The Tide: Deadrise (11 page)

Kara eyed him skeptically. ”Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Navid said without hesitation.

“Fine. Let’s do it.” Kara turned to Sadie. “Bring Maggie over, please.”

Sadie, who had obviously been listening to every word of their debate, threw her arms around Kara. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She kissed Maggie on the head. “You’re going to be fine, girl!”

The golden retriever’s tail beat the air and knocked a snow globe off a nearby table. She let out a joyful bark, apparently just happy to be a part of whatever it was that Sadie was celebrating.

Adam took out a prepackaged syringe and loaded it with a dose of the chelation treatment. Kara and Sadie held the dog while he administered the shot. Maggie’s ears perked and her eyes widened slightly when the needle slid through her skin, but otherwise she seemed calm. Navid hoped it worked and Maggie would remain her cheerful self. But even more so, he hoped they would have a chance to develop the potential cure Kara had discovered with the FoldIt software. The molecule she’d manipulated might have the ability to prevent prions from beginning to damage brain tissue. If it worked, then they’d never have to make a choice like this again.

“Something on your mind?” Kara asked, moving to stand beside him.

Sadie stayed near the dog, speaking to her in soothing tones, while Adam went back to his tinkering. Before he could answer, the distinct crack of gunfire cut him off. At once, the four humans and Maggie froze. A Skull shrieked. More gunfire quickly quieted it.

“That’s not the Hunters,” Adam said. “They aren’t supposed to be here yet.”

There was another chorus of howling Skulls. Navid guessed there were dozens out there somewhere, likely just beyond the estate. He looked at Maggie, then Sadie, then Kara. Four of them, two doses of chelation treatment. Navid hoped to God he hadn’t made the wrong decision.

***

D
om didn’t take the time to watch the Skull in the dress drop. He moved on to the next with rapid precision. Meredith and Andris fired in concert. The Skull on the sports car was knocked backward by the salvo. The creature hanging off the fire escape fell to the sidewalk.

Three down, but how many more to go?

Another beast careened from a city bus and ran straight at Dom. He lined his rifle up with the center of its mass. Bullets slammed into the Skull’s overgrown ribcage, forming small craters, but the Skull continued. Blood trickled from one of the wounds as Dom’s gunfire traveled up the creature’s body. A couple of shots square into the monster’s face ended its life. It slumped forward and slid across the asphalt until it jolted against a police car.

The sounds of more Skulls screaming and running blasted from both ends of the street. Their echoing voices muddled together, making it difficult to track how many were headed in their direction. Regardless, it wouldn’t be long before they were overwhelmed.

“In here!” he yelled, pointing to a pizza shop. He leapt over a Skull corpse as he rushed across the street. With a vault, he sailed through the broken window of the restaurant and landed in a corner booth. Meredith and Andris jumped through a moment later.

“Stay low,” Dom whispered. Outside, he could hear claws punching through the hoods and roofs of vehicles and dragging through the rubble-strewn street. He army-crawled across the floor, pushing aside broken dishes and torn tablecloths. A pile of bones rested over a fallen pizza pan. He avoided it, not daring to make any more noise than necessary. Rising to his knees, he opened a door to a kitchen flooded with brown water.

Dom kept his footsteps light across the puddles and mold that had overtaken the pizzeria. He played his gun barrel across the room. The sounds of the Skulls outside accompanied the steady drip of water from a leaking pipe.

“Everyone okay?” he whispered.

“Peachy,” Meredith said.

“Alive,” Andris said. “How about you, Captain?” He nodded at the wound in Dom’s leg.

“Hurts,” Dom said. Blood was soaking through his fatigues, gleaming black in the dim light. “No time for it now.”

The wound burned with each step. He could deal with it later. Bullet, glass, or Skull talon, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t survive to fix it if they didn’t get back to the others soon. With a gesture from Dom, Andris and Meredith positioned themselves around the door in the rear of the kitchen. Dom pushed it open a crack. Distant scratching and wailing flooded in, but nothing sounded in the immediate vicinity.

“Move!” he said.

They flitted into the back alley. Dom led them to cover behind a heap of black garbage bags piled next to an overflowing dumpster. Skulls ran past the entrance to the alley, still barreling toward the street in front of the gun store. The group moved from one dumpster or pile of refuse to another until they reached a T-intersection.

Dom took a right, and they snuck down another alley. The clatter of Skulls sounded from all around. One started running in their direction. They pressed themselves tight between a dumpster and a stack of soggy boxes.

Dom held his breath. The Skull’s claws clicked and scratched, closer and closer. It zoomed by without so much as a second glance. Dom breathed a sigh of relief before continuing forward. They used the cover of a car wreck to cross the next street and into another alley. Two Skulls lumbered under a fire escape, traveling far too slowly for Dom’s patience.

“Meredith?” he asked in a low voice and pointed at one of the creatures. She nodded and took out her knife. They gave their heavy packs full of ammunition to Andris. On Dom’s count, he and Meredith charged, moving swift and silent as shadows. They met the Skulls with a flurry of knife blades. Several precise cuts later, the monsters’ lives poured out around them in pools of hot crimson. Dom turned to signal Andris to join them.

“Almost there,” Dom said, taking a pack from Andris. He peeked around the corner of the alley. Very few Skulls wandered here. Together, they dashed into a bombed-out crater and ran to the other side of the street. From there, it was a short jog past a pet store with broken aquariums and empty cages in its front window. Then all they had to do was make it up the stairs to the apartment where the others were waiting.

Before they reached the apartment, a blast shook a nearby building. Dom glanced out of a window at the stairwell’s landing. They were high enough to see a building near the gun store crumble. Huge clouds of dust and debris billowed over the street. Fire licked up around the destroyed building. Swarms of Skulls were caught in the explosion, their calls rising in a storm of ghoulish voices. Creatures poured from another building, attracted by the din. Soon that building, too, was leveled.

Dom identified the source of the explosions. A smoke trail led to an Apache helicopter hovering at the end of the street. It appeared the military hadn’t let up. Skulls ran from all directions. Another building went down in a third blast, this one closer to the Hunters’ position.

“I guess we’re not spending the night here, huh?” Andris asked.

“No,” Dom said, running up the last set of stairs. The group burst into the apartment. “We got to move!”

“Already a step ahead of you, Captain,” Miguel said. He tossed Dom another pack. This one contained all the things he’d left behind when he went on the ammo run. The other Hunters lined up around the entrance. “We figured the commotion would interrupt our little sleepover here tonight.”

“Good,” Dom said. “We’re moving south. The Potomac shoreline is our best bet. We’re far enough from the Joint Force base that if things go poorly, we can swim to the other side of the river. Hunters, ready to go?”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” came the resounding chorus.

The group ran down the stairs. Spencer tried to keep up, but Dom noticed the man falling behind. New bandages were wrapped around his face, but they were already soaking through. There was a rank odor coming from the wounds.

“Spence, you okay?” Dom said as they rounded another flight of stairs.

“Sure, Captain,” he huffed, struggling to breathe. Bullets of sweat trickled down his pale face. If Dom hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought the man had already run a marathon.

He assessed the situation swiftly. Spencer’s wounds had become infected. And with a lack of antibiotics, his prognosis wasn’t good.

“Meredith!” Dom called.

She paused on the stairs as the others ran past. Dom fell in with Meredith at his side. “Spencer is in a bad place. He needs antibiotics, and this might be our last chance at finding some before we head into the woods again.”

A worried expression flickered across her face. “Understood.”

“I didn’t see any pharmacies on the way back. You?”

Meredith shook her head. “No. It seemed like everything was picked over anyway.” They continued jogging downstairs. Abruptly she turned to Dom. “But I know where we can go.”

Dom looked at her quizzically.

“This is going to sound crazy, but let’s loot the pet store.”

––––––––

“S
tay here!” Shepherd yelled at Rachel. He threw his gear onto the shore and dove back into the rushing water. Rory’s pack had snagged on a low-hanging tree branch, and Shepherd swam toward it. He dove under the pack. The water was too murky for him to see. He used his hands to probe the currents and hoped Rory hadn’t let go of his pack.

Sure enough, he felt the midshipman’s arm still stuck in one of the straps. He tried to pull Rory up and out of the water. He strained and pushed off the bottom of the river, but Rory hardly moved. Something else was tugging him. A few bubbles escaped Rory’s mouth. Shepherd guessed the young man was moments from drowning. He fought against the current and positioned himself near Rory’s feet. He pushed, but the midshipman felt far heavier than his slight frame should be.

Shepherd recalled the Skulls that had leapt into the water. They’d been carried away under the waves, but he remembered how one had rolled into his legs as it drowned. Briefly surfacing, he took a deep breath then dove back to Rory’s feet. There he felt around carefully until he found something hard and sharp tangled in Rory’s pant leg. More cautious examination and Shepherd confirmed what he’d feared.

A Skull, in its death throes, had latched itself on Rory’s fatigues. In the murk and flowing water, he couldn’t untangle the fabric and clenching claws. He kicked with all his might, pushing the pack, Rory, and dead Skull toward the shore. The swift flow of the river fought against him. Every muscle in his body burned. He wouldn’t let the water win. Not now. Not so close to victory. A few more kicks and his load suddenly loosened.

“I got him!” Rachel’s voice sounded over the splash of the turbulent water. She was lying flat on the riverbank and had her hands tight around the pack.

Shepherd continued to kick until the river was shallow enough for him to stand. He helped guide Rory and the dead Skull to the shore. With Rachel’s help, he dragged Rory onto a bed of rocks and gravel. The Skull was still hanging listlessly onto the midshipman’s leg. Water lapped over its body. Rachel’s eyes went wide.

“Don’t worry,” Shepherd said between gasps. “It’s dead. Just stuck.”

Rachel seemed to understand at once. She held her ear near Rory’s mouth. “He’s not breathing.” She started administering CPR.

There was nothing else Shepherd could do at the moment. He watched, praying the midshipman would pull through. Rachel breathed into his mouth then pumped on his ribcage. She kept a steady rhythm, counting to herself. Shepherd didn’t dare say anything to break her concentration. Finally, a spray of water shot from between Rory’s lips. His head jerked up, and he coughed. Then his eyes caught the Skull, and he tried to crab-crawl away from it.

“It’s okay!” Rachel said. “It’s dead!”

Rory fell back. His face was still pale, but he nodded and continued to cough.

Rachel tried to pry the Skull’s claws from the fabric, but struggled with the task.

“Hold on,” Shepherd said, finally catching his own breath. He returned to their packs and grabbed a camping ax. With several solid blows, he severed the Skull’s claw from its wrist. Now freed, Rory backed up onto the grass and away from the river. He removed the bloody claw.

“Did it cut you?” Shepherd asked, preparing himself for the worst.

Rory’s face remained pale as he rolled up his shredded pant leg. The group let out a collective sigh of relief when no rivulets of blood or peels of torn skin appeared on Rory’s flesh.

There was no time to rejoice in Rory’s escape from his near-death experience. Once he was ready, they set off again through the woods.

The low hoot of owls and chirp of crickets reassured Shepherd that at least there weren’t swarms of skeletal predators prowling between the trees. All the same, he strained his ears to listen for any unusual sounds. Every snap of a branch or rustle of dried leaves set his nerves on edge. They carried on for half an hour, hugging the river.

“Check it out!” Rachel said. She pointed to a house near the river. There was an SUV parked on a gravel driveway near a boat ramp. A small dock jutted from the shore with a motorboat. A small sailboat, perhaps nineteen feet, sat on a trailer attached to the SUV.

And up at the house, a light flickered in a second-floor window.

Shepherd knew they could use one of the boats. It’d be a hell of a lot safer than traversing the woods, and it could get them up to Kent Island much faster. But he wasn’t about to steal what might be a civilian’s vehicle of escape. Maybe they could talk to the people holed up here. They might at least have a safe place to sleep for the night. But he vowed not to let the allure of a warm house with four solid walls dull his caution.

“Let’s see if they’re friendly,” Shepherd said. “But be careful. I want you two posted there and there.” He pointed to the rear of the SUV and a thick tree with a line of sight to the house’s porch. “I’ll knock, and you cover me. If something goes wrong, you two hightail it.”

“Yes, sir,” Rory and Rachel said.

“Good. Stay frosty.”

Water still dripped off all three of them. A cool breeze tickled the back of Shepherd’s neck. It would definitely be helpful to get inside. Trying to sleep out here as the night grew chilly could be a recipe for getting sick. And trying to run from the Skulls while coughing, sneezing, and fighting a fever wasn’t conducive to survival. A nice, warm place to dry out, maybe even a hot meal, would do them all a world of good.