn threw himself down onto the edge of the stream.
Lindquist was too slow.
A bounding mine launched from where it had been planted, spraying shrapnel in a wide disc about five feet off the ground. The shrapnel cut into Lindquist’s arms and chest, tearing into his neck. He didn’t have time to scream before his body hit the ground.
Almost as soon as the mine exploded, Beckham heard a roar to his left and rolled just in time to bring his rifle up. A Variant burst from the grass, claws extended, sucker lips popping. A trigger pull peppered the beast with three rounds.
Gunshots exploded around the park along with the roars of other Variants. Horn pulled on Lindquist, trying to drag him to safety, but the man was dead, his head practically severed from his neck.
“Leave him,” Beckham said.
“Chimeras are moving!” Ruckley’s voice burst over the radio. “They’re splitting up!”
Beckham’s heart raced. This wasn’t just a chance for the Chimeras to feed. It was a damned trap. Things were quickly falling apart, and he couldn’t help but think of Timothy. He couldn’t let the young man die out here.
Other voices over the radio cried for help, reporting more men down as the Variants tore into the teams. Gunshots were interspersed with the boom of anti-personnel landmines.
Beckham recalled Outpost Turkey Creek and all those other frontier outposts that had secured their lands against Variant attacks using mines. Now those weapons were being used against them.
“Reaper, Recon Sigma One here!” Ruckley said. “Variants headed your way!”
Beckham stood, trying to watch for monsters and mines all at once.
“Horn, Rico, on me!” he yelled.
They advanced into the darkness, following the creek. Another two Variants exploded from the grass around them. Rico shot one, and the second slammed against Horn. The big man clenched his fingers around the Variant’s neck as the beast snapped at him.
He let out a roar, cranking back the creature’s neck, followed by a resounding crack. The creature went limp in his grip, and he dropped it to the ground.
Rifle up, Beckham went into the clearing where the picnic shelters were. Toward their south, two Chimeras engaged in a gun battle with Bravo. Recon Sigma had descended from the RV and were at the edge of the park. He spotted Timothy next to Ruckley, both still alive and unhurt.
Thank God, Beckham thought.
Beckham spotted two Chimeras sprinting northward, straight toward his position. The ghastly
soldiers saw him, too, and brought up their rifles, firing. He threw himself to the side as bullets stitched the ground, kicking up a spray of mud.
Another roar sounded behind them as Variants pounced at Rico and Horn again.
Beckham kept his focus on the Chimeras. He centered his sights on the first Chimera and pulled the trigger. Rounds punched into the half-man’s chest, blood spraying out the exit wounds.
The second beast leapt over the new corpse, firing wildly mid-jump. Beckham had to duck, pressing himself into the side of the creek as the Chimera retreated northward on the other side of the creek.
“Chimeras down!” a voice from Bravo reported. “Engaging Variants now!”
That left this single running Chimera alive.
“I’m going after him!” Beckham shouted as Horn and Rico battled a pair of Variants.
He ran as hard as he could, his prosthetic threatening to slip on the muddy shore. The Chimera turned back only to let off another series of wild shots.
Beckham pushed harder, accelerating, but the creature was far faster. He stopped and aimed his rifle, aiming for a leg.
The shot hit the back of its knee, sending the half-man tumbling.
Beckham kept his rifle up as he approached. The Chimera tried to drag itself away.
Pulling out his combat knife, Beckham ran toward the injured monster. The mutant creature turned and sliced with clawed hands as he approached but he managed to drive the blade hard into his shoulder.
The Chimera roared and slammed its skull into Beckham’s nose, knocking off his night vision optics.
Dazed, he fell back, warm blood oozing out of his nostrils. He tried to scramble away to give himself some room to recover.
Footsteps sounded, followed by snarling and a crack.
Vision blurred, Beckham pulled out his pistol and swung it toward the noise, ready to pull the trigger and kill the Chimera.
“Boss!” Horn yelled. “Don’t shoot!”
The stars cleared and Beckham saw his friend in the moonlight, wrestling the Chimera on the ground. Rico joined them to help secure the creature. Timothy ran over a minute later, and relief swelled through Beckham when he saw the young man.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 102