"That depends on which of you is the nicest to me," he replied with a small grin. "That, or whoever is the closest, because I won’t loiter while you decide who deserves to live the longest."
"Whatever you say." She sounded distinctly unimpressed as they headed deeper into the wooded hills.
The flames built up to his right and left to climb higher into the hills, chew into the trees around them, and cut off the direct path along which they had come. There wasn't anything they could do about that now except head deeper into the woods in search of where the rest of the animals would most likely do the smart thing and run from the growing blaze.
More and more animals could be seen rushing past them as their fear of the humans was overwhelmed by the fear of the fire that appeared to have a life of its own. The inferno pushed harder as the wind from the coast filled it with oxygen to drive it faster than before.
"I'm serious," Tanya said. "One mistake from any of us, and we'll be barbecue. And not the good kind of barbecue either. We'll be incredibly well-done. Burnt, I'd say."
"Damn it. Now I'm fucking hungry," Taylor said.
"That's not normal," Hector pointed out. "Actually, when I think about it, there's nothing normal about you. Seriously, how many redheaded giants do you know?"
"Well, that's plain hurtful. Still, I could do with a medium-well done steak and a whole mountain of fries. Just…a whole pile of them. Maybe some endless shrimp too."
"Seriously, he’s right. You’re not normal, man." She shook her head.
"I'm not a normal person. If people talk about barbecue when I'm hungry, I think about food."
"Whatever," she said.
Hector didn't answer and seemed focused on the animals that scurried around them. They were mostly smaller creatures. Raccoons, skunks, and foxes joined the chittering squirrels and birds in the trees above them in the mass exodus to escape from the flames. A couple of the larger animals were present as well, and the man aimed his rifle at one of them through the smoke.
"Don't—" Taylor was cut off by the sound of the three-round burst. An animal's shriek could be heard above the crackle and roar of the fire that approached.
Taylor used his HUD to zoom in and get a better look at what lay on the ground, killed instantly by the pin-point accuracy of the man’s shooting.
It looked like a coyote with its grey and brown fur already a little singed. At least it was a quick death, he noted but scowled. Senseless killing always rubbed him the wrong way, for some reason.
"That probably wasn't your best idea ever," he said with a grim look at Hector.
"I thought it was one of those alien bobcats," the man admitted. "And why not? Don't tell me you're one of those bleeding-heart liberals who can't see an animal die without throwing a fit?"
"Okay, I admit, it's never cool to watch an innocent animal die a meaningless death," he replied caustically. "But I merely thought that in this particular case, you would want to conserve your ammo."
"Why?"
In lieu of a reply, he pointed silently toward the top of the nearest hill.
Chapter Six
It was interesting to see the creatures move. Taylor almost missed it at first, but they climbed through the trees with surprising agility that made their movements difficult to describe at first. They looked like bobcats in their build but always used their tails to swing from branch to branch. This allowed them to move much faster than any cat but made them resemble simians more than felines.
They were also far larger than most bobcats tended to be, which made the trees heave and groan under their weight as they moved away from the fire. They seemed to realize that the humans they had encountered wouldn’t simply allow them to pass without adding considerably more heat of a very different nature.
A handful of them approached but remained in the trees to stare at them. It was as if the three humans were being studied, monitored, and observed before the remainder would be allowed to approach. An odd chattering very clearly didn’t come from the forest around them or the advancing fire. It appeared that the beasts were actually communicating with each other.
Taylor didn't like that. He had always hated the monsters that were more intelligent than they were supposed to be. While he had come to expect that kind of intelligence from the mutants in the Zoo, he had a feeling it had more to do with the goop than the location in question. Of course, it meant he shouldn’t be surprised to encounter more or less the same thing here, but he didn't really want to have to delve deeper into the situation or its implications. The fact remained that the creatures were intelligent enough to possibly discuss some kind of strategy and he had no intention to wait for them to decide on the best way to deal with the humans. Time was not on their side, of course, with the fires still moving inexorably in their direction.
"Oh," Hector said a little stupidly. He looked into the trees around them, ejected the magazine from his assault rifle, and tucked it into his belt before he retrieved a fresh one and shoved it into place. "Well, let's say we believe you know a thing or two about killing these things. What do you think we should do next?"
Taylor wasn't entirely sure, but he found that more and more ideas emerged the more he thought about it. He grasped the assault rifle in his hands and made a note on his HUD to identify all the animals they needed to eliminate and keep track of them. There were at least three dozen of them spread between the trees, and there might have been more out of range.
"What? Where did all your bravado go?" he asked. "Maybe it evacuated your body along with everything else that was in your bowels."
"For fuck's sake, can the two of your stop your petty bickering for one minute and come up with a plan?" Tanya snapped and aimed her weapon at the creatures that now began to surround them.
They circled above the three teammates to get into better positions while the sound of their chattering slowly faded. Taylor couldn’t be sure if they no longer felt the need to communicate—which meant they already had their fucking plans made—or the fire was close enough that its roar was more or less the only sound he could really make out.
Either way, things would take a turn for the worse sooner rather than later, and he would not sit around and wait for that to happen.
"Move behind me, both of you," he said and motioned with his free hand. "Give yourself enough room to shoot around me, but make sure the armor is always closer to you than the monsters, got it?"
His companions nodded. Insults and barbs were all well and good and could be a fun way to pass the time, but when it was time to focus on what readied to kill them, he had to concede that they responded appropriately. The change from playful to professional happened quickly and at precisely the right time.
"I have a count of at least thirty-six of them." It was the closest to actual Zoo-like attacks that he'd encountered since leaving the damn place, and while they had usually dealt with monsters that numbered in the hundreds there, it had been with a team of at least five who were well-armed, well-armored, and ready for this kind of situation.
Oh, and there had been no fire then either.
Taylor brought the launcher on his back up to his shoulder. He only had four rockets in the tubes, which would be enough to eliminate a small number of the creatures, Unfortunately, they needed considerably more effect than that. He would have to think tactically.
"When I start shooting, save your fire for when they approach," he instructed. "As they move closer, they'll bunch up tighter and you'll be able to kill more of them in a shorter period of time."
"We know how to hunt these fuckers," Tanya retorted.
"You don't know how to hunt them in large numbers," he snapped in response, in no mood to deal with any sass. "Now get behind me and watch for your shots."
Their protests ceased and he aimed the first of the rockets at the closest tree, which also had the largest number of monsters in its branches as they were moving about before they initiated their first assault.
A streak of white cu
t through the smoke and a sudden explosion shredded most of the trunk. Chunks of wood and shrapnel from the rocket itself erupted and a handful of the monsters were destroyed in the blast. The tree fell, accompanied by the shrieks and screams of the mutants in the branches. Some managed to escape unscathed, however, and emerged once the damaged trunk settled.
The beasts immediately realized they were under attack and surged forward as he launched the other three rockets still in the tube. The missiles decimated those that advanced faster than the others and went on to fell another tree nearby that sheltered a large number of them.
Hector, of course, wasn't one to wait like he had been instructed to do. It wasn't long before the man's under-barrel grenade launcher fired behind Taylor, and a quarter of a second later, the blast detonated among a group of the creatures that pressed into the attack. A small number fell, none of which got back up again, but there were many that remained.
More than enough for all of them.
Once the last two rockets were fired, Taylor called up the targeting reticle for his assault rifle and settled into a steady rhythm. Of those that had been pinpointed on his HUD, a handful were already close enough that his companions could take care of them as they approached.
They selected their targets well and eliminated the creatures while he found those in the trees and killed them before they could find a way to circle above them. The methodical gunfire gave the three of them the space they needed as he began to back away.
The two hunters soon realized the position they were in. A wall of flame advanced steadily to where they held their ground against the mutants. The beasts moved quickly and leapt lightly from the ground to the trees to move away from the fire as well. Their distraction gave the trio the targets they required, but it wasn't long before the groups were forced in closer to one another.
Taylor honestly would have taken the Zoo over this bullshit in that moment. The fire aside, while his teammates were armed sufficiently and trained well enough, they weren't able to keep up with the pace the bobcats pushed them into. Ammo was wasted with rounds fired into the air, and he honestly didn't trust them to not accidentally shoot him in the back.
At least in the Zoo, he could trust the people he went in with. These two were decent enough hunters, he could give them that much, but dealing with Zoo monsters required an entirely different kind of expertise. They didn't move like regular creatures, and their thinking process made them all kinds of different and dangerous to people who weren't ready for them.
Not everyone in the Zoo died during their first time in. He wasn't sure what kind of statistics anyone had to support a claim as to how many people actually survived the damn jungle, but in those cases, there was always the caveat of having a group that already knew what they were doing before they headed in. It wasn't a perfect system but as systems went, it was certainly enough to satisfy the average statistician.
This was new territory, however. Only one of the three was properly armored for this kind of encounter and properly trained and experienced in dealing with monsters like these. Their skill and experience in the hunting field notwithstanding, he was the only one who knew the next five or six steps they needed to take if they wanted to avoid being savaged to death.
When he was the only one who satisfied all the above criteria, it didn't sit right with him. It put all the responsibility on him—not only that of dealing with what they faced but of protecting the others too. At the very least, he should be there with people who knew what the fuck they were doing.
"Keep moving," Taylor called and adjusted his sights hastily to keep up with the mutants that surged around them. They were practically flanked by those that were above and around them already. He wasn't sure if the creatures would attack them if they got past or if they would simply run away. Both were terrible situations, of course, and he was surprised to discover that he hoped they would stick around and fight.
Not that he had much say in the matter, he realized. These were goop-spawned, after all.
"Reloading!" he called when the assault rifle ran dry and drew his sidearm to maintain fire while the other two continued to retreat. Both looked like they were willing to turn the hell around and run but didn't feel comfortable with the idea of abandoning him to the creatures.
Maybe they recalled all their tough talk from before and wanted to back it up, or maybe they had a mind to actually have his back. He honestly wasn't sure if he would be able to handle these monsters on his own.
The one positive thing was that it appeared neither of them doubted his credentials anymore.
With the assault rifle reloaded, he switched weapons and glanced at the trees above them while Hector launched a grenade into those in front. Taylor released a sustained barrage of automatic fire to clear anything and everything above them, tear through the trees as well, and send it all plummeting to the ground before he turned again. The rifle needed to reload and he yanked his pistol free to repeat the process.
One of the creatures had noted his direction and launched up as he swung around. Its jaws snapped over his wrist and tried to drag the sidearm away.
It was barely a second's worth of distraction and didn’t cause any panic. With the fire moving closer, he knew they had the time to spare since the monsters were, in fact, trying to escape rather than focused entirely on killing them.
This was why you didn't head into the Zoo with a group of amateurs, he couldn't help thinking as Hector pushed in front of him. He held his shotgun in one hand and the assault rifle in the other as ten of the surviving beasts attacked.
"Get some, you sons of bitches!" the man roared and opened fire to annihilate as many as he could while his teammate struggled to free his hand from the creature that tried to gnaw it off. It wasn't long before the assault rifle was reloaded, and Taylor swept the weapon around and fired twice at the assailant on his arm. He whirled again and reached out to grab Hector and drag him back behind him.
Unfortunately, two of the monsters had made it through the hunter’s barrage and lurched toward him before the man realized how close they were. Taylor tried to reach him but the needle-like stingers on their tails punched into his teammate’s unarmored chest. The man grunted and his lungs suddenly emptied as he looked at his chest as if confused and unable to fully register what happened.
"Fuck!" he roared as the hunter staggered. He holstered his sidearm and yanked the machete out. It took considerable force to hack through their tails before both stingers were severed. The beasts screamed in pain and fell back. They hissed and bared their teeth at the two men before they were gunned down.
Even if the stingers hadn't been poisoned, it looked like the physical wound they had inflicted would have been fatal anyway.
They were poisoned, however, and clear fluid already drained from Hector's chest as he collapsed, gurgling around the blood that seeped into his lungs through the wounds.
It was a rapid reaction and one he would never recover from even if he wasn't already unconscious. Taylor undid the belt across the man's chest, pulled it clear, and scowled at the mutants that gathered for another assault.
A quick tug yanked a pin from one of the grenades and he lobbed it into the middle of the creatures. He didn't even pause to look at the explosion as the fire suddenly rushed to fill the vacuum created and pushed toward them. As Tanya had said, he could already feel the heat radiate through his armor to generate a stream of sweat down his back.
He turned and handed the belt to her as more of the beasts thrust forward. The desperation he saw in them was easily recognizable but this time, it wasn't driven by something in the Zoo. Nothing told them to attack manically at the expense of their own lives except perhaps for whatever survival instinct was in them.
In all honesty, he might have felt bad about killing them if not for the undeniable fact that they would kill many, many more people if unchecked. They'd already started with Hector.
"Hector—shit." Taylor growled his frustration as he twist
ed to empty his magazine into the last of the attackers that had managed to escape the grenade. There weren't too many of them left, and those that had managed to survive this long were cut down quickly by the two teammates.
It didn't feel right to leave a body behind like this. Even if the guy had been something of an asshole, he was still someone who had stepped into the metaphorical breach with them. Not only that, while the intention had been a foolish one and had ultimately been unnecessary, he had still tried to cover for him while he was distracted.
But he wouldn’t be able to carry the body and Tanya back and needed to carry her if they both wanted to get clear of the rapidly advancing fire.
He moved to the body and paused only long enough to yank the dog tags from the man's neck before he turned back to the woman.
"Get on my back!" he called and she complied without argument. There were a few crevices for her to catch hold of and hang on as he pushed into a sprint. The heat of the flames licked at his suit as they raced forward.
An odd thought occurred to him to throw the grenades at the fire in the hope that they would slow the flames but he didn't want to test the theory in that particular situation.
It was best to simply get the fuck out for now, and he didn't stop until they finally reached one of the roads, well away from the flames.
Chapter Seven
Once the inferno was a safe distance behind them, Taylor realized that he had begun to slow. The mech suits had been designed to carry the person inside, the weapons, and the ammo and not much else, especially not the full weight of another human being. That wasn't to say that it couldn't, but he could feel that the bulk of the weight had settled on him to carry.
The strain on the hydraulics and power functions of the suit as well made him suck in long, deep breaths and his muscles burned with the effort to get them both out of the Zoo.
No, not the Zoo, he reminded himself as he helped Tanya off his back and onto the road. This was merely a random forest in California that happened to be on fire and happened to have Zoo monsters in it.
Silent Death (Cryptid Assassin Book 2) Page 5