Carlie Simmons (Book 1): Until Morning Comes (10 page)

“Let’s go,” shouted Carlie, who snatched
her pack off the ground and grabbed Eliza’s arm. Shane had already tucked his
laptop away and was trotting down the corridor towards the ladder which led up
to the pharmacy building.

“Matias, you take the others back up the
way we came. Rory and I will hold ’em off here,” Shane shouted.

“You got it, Jefe,” said Matias, who was
already trotting with the others into the dark passage. Carlie and Eliza
followed behind him while the professor was on their heels along with Nadine
and David. Phillip was at the rear.

Shane heard the animalistic shrieks of
dozens of creatures above as they began tearing at the floor hatch.

“Toss a canister of tear gas on the
floor under the hatch and then let’s retreat back to that first corner,” said
Shane. “We’ll snipe the rest as they move forward.”

Rory pulled the pin and flung the device
against the cinderblock wall. As the gray smoke spiraled upward, Shane could
hear the floor above reverberate. Finally the hatch was ripped off its hinges
and numerous heads appeared around the frayed edges, choking on the thick
smoke. The two men had already backpedaled down the narrow passageway until
they were at the corner. Shane leaned his shoulder against the wall for support
and focused his M4’s nightscope on the first distant figures that had fallen
down into the tunnel.

Rory was a few feet away, kneeling on
one leg. He shot the first creature with a round to the forehead. Shane
followed by killing two more creatures. They strained to see any more movement,
but the pillar of gray smoke roiling into the light obscured the passage.

“Maybe the gas is overpowering them?”
whispered Rory, who continued peering through his scope.

“We need to fall back anyway before this
smoke reaches us, so let’s….” Shane squinted hard into his scope as the tunnel
entrance above darkened with a slithering mass of creatures pouring into the
tunnel like a torrent of muddy water breaking through an embankment.

“Holy shit,” said Rory as he began
dumping rounds into the sinuous mass of creatures streaming towards them. Both
operators were now furiously discharging their weapons, trying for headshots
but taking any hit they could.

“Fall back,” yelled Shane, and Rory got up
and sprinted away while Shane kept shooting. After he had emptied his magazine,
Shane turned and ran past a utility box and gas meter while reloading. As he
neared Rory, who had taken up a position beside a tool cabinet, he began firing
down the corridor at the first creatures that had just rounded the corner.

The men used bounding moves until they
were nearly back at the stairwell leading to the roof, but the tidal wave of
creatures kept coming. “There must be hundreds of ’em,” shouted Shane in
between bursts of gunfire.

“We’re not gonna make it to the top with
these things on our tail,” said Rory.

Shane stopped beside the blue
poly-barrels by the stairwell and steadied his rifle scope on the gas line. “Get
up on the landing. I’m gonna blow the sidewall ahead.”

He pulled the trigger and the dark
corridor lit up with a hissing sound as the .223 round penetrated the gas line,
sending a stream of flame and exploding concrete into the distant tunnel. It
impacted the subterranean wall by the corner, ripping apart a massive slab of
cement, earth, and overhead beams. With the passageway collapsed, there were
only a dozen creatures still running towards them, seemingly unaffected by the
blast.

Rory dispatched four of them while Shane
continued shooting the remaining stragglers, the last one of which collapsed a
few feet from his dusty boots. With the passageway secure, they did tactical
reloads on their weapons and continued trotting up the stairs. After they
reached the landing of the first floor, Shane leaned over the handrail and
scanned the stairwell above for signs of Matias. He could see they were nearly
to the top.

Shane paused on the steps and glanced
down at the first-floor door.

“What is it?” said Rory. “You thinking
what I’m thinking?”

“Hell, yeah, you know we can’t leave
that other group here like that.”

“What about Carlie and the others?”

“If there’s a break in the storm, then
they’ll be on their way in mere minutes.” He ran up the stairs, taking double steps.
“Let’s go check on them first and get some additional mags out of the helo.
Then, if the coast is clear, we’ll head back down for the others. I don’t know
that we can get everyone on the helo but we can’t just leave ’em there.”

Carlie was right behind Matias as they
stepped out through the rooftop doorway into the howling wind. She could feel
the sting of whipping sand on her cheeks and squinted to keep out the debris. The
group ran in single file to the helo, each person keeping their head tucked
down to keep out the flying grit.

Carlie could make out the helicopter and
the edge of the building but the lack of visibility had reduced the world to a
curtain of brown sand, obliterating the rest of the campus. She opened the rear
door on the right side and pushed Eliza inside, followed by Nadine. David and
the professor climbed in next, followed by Phillip. She hopped into the cabin last
and forcefully yanked the door closed.

The sound of debris skated across the
window as she sat back in the tan bench seat. Matias was up front, glancing
over the dashboard.

“Are we gonna be able to lift off in
this mess?” said Phillip, who was rubbing his eyes.

“Not a chance, but if we get even a five-minute
break, then hell, yeah. Our tac-ops center is only a few miles from here so
even a narrow window of relative calm will do.”

The door swung open as Shane and Rory
climbed inside. “You boys have a good shooting session down below?” said
Carlie.

“We barbecued a bunch of those things
with a round into the gas line so I think we stemmed the tide from that
direction,” said Shane. “Those creatures were in the hundreds and moving like a
bunch of greyhounds after a rabbit. Never seen anything like it.”

“Your man says we’ll be at your HQ as
soon as this storm lets up for a few. I want to thank you gentlemen for what
you’ve done,” said Phillip.

“You guys will be there soon enough anyway,”
said Shane, reaching between Carlie’s legs for a duffle bag. She raised her
eyebrows. “Forgive me for being so forward, Ms. Simmons,” he said with a grin.
“Me and Rory have to give a presentation on DEA firepower to a group of wayward
college kids.”

“You’re not going back down there?” said
Phillip. “With all those animals running around, you’ll be cut to pieces.”

“And so will those students—they’re not
going to last another hour.”

“Shane, I understand the need to rescue
them but those are slim odds with only the two of you,” Carlie said. “Why not
wait until after we’ve dropped everyone off at the DEA building and can get
back here with some additional firepower?”

Shane and Rory stuffed a dozen magazines
into their vests and side pockets and then took out the remaining tear gas
canisters.

“I’ve been following this whole
nightmare on my laptop and those kids don’t have much time left. We have to do
this now.”

Carlie looked at Shane. “We’ll fly back
for you as soon as we drop the others off.”

“Is that a promise or are you just
flirting with me?” Shane said, looking out the window at the wind, which had
calmed down.

Matias leaned back and patted Shane on
the shoulder. “This is it, Boss. We may not have a flight window like this for
long,” he said, firing up the engine. “Rory, you make sure this caballero and
you get back in one piece.”

“I’ll hopefully be in touch in a little
while and let you know how many we have inbound back up to this roof,” said
Shane.

“Copy that, but I’m running on vapors
right now,” said Matias, who was throttling the engine at full speed as the
rotors began drowning out their voices. “We may have to look into another exfil
alternative.”

Rory flung open the door and jumped out,
followed by Shane. As he was closing the door, Carlie leaned forward and
grabbed the handle. “Hey, you still owe me a steak dinner, amigo,” she said,
shouting into the wind.

He raised two fingers and saluted, then
turned and ran towards the stairwell. Carlie watched him disappear below,
holding the door open longer than she should have until a blast of wind forced
her to slam it shut. She clenched her fist and took a deep breath, looking back
at Eliza, then back out to the stairwell. She heard Matias increase the engine
speed just as a ferocious gust swept across the roof.

Shane and Rory retraced their steps
until they were at the door for the first floor. They flanked the small window,
peering down each side of the room.

“I only see three creatures staggerin’
about in the lobby,” said Rory.

“Yeah, I like these odds a whole lot
better,” he said, lowering his hand on the doorknob.

“Alright, you enter first and then we
drop those pus-buckets and make our way straight to the nursing building and to
the morgue down below.”

Rory held up three fingers and when he
folded the last one down, Shane yanked the steel door open. They did a dynamic
entry, peeling to either side and dispatching the three creatures that were all
clad in nursing uniforms. Then they trotted side by side down the white hallway,
glancing at the rooms on either side as they passed.

As the rotors reached full capacity and
the wind subsided, Carlie leaned back and whispered into Matias’ ear. Then she
unbuckled and reached under the seat, pulling out the duffle bag Shane had
resupplied from earlier.

“What are you doing?” said Nadine.

“I don’t like flying so I’m gonna take a
taxi instead.”

“What are you talking about, Carlie?”
said Phillip.

She slapped a fresh magazine into
Matias’ M4 and racked the slide, ignoring Phillip. Carlie got up and slung the
weapons bag over her shoulder and then put her hand on Eliza’s knee. “Stick
with Matias and you’ll be in good hands,” she said, looking into Eliza’s eyes
and then into the faces of the others. “That goes for all of you. You’re all
brave and have made it through this far, so hang tough.”

“What the hell are you doing, Carlie?
You can’t leave. You’re assigned to the president’s daughter.”

“Eliza is going to be fine. Shane, Rory,
and those other students on the other hand can use some help.”

“Your mission priority is in this
helicopter, not down below. If you leave now, you’re finished as an agent.”

“I was done the minute I shook your hand
and saw the new face of the agency,” she said, opening the door and hopping
onto the gritty asphalt roof. She motioned upward with her thumb to Matias and
slammed the door. As she crouched and ran, the helo lifted off and swung to the
right, disappearing into the brown-and-blue skyline.

Carlie quickly descended the stairs to
the first floor. She emerged in the lobby of the building and saw the floor
littered with the bodies of three creatures that had gunshot wounds to the
head.
Shane’s not a hard guy to follow
—
he leaves dead bodies
everywhere he goes.

She made a left turn, running down
another hallway, and then swung to the right and entered a large room with a
glass-and-stone walkway at the end. Glancing down, she saw two pairs of red
boot tracks soiling the floor and knew she was headed the right way.

Sweat was running along her face and she
gulped in a deep breath as she continued moving. As she ran, Carlie stopped
suddenly after a hundred feet and glanced back. She could feel the floor
rumbling and saw the leaves on a nearby ornamental tree fluttering. A second
later, the entire wall of glass lining the front lobby behind her shattered,
spraying shards into a silver cloud as hundreds of creatures slammed through
the jagged entrance.

Carlie clutched her weapon and bounded
along as a flood of biped monsters snapped and shrieked at her, pushing each
other to get ahead. She ran down the corridor, making a sharp right turn until
she came to a cobblestone-and-glass passage that connected the nursing and
pharmacy buildings. She ran through the cylindrical corridor, coming to the
stairs leading to mortuary sciences. Carlie paused and removed the sweaty dress
jacket that was tied around her waist. She flung it inside an open office.
If
these things key in on human scent, then this might buy me some time. Only one
way to find out.

She locked the office door and headed
into the stairwell as a cacophony of piercing shrieks filled the halls behind
her.

Jared poured the last of his water over
his head, the droplets running over his blue button-down shirt. Despite the
thick walls of the basement structure, the temperature was slowly rising and he
knew they would only have a few hours left before people started succumbing to
heat exhaustion.

He looked over at Amy, who was curled up
asleep on the cold cement floor, and wondered what his life might have been
like if he had gone to school instead of spending his years hawking stolen
goods, hustling others, and getting shuffled around juvenile detention centers.

His mind was jolted back to the present
when he heard thumping against the metal doors. He ran up to the entrance,
holding his pistol before his face. The rest of the group was awake and muffled
cries of terror could be heard. He raised his hand for the rest of the group to
be quiet as he pressed his ear to the warm stainless-steel door.

Barely audible through the thick metal
was the voice of a man yelling to open up. “DEA agents…we’re here to get you
out.”