Fifty meters from the ravine, the four remaining breeders halted abruptly.
“Come on, you dumb shits,” X said. He stood up in the turret for a better view. “What are they doing?”
Even with the shells bursting behind them, the monsters paced around on their long limbs and claws. The hulking abominations lowered their faces and brought their legs under their shells, while the offspring squeezed into holes in the ground. Others streamed down the walls sideways like crabs.
“Son of a bitch,” X said.
He had thought their cumbersome shells would make them fall into the gorge, but these little bastards could scale vertical walls.
The only way to finish the beasts was by expending precious small-
caliber ammo.
“Pick a target,” X yelled. “Make your shots count!”
He dropped his prosthetic arm, and gunfire and tracer rounds lanced away from the elevated buildings, slamming into the armored shells of monsters still on the other side of the ravine and those descending into the darkness.
The creatures shrieked as bullets pounded them, knocking some from the walls as X had planned. But others made it down and out of view, unharmed.
X bumped on the command channel.
“Captain Two Skulls, have your pilots send a drone down that crack,” he said. “I want to know where those things are going.”
“Understood, sir,” replied the captain.
X ducked back down into the tank.
“Target the shells,” he said.
“Aye, aye, King Xavier,” Slayer said.
X grabbed the .50-caliber machine gun and had trained it on one of the four remaining breeders, when the hard carapace opened like wings, exposing what looked like lungs or gills. They started to glow, the ribbed flesh turning brighter and brighter before launching a salvo of neon-green blobs into the air.
“Incoming!” someone shouted outside the tank.
X was tracking the flying blobs in the iron sights when Slayer fired the main gun. The recoil threw X off his aim, but he leveled the .50 again and fired. The rounds peppered the jaw as a tank shell hit the gill-like flesh under the breeder’s shell.
Orange fluid and flesh slopped out onto the rubble. The beast let out a roar that carried across the wastes.
“Direct hit!” Slayer said over the comms.
Closing one eye, X turned the machine gun to the next-closest breeder. Blood streamed from the holes he blew into its armor. The exposed lungs glowed brighter, firing off more green globs into the sky.
“What are those things!” X yelled.
Taking his eyes off the gun sights, he followed the meaty green objects arcing through the air. The first one slammed into the third story of a building.
The explosion dazzled his eyes, and he turned off his night vision, blinking at the glare. Screams of agony from Cazador positions in the structure rose above the din of gunfire.
When his vision returned, X saw the soldiers climbing out of the building, some of them falling and hitting the ground. Their bodies melted, their armor dripping off them like candle wax.
X stared in horror as the green blobs fell all around in fiery explosions. The radiation gauge on his monitor chirped at a sharp spike.
“My God,” X said.
“Get inside!” someone yelled.
X felt Slayer tugging on his boot and ducked into the tank. Bromista was clutching an animal bone in his hand, muttering something in Spanish. This didn’t sound like a joke; it sounded like a prayer.
The warriors all kept low, watching through a viewport while the glowing bombs exploded across structures where hundreds of soldiers had taken up positions.
Cutting through their screams of horror, a calm voice surged over the command channel. “King Xavier, we have a drone following the spawn underground,” said Captain Two Skulls.
X flinched at another nearby explosion.
“They are headed underneath your position,” Two Skulls said. “You have to get out of there now!”
Twenty-Nine
Five miles from the heart of Panama City, Kade led the way through the cavernous tunnels.
He kept an eye on Tia, thinking of her father. There was no doubt in his mind that Raphael wouldn’t have wanted this for her, but Kade couldn’t stop her from becoming a diver. All he could do was try to keep her safe on the surface.
So far, they were alone in the passages—the shells and explosions topside had sent the creatures rushing from their underground lairs to the surface.
Ada moved ahead of Kade despite his motions and whispers to stay back. She was clearly growing more anxious to find Jo-Jo. The animal wasn’t far now, maybe a mile away. The problem was to find a passage that connected with whatever chamber or nook the monkey had hidden away in.
The beams from their helmet lights revealed another problem. Rocks and concrete blocked the subway tunnel Kade had hoped to enter. At some point over the years, the walls had collapsed, blocking the tunnel.
“We’re going to have to find an alternative route,” he said.
When Kade turned away, Ada kept going toward the rubble.
“That could take forever,” she said. “Just hold on and let me check it out.” Hurrying over, she slung her laser rifle and stepped up on the loose scree.
“Estúpida,” Gran Jefe said.
Tia moved past Kade, ignoring his orders. The two female divers raked their lights over the rubble as Gran Jefe moved on, searching for another way through.
“Hey, I think I found something,” Tia said.
Kade shined his light on a narrow opening about two feet wide in the pile of concrete and rock. It seemed to go all the way through and was big enough for the women and maybe him, too. But there was no way Gran Jefe would get his armored bulk through there.
He seemed to acknowledge as much and began taking off the chest rig that powered his suit. “No soy gordo,” he said with a grin. “Big-boned.”
Ada got down, but Kade motioned her back.
“I’ll go first,” he said. When she balked, he added, “That’s an order, Winslow.”
She backed up, and he got down on his knees to crawl under the low rock ceiling. He could see the gouges made in the limestone by hard, sharp claws.
Squeezing through the hole, he found himself standing on flat concrete, with train tracks and concrete subway walls gradually coming into focus.
Kade scrambled out and brought his rifle up to check both sides of the tunnel.
“Clear,” he said, sighting down the rails. Jo-Jo was not far now.
A moment later, Ada was through and hopping to her feet. Next came Tia. Behind her, sounds of grunting and scratching grew loud enough to make Kade nervous.
Gran Jefe was struggling through the hole, dragging his armor behind him.
“Quiet, man!” Tia whispered.
Gran Jefe responded with some slur in Spanish. But when the swearing continued in an uninterrupted stream, Kade realized it wasn’t in response to Tia.
The huge Cazador was stuck.
He squirmed again, grunted a few more vivid profanities, and got nowhere.
“Calm down,” Kade said. “Keep wiggling and you will get through.”
Gran Jefe snorted. “I can’t . . . hijoeputa . . .”
There was rising panic in his voice.
“Take it easy,” Kade said.
Pulling out his machete, he turned to Ada and Tia. “Watch our backs. I’ll try and free him.”
“Hurry,” Ada said.
Kade got down and started crawling toward Gran Jefe. Reaching him, he started stabbing the fragmented concrete around the right shoulder armor, knocking out clods of earth and pebbles.
After a few thrusts, he went to work on the other side.
“Careful,” Gran Jefe said.
Kade kept
at it until he had cleared a few inches.
“Have a go now,” he said, backing up into the tunnel.
Gran Jefe let out a long grunt and pushed farther into the passage.
A tremor shook the tunnel, and grit sifted down. Kade braced himself and sent up a prayer that it not come down on both of them.
He suddenly felt a hand on his left boot, and then his right.
Someone hauled Kade out into the subway tunnel. He rolled onto his back and looked up at Tia, who reached down to help him up.
“¡Ayúdenme!” Gran Jefe cried.
Kade turned back to the opening, where Gran Jefe was stuck, half his body out and half still in.
Together, all three divers grabbed him and pulled. After another minute of exertion and a few more colorful expressions, he slid out, in a little shower of dust and concrete chips, onto the subway platform.
Crunching resonated from the tunnel as the ceiling collapsed, sealing off the way.
“Gracias, gracias,” Gran Jefe said. He brushed off his armor and then put it back over his head. The chest battery warmed to life, his visor once again clicking on and masking his features.
“Let’s go,” Ada said. “We have to hurry.”
She was already moving down the passage.
“Wait!” Kade said.
She slowed some but kept moving.
A tremor rocked the passage as Tia came up to Kade.
“You think the army is beating the shit out of those things yet?” she asked.
“I hope so aye,” Kade replied.
Here underground, beyond the reach of radio waves, there was no way to know.
They picked up their pace, following Ada, who moved with Cricket 2.0 in one hand and her rifle in the other.
“I remember this place,” she called out.
“You’ve been here?” Tia asked.
“Yes, this is where the bunker is.”
Kade remembered her story of her encounter, but he figured it was a dream during her coma.
Then again, it could have been real. The wastes harbored all sorts of monsters.
“Almost there,” Ada said.
The beacon was two hundred meters away and on the other side of the subway.
An opening allowed them into another passage gouged out by the monsters. Kade caught up with Ada.
“Hey, hold on a beat,” he said.
She pulled away when he reached out.
“We don’t have a second,” she snapped.
“I’m just asking you to slow down and be careful. We came down here with you to help, but . . .”
Ada stopped. “I know, but my friend has been out here for weeks and I’m anxious to find her.”
Seeing movement, Kade whipped his rifle up and aimed it past her helmet.
Ada turned to look, but whatever had moved in his beam was gone.
Gran Jefe and Tia moved up with them.
“What did you see?” Tia asked.
“I don’t know, but stay behind me,” Kade said.
He followed the passage until it emptied into a big chamber. Ada stayed just behind him, her weapon pointed up at the vaulted ceiling.
Jo-Jo’s beacon was somewhere inside this room.
Small shadows moved in the glow of their beams.
“Oh, no!” Ada cried out.
She started moving faster, and Kade lit out after her, seeing the crablike creatures that had her spooked. The spawn were the size of Miles when he was younger. Dozens of them clambered over the hatching grounds. Beetles, huge ants, and other insects lay in pieces, their exoskeletons cracked open and the flesh removed.
Ada rushed toward the entrance of the room, where something dark and matted lay on the ground—a pile of skins, perhaps.
The divers moved through, swiping with their machetes at the creatures that came skittering toward them. Hearing a crunch, Kade turned to Gran Jefe, who had just stomped one of the beasts to mush.
The Cazador warrior bent down and picked up a severed pincer arm.
“Cómo se dice . . . I can’t think of the word en inglés,” he said. “Like your sombrero, Commander.”
“Souvenir,” he said.
“Ah, souvenir, sí.”
Ada bolted, running through the abattoir. After dispatching two more of the baby creatures, Kade joined her at the dark heap that had caught her eye. It had spiky fur.
“Jo-Jo,” Ada breathed.
She tucked Cricket away and, bending down, gently pushed the big primate on its side. The creature’s eyes were closed, but it was breathing. A white, gooey substance covered much of the chest and stomach. Ada tried to wipe it off, but the goo just stuck and stretched away with her glove.
As they removed the coating of material, blood wept from multiple slash marks across Jo-Jo’s flesh.
“It’s okay, Jo-Jo, I’m here now,” Ada said.
Another wet crunch came as Gran Jefe booted one of the shelled creatures against the wall so hard that it stuck.
“¡Pinches hijoeputas!” he snarled.
“Quiet,” Kade said. Swinging his machete, he whisked the head off a creature trying to climb up Gran Jefe’s leg.
“Wake up, Jo-Jo,” she whispered. “It’s me, Ada.”
Tia fished a syringe out of the medical pack. “Maybe this will work.”
“Worth a try,” Kade said. “Whatever you do, we need to do it fast and get out of here.”
Ada uncapped the syringe of adrenaline and tapped the end until a tiny fountain of liquid squirted out. She jabbed it into Jo-Jo’s thigh.
The creature shot up with a gasp, eyes like saucers.
“Jo-Jo!” she yelled.
“Quiet!” Kade hissed.
The animal hopped upright, trembling and moaning.
Ada reached out. “Jo-Jo, it’s me.”
The monkey stared at her for a moment, then looked over its shoulder. Kade slowly walked toward it, holding out a hand with the machete.
A mistake, he realized.
The creature was in shock.
Whistling sounded, and something streaked past Kade.
“no!” Ada screamed.
The monkey reached for the dart stuck in its chest and opened its mouth to let out a howl. But only a squeak came out before it collapsed in front of Ada.
“What did you do!” she yelled.
“Ada, calm yourself,” Kade said.
“No hay problema,” Gran Jefe said, holding up a tranq gun. “Put your chango to sleep.”
Ada shook the monkey, but it didn’t respond.
“Come on,” Kade said. “After all that shouting, we need to move.”
Gran Jefe bent down. “I carry.”
Ada seemed reluctant at first but then backed away. The Cazador picked the beast up, slung it over his shoulder, and started lumbering off, out of the chamber.
Kade ran ahead with his rifle shouldered. They took a different passage out, west-southwest toward the resorts, looking for a way topside.
About a mile and a half into the trek, a rumble vibrated through the tunnel.
Kade held up a fist.
“What was that?” Tia asked.
Several thumps shook the tunnel, sending dirt raining down.
“I think it’s . . .” Kade began to say.
“Bombas, amigo,” Gran Jefe said. “Bombs.”
He kept walking, seemingly undisturbed, though Kade wasn’t sure what to make of it. The artillery should have stopped by now.
He tried to open a comms channel but got only static.
They marched toward the beach through tunnels vacated by the monsters, which had rushed to the surface to meet the Vanguard army. Still, Kade kept his finger over the trigger guard and checked out all the nooks and shadowed alcoves.
“Des
canso,” Gran Jefe said. “Need to rest.”
Ada helped him ease Jo-Jo down, and the team took a breather. Kade walked ahead to check the passage with Tia.
The thuds and quakes were getting stronger. A violent tremor shook the ground and didn’t stop.
“Commander,” Tia said.
Kade took a few steps forward, toward a glowing green light at the end of the passage. A radiation surge spiked on his monitor.
“Get back,” he said.
Tia hesitated.
“Go,” Kade said. “Go now. There’s something else down here . . .”
They both had started backpedaling when the right side of the tunnel exploded inward.
Grit and dirt showered down, and Kade fell under the landslide. He was trying to shield his visor from the falling debris when a glowing ribbed body squirmed out, filling the tunnel with its mass.
“Tia, run!” Kade yelled.
His voice was drowned out by the tunnel roof caving in. The dirt kept cascading down, burying him until darkness consumed him.
For a moment, he lay there, unable to see or hear anything. It felt like the black of space, without a single star. Nothing hurt, which was a surprise, but he knew from experience that it could be a bad sign.
Kade started pushing at the dirt with his fingers, trying to dig his way out. He breathed sparingly, knowing he had thirty minutes of air in his helmet.
He wasn’t sure how long he worked, pushing his fingers through the small clods of earth, but it didn’t help much.
Then, quite unexpectedly, he was squinting into bright light. Beams shot back and forth.
Voices called out, faint but growing stronger.
He stared up at a diver who grasped him by both wrists and hauled him out.
“My time save you, Cowboy,” came the voice of Gran Jefe.
He dragged Kade out of the hole.
“Thanks,” Kade said.
He pushed himself up, looking down the passage where blue lights strobed.
Not lights, he realized. Lightning.
Whatever creature he had seen earlier had burrowed a vertical shaft topside.
“That thing had wings,” Ada said.
Kade shook the rest of the dirt off. His suit still functioned, and life-support systems were all working properly.
He walked over to check the vertical shaft. He had never seen anything this large in the wastes before. And whatever it was, it was heading for the Vanguard army.
Hell Divers Series | Book 8 | King of the Wastes Page 38