Escape The 1st Omnibus: WTF Books 1-3 (12 page)

“Okay, right behind you,” Brad replied as he grabbed his M4 and screwed the suppressor onto the barrel.

Sean walked over to the heavy wooden doors that marked the entrance to the courtyard; he had his silenced MP5 at the ready and waited for Brad to join him.

“What do you make of this?” Sean asked, pointing. The heavy wooden door was covered with scratches; some of the gouges looked to be stained with blood. Sean pointed at a crack in the door where Brad saw what looked to be a broken finger nail still stuck in the groove.

“What the hell? Someone wanted in here pretty damn bad,” answered Brad.

He took a step back away from the door and raised his rifle while Sean pulled on the handle. The door didn’t budge and was clearly locked from the inside.

“Hmm, we seem to have found ourselves in a bit of a pickle,” Sean mused.

“Well it’s obvious nobody is home, maybe we should just continue on our way down the road,” chimed in Brad.

“Nope. Sorry buddy, this is our stop. I want to hit Bremmel in daylight tomorrow; that means we stop here for tonight.”

Brooks walked over with a large crow bar and tried to stick it into the door to pry it open. The door had a steel frame and lip that made it hard to set the bar. He tried to get it into a good position, but any amount of force would just pop it out. Finally giving in to frustration, Brooks pulled the Defender up close to the wall.

Brad, shaking his head, said “Screw it,” and climbed up onto the hood of the vehicle, then high onto its roof. He turned to look at the wall, checking to make sure the top wasn’t covered with broken glass or nails, which was common in this area to deter thieves. Satisfied that the way was safe, he grabbed hold of it and pulled himself on top.

He could see down into the courtyard and at the lonely two-story home. The entire house was circled by the wall; the building was horseshoe-shaped and its mouth opened towards the wall’s entrance. Brad looked left and right several times; although his instincts were tingling, he eased himself flat on the wall. Seeing nothing, he grabbed on tightly and swung his feet over the edge. Hanging by his fingers, he let go and dropped the last couple feet to the ground, landing with a thud. Brad called over the wall to say that he was in, and then moved back to the door.

He readied his weapon and took another look all the way around to make sure he was alone, then examined the door and found it was locked in place by a large steel bolt. Through one end of the bolt was an antique-looking padlock that prevented Brad from turning and sliding the bolt. He called back over the wall to tell the men what he had found.

“Stand back!” Sean yelled. “I’m going to toss over the crowbar.”

Brad took a step to the side, then saw the crowbar sail over the door and hit the cobblestone with a loud metallic
CLANG
which echoed off the building’s walls.

After picking up the crowbar, he went back to the wall and placed the flat end of the bar against the bolt in the door. As he started to apply downward pressure, he heard a distant rattle inside the house, as if furniture had just been knocked over. Brad froze in place and turned to look at the house. He waited and listened but, hearing nothing, continued to pull on the bar. Suddenly there was a loud crash, and more sounds of tumbling furniture coming from the house behind him. He spun around to look at the front door, located at the bottom of the horseshoe, and was shocked when he saw it rattle from a booming impact.

“Ahh, Sean? I think I have a problem,” he called out.

“I’m assuming that isn’t you making all of that noise in there?” Sean called back over the wall.

“That would be a correct assumption,” Brad yelled back. He applied more pressure to the bar and, disappointed, did not even feel the bolt budge. He heard another loud
BOOM
against the front door. Brad pulled the bar from the bolt and tried to ease it into the door frame. He pulled as hard as he could and the door itself began to split, but it was still solidly sealed shut.

Brad heard another thundering
BOOM
, and glanced back just in time to see the front door of the house start to give. He dropped the crowbar and turned to face the door; taking a knee, he brought his rifle up and tried to adjust his eyes on the doorway nearly twenty feet away. He watched the door shake again from an impact, freeing dust from the boards and the overhang. Brad pulled the rifle tight into his shoulder, aimed where he hoped a head might be on the other side of the door, and squeezed the trigger. Three rounds, one after another, poked holes into the wood. There was a momentary pause in the pounding on the door, then a thud. Brad let out a sigh of relief just as another loud
BOOM
sounded out. Brad lifted his rifle back to his shoulder and fired another three rounds into the door. Another crash, and this time the door gave way.

The door flew open and a primal dressed in white and covered with gore tumbled forward. Not expecting the door to give, its momentum took it to the ground. Brad lowered his point of aim and pumped aimed shots into the thing’s head. He blinked his eyes, trying to get them back into focus on the dark doorway, just as he watched five more pouring out. They were coming at a full sprint. Brad took out the leader with quick shots to the head, then watched it slump to the ground, tripping up a female behind it. He kept firing on the others as they closed the distance. He clipped one in the top of the forehead, making it fall. “Two left,” he murmured to himself as he pivoted and shot one in the face.

The last one collided with him in a hard impact that forced him back against the door. Brad dropped his shoulders and pushed the rifle between them as hard as he could to break the primal’s grip. He knocked it down and at the same time he fell backwards onto the ground. Still on his back, he propped up on an elbow and tried to raise the rifle. In his peripheral he could see two more stepping out of the house, and the one that had tripped earlier was getting to its feet.

Directly in front of him, he could see that his current play date was rolling back to its belly and pushing itself up. “Fuck me,” Brad said to himself, dropping the rifle and drawing his M9. He quickly pulled the trigger, punching three holes into his date’s neck and face, killing it. He rolled to his side just as the other three closed on him. Before he could take aim, Brad heard the rapid firing of Brooks’ MP5 as rounds ripped into the charging primals. Brad watched as their heads exploded and their bodies collapsed to the ground. He stared at the fallen, motionless primals in the dirt, then dropped to his back in complete exhaustion.

Brooks lowered himself off the wall, stepped over Brad and walked toward the heavy door. He looked at the antique lock and held it in his hand. Letting go of the lock he let out a grunt, took a step back and fired a shot into the lock, shattering it. He fidgeted with the lock, freed it from the bolt, then pulled the bolt and swung the door open. Sean and Hasan stepped inside.

“Wow, you should have just opened the door and let us help,” gasped Hasan as he looked at all of the primal bodies lying in the courtyard.

“You OK buddy?” asked Sean, extending his hand to Brad.

“I’m fine, but next time somebody else goes over the wall first,” Brad said, taking Sean’s hand and being pulled to his feet.

The team got themselves together and slowly approached the open door. All of the first floor windows of the villa had been boarded shut, and the windows on the second floor had the drapes tightly closed. They inspected the bodies on the ground and found them to look the same as the ones recently found in Hairatan: emaciated, with skin taut over their bones. The team stepped past them and stacked up on the door.

“Probably not much in there after all the noise Brad made, but you can never be too careful,” Sean said. “Brad, you go right with me, Brooks, take Hasan to the left.” The men gave thumbs up, and Sean turned on the light attached to his MP5. The rest of the team followed suit and they entered the dark doorway.

Brad followed Sean into a large empty foyer, while behind him Brooks and Hasan entered and cut to the left and moved out of sight. Sean moved quickly and efficiently swept the room, then waited beside a door for Brad before he entered the next. Forcefully swinging open doors, they swept into rooms checking all of the corners. They continued like this until they met Brooks and Hasan back at the main entrance.

With the full team once again joined, they formed back into a line. The stairs leading to the second story were offset into a wall at the back of the foyer. Sean gave a hand signal and the men stacked up at the base of the stairs and began their ascent toward the top. When they reached the open space at the head of the stairs they fanned out, each man covering a sector.

The team entered a large, sparsely furnished sitting room. What furniture there was had been tossed randomly around the space. Sean walked to an outer wall and ripped down a set of the heavy drapes covering a window, letting sunlight flood in and over the floor. There were bloody bandages and rags piled in a corner, and what looked to be empty food containers and dishes in another. “The things Brad killed in the courtyard must have sought shelter here when still human,” mumbled Hasan.

“Yeah, probably wounded; they barricaded themselves seeking refuge from whatever was outside the gate while they slowly turned themselves,” Brad answered back.

They said little while they walked back downstairs. Brad and Hasan dragged the primals’ bodies to a far corner of the courtyard. They opened the heavy wooden door as wide as it would go and backed the Defender into the safety of the walls, closing the door behind them and locking the bolt.

They found very little else of use in the home. Upstairs, Hasan found a worn Enfield rifle and a bandoleer of ammo to match. He propped it carefully inside the entry door to the house, deciding he didn’t need it and would leave it for a future visitor. None of the team had any interest in sleeping in the house, so they spread their bedrolls in the courtyard and, using dried wood, built a smokeless fire just large enough to heat their dinner. Brad volunteered to take the first watch. He climbed atop the Defender and settled into a comfortable position where he could see over the wall.

As the sun gradually dropped below the horizon, the temperature began to drop with it. Darkness came quickly and was accompanied by the howling of the primals. Brad was disappointed to hear them; he had hoped they would be things of the city and wouldn’t venture out into the desert as much. Junayd’s men had rarely reported seeing them in the desert sands during the heat of the day. The scouts had always returned to the compound before sundown, never spending a night outside the protection of the walls. As it grew darker and the air cooled, the howling grew louder. Brad heard the stirring of the men on the ground and soon he found Sean sitting beside him on top of the vehicle.

Sean had his night vision spotting scope in his hand and was scanning the horizon. Brad watched him search, then stop to focus intently on some far off object.

“Now what is this?” Sean whispered. Brad observed Sean’s face contort in concentration as he scanned. “Well I hadn’t expected this,” he whispered again, handing the scope off to Brad.

Brad put the scope to his eye but saw nothing other than the greenish hue of the desert sands. Sean lifted his hand, grabbed the scope, and guided Brad’s eye to a spot about three hundred meters into the distance.

“Oh,” Brad said. Looking through the scope, he saw a group of fifty to a hundred primals. They were back deep in a berm of sand. Most of them stood and walked in a circle with their noses to the wind, howling that scream, that deep moan. Brad watched as others would rise up out of the sand and get to their feet. After a pack was formed, they broke up into groups of ten to twelve and wandered off into the desert.

“What are they doing?” Brad asked.

“Looks like hunting parties. They must sleep or hibernate during the day, only to awaken and hunt for prey at night,” said Sean. “I’ve seen lions do the same thing in Africa.”

“No way, Sean. You think these things are like lions?” Brad asked.

“Keep your voice down. I’m just saying, I saw those things dig out of the sand. Something in them must tell them to stay out of the sun all day. Then they wake up at night. I don’t know what to make of it, but in Africa I’ve seen lions do the same thing. They lay low all day, then hunt in packs under the cover of darkness,” Sean answered back. “Doesn’t matter Brad, this doesn’t change anything. We’ll still seek shelter at night and only move during the day.” Sean glanced at him. “You look spent Brad, why don’t you try and grab some sleep? I’ll take the rest of your watch.”

Brad lowered himself off the Defender and leaned against the back of it. His head was filled with so many things he couldn’t think straight.
I need a drink,
he thought to himself. Frustrated, since he knew that wasn’t going to be possible for a while, Brad made his way back to his pack and bedroll. He couldn’t help but look at the doorway to the house from which the primals had rushed out and attacked him. He sat his pack against the side of the house and rested against it, pulling his blanket over himself. He laid his rifle across his lap and put the now familiar Sigma pistol at his side. “Tonight won’t be a night for sweet dreams,” he said to himself, and then drifted to sleep.

He was abruptly awakened with a hand across his mouth and Brooks’ face close to his. Brooks held a finger over his lips and slowly released the hand from his face. Brad closed his eyes tightly and opened them slowly to try and wake up. He looked around and saw that everyone was gathered in the sleeping area. Brad looked to the top of the Defender and wondered why no one was on watch. It didn’t take long to get an answer to his question. From outside the heavy wooden door he heard a thump, then scratching against the wood. Brad sat like a stone, watching the faces of Brooks and Sean who calmly held their rifles in their laps, intently focused on the wall’s door. Hasan was sitting stoically farther to the back with his AK in his hands.

They spent the night watching the door and each other, sometimes having to shake a boot if one of them nodded off and began to snore. The scratching continued until the very early hours of the morning and quit just as the sun was beginning to come up.