Stone Soldiers: City of Bones (5 page)

He punctuated this with a full burst of fire from the autoshotgun- shredding a gunman who tried to sprint from behind one stack of barrels t
o the more solid cover offered by a forklift.

Kenslir dropped another empty magazine from the autoshotgun and slammed in another. "Move up. Search and clear."

The stone soldiers came forward slowly, M-60s held tightly to their shoulders and entered the large building- checking every corner and moving from cover to cover. Old habits died hard.

"Clear!" Smith said, looking back out the main entrance.

The Colonel was pouring a canteen of water over his shoulder, where he'd been shot.

"Sir- got something her
e!" Cooper announced excitedly.

Kenslir put away his canteen and he and the men walked over to Cooper's position.

Behind a large truck parked in the back of the warehouse there was a large boulder- nearly waist high. It was a dusty tan and carved with a series of symbols. Lying on the ground all around it were pick axes and sledgehammers- several of which were broken. Lifting straps and an overhead mechanical winch that ran along tracks in the ceiling of the building showed the boulder had recently been unloaded from a truck.

"What is this?" Cooper asked.

Dr. King's hologram appeared again- this time eating a sandwich. "Those are some sort of early Druidic carvings."

"Druid
s?" Lee asked. "In Africa?"

"The Crown used druids extensively in early colonizati
on efforts in Africa," Dr. King said, pausing to take another bite. "They were a counter to the native shamans in the region."

“So what do they say?" Lawrence asked.

"I have no idea- I'll get to work on them right away," Dr. King said, then flickered out.

Kenslir stepped forward, extending his left hand toward the rock.

"Sir!" Smith said, looking back behind them.

The men all turned and saw a wizened old woman standing back from the main entrance of the building. She wore tattered rags, and a cape made
of what appeared to be a lion's hide- complete with mane. She leaned heavily on a gnarled wooden staff that was adorned with small animal skulls and bones- like the ones she wore in a necklace that reached to her waist. Her head was shaved and the old woman had red streaks and swirls painted on her scalp.

"Is that a woman?" Lee asked, unsure.

"Let me do the talking," Kenslir said, slinging his rifle behind his back. He began walking toward the front of the building. The old woman quietly watched him.

Whe
n he stepped out of the building, into the bright morning sun, the woman finally spoke. "What are you?" she croaked.

"This area is under quarantine," Kenslir answered. The stone soldiers now walked outside, slowly separating and circling cautiously around
the old woman and keeping a healthy distance away from her.

"Why can't I see you?" the woman asked. At this distance, Kenslir could see her eyes were clouded with glaucoma. She was no longer relying on light to see the world around her.

"Is this all your work?" Kenslir asked, looking around.

The woman smiled, revealing a mouth with many teeth missing- and those that remained being stained brown and black. "Your men, they're cursed?"

"We prefer to think of it as a blessing," Kenslir said. "Ex Malo Bonum."

The old woman spat. "Good from evil? Is that what your Pope teaches these days?"

"I wouldn't know- I'm not Catholic," Kenslir said.

"No, but you reek of Christian."

"I hate to cut this swell conversation short," Kenslir said, "but I’m on a schedule here. Are you going to surrender or not?"

The old woman began laughing- almost uncontrollably. Her breath came in great wheezing gasps and she finally composed herself. "The Goddess would not like that."

The woman threw her arms up high, her staff over her head. The sky rumbled and cracked and turned very dark. All around the town, wind picked up, whipping dust and debris into the air.

"I'll ask once more," the old woman said, lowering her staff. "What are you?"

"You first."

The old woman frowned and a lightning
bolt speared down out of the churning sky overhead. It struck Kenslir in the chest, igniting several of the grenades he still wore in his combat vest. The blast threw the Colonel off his feet, and sent him flying backwards into the warehouse.

All four sto
ne soldiers snapped their M-60s up against their shoulders, ready to fire. The wind intensified just as quickly, forming a spiraling tower of dust and debris that masked the woman from sight. The TTVs flickered, the intense electromagnetic field of the sudden electrical storm overhead interfering with the LCD displays in the goggles.

Smith fired first- unleashing his
M-60 into the spiraling cone of dust. The others joined in, careful to aim so they didn't strike their teammates on the other side of the swirling winds.

After several long seconds of sustained fire, the wind abruptly died out and the dust dropped back to the street. The woman was gone.

"Where’d she go?" Lee asked. He immediately opened his M-60 and began removing the empty ammo pack strapped to the side of it. The other men followed suit, each pulling a new ammo pack off their belts and attaching the large boxes of belted ammo to the machineguns.

Laughter echoed across the wide plaza- coming from the west. The men all turned, looking for the
source of the laughter, but still reloading.

The laughter faded, then started anew, behind them. Then stone men turned around and slammed down the covers on the M
-60s and cycled the bolts- their fresh ammo packs in place. No one could be seen, and again, the laughter faded away.

Something began to rise from the dirt of the ground- a white, bilious fog that defied all logic. It moved slowly, like a cloud, but was so dense it seemed to be made of thick smoke.

"Commander?" Eddie Cooper asked, a little worried.

The fog crept up to the stone soldiers' feet, wrapping around them. When they moved, they felt a resistance- very similar to the thick Florida mud they had been marching through only a day earlier.

"What is this stuff?" Lee asked, trying to kick at the fog. It continued to rise, forming a cone-like mound around him, creeping up his legs. He could barely move now.

Lawrence swiped at the fog surrounding him with the barrel of his
M-60- it became caught in the seemingly -innocuous material, held fast. "What the-?"

The fog continued to rise, and the stone soldiers were fast approaching a panic. When the fog reached their waists, they dropped their rifles and struggled to free themselves- but it was as if they were held fast in tar. Their discarded machin
eguns were swallowed into the thick fog.

"Men of stone," the witch announced, stepping into view. The fog swirled around her feet, parting for her with no apparent difficulty. "Men of bone."

Smith struggled to reach his sidearm, but the fog was up to his elbows now and he was firmly held in its grasp.

"I have never seen your like before," the witch said. She seemed calm, sure of herself. She walked toward Cooper.

"Where are you from, gray one?" She ran a hand over Cooper's shirt and up his face. He jerked, trying to move away from her but could not. The strange white fog held him in an unbreakable grip.

"Did you really think the Goddess would let you win?" the old witch asked.

"That was the plan," Colonel Kenslir said loudly.

Two gunshots rang out and t
he old woman's chest, over her heart, exploded outwards, showering Cooper in a spray of her blood.

The witch's eyes went wide and she staggered backwards, turning slowly.

Colonel Kenslir stood just inside the warehouse, his left arm extended, his Desert Eagle in his hand. His vest and shirt were in tatters, blown off his gray and black chest from the blast. Half his face was cracked- a mix of burnt flesh and gray stone. His entire right arm hung by his side, mostly gray, with pink flesh showing beneath the cracks in his now-petrified skin.

The witch opened her mouth to say something, but instead collapsed to the ground. As she fell,
the fog holding the men collapsed down as well, merging with the foot-thick layer covering the entire area.

The Colonel hol
stered his Desert Eagle and walked forward, the fog retreating like a living thing as he approached it. Small tendrils of white brushed against his feet, not able to move out of the way quick enough and flashed and sparked green.

As he approached the witc
h's body the fog was sinking back into the ground.

"I wondered what you were doing," Smith said, retrieving his
M-60.

Cooper was wiping at his face, trying to get the blood from the witch off, but realized the flesh-eating bacteria in the air had already
devoured it.

The men came together and stood over the witch's body.

"Why not shoot her in the head?" Lee asked.

"A witch's power is in her heart," Kenslir said. "Kill the heart, kill the witch."

The Colonel pulled out a canteen and began pouring water down his arm and chest. The water soaked into his petrified, burnt skin like it was a sponge.

"I thought that was vampires?" Lawrence asked.

"Works on them too." The Colonel's skin was smoothing out now- the stone flesh healing itself. In a few more moments it would turn back to flesh tones.

"So it was the witch, all this time?" Smith asked, surprised.
“She made the bacteria?”

"Uh, guys," Cooper said, looking away from the men. He was looking around-
all around them and the wide open area in front of the warehouse.

Scattered around the area
, the piles of bones that had been workers were now moving- or rather, being moved. A thick, black sludge- like tar- was rising up out of the ground, coating the bones, carrying them back into the positions they had held in life.

The men looked to the witch- her bones too were moving- covered with the same thick, tar-like substance.

"Fascinating," Dr. King said over the TTVs. "The bacteria is behaving cooperatively."

The witch skeleton began to rise, tarry finger bone
s pushing off from the ground. She slowly made her way to one knee.

"Is this normal?" Lee asked, looking around at his fellow soldiers, confusion on his stone face.

Kenslir dropped the empty canteen he'd just poured over his head and pulled off the large tomahawk holstered on his left thigh. With his left arm, he sliced down with the weapon, splitting the witch skull in half and shattering her skeleton from neck to pelvis.

As the skeleton broke apart from the powerful blow, a wind seemed to erupt from it
, blowing outwards in all directions, almost like an explosion.

"What the hell was that?" Cooper asked, alternating his gaze from the witch skeleton lying in a puddle of tarry goo to the skeletons now standing around the edges of the area, silently watchi
ng the men.

Kenslir switched his TTV to a satellite view- triggering a display for all
the men. At the front of Gwasera, dozens of tar-wrapped skeletons were lurching along on their bony feet, marching out the gate.

"The bacteria's trying to escape!" Coop
er declared.

The Colonel was reholstering his tomahawk and gave the men a puzzled look as his face turned back to flesh. "Don't just stand there. Go smash them."

The soldiers nodded and stepped out, shouldering their rifles again. Almost as one, they began firing- smashing the skulls of the tar-skeletons to dust.

The
skeletons shuddered, but remained upright. They began marching toward the stone soldiers, arms outstretched, reaching.

The Colonel
drew the submachine gun from his right thigh and fired a quick burst. A cut-down M-16 called an OA-93, the gun spat out a stream of 5.56mm rounds that removed the legs from two of the skeletons. Kenslir then sprinted to the closest and kicked it in the sternum- exploding it.

"Headshots aren't the answer," the Col
onel said to the men. "Now go break some bones- I’ll take care of these."

Smith nodded and waved to
the other soldiers, then sprinted south, toward the main gate. As the others fell into step behind him, Kenslir began firing quick bursts from his submachinegun, dropping the remaining skeletons nearby.

By the time the stone soldiers were
out of sight, Kenslir had finished off the last of the skeletons. He walked to the closest one, holstering the OA-93. He crushed a boot down on a tarry back, shattering its spine and exploding its rib cage.

He looked over the area, noting the many
legless, semi-broken skeletons trying to pull themselves along with their hands.

The Colonel frowned.
"You can come out now. I know you're still here."